Following each course listing is the professor, pre-requisites, a syllabi if available and a brief description of what the course covers.

Spring 2009 Center Courses

CIS 220, Introduction to Film and Media Studies
Maggie McCarthy
An introduction to film history and analysis, with an equal emphasis on film language (cinematic means of expression) and thematics. Viewing and discussion of films from a wide variety of national traditions and genres, supplemented by discussion of analytical and theoretical texts. Required course for fulfilling the Film and Media Studies concentration.

CIS 270, Interdisciplinary Science Writing
Michael Branch
There has never been a greater need for writers who can interpret science for a wider public of readers who may have little training or even interest in the sciences. In an American culture in which the gulf between highly specialized, technically sophisticated science and average Americans-people whose values, decisions, and behaviors have a tremendous impact upon the environment-seems ever widening, the work of the science writer has become increasingly urgent. "Minding the Gap: Interdisciplinary American Science Writing" will examine the work of authors who employ a variety of literary, rhetorical, and aesthetic techniques to write into the troubling "gap" between what science knows and what general readers need to understand. What is the role of the science writer as cultural translator or interpreter of environmental science? How do these writers make science accessible and engaging to general readers? How do they accurately represent the dramatic insights of specific scientific disciplines without bogging down in technical jargon? What approaches do they use to teach and to delight-to entertain us into becoming more ecologically literate? We'll read prominent examples of American science writing from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and will include in our survey the work of such major twentieth-century and contemporary figures as Loren Eiseley, Rachel Carson, John McPhee, Lewis Thomas, Stephen Jay Gould, E. O. Wilson, Sandra Steingraber, Chet Raymo, Michael Pollan, and Jennifer Ackerman. Texts covered will include representation of scientific insights from geology, glaciology, botany, zoology, evolutionary biology, physical anthropology, ecotoxicology, physics, biogeography, and astronomy.

CIS 303, History of Medicine
Joe Konen & Staff
This is an interdisciplinary, team taught seminar format of selected topics by Davidson faculty from various departments as well as guest faculty from the fields of medicine, surgery, psychiatry and pharmacology. Together we will trace the evolution from pre-historic through modern times of the interconnections of cultural, philosophical, ethical and religious influences on the development of the arts, humanities and sciences of the healing practices that characterize modern medicine. The last two centuries will be emphasized to explain present day medical achievements and challenges in optimum health care delivery.

CIS 342, Human Rights & U.S. Foreign Policy
Hassan El Menyawi
This course explores the role of human rights in the formulation and conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Students will begin by exploring international relations theory, examining the concepts of human rights and the U.S. national interest. They will analyze some of the changes in U.S. human rights rhetoric, policy, and organizational structure in recent decades, probing the links between American decision making and international and nongovernmental influences and institutions. By examining recent cases of U.S. foreign policymaking, the class will explore the intersection between human rights, economic and security aims, and domestic politics. These examples include U.S. prosecution of the "war on terror," policies on genocide (with emphasis on Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Sudan), policy toward Iraq, war (in general), humanitarian intervention, nuclear proliferation, economic development, natural disasters, worldwide pandemics including HIV/AIDS and avian flu, and environmental crises. The course explores how the US advances its foreign policy through participation (or its lack) in international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court (ICC), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the World Trade Organization (WTO)--and the consequences of engaging or not with such institutions. The course examines the importance of crafting appropriate foreign policy to necessarily pursue critical national interests in an increasingly shrinking world where the interests of other nations are increasingly becoming intertwined with the interests of the United States. This has recently become evident in the importance of global issues and concerns that potentially threaten the US, its allies, and others. These include such concerns as genocide; global warming; the near certainty of a worldwide avian flu epidemic; the rise of diffusive global terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda; the inexorably approaching water shortage in the Middle East; the heightened possibility of nuclear war between Pakistan and India; and many others that will be discussed in class. The course will highlight recurring tensions between individual rights and sovereignty, values and interests, exceptionalism and internationalism, unilateralism and multilateralism, security and liberty, and peace and justice. Students will engage in various in-class simulations designed to provide a practical appreciation of the operation and challenges of US foreign policy in real time.

CIS 343, Contemporary Issues in the Middle East
Hassan El Menyawi
This course is an introduction to politics in the Middle East and North Africa -a region defined as all of the states of the Arab world in addition to Israel, Turkey, and Iran. The course will explore the modern period from 1945 until today. We will examine the interplay of numerous factors that help us to better understand and to critically analyze the Middle East. These include the impact of colonialism, nationalism and nation-state formation; regional crises; the Arab-Israeli conflict; the politics of oil; Islamism; the changing faces of authoritarianism; democratization; the diversity of citizen activism and burgeoning forms of new media; the treatment of women and gays; the Middle East's abidance to international human rights norms; the political economy; and globalization. By examining such factors and developing an understanding of the contemporary politics and international relations of the Middle East, the course will examine the political interrelationship between regional political change and international political conflict. It will also explore exogenous and endogenous factors in the evolution of Middle Eastern politics and how the interaction of these factors produces the nature of the system of political relations which exist there today. The course will also explore US foreign policy toward the Middle East. With this knowledge, students will consider possibilities for the future of US foreign policy with regards to the Middle East. Students will engage in various in-class simulations designed to provide a practical appreciation of the region and its current challenges.

