Courses

Students enroll in two courses representing two different subject areas selected from several liberal arts disciplines. Classes meet for 90 minute periods each week day with additional laboratory sessions in selected courses. Because the college reserves the right to cancel courses without sufficient enrollment, July Experience applicants must list alternate choices. To ensure small class sizes, students may be assigned second or third choices. Professors develop strong relationships with students and are available to meet them outside of class to enhance understanding or pursue additional interests.

July Experience courses carry no secondary school or college credit; however, a powerful summer academic experience can be a valuable addition to a college application and excellent preparation for college. Should a student apply to Davidson, academic performance in July Experience will not necessarily be a factor in the college’s admission decision.

Students will receive certificates and their secondary schools will be notified of successfully completed courses. Coursework is graded on the following system – H (Honors), P (Pass) and F(Failure).

July Experience 2010 Courses:

ANTHROPOLOGY - Skulls, Bones, and Clandestine Graves
CHEMISTRY - Climate Change and Energy Choices
ENGLISH - Literature and Writing:  East and West
ENGLISH - Watching Closely: How to Study and Make Movies 
HISTORY - Hitler and Nazi Germany
MATHEMATICS - On The Shoulders of Giants
MUSIC - Listening to Fear:  Music and Visual Media
POLITICAL SCIENCE - The Family and Justice
SOCIOLOGY - Work and Occupations in Modern Society
WRITING - Cassandra's Dilemma:  Challenging Persuasion

Skulls, Bones, and Clandestine Graves
  Locating graves, excavating human remains at any stage of the decomposition process, and analyzing the remains to identify the individuals are subject matters addressed in forensic anthropology.  Forensic anthropology is the application of the methods and techniques used in biological anthropology to the law.  We will learn various methodologies applied to human skeletal remains for identification purposes, including estimation of age-at-death, sex, stature, population ancestry, trauma, cause and manner of death, and pathology.  The course is designed for students interested in forensic sciences and we will discuss other relevant topics such as forensic entomology, mass disasters, facial reconstruction, etc.  The format of the course is mainly lectures with hands-on exercises of some of the techniques.

Helen Cho
Associate Professor of Anthropology
B.A., B.S. (University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign)
M.A., Ph.D. (University of Missouri, Columbia

Climate Change and Energy Choices 
  Does one degree really make a difference?  Do my actions affect worldwide changes?  By examining the evidence we will explore current and predicted impacts of climate change from the scientific perspective including: characterization of types and sources of greenhouse gases, our climate history and the techniques used to determine it, and reports of environmental shifts associated with climate change.  We will then turn our attention to current and developing energy sources and technology, and the role we play in the future of climate change.

Cindy DeForest Hauser
Associate Professor of Chemistry
B.S. (Washington & Lee)
M.S. (UNC Wilmington)
Ph.D. (UNC Chapel Hill)

Literature and Writing:  East and West
  This course offers a selection of literary dishes to assault the palate, from catfish to caviar, snails to egg rolls, buffalo to beans, a variety of fares from pre-modern China, Britain, and the United States. The course is designed for anyone interested in literature and the power of words. Each assigned work will be discussed in depth; the format of the course is discussion, not lecture. Student papers will be both  critical and creative. Attention will be paid to the principal genres of fiction, poetry, and drama. At the end of the course, the students will put together an anthology of their own writing.

Dr. Gill Holland
Professor Emeritus of English
B.A(Washington and Lee University)
Ph.D. (UNC-Chapel Hill)

Watching Closely:  How to Study and Make Movies
  How is watching a film different from reading a story, or watching a play?  How do editing, camera work, and staging interact in movies, and how are form and content connected in such visual media?  This course will introduce students to the vocabulary needed to consider such questions, and will ask students to analyze a wide variety of genres and media, including adaptations of written story into film.  We'll read a variety of examples and relevant media analysis, and students will write about those readings and comment on one another's writing.  Students will also work in groups to make a video, though the course does not require experience in video production.

Paul B. Miller
Associate Professor of English
B.A. (College of Wooster)
M.A., M.A., Ph.D. (Ohio State)

Hitler and Nazi Germany
  This course will provide an in-depth view of Hitler and National Socialism. We will discuss Nazi ideology, look at the organization of the Nazi state, and spend a good bit of time on the kind of culture it produced (and that which it oppressed). The scope of the course is thus interdisciplinary, ranging from political, social, and economic aspects of Nazi Germany to various forms of cultural production: literature, film, sports, architecture, music, and the fine arts. We will conclude with a study of the Holocaust-an event at once incomprehensible and perfectly explicable-and grapple with the question of how that event can ever be adequately represented.
  Some in-class audio recordings (songs, speeches), several in-class film clips (Triumph of the Will, Olympia, and The Eternal Jew, Kolberg, Night and Fog).

