LIT4611 East and West: Writings of Trespass
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis course explores the captivating and dangerous ways in which writers construct foreign worlds of "East" and "West"-i.e. how they trespass, distort, and dream the border between themselves and other civilizations. From the Argentinian Borges' depictions of Arabian labyrinths to the Syrian Adonis' depictions of New York City alleyways, from the French Baudelaire's meditations on Oriental opium-dens to the Persian Hedayat's meditations on the madmen of Paris, from Camus' staging of the apocalypse in Algeria to Darwish's staging of the apocalypse in the migration of Palestinian refugees to European capitals, we will see how such authors represent unknown and outsider cultures. Ultimately, then, the course will interrogate the experience of radical otherness and its use as a complex force of creativity, consciousness, and imagination.

Prerequisites: 3 Intermediate liberal arts courses (CVA, LVA, HSS, CSP, LTA in any combination)

HIS4670 The History and Ethics of Capitalism
(Formerly History of Capitalism)
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis course deals with the history of capitalism from early modern times to the present. It is concerned not just with the story of capitalist enterprise but with the cultural values and social institutions accompanying capitalism. It addresses the tension as well as the affinity between capitalism on the one hand and, on the other, contextual cultural values and social institutions. It especially focuses on the way that capitalist power subverts as well as supports the free market economy and democratic political processes with which it is often identified.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

MDS4615: The Interview

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

To interview means literally to see (view) each other (inter). As media from paintings to pixels have emerged and proliferated over the past decades & centuries, so too have the means by which we see/read/hear one another, giving rise to a whole range of transmedia interview genres: news interviews, celebrity interviews, athlete interviews, political interviews, press conferences, podcasts, talk shows, and storytelling interview methods like documentaries, mockumentaries, reality TV, etc. These stand shoulder-to-shoulder with more time-test interview genres, like surveys, polls, focus groups, job interviews, police interviews, court testimony, and so on. In this class, which merges media studies, genre studies, and professional communication, we will uncover what is essential to each of these interview genres and to them all by experiencing the many roles of the 'interverse:' we will participate as observers--readers, watchers, listeners--but also meanwhile as doers-interviewers, interviewees, microphone positioners, camera operators, stenographers, question designers, video editors, and so on. What we will find is that a conversation always involves more than speaking & listening, and that seeing and being seen often create pathways to new futures.

Prerequisite: Any combination of 2 Intermediate Liberal Arts Courses (HSS, LTA, CSP)

LTA2080 The Literature of Guilt: I'm Sorry for Apologizing so OftenN
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course will examine guilt and how it affects us, both personally and societally. Through both literary and cultural texts, we will study guilt in a number of settings including familial guilt, generational guilt, survival guilt, and societal guilt. Students will be challenged to look at guilt in both its helpful and harmful forms, investigating why we feel the emotion and the effects it can have on us. We will read works by Dante Alighieri, Joseph Conrad, J.M. Coetzee, and Jane Smiley, among others. We will also watch Beloved and We Need To Talk About Kevin as well as the first season of Rectify.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

HUM4605 The Nature, Culture and Future of Work
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis interdisciplinary course examines work from the standpoints of cultural history and organizational behavior. We will explore work as a marker of identity, work as a cultural construct, and work as an ideological and structural apparatus. The course will be organized around weekly film viewings and readings. The films will frame our exploration of work and serve both as cultural artifacts that represent American ideologies and case studies of particular work situations and perspectives. The readings will offer a range of theoretical and historical views from a variety of disciplines: cultural and film history, organizational behavior, economics, management theory, sociology, and others.

Among the questions the course will address are:
- To what extent does what we do professionally define who we are?
- What, if anything, do we expect of our jobs beyond a paycheck?
- What, if anything, do our jobs expect of us beyond our skill and time?
- What is the difference between work as a job, a career and a calling?
- How do American ideologies conflate professional achievement with success?
- In what ways are some organizational structures more conducive than others to contentment at work?
- What does it mean to opt out of or strive not to work?
- What is the past, present and future of work in America?