CIS 372, Western American Literature & Bioregionalism
Michael Branch
Some have joked that in America the South and the West are "the regions," while everywhere else is just the United States. While regionalism has long provided a rubric for understanding place and culture in different parts of the country, American environmental writers have experimented with a variety of new ways to conceptualize and localize identity. Among the most provocative of these "new regionalisms" are bioregional and watershed-based conceptions of place, which attempt to locate cultural and individual identity within a richer and more ecologically nuanced understanding of environment and home. In "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: Literature of Bioregion and Place in the American West," we will read the work of a wide variety of gifted nonfiction writers who explore and often attempt to redefine the relationship of self to place in the American West. What is the importance of local consciousness in our increasingly globalized world? What is the nature of the relationship between the West and national culture in the U.S.? How might bioregional conceptions of home differ from regional understandings of place? How do race, gender, and ethnicity impact cultural and environmental identity in the American West? Our survey of place-based western American nonfiction will take us from the deserts of the Mojave and Great Basin to the high peaks of the Sierra, from the Great Valley of California to the snowy forests of Montana, from the volcanic arc of the Cascades to the coastal rainforests, from wilderness to family farm to nuclear test site. Along the way our environmental and literary guides will include Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Mary Austin, John Muir, Edward Abbey, Gary Snyder, Terry Tempest Williams, Linda Hogan, Barry Lopez, Rick Bass, David Mas Masumoto, Rebecca Solnit, and Robert Michael Pyle.

CIS 392, Introduction to Epidemiology
Kristie Foley
Epidemiology is the systematic and rigorous study of health and disease in a population. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to core concepts in epidemiology, including: history, philosophy, and uses of epidemiology; descriptive epidemiology, such as patterns of disease and injury; association and causation of disease, including concepts of inference, bias, and confounding; analytical epidemiology, including experimental and non-experimental design; and applications to basic and clinical science and policy.

CIS 421, Seminar in Media & Film Studies
ENG 393: Film Theory may serve as the equivalent of CIS 421 for Film and Media Studies concentrators for 2008-2009).

CIS 470, Global Health Ethics
Kristie Foley
Global health ethics seeks to understand values and principles which guide medical and public health practice throughout the world. Particular attention will be given to health inequalities and how medicine and public health may work to resolve these problems. Students will apply ethical frameworks to identify and clarify the dilemmas posed intra- and internationally related to the study, prevention, and treatment of disease. Ultimately, students will be able to analyze various courses of actions and their consequences and propose pragmatic and value-driven solutions to current global health concerns.

CIS 481, Human Rights
Hassan El Menyawi
From the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) was built in the hope of bringing an end to suffering caused by nation-states. States had invaded other states, violating their sovereignty, but worse than that, had intentionally coordinated the mass murder of millions of human beings in what we now call "genocide." The idea of human rights was to constrain nation-states' treatment of individuals within and beyond the borders of the state. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provided a foundation for international human rights, inspiring countless treaties regulating areas such as torture, genocide, war, gender discrimination, censorship, discrimination against the disabled, children's rights, poverty, access to health care, and economic development. The language of human rights has traveled the globe in what can now be called a "globalization of human rights"--and the discourses of human rights has spread everywhere in the world.

But, while we currently live in an era that can be called-in the words of the international legal scholar, Louis Henkin-"an age of rights," there have also been significant setbacks in achieving state compliance with human rights norms. Such setbacks include genocide around the world-such as the continuous and seemingly intractable genocide in Darfur, Sudan; the use of torture by nation-states; the rise of religious extremism; the massive rise in poverty and the ever-present possibility of famine in many parts of the world; the increasing restrictions on speech and on the practice of religion imposed on individuals by states; evidence of slavery around the globe; and discrimination against women and members of sexual minorities. The course explores these challenges by (1) examining how national and international governance interrelate with human rights-- both promoting and interfering with the achievement of human rights goals and causes; and (2) exploring the possibilities for positive social change with an eye toward finding potential solutions.
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Fall 2008 Center Courses

CIS 171: Intro to Environmental Studies
Profs. Paradise, A. Ingram, and Padhy

CIS 253: Media Use in the Digital Age
Virginia Dodge Fielder, Batten Professor of Public Policy
In this course, we will examine how the digital revolution is reshaping traditional mass media - newspapers, magazines, radio and television - both journalistically and economically. The course provides an in-depth look at audiences - which media people are using for what purposes, how media use has changed in recent years, and what traditional media are doing to respond. In this election year, we will focus on the role of the press in a free society, looking especially hard at the news gathering process and what people should expect from their news media. Particular attention will be paid to the Internet's influence on the presidential race, young people's interest in public affairs, and the movement known as "grassroots journalism." The course also looks at key elements of the communication process and how they are being blurred by the Internet and other digital media. Other topics include the social effects of mass media and the various controls - both formal and informal - designed to regulate media and hold them accountable for their actions.

