2018-2019 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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MUSC 100 - Studying Music Historically and Critically
This course is designed to introduce music majors and minors to the historical and critical study of music. The course is required for all music majors and minors and is a prerequisite for other more specialized music history courses. The course surveys major style periods of Western music (Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern). Along the way, you will develop the knowledge base and the methodological tool-kit needed for more advanced coursework in music. We will study major works, that are representative of these style periods, and get to know and understand them though listening, analysis, criticism and contextual history. Over the course of the semester you will encounter and try out some of the major musicological approaches ranging from contextual cultural history, listening as analysis, critical interpretation, and music history as detective work. There is no formal prerequisite, but since the course is designed for students who anticipate majoring or minoring in music it is expected that students enrolling in the course will have some musical background and basic music-reading skills.
Prerequisites: MUSC 121 or permission
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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MUSC 101 - Bach and Before: Studies in Music before 1750
This course explores European music from the Middle Ages through the Baroque period, or from the 10th century AD to ca. 1750. This broad swath of music history encompasses a fascinating variety of music: Gregorian Chant, Medieval polyphony, the Renaissance a capella style, the birth of opera, and the culminating achievements of the High Baroque.
Through a mix of listening, reading, discussion, and assignments of various types, the course explores how music evolved and participated in major cultural, historical and social transitions between the Middle Ages and the Age of Absolutism. Several final weeks of the semester are devoted to the greatest musical figure of the mid-18th century, Johann Sebastian Bach.
We will weave elements of cultural studies, historical and social context, and aesthetics into the mix. Themes will include the impact of new technologies on music (changing systems of music notation and rhythmic control, music printing, and instrument design), competing notions of music as order and/or emotion, and the performance of extreme states of emotion, tragedy and power in Baroque music.
Previous musical experience and the ability to read music are helpful, but not required. Curiosity about music and the willingness to listen deeply to a range of musical styles are, however, absolutely necessary.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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MUSC 102 - Music of the Classical and Romantic Periods
This course explores European music from the mid-18th century through the end of the 19th century. This era was in many ways a high point in the history of musical art and many of the greatest and most beloved composers were active during this time, including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Brahms and Mahler. Through a mix of listening, reading, discussion and various written assignments, students will develop an understanding of representative works by these composers, build a sense of the social and cultural contexts in which they worked, as well as sharpen their aesthetic appreciation of this music. Previous musical experience is helpful, but not required.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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MUSC 104 - Music and Modernism in Society, 1885-1945
This course is an exploration of different roles played by classical music in modern culture between 1885 and 1945. This course is not a comprehensive survey; rather, it explores selected set of specific topics and context in some depth. By plunging into the often extreme aesthetic experience of 20th-century art music, we will get to know, appreciate and understand (and love!) works by a number of the major composers of the era. We will grapple with crucial issues of music and cultural politics, especially in the context of war and 20th-century totalitarianism. We will also focus on issues of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, as well as representations of sexuality and gender in operas of the time. The course is designed to serve the need of music majors and minors as well as those of interested non-majors. We will, of course, deal very directly with music, but the intention is to do so in ways that do not exclude those who have little or no formal training in music. The essential prerequisites are a willingness to approach the music we address with open ears and mind and a desire to grapple with ideas and art.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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MUSC 121 - Theory I: Principles of Tonal Analysis
Explores the system of tonal music commonly employed by composers of the 18th and early-19th centuries, as well as by composers of popular music today. This study, incorporating exercises, composition, analysis and performance, also examines the way students listen to music in general, thus leading to a deeper understanding of the musical process.
Corequisites: MUSC 004 or MUSC 005
Course Designation/Attribute: FA
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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MUSC 122 - Tonal Analysis II: Form and Chromaticism
Extends the study of Western tonality to encompass more advanced techniques such as chromaticism and modulation. Culminates with late-19th-century chromaticism, which reveals both the extraordinary possibilities and ultimately the limitations of using the tonal system as an organizing force in music.
Prerequisites: MUSC 121 .
Corequisites: MUSC 004 or MUSC 005
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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MUSC 125 - Musical Acoustics
Musical acoustics is an interdisciplinary study of the physical, perceptual, and cognitive character of musical sound-a unique blend of science and art. Topics include the elementary physics of vibrating systems, waves and wave motion; the human ear and its response; time- and frequency-domain analysis of sound; room acoustics and reverberation; and the acoustics of musical instruments-the human voice, strings, winds, and percussion. The emphasis will be on the practical aspects of acoustics in music making. The class meets as a lecture with a mandatory weekly hands-on laboratory.
Course Designation/Attribute: SP
Anticipated Terms Offered: -
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MUSC 127 - The Mediated Voice
The Mediated Voice uses an exploration of technological mediations of the human voice as the context for an introduction to foundational electronic music concepts and techniques. The voice is often referred to as the first instrument, and indeed, it is the one with which we are arguably all most familiar. However, despite this extreme familiarity and technical facility, it is also the one that most defies classification, theorizing, and technological reproduction. Through handson creative projects, technical research, scholarly work, and class discussions, we will explore what it means to have, to generate, to wield, and to manipulate a voice in modern society. Topics covered will include sonic cognition, linguistics, vocal performance techniques, speech reproduction and synthesis technologies, machine learning and artificial intelligence, accessibility and prosthesis, virtual digital assistants, the media, democracy and representation, and questions of identity, agency, embodiment, and exploitation.
