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First
Year Seminars 2005-2006 |
| FALL 2005 | |||||
| Beethoven's Music and Cultural Legacy | |||||
| Images of Madness | |||||
| Diversity, Ethics and Social Justice in the Context of Schooling | |||||
| Contrasting Visions of Society | |||||
| Living and Dying in Ancient Athens: An Archaeologist's Point of View | |||||
| Issues in Biotechnology | |||||
| Physics Through The Decades | |||||
| Paradigms and Paradoxes: An Attempt to Understand the Universe | |||||
| Turning to One Another: Beliefs & Behaviors | |||||
| Happy Birthday, Don Quixote! | |||||
| Herbert Bearman Foundation's First Year Seminars | |||||
| What Makes a Community? | |||||
| Multicultural Perspectives on September 11 | |||||
| SPRING 2006 | |||||
| Science Versus Religion: The Battlefield of Evolution | |||||
| The Ethics of Living in an Information Age Society | |||||
| The Voice of an Engaged Citizen: Advocate, Volunteer, Respond, Act… How? | |||||
| Herbert Bearman Foundation's First Year Seminars | |||||
| Intercultural Exploration Through Film | |||||
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FALL 2005 Beethoven's
Music and Cultural Legacy (back to top) Franklin Cox Few figures in Western musical history possess such an enduring fascination as Beethoven. He is one of those artists--such as Shakespeare or Michelangelo--so central to Western cultural history that any telling of this "story" is scarcely conceivable without them. This course will have three main aims: firstly, that of attaining a greater understanding of Beethoven's music through close listening of representative works from all three periods of his artistic output. The basic elements of Beethoven's musical forms will be explained and certain works analyzed closely. Later, individual groups will present for the class analyses of their favorite works. The ability to read music is not required, and all analysis will be aurally based. Secondly, it is hoped that these efforts will lead to a deeper understanding of the notion of abstract music; that a piece of music can unfold a coherent and powerful experience through purely musical means, without the crutch of a text or program. In Beethoven's time this was a radically new notion, and it was largely due to his influence that it has become inseparable from the high cultural prestige of classical music. Thirdly, this course will focus on the heritage of Beethoven's entire cultural setting, the Golden Age of German culture, and its role in propagating a "spiritual" form of cultural enlightenment, intended to be both universal in its ideals and specific in speaking directly to each person's innermost soul. Readings from recent critical approaches will question the relevance and validity of this legacy--including the notion of high art itself--in our present culture. This course will require several short assignments, one longer paper, and several tests based largely on the assigned listening. Franklin Cox received composition degrees from Indiana University, Columbia University, and the University of California, San Diego, where he taught from 1993 to 1995. Over the last two decades he has composed more than 30 solo, chamber, and orchestra works, which have been performed and recorded by leading soloists and ensembles. In 1992 he was awarded the Kranichsteiner Prize from the Darmstadt Festival, and in 1994 was a member of its faculty. He has received fellowships from the Schloss Solitude and the Sacher Stiftung, as well as commissions from the 1998 Berliner Biennale and 2001 Hannover Biennale. As a cellist, he received a B.M. Degree from Indiana University, has played with leading international new music groups, and since 1993 he has presented a solo recital focusing on radical new works for the cello, entitled "The New Cello", more than 80 times throughout Europe and North America. In 2002 he joined the faculty of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County as Professor of Cello Performance.
Images
of Madness (back to top) Carolyn Tice In contemporary society, virtually everyone goes to movie theatres or views feature films at home on videos, DVD's or television. For many people, films, regardless of their accuracy, serve as a major source of information on social issues, including mental illness. This course reviews Academy Award winning films depicting mental illness to consider the influence of motion pictures on the public perception of social issues, policies, and services. Beginning with The Snake Pit (1948) through As Good as it Gets (1997), we will analyze films using a historical framework and in conjunction with assigned readings that address cultural stereotypes, societal attitudes, and the public's response toward people with mental illness. We will look at the history of treatment and services for persons with mental illness, social work practice, and service delivery networks. In addition, we will explore critical concepts in social work practice and policy related to people with mental illness. The class will engage in critical thinking, analysis, and discussion of these issues--including social work's role as advocate and change agent. Class assignments, case studies, and group exercises will help us to understand the potential power of the mass media, specifically films, and to question our awareness of and response to mental illness. Carolyn Tice teaches social welfare policy. She has presented and published in the area of media and social services, which has been a long time interest of hers. Carolyn is the author of three books on social work practice from a strengths perspective.