CIS 281: Irish Women's Writing 1800 to the Present
Heidi Hansson, Visiting STINT Professor of Literature
The course will offer insights into fiction, drama and poetry by Irish women writers from Maria Edgeworth to Anne Enright, or from the early nineteenth century to the present. The works will be placed in the context of Irish history and culture, paying attention to what may be termed "the condition of Ireland" as described by women. Literary representations of defining historical events such as the Union with England, the 1798 United Irishmen uprising, the Famine, the Easter Rising, the Civil war and the beginnings of a new era in a divided country will be discussed. Further, the course will take up issues such as what it means for a woman to write about a country that has traditionally been conceived of as a woman - Erin or Hibernia - and how women writers fit into a literary tradition where women are more often seen as authors' muses than authors themselves - Kathleen ní Houlihan, Queen Medbh or Molly Bloom. A related question is how far powerful female images such as the goddesses Banbha, Fodla and Ériu or the sixteenth-century pirate Grace O'Malley function as inspirations and how far they confine women to a particular idea of Irishness. The course will combine Irish history, literary history, cultural criticism, literary analysis and gender studies. Some of the writers featured will be the novelists Sidney Owenson (Lady Morgan), Emily Lawless and Kate O'Brien, the poet Nuala ní Dhomnaill, novelist and autobiographer Nuala O'Faolain and dramatist Marina Carr.

CIS 350: Human Rights, Foreign Policy, and the 2008 Election
Hassan El Menyawi, Kemp Visiting Professor
Across the world, America's 2008 election is being hailed as one of the most crucial in recent history. Republican and Democratic candidates have staked out starkly contrasting positions on foreign policy and human rights issues. These issues include the war in Iraq, genocide, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, climate change, and world poverty.

This course will examine both the substantive foreign policy and human rights issues related to the election. The course is designed to cover events as they evolve during the campaign in September, October, and November. Course materials will include academic articles on the ongoing campaign as foreign policy and human rights emerge, as well as current news reports and political analysis relating to the 2008 election itself. Students will be expected to remain informed about the events of the campaign, as well as participating in editorial writing, analysis, and campaign simulations. Students will be expected to participate in simulations of political reporting in the week prior to the elections on November 4, 2008. This course is not cross listed with Political Science and will not count for Political Science credit.

CIS 380: Issues in Medicine
Jerry Putnam

CIS 390: Health Care Ethics
Lance Stell

CIS 391: Research Ethics
Kristie Long Foley
This course provides students with a comprehensive overview of the responsible conduct of research. Topics will include: animal welfare; ethical guidelines for research involving human subjects; informed consent; data acquisition and ownership; individual and group rights; confidentiality; conflict of interest and commitment; intellectual property rights; and responsible dissemination of research findings. Topics will be framed within the historical foundations of research ethics.

CIS 397: Future of American Health Care
Joe Konen

CIS 421: Seminar: Film and Media Studies, "The Horror Film"
Neil Lerner

CIS 453: Research on Mass Media Effects
Virginia Dodge Fielder, Batten Professor of Public Policy
In this seminar we will examine what is known - and unknown - about the effects of mass media on individuals, society, and the democratic process. The course provides an historical overview of media effects research and the various methods used to investigate these effects. In this election year, we will focus in particular on the effects of news and political content, including an in-depth look at presidential election polls and the media's ability to set the agenda and persuade. Other topics include the effects of media violence, sexual content in the media, media stereotypes, and media entertainment. We will speculate on how new technologies will influence various media effects in the future.

CIS 484: Leadership for Human Rights: Becoming a Leader
Hassan El Menyawi, Kemp Visiting Professor
Leadership is an essential component of effecting positive social change across the world. Whether in the world of government, business, civil service, non-governmental organizations ("NGOs"), or human rights activism, leadership is seen as the pivot from which success is possible. This course sets out to examine how leadership develops in particular contexts, and, more importantly, which types have effected change for human rights during particular struggles worldwide. The course explores historical figures who have had a tremendous impact on human rights, such as Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meier, and George W. Bush. To do this, we will examine the leadership journey of these historical figures in an attempt to identify what makes a leader and how her leadership skills allow her to achieve her goals. We will examine political and psychological theories and identify what leadership assets are needed in our time-an era that struggles with the cataclysmic human rights challenges in the areas of nuclear proliferation, terrorism, war, climate change, world poverty, human rights violations, authoritarianism, and genocide. This course is not cross listed with Political Science and will not count for Political Science credit.
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Spring 2008 Center Courses

CIS 220 Introduction to Film and Media Studies
Maggie McCarthy
An introduction to film history and analysis, with an equal emphasis on film language (cinematic means of expression) and thematics. Viewing and discussion of films from a wide variety of national traditions and genres, supplemented by discussion of analytical and theoretical texts.
Required course for fulfilling the Film and Media Studies concentration.

