***PLEASE NOTE:  HON-H 212, #9455, IS BEING REPLACED WITH HHC-H 212, #35759.  HON-H 212 WILL BE CANCELED.  THIS CHANGE IS IN COURSE NUMBER AND TITLE ONLY; HHC-H 212 WILL CARRY THE SAME DISTRIBUTION CREDIT AS HON-H 212, INCLUDING GEN ED S&H AND CASE IW AND S&H***

.All of us face difficult challenges to our usual ways of living and our usual ways of thinking. The hysteria surrounding the upcoming Presidential Election and wars in Gaza and The Ukraine have heightened immediacy of our challenges. The primary aim of this seminar is to use the ideas of liberty and equality to gain a perspective on these challenges as they play out concretely in our lives as individuals, as members of society, as citizens of the United States, and as citizens of the world. We will explore questions such as these: Is it within our liberties as we define them to “flip off” the President and still keep our job? Who should decide basic life questions concerning marriage and abortion? Especially for young people today (that is, for you), is the value of “safety” more important than “free speech”? How might we make these terms concrete? These and related issues have been playing out in American universities, including Indiana University. We will look at some specifics.

There will be a variety of course materials—classic texts, court cases, news articles. Poems. Together they should be broad enough to allow us to engage with complex arguments. They also will be short enough to allow us time to frame and defend our own positions. Core written assignments will center on a series of short essays based on class readings, class discussions, and your own life experiences. There will be an examination toward the end of the semester.

I would be pleased to discuss specifics. My office is in Woodburn Hall, room 415. Email furniss@indiana.edu.

This course will scrutinize the theme of forbidden passion—its conflicts, transgressions, implications, and consequences – across a variety of temporal and cultural contexts, as well as across a variety of literary genres.  We will consider the codes and conventions, the rules and traditions, that construe passion as forbidden within particular circumstances, including self-imposed interdiction.  Attentive to the struggle of internal as well as external social and cultural pressures, we will ask what such love stories tell us about the human heart in the face of individual or collective attempts to control it; about the individual’s fraught relationship to cultural dictates; about powerful constraints of normativity and conformism imposed upon emotions. In studying the films our texts have inspired, we will explore the ways these adaptations approach their textual sources – as well as what questions our works pose of their cultures, and of each other as they negotiate the “eternal return” (Cocteau’s title for his adaptation of the “Tristan” legend) of forbidden passion. Our texts (and film excerpts) will include:

A fairy tale : Mme LePrince de Beaumont’s 1757 tale, « Beauty and the Beast », with scenes from Jean Cocteau’s 1946 film

A legend : « Tristan and Iseult, » as retold by Joseph Bédier in The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, and using scenes from Jean Cocteau’s 1943 modernized adaptation, The Eternal Return

 A novella : Vercors’s The Silence of the Sea, set during the German occupation of France during World War II and compared to scenes from Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1949 adaptation

A play:  Edmond de Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, set in 17th-century France during the time of the Musketeers, and drawing on scenes ranging from an early silent film to Steve Martin’s 1987 spoof, to Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s 1990 swashbuckling interpretation

A novel: David Foenkinos’s 2009 Delicacy, a contemporary interpretation of love between colleagues, with scenes drawn from the 2011 film by the author and his brother

This class meets during the First Eight Weeks.

This interactive course will help you develop important communication skills, build self-confidence, foster creativity and spontaneity, and enhance your teamwork skills in a fun and supportive environment. This is not a performance class. Instead, we will apply the principles of improvisation to our daily lives and personal goals.

Borrowing exercises from the improvisational comedy world (think: Whose Line is it, Anyway?), we will work in groups to see how we can apply these acting tools to the classroom, various professions, humanitarian efforts, and our personal lives.  we will learn through class discussion, from guest speakers, and by doing theatrical exercises and games.  No one will be singled out, and everyone will be able to take off their “mask” and be your authentic self.  Whether you have a lot of experience in this area or have never stepped foot on a stage, you will be a perfect fit for this course, if you are willing to step out of your comfort zone and trust yourself, your instructor, and your peers.

What is law? For something that permeates and influences so much of our lives, it can be hard to grasp upon reflection. Is the law whatever a sovereign commands? Or is there a higher moral law or some external standard that limits what a ruler can legislate?  And what about the role of judges? Do they merely apply the law as it is legislated or is how they decide cases more interpretative and harder to distinguish from legislation? When judges interpret the law, how ought they go about doing this? Are they constrained by the written word and the intent of legislators, or can they draw on other sources in their interpretation? Is the law thoroughly political?  Is the notion of justice by rule of law an ideological façade, the function of which is to mask law’s oppressive nature? As citizens, what constraints do we encounter when it comes to following the law? Do we have a standing duty to obey the law or are there some cases in which disobedience is justifiable? In this 3-unit honors course, we will explore these and other questions about the nature of law, its application, and its reach.

THIS COURSE IS OPEN *ONLY* TO INCOMING STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN THE INTENSIVE FRESHMAN SEMINAR (IFS) PROGRAM IN JULY-AUGUST 2024.

THIS COURSE IS OPEN *ONLY* TO INCOMING STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN THE INTENSIVE FRESHMAN SEMINAR (IFS) PROGRAM IN JULY-AUGUST 2024.

Consulting the spirit world with the help of a Ouija board, the poet James Merrill received an unsettling message: “Give up everything except the ghost!” If all art is haunted, as Merrill seems to suggest, and artists are spiritual conjurers, the barrier separating the dead and the living grows thinnest when we approach it through the medium of the ghost story. Beginning with spirit photography and the vengeful phantoms of Nō theater and Japanese cinema (Ugetsu), this course will pursue a succession of notable ghosts who have haunted the house of fiction from biblical times to the recent past. Our sessions will be focused on such figures as the ghost of Samuel (in the Bible’s most enigmatic tale), the neurotic governess in “The Turn of the Screw” (both the original story by Henry James and its musical recasting by Benjamin Britten), ritual masks from Africa (of which the I.U. Art Museum has a notable collection), the troubled souls, alive and dead, in Merrill’s The Book of Ephraim and W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz (the first a mock-epic exploration of the spirit world, the second a study of haunted memory in the wake of the Holocaust), and, of course, the ghost of Hamlet in Shakespeare’s most famous play (which we’ll link to some lesser known precursors and successors).

Above class meets with CMLT-C 255.

Above class meets with JSTU-J 203

Course Description

Among the most compelling literatures of our day is that which records and seeks to interpret the Nazi war of genocide against the Jews. This course will introduce students to this literature and encourage them to reflect upon many of the profound questions it raises. Some of these questions will focus on literature’s role in the shaping of historical memory. How the past is represented and comes to acquire a future in collective memory will be a preoccupying concern. Other questions will focus on issues of the most serious cultural, intellectual, moral, ethical, and religious kind. For instance, if it is true, as Elie Wiesel claims, that at Auschwitz not only man died but also the idea of man, how do we now conceive of the human? What does a person become when nothing is any longer forbidden him? Why did law, art, intellect, and religion not defend against political barbarism? Is idealism of any kind still possible after Auschwitz? Is forgiveness possible? These and related questions will preoccupy us over the course of the semester.

The list of required readings includes the following:

• Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
• Jan Gross, Neighbors
• Rolf Hochhuth, The Deputy
• Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz
• Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved
• Bernard Schlink, The Reader
• Elie Wiesel, Night
• Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower

In addition to the above, we will read and discuss some selected essays and poetry, and two or three films will be shown.

Written work for the course will include two medium-length papers (approximately 10-12 pages each).  These writing assignments are mandatory for all students. In addition, some other grading opportunities will be available for those who would like them. The final examination will be optional.

Strong writing skills will be a decided asset for students taking this course, so strive to do your very best to make sure your written work measures up to university standards. I will be assisted in this course by Kate Johnson, who will be available throughout the semester to meet with you regarding any questions or concerns you may have about the writing assignments.

Given the nature of the subject matter, this will be a demanding course. Students will be expected to do the assigned readings on time, attend all class meetings, and participate actively in class discussion. If you must miss a class session, please be sure to let me know in advance. Any more than 3 unexcused absences may lower your grade for the course.

Students are encouraged to speak with me during office hours, TR 4:30 – 5:15 p.m. via Zoom or telephone to discuss any aspect of their work in the course. Please let me know in advance if you would like to talk. If these times are not convenient, please call me (812-339-8101) or contact me through e-mail (Rosenfel@indiana.edu) for a special appointment. Kate will also be available to speak with you. Her e-mail address is Kgj1@iu.edu.

What is the scope and function of politics in our society? Do you talk about politics over the dinner table? With your friends? What do you like about some political leaders and detest about others? How can we tell? Which political messages work and which fail? How come? These are some of the questions we will be addressing over the course of this semester. In an increasingly polarized political climate, it is more and more important that we learn to think critically about the political processes that form the foundations of our democratic system.

This course examines the basic nature of politics, communication, and the public sphere. As a unit of analysis, we will primarily focus on U.S. Presidential discourse, past and present. This semester is a special one, given that we will be observing the 2024 general election. This will require that we read, watch, and discuss quite a bit about this and other political races. Broadly stated, our goals will be analyzing, understanding, and evaluating political messages and considering their role in the formation of a public.

We often assume that the most effective communication is clear, direct, and unambiguous. This is particularly true for the communication that happens in public, and therefore helps us to govern ourselves in a democracy. We tend to believe that public discourse should function as a transparent window that reveals the truth. For example, politicians almost always make some version of a promise to communicate in a way that is open and sincere, and they almost always accuse their opponents of hiding something.

But what if it is more complicated than that? What if it is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to communicate in the way that we believe that we should? What if the clarity and transparency to which we aspire actually are illusions? And what if we’re actually better off because we cannot achieve this ideal form of communication?

In this course we will explore these questions, and others. We will read about duality, duplicity, honesty, deception, role-playing, and authenticity, in works ranging from those produced by the ancient Greeks to those written by contemporary theorists.

Student will write several papers of varying lengths, in which they both analyze the readings themselves and use the readings to analyze contemporary US public culture.