Diversity,
Ethics and Social Justice in the Context of Schooling (back
to top) Linda Oliva Vicki Williams, Director of
Student Services, Education Schools are strong social institutions that influence all of us. There are many significant political, cultural, psychological, and ethical forces that are directing how schools prepare students to succeed in our rapidly changing world. It is important to understand how education policies, practices, issues and values are constructed and changed. In multicultural America, classrooms mirror the diverse nature of children's backgrounds, cultural experiences, languages, and "ways of knowing." Drawing from our experiences as products of the education system, we will explore and mediate the tensions that exist in current reform efforts as schools endeavor to meet the needs of diverse students. This course will use an inquiry-based approach to examine federal and local policies and how they impact students, schools and society. Students will participate in activities at a local school in UMBC's Professional Development Schools network. The Professional Development Schools are active learning communities in which higher education faculty, P-12 faculty, and students collaborate to optimize learning and success for all. Students will complete a service-learning project based on their unique talents, interests, skills and field of study that makes a contribution to a school. Linda Oliva has worked extensively with school systems and has provided training to assist teachers to optimize student achievement. She is the former Director of Technology Enriched Learning Environments, a mentoring project to help classroom teachers increase their technological competencies. Dr. Oliva currently teaches graduate courses in Learning and Cognition and Research Designs in Education. Her research interests include moral development, resiliency, efficacy of instructional technologies, and the role of action research in school reform. Vickie Williams, an educational psychologist, has worked in a variety of clinical settings, including Pre-K through 12 schools. Her background includes degrees in human services psychology, community psychology, and education. She is interested in studying diverse classrooms in multicultural communities and serves as a liaison to professional development schools in Baltimore County, as well as to community colleges around the state. Dr. Williams teaches Educational Psychology and Analysis of Learning and Teaching. Her current research focuses on the beliefs and dispositions of teachers from diverse classrooms.
Contrasting
Visions of Society (back to top) David Mitch This course will be based on reading four influential works, which set forth contrasting visions of society. The four works are Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Plato's Republic, Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, and Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Each of these are works with which educated people are expected to be familiar and each of them continues to shape discussions of policy and social affairs. Yet undergraduate students are all too infrequently provided opportunities to study these texts first hand in their general education courses. This course will provide students with this opportunity. It will aim to develop an understanding of each of these four texts and the contrasts between the visions of society implicit in each of them. In addition each student will be asked to read and report on a piece that exhibits the contemporary influence of one of the four texts above. For example, a contemporary discussion about the use of choice and vouchers as a way of reforming the educational system could be interpreted as an application of principles of competition proposed by Adam Smith. Thus, a further aim of the seminar will be to cultivate an appreciation of the on-going relevance to contemporary policy and social issues of these works. Each of these texts crosses current disciplinary boundaries and can be seen as drawing on the disciplines of Economics, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology. David Mitch has a B.A. and Ph.d in Economics from the University of Chicago. In 1995, he was a Fulbright Lecturer in the Department of Economic History at the London School of Economics. His specialty is economic history and he has taught courses at UMBC in American, European, and Asian Economic History in addition to general teaching in Economics. His research focuses on the economic history of skills and education. He is the author of The Rise of Popular Literacy in Victorian England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993) and co-editor of Origins of the Modern Career, 1850-1950, which consists of historical studies of career patterns for a variety of groups including English chemists and policemen, Argentine typesetters, and Italian steel workers.
Living
and Dying in Ancient Athens: An Archaeologist's Point of View (back
to top) Marilyn Goldberg has a PhD. in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology and she teaches courses in these areas at UMBC, focusing especially on the Greeks and Romans. She recently stepped down from the position of Chair of the Ancient Studies Department. Her research has led her from investigations into the meaning of religious sculpture and the Amazon myth in ancient city-states in Greece and Italy to studies in the interaction of men and women in these cities. Her most recent research has been on how ancient Athenians actually lived in their city and the different interpretations that can be made as a result of the analysis of the excavated remains.