CIS 261 Introduction to Forensic Sciences
Karen Bernd, Helen Cho, Cindy Hauser
Forensic science is the application of science to the law and encompasses various scientific disciplines. This course will introduce various methodologies and applications used in a forensic context. Topics discussed include organic and inorganic chemical analyses of physical evidence, principles of serology and DNA analysis, identification of fresh and decomposed human remains, ballistics, fingerprint analysis, facial reconstruction, drug analysis, and forensic entomology.

CIS 303 History of Medicine
Joe Konen
A seminar format will be used to explore from classical through modern times the interconnections of cultural, philosophical, ethical and religious influences on the development of science and healing practices that characterize modern Western medicine. The last two centuries will be emphasized to explain present day medical achievements and health care delivery.  Course includes team teaching of selected topics from medical history, ethics, religion, and examples of present day clinical medicine.

CIS 347 International Law
Hassan El Menyawi
When can a nation go to war? Can a state use torture to extract information from possible terrorists? When can a nation-state intervene in the affairs of another? Due to globalization, nation-states are increasingly inter-dependent, reinforcing the importance of international law as a regulatory body of laws and norms for the global community. In fact, given the exponentially increasing interaction and mutual interdependency of nation-states, international law has been historically transformed from one of the least relevant legal fields to one of the most crucial in the span of a century.
 
In the past half-century, international law plays a significant role in a number of contemporary global challenges: the ever-worsening Darfur crisis; the continuing possibility of nuclear holocaust on the planet due to nuclear proliferation; the rising possibility of environmental disasters across state borders; the expected increase in viral and other epidemic threats around the world; the massive poverty in the developing world; the presence of clandestine, diffusive global terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda; the presence of legal neutral zones such as Guantanamo Bay; renewed discussion of using technology in earth’s orbit or beyond for military purposes; and many others that will be discussed in class.
 
The course will provide an overview of the major ideas in international law and the international legal system, with the goal of learning how international law regulates such areas as genocide, war, humanitarian intervention, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, development, natural disasters, post-conflict justice, environmental crises, and human rights. The course will explore the history, nature, definition, and sources of international law. It will examine how international law is produced through treaties, and the loci where international law is often generated—in international organizations such as the United Nations. The course will address questions about international actors including the state, non-governmental organizations, individuals and other subjects of international law. It will analyze questions about the nature of the state in the global context through the study of the law of treaties and the legal concepts of state responsibility and state jurisdiction. It will examine how international law interacts with national law, and how international law is enforced by nation-states with an emphasis on compliance by the  United States. In addition, the course will cover the international law of human rights, international criminal law (including the International Criminal Court), international health law, international space law, international economic and trade law, and international environmental law. To do this, the course will review and discuss a number of international law cases decided by national and international tribunals, as well as certain treaties, resolutions, and other international legal instruments of importance. Students will engage in various in-class simulations designed to provide a practical appreciation of the operation and challenges of international organizations. There are no prerequisites for this course. This course is recommended for students interested or seeking professions in international law, diplomacy, foreign policy, government, non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations, international trade, international health, environmental policy, human rights, and international relations. This course is cross-listed with the Department of Political Science.

CIS 349 Terrorism in the 21st Century
Hassan El Menyawi
On September 11, 2001, planes crashed into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The attacks destroyed New York’s Twin Towers, and the world was forever changed, making terrorism the greatest non-state security threat the world had ever seen. September 11th was the most devastating terrorist attack in the history of humanity, and the perpetrator, Osama Bin Laden and his organization, Al Qaeda, has promised further attacks. Astonished by the scale of the attack and the degree of imagination and planning evidenced by the 9/11 attacks, scholars and security experts have attempted to seek new ways to address terrorist threats through various methods including intelligence, hard power, soft power, and policy approaches. Some experts have recommended the deployment of a hard-power approach, including military operations and the use of torture as an interrogation tactic. Others have emphasized the use of soft power by building alliances with religious moderates and pursuing human rights, peace, and development goals worldwide as a means to persuade those in the Arab and Muslim world that the United States can be a force for good. Advocates of the soft-power approach see these strategies as part of an ideological struggle--what is sometimes referred to as a “war of ideas,” or a “battle for hearts and minds” in the Muslim world. The course will compare these approaches, examining their benefits and potential drawbacks.

