Seminars

• Dr. Tracie Guzzio
• MWF 11 – 11:50
• 3 credits

The unnamed protagonist in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man notes that the “true history of the times” can only be found in listening to the blues. This course will investigate and interpret the ways that oral tradition — particularly the blues — resonates in African-American written literature. While some of these explorations will be stylistic in nature, “the blues” here is also a conceptual framework in African-American literature. Some scholars suggest that it echoes the experience of slavery, a post-traumatic artifact of melancholy, fear, and survival, as well as satire, in post-Reconstruction and twentieth-century America. We will also analyze the ways that “the blues imagination” continues to frame African-American art and promote a “blues ethic” that celebrates the traditions of the folk past, argues for social justice, and demands a witness to historical trauma.

We will listen to music, but students will also read several novels and novellas as well as blues lyrics. They will also read several poems, short stories, and critical essays. Included in the list of secondary readings will be few historical and theoretical pieces about the influence of the blues on literature and the impact of the “blues imagination” on American culture.

Students will be asked to write short critical response papers that will address the literary works in the context of our secondary readings. There will be 3-4 of these responses required during the semester. The responses will also be used to generate class discussion, and they will be based on some directed questions about our readings and ideas and comments that have arisen our time in class. At the end of the semester, students will be asked to write a longer analytical research paper.

The course addresses the requirements and objectives of the Humanities category in the General Education program. Students will address the requirements of the category for this course, but they will also “develop theoretical and critical perspectives” on African-American literature, culture, and history. This is primarily a literature course, so we will use methodologies of literary analysis, but we will also employ numerous interdisciplinary tools in our study of this literature.

This seminar will satisfy the Humanities component of the Plattsburgh general education program.

This seminar will meet in the Honors Center — Hawkins 121 Seminar Room B.

• Dr. Ann Tracy
• TR 3:30 – 4:45
• 3 Credits

Writers of fiction (when it really is fiction) find themselves stretching into the sensibilities of other people, perhaps people of different ages or genders or climates of opinion, sometimes antithetical to the writer’s own point of view. It’s liberating. But suppose that we move into another time period as well, a place unfamiliar in its appearance and assumptions. That ups the ante. This seminar will immerse itself in 1918-1919 Boston and, owning it, turn it into stories with enough of the past for authenticity but not so much that the writer appears to be conducting a museum tour. Background in fiction writing is not required. It can be taught as needed.

The first half of the semester will begin with the general context of the time frame, with lots of oral reports on history, art, music, public figures, the details of domestic life. We’ll watch at least a couple of period pieces from the PBS American Short Story series, and read such widely admired writers as Booth Tarkington (2 Pulitzer Prizes) and Gene Stratton Porter. We’ll look into the flavor of World War One, and the ravages of the infamous Spanish Influenza. And at last we’ll focus on events peculiar to Boston, sampling old issues of The Boston Globe and paying particular attention to the legendary Boston Molasses Flood of January 1919.

The second half of the semester, conducted as a workshop, will produce two pieces of writing. The first, and shorter, will be an interesting, well written non-fiction piece that explores some surprising contrast between then and now. The second, longer and more important, will be a short story of perhaps 25 pages, set in 1918 or 1919. As in other writing workshops, students will read their installments aloud, raise questions, praise good bits, and generally help their fellow travelers bring the past back to life.

This seminar will satisfy the Humanities component of the Plattsburgh general education program.

This seminar will meet in the Honors Center — Hawkins 121 Seminar Room B.

• Dr. Erin Mitchell
• MWF 11 – 11:50
• 3 Credits

Irish-Americans have contributed much to the dynamic, volatile, and tumultuous history of the United States, as students in this seminar will discover through reading historical and fictional texts, and by viewing films. The seminar will explore the ways in which an immigrant group ultimately assimilated into white, middle-class, protestant American society between the 1840’s to the present. Although the Irish have been in America since colonial times, during and after the Great Irish Famine of the 1840’s, masses of rural, Catholic, Irish-speaking survivors immigrated both voluntarily and involuntarily, to American cities. They worked as domestics, barmaids, laborers, factory workers, criminals, writers, nuns, priests, union organizers, race-rioters, police, politicians, entertainers, conscripts, prostitutes, and artists. Their reception was stormy, sometimes admired, more often discriminated against and feared. They slowly became both middle class and “white.” Increasingly, Irish-Americans are able to become returnees and tourists in an (often romanticized) Ireland their ancestors fled, where they amuse, puzzle, employ and support the Irish who live there. Students will, thus, be grappling with ideas about diaspora, colonial and postcolonial regimes, rural flight, urban communities and poverty, the definitions of race, nostalgia, religious insularity and diversity, and tourism.

The required reading for the course includes The Irish in America, edited by Michael Coffey and Terry Gollway and How the Irish Became White, by Noel Ignatiev. We will also view films such as Gangs of New York and In America. Students will engage in group research projects and presentations derived from the Irish in America text, such as the Scotch Irish, fleeing the Great Famine, and life in the tenements. Students will also do a short research paper on their topic.

