JNST 000A-01
Theorizing the Dancing Body
Dr. Julie Townsend
Days: T, TH Time: 11:00am – 12:20pm
Unit Value: 4

In the last 10 – 15 years, “dance studies” has established a significant position in academia. Theorists from a variety of disciplines, including art history, theatre, anthropology, sociology, folklore, literature, and – of course – dance, have produced some dynamic critical discussions on the subject of the dancer. In this seminar, we will look at a variety of approaches to theorizing dance in connection with a bit of dance history and some writing by dancers. In addition to our reading I will ask students to think about creative ways to link dancing and language.

 

JNST-000B-01
Dostoevsky Returns
Mr. James Boobar Dr. Bill McDonald
Days: M, W, F Time: 1:00pm- 2:20pm
Unit Value: 4

(The seminar so exciting, so overwhelming, that Bill McDonald retired just to prepare emotionally for it.)
Mining their decades-old fascination with the writings of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Bill and James taught an upper division English Department seminar on this great Russian writer three years ago. In Spring 2006, Dostoevsky returns—Johnston style! Besides an intensive exploration into both major and minor writings, as well as early and contemporary critical writings, Dostoevsky Returns offers a literary journey into the life of Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) and the intellectual, cultural and historical context of 19th century Russia. We’ll pay specific attention to the urbanscape of Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg. For 4 years James has led a seminar in St. Petersburg on Dostoevsky’s life and work, through the streets, the buildings, the staircases—all memorialized in Dostoevsky’s work novels and haunted to this day by the power of Dostoevsky’s literary imagination. We’ll immerse ourselves in new translations of Dostoevsky’s well known fictions—Crime and Punishment, Notes from the Underground, Brothers Karamazov—as well as the less often considered novel Demons. Additionally, we’ll enhance our understanding of Dostoevsky as an writer and thinker by taking up several shorter works—“Dream of a Ridiculous Man,” “White Nights,” and “Poor Folk.” We’ll supplement our experience of these texts by examining a variety of theoretical and biographically shaped viewpoints. Participants will be expected to read (a lot), enthusiastically enter the opportunities for dialogue during each class meeting, and embrace the inexhaustible theoretical possibilities through 20-25 pages of critical writing. Dostoevsky Returns is negotiable . . . of course

 

JNST 000C-01
Experimental Narratives: Fiction and Film
Mr. Gregory Bills
Day: T Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Unit Value: 4

THRILL!!! QUAKE!!! CONTEMPLATE!!! AGITATE!!!
ENTER A Haunted House that is also The VERY Book You Are Reading!!!
SEE The Granddaddy of the Music Video featuring a Gay Motorcycle Gang!!!
WATCH A Renowned Artist Hurl Molten Vaseline at the Guggenheim Museum!!!
GO BACK IN TIME where the Avant - Garde is Still Avant!!!
EXPLORE A World of Weird Punctuation! A Landscape of Rotting Film Stock! A Planet Ruled By Eight – Year – Old Girls! All This & More!!!
In narrative art (on the page and on the screen), everybody always wants to try something new. Consider the term “novel” for instance; the idea of a fresh approach is built into the name and genre. Some individuals shove at the boundaries more than others, and some experiments are more successful than others, but the impulse to plow into fresh territory is strong in almost every artist. This course will examine that impulse, and the many ways that narrative artists have pushed for language, at imagery, at subject matter to take their work into new places. For context, we’ll consider some examples of the Old “New”- the Moderns, the Surrealists, the Beats, the Postmoderns- and then catch up with some more contemporary work. Lots of reading, lots of viewing, and lots of opportunity to test out our own experiments.

 

JNST 000D-01
Yoga
Ms. Patricia Geary
Days: T, TH Time: 11:00am – 12:20pm
Unit Value: 4

Yoga practice class will meet twice a week, and we will stretch, breathe and meditate. The class is limited to twelve, and the space is limited, so please commit to regular attendance. It’s not necessary to have practiced yoga before, but it is necessary to take your practice seriously.

