STS Related Courses, Fall 2009

Official course infomation including accurate room and time information can be found on
the UC Berkeley Online Schedule of Classes.

American Studies

• C134. Information Technology and Society. Laguerre.

  Also cross-listed as African American Studies C134, Section 1. This course assesses the role of information technology in the digitization of society by focusing on the deployment of e-government, telecommuting practices in Silicon Valley, the organization of the virtual office, the ramifications of the digital divide,, gender and the Internet, and privacy, security and surveillance. It examines how IT has contributed to the mobility of agents, tools, and social structure. It discusses the role of information technology in the governance and transformation of the American and Canadian metropolises with a specific focus on the social production of the digital neighborhood. It explains the phenomenon of virtual migration, the rise of digital diasporas, and how IT is a conduit through which the globalization process is deployed.

  Day/Time: M 2-5

Anthropology

• 137. Energy, Culture and Social Organization. Nader.

  This course will consider the human dimensions of particular energy production and consumption patterns. It will examine the influence of culture and social organization on energy use, energy policy, and quality of life issues in both the domestic and international setting. Specific treatment will be given to mind-sets, ideas of progress, cultural variation in time perspectives and resource use, equity issues, and the role of power holders in energy related questions.

  Day/Time: TuTh 11-12:30

• 115. Introduction to Medical Anthropology. Scheper-Hughes.

  This is the core upper division introductory course in critical medical anthropology. It explores humans as simultaneously biological, social, and symbolic beings. It is concerned with questions of both theoretical and applied significance, and with research of relevance to biomedicine as well as to anthropology. Therefore, the class is suitable for majors in anthropology and related social sciences , the humanities, and the biological and medical sciences. The course is embedded in the anthropological premise of epistemological "openness" to alternative understandings of the body, illness, disease, healing, and curing. Medical anthropological knowledge assumes a "body" that is biologically given as well as culturally invented and historically situated so that one can speak of "local biologies". The course offers a comparative perspective, exploring human afflictions, disability, and healing in societies ranging from highland New Guinea, the Amazon, South Africa, Native California, to Brazil, Cuba, Japan, China and the United States. Biomedicine is treated here as one among many efficacious systems of medical knowledge, power, and healing. The course opens with the anthropology of the mindful body as a way of challenging and destabilizing everyday, commonsense notions of the body, illness, disease and healing. We will explore: the social production, meanings and uses of illness/disease; medicine as a system of power/knowledge; the regulation and management of dis-eased and distressed bodies and minds; the cultural shaping of emotions, memory and healing; madness, reason and psychiatry; the political economy of health and disease, epidemics, and social suffering; the new bio-technologies and the redefinition of life, death and human value that they bring, with particular focus on transplant surgery. Along the way, we will explore the cultural logic and modernity of beliefs and practices of sorcery and witchcraft as explanations of sickness and other unfortunate events, the power and efficacy of shamanism, spirit possession and of symbols to articulate misfortune and to heal. Finally, the course will deal with poverty, hunger, sickness and premature death with a particular focus on Northeast Brazil during the military dictatorship years (1964-1984) and the decades following the democratic transition. The last unit of the course will look at medicine and human rights via the engaged research, doctoring, and human rights, and the different versions of medical "activism" represented in the lives and work of physician-anthropologists Paul Farmer (Partners on Health), Didier Fassin (MSF, Medecins sans Frontieres) and Arthur Kleinman. Medical anthropology provides a critical reflection on the ways that people ( both as sick individuals and as threatened populations) live, suffer, sicken, and die. It explores the diverse paths towards reaching a goal of -- if not "health for all" (the utopian WHO premise) --less death for the many.

  Day/Time: TuTh 12:30-2

• 84. The Cave Man Mystique: Debating our ancestry in understanding sex, violence and diet. Conkey.

  In 2009, we are celebrating 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin, whose work in the mid-19th century has irrevocably changed how we think of ourselves and of the living world. But not everyone agrees as to how we can apply or use Darwnian concepts. One such set of debates surrounds what has been called "pop" Darwinism to interpret and explain aspects of human sexuality, masculinities and femininities, and human violence. As well, there have developed a number of critical studies of how science works. In this seminar we will use the book by Martha McCaughey (2008), The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates over Sex, Violence and Science as the basis for discussing the legacies of Darwinian thought, the (feminist) critiques of science, and the uses/abuses of Darwinian ideas in the popular accounts for human sexual behaviors. Additionally, since you will be reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, we will discuss the hunting-gathering way of life, the so-called Paleolithic diet, and how, in general, we draw upon both myths and facts about human prehistory to address food practices as well as sex in today's world.

  Day/Time: W 9-10

• 219. Topics in Medical Anthropology. Cohen.

  TBA

  Day/Time: Tu 12-2

Architecture

• 133/233. Architectures of Gloablization: Contested Spaces of Global Culture. Crysler.

  This seminar examines the relationship between architecture and the processes associated with globalization. The social and spatial changes connected to the global economic restructuring of the last four decades are explored in relation to disctinctive national conditions and their connection to historical forces such as colonization and imperialism. Theoretical arguments about international urban political economy, uneven development, deindustrialization, and the growth of tourism and service industries, are grounded in specific urban and architectural contexts. Case studies explore issues such as urban entrepreneurialism and the branding of cities and nationstates; heritage practices and the postcolonial politics of place; border cities, and the urbanism of transnational production; cities, terrorism, and the global architecture of security; critical regionalism, localism, and other responses to debates on place and placelessness. Readings and class discussions examine course themes in a comparative framework and consider their implications for architectural design, education, and professional practice.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• 110AC. Social and Cultural Factors in Design. Cranz.

  Three hours of lecture/forum and one and one-half hours of discussion per week. This course focuses on the significance of the physical environment for citizens and future design professionals. This course is an introduction to the field of human-environment studies, taught from an American Cultures perspective. Its objectives include: 1) being able to use the concepts in person-environment relations, 2) understanding how these concepts vary by subculture, primarily Anglo-, Hispanic-, and Chinese-American, 3) learning to use the methodological skills needed to conduct architectural programming and evaluation research, 4) thinking critically about the values embedded in design and the consequences for people, their behavior, and feelings.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

Business Administration

• MBA 290B. Biotech Industry Perspectives & Business Development. Hoover.

  The focus of this course will be on business development in biotechnology, and in particular on the strategic and other issues inherent in partnering the research, development and commercialization of human healthcare products. Experience has shown that biotechnology companies almost inevitably enter into joint ventures, partnerships and other collaborations in order to develop one or more of their products or technologies. We will explore the strategic rationale for such partnerships, both from the perspective of smaller development stage biotechnology companies, and from the perspective of larger biotech or pharmaceutical companies. We will also explore in depth the complex management, financial and other issues which must be considered both when entering into such a partnership, and in managing such a relationship over the relatively long period associated with the development and commercialization of healthcare products.

  Day/Time: Tu 4-6

Center for New Media

• NWMEDIA 201. Questioning New Media. Goldberg.