Issues
in Biotechnology (back to top) Nessly Craig Almost every newspaper issue today has one or more articles about how our society is being affected by new advances in biotechnology, and how its impact is controversial. Some of these issues include: cloning, genetic engineering of plants and animals, DNA analysis as a means of determining parentage or involvement in criminal events, development of new medicines and vaccines, the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria, the human and other species' genome project, the origin and genealogy of human groups, etc. For our society to discuss these issues in a rational and thorough manner, it is important to understand the scientific basis for the methods used, their limits and uncertainties, and their relationship to other areas of life sciences, medicine, public policy, and bioethics. Through directed readings, class discussions, and student presentations, this seminar will focus on understanding these various aspects of modern biotechnology with an emphasis on its scientific basis. Practical demonstrations and visits to UMBC labs using biotechnological techniques will be an important part of the course to illustrate how the methods theoretically discussed in class are actually done. Nessly Craig has taught courses in molecular and cellular biology to undergraduates, graduate students, and adult workshop participants for many years and has seen the development of biotechnology first hand. He has been involved in research using the techniques of molecular biology and tissue culture to study the mechanism and control of protein synthesis, and the mechanism and the control of ribosomal RNA synthesis in mammalian cells. In his "other life" he has been involved in building a house, gardening, stained glass, and raising a son who is now in college and provides lots of "feedback" as to what students really want and find useful.
Physics
Through The Decades (back to top) Philip Rous In this course, we will study some of the greatest ideas in modem physics. These ideas have been used to describe nature on the scale of the universe (10"' meters) down to the smallest size where the concept of a length remains valid (10-" meters). Since this journey parallels the history of modem physics, particular emphasis will be placed upon the evolution of the science of measurement and the way in which developments in physics have led to our present-day understanding of the nature of the universe. We will study how modern astronomy has led to an understanding of the size and history of the universe. We will explore Einstein's theory of relativity and see how both length and time are relative, not absolute, quantities. We will try to understand how the fundamental forces of nature act by the exchange of carrier particles that can be created according of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle; a theory that led to the death of determinism in our description of -nature. Philip Rous is a Professor of Physics. He has published over 80 scholarly papers in both physics and chemistry journals and held positions at the University of Cambridge and the University of California-Berkeley before joining the faculty at UMBC. For the past decade he has been trying to understand the link between the microscopic structure and the properties of solids, surfaces and interfaces. He is currently using quantum mechanics and large- scale computer simulations to predict the reliability of electronic devices on the nano-scale.
Paradigms
and Paradoxes: An Attempt to Understand the Universe (back
to top) Joel F. Liebman There are at least two kinds of scientific activities: acquiring and generating data, and inquiring and generating general modes of understanding. The latter activities will dominate this course. The course contents include discussions of some remarkable features of the universe: the class discussions will require no more scientific background than gained from high school chemistry and mathematics. Some topics for the course follow. Matter doesn't collapse, shrink or disappear - it has size, weight, and sometimes shape. We take this for granted. Don't we? Positive and negative charges attract. The atomic nucleus is positive and electrons are negative. Why don't these parts of atoms get closer and closer and … closer, and eventually collapse? In other words, we ask, not only why are atoms so small but also why are they so big? This topic is not merely philosophical. Questions of fuel efficiency and national defense arise as naturally as those of the existence of the universe. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet. There are 4 letters in the genetic code and some 100 chemical elements in the periodic table. There are millions of distinct words, individual types of organisms and chemical compounds. Are these numbers 26, 4 and 100 small or are they large? As such, our study includes the nature of language, information and life. Consider the number 3.14159265357988 …. Can you identify it? Answering this question should be as easy as pie. Hatmakers equate this number to 3. Is this a rational choice? Answering this question tells us about the nature of numbers, measurement, design, and industry, and also about the answerer. Joel Liebman teaches Chemistry, ranging from CHEM 100, "The Chemical World", a GFR course emphasizing science and society, through CHEM 410/610, "Quantum Chemistry/Special Topics in Theoretical Chemistry/Chemical Bonding". While my written contributions have mostly been in the research journal literature, I have coauthored or co-edited numerous books, book chapters and data bases, have had poems published as well, and was the nominator for the 2005 First Book Experience reading. I am a firm believer that science is an interpersonal, international and interdisciplinary endeavor and I have ongoing projects with scientists in England, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, as well as the US. I enjoy thinking and understanding, and thinking about thinking and understanding in particular. I enjoy words - I am responsible for some new words in the scientific vocabulary associated with new concepts, and I have been held responsible for verbalizing some of the "worst" puns heard by my students and coworkers alike. Chemical and comical are not antonyms, nor antithetical.
