Each semester the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies offers courses in areas of mutual student and faculty interest. These are courses not easily aligned with a single department or program, often offered only once or occasionally and thus do not appear in the College catalog.

CIS 175, GLOBALIZATION, FOOD & ENVIRONMENT
Reg for ECO 180
Julianne Mills
TR, 1:00-2:15 pm
Chambers 2130
Cheap bananas in the global North . . . tomatoes in January . . . coffee on every street corner. . . these things seem commonplace today, but this cheap global grocery store has certainly not always existed. When did the concept of seasonal, local produce fall off the radar of the American public? How did exotic foods make their way around the globe to wind up on our dinner tables and next to our cereal bowls? And most importantly, how do the processes of globalization that make these incredible feats of global transfer (of goods, preferences, culture, experience, etc.) appear mundane wind up affecting our environment and our world?

These questions are inherently interdisciplinary, and this will therefore be an explicitly interdisciplinary course. We will invoke economics, history, political science, biology, sociology, anthropology, and geography as we explore a myriad of interrelated issues: the historic, economic, and political foundations of globalization, concepts of the "global environment," the institutional implementation of economic globalization, the historical distributions of food and agriculture, the genetics of the Green Revolution, the technologies that make global-scale food transport possible, the interaction of globalization and development, and the economic, environmental and social effects which arise from the global restructuring of the food system.

No economics prerequisite. Earns Social Science distribution credit and fulfills the Social Science requirement of the Environmental Studies Concentration.

CIS 211, INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN STUDIES: ORIGINS & DESTINIES
Hilton Kelly, Anne Wills
TR, 1:00-2:15 pm
Chambers 3209
What makes an American? Baseball, apple pie, and dear old Mom? Or, is it shopping malls, fast food, Hip Hop and "Drop Dead Diva?" Do we understand ourselves through "The Jamestown Project" or "Project Runway" - John Wayne or Lil' Wayne - through the Swamp Fox or Jamie Foxx - through chicken soup or chicken curry? In this course, we will explore American identity and think critically about the discipline of "American studies." We will attend particularly to the complexity of American sociopolitical life as it reflects historical memory, national identity, and cultural diversity. Topics of the course will include American myths and symbols, immigration and migration, colonialism and empire-building, and the internationalization of the nation. By investigating literary, visual, sociological, historical, and religious artifacts and data, we will examine some foundational questions raised in the field.

CIS 224, INTRODUCTION TO MODERN CHINESE CULTURE
Reg for CHI 120
Vivian Shen
M, 1:30-4:20pm
Chambers 1006
Note:  Taught in English.  Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Introduces several aspects of Chinese culture including Chinese cultural motifs and their cultural implications, holidays and festivals, Peking opera, 20th century Chinese drama, Chinese etymology and calligraphy, Chinese popular music, Chinese cinema, Chinese martial arts, and food. Additionally, the course will also talk about some paradox, dialectics and misconception in Chinese culture.

CIS 237, BUSINESS ETHICS & CONSUMER RESPONSIBILITY
David Perry
TR, 8:30-9:45 am
Chambers 1006
We often purchase and use products without any idea where they come from. The stories behind the extraction of raw materials from the earth or sea, the people who grew or manufactured the stuff we buy, how well or badly they were treated as workers, and the environmental impact of the product life-cycle: those stories can be both fascinating and exceedingly complex. How do those stories relate to us as consumers, and as potential employees and managers of corporations? What does society have a right to expect from corporations in the realm of moral responsibility? Do corporate leaders have any moral obligations beyond serving the interests of the stockholders and obeying the law? Do they have moral obligations to other "stakeholders" such as employees, consumers, suppliers, members of communities living near factories, et al.?

In business as in other arenas of life, it's important for us to develop moral wisdom and moral courage: wisdom to recognize when an ethical problem arises, as well as to make sound decisions in situations of moral conflict; and courage to do what we know is right even when there are strong pressures or incentives to do otherwise. Hence, the primary objectives of this course are: 1) to increase your awareness of a wide range of ethical challenges that can arise in business and the global economy; 2) to enable you to test the strengths and weaknesses of various moral beliefs and ethical arguments relevant to business practices; and 3) to reinforce your personal sense of compassion and fairness in the context of your current and future roles as consumers, citizens, and professionals.

CIS 253, LOSING THE NEWS?
Ed Williams
TR, 1:00-2:15 pm
Chambers 2084
"Losing the News," a new book by Alex Jones, director of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, will be used as a resource. The course will look at the implications of the revolution in communications, evident in the decline in conventional mass media and the growth of niche media -- particularly on-line -- and the emergence of non-journalist reporters as the source of much news.

CIS 322, MEMORY & FILM
Reg for GER 336
Maggie McCarthy
TR, 11:30-12:45 pm
Chambers 3198 - Tentative
U, 7:30-10:00 pm
Hance Auditorium
This course will examine memory as a frequent theme in film, film as a form of memory, how filmic structures represent memory, and the extent to which memory counters the official stories of history and nation. Besides attending weekly film screenings, students will write short essays and create a larger memory project which can take written or filmic form. Films include Memento, Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction, Paris, Texas, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Winter Sleepers, The Sweet Hereafter, All About My Mother, Gods and Monsters, Mein Krieg, Good Bye, Lenin, The Edge of Heaven, La Jetee and Twelve Monkies.