This seminar will satisfy the U.S. Civilization component of the Plattsburgh general education program.

This seminar will meet in the Honors Center — Hawkins 121 Seminar Room A.

• Dr. Wendy Gordon
• MWF 10 – 10:50
• 3 Credits

What’s happening to America? As we reach the end of the 2010s it is clear this decade has been one of the most momentous in American history. In just a few years we have experienced upheavals in technology (internet and smart gadgets), society (Black Lives Matter and #Metoo) and politics (where should I start?). Ironically, the open-access, unfiltered communication enabled by the technological revolution seems to have resulted in greater social and political division rather than a coming together. Sometimes it seems as if conflicting groups don’t even live in the same country. The overarching goal of this class is to gain an understanding of how the United States got to this point, without simplistically laying blame on a single company, one hashtag, or an outstanding individual.

In 2018, it was no wonder that a divided nation had no common historical story on which to base a conversation. American history as a discipline has been confronting what became known as “identity politics” for decades. Since the 1980s American historians have, by and large, not attempted a unified history of the United States. Popular histories have focused on particular groups or narrow slices of time, and textbooks are broken into so many sub-topics that any coherent narrative thread is all but impossible to find. Individuals looking for meaning in the past could easily find a story explaining where their own community came from, but it is far harder to find a story that ties all the disparate national communities together.

To address this lacuna, Jill Lepore, the David Woods Kemp ‘41 Professor of American History at Harvard University, wrote These Truths: A History of the United States. The book is centered on the ‘self-evident truths’ of the Declaration of Independence, in particular that “all men are created equal,” that they are endowed with “natural rights,” and that government’s role is to ensure those rights. Lepore examines to what extent these truths actually applied to all members of the American community, from the time of Columbus’s explorations to 2016. Throughout the book issues of race, liberty, political representation and communication technology intertwine and mutually influence each other. It provides fascinating insight into what shaped the nation and where we might be headed.

This course will be primarily focused on a close reading and discussion of These Truths. In each class period we will address the facts covered in and the ideas sparked by the text. Assignments for the course will be essays that develop questions and ideas raised through discussion. This will be an old-fashioned seminar based in words and ideas, drawing on your experiences with philosophy, political science, and rhetoric as well as American history.

This seminar will satisfy the U.S. Civilization component of the Plattsburgh general education program.

This seminar will meet in the Honors Center — Hawkins 121 Seminar Room B.

• Dr. James Armstrong
• MW 3:30 – 4:45
• 3 Credits

The fundamental premise of this seminar is that American public life is more and more polarized around issues that divide communities, families and friends. Often, perhaps too often, real dialogue about these issues degenerates into dissension, and political conflict supplants thoughtful conversation. According to some, even institutions of democratic decision-making are threatened by manipulations of public opinion and political pressure rather than a deliberative examination of the issues.

Affirmative action, environmental policies, education, freedom of expression, foreign policy, voting rights, gun control, reproductive rights and many other issues are centers of controversy with little apparent prospect for resolution.

Is deliberative decision-making in relation to such issues possible? How can discussion of public issues move from controversy to consensus? Can conflicting opinions be resolved into consensus policies? Is it possible to discover common ground among opposing positions? These and other similar questions define one level of this seminar: an investigation of deliberative decision-making processes.

Another problem that often inhibits democratic decision-making processes is that many public issues involve complex and sometimes technical information. How can ordinary citizens become sufficiently knowledgeable to formulate coherent and informed opinions on public issues? How can citizens understand their own position within a spectrum of other positions? Can discussions of public issues avoid becoming a shrill babble of voices? Another level of this seminar, therefore, is concerned with acquiring background information and defining the issues themselves. This semester we will consider the epidemic of gun violence, American Middle-East Policy, voter rights, educational access, funding, and debt, and food production.

Each student will be required to write a two-page position paper on each issue discussed in the seminar (for a total of five papers). Each student will develop a binder of outside reading and research that will reflect their exploration of the issues. Each student will lead a discussion of one of the issues in collaboration with other students.

Grades will be based on seminar participation, the position papers and on the collaborative assignment.

This seminar will satisfy the Social Science component of the Plattsburgh general education program.

This seminar will meet in the Honors Center — Hawkins 121 Seminar Room B.

• Dr. Michael Devine
• M 5 – 7:45
• 3 credits

In the late 1800s film provided a vision “outside” or beyond the constraints of genteel society: Muybridge’s motion studies recorded what the unassisted human eye could not see, while early boxing films provided recordings of a sport considered illegal to watch in some states. In doing so, the new art form appealed to an audience of poor and often disenfranchised immigrants. This seminar will explore film in light of this outsider critique. The organizing questions are:

Where did U.S. cinema come from, how did it change over the 20th century, and where is it headed in the age of new media?

How did it help audiences both adapt to and critique the Machine Age, when the vision of the outsider — and the outside itself — underwent radical changes?