JNST 000E-01
Documentary Controversies
Dr. Kelly Hankin
Days: T, TH Time: 1:00pm – 2:20pm
Unit Value:4

As a form that purports to “speak the truth” the documentary film is often the subject of debate and controversy. The goal of this class will be to investigate these debates and controversies. Classes will be organized around the central questions and concerns that inform the public and academic discourses on documentary film, including:
Documentary as “Truth”: Why do we believe documentary footage? How do we know a documentary is a documentary? What makes it “Real”?
Documentary Ethics: What are the ethical questions involved in filming “real” images and people? What is “informed consent” and what does this mean for documentary practitioners, subjects and audiences?
Mixed Modes of Documentary: What makes a documentary different from fiction? Are experimental documentaries fiction or documentary?
Documentary as Evidence: How does documentary footage work as “evidence” to legitimize, punish, and manipulate the public?
In addition to these topics, the class will also discuss some of the key controversies surrounding particular documentary filmmakers (e.g. Leni Riefenstahl and Michael Moore) and documentary films. Along the way, students will also learn how to tink and write about the aesthetics of film, learn the meaning of important film terminology, and learn how to engage with contemporary film criticism.

 

JNST 000F-01
Integrated Semester in Oaxaca

 

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Dr. Patricia Wasielewski
Days: TBA Times: TBA

This is a semester long program offered through the University of Redlands Study Abroad office and the Johnston Center for Integrated Study. We will spend the entire Spring 2006 semester in Oaxaca, Mexico with a three - week travel portion to Guatemala. As a Johnston Integrated semester, students will earn 16 units of credit. These units will be achieved through the following courses and experiences; all students have the opportunity to customize part of their contract. All students will be expected to:

o Take 20 hours of Spanish Language instruction of Zapotec for Spanish speakers
o Take the course offered by Patricia Wasielewski, Redlands faculty sponsor, on “Globalization and Tourism”
o Participate in weekly experiences, short trips and lectures concerning the history and culture of the areas where we will be living and visiting
o Write a travel journal, part of which will be shared with the group
Individual Students will be expected to:
o Participate in some form of community involvement or service. Some placements will be available but individuals can also seek out experiences tailored to their interests
o Each student will develop their own individual project based on their interest and or their community participation
The Application Process
Students interested in participating in the program should make their interest known to professor Wasielewski. An interview will be necessary to determine if you will be a member of the group. There are 11 spaces available. It is helpful if you have already applied to study abroad status, but we will work with those who have not. The Oaxaca program will count as the one semester abroad allowed for each student attending the University. You must petition if you are interested in studying abroad for more than one semester.

 

JNST-000G-01
Irish Poetry
Sponsor: Ralph Angel Facilitator: Carolyn Kimpel
Days: TH Time: 6:00pm-9:00pm
Unit Value: 4

 

JNST-000H-01
Odd Characters in Literature
Dr. Julie Townsend
Days: M, W Time: 1:00pm-2:20pm
Unit Value: 4

This survey of novels and drama focuses on the question of the ‘outsider’ or ‘odd’ character. In some works, the outsider serves as a cautionary tale and in others s/he elaborates a critical perspective on normative social roles. While it is common to look at the male ‘outsider/degenerate’ or the female ‘prostitute/hysteric’, this course will discover whether these highly gendered figures might be bridged by the idea of the ‘strange’ one. I’ve got quite a bit of material from which to choose; how we narrow it down is up for discussion. Let’s also invent creative evaluative work – perhaps some performance or readings of the drama as well as some comparative “case studies” of characters.

 

JNST-000I-01
Jazz and Blues Literature
Dr. Kathy Ogren
Days: T, TH Time: 9:30am – 10:50am
Unit Value: 4

Looks at basic history of jazz and blues in America, but we focus on novelists like Claude McKay (Home to Harlem), Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man); Toni Morrison (Jazz); Ishmael Reed (Mumbo Jumbo) and Sherman Alexis (Reservation Blues); poets like Langston Hughes and others in Moment’s Notice: Jazz in Poetry and Prose; music journalists, critics and theorists like Gerald Early and George Lipsitz; and autobiography, as in Sidney Bechet Treat Gentle or Miles: The Autobiography. I think we can look at how music and written language riff from each other, how artists present their musical selves, what jazz and blues tell us about the historical cultural dynamics of American culture.