Turning
to One Another: Beliefs and Behaviors (back to top) Diane Lee Patty Perillo We are witnessing renewed interest in matters related to truth, community, connectedness, and spirituality. Concomitant with headlines about war, ENRON, cloning, the Tsunami, and steroid use in sports is a vibrant dialogue about social responsibility, moral reasoning, ethical action, and the sources of beauty, creativity, and passion that give life purpose and meaning. As we enter the twenty-first century, we will need people who can lead with head and heart, who can combine the life of the mind with work for the greater good, and who exhibit the skills, knowledge, imagination, and spirit to create an equitable, sustainable, whole, and hopeful world. This calls for a curriculum that explores the scientific, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions of thought and behavior. This course is oriented toward that exploration of questions that are both personal and global in their orientation. For example: What is my faith in the future? What do I believe about others? What is the relationship I want with the earth? When and where do I experience sacred? There will be opportunities for conversation to occur around topics such as these; literally a "turning to one another" in order to expand and inform our understanding of how our beliefs and behaviors have the power to transform. Students will enter this exploration by: 1) examining writings related to beliefs and behaviors; 2) discovering different ways spirituality is represented in music, literature, poetry, across cultures, throughout history, and in patterns of involvement such as environmental stewardship, feeding the hungry, building shelters for the homeless, etc.; and 3) reflecting on class discussions and readings in guided journals. Diane Lee is Vice Provost for Undergraduate and Professional Education. Although in a primarily administrative position at this time, she is best known as "a teacher of teachers." She was selected by her colleagues to receive the Presidential Teaching Professor Award for 1997-2000. When she is not working you will most likely find her reading a good book, visiting a local craft's fair, gardening, or playing with her grandchildren. Patty Perillo has spent her entire professional life committed to enhancing the holistic development of college students, and is currently UMBC's Director of Student Life. Her research interests include student development, student learning, the impact of college student drinking on learning/development and issues of spiritual development. Patty has seven siblings, five nieces and nephews and over 80 first cousins - most of her free time is spent with her wonderful circle of family and friends. Jill Randles is the Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. She is a student advocate at heart and has worked closely with UMBC students as an academic advisor. She is the recipient of the 2002 President's Commission for Women Achievement Award acknowledging her work in the areas of diversity and equity. When not on the job, she spends time with family and friends, runs, rides horses, judges horse shows, and is an avid reader.
Happy
Birthday, Don Quixote! (back to top) Robert Sloane The year 2005 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the first part of Cervantes' great classic, Don Quixote. Written by an aging Spanish ex-prisoner of war, Don Quixote both mirrors the complex world of his own time and provides a point of reference for contemporary Spanish and Latin American writers. The course will center on reading and discussion of the most successful recent English translation of this funny, profound, and still astonishing book of adventures about life, love, death, and the adventure of books. The course will also examine the world from which the book emerged, and its importance to Hispanic culture in times since, in order to locate Don Quixote - hero and fool - in the pantheon of ambiguous Spanish heroes from a time when Spain was the most powerful nation on earth. The course is also meant to
contribute to the students' understanding of the background and diversity
of Hispanic culture. One objective of the course will be to encourage
students to attend cultural events related to the anniversary and to become
familiar with relevant cultural resources (museums, communities, etc.)
in the area. NO KNOWLEDGE OF SPANISH REQUIRED
What
Makes a Community? (back to top) Jessica Berman What makes a community? All of us belong to at least one, and we talk about the importance of 'community' all the time, but what does that mean? In this First-Year seminar we will explore of the notion of 'community' as an ideal in Western thought and as it has been put into practice in a range of circumstances from communes to neighbor organizations. The seminar will begin by delving into the many definitions of community looking at the ways that thinkers have tried to imagine just how and why 'community' matters. The seminar will follow the notion of community through four major examples taken from the realms of politics, literature, anthropology and sociology. Possible case studies might include: communes from the 1960's; the contemporary Communitarian movement; the legacy of James Redfield's celebrated anthropological work, The Little Community; a sociological study of biracial identity and belonging; John Dewey's concept of 'The Great Community' and its legacy; literary communities such as The Blooomsbury Group, Harlem writers of the 1920's, or expatriate writers in Paris; local politics and the 'think globally, act locally' movement. We will see how well our critical terms coincide with real world efforts to construct community and how those examples can show us both the difficulties and benefits of working to build community. The seminar will emphasize the development of critical reading and writing skills, with students being responsible for frequent short response papers. The final course project will encourage students to explore possible ways to expand community on the UMBC campus, uniting their critical skills with positive engagement with the campus world. Jessica Berman is an Associate Professor of English and an Affiliate Associate Professor of Women's Studies. She teaches twentieth century fiction, literary and feminist theory. She recently published Modernist Fiction, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Community and has long worked on the notion of community which has been an interest of hers since attending an alternative, participatory - democracy high school. Her current areas of interest include: exiled and expatriate writers; politics, ethics and literature and contemporary women writers. She has published articles on Virginia Woolf and Henry James.
