CONTEXTURES

Contextures: Better Living and the Bomb

Mr. Charles Smith & Dr. Derek Stanovsky

IDS 2202-109 and IDS 2202-110 (co-requisites)
or
IDS 2202-111 and IDS 2202-112 (co-requisites)

LLR 426 and LLR 421
MWF 10:00-1:50

This course will look at the social, political, and ethical implications of modern life and modern technology through an examination of the social history of the atomic bomb. We will study cold war culture and the social anxieties, tensions, and dislocations generated by modern life, technological progress, and the bomb. 

There will be a service-learning component to the course that may include contributing time to the Sustainable Development Community Outreach Program.

Readings
may include: Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents, Marx's, The Communist Manifesto, Berman's All That Is Solid Melts into Air, Menchu's I, Rigoberta Menchu, Frayn's Copenhagen as well as others. 

Films
may include: The Atomic Cafe, Dr. Strangelove, Metropolis, Brazil and others.

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Dr. Harriette Buchanan & Dr. Pete Reichle

IDS 2202-105 and IDS 2202-106 (co-requisites)
or
IDS 2202-107 and IDS 2202-108 (co-requisites)

LLR 365 and 321
MWF 10:00-1:50

Both of these linked Contextures courses will address issues of disease and health from differing perspectives but with some common texts. The Textures component will focus on medical thrillers as literary materials, with attention to how diseases affect history and characters' lives, while the Contexts component will deal with stories as evidence of individual and community searches for healthy development. Both courses will deal with physical and mental health and illness as realities and as metaphors for social and personal well being. 

The service-learning component of this Contextures will deal with community health statistics and with what we as individuals can do to enhance our communities' health education efforts.

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Dr. Betsy Beaulieu & Dr. Bud Gerber

IDS 2202-101 and IDS 2202-102 (co-requisites)
or
IDS 2202-103 and IDS 2202-104 (co-requisites)

LLR 263 and LLR 221
MWF 10:00-1:50

How do silenced voices find expression? And who speaks for those voices that are silenced permanently?  This course will take as its focus the politics of oppression and various creative responses to oppression.

The desire to tell one's story has always been one of the strongest human impulses.  Together we'll study stories narrated by silenced voices.  Some of these voices have been silenced by individuals, others by institutions or regimes.  We will listen to voices silenced in the name of religion, in the name of ethnic cleansing, in the name of economic security and social enhancement; we will listen to voices that have been omitted, and thus silenced, by traditional approaches to history.

In addition to the required reading, each student will participate in a community service project.  In this way we will devote some of the semester to discovering and listening to "silenced voices" in our own community.

Texts may include: Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, A Lesson Before Dying
for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, Night, Speak Rwanda, and selected essays.

Films may include: Amistad, The Color Purple, Calling the Ghosts, Osama, The Laramie Project

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TANGENTS

Art, Peace and Conflict | Cultural Translation | Hollywood Prison | Lords and Rings | Maps and Facts | New Yorker | Playing the Internet | Old-Time String Band Music in Appalachia | Possibilities of Manga | Relationships & Community | The Roots of Chinese Culture | In Search of America's Civil Rights Movement

Tangents:  Art, Peace & Conflict

Dr. Mary Babcock
IDS 2205-116
TR 1:00-2:20
231 Wey Hall
Humanities/Fine Arts

What does it mean to create socially engaged art? What might it mean to claim oneself as a "citizen" or "socially engaged artist?" This class will explore the notions of peace and conflict in light of understanding from the both the field of psychology and the practice of working artists. Possible topics for exploration include: art and community building, marking and preserving place; collaboration, cooperation and competition; emnification, structural and direct violence, peacemaking and peacebuilding, micro and macrocosmic influence.

Learning activities include research and creative explorative from the perspective of both artistic and psychological paradigms: reading, writing, interpersonal experiential exercises, focused observation, hands-on making, interconnecting creative activity and community building.