 

JNST-000J-01
Einstein to Heisenberg
Dr. Michael Bloxham
Day: W Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Unit: 4

A careful introduction for non – scientists to (1) mathematical and philosophical ideas of object and space and time (2) quantum theory and its interpretation (3) relatively. Seminars and, in addition independent projects requiring considerable reading and class participation.
Area: history of ideas, physics and philosophy
Prerequisites: absolutely none, in particular no previous science. I find that helps if the student in this course already has some bees in her bonnet (British obsession); although fresh folk have taken it, I still think it best for junior and senior year. Artists often handle it well, perhaps because they worry more about space. I do not regard it as the kind of course that would satisfy the non-Johnston science core requirement – it doesn’t.

 

JNST 000K-01
Science Fiction: Suspending Disbelief
Sponsor: Ms. Patricia Geary Facilitator: Meghan Singh
Days: T, TH Time: 1:00pm – 2:20pm
Unit Value:4

This course integrates the features of both a literature class and a writing workshop. The literature portion will focus on several Science Fiction novels and the factors that make the novels seem realistic. Proposed reading material includes Frank Herbert’s Dune, Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Cat’s Cradle, and Isaac Asmimov’s Cosmic Critiques. The writing workshop portion of the class will require students to submit their own samples of writing, hopefully demonstrating some of the same craft brought up in the class. Overall, students are encouraged to explore the ties between fiction and reality and the intricacies therein.

 

JNST 000L-01
Integrated Semester
Mr. Carlos Arboleda
Days: TBA Time: TBA

Permission required: A course for those students who would like to work on a large project that reaches beyond the parameters of individual courses. Typically, in an Integrated Semester students work on 8 – 12 units of a project that combines several disciplines as well as several learning modes, such as independent research and writing; preparation for teaching a course; portfolio work in writing and the arts; internships or experimental learning; theater, film and music production. Students work independently, constantly in consultation with one or more faculty and staff resource persons, but the entire class meets once a week as a group. Weekly meetings with the course facilitator are expected. You must have a contract on file and the support of a referee to apply to the course.

 

JNST 000M-01
Film Production
Instructor
Days: T Time: 6:00pm-9:00pm
Unit Value: 4

 

JNST 000N-01
The Fifth and Sixth Day
Dr. James Krueger
Days: T, TH Time: 11:30am – 12:50pm
Unit Value: 4

Perhaps the neo – Platonists are most famous for thinking of the universe in terms of a great chain of being. In this class, we will examine two places where many have tried to point out a clear division in that chain, the separation between living and non –living things, and the separation between human being and other living things. The first half of the class will thus focus on the nature of life, and what the meaning of calling something a living (as opposed to a non-living) thing might be. Possible readings include Ervin Schrodinger’s What is Life, Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan’s book of the same name, selections from Richard Dawkins work, and Maturana and Varela’s discussion of autopoiesis. The second half will turn to the nature of human life and what separates it from animal life. Possible topics include the importance of culture and the emergence of morality and religion (including the possibility of the existence of a soul). Possible readings include Frans de Waal’s The Ape and the Sushi Master (on culture), Alasdair MacIntyre’s Dependant Rational Animals (on ethics and language, Daniel Dennet’s Freedom Evolves ( on free will), and selections from Descartes (on the soul). Participants in this class are more than welcome to suggest other

 

JNST 000O-01
Reading Los Angeles: Place and the Politics of Culture
Dr. Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson
Days: T, TH Time: 11:30am-12:50am
Unit Value: 4

 

JNST 000P-01
Latin II
Dr. Judith Tschann
Days: W, F Time: 9:30am – 10:50am
Unit Value: 4

This Latin II course is the second semester continuation of intensive beginning college Latin. We will quickly review some aspects of grammar from the first semester, and then plow ahead in Wheelock to the glorious end, covering such fine points of grammar as the various forms and uses of the subjunctive, deponent verbs, gerunds and gerundives, fear clauses, sequence of tenses and much more. We will emphasize the practice and nature of translation as we move beyond exercises to real (albeit highly edited) passages of literature and history.

 

JNST 000Q-01
Funny
Ms. Alisa Slaughter
Day: TH Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Unit Value: 4

Punctuate it: there’s the inviting comma, the deadpan period, the heart – on – its – sleeve exclamation mark, the wry question mark, the colon that promises and demands so much. We’re going to go into colon territory, venture into comma – land, coax some irony out of the bushes with the period and its ilk, and revel in the exclamation point. By the time we get to April (with her showers sweet, or the cruelest month, depending), we’ll probably end up with an ellipse…
What is this concept, anyway? What are humans doing when they take themselves seriously, and why the gentle convulsions when they stop? What’s the difference between “literary” funny, and “you-had-to-be-there” funny? One can have a sense of humor without being funny; one can be funny without having a sense of humor…right?
Possible readings include: Joseph Heller Catch 22, Mark Twain Roughing It and William Faulkner’s The Reivers.
We’ll also do some writing. With any luck, it will amuse us.

