Division of Continual Learning
MALS Program - Spring 2008 Courses
Each seminar carries three academic credit hours.
The History of London
MLS 610 CRN 13540
January 16 - April 30
Wednesdays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
Click here for syllabus and book list.
Religion and Politics in the Modern Imagination
MLS 610 CRN 13541
January 16 - April 30
Wednesdays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
Click here for syllabus.
Religion and Ecology
MLS 610 CRN 13542
January 14 - March 9
ONLINE COURSE (8 week course)
Click here for tentative book list.
Current Problems in the Middle East: An Historical Perspective
MLS 610 CRN 13543
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
Click here for syllabus.
In Search of the Church
MLS 610 CRN 13544
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
Click here for syllabus.
Literature of Dissent
MLS 610 CRN 13545
January 15 - April 29
Tuesdays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
Click here for syllabus.
Cultural Identities: Contemporary Non-Western Literature
MLS 610 CRN 13547
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
Click here for syllabus.
The Dragon Awakes: Charting the Path of Modern China
MLS 610 CRN 13546
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
Click here for syllabus.
Emerging Organizational Systems
MLS 620 CRN 13548
January 14 - May 5
Mondays, 6:00-8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
Click here for syllabus.
Dangerous Minds: Terrorism. Political Violence, and Radical Orthodoxies
MLS 620 CRN 13549
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
Click here for syllabus.
Global Human Rights
MLS 620 CRN 13550
January 14 - May 5
Mondays, 6:00-8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
Click here for syllabus.
Science through Nobel Laureates
MLS 630 CRN 13551
January 15 - April 30
Tuedays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
Click here for tentative book list.
MLS 610 CRN 13540
January 16 - April 30
Wednesdays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
“He who is tired of London is tired of life.” -Samuel Johnson
When I was a child my grandfather, an erstwhile subject of the British Crown, used to tell me, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” And the center of that empire was London.
The once great empire is now gone, but London remains. Indeed, it thrives. What makes this marvelous city—founded by legions of the Roman Empire—remain so vibrant in spite of invasions by barbarian Angles and Saxons, occupation by Norman conquerors, devastation by the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and the blitz, and the post-colonial transformation into a multicultural society?
The story lies locked in the streets and buildings of London, from the Pax Romana through the Pax Britannica and down to our own day. London is soaked through with over 2000 years of history, memories and monuments along with stories of some of the most interesting and brilliant people the western world has ever seen. We shall examine the city’s foundation and its many transformations-- historical, social, demographic, political, architectural and artistic. Encounters with Cockneys and the Queen, Bobbies and bowler hats await us, as well as “visits” to churches, palaces and monuments that London feet passed or entered every day.
Equally important, if not more so, were the thoughts and feelings harbored in the hearts and heads of Londoners at the time. We will read selections from noteworthy writers of the period, covering a wide variety of literary genres such as poetry, diaries, novels, philosophy, sermons and plays. We will pay homage to the pantheon of classical and modern authors who lived in London, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Francis Bacon, John Donne, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Conan Doyle, Virginia Wolfe and many more.
John Young (Ph.D. University of Virginia) lived in London from 1968-70 as a Fulbright Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at University College of the University of London, which was founded by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill in 1820. His daily walk to the University took him past Sir Francis Bacon’s Gray’s Inn, through “Dickens; London: and past the British Museum. He spent much of his free time walking his children around London in a double push-chair (stroller) to visit Christopher Wren churches, The City, Fleet Street, St. Paul’s and Westminster Cathedral.
Religion and Politics in the Modern Imagination
MLS 610 CRN 13541
January 16 - April 30
Wednesdays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
This course is investigates the interplay between politics and religion in contemporary cultures. As a backdrop for the course, we will examine the roots of American democracy in political philosophies shaped by the Reformation and the European Enlightenment. This background provides a helpful framework for understanding church-state separation in the American experience as well as efforts by Christian fundamentalists to blur those distinctions and recover their influence in the political and moral arena. We will also examine efforts by secular groups who hope to maintain the separation and keep religion out of politics and vice versa.