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

ART4602 The Origins of Modern Art
(Formerly VSA4602 19th Century European Art)
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsExamines the social, economic and political changes in 19th century Europe that led to the creation of Impressionism and early modern art. Explores the meaning of modern art by examining the contexts (social, economic, and artistic) in which pioneering artists lived. The class will look briefly at Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism to understand their contributions to Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Art Nouveau and Expressivism with special focus on major artists, sculptors, and architects such as Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch, Rodin, Claudel, Garnier, and Eiffel who shaped what we now call Modern Art. We will visit local museums with early modern art collections as part of the course in order to see and discuss art "in person".

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

HIS4674 The Personal is Political: Gender in Modern US History
(Advanced Liberal Arts)

Activists in the women's movement made the personal political, bringing previously "private" issues such as sex, reproduction, birth control, and intimate relationships into the realm of public debates. This course focuses on the changing social and political roles of women and men in twentieth- and twenty-first century America. Using primary and secondary sources, films, and other texts, we will study "womanhood" and "manhood," femininity and masculinity, and the intersection of these identities with the categories of class, race, ethnicity, religion, ability, and sexuality. We will discuss people in straight and GLBTQ family arrangements, in the diverse, globalized workplace, in the formation of public policy, and in social movements.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 3 Intermediate Liberal Arts Courses (CVA, LVA, HSS)

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring or Fall

MDS4600 The Rhetoric of Social Media

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

Drawing upon the reading, writing, speaking, and research skills developed in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Foundation and Intermediate Courses, in this intensive seminar students will turn a rhetorical eye towards the ever-evolving world of social media. While our personal uses of various social media platforms will be up for discussion, this course asks students to take a deeper look at the structures of power involved in everything from memes used to brighten someone's day to large campaigns and avenues for cultural and social change.

Through course readings, in-class discussion, and both primary and secondary research, students will critique the rhetorical functions and effectiveness of various issues in social media. We will review key terms from Babson's foundational writing courses (see especially discourse communities, audience, conventions, ethics, circulation), deepen our understanding of how such terms developed, and make connections amongst what we're seeing around us today (think: from Aristotle to Ariana Grande).

In order to achieve a deeper understanding of the rhetoric of social media, this course will be split into four units: (1) Social Media Histories; (2) Social Media Discourse Communities; (3) Social Media and [Fake] News; and (4) and Social Media Futures. Each unit will challenge students both analytically and creatively.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

LTA2082 The Sexual Renaissance: Forms / Concepts / Cultures
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course offers a bifold introduction to the studies of sex and literature in the English Renaissance. Reading a diverse range of literary and cultural texts, we will explore how writers imagined sex and its meanings, as well as how differences of language, genre, and literary form help to shape erotic possibilities, both in that era and our own. Ranging from pastoral poems to prose narratives, allegorical dramas to personal essays, metaphysical conceits to English and Italian pornography, we will encounter not only a variety of representational forms but of erotic arrangements, scenarios, practices, and fantasies. Situating these works in their own historical and cultural contexts, we will examine the "sexual Renaissance" on its own terms; consider how modern conceptual categories may inform-and inhibit-our capacity to understand the sexual past; and, throughout, discuss the relevance of these works to our understanding of sex today. Readings will focus on primary texts. Assignments will include weekly written responses and quizzes, a group presentation, an exam, and a creative final project. Interested students will allowed to compose short essays in lieu of the exams. No prior experience or knowledge is necessary to enroll.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

LTA2090 The Short Story
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsWhat gives a great short story its undeniable power? Some writers strive to make their stories pack a punch, while others create more reflective works, exploring interiors; in either approach, the impacts of a great story are both immediate and lasting.

In this course, you will read a range of forms, from early tales to modern experiments. You will compare the intentions and effects of short stories that create entire worlds and those that are more elliptical and fragmentary, though they hint at more. You will learn the formal elements of the short story, such as characterization and point-of-view, and also trace the development of literary theories, those critical lenses that will increase your understanding and enrich your appreciation. Reading writers from several continents - from the famous, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Alice Munro, to the lesser-known, like Lucia Berlin and Edward P. Jones - you will follow stories of a family murdered senselessly by the side of the road, a bishop languishing in his final illness, and many more; you will even encounter a talking cat who proves to be careless in spilling the family's secrets.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring