G.R.O.U.P. Courses

Courses are designed as joint faculty-student explorations with the potential of evolving over time into new curricula and programs. Courses are normally team-taught by faculty members from different departments; they may also be taught by one faculty member who brings in guest speakers to provide diverse perspectives. All G.R.O.U.P. courses involve teaching that comes directly out of the instructors’ active research, allowing students to engage with open issues, and not simply presenting a finished product.

DOWNLOAD a summary of all Course offerings since the program’s inception.

2007-2008

Please check the Schedule of Classes for details as to the semester offered, class hours, and any course restrictions or prerequisites for the following undergraduate classes offered in 2007-2008.

Buddhism and the Environment
Duncan Williams (East Asian Languages and Cultures).
(Buddhist St. C126, EALC C126; Spring 2008.)

The first half of the course focuses on Buddhist cosmological and doctrinal perspectives on the place of the human in nature and the relationship 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 Southeast Asia, East Asia, and North America. This course will engage students not only to critically think about the role of religion in forming views of the natural world, but also to consider how such cosmologies can be drawn on to formulate alternative visions of the human relationship to the environment.

Desiging Virtual Worlds
Yehuda Kaley (Architecture), Chung On Kim (Architecture Doctoral Candidate, and John Marx (Form-4 Architects, San Francisco).
(Arch 139X/239A and CNM 190/290; Spring 2008.)

The purpose of the course is to examine both the theoretical and technical aspects of creating virtual worlds. The course combines architectural theory, online games technology, and cultural/social issues associated with the concept of ‘place’ into a comprehensive and innovative whole. It aims to provide students with the opportunity to learn to create web-accessible, immersive, interactive, inhabitable worlds that can afford social, cultural, economic, educational, and entertainment activities heretofore located in physical spaces. Students will research and report on a range of topic, including: the nature of ‘place’; concepts in presence and embodiment; authenticity; movement in the world; social and cultural factors of virtual worlds; the construction of value and meaning; character and narrative development; user interface and game play.
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Justice and Accountability In Times of War, Genocide, and Terrorism
David Cohen (Rhetoric/War Crimes Studies Center) and Eric Stover (Public Health/Human Rights Center).
(IAS 150; Spring 2008.)

This upper division course will examine transformations in international norms and our understanding of the violence of modern conflicts and its affects on survivors and communities. We will study the ways in which writers, historians, philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, artists, journalists, jurists, and forensic scientists have contributed to our understanding of wartime atrocities and their affects on society. We will examine modern conflicts ranging from WW II in Asia and Europe to Vietnam, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and Iraq. We will discuss the ways in which different academic disciplines and professions have tried (1) to explain and analyze the causes and nature of war crimes; (2) to document and focus the world’s attention upon them; and (3) to locate responsibility for their perpetration.

Synthetic Biology
Paul Rabinow (Anthropology) and Jay Keasling (Biochemical Engineering/Center for Synthetic Biology).
(Anthro 112; Fall 2007.)

The course will examine synthetic biology within a frame of human practices, with reciprocal emphasis on ways that economic, political and cultural forces may condition its development. It will also look at ways that synthetic biology may inform human security, health, and welfare through the new objects that it brings into the world. Students will be organized in research teams to investigate specific issues, including post-genomics, the future of global public health issues; the risks of bio-security that arise out of the advances in the ability to manipulate DNA at a large scale; intellectual property and “open source biology;” and ethical practice.