Burkhard Henke
Professor and Chair of German and Russian
M.A. (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Ph.D. (University of California, Irvine)

On the Shoulders of Giants
  Sir Isaac Newton, universally recognized as one of the most influential scientists and mathematicians of all time, wrote:
                 If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
  Newton meant that his own accomplishments would not have been possible without the insights he obtained from the work of his predecessors and contemporaries. In this course, we will examine and explore some consequences of some of the most important mathematical results of all time. The topics we explore will come from areas like geometry, combinatorics, probability, number theory, game theory, and calculus.
The course is not intended to parallel or duplicate any course in the standard secondary curriculum. Instead, the course is intended to expose students to topics that enrich that curriculum.
Students will be expected to have a solid background in both algebra and geometry. While a precalculus course would be useful, it is not required. An interest in posing and solving mathematical problems will be helpful, since problem solving will be an important part of the course.

Benjamin G. Klein
Beverly F. Dolan Professor Emeritus of Mathematics
B.A. (University of Rochester)
M.A., Ph.D. (Yale University)

Listening to Fear:  Music and Visual Media
  Anyone who has seen a horror film knows that the music can play a large part in keeping us anxious and frightened.  How does music do that?  Horror films present visions, sounds, ideas, and arguments that probe and play with our most deeply rooted fears and anxieties, so why do people want to watch horror films anyway?  And finally, because film composers have been able to turn to a long history of music used to create fear, what can we learn about these earlier examples of sacred music, opera, and program music?
  This course, which does not require experience performing music, will begin with an introduction to basic terminology from both music and media studies, afte which point we will examine a number of examples and music and media.  Examples will come from films like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Psycho (1960).  The chief goal of the course will be to learn how to describe through words what happens with music and image interactions.  No musical performing or notation skills needed.

Neil Lerner
Associate Professor of Music
B.A. (Transylvania)
A.M., Ph.D. (Duke)

The Family and Justice
  While all Americans agree that justice ought to govern public life, many find it a virtue inappropriate to the intimate and loving relations that (ideally) characterize families. Yet families inescapably shape, and are influenced in turn by, the broader political world about them. Whether inculcating in children the virtues essential to democracy and capitalism or changing in response to developments in divorce law and social welfare policy, families are intimately linked to political life.
In this seminar we’ll explore some of these linkages by examining trends in contemporary family structure and by evaluating opposing arguments about the justice of such things as no-fault divorce, gay marriage, female-headed households and “absent fathers,” and social welfare and fiscal policies that promote marriage over alternative family arrangements.

Brian J. Shaw
Professor of Political Science
B.A. (SUNY at Stony Brook)
M.A., Ph.D. (UNC-Chapel Hill)

Work and Occupations in Modern Society
  Work is perhaps the most important way in which society impacts our social experiences and life changes, and its social significance extends beyond our personal identities and daily activities.  It is closely intertwined with other social institutions, social structures, and social processes, especially social inequality.  This course looks at work and occupations at both the macro level (e.g., the occupational structure, the U.S. and global economies, changes of technology and demographics) and the micro level (e.g., the demands of workplaces and occupations on workers' sense of self and identity; the influence of work on families).  Topics include:  work during and after the Industrial revolution; major theoretical perspectives for understanding work; work and self-perception; work an self among professionals and managers; and the modern challenges of balancing family and work.

Gerardo Marti
L. Richardson King Assistant Professor of Sociology
B.A. (Pepperdine)
M.A., Ph.D. (University of Southern California)

CASSANDRA'S DILEMMA:  CHALLENGING PERSUASION
  The subject of the course is inspired by Cassandra, the ancient Greek mythological figure who endured the life-long blessing and curse of foretelling the future, but never being believed.  We can envision Cassandra's dilemma as an everyday persuasive challenge facing those who choose to argue unpopular positions and run the risk of being ignored, trivialized, or dismissed altogether.  The course will examine cases where the persuasive task (changing hearts and minds) is a robust challenge, that calls into question the moral, political, or aesthetic assumptions of one's audience.  What happens when someone, ready to argue his or her commitments, faces a recalcitrant audience, and discovers that the traditional persuasive pathways seem closed to him or her?  What means of persuasion can be solicited when someone wishes to challenge the status quo?  What are the risks and responsibilities of what we might call "Cassandran" writing?  Students will study cases of difficult persuasion, and will themselves compose an argument based on an intellectual or personal truth that, though vital to reveal, will likely be met with resistance.

Van E. Hillard
Associate Professor of Rhetoric
B.A. (Ohio Wesleyan University)
M.A., Ph.D. (University of Cincinnati)