  NWMEDIA 201 meets weekly and is held in conjunction with the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium, a monthly lecture series which brings internationally-known speakers to campus to present their work on advanced topics in new media. Students will enhance skills in how to think critically about advanced topics in new media, how to formulate incisive questions about new media, and how to evaluate and create effective presentations on topics in new media.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

Computer Science

• CS39M. Information Technology in Society: Ethical, Policy and Legal Issues of Designing New Technology Technology. TBA.

  TBA

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• 39J. The Art and Science of Photography: Drawing with Light. Barsky.

  This seminar explores the art and science of photography. Photographs are created by the control and manipulation of light. We will discuss quality of light for the rendering of tone, texture, shade, shadow, and reflection. The seminar examines the photographic process from light entering the lens through the creation and manipulation of the final image. Some typical topics are composition and patterns, mathematics of perspective projection, refraction, blur, optics of lenses, exposure control, color science, film structure and response, resolution, digital image processing, the human visual system, spatial and color perception, and chemical versus electronic processing.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

Demography

• 126. Social Consequence of Population Dynamics. Johnson-Hanks.

  From deforestation in the Amazon, to the Israeli-Palentinian conflict, to the social security shortfall, many of today's critical problems are related to population size, structure or composition. Demographers ask: How many people are there? Where are they? What are their attributes? How are these factors changing over time? The answers to these simple questions are both revealing and consequential. The purpose of this course is to provide you with a basic set of tools for understanding populations processes and their effects on society.

  Day/Time: TuTh 2-3:30

Earth and Planetary Science

• 170AC. Crossroads of Earth Resources and Society. Brimhall.

  TBA

  Day/Time: TuTh 12:30-2

East Asian Languages

• C126. Buddhism and the Environment. Williams.

  A thematic course on Buddhist perspectives on nature and Buddhist responses to environmental issues. The first half of the course focuses on Buddhist cosmological and doctrinal perspectives on the place of the human in nature and the relationaship between the salvific goals of Buddhism and nature. The second half of the course examines Buddhist ethics, economics, and activism in relation to environmental issues in contemporary Southest Asia, East Asia, and North America.

  Day/Time: TuTh 3:30-5

English

• 24. Freshman Seminar: Animal Rights and Disability Studies. Schweik and Taylor.

  This seminar will examine the intersections between two concepts and two movements: animal rights and disability rights. Exploring work done in gender and women's studies, critical race studies, disability studies, and thinking on animal rights, we will trace some philosophical and historical connections between two seemingly separate fields. From protesting the views held by controversial philosopher (and major animal rights advocate) Peter Singer to making uncomfortable parallels between human and pet "euthanasia," disability advocates have had a tenuous relationship with the animal rights movement. But is this tension inevitable, or is there more common ground to be had? On what basis, and with what consequences, do notions of disability rights and/or human rights found themselves in a moral and ethical philosophy that justifies excluding other species? Can that exclusion be upheld? This seminar will provide a survey of some key points in both disability studies and work on animal rights. We will explore definitions of and questions and controversies regarding some basic terms: "disability," "animality," "rights," "human." Readings will include excerpts of work by Peter Singer, Harriet McBryde Johnson, Simi Linton, Gary Francione, Carol Adams, Bob and Jenna Torres, and Ruth O'Brien. We will also follow two podcasts and watch some films together. Writing: journal entries due in each class with questions and comments on the day's reading, gathered together and expanded into a portfolio at the end of term. Grading will largely be based on participation in class discussions. Debate welcome and expected! No background in these issues is needed or expected. This seminar is part of the Food for Thought Seminar Series. Food for Thought Dining arrangements will be discussed in class.

  Day/Time: M 5-6

• R1B. Apocalyptic and Dystopian Literature. Goodwin.

  War, environmental disaster, moral decadence, pervasive governmental intrusion into private life—we’ve learned to live with it. But a rich history of dystopian and apocalyptic literature continues to play a crucial role in awakening us to the horrors of these regrettably familiar aspects of life in the twenty-first century. This course will provide a brief tour through this blasted literary landscape.

  Day/Time: MWF 12-1

• 203. Graduate Readings: British Empiricism, the Novel, and the Science of Man. Duncan.

  The course will examine the conjunction of the novel and the main tradition of philosophical empiricism in Great Britain. In A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) David Hume gave the general project of Enlightenment philosophy the title “the Science of MAN”; in The Descent of Man (1871) Charles Darwin restructured that project under a definitively post-enlightenment science of life. This is also the classical epoch of the English novel, framed at one end by Henry Fielding’s claim that the novel is the modern genre best fitted for the representation of “Human Nature” (Tom Jones, 1749) and at the other by Henry James’s claim that the novel is at once “a direct impression of life” and itself “a living thing, all one and continuous, like every other organism” (“The Art of Fiction,” 1884). We will read a selection of novels written after 1800, as the science of man devolves into a host of competing disciplines, ideologies and theories. Exploring the links between questions of history (the history of man, of the world, of life) and form (aesthetics, taxonomy, “fitness”), we will also consider some major works of the empiricist tradition, in two clusters: around Hume (moral philosophy and aesthetics) and around Darwin (political economy and anthropology). search

  Day/Time: TuTh 2-3:30

• R1A. Green Reading. Legere.

  The aims of this course are ecological literacy and clear argumentative prose. On a field trip to the UC Botanical Garden, and as homework, you will begin by observing and naming birds, trees, and flowers. You will keep an environmental journal to practice articulating the qualities of these fauna and flora precisely. As exemplars, we will look at what other writers—Thoreau, Leopold, Steinbeck, Dillard—have written about their own environments, and we will go see the Berkeley Art Museum’s exhibition “Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet.” You will learn about the carbon cycle, trophic structures, disturbance regimes, ecosystem services, bioremediation, and the sublime. In the meantime, in a series of short papers, you will practice synthesizing your own observations into ecological hypotheses, and revising and perfecting these arguments in response to peer review and criticism. Ultimately, you will be encouraged to reflect on your own place in nature: at the end of the semester, you will present a final paper on “The Future of Nature” at an in-class conference.

  Day/Time: TuTh 8-9:30

• R1B. Words for Nature: Representing Environments in American Literature. Arreglo.

  This course is primarily concerned with developing and refining your writing, reading, and thinking skills. We will tackle these goals through the broad topic of American literature as it relates to the evolution of environmental thought. What makes a particular work environmental? Our readings--expository writing, the novel, poetry, and film, from nineteenth-century works to the present--will examine this question in relation to the participation of the humanities in the formation of past and current environmental thought. We’ll look beyond Thoreau, ecocriticism, and mainstream environmentalisms to discuss how race, place, and space inform alternate environmentalisms in the city, in farms, in communities of color, and beyond.

  Day/Time: TuTh 11-12:30

• 190. Dystopian Fiction and the Fate of the Body. Edwards.

  Dystopian fiction often radically redefines the body, both euphorically imagining its future and registering anxieties about the decline of more traditional bodily forms. The body, redefined through forces such as technology, environmental changes, social power, and evolution, is the site through which dystopian fiction enacts many of its central conflicts. Despite the apparent exoticism of its fictional bodies, however, dystopian fiction asks fundamental questions about what a body is, and how it is produced, altered, and controlled by outside forces. Tracing a course from More’s Utopia through the ascendance of the virtual in more recent fiction, the course will ask how dystopian fiction speculates about the future, but also affords a critical distance from which to engage with contemporary political and social contexts.

