The A.A.and A.S. Introductory Cluster is a grouping of four different courses in the liberal arts and/or sciences connected by a common theme. It will introduce you to connections among disciplines and enable you to develop techniques in thinking, reading, researching and writing.

Extended day students and non-liberal arts and sciences majors may enroll in a cluster if they wish. Check to be sure the courses meet core or elective requirements for you.

Fall 2008 Clusters are:

Frankenscience

     We are living in a rapidly changing world in which science plays a crucial role in improving the quality of life for many people. Everyday, we learn about new scientific advancements—especially in biotechnology and biomedical research—such as genetically modified food, cloning, stem cells, reproductive technologies, molecular medicine, and gene therapy.  These scientific developments invite us to define our identity and responsibility as human beings.  For instance, how can we ensure our genetic information is protected from potential abuse (by insurance companies, the criminal justice system, our families)?  What guidelines are in place to ensure the ethical treatment of animal and human research subjects.  If we are to one day co-exist with clones, what identity and what kinds of rights will they have?  Developments in science raise huge ethical questions relating to how we come into and leave this world—issues we will discuss in sections on euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide and in vitro fertilization. Texts include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the film, Gattaca, and writings by scientists and thinkers like Michael Pollan, Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, Peter Singer, and E.O. Wilson.  There will also be a field trip to the museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History.

Media For The Masses

Movies were the first of the various mass media technologies which are now an integral part of our daily lives.  Those first moviemakers could not have imagined the explosion of technology that followed in the century to come: radio, TV, home theater, and the digital revolution.  This cluster considers the rise of these media—from syndicated news to the Internet, from Thomas Edison’s hand-cranked movie camera and peep-show projector to all digital films like Toy Story, Shrek, and Final Fantasy at the multiplex.  We will focus not only on the product, but on the process of media-making and media consuming.  How have the various media “constructed” their audiences?  How may audiences be considered “authors” of mass media?  And how have changes in audience composition (age, gender, race, ethnicity, class) in the past century changed the product?  Students will analyze the choices media producers make, how those choices shape the image of the world they present to us, and how those images have changed in the last hundred years as the result of technological innovation and social change.

Sex Wars

What is sexuality?  How have the sexualities of individuals been shaped by cultural and religious traditions?  Is there such a thing as “normal” sexual behavior?  Can we choose our sexuality?  Should there be any limits to sexual behavior or other forms of personal freedom?  Should we have the right to create or enjoy anything we want, including such forms of expression as music, photography, novels, comedy routines, art works, TV shows or films, even if these include sexually explicit images or language?  Does sexually explicit material cause harm?  What is pornography and who should have the authority to define it?  Should society legislate morality?  How have standards of decency evolved?  Whom do these standards tend to protect, and whom might they harm?  This cluster will explore how sexuality has become a political issue in the contemporary world.  We will analyze the meanings of and relationships between sex, gender, and sexuality as these aspects of the self have come into being, changeover time and vary among cultures.

Summer Of Love

This cluster will explore key events in the decade 1960-70.  90 million Americans were under 25 in 1967 (half the population) and they believed they could change the world.  Topics will include the civil rights movement, the quest for greater spiritual awareness through mind altering drugs and meditation, the Vietnam War protest movement and the open exploration of feminist and gay identities.  Students will look at plays, films, music, art and literature that dominated the decade.  We will read primary documents including speeches by John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King; fiction and non-fiction work by such figures as Alice Walker, Erica Jong, Bobbie Seale, Abbie Hoffman, Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg; plays including The Boys in the Band and Dutchman.  Film screenings may include a PBS documentary, The Summer of Love, a documentary on the Beatles, The Magical Mystery Tour, Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Mississippi Burning and Born on the Fourth of July.  In the Art of Theatre course students will explore the new forms of theatre that emerged during this time: happenings, guerilla theatre, street theatre, improvisation and niche theatre (black theatre, gay and lesbian theatre, women’s theatre).  Since the 60’s were formative years in the development of different approaches to acting (poor theatre, bread and puppet theatre) students will compare the new approaches with the more traditional “method” approach.

The Persuasive Note

The essential question that this cluster poses is, “What makes a piece of writing, a speech, or a piece of music effective and persuasive?”  In other words, what is the nature of effective persuasion?  What does a text or opus require in order to move others?  Using texts as diverse as Homer’s Iliad and Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” numerous persuasive speeches and moving, evocative, and timely musical masterpieces (like those of Mozart and Wagner), this cluster explores the interaction of voice, purpose, and audience during the persuasive act.  Students will examine the creative use of musical language and they will be asked to apply that language to a visual work (painting or sculpture).  They will study persuasive speeches, examining ways speakers can be persuasive for ethical and unethical ends, on the one hand, and the way audiences can be skeptical, receptive, or even credulous, on the other.

Fighting For Our Rights

Through this cluster, we seek to address key questions such as: What is a social movement?  What characteristics distinguish it from other kinds of political and cultural entities such as interest groups, political parties, music, art, fashion, or literary fads?  What are key social movements within particular periods of American history?  What literary movements and texts are connected to these social movements?  What are the underlying factors that give rise to social movements?  What role do literary texts play in informing and publicizing the ideologies of particular social movements?  How have music, art, literature, philosophy, theater contributed to the visibility and successes of social movements?  What are the short and long term effects that literary texts have had in shaping American society, politics and culture?  Readings may include Sapphire’s Push, Maus and The Plum Plum Pickers, a novel about Latino agricultural workers.  Films may include Eyes on the Prize, Salt of the Earth, Matewan, Union Maids, 9-5 and Erin Brockovich.

Constructing Gender

In this cluster, we will examine gender, race, class and sexuality to discover new ways of thinking about them and how they shape every aspect of our lives.  What is gender?  How is your gender shaped by your culture, class, religious tradition, and family life?  How does being female or male change the way you see the world and how the world sees you?  What differences do women and men experience socially, politically, and emotionally as they interact in the world?  What effect does culture, popular or otherwise, have on your expectations of women and men and the roles they play?  Are you more affected by your family life?  Or does your community play the greatest role in shaping who you are?  What happens when your ideas about identity do not match cultural norms: we will consider the trials of men and women who have cross dressed, for example.  In English, Philosophy and Argumentation and Debate courses, students will explore themes of identity and gender construction.  Readings may include Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.  We will also be using material from the LaGuardia Wagner Archives including the diary of a Steinway daughter.