Anticipated Terms Offered: bi anually
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MUSC 141 - Computers and Music
The computer is, arguably, the most distinctively contemporary musical instrument. A project-based and historically grounded introduction to the computer as a musical tool, this course covers a variety of technical topics such as multitrack digital recording and mixing, the fundamentals of sound synthesis, and digital signal processing. A series of cumulative technical assignments through the semester lead to a large composition project. A variety of musical repertoires will be studied through recordings and readings.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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MUSC 142 - Recording Practice and Audio Art
Many following Brian Eno have observed that the recording studio is the musical “instrument” most characteristic of our time. The majority of the music we encounter is produced using its facilities, production techniques and aesthetics. In the first half of the semester, we’ll work with the industry standard digital audio workstation (DAW) ProTools to make a polished multitrack recording. This part of the class will introduce you to sound recording as a process and an art, and will also cover the supporting science and technology that makes it possible. In the second unit, you will be more composer than engineer. You will create a short composition in a “sound collage” style called musique concreté beginning with recordings of voices and software for processing and editing.
Prerequisites: MUSC 141 or permission of instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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MUSC 151 - Jazz History
Studies the evolution of jazz style from its 19th-century beginnings to the present, styles covered include ragtime, Dixieland, swing, bop, progressive, cool, free-form and third-stream. Requires a research paper and a final exam.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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MUSC 153 - Jazz Theory & Style
In this course, students will explore the harmonic, melodic and rhythmic concepts, which serve as the backbone of traditional and modern Jazz theory. Topics will include, but is not limited to; modes, harmonic progressions, chord substitutions, chord scale relationships, intervallic melodic construction, rhythmic motivic development etc. Students will develop a working knowledge of each concept through a combination of improvisation exercises, ear training, style analysis, song arrangement and original composition.
Prerequisites: MUSC 121 or permission
Course Designation/Attribute: FA
Anticipated Terms Offered: fall 2015
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MUSC 170 - Clark Concert Choir
A chorus of 30 to 40 voices, the choir presents two major concerts each year on the Clark campus as well as in off-campus appearances.
Prerequisites: Audition required
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 171 - Clark Chamber Chorus
This is a small, specialized singing group chosen from the larger Clark Concert Choir by the conductor.
Prerequisites: Audition required
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 172 - Concert Band
Concert Band consists of 25 members performing two major concerts a year.
Prerequisites: Audition required
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 173 - Chamber Music Ensembles
Small Chamber Music groups, vary in instrumentation, depending on auditions/enrollment at the beginning of each semester are coached by music faculty instructors of Clark University. These groups have extending opportunities to work on amazing chamber music repertoire and perform it on/off campus in recitals.
Prerequisites: Audition required.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 174 - Jazz Workshop and Combo
Includes ensemble performance practice with weekly rehearsals throughout the year.
Prerequisites: Audition required
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 175 - Clark Sinfonia
The Clark Sinfonia is a string orchestra, which expands to include wind players for some repertoire. It offers two major concerts a year.
Prerequisites: Audition required
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 176 - A Capella Singing & Performance
Designed for students who sing, or are interested in singing, in an a capella group or a choir, this course introduces the fundamental aspects of a capella singing and conducting. Topics covered will include the anatomy of the voice and classical vocal technique; alternative vocal techniques including beat box, scat, overtone singing and yodeling; basic conducting and expressiveness through gesture; effective rehearsal practices; lyric diction; basic harmony, intonation and blend; and how musical structure affects performance practices. The format of the class will alternate between seminar and lab. All students are expected to sing.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: bi-annually
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MUSC 180 - Private Instruction in Instruments and Voice
Private Instruction in Instruments and Voice Areas offered include: piano, jazz piano, voice, jazz vocal, clarinet, saxophone, flute, classical guitar, jazz guitar, violin, viola French horn, trumpet, bassoon, trombone and low brass, cello, percussion, string bass, and conducting. In areas not currently offered at Clark, the music program will find a qualified instructor. Music 180 is covered by tuition and receives course credit (two semesters of MUSC180 is one full course unit). Students enrolled in MUSC180 meet weekly with an instructor, participate in two music workshops, and fulfill a concert attendance requirement. Only declared music majors and minors are eligible to take MUSC180.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 182 - Performance Workshop
This course is being changed to MUSC 082 beginning 19/20.
The Music Program’s Performance Workshop offers music students instrumental study and performance opportunities outside of regular lessons. This class is perfect for incoming students who would like to begin performing in their first year of college or for students currently taking lessons who would like to enhance their performance skills. Students majoring in the performance track are strongly encouraged to take this course. All aesthetics and genres are taught, from classical and jazz to pop. Performers of all stripes are encouraged to enroll.