  Day/Time: MW 1:30-3

Environmental Design

• LDARCH24. The River on Film. Kondolf.

  Rivers have always drawn artists, inspired by the river's form and movement, and its intimate relation with human settlement from ancient times to present. Rivers were frequent subjects of the large-format landscape paintings that toured the American hinterland in the nineteenth century, a precursor to films, and with the emergence of film in the early twentieth century filmmakers were quick to exploit the medium's ability to capture fluvial form and movement, and its relation to human life. One popular narrative has been the river journey as road movie, in which the protagonists undertake a trip down a river and are transformed by their experience. Both filmmaking and large dam construction developed in the twentieth century, and large dams have long been popular subjects of films, by virtue of their scale and symbolic importance (ranging from government propaganda pieces, to adventure epics, to evocations of river life). This course involves viewing films featuring rivers, floods, and dams, and guest lectures by Nick Edwards, a film consultant. Course requirements include viewing films, reading, participating in discussion, and writing a short (two-page) research paper requiring use of the PFA library. Students enrolled in the class are admitted free to selected PFA screenings. Readings are posted on-line (password-protected) on class web.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• LDRCH 111. Plants in Design. Stilgenabauer.

  Through lectures, research/studio assignments and student presentations, this course introduces the use of plants as design elements in the built landscape--from the urban design scale to the site specific scale. By analyzing historic, contemporary, and Bay Area examples, the class examines the spatial, visual, and sensory qualities of vegetation as well as the interplay with ecological functions and engineering applications of plants.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• LDARCH 130. Sustainable Landscapes and Cities. .

  Survey of landscape architecture as it has evolved as an expression of people, time and place, including the garden, parks, and public open spaces. Land use planning and environmental protection. Discussion of design process and planning methods, materials, and techniques of professional practice.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

Environmental Sciences

• ESPM C255. Sociology of Forest and Wildland Resources. Fortmann.

  Individual projects and group discussions concerning social constraints to, and effects of, natural resource planning and management. Application of sociological theories to problems of managing wildland ecosystems. Students will examine topics of individual interest related to the management of wildland uses.

  Day/Time: W 10-12

• 160AC. American Environmental and Cultural History. Merchant.

  History of the American environment and the ways in which different cultural groups have perceived, used, managed, and conserved it from colonial times to the present. Cultures include American Indians and European and African Americans. Natural resources development includes gathering-hunting-fishing; farming, mining, ranching, forestry, and urbanization. Changes in attitudes and behaviors toward nature and past and present conservation and environmental movements are also examined.

  Day/Time: MWF 10-11

Film Studies

• 240. Cinema and the Digital. Whissel.

  This course will focus on the impact that digital technologies and computer-based forms of production and post-production have had on the cinema in general and on Films Studies as a field of humanistic inquiry in particular. We will address questions of rapid technological change, the photographic ontology of film, the aesthetic and economic impact of digital technologies, as well as changing forms of spectatorship and modes of representation. In the process we will focus on the intersection of theories and histories of the cinema and scholarship on new media with an eye towards discerning the most productive junctures between the two for film scholars.

  Day/Time: Th 12-3

• 240. Cinema and the Digital. Whissel.

  This course will focus on the impact that digital technologies and computer-based forms of production and post-production have had on the cinema in general and on Films Studies as a field of humanistic inquiry in particular. We will address questions of rapid technological change, the photographic ontology of film, the aesthetic and economic impact of digital technologies, as well as changing forms of spectatorship and modes of representation. In the process we will focus on the intersection of theories and histories of the cinema and scholarship on new media with an eye towards discerning the most productive junctures between the two for film scholars.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

French

• 114A. Late Medieval Literature: Love, Humor and Satire in an Age of War and Plague. Hult.

  The Black Plague, the Hundred Years’ War, serve as the gruesome backdrop for one of the richest periods of creation in the aristocratic tradition of courtly poetry and romance, extending from the mid-fourteenth to the late fifteenth century. Were the light and frivolous fictions of love and seduction merely an escapist fantasy, a way of thinking of things other than death and disease, or is there a darker side to these fictions? In the course of the semester, we will study lyric and narrative works by some of the best-known court authors of the period: Guillaume de Machaut, Christine de Pizan, Charles d’Orléans, Alain Chartier, and François Villon, as well as some anonymous works reflecting the growing importance of a bourgeois economic and literary sensibility: the satiric Quinze Joyes du mariage and the brilliant Farce de Maître Pierre Pathelin. Class discussion and readings in French.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

Geography

• 24. Food and Agribusiness. Walker.

  In this seminar, we will read and discuss three key books on food and agribusiness: Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and Richard Walker's The Conquest of Bread. If time allows, we'll add Melanie Dupuis's Nature's Perfect Food. This seminar is part of the On the Same Page initiative: http://onthesamepage.berkeley.edu

  Day/Time: M 12:30-2

• 31. Justice, Nature and the Geography of Identity. Kosek.

  The intersection of nature, identity, and politics pepper the pages of newspapers almost every day from stories of toxic waste sites, crime, genetic engineering to indigenous struggles, and terrorist tendencies. In all these and many other cases, ideas of race, class, and gender intersect with ideas of nature and geography in often tenacious and troubling ways. Our approach will be to understand these traditional ideas of environmental justice as well as to examine less traditional sites of environmental justice such as the laboratory, the war zone, the urban mall, and the courtroom.

  Day/Time: TuTh 12:30-2

• 255. The Cultural Politics of Science and Ambiguity. Kosek and Jain.

  Absolute certainty about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was the bedrock upon which public sentiment for support of the war hinged, while ambiguity about the anthropogenic nature of global climate change has been the basis for government and industry inaction for decades. The seemingly ambiguous nature of the science of industrial pollution and contamination exonerate corporate and government polluters from rising rates of cancer, while the science of liberal economic models seems to create no alternatives to massive economic subsidies of the financial sector. In these and many other modern political sites, the production of the lines between certainty, ambiguity, and doubt are at the heart of culpability or exoneration, transformative action, institutional stasis, and political will. This course will explore contemporary conceptual approaches to understanding the politics and production of certainty, ambiguity, and doubt by drawing from a range of political and cultural theories in the fields of Science and Technology Studies, Legal and Medical Anthropology, Feminist and Queer Studies, and Critical Human Geography. The course will be co-taught by Professors Jake Kosek (UCB) and S. Lochlann Jain (Stanford), and classes will alternate between UC Berkeley and Stanford. We want to provide an intellectually rigorous, non-competitive, curiosity-driven atmosphere for rigorous thought, generous engagement, and lively debate.

  Day/Time: Th 4-7

History

• 180. The Life Sciences. Lesch.

  Since 1750 This course will survey the development of the sciences of living nature from the mid-18th to the late-20th century. Topics include scientific and popular natural history, exploration and discovery, Darwin and evolution, cell theory, the organizational transformation of science, physiology and experimentalism, classical and molecular genetics, and the biomedical-industrial complex. Emphasis is on the formation of fundamental concepts and methods, long-term trends toward specialization, institutionalization, professionalization, and industrialization, and the place of the life sciences in modern societies.