In addition to studying the U.S. experience, we will explore radical orthodoxies and politics in Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu societies. Broadening our study allows us to develop an appreciation for similar tensions between politics and religion in cultural settings very different than our own. Expanding our frames of reference gives us a better chance of deepening our understanding of these tensions in our own society.
A major text will be Karen Armstrong's Battle for God, with supplemental readings in political philosophy, history of religion, journalism, and contemporary fiction.
William Hamilton (Ph.D. Tulane University) is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program. Previously he taught at universities in Louisiana and Indiana. At Tulane University he specialized in Latin American history, human rights, and church-state relations.
MLS 610 CRN 13542
January 14 - March 9
ONLINE COURSE (8 week course)
Religions are commonly viewed as ways to transcend nature, not abide in it. Religious people often describe themselves as pilgrims “just a-passin’ through” rather than at home on the earth.
Yet the current environmental crisis motivates many people to re-examine their traditions and to align themselves with the earth. Whether Buddhist or Christian, Jew or Hindu, they construct an eco-theology that includes stories, rituals and ethical teachings that are supportive of restoring and caring for the earth.
We will engage this dialogue about the fate of the earth. We will read several excellent books drawn from a variety of religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and indigenous cultures as well as eco-feminism, deep ecology and sustainable design. This class is discussion oriented with readings and reflection papers. Each week we will talk to each other through a discussion forum, post our papers for peer review, and take advantage of relevant web sites.
Charlie Headington (Ph.D. University of Chicago) teaches a variety of courses at UNCG and in the community. Most of them encourage people to examine themselves and society, and make constructive changes in how they think and live. He likes to garden, walk, cook, be with his family, and learn Italian.
Current Problems in the Middle East: An Historical Perspective
MLS 610 CRN 13543
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
Many Americans are curious about the Middle East. We aren't exactly sure who "they" are or how our relationships became so troubled. This course explores the complex political and religious heritage of Judaism, Islam, the Arab Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire as the context for today's states and peoples. Focus then turns to the process of modernization in the twentieth century to discover why it created as many losers as winners, as many enemies of the West as friends. Finally, building on this background, we will revisit recent crises in the hope that each one of us can arrive at more informed opinions.
Ann Saab, (Ph.D. Harvard) is Professor Emeritus of History at UNCG. She has served as Associate Dean of the UNCG graduate school and head of the History department. Her research interests focus on cross-cultural understanding and misunderstandings.
MLS 610 CRN 13544
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
Moved by both the memory of Jesus and the anticipation of the kingdom of God, Christianity always looks backward as well as forward. In fact, over the centuries the changes and reforms which have created new futures for Christianity have always occurred as a result of attempts to rediscover and return to a church past. The roots of the modern church thus lie not only in the reforms and reformers of 16th century Europe but also just as much in the earlier Church as the reformers apprehended and understood it. This course will embark on a similar journey and try to understand better the beginnings of the church present by investigating the church past, moving backwards in time from the world of the 16th century reformers to the first century world of Peter and Paul.
Dr. Stephen Ruzicka (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is Associate Professor of History. His interests as a classical historian focus on periods of cultural change. He is the recipient of the 2000 Alumni Teaching Excellence Award.
MLS 610 CRN 13545
January 15 - April 29
Tuesdays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
In recent years American society and the world at large have experienced the global turmoil of terrorist attacks and governments’ responses to these attacks. Dissent against new security measures like the Patriot Act and warrantless wire tapping has been controversial. Some see the last few years as a renewal of effective protest against government policies, while others see current dissent as moribund and ineffectual.
This course will examine the causes of dissent in recent American and British culture. Some attention will be paid to the last two hundred years in order to place current protest, or lack of it, in context and contrast with other times. Dissent can be so threatening that it must disguise itself in various ways. One of the major questions for the course will be why dissent is sometimes dangerous, and how writers and other cultural critics find outlets for their views, especially when these views run counter to the dominant culture.
We will explore both literature and film, focusing on two periods in recent American history: the McCarthy period of the late fifties and the new security state posture of recent times.Lee Baker (Ph.D. University of Virginia) recently retired as professor of English from High Point University. His teaching interests include Nineteenth Century British Literature, Contemporary Asian, African, and Caribbean Literature, Media Literacy, and Literature of Dissent.
Cultural Identities: Contemporary Non-Western Literature
MLS 610 CRN 13547
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
Today, living as a responsible, informed citizen requires that we think globally. We sense that our own stresses and pleasures in everyday America are connected to what happens in China, India, or the Middle East. We live on a planet united by technology and trade, but too often our news of other lands comes in sound bites. It often sounds tragic and strange. Yet we know on a deeper level that today’s complex world is a web in which we all are caught, a web in which all people find reason enough to be proud, courageous, loyal, and happy.
This course takes the student across boundaries. We will read novels, short stories, memoirs, essays, poetry, and view films that show the how and why of cultures far different from our own.Deborah Seabrook, M.F.A. (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) was educated at Cornell University and has taught English at UNCG for almost twenty years. She has published in Best American Short Stories, 1985 and The Virginia Quarterly Review. \A chapbook of her short stories, Margins of Error, was published by Unicorn Press in 2005
The Dragon Awakes: Charting the Path of Modern China
MLS 610 CRN 13546
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
Napoleon once famously admonished Europe to “let China sleep, for when she awakes she will shake the world.” In recent years the People’s Republic of China has certainly stirred, and the whole world has taken notice. However, China’s economic stirrings have been accompanied by mounting social and cultural tensions at the heart of Chinese society. In this course we will examine the political, social and cultural roots of modern China and discuss the varied nature of the nation’s future challenges. Topics will include state, society, and mass culture in the throes of reform, the global implications of China’s economic and diplomatic “Grand Strategy,” the widening urban-rural divide, and the role of the individual and individual dissent in modern Chinese society.
James A. Anderson (Ph.D. University of Washington) is an Associate Professor in the History department at UNCG. His fields of study include Late Imperial China, Modern China, Pre-modern Southeast Asia, and High Medieval Europe. He is the recipient of several awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship for the 2006-2007 academic year in Beijing and a Luce Fellowship at the Library of Congress in 2004. His new book is The Rebel Den of Nung Tri Cao: Eleventh-Century Rebellion and Response along the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier.
Emerging Organizational Systems
MLS 620 CRN 13548
January 14 - May 5
Mondays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
This course is an overview of the current thinking about self-organizing systems. The principles of organization and structure are synthesized from systems theory, chaos, and complexity theory. Systems theory has long postulated that we can only understand things from a holistic view point and more accurately by understanding the relationships of the parts that make up the whole. Initial study was on substance, matter, structure and quantity. Self-Organization focuses on the study of form, order, and quality. It challenges some of our more cherished beliefs as it relates to growth, development, competition and sustainability. It is the foundation of the concept of “learning organizations” which we will explore in depth.
Ken McLeod teaches in UNCG’s Bryan School of Business and Economics. He has over 20 years experience as a corporate executive in the field of human resource management.
Dangerous Minds: Terrorism, Political Violence, and Radical Orthodoxies
MLS 620 CRN 13549
January 14 - May 6
ONLINE COURSE
We live in dangerous times. Violence, mischief, and mayhem have long been characteristic criminal behaviors that represent humanity’s dark underbelly. While it may be possible to isolate certain psychological types who are susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations, it would be simplistic to profile individual terrorists and religious extremists without understanding the true nature of the systems that spawn them. Because we cannot separate individuals from the societies to which they belong, it is essential to understand the cultural, political, and economic conditions that encourage terrorism and violence. In response to pervasive frustrations or manifold abuses, violence can transcend the individual to become governmental policies or social movements, propelled and justified by revolutionary ideology or religious beliefs.