We will begin by exploring the underlying reasons that individuals and groups choose terrorism as a means to achieve their goals in the 21st century. Students will discuss the rise of religious fundamentalism and how, and why, it has engendered terrorism—becoming a rampant strategy for certain fundamentalist religious groups. The course examines the ideological arguments that terrorist organizations use to justify their actions and recruit members. The course examines the methods terrorists deploy and the network structures (such as cells) that they build to carry out their operations. With this knowledge, we will explore the possibilities for countering terrorism, and examine possible strategies with an eye to interrupting terrorist plots, as well as preemptively reducing the likelihood of terrorist attacks. In addition, students will explore the difficult balancing act between freedom and security when fighting terror, and examine possible approaches to reconciling the two. We will examine the scandals over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the "torture memos," as well as the use of the extraterritorial base at Guantanamo in the fight on terror. We will examine the human rights and international implications, as well as the benefits and costs of counter-terrorism strategies that include torture and discuss whether it is acceptable and effective to use controversial tactics such as coercive interrogation, detention without due process, and assassinations. There are no prerequisites for this course. This course is cross-listed with the Department of Political Science.  Satisfies the General International/Multi-Cultural category of the Concentration in International Studies.

CIS 454 Ink, Images and Influence: The Role of Media in our Democracy (Seminar)
Fannie Flono, Batten Professor of Public Policy
This course will examine the impact of media coverage on specific events in U.S. history, on a few ongoing events such as the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and assess journalists who played an important role in that coverage.

CIS 472 Environmental Success and Failure (Seminar)
Gayle Kaufman, Pat Peroni, Lynn Poland
This upper-level seminar will help students learn environmental-studies themes from each other and an interdisciplinary faculty.  The objective is to have the students define and investigate questions that flow from Jared Diamond’s Collapse and to push them to understand how disciplines other than their own contribute to the asking and answering of environmentally important questions.  These goals will be developed through four units and through substantial group work.
Unit 1:            Understanding Collapse
Unit 2:            Developing your toolkit with the case of Angkor
Unit 3:            Applying your toolkit to a national or an international case
Unit 4:            Applying your toolkit to a case relevant for the Southeastern U.S.

CIS 481 Human Rights Strategy (Seminar)
Hassan El Menyawi
From the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) was built in the hope of bringing an end to suffering caused by nation-states. States had invaded other states, violating their sovereignty, but worse than that, had intentionally coordinated the mass murder of millions of human beings in what we now call “genocide.”  The idea of human rights was to constrain nation-states’ treatment of individuals within and beyond the borders of the state. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provided a foundation for international human rights, inspiring countless treaties regulating areas such as torture, genocide, war, gender discrimination, censorship, discrimination against the disabled, children’s rights, poverty, access to health care, and economic development. The language of human rights has traveled the globe in what can now be called a “globalization of human rights--and the discourses of human rights has spread everywhere in the world.

But, while we currently live in an era that can be called—in the words of the international legal scholar, Louis Henkin, “an age of rights,” where states willingly sign onto international human rights treaties, there have also been significant setbacks in achieving state compliance with human rights norms. Such setbacks include the rise of genocide worldwide—with the continuous and seemingly intractable genocide in Darfur, Sudan; the exponential rise in the use of torture by nation-states; the massive rise in poverty and the ever-present possibility of famine in many parts of the world; the increasing restrictions on speech and on the practice of religion imposed on individuals by states; evidence of slavery around the globe; and increasing discrimination directed to women and members of sexual minorities.

Bewildered by the rise of human rights violations, many scholars and activists have urgently asked the question, “What do we do?” While the 20th century has set out the parameters of what human rights states must protect—the “what” question of human rights, we have only begun to examine the “how” question—how to promote and implement these rights when states are persistent in their violations. The course surmises that a new age of human rights is dawning. Rather than simply expound the rights states must protect, scholars and activists in the 21st century will be likely examining howto achieve human rights through unique strategies that do not depend on states’ willingness to self-comply—the burgeoning of “an age of human rights strategy.” By drawing on methods from the literature on intelligence, network analysis, awareness consciousness, military strategy, government action, methods deployed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), activist approaches, action theory, and social movement theory (among many others) the course will explore non-violent strategies to bring an end to genocide, torture, discrimination, and inequality, and to promote liberty, peace, democracy, due process, and the rule of law. There are no prerequisites for this course.

