Fall 2007

Humanities 395: Advanced Special Topic:
Thinking Interdisciplinary

In Fall 2007, the Center for the Humanities will sponsor a semester-long course that will bring four distinguished scholars to campus as Distinguished Visiting Professors in the Humanities:

Sept 3-21 -- Professor Robert J. Richards: “The Struggle between Science and Religion on the Battle Field of Evolutionary Theory.” Can one be a good scientist and a sincere religious believer? In the contemporary period only about 5% of elite biologists profess belief in a personal God, the lowest incidence of belief among different scientific disciplines. This course will explore the answer to the question and do so by taking an historical, philosophical, and scientific approach. We will begin by reading some sections of Darwin’s Origin of Species, then move to Ernst Haeckel, Darwin’s champion at the turn of the century; Haeckel dismissed all religion as contrary to rational thought. We will then examine the first major conflict in the U.S. over evolution—the Scopes Monkey Trial—and read the play Inherit the Wind (an artistic recreation of historical fact). Finally we will assess contemporary efforts of Creationists and those advocating Intelligent Design to offer theologically acceptable alternatives to Darwinian theory. Included in the reading for this last part of the course will be the transcript of the Dover trial, a kind of second Scopes Trial in which the Dover, Pennsylvania school board was sued to prevent the introduction of Intelligent Design in the classroom. In the course of this historical analysis, we will discuss the character of scientific reason and that of religious belief, testing their compatibility, especially in light of contemporary biology.

Oct 1-Oct 19 -- Professor Lawrence Grossberg: “Cultural Studies and the Challenges of the Contemporary.” This brief seminar will introduce students to the interdisciplinary critical practice of cultural studies. Cultural Studies is an effort to contextually study the contemporary context. Combining theory, politics and empirical analysis, it attempts to tell a better story that embraces the complexity of social life and the ubiquity of culture. My expectation is that the class will focus on some of the following themes: (1) what is cultural studies; (2) the problems of trying to study “now”; (3) popular culture, ideology and emotion; (4) everyday life and institutional power; (5) power and resistance; (6) the limits of identity; (7) globalization and capitalism; (8) the rise of the new right and the apparent ineptitude of progressives—or what is happening in the USA? (9) cultural studies around the globe. I wish I could tell you what the readings will be but I cannot. I can promise that some of it will be fun, lots of it will be difficult, and all of it will be challenging.

Oct. 29-Nov. 16 -- Professor Lennard Davis : "Introduction to Disability Studies."   This mini-course involves an examination of our ideas about the body, normality, the built environment, disabling practices and policies, and the role of human diversity.  The course will begin by seeing how ideas of normalcy are historically and culturally determined.  We will consider selected literary texts to see how disability is portrayed. We will look at art and photography to see how the body is constructed through culture. We'll explore the difference between impairment and disability (the former is the physiological diagnosis and the latter is how bodies are treated in the environment--social, political, and architectural).  By seeing selected videos and films, we will consider how Deafness is portrayed, whether cochlear implants make sense, and what the whole uproar at Gallaudet University was about.  The aim of the course is to reexamine ideas of identity through the lens of the human body and disability in particular.

Nov. 26-Dec. 14 -- Professor M. Jacqui Alexander: “Transnational Feminism and Sexuality Studies.” The purpose of this module is to expose students to some of the major analytic, methodological and political insights that are produced when transnational feminism and sexuality studies are brought into productive tension. Using the ideological practices of different state formations as our empirical point of reference, we will trace how (hetero)sexuality comes to be knitted into the modus operandi of the state; examine the most useful elements of a comparative transnational feminist methodology that can assist us in understanding these formations in relational rather than relativist terms; and more generally engage the new interdisciplinary questions that are generated at the intersection of these two fields.

Prerequisite: Junior or Senior Standing.

Questions should be directed to Dan Reynolds, Director, Center for the Humanities, reynolds@grinnell.edu.