2016-17 Catalog | Caltech Academic Catalog

Hum/H 1

American History

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Among the major events, trends, and problems of our country's history are the American Revolution, the framing and development of the Constitution, wars, slavery and emancipation, ethnic and gender relations, immigration, urbanization, westward conquest, economic fluctuations, changes in the sizes and functions of governments, foreign relations, class conflicts, domestic violence, and social and political movements. Although no one course can treat all of these themes, each freshman American history course will deal with two or more of them. How have American historians approached them? What arguments and evidence have scholars offered for their interpretations and how can we choose between them? In a word, what can we know about our heritage?

Instructor: Kousser

Hum/H 2

Baseball and American Culture, 1840 to the Present

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course explores the history of baseball in America. It covers, among other topics, the first amateur clubs in the urban North, the professionalization and nationalization of the sport during the Civil War era, the rise of fandom, baseball's relationship to anxieties about manhood and democracy, tensions between labor and management, the Negro Leagues, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, Nisei baseball during World War Two, Jackie Robinson and desegregation, and the Latinization of baseball. The history of baseball is, in many respect, the history of the United States writ large as well as the history of the myths that Americans tell about themselves.

Instructor: Gronningsater

Hum/H 5

The History of the Chinese Empire

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This class will explore several facets of how the concept of empire and its historical formation in China was defined, portrayed, and developed over time. It offers students a chance to reflect on the interaction of event, record, and remembrance as these components combine in the creation and contestation of history. This course will particularly emphasize how the making, writing, and remembering of history responds to the advent of different regimes of legitimacy in order to give students a new perspective on the relationship between action, authorship, and interpretation in history.

Instructor: Dykstra

Hum/H 8 a

Civilization, Science, and Archaeology: Before Greece: The Origins of Civilization in Mesopotamia

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course will introduce students to the early development of civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt from 4000 B.C.E. through 1000 B.C.E. Origins of agriculture and writing, the evolution of the city, and the structures of the Mesopotamian economy and social order will be discussed. Comparison with contemporary developments in Egypt during the Old and Middle Kingdoms may include a reading of Gilgamesh from 3000 B.C.E. and of the Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe. The course concludes with a discussion of life during the late Bronze Age. Focus will be on life as it was lived and experienced by many groups in pre-classical antiquity rather than on kings and dynasties.

Instructors: Buchwald, J

Hum/H 8 b

Civilization, Science, and Archaeology: The Development of Science from Babylon through the Renaissance

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Connections in antiquity between astrology and astronomy, early theories of light, Islamic science, new concepts of knowledge during the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, the early laboratory, the development of linear perspective, the origins of the Copernican and Keplerian systems of astronomy, and the science of Galileo. Not offered 2016-17.

Hum/H 8 c

Civilization, Science, and Archaeology: The Nature of Religious Belief in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Israel

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

The civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia gave rise to complex forms of religious practices connected to the social order, moral behavior, and the afterlife. The course examines the origins of concepts of moral death and of sin as a violation of cosmic order in antiquity, the nature of polytheism, and the manner in which monotheism arose out of it. In addition to historical analyses the course includes readings by anthropologists who have studied cult structures as well as contemporary theories by evolutionary psychologists. Not offered 2016-17.

Hum/H 9 a

European Civilization: The Classical and Medieval Worlds

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Will survey the evolution of Mediterranean and European civilization from antiquity through the end of the Middle Ages. It will emphasize the reading and discussion of primary sources, especially but not exclusively literary works, against the backdrop of the broad historical narrative of the periods. The readings will present students with the essential characteristics of various ancient and medieval societies and give students access to those societies' cultural assumptions and perceptions of change. Not offered 2016-17.

Hum/H 9 b

European Civilization: Early Modern Europe

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Will survey the evolution of European civilization from the 14th century to the early 19th century. The topics covered will depend on the individual instructor, but they will include some of the major changes that transformed Western civilization in the early modern period, such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the rise of sovereign states and the concomitant military revolution, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, and the French and industrial revolutions. Readings will include major works from the period, as well as studies by modern historians.

