University Professor Courses
Spring Quarter 2008-09

UP 452
The Terrains of Emotion
Professor: Scott Titsworth (Communication Studies)
Credit: 4    Time/Day: 10:10AM to 12:00PM TU-TH    
Room: Research Technology Center 201
Prerequisite: JR or SR
Description: Human beings experience and embody emotions tied to specific times, places and events.  Although many popular culture discussions of emotion use monolithic statements to characterize people (e.g., “he is unemotional”), peoples’ embodied emotions are as varied as the experiences that give rise to them.  Using the metaphor of “terrain” this class explores the multi-faceted nature of emotion.  Starting with theoretical discussions about what “emotion” we will gain various theoretical lenses for understanding the role of emotion in important events like Hurricane Katrina and September 11 as well as unique public spaces like the Viet Nam Veteran’s War Memorial. As we traverse these events and spaces we will gain an understanding of how the notion of “terrain” becomes an apt metaphor for describing embodied emotional experiences.

This class will emphasize classroom dialogue and discussion.  Students will complete a final project analyzing the public and private aspects of emotion.


UP 452
Friendship & Family
Professor: Jennifer Chabot (Human And Consumer Sciences)
Credit: 4    Time/Day: 10:10AM to 12:00PM W-F    
Room: Research Technology Center 201
Prerequisite: JR or SR
Description: The UP course I will teach stems from a topic I discuss in my life span course. I spend a talking about the developmental task of friendship during middle childhood and how these relationships shape our lives across time. This tends to be one of the more popular topics among students and I often say, “I wish I had an entire class to teach on friendship.” There is a great deal of scholarship in my field on friendships as family, and how these relationships impact our lives across the entire lifespan.

Additionally, when I think of something all Ohio University students have in common, its friendship, even though students may define friendship very differently, experience these relationships in a variety of ways, and have diverse histories of each of their friendships. I am interested in exploring this on a deeper level and the UP classroom setting will allow me to do this. Class content will include the scholarship on friendship; on-line friendship venues (MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc…) that are just beginning to be researched and discussed in a variety of forums; friendships as family; the history of friendship; loss of friendships; technology’s role in these relationships; how principles in friendship translate into the life long partnerships we form (peer marriages and partnerships) and the place friendship has in pop culture. Assignments for this class will include reflective narratives on past and present friendships (our very first friend, a life long friend, a current friend, a lost friend), student interviews of long time friendships (30 + years), presentations on how media portrays friendship, a common reading project, and perhaps even a day when everyone brings a close friend to class and I have ready a variety of activities the pairs can do together that helps them reflect on this meaningful relationship. In addition to readings from the scholarship of friendships as family, I will include a recent book that examines friendship in today’s society (i.e.. Friendship: An Expose by Joseph Epstein), a novel on friendship (i.e. Ann Patchett’s Truth & Beauty: A Friendship), and various additional research articles on this topic.


UP 452S
Anthropology of Infectious Disease
Professor: Nancy Tatarek (Sociology and Anthropology)
Credit: 4    Time/Day: 9:10AM to 11:00AM M-W    
Room: Bentley Hall 304
Prerequisite: JR OR SR
Description: Over the span of human existence, the smallest of microbes have influenced human history, culture and biology.  The science of epidemiology has until recently been largely limited to microbiologists, examining the spread and effects of infectious illness on human populations.  Anthropology is uniquely positioned to consider disease and illness in general and infectious illness in particular. Utilizing the bio-cultural approach, anthropologists work to form a more complete understanding of the interactions between humans and infectious organisms.

This course will examine infectious illness from an anthropological perspective, focusing on how human culture and biology both affect and are affected by small organisms such as viruses, bacteria and internal parasites. Through this course, students will endeavor to apply anthropological concepts to the study of infectious illness in human populations through time. The ultimate goal of the course is to more completely understand how such illnesses have been dealt with in the past, how modern cultures respond today, and perhaps, how the effects can be minimized.


UP 452S
“Harold, Call Me”: Race and Gender in Recent Election Campaigns
Professor: Barry Tadlock (Political Science)
Credit: 4    Time/Day: 3:10PM to 5:00PM TU-TH    
Room: Bentley Hall 110
Prerequisite: JR or SR
Description: Given the high profile of the Clinton and Obama 2008 presidential campaigns, as well as the Palin vice presidential campaign, this course will take advantage of the interest generated by these candidates.  The course will investigate recent U.S. electoral campaigns—primarily at the presidential and congressional levels—in order to better understand how gender and racial factors operate.  The course will focus on campaign strategy (including advertising strategy) and campaign media coverage (broadcast TV).

Course materials will include political science texts that deal with electoral campaigns; archived campaign advertisements located at the Political Communication Center at the University of Oklahoma; and archived TV news clips.
Graded components of the class will include two exams; a presentation project where each student uses a campaign ad or TV newscast to illustrate a thematic issue from the course; and class participation.  The class format will consist of lectures extensively supplemented by class discussions and class presentations.  The enrollment will be capped at approximately 30 students.  It is anticipated that many of the students will be majors in POLS, AAS, and WS (from the College of Arts & Sciences), plus JOUR and COM majors.  POLS 101 and Jr./Sr. status serves as a course prerequisite.

* The 1st part of the course title refers to an infamous ad that aired late in the Harold Ford-Bob Corker 2006 U.S. Senate campaign in Tennessee.  The phrase—"Harold, call me"—was spoken by a bare-shouldered blond, who winks at the camera  
University Professor Courses
Fall Quarter 2009-10


UP 452
Light of Philosophy, Light of God, Light of Dreams
Professor: Josephine Bloomfield (English)
Credit: 4    Time/Day: TBD
Room: TBD
Prerequisite: JR OR SR
Description: I am a medievalist (I got my Ph.D. at the University of California at Davis in 1991), so many of the courses I teach deal with literature from the 7th to 14th centuries, such as the Old English Beowulf and the Middle English poetry of Chaucer, works on which I have published numerous articles.  Many English majors and Integrated Language Arts majors, however, encounter me in “History of the English Language,” a challenging course required by both programs, one that synthesizes external history with linguistic history and theory.  My current research project is focused on the medieval theology and science of light (which I have named “theoptics”), looking at the ways that medieval—and even current—understandings of the universe ranging from poetry to ideas of God have been influenced by classical and medieval optics.
My University Professor course, tentatively titled “Light of Philosophy, Light of God, Light of Dreams,” springs from my current research.  The class will focus on a set of little known but highly influential classical and medieval scientific and literary texts through which students will have the opportunity to grapple with the ways that historical explorations of theology, allegory, poetry, mirrors, dreams, and questions of the spirit have textured our understanding of light, literature, and the world today.