  Day/Time: MWF 11-12

• 138. American Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Barker.

  This course covers the history of science and medicine in the United States from the colonial era to the present. We will explore the emergence of scientific and medical authority; the role of biology in transforming American homes, cities, and workplaces; the development of the modern laboratory; how physics, chemistry, and engineering redefined class, gender, and racial boundaries; the influence of artificial organs, prostheses, and diagnostic devices on fashioning national identity; and the relationship between science, technology, religion, and the state.

  Day/Time: MWF 2-3

• UCSF 200A. Introduction to History of Health Sciences I. Porter.

  General survey chronologically arranged from ancient times to 1800, with the primary focus on the Western world. This course presents the broad conceptual developments that in each period influenced the evolution of medical knowledge, the promotion of professional activities, and the experiences of illness and health.

  Day/Time: F 10-12

• UCSF 201A. Disease and the Social Order from the Black Death to SARS. Porter.

  The course explores the comparative impact of disease upon European and North American societies. It will concentrate on the historical junctures at which diseases occurred; unravel the various levels of meaning which surrounded them in terms of their social, moral, and political interpretations; and analyze the patterns of response to them and discuss their historical consequences.

  Day/Time: W 10-12

• 30A. The Origins of Modern Science. Mazzotti.

  Modern science as we know it today is the product of a historical process. In this course we shall explore the emergence of its concepts, practices, goals, and cognitive authority by surveying its roots in their social and cultural setting. We shall trace the development of conceptions of the natural world from antiquity to the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, paying particular attention to the transformation of natural philosophy in Europe between the age of Leonardo da Vinci and that of Isaac Newton.

  Day/Time: MWF 10-11

• 280S. Drugs in World History. Osseo-Asare.

  The field of drug history allows us to learn about societies through their shifting relationships to pharmacological substances. In this seminar, we will focus on the multiple histories of major drugs including: Opium, Cocaine, Oral Contraceptives, Khat, Kola, and Viagra. We will trace stories of each substance across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas using articles, historical texts, novels and films. Seminar participants will gain a comparative perspective on how societies regulate, discover, test, and market legal and illegal drugs over time, and how these multiple approaches overlap and inform one another. We will emphasize new research in history of medicine, anthropology, film studies, and public policy that suggests a theoretical framework for further investigations.

  Day/Time: Th 10-12

• 290. Historical Colloquium: History of Science. Lesch.

  Meets together with the UCB-UCSF Colloquium in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. For details see http://ohst.berkeley.edu/ohst_events.html.

  Day/Time: M 4-6

• 103S. Engineering the Twentieth Century. Mamo.

  The twentieth century was a time of profound change in the relationship of man to the built environment, and in the ideas about what aspects of the world should be under human control and what aspects remained beyond it. In this course we will study engineers and engineering projects during the twentieth century from a variety of approaches. We will consider the changing scope of engineering, and the relationship between engineering projects and local culture and politics. Specific topics will include civil engineering projects and the relationship of the built and the natural environment, engineering education, military technologies, communications and transportation networks, engineering in the developing world, and financial engineering. We will study both primary and secondary sources in the history of technology, including novels and films.

  Day/Time: Tu 2-4

• 103B. The Social History of Water in Europe and the Americas. Sahlins.

  What is the social history of water? Simply put, it is the history of how past societies have supplied themselves with water for drinking, sanitation, and pleasure – and thus the history of how different groups and institutions in the European past have imagined, struggled over, and abused water in daily life. If the social history of water draws on cultural, economic, and political histories, it is also inspired by the newer disciplines of environmental history and political ecology. Our interest, though, is less theory than a history of different and succeeding regimes of water management and imagination from the Ancient world to Modern times. In this course, we will begin by looking at “Ancient” water regimes, and move quickly to a series of historical monographs that trace the history of rivers and the uses of water beginning in the European Middle Ages. We then turn to Europe’s colonial encounter with the Americas, including the history of water in California and the Hispanic Southwest. The last part of the course is focused on the “conquest of water” in the cities and nation-states of nineteenth century, using the city of Paris and the Rhine river as cases studies, and ends with a general discussion of the contemporary threats, challenges, and solutions to the water crises of the 21st century.

  Day/Time: W 4-6

• 103B. Modernity and European Thought:From the Scientific Revolution to the Cold War. Foreman.

  This course will make a very broad survey of European thought related to the concept of modernity, over roughly the last four centuries. Ideas about modernity have been some of the most central--and most contested--concepts in European thought. The concept of modernity has been continuously reinvented over the centuries, developing in relation to other ideas such as progress, civilization, enlightenment, development, post-modernity and globalization. However there has rarely been consensus about the meaning, value, or even the usefulness of the term. Modernity has been understood and evaluated in many different ways, for example as a stage of history, as a goal to be achieved (or imposed), or as a set of conditions to be critiqued, challenged and resisted. Meanwhile various theorists have debated how the relationships between various components of modernity, such as science, rationality, capitalism, agricultural and industrial transformation, secularism, democratic politics, the nation state, mass communications and literacy, and bureaucracy. We will read both primary and secondary sources to try to understand the power of the concept "modernity." More generally, we will examine different intellectual responses to the various historical transformations which are often labelled as modern. We will begin in the Seventeenth Century with the Scientific Revolution and the development of modern "skeptical" philosophy. However our main focus will be on the mid-Eighteenth Century onwards (the period sometimes known as "Late" rather than "Early" Modern.) Specific topics will include the Enlightenment, the public sphere, discourses of punishment, industrial revolution, imperial expansion, critiques of capitalism, the industrialization of time and space, classical sociological theories of modernity, the Cold War, decolonization, and post-modernism. A key concern will be the relationship between the concept of modernity and Europe's relationship to its own past and to the rest of the world. How did imagining European history as a series of stages also come to be a claim about world history? What is the relationship between modernity and imperialism? These questions have been central not only in European thought, but also for European political policies. They are still vitally important questions with huge stakes. Our national focus will be on Britain, France and Germany. This is an intellectual history class and will involve challenging and complex reading, including texts by Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, Frantz Fanon, Jürgen Habermas, Reinhard Koselleck and Michel Foucault.

  Day/Time: Th 2-4

• 101. The History of the Future. Eaton.

  From hopes for utopian transformation to fears of apocalyptic catastrophe, "the Future," in all of its imagined incarnations, has occupied the attentions of politicians, artists, scientists, authors, priests, and pariahs throughout human history, but never with such great intensity – and such disastrous consequences – as in recent European history. This research seminar will allow students to investigate visions of "the future" in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The thematic focus of the course is intentionally broad in order to encompass students' diverse interests and geographic specializations. Possible research topics could focus on concepts and depictions of the future in revolution (and its attempts to realize the world of tomorrow in the present day); fascism and communism (as "politics of the future"); utopian movements in art, literature, and real life; scientific attempts to transform human nature (racialist and evolutionary biology, psychology and the "new man," anthropology and human evolution, travels in space and time); cinematic and literary depictions of future paradise and dystopia; violence and war as a catalyst for the world to come, and many others.

  Day/Time: WF 12-2

History of Art

• 192F.1. Darwin and Visual Culture. Davis.