CIS 358, NORTH KOREA HISTORY & GEOPOLITICAL PERSPECTIVE
Rebecca Ruhlen
TR, 11:30-12:45 am
Chambers 3198
North Korea's nuclear program has been a thorny international and regional issue for the last two decades. Due to skewed attention to the nuclear issue in contemporary US/North Korean relations, however, a broader perspective on North Korean history, economics, and international relations is often lacking. This course will consider North Korea in historical and geopolitical perspective, with the goal of decentering the nuclear issue and US/North Korean relations in pursuit of a more complex and regionally-grounded understanding.

CIS 380, ISSUES IN MEDICINE
Kristie Foley
TR, 11:30-12:45 pm
Chambers 2130
The purpose of Issues in Medicine is to critically evaluate the external influence of social values, culture, political climate, technological development, population characteristics, and global concerns on shaping health care systems and delivery. Implications for the patient and health care provider will be discussed. By participating in clinical rotations, students are expected to apply concepts learned in class to real world experiences.

CIS 395, ADVANCED RESEARCH METHODS IN THE HUMANITIES
Scott Denham, Maria Fackler
T, 1:00-3:45 pm
Carolina Inn 224
This team-taught research seminar addresses the methodological needs of students in humanities fields who plan to do advanced work at Davidson and beyond - a senior thesis, summer research, or perhaps graduate school. We will cover:
• advanced library research skills (the library is the humanities student's "lab");
• how to identify - and then pursue - research projects in the humanities that make an original   contribution and are of appropriate scale for publication and/or presentation;
• differences between individual and collaborative research;
• grant application and proposal writing skills (including submitting an actual proposal for a Davidson College or external grant);
• how to develop a timeline for completing the student's own project.
The course will begin with framing a research question (that leads to a DRI, DR, Abernethy, etc. grant proposal), then present related and various methods and problems to solve for half the semester (bibliography, historical-critical text editing, how to use archives, paleography, theoretical and interpretive perspectives, how to frame questions and follow leads, how to get a sense of the state of a scholarly question in the field, and the like), then students will undertake an individual project for the second half (workshops and presentation on individual problems and progress). Sophomores and juniors only.

CIS 398, INDEPENDENT STUDY
Staff
TBA
Course Description

CIS 405, SEMINAR: TOPICS IN CHINESE CINEMA & MODERN LITERATURE
Reg for CHI 405
Vivian Shen
T, 1:00-3:45
Chambers 1003
Reading and discussion of selected works in Chinese literature and cinema. Discussion of individual research projects.

CIS 453, WRITING WITH READERS IN MIND
Ed Williams
W, 1:30-4:20 pm
Chambers 1015
This course involves writing in a variety of forms (news reports, personal essays, interviews, profiles, reviews of books, movies and music, etc.) and analyzing what's needed to have your work published in various print and on-line publications.

CIS 470, GLOBAL HEALTH ETHICS
Kristie Foley
M, 1:30-4:20 pm
Chambers 3196
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 472, ENVIRONMENTAL SUCCESS & FAILURE
Pat Peroni, Lynn Poland
W, 1:30-4:20 pm
Cunningham 111
This seminar is designed to help students learn how to investigate environmental questions from an interdisciplinary perspective. The faculty and peer collaborators will help students define and investigate questions that flow from Jared Diamond's Collapse. The seminar is the required capstone course for the Environmental Studies Concentration.

CIS 483, CIVIL RIGHTS BATTLES IN NC
Jim Fuller
R, 1:00-3:45 pm
Cunningham 111
In the 60's and 70's, the fight for justice for all took place in many fora: in bitter congressional debates and votes, in the streets of Montgomery and Selma, in the sit-ins and demonstrations throughout the South--and in the federal courts of North Carolina. Charlotte and Western N. C. produced a significant number of important civil rights cases that ultimately produced precedent-setting decisions of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (NC, VA, SC, WVA, MD) and the U. S. Supreme Court.  Behind each written court opinion were ordinary citizens who stepped forward as plaintiffs, risking jobs, family security, and even personal safety for a cause in which they believed. Each case was fought by lawyers who were willing to champion clients and causes that were unpopular to the majority, and undertaken with only a faint hope of ever achieving financial compensation.

This course, with an emphasis on oral history, brings into the classroom some of these historically important clients and lawyers. Theirs is the untold story behind the landmark legal decisions that changed our way of life in our region and throughout the nation. It is
a story only they can tell.  We will read law and cases, research the press, the lawyers, judges, and plaintiffs, and cover broader history in order to prepare for several visits from some of the actors in these landmark events; each visit forming a basis for creating oral history. Readings, response papers, presentation of an oral history project, and a major final paper.

CIS 496, THESIS
Scott Denham
TBA

CIS 498, INDEPENDENT STUDY
Staff
TBA