Multicultural
Perspectives on September 11 (back to top) Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00-2:15
p.m. Jason Loviglio "Why do they hate us?" This question, posed by the president and countless other Americans in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, captured the dizzying sense of confusion and fear that seemed to envelope the immediate aftermath of that tragic day. The question, and the answers that sprang most readily to the minds of politicians and commentators, provide us with some insight into how "9/11" came to be understood within the context of a nation still uneasy with its multicultural population and leadership position in a global economy. Within moments of the attacks, the events were rapidly being interpreted within the available paradigms of historical precedent. This course seeks to identify these paradigms and to understand how competing paradigms are farmed, circulated, and ultimately, discarded. This course examines the different ways the September 11th attacks have been understood culturally, politically, and spiritually in different communities within the United States and beyond. We will investigate poetry, film, music, memorials, literature, and other cultural expressions that have begun to give shape to this just dawning post-9-11 era. Jason Loviglio has been an assistant professor of American Studies at UMBC since 1999. He is the co-editor, along with Michele Hilmes, of Radio Reader: Essays in the Cultural History of Radio (Routledge, 2002) and author of The Intimate Public: Network Radio and Mass Mediated Democracy, 1932-1947 (University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming). He teaches courses in media studies, 20th century popular culture, and multiculturalism.
SPRING 2006 Science
Versus Religion: The Battlefield of Evolution (back
to top) Stephen Freeland There is no more classic argument than that over the superiority of science versus religion. This debate has sparked controversy for centuries on many issues, but has been most prominent in the discussion of evolution. Did Darwin empty the churches of Europe? Does the theory of evolution point to a world without purpose? Is evolution an atheists’ religion? Should “creation science” be taught in state schools? With both sides deeply entrenched in their perspectives, little dialogue has actually taken place. This interdisciplinary course is such a dialogue. With readings spanning history, biology, sociology and theology, we explore the origins of modern science, the ideological split between the church and science, the rise of evolutionary theory and the creationist response. We will trace the debate from the 15th century to present day. The goal of the course is not to resolve the debate on evolution, but to understand the origin, construction and impact of both perspectives. For some it will be an intellectual exercise, for others a journey into their personal beliefs. Much class time will be occupied by student presentations, panel debates and class discussions, requiring everybody’s active participation. There will also be regular video sessions looking at prominent debates. Students will write both reflective essays and factual reports, requiring research from the library, Internet, video and audio footage. Final projects will be performed by teams made up of two or three students, working under the guidance of a faculty mentor to research a particular issue raised during the course. These teams will produce reports that will be published on the Internet as part of a long-term initiative to increase dialogue between all religious faiths and science for students at UMBC. Stephen Freeland’s research areas include molecular evolution, evolutionary theory and bioinformatics; he is fascinated by the novel insights into the living world that we can gain from synthesizing biology with mathematics and computer science. Freeland is a practicing Christian (though this course will be for all faiths!) and a practicing evolutionary research scientist. He teaches evolutionary biology at all levels, and bioinformatics skills for upper-level classes. When not at UMBC, Stephen is an avid gardener and an enthusiastic (if green) house renovator.
The Ethics of Living in an Information Age Society (back to top) FYS 1XX Pattee Fletcher Information and information technologies (IT) have become a central part of our everyday life. This diffusion of information to the public has been accomplished in a relatively short period of time, especially in the case of the Internet and the World Wide Web. This rapid adoption and use of information and IT has created a complex, disturbing, and not-well-understood social, economic, political, and organizational environment. Unexpected outcomes such as identity theft, malicious use of information, corporate sales of personal information, and inability to access and use information are now apparent. With this environment, we see emerging new challenges to our ethical selves, our government, and our work environments. This course will focus on some of the major ethical concerns that have arisen at the intersection of information use and personal/organizational behavior. With information becoming a ubiquitous commodity, issues such as intellectual property rights, personal privacy rights, information ownership, information access, and information crime have come to the forefront of society. This course will examine, assess, and offer some potential solutions to current ethical concerns in an information society. Pattee Fletcher teaches courses that look at government information policy, electronic government and electronic democracy, and government use of information technologies. I have written a book - Libraries and the Internet, as well as many articles relating to my research in government information t technology use and misuse. I have studied this topic at the federal government, with a major assessment of FirstGov and the e-file program at the IRS. I have also been involved in research at the state and local level of government. I have done many case studies, visiting case sites such as San Diego County, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Dade County, FL, Clark County, NV, and Los Angeles County. I received my doctorate from Syracuse University where I also picked up a life- long love of the Syracuse Orangemen - the 2003 NCAA champs. When it is not basketball season, you can find me working in my garden, reading mysteries, and spending as much time possible with my 2 granddaughters - Cecelia and Olivia.