Instructors: Wey-Gomez, Hoffman

Hum/H 9 c

European Civilization: Modern Europe

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Will introduce students to major aspects of the politics and culture of modernity that have profoundly transformed Western society and consciousness from the French Revolution to the contemporary era. A variety of historical, literary, and artistic works will be used to illuminate major social, intellectual, and cultural movements. The focus will be on significant and wide-ranging historical change (e.g., the industrial revolution, imperialism, socialism, fascism); on cultural innovation (e.g., modernism, impressionism, cubism); and on the work of significant thinkers.

Instructors: Kormos-Buchwald, Dennison

Hum/H 10

Medieval Europe: The Problem of Violence

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course will explore how people understood violence in Europe between ca. 500 and ca. 1400 AD. It will focus on the various norms that governed the use of violence in a period when the right of free people to carry and use weapons was considered self-evident. Working through primary sources, students will explore the relationship between violence and vengeance, the law, central authority and public order, religion, emotions, public ritual, and economics. As they go along students will consider whether violence can coexist with or even promote stable, ordered societies, or whether it by definition creates disorder.

Instructor: Brown

Hum/H 15

Early Modern Environmental History

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course explores how people have understood and interacted with the natural world from c.1450-c.1850. Focusing on Europe and the Americas, this course will cover a broad range of topics including climate change, relationships between humans and animals, pollution, deforestation, resource management, and the transition to fossil fuels. We will use both primary and secondary sources to ask how human societies adapted to a changing climate, whether pre-industrial people were "green," and how human/environmental relationships shaped European colonial expansion.

Instructor: Pluymers

Hum/H/HPS 18

Introduction to the History of Science

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Major topics include the following: What are the origins of modern Western science, when did it emerge as distinct from philosophy and other cultural and intellectual productions, and what are its distinguishing features? When and how did observation, experiment, quantification, and precision enter the practice of science? What were some of the major turning points in the history of science? What is the changing role of science and technology? Using primary and secondary sources, students will take up significant topics in the history of science, from ancient Greek science to the 20th-century revolution in physics, biology, and technology. Hum/H/HPS 10 may be taken for credit toward the additional 36-unit HSS requirement by HPS majors and minors who have already fulfilled their freshman humanities requirement and counts as a history course in satisfying the freshman humanities breadth requirement.

Instructor: Feingold

Hum/H/HPS 19

History of Astronomy and Cosmology

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

A consideration of the entire history of astronomy and cosmology, the oldest of all the sciences, from antiquity to the late 20th century, from the Babylonians to the Big Bang. The course will be devoted to repeating the procedures used in earlier astronomy and working directly with the primary sources. Not offered 2016-17.

Hum/En 20

Greek Drama and Epic

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

The epic poems attributed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the dramas of the fifth and early fourth centuries BCE have been masterpieces of the western literary tradition for thousands of years. We will study both epics, selected tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes and comedies by Aristophanes, Plato's attacks on Homer and drama, and Aristotle's treatise on tragedy.

Instructor: Pigman

Hum/En 21

The Marvelous and the Monstrous: Literature at the Boundaries of the Real

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Marvels flourish at the boundaries of literary invention, religous belief, and scientific inquiry, challenging assumptions about natural processes and expected outcomes. From Grendel, the monstrous foe of Beowulf, to Satan, Milton's charismatic antihero, this seminar examines the uses of the marvelous in a variety of texts and genres, including Shakespearian drama, medieval romance, and early travel-writing. Readings may include Beowulf, Marie de France, Chaucer, John Mandeville, Shakespeare, Milton.

Instructor: Jahner

Hum/En 22

Inequality

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Throughout the history of Europe, America, and beyond, poets and philosophers have asked hard questions about unequal relationships, whether between kings and subjects, gods and humans, men and women, rich and poor, or machines and people. Our authors take no single point of view; our goal is to analyze sophisticated and often surprising arguments and to enter new cultural worlds. Readings may include Ovid, Milton, Sei Shonagon, Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Alexievich.

Instructor: Haugen

Hum/En 23

Literature and Medicine

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

The relationship between patients and doctors, the ill and the well, involves a constant exchange of stories. In this course we will look more closely at the relationship between medicine and narrative through a selection of fiction, essays and poems that investigate the interplay between doubt and diagnosis, the idea of the case study, the problem of medical responsibility, and the language of pain and illness. Authors covered may include Sontag, Mantel, Conan Doyle, Freud, Woolf, Dickinson, Ishiguro and Shelley.

