2007-08 - Pitzer College

16 ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES 17
popular music and culture reinforce the dominant social order? Under what conditions
does popular music and culture serve as a tool of resistance? How has music and the
media become a site contestation over representation such as racial and gendered stereotypes?
How has popular music, especially American popular culture, become a major global
export? What are the consequences of this globalization on youth around the world?
D. Basu.
4. Sociology of Smuggling. This seminar focuses on smuggling and the social
implications of illegal global trade. In exploring global flows of drugs, diamonds, and
humans, we discuss the causes and effects of smuggling and try to understand the direct
and indirect effects of smuggling in Los Angeles and around the world. Why are some
trades legal and others not? Who are the winners and who are the losers in these trades?
What is the impact of smuggling on issues of social justice locally and globally?
A. Mezahav.
5. Immigration and Race in America. This seminar examines the immigration and the
formation of racial ideologies, hierarchies, and identities in America. The nexus between
immigration and racial ideologies is clear as periods of mass immigration coincide with
intense national debates over the meaning of American citizenship and national identity.
Emphasis is placed on the experiences of contemporary immigrants and debates
surrounding their incorporation. A. Pantoja.
6. Environmental Toxicology. This seminar will explore the impact of a variety of socioenvironmental
teratogens (e.g., lead, pesticides, malnutrition, and drugs) on the
development and functioning of physiological and behavioral systems. The impact of
these agents will be addressed at the cellular, organismic and sociocultural levels.
A. Jones.
7. In the News. In this seminar, students will gain insight into major contemporary
events by building and using core analytic and research skills. Our required reading is
each day’s New York Times. This daily reading will be supplemented by other news
sources, as well as relevant scholarship. In addition to following the news each day
throughout the semester, each student will select one unfolding issue in the news to
explore in depth. D. Segal.
8. The Examined Life. Western Philosophy’s first hero, Socrates of Ancient Athens, is
reputed to have claimed that the unexamined life is not worth living. Of course, talking
about such “examination” is easier than actually doing it. In this seminar, we will
conduct a Socratic examination of our own lives. In doing so, we’ll consider a number of
classic and contemporary philosophical texts (and even a few films), e.g., Plato’s “Trial
and Death of Socrates,” Thoreau’s Walden, Ranier Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, Jean-Paul
Sartre’s Nausea, and Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. All these
works contain advice on how (and why) to live an intellectually-engaged life and we will
examine them to extract such wisdom as we can find there and apply to our own lives.
B. Keeley.
9. Lost (and Found) in Translation. Translations and mistranslations have had enormous
impacts on world societies, for example, the Renaissance, the fall of Mexico City, and the
first Iraq War. Translation is more than the search for meaning across languages. Some
have considered translation as betrayal, as fabrication, as impossible. Using a variety of
multicultural texts, film, and video, this seminar will engage with the theories and uses of
translation as a creative, vexing, and culturally complex intellectual exchange. Materials
will include Benjamin’s wonderful essay, “The Task of the Translator,” Esquivel’s new
novel La Malinche, and Inarritu’s acclaimed film, Babel. E. Vasquez.
10. Who Owns Science? This seminar will be an exploration of the role of the scientist
and science in public policy. A. Fucaloro.
11. Asian Pacific Islander American Art and Social Change. This seminar will explore
the diverse Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) communities through their
mainstream representations, oppositional arts and movements for social change. Students
will learn to critically deconstruct contemporary media representations that shape APIA
ideologies and experiences. We will examine various forms of art (e.g., film, spoken
word, comedy, hip-hop, performance, graffiti, etc.) as powerful and complex tools for
agency, resistance and communication within multi-lingual and multi-generational
immigrant communities from East, South and South East Asia. With a framework that
emphasizes the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and class, the class will come to
challenge traditional definitions of Asian Pacific Islander American and American culture.
N. Park.
12. Social Justice and Documentary Film. What are the causes of social injustice in the
world and how have different cultures and individuals responded? What has inspired
and sustained social movements? Is violence ever justified or effective? Through
documentary film, readings in history and biography, contemplation and reflective
writing, this course will examine the roots of social injustice, the movements that have
arisen in response, and the current “uprising” which might be said to be as spiritual as it
is global. Groups all over the world are forming to combat the local and planetary crises
we face. We will look at some of the most outstanding, creative and effective initiatives,
asking how we ourselves can “be the change we seek in the world”—M. Gandhi.
V. Mudd.
13. La Familia. In this seminar, we will focus on the role of la familia for Latinos living in
the U.S. We will explore the construction of la familia from both a historical and
contemporary perspective, with particular attention to the psychological and
sociocultural factors that contribute to the diversity of la familia. M. Torres.
14. Censorship in America. Do Wal-Mart, K-mart and Blockbuster have the right to
refuse to sell music and movies they deem “offensive,” or is this censorship? Was it
censorship when Clear Channel banned the Dixie Chicks music from the 1200 radio
stations they own after the band stated they didn’t support President Bush? Should high
school students be allowed to wear anti-war slogans to school? Should an art exhibit be
shut down if a religious group believes a work of art betrays community standards? In