 

JNST 000R-01
Queer Activism and Theory
Dr. Daniel Kiefer
Days: T, TH Time: 2:30pm – 3:50pm
Unit: 4

This seminar will combine our interest in political action with our craving for speculative theory.
We may organize our own activist project, whether on Redlands campus, with other schools, or in the larger community. Some of us will join groups like the Inland Empire Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (FFLAG) and the Inland AIDS Project (IAP) to advocate for queers of every stripe.
We’ll study the culture and theory that provide the basis for activist work: recent novels, films, and plays; queer thinkers like Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Teresa de Lauretis, and Michael Warner; and historical, biological and anthropological studies.
The language of sexual identity will come under scrutiny: homosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersexual, queer. And we’ll invite guest speakers, some of them Johnston alums, to talk about their activist projects and the queer stuff they enjoy reading.
Roya Amirsoleymani and Ernie Hayes have started to enroll students in this course, which is open to anyone, Johnstonian or not, roving with a queer eye or a straight.

 

JNST 000S-01
Women Poets Throughout History
Sponsor: Ms. Anne Cavender
Facilitator: Mandi Lorencz
Day: TH Time: 1:00pm – 3:50pm
Unit Value: 4

In this course students will read and discuss the lives and works of women poets throughout the ages, while exploring their own voice through literature. Approaching questions including: what does it mean to be a woman and a writer? How did these women get published during their lifetime and what effect did it have on their contemporaries? What does the persona do for a woman poet writing in a male dominant field? What advantaged do contemporary women poets have today? We will be discussing these and other questions in class, as well as writing responses to works that speak to us, in poetry and prose.

 

JNST 000T-01
T’ai Chi Deeper Studies
Mr. Carlos Arboleda
Day: F Time: 1:00pm – 3:50pm
Unit Value: 2 Lab Fee: $50

This special topics T’ai Chi seminar is designed for students continuing their studies in T’ai Chi. New and continuing material will include combinations of the following: Ba Dua Jin Chi Kung, second and third set advanced T’ai Chi form, T’ai Chi Pole form and deeper topics and discussions on internal kung fu and chi cultivation.

 

JNST 000U-01
Foucault
Dr. David Tharp
Days: T, TH Time: 2:30pm-3:50pm
Unit Value: 4

A study of the writing of Michel Foucault and the intellectual and cultural contexts that shaped the aims and meaning of his work. Texts of Foucault’s that we might read include Discipline and Punish, The History of Sexuality, The Order of Things, Madness and Civilization, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” and “The Art of Telling the Truth.” Relevant context-defining utterances would include selections from Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, Saussure, and Habermas. Of central importance, as I see it, would be the vexed and deeply problematic question of Foucault’s rather less thanunambiguous relationship with the so-called “project of Enlightenment” –the project, that is to say (or as some people put it), of self-liberation through knowledge.

 

JNST 000V-01
The Afterlife of Dead Letters
Mr. Jacob Ristau
Days: M, W Time:1:00pm-3:50pm
Unit Value: 4

 

JNST 000W-01
Wilderness Medicine
Ms. Andrea Gordon
Days: TBA Time: TBA
Unit Value: 3

The Wilderness First Responder (WFR) is the definitive medical training course for all outdoor leader and enthusiasts. Topics include patient assessment, body systems, equipment improvisation, trauma, environmental medicine, toxins, back country medicine, wilderness protocols, wilderness rescue and more that will all be covered during this Spring Break course. This does not include the three additional rescuer scenarios, or practical application exams, which can be between 2 – 4 hours each. Every night there are assignments and readings given. Each morning there are written quizzes. The final exam is both written and practical. These students put in extensive time and effort to equal the three units of credit.

 

JNST 000AA-01
When Fusion = Comodification
Sponsor: Leela MadhavaRau
Facilitator: Anu Khurana
Days: M, W Time: 11:00am-12:20 pm
Unit Value: 4