Instructor: Gilmore

Hum/En 24

The Scientific Imagination in English Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course considers three periods of major scientific development-the Renaissance, the nineteenth century, and the modern period- to explore the influence new ideas, discoveries, and theories had on the imagination of English writers. We will look at the early modern interplay between magic and science, Romantic and Victorian debates about evolution, and the twentieth-century advent of modern physics as we confront consistent tropes like the mad scientist, the scientist-hero, and the problem of uncertainty. Authors covered may include Shakespeare, Marlowe, Bacon, Shelley, Darwin, Conan Doyle, Stevenson, Auden, McEwan, and Stoppard.

Instructor: Gilmore

Hum/En 25

The Rhetoric of Superiority

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

What role does rhetoric play in distinguishing the excellent from the ordinary and inferior? This course will explore the meaning of superiority across Medieval and Renaissance literature, asking not only how the idea of superiority is constructed within certain texts (what is the difference between satanic pride and divine excellence in Milton's Paradise Lost?), but also why these texts have been deemed superior literary specimens (why is Shakespeare recognized for his literary genius?). In the process, we will reflect on the stakes of improving our own writing. Readings include: Boethius, Chaucer, Machiavelli, Milton, Shakespeare.

Instructor: Saltzman

Hum/En 26

Strangers, Foreigners, and Others: Encountering Difference in Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Encountering those who are radically different can be both exciting and threatening, obliging us to reevaluate the boundaries that separate ourselves from others. In this course, we will consider how religious, ethnic, cultural and other categories are used to differentiate between self and other, the relationship between violence and difference, and the role that language itself plays in constructing narratives of difference. Readings may include Chaucer, John Mandeville, medieval popular romances, eyewitness accounts of the Crusades, and the writings of early explorers.

Instructor: Klement

Hum/En 30

Imagining Early America

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Writers and artists regularly return to America's past for insight into its present. This course explores topics such as gender politics, race relations, settler colonialism, and democracy by pairing modern and contemporary texts about American history with primary sources from the past. Texts may include work by Hawthorne, Poe, Styron, Butler, Pynchon, Morrison, and Disney's Pocahontas.

Instructor: Hunter

Hum/En 35

Major British Authors

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course will introduce students to one or more of the genres of English literature, including poetry, drama, and prose fiction, by studying major authors from different periods. Sometimes the course will cover a wide range of authors, while at others it will concentrate on a few. Authors might include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Austen, George Eliot, or Joyce. Not offered 2016-17.

Hum/En 36

American Literature and Culture

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Studies of American aesthetics, genres, and ideas from the birth of the nation to the present. Students will be introduced to the techniques of formal analysis. We will consider what constitutes evidence in relation to texts and how to develop a persuasive interpretation. Topics may include Nature's Nation, slavery and its aftermath, individualism and the marketplace, the "New Woman," and the relation between word and image. Not offered 2016-17.

Hum/En 37

Modern European Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

An introduction to literary analysis through a sustained exploration of the rise and aftermath of modernism. What was the modernist revolt of the early 20th century, how did it challenge literary tradition and existing social forms, and to what extent have we inherited a world remade by modernism? While the course will focus on British and Continental literature, writers from other parts of the world whose work closely engages the European tradition may also be considered.Authors may include Flaubert, James, Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Kafka, Borges, Yeats, and Eliot. Not offered 2016-17.

Hum/Pl 40

Right and Wrong

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course addresses questions such as: Where do our moral ideas come from? What justifies them? How should they guide our conduct, as individuals and as a society? What kind of person should one aspire to be? Topics the course may deal with include meta-ethical issues (e.g., What makes an action right or wrong? When is one morally responsible for one's actions? How should society be organized?) and normative questions (e.g., Is eating meat morally acceptable? What should we tolerate and why? What are society's obligations toward the poor?). In addition, the psychological and neural substrates of moral judgment and decision making may be explored. The course draws on a variety of sources, including selections from the great works of moral and political philosophy (e.g., Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Hobbes's Leviathan, Kant's Groundings for a Metaphysics of Morals, and Rawls's A Theory of Justice), contemporary discussions of particular moral issues, and the science of moral thought.