Required readings:
Christie, Wagner, and Winter. Peace, Conflict and Violence: Peace 
Psychology for the 21st Century.
The Dalai Lama. Ethics for the New Millennium.
Steve Durland and Linda Frye Burnham. The Citizen Artist.
Rollo May. The Courage to Create.

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Tangents:  Cultural Transition: Japan in American Films

Dr. Yoshiko Kato
IDS 2205-104
TR 11:00-12:15
LLR 321
Social Science Credit

Objectives:
In this course, we will focus on both American and Japanese films, to learn cultural transformation between the US and Japan. We will learn Japanese lifestyle and culture and the Japanese process of Westernization watching Kurosawa and Ozu movies mainly. At the same time, we will compare Japanese films and American films which are based on the same stories (i.e. "Seven Samurai" and "The Magnificent Seven," "Ringu" and "The Ring," and so on) to see how American filmmakers translated Japanese traditional lifestyles, values, ethics and customs into the American styles, and what makes American films  "American." Through this process, we will learn what creates each culture, and how culture is transformed into a different way when diffused. 

We will watch about 10 - 15 films. Please make sure you have enough time for films. 

Evaluation:
20% Preparation. Please be prepared for discussion.
(Especially on Japanese history and culture)
20% Journal. Keep journal on movies you watch.
20% Response papers on cultural issues
10% Presentation on your research project
30% Final report

Possible Film List:
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa) / The Magnificent Seven (Starges)
Yojimbo (Kurosawa) / Fistful of Dollars (Leone)
Rashomon (Kurosawa) / The Outrage (Ritt)
Ran (Kurosawa) / King Lear (Elliot) / 
Ringu (Nakata) / The Ring (Verbinski)
Kimba the White Lion (Tezuka) / The Lion King (Disney)
The Matrix / The Animatrix
Gung Ho (Howard)
Chusingura (Kurosawa) 
Kwaidan (Kobayashi)
I Was Born, but... (Ozu)
Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Ozu)
Tokyo Story (Ozu)
Late Spring (Ozu)
Good Morning (Ozu)

Possible Booklist:
Umesao, Tadao, Seventy-seven Keys to the Civilization of Japan
Donald Richie,  Hundred Years of Japanese Film 
Edwin O. Reichauer, The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity

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Tangents:  Hollywood Prison: Voyeurism, Metaphor and Cinematic Incarceration

Dr. Kathleen Adams
IDS 2205-114
MW 5:00-6:15
LLR 321
Humanities Credit CD

Objectives: 
To study U.S. prisons and the impact on U.S. incarceration trends in dramatic and documentary films. Methods of study will include prison films and documentaries, multimedia projects, creative projects, interviews with directors and producers of prison films, correspondence, and contact with prisoners and ex-prisoners and traditional literary and historical research.

There is a rich and controversial history behind making films about prisons, prisoners and the people who work in prison.  Films will be studied as and complimented with literary and scholarly texts that examine the ramifications of commercialized images of suffering, incarceration and the prison industrial complex.  This study will be greater contextualized by the presentation of the above in popular TV shows, the use of prison metaphors, clichés and images in other media as well as the impact on our non-incarcerated culture and life.

Movies will include some of the following:
Monster
Gladiator Days
Hurricane
Not in my backyard!
Scared Straight (the first version)
Cool Hand Luke
One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
Shawshank Redemption
The Stanford Prison Project
Titticut Follies
A&E Crime series: Tales from the Big House
Dead Man Walking
Slam
I want to know what my words do to you (Eve Ensler does Bedford Hills)
Bird Man of Alcatraz
Ghosts of Attica
The Farm inside Angola Prison
Huntsville
Stranger Inside
Cellblock Visions
The Graduation

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Tangents:  Lords & Rings:  From Medieval Epic to Modern Fantasy

Dr. Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand
IDS 2205-108
MW 2:00-3:15
LLR 421
Humanities Credit CD/MC

Objectives: 
"Making the medieval modern" describes the phenomenon of medievalism, characterized by Leslie Workman as "the Middle Ages in the contemplation of contemporary society... or  the process of creating the Middle Ages." The general course objective is to explore modern medievalism, for which students will need to develop a basic understanding medieval culture and literature through selected primary texts. After becoming familiar with medieval narratives and themes, students will then apply their understandings to modern adaptations of medieval texts. The analysis of these modern interpretations, whether in film or game or literature, leads to a critical encounter with our own culture in the creative contrast between "new" and "old(er)" -- and the (mis)understandings from which this constrast often arises. The culminating text of the course will be J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy The Lord of the Rings, which offers an excellent example of modern medievalism.