This class builds on important aspects of any training in performances such as cultivating repertoire, considering performance injury, practice techniques, mental focus, building instrumental technique, learning how to give, process and understand criticism and how to cultivate professionalism as a performing artist (resume building, cv building, how to take auditions, etc.)
Anticipated Terms Offered: every two years
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MUSC 191 - Improvisation and Aleatory
In this course, students will be immersed in both the theory and the practice of improvised, aleatoric, and open-form music, with a view to a variety of traditions but with a focus on post-WWII avant-garde and experimental Western musics. Students will compose an aleatoric piece, perform aleatoric compositions and freely improvised pieces, study a substantial repertoire of musical works and theoretical writings, and give a historical or theoretical presentation, leading up to a substantial final project.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: every two years
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MUSC 201 - Music, Media & Public Spheres
Much of studying music at school focuses on the acquisition of skills, techniques and technological proficiencies for performance & composition, the development of an historical, formal and critical understanding of musical styles, and the presentation of this knowledge to the University community. “Music–making, Media & Public Spheres” presumes this background, but shifts the focus toward the world off-campus. This course is primarily intended as a platform to provide support to students as they design and complete their capstone projects that involve music. The presumption is that these projects will contain a significant component that is directed to off-campus constituencies (audiences, other music professionals, businesses, entrepreneurial enterprises). A project might consist of preparing, planning and executing an off-campus concert or recital, or designing and mounting a netLabel (a record label that distributes its music primarily through digital audio formats), which publicly presents recordings of student–produced music. This seminar will provide a context and support for these endeavors both academically and as a community of practice. This community will include both student musicians (composers, performers, critics, technologist) as well as Communication & Culture students interested the production of musical media. This course will begin with a through study of how musical media structures public spheres, as well as how people use musical media to participate in the public sphere. Subsequent units will address issues related to contemporary contexts for musical creation, professional and commercial musical industries and institutions, the Internet as a determining site for music–making and consumption, and music as a live event.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year.
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MUSC 210 - Seminar in Music History and Criticism
The Music History Seminar takes up specific topics and themes in music history that open onto larger cultural contexts and interdisciplinary lines of inquiry. The seminar is based on active discussion and student research with a depth and a focus not possible in a survey course, and will develop the student’s critical skills, as well as the ability to write and talk about music in meaningful ways. Seminar topics change each year. The course welcomes music majors and minors, as well as interested students from other disciplines. May be taken more than once for credit. MUSC 102 and/or MUSC 104 are recommended, but not required.
Spring 2015 Music and Politics
The topic of this year’s Seminar in Music History will be Music and Politics. The seminar will explore interactions between music and politics. We will study the intersections of politics, culture, and music primarily in two particular contexts, Germany in the first half of the twentieth century and the US in the second half of the century. Focal points will include musical politics before and during the Nazi era in Germany, music and cold war politics in both countries, and the politics of popular music in the US in the 1960s and 1970s and beyond. The latter part of the semester will be driven by projects on topics chosen and designed by students. The course is open to any interested student. The coursework will be designed to be accessible to students who have little or no formal training in music. The crucial prerequisite is a curiosity about music, politics, history, and cultural critique.
May be repeated for credit.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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MUSC 216 - Workshop in Music Criticism and Analysis
In this course, students work in collaborative groups to formulate and pursue projects in the field of music criticism and analysis. The workshop will culminate in original team projects that synthesize musical analysis, historical criticism, media, and/or performance. Each time the course is offered it will be designed around a core set of questions that engage important issues in current musicology. The coursework will involve historical, analytic and critical modes of inquiry that build upon skills developed in foundation courses, notably Music 100, Music 121, and Music 122.
Prerequisites: MUSC 100 and MUSC 121 or instructor permission.
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MUSC 220 - Composition Seminar
Rotating topics include composition, film music (Soundtracks), musical analysis, orchestration and contemporary performance practice.
Prerequisites: MUSC 121 and MUSC 122
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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MUSC 225 - Jazz and Popular Music Composition and Performance
This course provides students the opportunity to collaborate in the composition and performance of their own jazz and popular music. Students take the course either as composers, performers or critics, and each choice has its own specific set of course requirements, creating a thoroughly integrated community of practice. Each week students workshop their original compositions, constructively critique other student works and discuss important and influential repertoire in jazz and popular music. Fulfills an Aesthetic Perspective.
Prerequisites: Pre-requisite, MUSC 121 or interview/audition
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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MUSC 230 - Senior Tutorial in Music History
Develops work (e.g., a paper, composition or performance) in consultation with the instructor. For majors only.
Prerequisites: Instructor permission.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 235 - Community Music and Social Action
How can artists and arts managers/administrators contribute as citizens of a democracy? In what ways can people committed to the arts serve the wider world through their work? In this course, we will explore arts education and policy as it relates to positive social change, and examine artistic initiatives that have been focused on positive social impact.