“Outsiders in American Film” focuses on both film and cultural history, with poetry, painting, and pop culture providing essential context for our inquiry. It is a survey of film’s intervention in continuing debates over American identity: from the earliest documentaries to the comedies of Chaplin, and from the 19070s “New Wave” of American directors like Terrence Malick to the auteurs of today like Miranda July, Barry Jenkins, and Spike Jonze.

This seminar will satisfy the Art component of the Plattsburgh general education program.

This seminar will meet in the Honors Center — Hawkins 121 Seminar Room B.

• Dr. Dina Mijacevic
• TR 11 – 12:15
• 3 Credits

• How long does it take to get in shape?
• Is lifting weights better than cardio for weight loss?
• Do I need extra protein to build muscle?
• Are sports video games real workouts?
• How quickly will my performance decline as I age?

If you have similar questions, HON170 is perfect for you!

Prolonged periods of sitting or sedentary behavior are associated with deleterious health consequences independent of physical activity (PA) levels. This is concerning from a public health perspective because population-based studies have demonstrated that more than 50% of an average person’s waking day involves activities associated with prolonged sitting, such as television viewing and computer use. Evidence to support the inverse relationship between regular PA and/or exercise and premature mortality, CVD/CAD, hypertension, stroke, osteoporosis, T2DM, metabolic syndrome, obesity, 13 cancers, depression, functional health, falls, and cognitive function continues to accumulate. For many of these diseases and health conditions, there is also strong evidence of a dose-response relationship with PA. This evidence has resulted from clinical intervention studies, as well as large-scale, population-based, observational studies.

This seminar, apart from introducing the sub-disciplines of the Exercise Science, will promote, through a debate-based design, conversation and critical thinking. The hope of the instructor is for you, the student, to clearly understand the benefits of PA/exercise, but also enhance your ability to critique and combine current evidence from all sub-disciplines in order to use that aggregated information to create healthy habits and promote wellness in today's society.

This seminar will meet the Natural Sciences & Technology component of the Plattsburgh general education program

This seminar will meet in Hawkins Hall — 121 Hawkins Seminar Room B.

• Dr. Monica Ciobanu
• TR 9:30 – 10:45
• 3 Credits

The concept of human rights is taken for granted today in the liberal western world. Our culture and our political leaders advocated a set of basic human “rights” which are reinforced in our laws and by our judicial system. The basic principles under which they hold legitimacy have been elaborated in a set of documents from the “Bill of Rights” (1789) to the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The latter document went so far as to declare that its definition of human rights was “universal.” But global inequalities and conflict indicate that the UN declaration of 1948 is aspirational rather than real; however, few in our society would question its basic principles. Do we not all agree that humans are born free and that slavery is wrong? Do we not hold that humans are born free and that slavery is wrong? Do most of us do not agree that cruel and inhumane punishment and torture is wrong?

This course covers the theoretical, legal and political aspects of human rights. It addresses the evolution of international human rights and of legal instruments designed for their protection. It will study the theoretical foundations of the idea of human rights in various civilizations and cultures and examine its relevance in dealing with major issues in the contemporary world. The relationships between political democracy, global civil society, development and economic globalization will be examined.

The following topics will be discussed throughout the semester:

• The history and theoretical approaches to human rights.
• The role of the United Nations.
• How human rights works in practice.
• Slavery, genocide, apartheid and war crimes.
• The International Criminal Court and international ad-hoc tribunals.
• The role of transitional justice.
• The relationship between human rights and democracy.
• Women’s rights as human rights.
• Children human rights advocacy.
• Human rights and forced migration.
• Indigenous people’s human rights
• Trafficking for sexual exploitation.
• Current controversies related to torture.
• Humanitarian intervention.

This seminar will satisfy the Western Civilization component of the Plattsburgh general education program.

This seminar will meet in the Honors Center — Hawkins 121 Seminar Room A.

• Dr. Vincent Carey
• TR 2 – 3:15
• 3 Credits

***This seminar is open to students with sophomore standing or above***

The seminar topic in this particular course will be genocide and atrocity in broad historical perspective while focusing specifically on causes and implications for relations between peoples. Genocide is a gross violation of human rights. Studying genocide and other forms of mass killing can illuminate the conditions under which these events are likely to occur, and perhaps lead to means of preventing such atrocities. This course will raise the question as to how mass killing has been used and/or abused to contribute to identity and to serve political purposes. A central issue in terms of causation and of use/abuse in the aftermath of mass killing is the role of the nation and nationalism, racism, and the rise of the hegemonic state. As well as informing students as to the extent of genocide in the past, this course will help them explore the larger question of the cultural construction of hatred and its impact on modern society.

At the core of this course is a substantial research paper on a particular genocide or an issue relating to genocide. The course will guide you through the process of researching and writing a major history paper, from proposing a project to choice of method and the final preparation for submission and presentation. All of the assignments are designed to enable the student to accomplish this task.

This seminar will satisfy the Global Issues component of the Plattsburgh general education program.

This seminar will meet in the Honors Center — Hawkins 121 Seminar Room B.