The course will ask hard questions not only about the perpetrators of political and religious extremism around the world, but also about the social, economic, and political structures that give rise to violent acts against perceived enemies. The dangers we face in a liberal democracy are not imagined. The lesson of 9/11 is that our enemies are real. While we may easily identify one strand of radical Islamic orthodoxy as a legitimate enemy committed to our destruction, we must also ask what, if any, real differences separate a Christian fundamentalist who terrorizes abortion clinics in Florida from a Muslim suicide bomber intent on our destruction.
More than an analysis of individual personality types, the course examines the premise that all social, political, and economic systems have their darker sides. It seeks to engage those contradictions through films, readings, and dialogue to imagine creative solutions that enhance our lives as well transform the structures that encourage terrorism.William Hamilton (Ph.D. Tulane University) is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program. Previously he taught at universities in Louisiana and Indiana. At Tulane University he specialized in Latin American history, human rights, and church-state relations.
MLS 620 CRN 13550
January 14 - May 5
Mondays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
The setting of this course is a grassroots, intensely focused, and highly respected human rights organization, The Center for Universal Justice and Dignity. Students will join the fictional organization as trainees to become human rights monitors (investigators). The Center’s highly interactive training program will require new monitors to learn by exploring human rights issues around the world. The research requires virtual travel to sites of current conflict to investigate allegations of genocide in Africa, sex trafficking in Southeast Asia, detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, and growing threats to civil liberties in Western societies.
Although there will be no formal textbooks, students will develop critical familiarity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, its historical antecedents in the U.S. Bill of Rights and the French Rights of Man, and explore their cultural and political foundations. Most required readings will be available online, such as the U.N. training manual for human rights monitors, but students will view documentaries and films as well as read additional materials that will inform their final research project.
Students will become proficient in research methodologies that encourage investigative independence and creativity while maintaining academic rigor in order to understand complex issues and recommend achievable solutions in their reports to the Center director.William Hamilton (Ph.D. Tulane University) is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program. Previously he taught at universities in Louisiana and Indiana. At Tulane University he specialized in Latin American history, human rights, and church-state relations.
Science through Nobel Laureates
MLS 630 CRN 13551
January 15 - April 29
Tuesdays, 6:00 - 8:50 pm
Triad Center, 7900 Triad Center Drive
Nobel prizes in Physiology and Medicine and Chemistry are often awarded for research that has transformed both biology and our world. Nobel Prize winning scientists have written their autobiographies, and there are excellent biographical accounts of their lives and their work. The goal of this course will be to explore some fundamental biological topics in disciplines such as genetics, microbiology, molecular biology, immunology, and virology. This exploration will employ the writing by and about Nobel Prize winners.
Rob Cannon (Ph.D. University of Delaware) is a Professor in the Department of Biology where he has been a faculty member since 1972. He regularly teaches general microbiology, virology, immunology, and principles of biology. For fun, he is an avid tennis and racquetball player, and an instrument-rated commercial pilot.
*To participate in any online course, students MUST have access to one of the following system set-ups:
MAC
Mac OS 9 or better
128 MB RAM
G3 processor or better
At least 56Kbps modem connection (although Broadband / fastaccess is preferred)
Internet Explorer 5 or better or Safari
PC
Windows 98 or better
128 MB RAM
Pentium III or better (or at least a processor running 333 Mhz or better)
At least 56Kbps modem connection (although Broadband / fast access is preferred)
Internet Explorer 5.5 or better
Questions? Call Julee Johnson, Liberal Studies Coordinator, (336) 334-4597; or Kathleen Forbes, Director of Liberal Studies, at (336) 334-4599.
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is committed to equality of educational opportunity and does not descriminate against applicants, students, or employees, based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, or disability.