In this course we will develop a response to these questions, and we will explore the notion that the classical musician, the artist, is an important public figure with a critical role to play in society. The course will include inquiry into a set of ideas in philosophy of aesthetics; a discussion about freedom, civil society, and ways that art can play a role in readying people for democracy; discussion on philosophy of education as it relates to the question of positive social change; and an exploration of musical and artistic initiatives that have been particularly focused on a positive social impact.
We will examine these questions from the perspective of theorists, educators, teachers, administrators and artists. All participants will have hands-on opportunities to engage with the community as part of the course, including working with youth in Neighborhood Strings, a free music program for the at-risk population of Main South, and/or interning with the Worcester Chamber Music Society or other prominent local arts organizations.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP & DI, POP
Anticipated Terms Offered: biannually
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MUSC 240 - Senior Tutorial in Composition
Develops work (e.g., a paper, composition or performance) in consultation with the instructor. For majors only.
Prerequisites: Instructor permission.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 242 - Soundtracks
How do sounds and music work in conjunction with (and against) moving images? This class will address this question, both on a practical, do-it-yourself level with a variety of exercises and projects, as well as through a critical and analytical approach with screenings, readings and discussion. The course is organized into three sections. First, we will examine the elements of narrative sound and introduce the practice of audiovisual analysis. In the middle section of the class, we will focus on post-production techniques. This constellation of practices found in classic narrative films through contemporary ones (that is, the body of films with which most of us are most familiar) will be the subject of scrutiny and emulation through a series of exercises dealing with dialogue, music, and sound effects. Third, we will look at a variety of historical conventions‹sound and music in silent and transitional/early sound films as well as experimental cinema‹and concentrate on live performance of music and sound effects to accompany silent film.
Prerequisites: MUSC 121 or MUSC 141 or SCRN 107 .
Anticipated Terms Offered: offered periodically
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MUSC 250 - Tutorial in Jazz Composition
Student writes original scores for performance by a workshop ensemble.
Prerequisites: MUSC 151 and permission of program director.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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MUSC 260 - Senior Tutorial in Theory
Student develops work (e.g., a paper, composition or performance) in consultation with the instructor. For majors only.
Prerequisites: Instructor permission.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 270 - Senior Tutorial in Computer Music
Develops work (e.g., a paper, composition or performance) in consultation with the instructor. For majors only.
Prerequisites: Instructor permission
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 280 - Private Instruction in Instruments and Voice (Honors Level)
Areas offered: same as MUSC 180 above. Students enroll in MUSC 280 for the final two semesters of the honors track, and a fell recital is required as the culminating project for those two semesters.
Prerequisites: Four semesters of MUSC 180 .
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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MUSC 290 - Capstone Project
This course provides the student with faculty supervision, advising, and mentoring as s/he prepares an independent senior-year project. The course is only open to seniors
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MUSC 291 - Portfolio Masterclass
Portfolio Masterclass is a course designed for third- and fourth-year music students to pursue independent studies and capstone projects in a collaborative environment. The course will bring together a collaborative group of students working on either capstone projects, junior or senior recitals, honors projects and other independent studies. By combining this diverse array of student work into one integrated workshop, the course will create an environment of critical self-reflection and shared learning through active involvement with the diverse disciplines encompassed by the music curriculum. May be repeatable for credit.
Prerequisites: Prerequisites: MUSC 121, MUSC 141, and MUSC 100
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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OM 4600 - Operations and Supply Chain Management
Operations management involves the efficient use of resources to create goods or services that satisfy the needs of customers and clients. In both the profit and nonprofit sectors, successful management requires economically rational decisions regarding the design and operation of processes that transform such resources into goods or services. The course develops students’ abilities to identify and structure operating problems and to identify appropriate techniques for resolving them. Examples of topics covered include: operations strategy, process analysis, location selection, capacity management and utilization, inventory management, quality management/assurance, project and supply chain management.
Prerequisites: MIS 4500
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall and Spring semesters
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OM 5910 - Directed Research
For a directed research course, a student and professor design a self-study course based around a common research interest shared by both. A directed research must be approved by the professor and the Associate Dean of GSOM. It can be designed as either a 0.5 unit or 1 unit course. The Directed Research Course Request Form should be completed and submitted to the Associate Dean of GSOM. For questions or additional information, contact your academic advisor. This directed research is done in the subject area of operations management.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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PHIL 050 - Relativism & Absolutism Across the Disciplines
We explore rival claims of relativists and absolutists in ethics, religion, math and the sciences, and consider some varieties of pluralism as option to these claims. Ours is a case-study approach. We study and evaluate the ‘Asian values argument’ against the universality of human rights, a feminist criticism of empirical science, and consider the exclusivism of contemporary religious fundamentalism. We begin with experiments in color perception and some simplified examples of alternate mathematics, and then study claims of cognitive differences across cultures. These case studies prepare us for an engagement with texts from Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Nietzsche, Hegel, Habermas and Tillich that help us to think about a family of issues concerning meaning, interpretation, and truth that span disciplinary divides. Fulfills the verbal expression requirement.