  In the light of the explosion of new scholarship in the wake of the Darwin bicentenary of 2009, this seminar explores artists' visualization of evolution by natural selection (as well as other Darwinian ideas such as sexual selection and pangenesis) from the era of Darwin himself to the rise of the "neo-Darwinian synthesis" after World War Two, when the emergence of population genetics, the model of mutation in the replication of DNA, the rise of ethology and sociobiology, the consolidation of "evolutionary-developmental biology" ("evo-devo"), and other factors changed the overall look of Darwinism as a later nineteenth-century reader or artist would have encountered it or could have understood it. The seminar will certainly examine how visual artists between 1859 and 1939 represented evolutionary processes and dealt visually and artistically with Darwin's ideas and the many challenges to them. But it will also consider a question that has risen to prominence recently, namely, the question of a specifically Darwinian aesthetics or evolutionary account of the emergence, function, and future of art, whether or not that art specifically represents or addresses Darwinian processes in nature or society. This will require not only that we consider how Darwin and Darwinians represented naturalelection but also how Darwin and Darwinians conceived the evolutionary origin of "the sense of beauty" or the "art sense." The seminar will be based in part on a special exhibition of Darwiniana at the Bancroft Library in Fall 2009 and on the scholarship presented at a major international symposium on Darwin and the Art of Evolution at the Courtauld Institute of Art in Londonin July, 2009, as well as select materials drawn from the Darwinconferences at Cambridge and in Berlin in summer 2009.

  Day/Time: M 4-7

• R1B. Photography as Technology, Medium, and Idea. Dennis.

  This course aims to help students acquire the visual literacy, knowledge, and know-how needed to confront the challenging questions raised by photographs, their history and criticism, and to respond with thoroughly thought-out, polished, and convincing writing. While a general chronology will be respected, this course should not be considered a comprehensive historical survey. Instead, we will focus on key figures and photographs and the function of photography within artistic—and non-artistic—movements and spheres, together with fundamental theoretical texts and historical documents. Areas of interest include early optical devices; the invention of photography; the photograph’s association with death; photography’s relationships with other mediums; travel photography; photojournalism; the significance of photography to the history of modernism and the arguments made for its crucial role in the postmodern turn; the position of the (human) artist in relation to that of the (mechanical) camera; photography’s entry into art museums; and the implications of the rise of digital imagery. As we hone our skills as sophisticated viewers, critical readers, and refined, innovative, and persuasive writers, we will ground our inquiry by consistently returning to questions concerning the ontology of the photograph.

  Day/Time: TuTh 5-6:30

Journalism

• 226. Following the Food Chain. TBA.

  This course aims to develop the intellectual context in which to understand, and connect, the many food stories now finding their way to the front page: GMOs, the obesity epidemic, factory farming, animal rights and welfare, antibiotic resistance, agricultural pollution, agricultural subsidies, third world hunger, and the rise of alternatives to the industrial food system, such as organic agriculture and "slow food."

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• 230. Covering the Biotech Revolution (or Genes for Generalists). TBA.

  Biology is big business. Biotech companies invest billions to search for cures and preventive vaccines against malaria, HIV/AIDS and pandemic influenza. One pioneering company - Genentech Inc. of South San Francisco - rocketed from its birth as a public company in 1980 to become the country's largest seller of cancer treatments and a takeover target of Swiss drug giant Roche, ending in a $95-a-share or $47 billion buyout in March 2009. The trade group, BIO, counts over 1,200 member companies in 30 countries. Reporting the business of biotechnology is a big part of covering the future of healthcare. The class will help graduate students cover the business in a smart and skeptical way. We will discuss, report and write about: the founding of companies from venture capital seed money to initial public offering; making of new medicines from lab bench to bedside; proving benefits in clinical trials and why that's important; how to read a scientific study and ask the right questions; regulation of biologic drugs and the role of the Food and Drug Administration in approving products for patients, pricing of new drugs that can top $100,000 a year and how budget-busting products are helping push the debate for healthcare reform. Being in the Bay Area will give our class opportunities to interview the scientists, drug developers, investors and corporate managers at the heart of the biotechnology business.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• 234. International Reporting: Mexico. TBA.

  Recent news coverage of the U.S.-Mexico border has been dominated by lurid stories of savage drug cartel violence and continuing reports about illegal immigration and border fences, along with the swine flu outbreak. But there is much more to the border region, a complex, bi-national world that is home to 12 million Americans and Mexicans, many of whom have lives that span the international frontier. In this course we will visit Northern Baja California and explore some of the pressing issues that are shaping life ? in places ranging from the shantytowns of Tijuana to the hidden oases of the Colorado River Delta. Specifically we will report on the intersection of environmental and economic issues in the borderlands. Many of these concerns affecting Northern Mexico have causes and consequences that tie them to the United States. Among the possible stories students might pursue: the impact of global warming and international water politics on the ecosystem of the Colorado River Delta; the struggle for survival of the Cocopah Indians of the Upper Gulf of California; the consequences for Mexicali Valley farmers of the lining of the All-American Canal; the business and labor realities of transnational desert agriculture; the politics of energy generation in a growing border economy; the cross-border battle over Tijuana sewage; the public health implications of Tijuana?s rapid urban growth; the problem of tracking disposal of industrial waste from border assembly plants. These suggestions are a sampling of the range of stories we can uncover. Over the course of the semester, students will do intensive background study of the history and current politics, economics and ecology of Northern Baja California and Mexico more generally. They will select a story topic, research the existing coverage of the issue and hone an original angle for a story. Students will develop sources and begin the reporting for their piece. The class will also meet with veteran reporters who have covered Mexico. In December we will travel to Mexico for a week to 10 days to conduct our field reporting. The instructor is primarily a print reporter, but students working in any media are welcome to enroll. Spanish speakers are especially encouraged to consider this class. During the semester we will discuss issues and challenges common to all foreign reporting and learn strategies to ensure a safe and successful trip.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• 234. International Reporting: African Women & Agriculture-The Global Food Crisis. TBA.

  Forthcoming

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

Law

• 226.4. Telecommunications, Broadcast, and Internet Law. Tuthill.

  This course will cover topics which are on the leading edge of today’s technologies: broadcast and cable television, Direct Broadcast Satellite(DBS)service, wireline and wireless (cellular and WiFi) services, and Internet connectivity. Broadcasting topics address radio spectrum policy and legal issues, licenses, prohibitions on indecency in broadcasting (First Amendment issues), violence on TV, public trustee obligations, Digital TV, shared content rules applicable to cable and DBS services, and ownership limitations. Telecommunications subjects will cover the divestiture of AT&T, the 1996 Telecommunications Act(addressing local competition, state jurisdiction and access charges), spectrum auctions, Universal Service, information services (i.e., broadband DSL and cable modem services), and cellular issues. Internet matters will cover indecency, copyright issues, regulatory treatment of Internet access, Net Neutrality, and IP phone technologies, such as VoIP. The conflict between federal and state policies will be frequently addressed in these topics. Some state regulatory matters will also be covered. The technical elements involved in the delivery of these various services will be discussed. Students who have taken a similar course may receive credit for this course.