Specific objectives for the course would include the following:

• Students will developing a working definition of medievalism. 
• Students will become familiar with other appropriate theories of reception and reader-response.
• Students will be become familiar with the characteristics of medieval epic and romance of the period between 1100 and 1400 (roughly from Beowulf to Malory) by reading texts from across medieval Europe (Germany, France, England, Iceland).
• Students will critically examine modern adaptations of medieval themes not only in film but in music and in the visual arts (where medievalism also manifests itself).

We will also want to explore film adaptations such as the following: 
Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)
The Knight's Tale (2001)
First Knight (1995)
Ladyhawke (1985)
Excalibur (1981)

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Tangents:  Maps 'N Facts: Essential Information for the Impending Age of Apocalypse

Dr. Leighton Scott
IDS 2205-101
TR 2:00-3:15
LLR 321
Social Science / History Credit MC/CD

This course will try to compensate for an element of wilful US ignorance about the rest of the world, so we're a little readier the next time. Al Qaeda wasn't and isn't that formidable. We were just weren't all that good enough to stop them on Sept. 11, and they knew it! Teacher is historian-writer-journalist, who was once told by a Muslim mafiosa in Sarajevo: "Leighton, sorry to say, Americans don't know where they are or why they're there." We meet actually only once a week on Monday evening, potentially dangerous for your grades, but the course will run routinely through the week via a chatroom! Careful, now. There may be more assignments during the week than over the weekend.

We'll use interactive software in Geography and History. We'll use online periodicals such as the INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE and THE ECONOMIST (and, of course, some NEW YORKER too). We may even use scientific periodicals and The United States ARMY SURVIVAL MANUAL!  Hey, we'll use it all. You MUST keep up with assignments on a timely basis. No "catching up," hear? But you will be better informed, one could hope. Oh, and we'll be doing "History Backwards" (how DID we get hooked into the Middle East?) and Geography starting with watersheds and terrain -- political boundaries can wait; they change a lot anyhow.

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Tangents:  New Yorker

Dr. Leighton Scott
IDS 2205-102
MW 2:00-3:15
LLR 321
Humanities/Literature Credit CD

New Yorker is: life and literature based on the magazine of that name.  Students get semester-subscription for about $12.50 (total course cost); company sends free videotapes, reprints.  Magazine has been the definer of the best in American culture; extraordinary artistic nonfiction: Susan Faludi, John McPhee, Paul Theroux; prize-winning fiction: Joyce Carol Oates, Thom Jones, Alice Munro, Annie Proulx; cartoons and reviews
(by Terrence Rafferty, John Updike, Calvin Trillin). 

Excellent background information on 2001 terrorism by America's star investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.  And you can bet your bottom that all of it won't be over for a long, long, time. Even longer than that.  You can learn to write like a pro by studying this magazine.  (You can learn everything about Texas truckstops; Miami; Madagascar; N.Y. clubs, anyway.)  Best if you are a serious lit-student; maybe do some writing? 

Method(s) of Evaluation:
Class discussion and essays.  Quizzes if necessary; none, if not--but they're usually necessary.  If quizzing is necessary, you should know that your grade may depend 65% on it and other ways I have of determining you've done the work. Plan to attend virtually all the classes, having read well enough to retain and discuss the material.  Look at a few copies of the magazine if you're not familiar with it.  Don't take the course just because it's cheap.  That could cost you 3 credit hours of tuition, and that ain't cheap!