Prerequisites: VE placement required
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
Placement Guidelines
VE Eligible
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PHIL 070 - The Educated Robot: Artificial Intelligence and Epistemic Values
Research in artificial intelligence is not limited to the project of manufacturing thinking machines. The scope of AI is in fact much more ambitious: artificial intelligence—and cognitive science in general—hopes to uncover the nature of all mental activity. At issue is the question: What conditions must be satisfied for any being, human beings included, to have a mind? One of the primary aims of this course is to describe the issues and questions that vex cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind. We will examine some of the scientific models of thinking currently available—mechanistic and computational models in particular—and attempt to assess some of the prominent criticisms that have been leveled against those theories. Additionally, however, we will pay particularly close attention to issues that touch on our “epistemic values.” Philosophers have focused, and not without good reason, on rather modest and mundane types of mental states—basic sensory awareness and simple propositional knowledge, for example. We will take up the task of examining a wider range of epistemic (that is, “knowledge‐based”) values— including understanding, comprehension, wisdom, good judgment and education. We will ask what it means to possess and cultivate these values against the background of a mechanistic conception of the world and the mind.
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
Placement Guidelines
VE Eligible
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PHIL 100 - The Good Life
Healthy human beings want to be happy. We want to live good lives. But what can a person do to live a good life? What makes one life good and another not so good? What makes one person happy and another not? Are there significant connections between health, well-being, social involvement, ethical endeavor, worldly achievement, felt satisfaction, and living a good life? In this seminar we will use philosophical, psychological, religious, and literary works to explore some of the ways that human beings organize their lives, set fundamental goals and standards, and try to assess these. Our seminar will examine a range of possible life aims including the search for pleasure, cultivating personal excellence, the pursuit of wealth and power, contributing to the public good, ecological attunement, spiritual fulfillment, and having no aim at all.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 102 - Introduction to Philosophy
Introductory study of typical problems drawn from philosophy’s main branches. Topics vary and may include God’s existence, the nature of morality, skepticism, the nature of the mind, freedom vs. determinism, immortality and political theory. Readings are taken from both classic and contemporary sources.
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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PHIL 103 - Analytic Reasoning
This is a hands-on course, designed to help students improve a very important set of life skills, collectively referred to as “critical thinking.” While this is considered an informal logic course (because it analyzes reasoning within the natural language context), it goes beyond the principles of basic logic, encouraging students to ask thoughtful questions in their ongoing process of establishing a set of beliefs that can serve as a reliable roadmap of experience. Fulfills Formal Analysis (FA) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: FA
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every Fall
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PHIL 104 - AIDS to Zika: Ethics and Epidemics
The global AIDS pandemic presents a public health challenge of unprecedented dimensions – a challenge which will test not only our scientific and medical establishments, but our commitment to social justice, professional fidelity, interpersonal solidarity and, especially, to the care of the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged populations. This seminar will draw on the rich philosophical, biological, epidemiological, legal, medical, and sociological literatures in order to examine a number of the moral and public policy issues which have been raised by the AIDS pandemic. Particular attention is given to the issues raised by the pandemic in developing countries.
Prerequisites: VE placement or IDND 018
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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PHIL 105 - Personal Values
A philosophical study of some fundamental human value concerns. Students learn some important moral theories and methods used to reason philosophically about moral questions. Fulfills Values Perspective (VP) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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PHIL 106 - Science, Religion and Reality
The seminar will address some basic issues in the philosphy of science and the philosophy of religion: What is science? What is reality? How do science and religion differ with regard to the relative roles played by faith and evidence in establishing knowledge claims about reality? Does science provide better explanations than theology or literature? How do religious arguments for the existence of God differ from scientific arguments for the existence of dark matter? Special attention will be given to developing students’ abilitites to read complex texts, write logically, think analytically and argue cogently. Fulfills the Verbal Expression requirement.
Prerequisites: You must be placed at the Verbal Expression level to be admitted into this seminar.
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 109 - Life and Times of David Hume
Can science give us certainty? Is suicide moral? Do we have a right to political rebellion? Can religion be rational? Can we argue about beauty? The questions we will discuss in PHIL 109 have in common that they were unsettling in the 17th- and 18th centuries. And maybe they still are today? What seemed like obvious answers to these questions prior to the Early Modern period had become unsatisfactory. We will discuss what makes ways of asking questions and finding answers particularly modern. Our focus will be on one particular contemporary of the Early Modern period: David Hume, who was perhaps the least shaken by the unsettling nature of the questions and by the lack of answers. His proposals earned him labels like “rebel,” “sceptic,” “infidel,” and “heretic.” But at the same time his successors showed great interest in his views. The class stresses hands-on historical and philosophical work. This means two things. (1) We will gain a skill set for interacting directly with Hume’s texts and with other historical sources. (2) We will learn effective methods for arguing about difficult and unsettling questions. Hume’s arguments about the role of science, the basis of morality, the rationality of religion, and other topics are still endorsed today and we will work on evaluating them.
