Sample Spring 2025 Offerings
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ARTS 132 Painting with the Dear Neighbor
Mondays, 3:30 PM-6:30 PM
Available for spring: painting 1, 2, and 3
Designed for students who might prefer a “step by step” approach to painting in the style of paint and sip nights with the desire to build community and friendships within the class. A strong focus of the course is to use art making to flesh on the beautiful mission of the College. The course will treat painting on canvas as an event to experience, to understand, and to celebrate the journey of fellow students’ lives in a more meaningful way. Each class meeting students will start and finish a new painting, and each painting may be seasonal or attached to current events.
Biology 215, Biological and Medical Ethics
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11-12:15
Lectures and discussion will focus on two major areas: Ethical Theory and Applied Ethics. The Ethical Theory portion of the course will cover: (A) utilitarianism (or, more generally consequentialism), (B) Kant’s ethical theory (or, more generally, deontology), and (C) Aristotle’s ethical theory (or, more generally, virtue ethics). The Applied Ethics portion of the course will follow topics such as: Ethical Problems of Death and Dying; Abortion and Maternal-Fetal Conflict; New Methods of Reproduction (IVF, cloning); The Ethics of Transplants; The Ethics of Testing and Screening; The Ethics of Biomedical Research (Scientific Integrity, IRBs and Informed Consent, Conflict of Interest, Animal Experimentation, Human Stem Cells, Fetal Research, and Gene Therapy).
English 160, Literature into Film
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30-1:45
Is the book really better than the movie? This course focuses on the translation/adaptation of literary works into films. We will explore the capacities, limitations, and possibilities of each medium, asking questions such as: What kinds of narrative are possible in film versus literature? What filmic elements are not possible in literature (cinematography or soundtrack, for example)? How does characterization differ in literature and film? How do the decisions of the director impact the work? What are the obligations (if any) of filmic adaptations to the original text? Can we understand adaptation as a form of interpretation? And maybe we will be able to answer that lagging question about which is better!
English 267, Contemporary American Literature (1940-Present)
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30-10:45
Readings in all genres of American literature that cover texts from World War II the present, characterized by greater direct social engagement and addressing phenomena such as the moral impact of the atomic bomb, the birth of the “teenager,” the active recognition of previously marginalized voices in literature, a variety of counter-cultural movements, the Vietnam War, the digital revolution, etc. Students will explore literary movements and trends including the Beat movement, the Civil Rights and black power movements, metafiction, post-modernism and the emergence of diverse voices in American literature. Authors may include Williams, Salinger, Ginsberg, Plath, Baldwin, Ellison, Roth, Bellow, Momaday, Vonnegut, Capote, Mailer, Lorde, Rich, Morrison, O’Brien, and Proulx.
French 234, The French Regions, Culture and Traditions
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8-9:15
This course will focus on French regions, their history, culture, and literature. It will include readings, discussions, oral presentations, and written reports. It aims to develop interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational communication skills, to make connections with other disciplines and to appreciate the cultural, humanistic, and spiritual values of literature and culture.
History 240, Environmental History of the U.S.
Thursdays, 6-9 p.m.
Explores the ecological and environmental forces that have shaped the United States from colonial days to the present. These include the European search for resources in a New World, the westward movement, Native American life, racism and ethnic prejudice, imperialism and war, epidemics, transportation infrastructure, agriculture and hunting, urbanization, government policy, the park movement, religious views of nature, the conservation and environmental movements, literature and art, and most recently the debates over climate change. All these forces have shaped the world in which we live.
History 250, The Pennsylvania Experience
Mondays and Wednesdays, 4-5:15
As one of the original English settlements and then as one of the first states in the Union, Pennsylvania boasts a history that extends from the colonial period to the present. This course will look at Pennsylvania as a microcosm of American life and will examine such issues as Native American cultures, ethnic diversity and ethnic conflict, social stratification, geography, architecture, religious history, political development, revolution and civil war, agriculture, industrialization, urbanization, and suburbia.
Media and Communications 351, The Art of Protest and Social Change
Wednesdays and Fridays, 9:30-10:45
This course explores the pivotal role artists play in the fight against social injustice historically and in the contemporary context, both locally and globally. Guiding questions include: What does protest look like? What skills are useful in shaping social change through the arts? What ethical dilemmas arise in socially engaged art? Through a diverse range of assignments including papers, journals, presentations, digital storytelling and hands-on projects, students will engage in reflective experiential learning, fostering a deeper understanding of the transformative power of art in the realm of social change.
Music 281, Women Sing the Blues and Country
T/TH 12:30-1:45
Both blues and country music will be explored, beginning with each place of origin and the musical qualities brought from slave songs and spirituals to the hillbilly music of the rural South. The development of each genre will include particular instruments and style characteristics through the years. The course will feature the early singers who established each genre and then move to the contributions of women through the years who sang despite their hardships and suffering. Music listening is a part of each class. Students will listen to examples of music by certain artists and be able to analyze them, using the basic elements of music as their guide.
Philosophy 230, The Faith-Reason Borderland
T/TH 12:30-1:45
This is a team-taught, interdisciplinary course that focuses on the relationship between faith and reason. Philosophy and theology are the two main disciplines in play in the course, and the readings for the course primarily derive from these two disciplines. Whereas most faith-reason courses at universities and colleges across the world focus primarily on theoretical reason, this course focuses primarily on practical reason, that is, on well-being, meaning in life, and morality (i.e., on ethics in general). This is because the instructors for this course believe that focusing on ethics provides students with a more accessible way of approaching the relationship between faith and reason.
Physics 140, The Global Energy Crisis
M/W 9:30-10:45
We harnessed fire and used cooked proteins as a fuel source to grow the human brain. We smelted metals with coal. We used petroleum to construct and power the modern world. The human story is hallmarked by our use of energy sources. Our ability to master new energy sources has lead to the greatest technological revolutions. Energy is the agent of change. Yet our unbridled use of such resources, in the pursuit of development, goods, and comfort, leads us on the path toward irreversible environment changes and the possibly to the edge of our own destruction. In this course we explore these topics and ask what frontier thinking might be our salvation?
Spanish 1, 2, or 3, various times