  Day/Time: MW 11:15-12:30

• 225.8. Topical Issues in Health Law: A Survey of the Field and its Most Relevant Issues. Higgins and Pimstone.

  Healthcare in the U.S. functions at the intersection of important clinical, scientific, social, ethical, legal and economic developments. Seen in purely economic terms, healthcare is the single largest sector of our economy, now comprising over 16% of GDP and growing at a rate policymakers find alarming. The Obama Administration has stated that healthcare reform is one of its essential goals. This course will broadly survey the dynamic healthcare field as viewed from a legal perspective, focusing on the issues of greatest current importance. The instructors are both practicing attorneys with in-depth practical and policy experience.

  Day/Time: M 6:20-8:10

• 221. Women's Health and the Law. Dunn.

  Are women autonomous decision makers or are we in need of protection? This seminar will examine issues in women's health, including abortion access and regulation, forced sterilization and coerced contraception, funding for immigrant women's health care, the impact of environmental toxins on women's health, women's health and the criminal justice system, and disparities in funding and access to services. This seminar will also explore how race, sexuality, economics and other factors influence health care access and the ability to exercise free choice. Threaded throughout the seminar will be questions about the governments responsibility to promote women's health and protect its citizens from harm, and at what point this intervention infringes upon women's autonomy.

  Day/Time: Th 2:20-4:10

• 270.7. Renewable Energy and Other Alternative Fuels: Law, Policy and Promise. Lindh.

  Energy, particularly in the form of electric power, is basic to human welfare in the modern world. But the fuels and sources of energy that have sustained us for the last century or longer are now recognized as having limits and even tragic flaws. Particularly in light of emerging data about the catastrophic effects of climate change, alternative energy will be vital to the public welfare and national security in the future. This course explores the emerging field of renewable and alternative energy supplies. It reviews emerging local, state, and federal laws and policies that promote (and impede) such sources. The Obama Administration has promised an aggressive agenda to promote alternative energy sources, and this course will attempt to keep up with the changing face of the industry. It will also explore possible conflicts between initiatives at the federal level and those at the state and local level.

  Day/Time: Th 3:20-5:10

Philosophy

• Philosophy24. The Ethics of Food: Philosophical Perspectives on “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. Wallace.

  We will discuss “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan, and also look at some philosophical literature that touches on the issues he raises in the book. Questions to be discussed include our responsibilities as consumers of food, the moral standing of animals, and the relation between individual and collective (political) agency. This seminar is part of the On the Same Page initiative: http://onthesamepage.berkeley.edu.

  Day/Time: W 12-1

Psychology

• C115B. Animal Behavior. Jacobs, Caldwell and Lacey.

  The course is an introduction to comparative animal behavior in an evolutionary context, including but not limited to the analysis of behavior, genetics, and development, learning, aggression, reproduction, behavioral ecology, and physiological substrates.

  Day/Time: MWF 9-10

• 210A. Graduate Survey of Biological Psychology. Gallant, Ivry and Wallis.

  This course will cover investigations of the neurological basis of cognition. Material covered will include the study of brain injured patients, neurophysiological research in animals, and the study of normal cognitive processes in humans with non-invasive behavioral and physiological techniques (e.g., fMRI, ERP, MEG, TMS). Topics to be covered include methods, perception, attention, language, motor control, memory, emotion, and executive functions.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• 290B. Neuroimaging Seminar Series. Bishop.

  A continuation of last Semester’s Neuroimaging Seminar Series. The aim is to provide a forum where members of the Berkeley community interested or involved in neuroimaging can come together to discuss issues pertaining to neuroimaging research. Participation is not limited to graduate students and the meeting is open to undergraduates, post-docs, faculty etc. No prior experience with neuroimaging is required. Members of the Brain Imaging Center have offered to attend and there will be opportunities for people to raise questions and issues that others might be able to help them with/ comment upon. The easiest way to get feedback on a study design or analysis is through offering to do a project presentation. If your data is already fully analyzed this is also a great opportunity for sharing your results with the community and practicing giving a research talk. In addition to project presentations, there will be a mixture of talks, journal club items and an analysis clinic run by Matthew Brett on a regular basis. Any offerings will be gratefully received! It is intended that this meeting should encourage cross-talk between labs and sharing of expertise and give participants experience in presenting any findings that they have gathered. The aim is that this should be a meeting that can grow to meet the needs of the local community and input as to what people would like to see/hear within the weekly meetings is welcome. Assessment for graduate student participants will be based upon attendance and participation in the weekly discussion. Following requests last Semester, we will also discuss aspects of different neuroimaging analysis packages and include some training in SPM 5.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• 240A. Development Proseminar Part 1: Biology, Cognition and Language. Bunge, Theunissen and Xu.

  This is the first part of the two-semester Change, Plasticity, and Development Proseminar. It is a required course for CPD graduate students, and may count as a proseminar for CBB graduate students. The course will survey contemporary and seminal articles in biological/perceptual, cognitive, and linguistic development, focusing on both empirical and theoretical approaches to each field.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

• 290B. The Science of Sleep. Walker.

  We spend one-third of our lives sleeping…and we have absolutely no idea why. We will not come up with the answer in this course. However, what we will explore are a fascinating array of neuroscience studies and brain theories for why we sleep. We shall spend most of our time reviewing what is known about sleep and dreaming from the perspectives of physiology, psychology, and neuroscience. We will investigate various approaches to understanding the function of sleep and debate several theories as to its function. We will review arguments for the critical role of sleep (and perhaps dreaming) in memory processing, brain plasticity, emotional regulation and even creativity. It is likely that the more you learn, the worse your sleep will be – this is an unintended benefit of the course.

  Day/Time: TBA TBA

Rhetoric

• Rhetoric230. Incommensurability: Contacts, Translations and Mediations. Wintraub.

  How does (or can) communication take place between rival theories, paradigms, forms of life, or cultures? What possibilities are there for finding common ground, understanding or even tolerance between divergent life-worlds and conceptual schemes? Can the divide between the rational and the irrational, truth and error, the modern and the primitive be spanned? What are the mechanisms of translation? Of mediation? Or, conversely, is there a divide at all? Or are there perhaps many "little divides"? And what happens in the zones of contact? Are relations with others entirely contingent and asymmetrical? If so, how might we understand—make sense of—these histories of misunderstanding, and/or projection and resistance. These are some of the questions we will be asking in this seminar. We will begin with incommensurability, reading works by Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Michel Foucault, David Bloor, Robin Horton and Ian Hacking; we will then look at works on translation, extending our gaze to Ernest Gellner, Edward Said, Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, Simon Schaffer, William Pietz, Donald Mackenzie and Theodore Porter; and finally, we will pursue a series of in-depth case studies that examine “contact” between distinct cultures/lifeworlds as found in the works of Marshall Sahlins, Gananath Obeyesekere, Clifford Geertz, James Clifford, Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Carlo Ginzburg and Richard White.

  Day/Time: Tu 10-1

• Rhetoric 181. Green Rhetoric. Carrico.

