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As part of the College Studies curriculum, every student must take two courses
in the Junior Seminars category. This category is divided into Liberal Arts
Seminars and Integrative Professional Seminars. To complete your Junior Seminar
requirement, you can take one of each, or two Liberal Arts Seminars (click here to see how Junior Seminars fit into the College Studies curriculum). In addition
to the Liberal Arts Seminars listed in the PhilaU catalog, new courses are added
to these categories periodically. For the Spring 2010 semester, the following
courses are being offered in the Liberal Arts Seminar and Integrative Professional Seminar categories.
All courses in the Junior Seminar category are writing-intensive, and they all have the same two prerequisites: SOC-2xx and WRTG-21x
Integrative Professional Seminars
JSINT-331
Color and Light
This survey course in color and light is inherently interdisciplinary and explores a multiplicity of resources: historical, aesthetic, psychological, cultural, physiological, physical, and associative. The class will provide students with a broad interdisciplinary background from which to sharpen their appreciation of color and light in their everyday lives. The course content presents an exciting challenge due to the vast quantity of reliable (and unreliable) references, many of which are currently accessible on the Internet. The subject is explored using a broad non-technical, non-mathematical approach that will help students carry their life-long passion for color & light into their professional careers.
JSINT-384
Applied Professional Ethics
This research and writing-intensive course introduces students to numerous concepts in Western and non-Western ethics that inform decisions about what we “ought” to do in our personal and professional lives. Students will read primary text selections from philosophers and analyze practical cases by applying what they have read
Liberal Arts Seminars
JSLA-301
Italian Cinema: Reading Film
This course provides an overview of the work of the great Italian directors of the second half of the twentieth century. We also examine the legacy of these directors by studying recent and contemporary films. Students gain insight into this dynamic period in Italian history as well as an appreciation of cinema as an important artistic medium. Critical framework is provided to allow students to analyze or “read” a film as a narrative and expressive work.
JSLA-315
Food in America: Fast, Foreign and Fat
How do we decide what food is good to eat, healthy, authentic, or responsible? In this class, students will become familiar with America’s historical and regional food traditions and learn to think critically about the many controversies and challenges that surround food. Topics include the transformation of the ways food is grown and cooked, the challenge of immigrant foodways for mainstream Americans, the rise of food processing, and the issues of obesity and eating disorders.
JSLA-330
Sport, Society and Culture
This class analyzes the place of sport in society, using a global perspective. It examines how sport is used to maintain or challenge power based on race, class, sexuality and gender. It also draws on the histories of particular sports, and on present day issues in sport, using journalists’ and social scientists’ perspectives on these issues. Students will analyze the relationships between sport and educational institutions, the media, economics, culture and national identities; they will also learn about controversial topics like violence (among players and fans) and drug use among athletes.
JSLA-331
African-American Cultural Identities
This course will examine the range of questionable and legitimate religious expression; negative and redeeming popular images; and cultural movements of African Americans from slavery to the present. Its content will address themes including: slave culture; minstrelsy; popular music; blaxploitation media; aesthetics; color and class; and today’s heritage industries. Students will review electronic and print media excerpts as evidence to examine the complexity of African American identities.
JSLA-360
Creative Writing: Shaping Narrative and Experience
In this hands-on course, students develop their knowledge of how to shape narrative and experience through forms of creative written expression such as poetry and fiction. Students will read and analyze work in these forms; experiment with these forms through writing their own creative drafts and revisions; and develop critiquing skills in a workshop environment. Students showcase their work in a final portfolio and a reading open to the University community.
JSLA-361
From Fiction to Film
The study of the interrelationships between literature and film through case studies of the translation of significant novels (focus on 19th and 20th century) into works of cinema.
JSLA-362
The Artist and Society in Literature and Film
An examination of the enigmatic figure of the artist depicted in literature (the short story, the novella and the novel). The genesis and complexity of artists as literary figures will be considered as they find themselves in conflict with society.
JSLA-370
The U.S.: The Recent Past
This course focuses on social, cultural, political and economic changes within the United States since 1945. Topics such as beatniks and hippies, the New Left, the civil rights movement, student and anti-war movements, the women’s movement, the politics of conservatism and the fate of labor will be studied in the context of an increasingly ethnically and racially diverse society. Students will be encouraged to explore and write from a wide range of sources from across the disciplines.
JSLA-380
Human Rights
The course will examine the question of whether there are certain rights that we all possess as human beings and the prominence of these rights in international relations. Students will monitor human-rights violations in the United States and other countries in order to determine how much we have achieved as a world community and how far we have yet to go.
JSLA-381
Gender Studies
This course focuses on recent developments in gender studies, examining how gender has been conceptualized and analyzed, historically and in the present day. Topics considered include the formation of masculinities and femininities, the intersections between gender, sexual orientation, class and race, and the significance of gender in personal and professional contexts. Readings are drawn from a variety of disciplines depending on the instructor.
JSLA-390
The Urban Experience
This course discusses the origins and development of urban life. Special focus will be upon Philadelphia as it represents trends in the American experience of cities.
