Spring 2014 Anchor Course Descriptions Course Catalog Description ANCHOR I: This course merges a variety of academic platforms and student activities so that collaboration among disciplines becomes a natural, logical solution to academic, professional, and performing arts challenges. Course content is derived from music history as it relates to Kansas City in the 21st century through examining the ethics of creating the canon. Activities are drawn directly from music history to achieve understanding in Human Values and Ethical Reasoning as they relate to our community. Muse ANCHOR I: Introduction to Urban Studies ANCHOR II: Empire ANCHOR II: Race in American Film Note from the Instructors: Looking at the class's title of Muse, you might be a bit confused over what the course covers. In ancient Greece, the muses were the goddesses of inspiration in the arts and sciences, and in this class, we explore the inspiration for music in our own time and city. You'll discover what causes artists to create the music they write including: •
A local hip hop DJ, who breaks down how he creates a groove •
A local string quartet, who demonstrate how they play together •
Our local symphony conductor, who reveals how the symphony works •
An artist involved in business, who shares what it takes to be an artist in today's economy •
Several local concert promoters, discussing how and why they bring music to Kansas City And many more. Music is all around us and forms the fabric of our memory and identity. Join us as we discover the muses for Kansas City's music. Introduction to Urban Studies is a lecture and discussion course that provides the Students will gain a broad understanding of the complex social, political, and undergraduate student with an overview of the interdisciplinary field of urban social economic issues that create cities as diverse, dynamic, and magnetic places science. The student who successfully completes this course will have a broad across the globe. The class will examine urban diversity and inequality as well understanding of the major issues, vocabulary, basic methods, and prominent as suburbs and downtowns. Students will have the opportunity to explore the scholars in urban studies. We will explore current events of relevance, including the development of urban Kansas City. opportunities and problems facing major cities in the United States including Kansas City. This is an interdisciplinary, team-­‐taught course designed to teach students ways to think about the complexities of human cultures, past and present, helping them examine how imperialism continues to shape contemporary understandings of personal, institutional, and cultural identities (both of selves and others). The course analyzes global cultures with a focus on the economic, environmental, political and social consequences of specific imperial regimes and the ongoing impact of these regimes on particular groups that continue to live with the legacies of empire. This course examines representations of race and ethnicity in American film In "Race in American Film," we'll examine how race and ethnicity have been from the silent era onward in mainstream and counter-­‐cultural traditions. It represented from film's beginnings to the present day. We will also read critical and explores how social, political, and economic conditions contribute to theoretical works from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints. Both divisive and constructions of race and ethnicity. unifying, race is both a fictional construct and a lived reality that helps us understand how Americans have reinforced, challenged, and reimagined the direction of the country and the dimensions of our shared lives. Likely films include: The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, Nanook of the North, Imitation of Life, Salt of the Earth, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Zoot Suit, Chan Is Missing, Do the Right Thing, Smoke Signals, and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Spring 2014 Anchor Course Descriptions ANCHOR II: European Cultures, Histories and Ideas (Introduction to German Studies) ANCHOR II: Women in the Ancient World ANCHOR II: The Classical Mediterranean World (Honors) ANCHOR II: Cities of the World This interdisciplinary course will explore the cultures, histories, and ideas of a particular region of Europe. Students will be exposed to a wide range of disciplinary approaches to this topic and learn how to engage critically in an interdisciplinary dialogue within this field. Topics will vary depending on the instructors. This course focuses on the history, representation, literature, social lives, and political roles of women in ancient civilization including Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Biblical World, Greece, and Rome. It integrates methodologies from history, art history and archaeology, literary studies, and women's studies. This course examines the history, literature, and culture of Ancient Greece and Rome in the context of the Mediterranean world, from its origin until the Barbarian invasion. Students will read poetry, philosophy, history, rhetoric, and letters from primary text sources and they will study material evidence such as architecture, graffiti, and physical objects as representative survivals of these cultures. This course will focus on urban issues to help students develop global perspectives. Urbanization has been a global phenomenon, and more than half of the world population lives in urban areas. Students will learn past, present and future urban issues and challenges on the global scale and about how cities of the world have coped and will cope with these issues and challenges. ANCHOR II: This class is an interdisciplinary course that will examine critical issues in women's and gender studies by focusing on the intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality, and social context. Through their study of these intersections, students will become more sensitive to the impact of social structures on gender and the experiences of women and men. ANCHOR II: This course focuses on the complexity of the decision making process in guiding the implementation of technology. Based on economic, environmental, social, and diversity aspects, cultural and technical issues are balanced on both a qualitative and quantitative basis to make good decisions. Critical Issues in Women’s and Gender Studies The Technology Enterprise Introduction to German Studies: German-­‐speaking Central Europe has played a pivotal role in the history and culture of modern Europe. This introduction to German Studies will expose students to major themes in German culture, history, and philosophy. Students will be asked if, and why, there are peculiarly German approaches to life as reflected in a wide variety of cultural products such as literary and philosophical texts, musical and artistic works, and the historical record. This course focuses on women’s lives, primarily in the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. Through lectures, reading assignments, in class writing projects, and discussion we will focus on a wide variety of aspects of women’s lives, and representation in the ancient world. We will use primary and secondary sources to assess issues such as women’s social, legal, and economic status; and their roles in family, household and public milieus. Our investigation will include a study of their depiction in male-­‐authored works of literature, history, philosophy, science, and art and how those depictions differ from those of female-­‐authored works and the archaeological evidence. Given the broad range of topics and the long timeline, we will be analyzing these issues in a comparative context. For the first time in human history, the majority of the global human population now lives in cities. This spatial organization of human civilization has been profoundly associated with demographic, cultural, social, economic, political and environmental changes of the social world. The cities are also the place of ambition, prosperity, and despair. Each of them is unique. However, they share many similar challenges. The course examines what similar and dissimilar ambition, prosperity, and despair cities have faced in different parts of the world. Comparative case studies of contemporary cities in the U.S. and abroad will provide a deeper understanding on diverse urban issues at the global scale. Spring 2014 Anchor Course Descriptions