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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PHIL 110 - Introduction to Symbolic Logic
An introduction to symbolic logic with attention to proofs within the formal system of first-order logic and translations from sentences in this formal language into sentences in ordinary English. (The department recommends that students not take this course as their introductory course to the major. The course material is mathematical in nature and is not representative of the topics and reading material typically found in other philosophy courses.) Fulfills the Formal Analysis (FA) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: FA
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every Fall semester
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PHIL 112 - Art and Morality
Can art be immoral? If so, what makes a work immoral? Can art be morally subversive or positivey influence our actions and character? If a work is immoral, does that diminish its aesthetic value, that isdoes the moral defect make it a lesser work of art? What makes a piece manipulative? What is propaganda art and how is it different from other works of art? Are there circumstances in which at should be censored? We will draw on both historical sources (from Ancient Greece to the Modern Period) and contemporary-texts. In discussing different theories we will continuously apply them to particular examples from thearts, the media, and the political sphere. I encourage you to bring in your own examples. This class fulfills the Value Perpective PLS requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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PHIL 130 - Medical Ethics
Investigates contemporary issues in medical ethics: informed consent, definitions of death, treatment termination and euthanasia, abortion, confidentiality and truth telling, genetic screening and counseling, research on human subjects, resource allocation, reproductive technologies, conflicts of interest and national health policy. Not open to first-year students. Fulfills Values Perspective (VP) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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PHIL 131 - Environmental Ethics
What principles should guide human interaction with the environment? This course considers a range of moral perspectives, including anthropocentrism, animal-rights theory, biocentrism, social ecology, ecocentrism, deep ecology, ecofeminism and the land ethic. It also considers a range of environmental issues, such as global warming, species preservation, population policy, pollution, nuclear power, animal experimentation and sustainable development. Fulfills Values Perspective (VP) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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PHIL 132 - Social and Political Ethics
Topics in social and political theory, such as equality, liberty and justifications for political authority, as well as issues such as: What is affirmative action and can it be morally justified? Should governments censor pornography? Is capital punishment acceptable? Can war be justified? Should morality be legislated? Fulfills Values Perspective (VP) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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PHIL 133 - Reason and Political Disagreement
In this course, we will investigate the role that reason and rational argument play in the fractious and diverse debates typical of so much of contemporary politics, and we will do so by examining one particular debate in detail. This is a Problems of Practice course and, as such, we will not only study the relevant, highly regarded arguments, but we will also engage with real world participants and stakeholders in the debate, seeing first hand the real-world impact of abstract arguments and theorizing. We pay particular attention to how rational argument functions and whether or not such argument provides promise for healing these divides.
Course Designation/Attribute: POP
Anticipated Terms Offered: periodicaaly
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PHIL 134 - Business Ethics
This is business ethics for all of us who deal with businesses as well as those in the business sector. We consider business in relation to social justice, labor issues, problems of discrimination in the workplace, tax policy, affirmative action, the moral limits of deception and manipulation in marketing, ethical consumerism, and the environment. Using readings from ethicians, business leaders, economists, and activists, we shall talk about conducting business ethically and engaging with business ethically. Useful to current and future entrepreneurs, managers, marketers, accountants, and bankers, this course focuses issues of importance to consumers and workers and ordinary citizens.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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PHIL 135 - Existentialism in Philosophy and Literature
Explores central existential themes-such as the meaning of life, freedom and responsibility; the role of the irrational in human thought, action and expression; and the death of God in their historical, cultural and thematic context. Existentialism is treated both as a postwar cultural event and as a view of life’s meaning and possibilities. Fulfills Values Perspective (VP) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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PHIL 141 - History of Ancient Philosophy
A survey of the early history of Western thought. Some possible readings and topics include the Presocratic philosophers, the dialogues of Plato, selections from Aristotle, and the Hellenistic philosophers. Fulfills Historical Perspective (HP) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year, typically Fall
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PHIL 143 - History of Early Modern Philosophy
Surveys principal movements of European philosophy in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Readings include works from authors such as the following: Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, and Kant. Fulfills Historical Perspective (HP) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year, typically Spring
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PHIL 145 - History of Contemporary Philosophy
Surveys major trends in recent Anglo-American and Continental philosophy: pragmatism, logical positivism, ordinary language philosophy, hermeneutics and phenomenology. Each alternative is considered as a coherent perspective on experience, with special attention given to its style and methodology. Fulfills Historical Perspective (HP) requirement.
Prerequisites: One course in Philosophy.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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PHIL 150 - Philosophy of Religion
Studies religion as a form of world view and a perennial dimension of human experience. Fulfills Global Perspective (GP) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 165 - Asian Philosophy
In Asian Philosophy, we shall explore the wisdom traditions of Asia from a philosophical point of view, focusing Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Vedanta, and the Satyagraha movement. What can we learn from such traditions? How are they best understood? What are their fundamental ideas, claims, assumptions, and implications? What truths do they offer? We shall look particularly to their conceptions of nature and community, the ideal person and the final reality, and the consequences of these conceptions for our common moral life.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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PHIL 169 - Aesthetics
Explores questions concerning the value and nature of the arts, including the visual arts, music, performance, and literature. Course topics may include: Can art in general be neatly defined? fine art? particular arts? What distinguishes “good” art from “bad” art? Are there objective standards for aesthetic judgment? What is the point of artwork? What is creativity? Are appreciation and criticism creative acts? Are there ‘aesthetic experiences’ special to the arts? What is the role of taste and sensibility? What is the relationship between the artist and the work of art? between artworks and audiences? between art and history? between art and nature?