Goals, Objectives:
Understanding and expressing oneself on literature; art (incl. cartoons); public affairs -- such as the current clash of civilizations now termed "war on terrorism"; and even magazine advertising.  Ability to differentiate fiction and nonfiction and what the authors are trying to do.  Understand what is funny; analyze humor.

Primary Text:
THE NEW YORKER magazine; $12.33 for semester-subscription (as of October) when ordered through the instructor. Each student must own a semester subscription. Secondary: some classic older articles and stories, plus secondary sources  -- articles about the NEW YORKER. 

Attendance: 
Attendance is required, except for two unexcused absences.  Each further costs a half letter grade.  But the ONLY attendance which really counts for grading is participatory attendance (as in life itself; Woody Allen doesn't know anything). 

Schedule:
There isn't one, or rather it conforms to what they send us.

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Tangents:  Old-Time String Band Music In Appalachia

Mr. Mark Freed
IDS 2205-109
TRD 9:30-10:45
LLR 263
Humanities/Fine Arts Credit MC

Objectives:
This course will focus on the history of old-time string band music in the southern Appalachian mountains from the origins of fiddle, banjo, guitar and mandolin in America through modern string band music. The course will be organized into three sections. The first will focus on instrument origin in the United States, early string band development and the implications and impact of the civil war on the spread and dissemination of tunes.  The second section will span early antebellum times through the recording book of the twenties and early thirties and will take a specific look at the impact of radio and early country recording stars. The final section will look at the old-time music festival boom and how bluegrass and the folk revival have impacted old-time string band music and helped shape it into what it is today in modern Appalachia.

Selected readings:
Some Thoughts About Old-Time Music
Introduction to Styles in Old-Time Music
African Banjoes in Appalachia
The Devil's Box
Tennessee Strings

Selected Recordings:
Henry Reed
Hammons Family
Ralph Stanley
Doc Watson
Skillet Lickers
Fuzzy Mountain String Band

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Tangents:  Playing The Internet: The Web as an Instrument of Expression

Jeff Church & Greg Simmons
IDS 2205-111
TR 3:30-4:45
LLR 365
Social Science Credit

This course takes an in-depth look at the culture of the internet in the year 2005, roughly 10 years after the advent of "the Web."  In addition to our concept-based discussion of the internet as an agent of cultural change, we will also stress a skills-based approach to personal expression through the creation/implementation of web-based media.

Key Concepts:

Selected reading list (excerpted):
Watkins, Ryan and Michael Corry.  E-Learning Companion: A Student?Guide to Online Success.  Houghton-Mifflin Co., 2005.
Conrad, Rita-Marie.  Engaging the Online Learner.  Jossey-Bass Publishing Co., 2004.
Levinson, Paul. Realspace : the fate of physical presence in the digital age, on and off planet.  London.  New York : Routledge, 2003.
Elmer, Greg ed.  Critical perspectives on the Internet.  Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
Rheingold, Howard.  Smart mobs : the next social revolution. Cambridge, MA : Perseus Publishing, 2002.
Follman, Jeanne M.  Getting the Web : understanding the nature and meaning of the Internet. Chicago : Duomo Press, 2001.
Rheingold, Howard.  The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.  Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1993.

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Tangents:  Possibilities of Manga (Graphic Novels)

Dr. Yoshiko Kato
IDS 2205-103
MW 3:30-4:45
LLR 421
Social Science Credit MC

Objectives:
In Japan, graphic novels are not only for kids, but also for grown-ups. Why, in Japan, does everybody read graphic novels? Why are graphic novels considered as kids/youth culture in the US? Why cannot graphic novels be "high culture?"

This course has three main objectives. First, we will seek the power and possibilities of graphic novels through several different Japanese graphic novels. We will compare novels, movies, and anime to graphic novels, to find out what makes graphic novels so popular in Japan.

Second, through the reading, we will learn Japanese history and social structure to understand Japanese "mysterious culture."

At last, we will think what makes cultural hierarchy (Why is Shakespeare high culture? Why manga low?) We will seek the possibilities of graphic novels to be high culture!