Fall 2007 Center Courses

CIS 171: Environmental Studies
Profs. Martin, Paradise, Beach-Verhey

CIS 220: Intro to Film and Media Studies
Prof. Lerner

CIS 348: International Organizations
Hassan El Menyawi, Kemp Visiting Assistant Professor
Due to globalization, nation-states are increasingly working together to tackle problems that are difficult to address on their own. The primary site for these inter-state relations has been the "international organization"--these include organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the International Criminal Court (ICC). We will explore how these international organizations are the locus for discussion--and potentially resolution--of challenges such as genocide, war, humanitarian intervention, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, development, natural disasters, post-conflict justice, environmental crises, and human rights. International organizations have become central in appreciating how international treaties are developed and implemented. International organizations have played a key role in the discourse and attempt to address contemporary  challenges such as the ever-worsening Darfur crisis; the rise of global warming and its disastrous consequences; the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa and around the world; the near certainty of a worldwide avian flu epidemic; the rise of diffusive global terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda; the challenges presented by scarcity of gasoline; the inexorably approaching water shortage in the Middle East; the heightened possibility of nuclear war between Pakistan and India; and many others that will be discussed in class.
Students will engage in various in-class simulations designed to provide a practical appreciation of the operation and challenges of international organizations.

CIS 461: American Indians and Democracy
Carol Higham, Visiting Assistant Professor

CIS 482 Gay Rights
Hassan El Menyawi, Kemp Visiting Assistant Professor
Since the birth of the contemporary gay and lesbian civil rights movement with the New York City Stonewall riot in 1969, there have been breathtaking changes in the perception of the legitimacy of gay rights, as well as significant strides toward their achievement. In addition to these successes, there have also been significant setbacks including the torture of gays, the raiding of gay organizations, and the intentional targeting and execution of gays, also known as homocide (genocide of gays). While arguments for gay rights have grown worldwide, gay rights have been pitted against conceptions of the 'traditional' -- often seen as antithetical to religion -- and described as not universal. We will explore the arguments against gay rights, and examine the political effects of these discourses worldwide.  This course is meant to provide an overview of the development of gay rights issues and challenges worldwide. This includes a discussion of the rights of gays and lesbians, as well as bisexuals, and transgendered persons. The course provides an examination of the viability and challenges of achieving gay rights goals in different regions and at a global level. In examining these challenges, the course will explore contemporary gay rights challenges such as non-discrimination, hate crimes, marriage, schools, anti-bullying initiatives, participation in the military, adoption, freedom from torture, homocide, censorship of gay literature, and the increasing restrictions of the liberty of gays. The course will then attempt to draw on these contemporary gay rights challenges to explore how national and international movements and laws interrelate to both promote and interfere with the achievement of gay rights causes. With this knowledge, the course then explores the possibilities for positive social change with an eye on finding potential solutions for achieving the goals of gay rights at both a national and transnational level.    

CIS 495: Thesis
Prof. Denham

Spring 2007 Center Courses

CIS 342:The Latin American City
Profs. Maiz-Peña and Mangan
This seminar-style course will study the Latin American city through historical and cultural perspectives. Students will analyze an array of primary historical sources, literature, and films organized around particular historical moments for the following cities: Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Chicago. The course will emphasize comparison of cities over time, with attention to the prehispanic city, the modern city, and the contemporary Latin American City, as well as one US city with a strong Latino influence.  Students will analyze the relationship between historical context and cultural production through texts offering historical, cultural, and literary representations of the cities.  The course will encourage students to theorize about historical and cultural interpretations of a society, and its cultural production in a specific time, space, and historical moment through a variety of models of urbanism including Latin American history, Latin American Cultural Studies, Latin American and Latino Literature, and Film Studies.   Readings and discussions will be in Spanish and English.  Students wishing to take the course for credit in Spanish will complete all assignments in Spanish.

CIS 346:Islamic Law
Prof. El Menyawi
This course is dedicated to understanding the idea of Islamic law, to understand its development and how it is being used during modern times. To that end, students will be exposed to the divergent opinions in Islamic criminal law, Islamic family law (including divorce laws), Islamic property law, Islamic contract law, Islamic international law, etc. The course examines some of the big questions that are currently asked including whether Islamic law justifies violence, extremism, gender discrimination, and discrimination toward persons of other faiths. After gaining knowledge about Islamic law, students will be expected to write an Islamic ruling or fatwa by drawing on sources to develop an argument. We then explore approaches to Islamic law that support foreign policy goals related to pluralism and democratization, as well as approaches that support the goals of human rights activists and reformers seeking ways to produce a liberal image of the Islamic Middle East that respects human rights norms. After gaining knowledge of Islamic law and its uses, students will be expected to write a memo to the State Department advising it on strategies to deploy Islamic law to further general human rights goals as part of its foreign policy.