The
Voice of an Engaged Citizen: Vote, Advocate, Volunteer, Respond, Act…How?
(back to top) Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00-2:15
p.m. Henry Emurian What does it mean to be a knowledgeable, active, enthusiastic citizen? Often we take for granted that we live in a democracy, and we pay too little attention to exercising our responsibilities in maintaining our nation's ideals and principles. Given the challenges that we obviously face now in this new millennium, a renewed sense of the importance of citizenship and personal responsibility is urgently required by us all. How can the individual's role in decision-making be enhanced and practiced? How have individuals made a difference throughout history? What is different or the same about then and now? This seminar course will address these and related questions and issues with a focus on how the Internet is used as a medium for finding information about citizenship and for advocating and practicing citizenly conduct. During the semester, students will work individually and in small groups to learn about the definition of citizenship and the use of the Internet to practice citizenship. Also considered will be the Internet's impact on democratic governance. Students will
Experiencing how to write and speak about the variety of opinions that surrounds any kind of research endeavor within a comfortable setting will help students gain skills and confidence in their use of these essential tools for their future academic and vocational success. It will bring participants a step closer to understanding how personal decisions and understandings are frequently not as much our own as we might perceive them to be. In this type of context, we can begin to discover what it means for each of us to ensure that we remain conscientious and informed citizens of our country and our world? Henry Emurian's background includes degrees in clinical psychology and computer science. He is interested in exploring the applications of information technology to solve important problems related to health, education and public service. Emurian is a licensed psychologist who is currently teaching in the Department of Information Systems. His research interests include technology education strategies, Web-based tutoring systems, skill acquisition and retention, interface design, development and evaluation, and stress consequences of human-computer interactions.
Intercultural
Exploration Through Film (back to top) FYS 1XX Alan Bell We find ourselves inundated with visual media whose principle raison d'etre is to exert influence in subtle and often hidden ways. The rigor with which we focus on in-depth analyses of text intended to elicit deeper meaning and significance is not generally brought to the task of deciphering visual material that surrounds our daily existence in a multiplicity of formats through the mass media. At the same time we find ourselves thrust into a world that everyday becomes more globally centered and one in which cultural knowledge and sensitivity have never been more paramount to the survival of complex modern societies. Through an intensive study of contemporary intercultural cinema and readings on the art of film making, we will confront both of these issues. Films will be grouped into thematic units that include: Unit 1: The Intercultural Experience of the Immigrant Family; Unit 2: The Intercultural Experience in Times of War; Unit 3: The Intercultural Experience in Times of Peace. Because the films themselves are the core materials of the course, it is mandatory to attend each class, participate in discussions, and do the required reading for each session. Alan Bell teaches Spanish language, literature, culture and film. He has served as Coordinator of Spanish as well as Coordinator for Spanish Fulbright Scholars that every year brings a Fulbrighter from Spain to UMBC. For over a decade he was Director of Spanish-TV Magazine, a video series that was a joint venture between RTVE (Spanish National Television) and UMBC. The series, which highlighted the incorporation of media images in the classroom curriculum, was broadcast nationally by PBS and distributed nation-wide by McGraw-Hill. He has co- authored a textbook on intermediate college Spanish, currently used at UMBC, in which the pedagogical approach to video images is at the center of its design. In addition, he has written extensively on video as visual text that should be examined with the same intensity and rigor as written texts. His current initiatives include involvement with Baltimore's Hispanic Community by fostering programs that make meaningful links between UMBC and Hispanic businesses as well as social organizations. He is also working to establish distance-learning course to support teacher training and thus address the critical shortage of high school Spanish teachers in the United States. When not engaged in these activities you can find him on strolls with his chocolate Labrador or on his sailboat. He has served as advisor to UMBC's Sailing Club. |
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