Evaluation:
20% Preparation. Please be prepared for discussion.
(Especially on Japanese history and culture)
30% Interpretative papers on each manga.
20% Response papers
30% Personal research project on any cultural issues of graphic novels.

Possible Manga List:
Tezuka, Osamu, "Black Jack"
Shirato, Sampei, "The Legend of Kamui"
Inoue, Takehiko, "Vagavond"
Nakazawa, Keiji, "Barefoot Gen"
Otomo, Katsuhiro, "AKIRA"
Silverman, Laura K., "Bringing Home the Sushi"
(This features "Section Chief Shima Kosaku")

Possible Booklist:
Umesao, Tadao, "Seventy-seven Keys to the Civilization of Japan"
Levine, Lawrence W.  "Highbrow/Lowbrow"
Nakane, Chie,  "Japanese Society"
Ibuse, Masuji, "Black Rain"

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Tangents:  Relationships & Community

Dr. Pete Reichle
IDS 2205-106
TR 3:30-4:45
LLR 226
Social Science Credit

Warning: This class discusses sensitive material and the line between personal and professional may seem blurry to the participant at times even though all work is presented in a professional manner.

A study of the variety of human relationships from birth to death.  Emphasis will be placed on practical applications and communication skill building in relationships.  Examples of the various types of relationships to be examined are friend/buddy/roommate; romantic; love/sexual/erotic; sibling; parental; intuitive/spiritual; and supervisor/supervisee work relationships.  These relationships may be brief and specific or long term.  This will be a community building, group process class, and the effects we have on each other as we grow as a group will be part of the class learning.  Emphasis will also be placed on identifying feelings and expressing them appropriately.  Pain, loss, and growth in relationships will be explored.

Requirements:
An autobiography
Marriage and divorce interviews
Class attendance and participation
Two night classes at the Reichle's
Three book critiques

Texts:
Connecting, S. Miller, Wackman, Nannally, P. Miller
Forgiveness, Casarjian
The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck
The New Peoplemaking, Virginia Satir

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Tangents:  The Roots of Chinese Culture

Mr. Yang De You
IDS 2205-105
TR 3:30-4:45
LLR 221
Social Science/History Credit MC/CD

This course will help students obtain a basic understanding of the mentality and values of Chinese and other East Asian nations (Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese) that are playing a fast-growing role in today's world. The unbroken continuity of Chinese culture and mentality of more than 25 centuries expresses itself both in Chinese literature and today's Chinese behavior and way of thinking. The tradition of Chinese identity has been extant and active up to now, not essentially changed and easily observable among the Chinese. The roots of Chinese culture lie, to a great degree, in Confucianism and Taoism, and therefore the works of Confucius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and an anthology of Chinese poetry will be used as texts. Problems such as the relationship between the Chinese tradition and modernization, the cultural difference between China and the West (and the USA in particular), will be discussed briefly. It is hoped that a basic understanding of the nature of Chinese culture on the part of American students, in general raised in Western culture, may broaden their horizons and also promote their awareness of their own national tradition and values.

Texts:
Confucius, The Analects
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Chuang Tzu, Basic Writing
The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry
From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century

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Tangents:  In Search of America's Civil Rights Movement

Dr. Joseph J. Gonzalez
IDS 2205-107
TR 12:30-1:45
LLR 326
Social Science/History Credit

How would you like to meet some people who changed the world?

Between 1955 and 1968, young men and women -- often no older than you are now -- changed the course of American history. In this course, you will read about, and, in some cases meet, the men and women who created America's most successful non-violent movement for social change: The Civil Rights Movement, 1955-1968.

We will begin with an exploration of Jim Crow segregation in the South, followed by a study of the major events of the Movement: Brown vs. The Board of Education, the Freedom Rides, and the March from Selma to Montgomery, for example.  In the course's second half, we will consider the history of African American resistance to racism before the Movement, beginning with slavery in 1619. In between, we will study not only competing narratives of African American resistance, but also differing interpretations of leadership and social change.

