We will investigate the potential impacts future biotechnologies may have on people and societies in the future. These will range from the personal—pharmaceutics, genetics, cloning, human augmentation—to the existential: what is the role of Homo Sapiens in the environment? What does our technology tell us about "human nature?" If people can synthesize biology, what is the meaning of "life"?

Science and Society: Science and Science Fiction

What happens when science meets fiction? How "accurate" is the reporting of science in the popular media? How have artists explored science using literature and a cinematic lens? How do these works challenge our understanding of such concepts as space, time, reality, the body, reproduction, gender, and race? What ethical concerns arise? These are some of the questions we'll consider as we read excerpts and short stories by Asimov, Tolkien, and Bradbury, scientific biographies, and as we watch a variety of films including The Matrix and Jurassic Park. This course will explore the scientific content and background of these works, and separate out science fact from science 'fiction.’

Under Construction: The Self in Society and Literature “Under Construction” draws on canonical writing in the fields of Sociology and Literature in order to consider different ways of understanding the self in relation to society.  We will discuss articles written by classical and contemporary social psychologists alongside such contemporary American novels as Alice McDermott's Charming Billy, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Michael Cunningham's The Hours, and Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. 

Images of Asian and European Women :  A Comparative Approach

 This course will critically examine images of Asian women and European women through films and other sources, focusing mainly on Japan and Spain but extensive to other countries of the East and the West.  Through these sources we will discuss gender and social issues that are common to women of very different traditional backgrounds. 

The issues include gender identity, domestic violence, family relations, conflicts with tradition, and changes of women’s social roles.  This course aims to enhance students’ understanding of other cultures through discussion on these topics and to wider their horizon by examining gender issues in their own society, that  they may already be familiar with or that may even be part of their own experiences.

Additionally, we will discuss many misperceptions that stereotypical images of Asian women have created in the Western mind and, on the contrary, the stereotypes of Western women that have nourished Asian fantasies.