  It is curious that all at once we will use the word "natural" to denote the known as against the supernatural, we will use it to describe that which is susceptible to instrumental description as against the unscientific, we will use it to describe the conventional as against the unnatural, we will use it describe wilderness as against artifice, we will use it to describe what is beyond utility in the sublime, and we will use it to mark our imperfect understanding of systems on which we depend nevertheless for our survival. It is from the problematic and promising vantages of the "natural," so construed, that we will grapple with some Green discourses on offer, in history, and of our own: What are the differences between "environmentalisms" as sites of identification, as subcultures, as movements, as political programs, as research programs, as rhetorical perspectives? How has Green education, agitation, organization, consciousness changed over time? How is Green changing now, and in what ways does Greenness abide? In this course we will read a number of canonical and representative "environmentalist" discourses and texts, seeking to understand better what it means to read and write the world Greenly. Tracking through these texts each of us will struggle to weave together and testify to our own sense of the Green as an interpretive register, as a writerly skill-set, as a site of imaginative investment, and as a provocation to action. This is a Keyword course, engaging environmentalist discourses historically, theoretically, practically through an exploration of a number of key terms, among them: "Agroforestry," "Alienation," "Appropriate Technology," "Biodiversity," "Biomimicry," "Biopiracy," "Biosphere," "Climate Change," "Climate Refugees," "Commons," "Consensus Science," "Cradle-to-Cradle," "Deep Ecology," "Democracy," "Design," "Ecology," "Ecofeminism," "Ecosocialism," "Enclosure," "Endangered Species," "Energy Descent," "Environmental Justice," "Externality," "Footprint," "Geoengineering," "Greenwashing," "Industrial Ag," "Leapfrogging," "Limit," "Local," "Militarism," "Monoculture," "Native," "Nature," "Natural Capitalism," "Organic," "Permaculture," "Political Ecology," "Polyculture,""Post-Scarcity," "Precautionary Principle," "Recycling/Downcycling,""Renewable," "Resilience," "Social Ecology," "Sustainability," "Technofix," "Toxicity/Abrasion," "Triple Bottom Line," "Viridian," "Wilderness," and so on.

  Day/Time:

• Rhetoric174. Robots, Computers, Cyborgs: the History and Theory of Artificial Intelligence. Bates.

  Human intelligence has been shaped by technological development in the modern period. Not only has machinery often supplemented (or even supplanted) human thought, our self-understanding as intelligent beings has been continually transformed by the appearance of complex, perhaps even intelligent mechanisms. This class will explore the long history of Artificial Intelligence, in an effort to understand how technology, as a practice and a discourse, has impacted the idea of intelligence and the very concept of the human. We will begin with a study of early modern robotics (in Descartes’s work and during the Enlightenment), and then focus on the first modern “computers” – the Analytic and Difference Engines of Charles Babbage in the 19th century. We will then study the development of cybernetics in the period of the Second World War, before moving onto an analysis of the rise of the digital computer and some new models of human rationality that these new machines influenced. The last part of the course will emphasize critiques of Artificial Intelligence – in both philosophical and cultural contexts – as well as new ideas about intelligence and artifice.

  Day/Time: MWF 11-12

• Rhetoric 167. Advanced Topics in Law and Rhetoric: The Law of Nature. Weston.

  This course in advanced topics in law and rhetoric proceeds as a philosophical seminar inquiring, this term, into the nature of law by way of inquiry into the law of nature. Exploring the history of philosophical concern with physics, with metaphysics, and with law, we shall ask after the relations among these concerns and endeavors, and the resonances, bearings and implications of understandings in one of these realms for those in another. We shall devote substantial thought not only to what law is, such that it is (or may be and has been thought to be) natural, but also, and principally, to what nature is, such that law does (or may and has been thought to) govern it. Exploring the history of philosophical efforts to describe or delineate the law that governs nature, we shall be brought to ask after the source, manner, necessity, and possibility of such governance. We shall thereby be drawn to think anew on the nature of law and governance, as well as on that of nature, and of our relation to and involvement in each. Prior coursework in philosophy is not required; an openness to its challenges is. Course readings will be drawn from, inter alia, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Gadamer, and Heidegger.

  Day/Time: W 2-5

• Rhetoric240G. Life Itself: Organicism and the New Vitalism. Cheah.

  In coining the phrase bio-power, Foucault wrote that since the nineteenth century, forces of resistance have "relied for supportŠon life and man as a living being." Similarly, Deleuze's essential concern was a new conception of life as non-organic power: "Everything I have written is vitalistic, at least I hope it is." The new vitalism's renewed interest in life as an ontological idea and political object is an attempt to break with the epistemic shift in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that gave rise to the revolutionary concepts of organic life as the analogue of freedom, and the organismic metaphor of the social and political body. But why was the living organism linked to freedom in the first place, and why is it so important to break away from organicism today? This course examines the rise of the concept of organic life and its philosophical relationship with the new vitalism. Issues to be explored include: why was it important to distinguish the living being from a machine? In what manner of speaking is life inherently rational and connected to freedom? What are the socio-political implications of viewing the organism as an analogue of freedom? What is the relationship between life and death? We will also assess the ontological claims of the new vitalism and the socio-political aims of vitalistic concepts and analytical categories such as bio-power, the body without organs, and living on (sur-vie).

  Day/Time: Tu 2-5

School of Information

• 296A. Blogging China. Xiao.

  China is the biggest story of the 21st century. The success or failure of its ongoing economic, social and political transition will have a tremendous impact on the world, from stock-exchange markets to food security, from war and peace to climate change. This project-based class is centered around an interactive news website: China Digital Times (CDT). Students will get the opportunity to do hands-on work on CDT, which taps into the vast resources of online news, analysis, and multimedia content about China from a wide spectrum of perspectives and sources. The required tasks include regular news blogging, translating, information organization/representation projects, and developing a Chinese language blog aggregator. The class will also include readings and discussion about political expression, public opinion and state censorship in Chinese cyberspace. This three hour seminar class welcomes students both from social media and China research fields, and is open to students from all departments on campus, including undergraduates. Note: This course is cross-listed with Journalism 298.

  Day/Time: F 9-12

• 290A. Information Technology and Identity: The Future of Storytelling. Hardy.

  Mass communications technologies have been profound influencers of human identity, from the printing press and the rise of vernacular political cultures to television and the power of celebrity. While the Web is still a work in progress, salient characteristics such as the collapse of distance, the discovery of like-minded groups, and information delivered in short bursts are already affecting the way people see themselves and the way they consume information. Following an overview on the relationship of technology with identity and communications, the course will look at the uses of narrative in news, public relations, advertising, entertainment, and online gaming.

  Day/Time: M 3:30-6:30

• 290. Surveillance, Sousveillance, Coveillance, and Dataveillance. Mulligan.

  We live in an information society. The use of technology to support a wide array of social, economic and political interactions is generating an increasing amount of information about who, what and where we are. Through self documentation (sousveillance), state sponsored surveillance, and documentation of interaction with others (coveillance) a vast store of information -- varied in content and form -- about daily life is spread across private and public data systems where it is subject to various forms of processing, used for a range of purposes (some envisioned and intended, others not), and subject to various rules that meet or upend social values including security, privacy and accountability. This course will explore the complex ways in which these varied forms of data generation, collection, processing and use interact with norms, markets and laws to produce security, fear, control, vulnerability. Some of the areas covered include close-circuit television (CCTV) in public places, radio frequency identification tags in everyday objects, digital rights management technologies, the smart grid, and biometrics. Readings will be drawn from law, computer science, social sciences, literature, and art and media studies.