CIS 347:Governance, International Law and Human Rights
Prof. El Menyawi
This course is meant to provide an overview of the basic conceptions of governance, human rights, and international law. It provides a set of basic definitions of each of these concepts, attempting to demonstrate the links between them, as well as their potential interchangeability. The course begins with an introduction of the core concepts that the course is named after, followed by an examination of the viability and challenges of achieving particular social goals/causes, such as peace education, human rights, world peace (or increasing peaceful relations, or decreasing conflict), and environmental issues. In fact, the course will attempt to weave together how the concepts of governance, human rights, and international law are required to appreciate how the challenges of achieving social goals/causes, and effecting social change. After discussing these topics, students will be expected to participate in a simulation of the United Nations Security Council as a practical way to explore the inter-relations between governance, international law, and human rights.

CIS 357:Advanced Seminar: Psychology Goes to the Movies
Prof. Munger  
What happens when you got to the movies?  You sit down, the lights dim, images and sound bombard your senses, and you are moved—emotionally and cognitively.  A story unfolds that depends on your senses, visual and auditory, and that story speaks to you in many ways.  Some things about movies can be described verbally, the story line and character relationships, for example.  However, some aspects of your experience depend on things that are hard to describe—you may understand that a particular character is sinister, and the director may have accomplished this not with dialogue but with lighting.  You may be looking at a calm sea, but be increasingly nervous, jumpy even, as you respond not to a verbal cue, but to the music of the soundtrack.  
How is art created?  How do the various artists involved describe their work?  How do you understand the complex events, visual and auditory, that movies present?  “Psychology Goes to the Movies” will explore the perceptual experience of movies, which includes examining how we respond to visual art and music, both in terms of understanding the perceptual space and in terms of understanding corresponding cognitive and emotional responses.

CIS 390 Health Care Ethics
Prof. Stell

CIS 405:Seminar: Chinese Cinema
Prof. Shen

CIS 481:Seminar: Human Rights
Prof. El Menyawi
This course is meant to provide an overview of the basic conceptions of human rights and of international human rights law. It provides a set of basic definitions of each of these concepts, attempting to demonstrate the links between them. The course then provides an examination of the viability and challenges of achieving human rights goals in varying parts of the world, and perhaps even at a more global level. In examining these challenges, the course will explore contemporary human rights challenges such as terrorism, torture, genocide, war, rising religious extremism, discrimination, censorship, and the increasing restrictions on liberty, (among many others) .The course will then attempt to draw on these contemporary human rights challenges to explore how national and international governance interrelate with human rights, both promoting and interfering with the achievement of human rights goals/causes. With this knowledge, the course then explores the possibilities for positive social change with an eye on finding potential solutions to address human rights challenges.

CIS 496: Thesis
Prof. Denham

Fall 2006 Center Courses

CIS 130: Survey of International Economics
Prof. Appleyard

CIS 220: Introduction to Film and Media Studies
Prof. Singerman
An introduction to film history and analysis, with an equal emphasis on film language (cinematic means of expression) and thematics. Viewing and discussion of films from a wide variety of national traditions and genres, supplemented by discussion of analytical and theoretical texts.
Required course for fulfilling the Film and Media Studies concentration.

CIS 221: Interactive Digital Narratives
Prof. Lerner

CIS 224: Heroism in Chinese Fiction and Film
Prof. Shao

CIS 352: Gender Identity
Prof. Ault

CIS 380: Issues in Medicine
Prof. Putnam

CIS 388: History of Medical Law
Prof. Veilleux

CIS 390: Health Care Ethics
Prof. Stell

CIS 395: Independent Studies
Prof. Denham

CIS 397: Future of American Health Care
Prof. Konen

CIS 406: Seminar: Traditional Chinese Literature
Prof. Shao

CIS 453: Seminar: Critical Issues in Mass Media
Batten Professor of Public Policy Larry Jinks
(Syllabus)
Media in a Fast-Changing World:  This is a time of dramatic changes in how people get news about their communities, their regions, the nation and the world.  This course will probe those changes, with special emphasis on how young people do (and don't) keep themselves informed.  It will look at how traditional news media -- newspapers, television and radio -- are being challenged as never before journalistically and economically. It will examine the influence of the Internet, with special attention to the role of blogs. Students will not only study what others are saying about these issues; they will be expected to draw on their own experiences and those of their peers as the class seeks to reach some conclusions about what's happening in the media world and what it means to society.  Every student will be expected to participate in class discussions and there will be significant writing requirements.

CIS 495: Thesis
Prof. Denham

Spring 2006 Center Courses

CIS 223: German/Hollywood Connections
Prof.  McCarthy
German and Hollywood cinema have long overlapped in mutually beneficial and antagonistic ways.  Early German émigrés created a “Weimar on the Pacific” where German Expressionism eventually evolved into American film noir.  Weaned on American melodramas and Westerns in the 1950s, German director Wim Wenders famously bemoaned the way “the Yanks have colonized our subconscious.” His entire oeuvre from the 1970s through the present finds its inspiration in a love/hate relationship with things American.  Thirty years ago Rainer Werner Fassbinder proclaimed his desire to make Hollywood films that were not as “hypocritical as Hollywood.”  Today, German filmmakers share a similar impulse, although minus the animus of an earlier generation.   