During Spring Break, no more than ten students will have the opportunity to meet veterans of the Movement. From March 4-6, we will attend ceremonies commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the March from Selma to Montgomery: We will help organizers, meet Movement veterans, as well as participate in the reenactment of the March.  Following our work in Selma, we will travel to the Mississippi Delta to conduct interviews for the Emmett Till Oral History Project. The trip requires some additional expense, which may be defrayed by fundraising and the University; participants in the trip will also enroll in IDS 2206-104 for one credit hour.

Students will choose their own assignments, selecting from a range of choices, including exams, essays of significant length, and oral presentations.  Following the trip, in the semester's second half, the class will undertake an activism project (or service-learning project) of its own design. 

For questions regarding either the course or trip, please contact Joseph Gonzalez at Gonzalezjj@appstate.edu.

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MATH

Introduction to Mathematics

Dr. Sarah Greenwald
MAT 1010-113
TR 2:00-3:15  Walker 303A
M 4:00-5:50  Walker 209B
Call # 13470
ND, W, C Designators

This section of MAT 1010 is designed for Watauga College students. You'll receive full general education math credit while developing a liberal arts appreciation of mathematics.  While parts of the class are similar to other Mat 1010s,  it differs from other sections via an interdisciplinary and thematically linked format.

Objectives:
Develop mathematical common sense, problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, research techniques, and communication skills.

Format:
We will begin the course with a style of doing mathematics familiar to many students, by working with formulas from a textbook and then applying these formulas to interesting real life financial problems (for example, when buying a new car, should you take the rebate or the low interest rate option?).

In the next segment we'll analyze a number of statistical techniques to develop statistical common sense, using this in the context of real life problems (ex., how should we interpret opinion polls?).

In the third segment we'll examine the way mathematicians do research and the kinds of problems they work on, like Fermat's Last Theorem.  You'll see that many mathematicians struggle with math in ways that you might, and that there are many diverse styles among successful mathematicians.

In the final segment you'll become a mathematician with the geometry of the earth and universe as your field of study.

Required Resources:
Heart of Mathematics:  An Invitation to Effective Thinking (rental text)
How Do You Know?  Using Math to Make Decisions (purchased text)
Scientific calculator that can do powers (y^x or x^y or ^ symbol)
3-Ring Binder to store handouts (from class, lab, or on the Web)
Access to a web-browser and to campus pipeline twice a week

Grading:
Participation (20%)
Weekly lab projects (35%)
Major topic exams, presentations, and/or papers (20%)
Final exam (25%)

THIS SECTION OF MATH 1010 WILL COUNT TOWARD YOUR TOTAL HOURS IN WATAUGA.

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FRAMES

Mr. David Huntley & Dr. Cynthia Wood
IDS 2205-112 & 113
MWF 1:00-2:50
LLA 205

Sometime during their second year, Watauga students select a section of this three hour capstone course. Frames asks students to fit together and build on the elements from their first year of courses in Watauga College, and to produce and present collaboratively an original project reflecting these studies to the students, faculty, and staff of Watauga College. The course begins from the Watauga 100 list developed during the students' first year in Watauga College and frames, explores, integrates, connects, and pursues issues and elements on this list. Faculty help frame these elements through selected readings, guided discussion, and focused research. Students then work at developing and producing an original project, performance, publication, or other event. These projects are then presented to the entire College at the end of the semester and may take the form of a theatrical production, literary magazine, service-learning event, community research project, experiential education, travel opportunity, video, fine art, landscape design, Web project, or some other type of performance, publication, or event. Students will be encouraged to participate in the University's research day, "A Celebration of Independent Exploration and Creative Endeavors."

Frames emphasizes creative, independent, and collaborative learning; explores performative communication; and develops skills in research and creative synthesis. Sections are offered both Fall and Spring semesters and students may earn a variety of general education credits depending on their projects. IDS 2202. Fall/Spring. 3 hours. MWF 2:00-2:50, but also includes 1:00-1:50 for common time. 

Please note that for spring, there is actually one Frames class, team-taught by Cynthia Wood and David Huntley, listed as two sections.

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