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically.
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PHIL 213 - The Ideal of the Educated Person
This course explores the suggestion that in ideal circumstances there is a close relationship between being educated and living a happy or “good” life. Looking to Socrates and Plato for inspiration, we explore questions concerning the impact of acquiring knowledge on ethical behavior and moral character, as well as the impact of morality on happiness. Topics include: (1) the nature of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom; and the way in which formal education contributes to these states, (2) the nature of virtue and moral value, and (3) what it means to flourish in our culture. Fulfills Values Perspective (VP) requirement.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically.
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PHIL 215 - Kant and the 19th Century
We study the philosophical legacy of Kant in the evolutionary philosophies of the nineteenth century. We ask what it is to philosophize in the context of cosmic and cultural evolution, in which thought and its concepts evolve. We consider rival versions of the claim that the development of consciousness, freedom, and rationality is the final purpose of the world. Readings will be selected from Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, and Peirce.
Prerequisites: PHIL 143 .
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 220 - Theories of Ethics
Examines the principal ethical theories from the history of Western philosophy, including such philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Hume, Kant, Mill, Ross and Rawls. Topics include: What is “the Good”? Are there fundamental standards of right conduct? Are moral judgments objective? Why should we be moral? Fulfills Values Perspective (VP) requirement.
Prerequisites: One courses in philosophy.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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PHIL 222 - Political Philosophy
In Political Philosophy, we consider political power, authority, legitimacy, community, and political agency, in relation to purposes such as prosperity, community, harmony with nature, and the securing of human rights to freedom, well-being, and justice. We probe standard and nonstandard concepts and projects, their presuppositions and possibilities. Focusing 20th and 21st century thinkers, we examine the range of justifiable political forms, the nature and limits of democracy, the state and other political structures, political reason and public dialogue, problems of nationalism and fundamentalism, domination and oppression, the challenges of militarism and imperialism. We read conservatives, liberals, libertarians, anarchists, Marxists, and others - including the likes of Strauss, Oakeshott, Simon, Hayek, Scruton, Schmitt, Arendt, MacIntyre, Rawls, Dewey, Gewirth, Habermas, Walzer, Gramsci, Magdoff, Kristeva, Young, Jagger, Foucault, and Deleuze.
Prerequisites: One (1) course in Philosophy
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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PHIL 224 - The Ethics and the Aesthetics of the Sublime in Art and Society
Why do some artworks and experiences overwhelm us, yet also move us so deeply? In the18th century philosophers, critics, and artists gave such experiences a name: “the sublime.”When we experience the sublime we experience something as great, as physically massive, as cognitively difficult to grasp, or even as posing a danger. The sublime draws us in as it pushes us away, and is both uplifting and terrifying. From the 18th century onward fascination with the sublime has been translated through the arts, often with distinctly political resonances. In the twentieth century, under the impact of historical events, technological developments and the later post-modernism, the sublime found new realms of expression. This class builds on a critical study of theories of the sublime to explore how artworks, especially those involving music, from different eras have engaged this extraordinary aesthetic.
Prerequisites: One PHIL course or MCA 101
Anticipated Terms Offered: bi-annually
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PHIL 234 - Metaphysics
An advanced study of the fundamental problems and issues concerning the nature of reality. The course may focus on historical or contemporary issues. A historical approach may involve an in-depth study of the metaphysical views of an historical figure or school of thought, including (but not limited to) Plato, Aristotle, and the Early Modern Philosophers. A contemporary approach may include one or more of the following topics: properties, substance, identity and persistence, free will, space and time, and mathematical objects.
Prerequisites: One course in philosophy or permission of instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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PHIL 235 - Self and Nature
How the self, other persons, and the natural world stand in relation to one another is a continuing theme within philosophy. Are these terms ontologically opposed or blended? Is one or another of them fundamental for the others? How can we account both for their apparent distinctness and their close relation? Self and nature reviews several classical accounts of these relationships and considers their relevance within the present moment.Considers various conceptions of the self in relation to nature developed by classical and contemporary thinkers, with emphasis on the interconnectedness of these terms.
Prerequisites: Two courses in Philosophy
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: every other year
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PHIL 239 - Theories of Knowledge
An historical and ‘systems’ approach to epistemology examining four paradigms: Platonic-Idealistic, Empiricist, Kant’s Critical Idealism, and Linguistic Analysis, and also the PostModern thesis that all such are outdated exercises founded on fundamental confusions concerning what philosophy can do. In all cases, attention given to the nature, concept and sources of knowledge, with special attention to the interrelationships among belief, knowledge, evidence, proof, truth, and the problems of relativism, skepticism and foundationalism.