CIS 253: Ethics in Journalism
Batten Professor of Public Policy Jennie Buckner
(Syllabus)
“Ethics in Journalism” explores ethical issues facing the media, including some that have made headlines recently. Students will use case-studies for discussion-based analysis of the ethics of decision making in the media.  They will study how some moral philosophers view ethical obligations and they will learn the principles and professional values that should guide journalists. Topics covered in the course include:  competing loyalties; problems with privacy; the use of confidential sources; the appropriateness of deception in pursuit of a story. The course, designed for both aspiring journalists and those who simply are interested in how the media works, is discussion-based with a strong writing component and would be especially useful for students in history, political science, economics, ethics, medical humanities, English and other literature and culture studies.

CIS 453: Seminar: Critical Issues in Mass Media
Batten Professor of Public Policy Jennie Buckner
(Syllabus)
This seminar will look at significant challenges confronting American journalism. Students will discuss the role of the press in a free society, debate whether today’s mass media are adequately fulfilling that role, and decide what might be done to improve the press’ performance. The class will explore how warp-speed changes in technology, relentless business pressures, governmental manipulation, and declining interest in public affairs are changing the media landscape. Students will decide whether they agree with what readers and viewers, press critics and journalists themselves say is wrong with today’s news. Throughout the course, students will watch television news and read newspapers, websites or blogs to assess how well (or poorly) journalists are living up to standards and values outlined in key readings. Through their discussion and their writings (including letters to the editor and op-ed essays), students will become part of an important national dialog on what citizens should expect from the news. This seminar should be especially interesting to students in history, political science, economics, English and other cultural studies.

CIS 341: Introduction to Forensic Sciences
Profs. Beeston, Bernd, Cho, Hauser
Forensic science is the application of science to the law and encompasses various scientific disciplines. This course will introduce various methodologies and applications used in a forensic context. Topics discussed include organic and inorganic chemical analyses of physical evidence, principles of serology and DNA analysis, identification of fresh and decomposed human remains, ballistics, fingerprint analysis, facial reconstruction, drug analysis, and forensic entomology.

CIS 381: Health Law and Public Policy
Prof. Veilleux
Overview of the regulations affecting the U.S. healthcare system, including Medicare and Medicaid billing regulations, healthcare fraud and abuse laws, public health regulation, and regulation affecting access to care.   Students will explore several case studies in depth, such as smallpox vaccination of healthcare workers, the Duke University transplant case, criminal investigations of hospitals for healthcare fraud, and how policy makers have used regulation to attempt to guarantee access to healthcare.    

CIS 396 Independent Studies
Prof. Denham

CIS 496 Thesis
Prof. Denham

CIS 315/FRE365: Masterpieces of French Cinema
Prof. Singerman
In this course we will study first the origins of cinema at the end of the 19th century, in particular the pioneering work of the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès, before taking a look at some avant-garde French silent films of the 20s.  We will concentrate, however, on the two most innovative periods of French film, the poetic realism movement of the 1930s and early 40s and the NewWave cinema of the late 50s and early 60s.  We will end with a look at a few of the most striking French films from more recent periods. 
Throughout the course, we will practice analyzing film form as it relates to the creation of meaning. The instructor will provide background lectures, and students will be responsible for both outside readings and on-line multi-media exercises.

CIS 421/MUS 380: Seminar: Herrmann/Hitchcock
Prof. Lerner
The extraordinarily fruitful collaboration of Bernard Herrmann (1910-1975) and Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) from 1955-66 remains one of the more remarkable achievements in film and music history. Not only did it yield some of Hitchcock’s most daring films and Herrmann’s best-known scores—Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960)—but their apparently complementary aesthetic vision was achieved in spite of their often conflicting personalities.
This seminar will concentrate on the nine films and film scores stemming from this remarkable team, striving for close readings of the films as well as reflection upon what we can learn from their collaborative process. Student responsibilities will include weekly reading and listening assignments, weekly screenings, and some short papers and class presentations leading up to one longer seminar paper. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Normally students will have had at least one prior semester of college-level music or film study.
This course satisfies the seminar requirement for the Film and Media Studies concentration.

Fall 2005 Center Courses

CIS 130Survey of International Economics, Prof. Appleyard
CIS 220 Introduction to Film and Media Studies, Prof. McCarthy
CIS 235Race, Religion, and Science in the 19th Century, Prof. Higham
CIS 380 Issues in Medicine, Prof. Putnam
CIS 381Health Regulations and Public Policy, Prof. Veilleux
CIS 390Health Care Ethics, Prof. Stell
CIS 395Independent Studies, Prof. Denham
CIS 397Future of American Health Care, Prof. Konen
CIS 495Thesis, Prof. Denham