Instructor: Quartz

Hum/Pl 41

Knowledge and Reality

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

The theme of this course is the scope and limitations of rational belief and knowledge. Students will examine the nature of reality, the nature of the self, the nature of knowledge, and how we learn about the natural world. Students will be introduced to these issues through selections from some of the world's greatest philosophical works, including Descartes's Meditations, Pascal's PensÃ©es, Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge, and Kant's Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. A variety of more contemporary readings will also be assigned.

Instructors: Hitchcock, Eberhardt

Hum/Pl 42

Philosophy and Gender

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course discusses the metaphysics of gender and explores some of its social and political dimensions. The main intellectual approach is that of analytic philosophy, but source materials from other philosophical traditions and intellectual disciplines will be examined. The first part of the course examines various philosophical answers to the question: What makes someone a woman or a man (or both or neither)? The second part illustrates why the metaphysics matters: views about the nature of gender not only affect individuals' own senses of identity, but also have ramifications for politics, anthropology, history, psychology, and the arts.

Instructor: Cowie

Hum/Pl 43

Environmental Ethics

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Should we clone mammoths back to life? Is it wrong to cause an extinction, and if so, why? Are some species more valuable than others? In this course, students will become familiar with basic topics in meta-ethics and normative ethics through focus on the subject matter of environmental ethics. An overarching question is the relationship between environmental ethics and traditional philosophical ethics: is there an easy fit, or does environmental ethics represent an extension or challenge to traditional ethics? Subject matter may include the biodiversity crisis, climate change, anthropocentrism and its critics, intrinsic value arguments, deep ecology, animal rights, and rewilding.

Instructor: Quinn

Hum/F 50

Introduction to Film Studies

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This course examines film as a technology, entertainment medium, and commercial art with an emphasis on American and European contexts. Students will acquire the basic vocabulary and techniques of film analysis, with an emphasis on style and structure, and develop an understanding of the historical development of film as both an art form and an industry from 1895 through the twentieth century. Topics covered may include the early cinema of illusion, the actuality film, German expressionism, the Hollywood star system, Italian neo-realism, the French New Wave, and Dogme 95.

Instructor: Jurca

L/Hum 105 ab

Topics in French Culture and Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | second term. Offered concurrently with Hum 105 ab. L 105 a and L 105 b taught in alternate years.

Prerequisites: L 103 abc or equivalent.

Part a: 20th-century French literature. Part b: Contemporary France. Conducted in French. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as Hum 105 ab, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement.

Instructor: Orcel

L/Hum 114 abc

Spanish and Latin American Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | first, second, third terms. Offered concurrently with Hum 114 abc

Prerequisites: L 112 abc or equivalent.

First and second terms: study of literary texts from the Spanish American and Spanish traditions, their cultural and historical relevance, covering all periods, with emphasis on contemporary authors. Third term: contemporary topics in literature and/or film of the Hispanic world. Conducted in Spanish. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as Hum 114 abc, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement.

Instructors: Arjona, Garcia

Hum 119

Selected Topics in Humanities

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

Instructors: Staff, visitors

L/Hum 152 ab

French Literature in Translation: Classical and Modern

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

First term: French classical literature of the 17th and 18th centuries; third term: reading and discussion of works by selected 19th- and 20th-century authors. The approach is both historical and critical. Conducted in English, but students may read the French originals. Film versions of the texts studied may be included.

Instructor: Merrill

L/Hum 162

Spanish and Latin American Literature in Translation

9 units (3-0-6) | offered by announcement

This class is an introduction to the literary masterworks of the Hispanic tradition from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Readings and discussions are in English, but students may read Spanish originals.

L/Hum 174

Advanced Chinese II: Topics in Chinese Literature

9 units (3-0-6) | third term

Offered concurrently with Hum 174. Prerequisites: instructor's permission. Reading and discussion of representative Chinese works from the 16th century to the present, including contemporary works from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Conducted in Chinese. Students are expected to examine literary works in light of their sociopolitical and historical contexts. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as Hum 174, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement.

Instructor: Ming

Published Date: July 28, 2022