D510 Introduction to Graduate Liberal Studies
Wed,  7-9:30 pm            Becky Torstrick
This course if required for all newly admitted MLS students. 

It is intended to provide you with a comprehensive introduction to graduate liberal studies, as well as to prepare you to participate successfully in all facets of the program.  We will examine the various constellations of disciplines that make up the liberal arts and sciences, i.e., the humanities, the sciences, and the social sciences.  What are their core values?  What kinds of questions do they ask?  How do they collect their evidence and marshal their arguments?  How can we create an interdisciplinary perspective from them?

In addition to discussing a lively set of primary sources drawn from across the liberal arts and sciences, we will examine the conventions of academic scholarship, strategies for reading and writing at the graduate level, research methodologies, and the ethics of research.  We will also explore how to use what we learn through the liberal arts and sciences to participate more effectively in the public intellectual, artistic, and cultural life of the broader communities in which we live.

During the course, students will form small groups to explore a contemporary issue or topic of interest from an interdisciplinary perspective.  Examples might include the body, stem cell research, time, marriage, sex, music, gender, wine, war, etc.  Each group will create interdisciplinary bibliographies on its topic.  In addition to identifying sources from the scholarly literature of the humanities, social sciences and sciences, groups will also look for relevant music, art, theatre, poetry, fiction, photography, etc.  These materials will then serve as sources for expository papers as well as topical essays.

D512 Social Science Elective:  Islam, Politics, and Nationalism in the Middle East
Mon,   7-9:30 pm            Nimrod Luz

This course will examine the emergence of states, nationalism and religious fundamentalism in the modern Middle East.  We will focus on several case studies, mainly:  Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Israel / Palestine.  The course will also examine movements such as Palestinian Hamas, and the Iranian revolutionary regime as examples of Islamic revival.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and particularly its religious aspects as manifested in the role of Jerusalem for both entities will serve as a platform to discuss various issues concerned with the centrality of religion and fundamentalism in the region.  The 9/11 traumatic events will end our discussions specifically around the Islam vs. West controversy and the future of political Islam.

D514 Study Abroad
Spring Break, March 7 - 16, 2008                     Scott Sernau
Building Sustainable Communities in Central America

Orientation classes meet on campus followed by ten days in beautiful northwestern Costa Rica.  This small country is home to coral reefs, magnificent beaches, glowing volcanoes, lush tropical forests, open savanna and misty cloud forests, and as many species of plants and animals as the entire United States.  It has done more to preserve its land than almost any country on earth. Yet it is also struggling to preserve this heritage and its unique Latin American culture amidst the pressures of economic development and globalization.  For ten days, students will stay with Costa Rican families off the tourist path in the historic town of Nicoya, learn Spanish (none required beforehand) in small group settings, and delve into Costa Rican culture, society and environment.  Learning will take place in small classes and informal discussions, and as students explore the countryside by vehicle, on foot and by boat (and by horse, kayak, forest canopy cable and snorkel, for the adventuresome) with local environmentalists and educators. Students will also work with the people of the small mountain village of Nosarita on a community development project.

Participants will register for Spring Semester for SOC-S 362: World Societies and Cultures: Costa Rica. To see more of the course setting, visit the site of our partner institution at www.spanishcostarica.com. For more information, contact Prof. Scott Sernau, Director of International Programs, in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, DW 2277, 574-520-4402, ssernau@iusb.edu. 

D600 Public Intellectual Practicum
Thurs, 7 - 9:30 pm                     Ken Smith

Students who are following the MLS program's Public Intellectual track conclude their studies with this course, a practicum in public writing. In most MLS courses students study complex subject matter from a variety of academic perspectives, and in this course we'll work on the kinds of writing that allow you to communicate your interdisciplinary insights with wider audiences. People who share academic knowledge with the general public are sometimes called public intellectuals; we'll start the course by reading a few pieces that explain the social role played by a public intellectual. We'll study excellent examples of writing that carries out this public mission, learning writing strategies appropriate for different kinds of audiences and publications. Each class member will write a series of pieces about a topic of personal interest, trying out the strategies and techniques we've seen in our reading. We'll also discuss ways to increase the chances of having your writing published and reaching a wider audience. The final weeks of the semester will include revision workshops that should help each writer present strong work to the public. By the end of the semester students should understand how they can play a lively public role in their community through writing, how they can make the things they've learned as Masters students useful to their community, and how they can write well in different forms for different audiences. Types of writing will include op-ed essays, radio commentaries, letters to the editor, blogs, and other kinds of writing that our society uses to conduct its public business.

D601 Graduate Project Proposal Seminar
Meeting Times: Thursdays, Jan 10, Feb 7, March 6, April 10               5:30-6:45 pm            Ken Smith
For students who choose to finish their MLS program on the Graduate Project track:

Congratulations!  You have successfully completed all of your course work required for the Master of Liberal Studies degree.  You have only one more step, your MLS project.  This will take a major independent scholarly and/or creative effort on your part.  You may choose to do a traditional thesis, or some other project.  The most important factor in the successful completion of this project, and your successful completion of the MLS Program, is a well-thought out project proposal.

This course is designed to inform you of the requirements for the MLS project, assist you to choose a project topic, create a committee, and complete the initial research necessary for the writing of the proposal, i.e., literature search, annotated bibliography, determination of methodology; write rough and final drafts of the project proposal; and successfully present and defend your project proposal to your committee.

MLS Courses Summer 2008

D511 - Mozart & the Age of the Enlightenment
Meeting Times:  Tuesdays and Thursdays                                          7:00-9:15 pm              David Barton

General course description:  The style of classical music formed in the age of the Enlightenment has become the taken-for-granted basis of our culture’s understanding of “Classical Music”--the “commonsense” identification of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven as primary exemplars of so-called classical music.  Likewise, the theoretical positions of Enlightenment thought underlie the “commonsense” political and social thoughts of most people in the Western democracies of the contemporary world.  In both of these areas, what was then the experimental property of an intellectual and cultural elite has become the normal everyday property of the broad mass of individuals in our society.

This course proposes to investigate the ideologies of the bourgeois Enlightenment, and to investigate how a composer--Mozart--interacted with the Enlightenment ideologies of Josephine Vienna; and, most importantly, to investigate how Enlightenment values, and our own values, are represented in his music, in his last four operas in particular.

Texts:             Anchor, Robert, The Enlightenment Tradition      
                        Gay, Peter Mozart
                        Till, Nicholas, Mozart & the Enlightenment
                        Kramnick, Isaac, The Portable Enlightenment Reader (The Viking Portable Library)