Prerequisites: Two courses in philosophy.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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PHIL 240 - Epistemology
An examination of the nature of rationality and knowledge. Possible topics include (1) the problem of skepticism, (2) analyses of knowledge, (3) theories of justification, and (4) the central works in epistemology by significant figures – for example, Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Russell.
Prerequisites: Two courses in philosophy.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 241 - Philosophy of Science
Examines such questions as: What is a scientific explanation? Can induction be justified? What could justify the claim that one theory is better than another? Are there such things as objective facts? Do scientific theories disclose the ultimate constituents of the universe? What is the difference between science and pseudoscience?
Prerequisites: One course in Philosophy or permission of instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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PHIL 242 - Philosophy of Language
A philosophical examination of topics concerning the character and meaning of referring expressions and propositions. We focus on the nature of reference and meaning in the case of names, indexicals, and natural kind terms. Representative readings include works by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Strawson, Quine, Putnam, Kaplan, and Kripke (namely, Naming and Necessity). Some background in logic is very helpful though not strictly necessary.
Prerequisites: Two courses in philosophy.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 243 - Philosophy of Psychology
A philosophical treatment of the possibility that the mind is a machine that can be studied scientifically. We examine questions concerning (1) the relationship between the mind and the brain, (2) the twin ideas that the human mind is a computer and that an artificial machine is capable of genuine cognition, (3) the nature of mental representation, and (4) various proposals for how the mind is structured, including connectionist architectures.
Prerequisites: One course in philosophy or permission of instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 244 - Hume
This class is dedicated to central questions and texts in the philosophy of David Hume. His philosophical proposals earned him labels like “rebel,” “sceptic,” “infidel,” and “heretic.” But at the same time his successors showed great interest in his views. Questions discussed might include the following: Can science give us certainty? Is suicide moral? Do we have a right to political rebellion? Can religion be rational? Can we argue about beauty? For the exact texts and questions on the schedule for a given semester please see the philosophy department website and/or the instructor’s website and feel free to get in touch with questions.
Prerequisites: P= two (2) in Philosophy including PHIL143 (early modern european philosophy) or perm
Anticipated Terms Offered: bi-annually
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PHIL 250 - Plato
An advanced study of the philosophical thought of Plato. The seminar involves careful reading and discussion of one or more of the major dialogues, such as the Gorgias, Protagoras, Republic, Parmenides, Sophist or Theaetetus.
Prerequisites: PHIL 141 .
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 256 - Kant
A study of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, regarded by many as the most important philosophical text of the last several hundred years.
Prerequisites: Two courses in philosophy, including PHIL 143
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 263 - Philosophy of Mind
A critical examination of the nature and concept of mind. We consider the following questions: What is the relationship between the mind and the brain? What is the nature of consciousness and does the existence of conscious experience argue against a physicalist conception of the mind? Possible readings include works by Smart, Fodor, Jackson, Lewis, and Loar.
Prerequisites: One courses in philosophy. Sophomore, Juniors, and Seniors only. (First year students must receive permission.)
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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PHIL 270 - Philosophy of Law
Examines fundamental questions in philosophy of law, such as: What is the source and purpose of law? What is the nature of judicial reasoning, and is it subjective or governed by some set of principles? How do alternative theories of law explain rights, duties, liability, responsibility and so forth? What is the relationship between liberty, privacy and justice? Readings include selections from legal theory and a variety of contemporary court decisions. Fulfills Values Perspective (VP) requirement.
Prerequisites: One course in philosophy or permission of instructor.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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PHIL 295 - Senior Thesis
Students may opt to write a senior thesis. Completing a senior thesis does, by itself, meet the requirements for Honors in philosophy. For more information, please see the ‘Honors Program’ entry in the online academic catalog for the philosophy department.
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PHIL 297 - Honors
For information about Honors in philosophy, please see the ‘Honors Program’ entry in the online academic catalog for the philosophy department.
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PHIL 299 - Directed Study
For significant independent academic work, the department offers individual Directed Study. Students interested in these possibilities should consult with individual members of the philosophy faculty.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester.
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PHIL 1000 - Introduction to Philosophy
Utilizing primary sources and commentary, the course introduces the student to the major schools of philosophy –idealism, realism, naturalism–through examining problems and theories in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, social philosophy and anesthetics. Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Mill and Rawls are reviewed.
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PHIL 1100 - Introduction to Logic
Introduces students to logic as a branch of philosophy, as well as a practical skill. Students learn to recognize and symbolize different patterns of reasoning. This is a hands-on course, with much class time spent doing exercises and solving problems.
Course Designation/Attribute: FA (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: -
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PHIL 1310 - Professional Ethics
Investigates moral problems that arise in-and-about-the world of business. The class discusses ethical issues in advertising, the moral status of affirmative action programs and the responsibilities of business toward the environment. Each student is expected to articulate the different sides of the issues and to defend his/her own views in discussion and in writing.
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