  Day/Time: Tu 2-5

• 296A. Technology and Delegation. Mulligan.

  Information technology has been integrated into an array of complex interactions between individuals and the state. Often these technological changes are put forth as inevitable progress toward modernization and as value-neutral means for acting upon policies established through the political branch of government. However, the adoption or introduction of specific technology can obscure profound policy choices and options. Obscurity can arise due to barriers to transparency created by law, such as intellectual property rights asserted to prevent the analysis of software code used in electronic voting systems, due to a lack of necessary expertise to understand the ramifications of a technological shift within the public and private sector entities focused on the relevant policy issues, or, more fundamentally, due to shifts in technology that remove or shift the assumptions on which earlier policies were developed. As a result, the agency, the public, and the political branch of government may overlook the policy-implications in the choice of a new technology. Through case studies this class will explore existing examples where discretion has been delegated to, or embedded in technology, mechanisms that have or could be used to limit and manage this delegation, and techniques for early identification of inappropriate delegations.

  Day/Time: W 2-4

Sociology

• C126. Social Consequences of Population Dynamics. Wilmouth.

  Introduction to population issues and the field of demography, with emphasis on historical patterns of population growth and change during the industrial era. Topics covred include the demographic transition, resource issues, economic development, the environment, population control, family planning, birth control, family and gender, aging, intergenerational transfers, and international migration.

  Day/Time: TuTh 2-3:30

Southeast Asian

• 39C. The Developing World: Profound Challenges, Needs and Opportunities – An Example Applied to Eye Care in India. Enoch.

  The developing world and its profound problems will remain with us throughout our lifetime. Continued population growth, rapid aging of these populations and provision of care for the aged; questionable adequacy of harvests, greatly increased health needs (for example, the HIV-AIDS epidemic); often inadequate schooling; the caste system, and religion and the family as foci of society; the roles and needs of men and women; and many other problems all contribute to the complex of issues that need to be faced in these environments. While these problems are enormous, individuals (singly or working together) can make a difference. There are opportunities, and these people are both cooperative and willing to share in their development. One must limit oneself to a defined problem set. In this symposium, we will explore this complex of issues, and the teacher will define those things he was/is able to achieve (and problems and difficulties encountered) in the field of eye and vision care during more than a decade of active participation in India. With India's population passing the one billion mark, the importance of addressing the very great needs of India and other developing countries are emphasized. Individuals will be encouraged to participate actively in discussions, and to examine situations in other countries to better understand both existing problems and opportunities. Students will be asked to prepare oral presentations and written materials on related issues of personal interest. This course is also listed as Optometry 39B. This seminar may be used to satisfy the International Studies or Social and Behavioral Sciences requirement in Letters and Science. Dean Emeritus and Professor of the Graduate School Jay M. Enoch maintained a research laboratory in Madurai in Tamil Nadu State for many years. In 1985, he helped start a successful college in Madras (Chennai) in Tamil Nadu, and he is currently involved in developing graduate programs at the latter institution to help train additional teachers/researchers, and is participating in the organization of additional new college programs in India.

  Day/Time: TuTh 2:30-4

Theater, Dance and Performance Studies

• Theater R1A. Introduction to Dramatic Literature - Transnational Feminism(s) and Performance:. Steen and McIvor.

  In this course, we will consider the intersection of three key terms: “transnational,” “feminist,” and “performance.” We will examine key texts, performances, popular culture events/artifacts and films that confront the overlapping themes of these areas of inquiry. Recognizing that these terms have very specific genealogies, how does a contestation of their intersectionalities provide a context for the formation of the (transnational) feminist critic in an era of globalization and mass migration? We will investigate how bodies travel, perform and are understood in national, diasporic, and global media contexts through lenses of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion and (dis)ability. How can we push against easy assumptions of feminism as a “universal” concept, and rather seek to understand the multiple investments of gendered bodies and causes, especially when deployed in transnational space and/or claimed for “feminism” among other political designations? Working outwards from our perspective as residents/citizens of the United States, the texts, performances, and films chosen for this class will be unable to represent the breadth of feminist or woman-centered performance globally. Therefore, this class will examine material that emanated within or had a huge impact within the U.S. We will engage with these areas of discourse through an examination of scholarly writing and style that develops our practice as writers and critics. Work in this class will range from traditional writing assignments based on style, crafting a thesis, formulating a research question, proper citation practice, etc. to creative writing and performance-based exercises. You will be expected to produce weekly writing assignments as well as full-length papers. Topics/texts covered will include: the representation of Islamic/Middle-Eastern women in the U.S. and abroad post 9/11 (Heather Raffo’s Nine Parts of Desire); debates around the voices of women of color in feminist criticism (This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Cherrié Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa); the transnational reception and success of films such as Bend it Like Beckham, Fire and Persepolis; The Vagina Monologues and framing “women’s issues”-centered activism in an international context; as well as gender, race and agency in transnational media cultures (Gwen Stefani, the Harajuku Girls, and their fashion/creative industry). Prerequisite: UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam.

  Day/Time: TuTh 3:30-5

• Theater. Performance Theory: Asian/American Performance Across Media. De Kosnik.

  This course will examine Asian and Asian American performance from a variety of perspectives. Topics will include: traditional Asian theatrical styles, Asian actors and Asian characters (who have not always been portrayed by Asian actors) in Hollywood and European cinema and television, the similarities and differences between Asian and Western performance and narrative methods, "Techno-Orientalism" (the tendency of both Hollywood and Asian films to equate Asianness with hi-tech futurism), and Asian performance in digital genres such as DJ'ing and video gaming.

  Day/Time: TuTh 12:30-2

Women's Studies

• WS 14. Gender, Sexualtiy, and Race in Global Political Issues. Agis.

  The production of gender, sexuality and the racialization in contemporary global political issues. Topics and geographical foci may vary. Examples:the post9-11 situation in the Us and US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; global right-wing movements; state and social movement terrorisms and transational "security" measures.

  Day/Time: TuTh 2-3:30

• 130 AC. Women, Race, Nation and Health. Thompson.

  Examines the role of gender in health care status, in definitions and experiences of health, and in practices of medicine. Feminist perspectives on health care disparities, the medicalization of society, and transnational processes relating to health. Gender will be considered in dynamic interaction with race, ethnicity, sexuality, immigration status, religion, nation, age, and disability, and in both rural and urban centers.

  Day/Time: TuTh 11-12:30

• 111.1. Kinship and the Family. Hayden.

  This upper division undergraduate course treats kinship as a route into understanding crucial aspects of the history of anthropology. It also explores the recent feminist revival in kindship studies through contemporary issues. Our reading will take us from classic literature on kinship, gender, and exchange, to citizenship, race, and nationalism, to such issues as reproductive technologies, gender and sexuality, and the cultural politics of the "family" in the US.

  Day/Time: MWF 12-1

 

If you would like your course to be added to this list, please contact STSC at: stsc@berkeley.edu