Seminars

• Dr. Margarita Garcia-Notario
• TR 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. (Zoom)
• 3 Credits

Traditionally, parenting was considered to be one of humans’ natural purposes, something imbedded in human nature that guides the species toward the goal of reproducing itself.  Not too long ago most humans would see parenting as an unavoidable outcome for the majority of men and women.  However, with the advent of technologies that control or enable our life-conceiving capabilities, parenting is no longer unavoidable or “natural.”  Nonetheless, most of us who become parents are not well prepared for the task.

Following bio-physical anthropologists, other scientists, and social thinkers, such as Sarah Hardy, David Loye, Rianne Eisner, Alice Miller, Gabor Mate, and Daniel Siegel among others, this seminar will examine the role that parenting plays in human life.  We will reflect on the methods and ideas that guide childrearing today, in contrast with what was common in the past, and we will search for beneficial and enriching parenting and education habits and behaviors.  We will explore the following questions:

• How does the brain develop from conception to adolescence?
• What role do feelings and emotions have in a healthy life?
• What role does bonding and attachment play in determining human behavior?
• How does one become a good parent?
• What is the role of parenting in human evolution?

Students will read contemporary brain research focusing on emotions, and together we will explore the reinterpretation of Darwinian lessons.  We will focus on the role of compassion and cooperation in natural selection and species survival. We will explore Alice Miller’s thesis that we are not born with a clean slate, but with a history of our own: the history of nine months from conception to birth. In addition to the genetic blueprint we inherit, we will consider the thesis that character depends crucially on the nature of the social surroundings in which one is raised.

At all stages students will take responsibility for defining the terms and boundaries of the discussions.  Students will be expected to question the premises and conclusions of the authors they read. Discussion questions will be required for all readings. Presentations and participation are expected, and will occur in a supportive environment. A detailed, inquisitive and critical reflection will be required for all assigned readings.

THIS SEMINAR WILL SATISFY THE NATURAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY COMPONENT OF THE PLATTSBURGH GENERAL EDUCATION PROGRAM.

THIS IS A ZOOM SEMINAR.

• Dr. Vincent Carey
• TR 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. 
• 3 credits

Somewhere between 80–100,000, mostly women, were executed in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the supposed crime of witchcraft. It is important to understand that all of these women were innocent of the charges for which they died. They did not fly on brooms, attend witches’ Sabbaths, steal Christian babies, and copulate with the devil among other ludicrous charges. Yet European society by and large “bought” into this elite delusion. Our course will explore how and why a society undergoing change and feeling itself threatened came to believe in the existence of a plot by the devil and his “agents,” the supposed “witches.” Fundamentally, it came to rest on fears for fertility and fear of the marginal. An historical experience that might give us pause to think about our own society today.

It is very important to note that these women died because they were tortured, they were never demonic agents intent on undermining Christianity. The crimes for which they were accused were impossible. The evidence that brought them to their deaths was forced by a warped judicial process. One of the difficulties of the course for the student is the historian’s task to get into the heads of these men and of the women accusers, to understand their worldview.

Grading:

Library Search Report	50 points
Bibliography	50 points
Project Proposal	50 points
Outline/Preliminary Thesis	50 points
First Draft	50 points
Oral Presentation	100 points
Final Draft	400 points
Discussion Participation	250 points

THIS SEMINAR WILL SATISFY THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION COMPONENT OF THE PLATTSBURGH GENERAL EDUCATION PROGRAM.

THIS SEMINAR WILL MEET IN-PERSON.

• Dr. Tracie Guzzio
• MWF 10 – 10:50 a.m. (Zoom)
• 3 credits

This course is designed to analyze and understand the genre of the “literature of witness” which is defined as works that give “testimony” to traumatic historical events. The works that we will be studying consider the global response to oppression and the expression of human rights in a contemporary society. Most of this literature arises from a traumatic personal experience of the historical event, such as the Holodomor, the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the dictatorship of Pinochet, the Haitian massacre of 1937, Bosnian genocide, the Nanking massacre, the Cambodian “killing fields,” the Rwandan Genocide, the Rohingya genocide, and American slavery, to name, unfortunately a few.

Survivors and witnesses testify to their experiences in this literature as both an act of remembrance and a political call for social justice. Many of these writers resist the “history” we think we know, and give voice to those people who are no longer able to give testimony. In some cases, writers have chosen to present these events and experiences through a fictional voice or poetic persona; these choices are also important for us to analyze in the course. Students will be encouraged to think critically about this genre, its role in the context of a globalized society, and the ethics of speaking for others (and the obligations to “truth” this entails). As well, we will consider how these narratives argue for new texts to emerge in our postcolonial, post-Holocaust, postmodern world. The works covered in the course represent writers from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe and we will be examining various types of literature including novels, autobiography, poetry, drama, testimonio and narrative and documentary films. Students will reflect on these issues and the very nature of narrating historical events through class discussion, critical analysis, research and writing.

We will begin by examining the emergence of trauma as a psychological phenomenon and the resulting literary response. We will trace the development of “trauma literature” as it intersects with works that “bear witness” to the genocides of the twentieth century — called by some scholars as “Philomela’s Tongue.” Though most scholars situate this moment as a post-Holocaust response, we will consider how this framework affects the reading of 19th century American slave narratives as well as literature after the first Holocaust works appear. We will also examine multiple points of view of the same event (e.g., In the Time of Butterflies and The Farming of Bones), and how the same event is represented by different genres (e.g., Deogratias, Rwandan poetry, the docudrama Hotel Rwanda, the autobiography it is based on and the documentary, Flowers of Rwanda).

Works will include Night; Maus; Beloved; “S”;  Say You’re One of Them; Nanking Winter; The Farming of Bones;  Death of the Maiden, and selections from other works.

The course grade will be based on class discussion and essays. Students will be asked to do one presentation as well.

THIS IS A ZOOM CLASS AND MEETS MWF AT 10:00.  IT IS ALSO CROSS-LISTED WITH ENG 353. BOTH HON 300 AND ENG 353 MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF GENERAL EDUCATION GLOBAL ISSUES.

• Dr. Andrew Buckser
• MW 9 – 9:50 a.m. via web; F 9 – 9:50 a.m. in person
• 3 Credits

This course explores the relationship between human culture and one of its most universal features: the complex of beliefs, symbols and practices we call religion. Religion occurs in every human society, and in most it stands at the center of civic and family life. Why? What makes ideas about the gods, about the origins of the universe, about rituals and myths, worth the enormous amount of time, wealth, and commitment that so many cultures devote to it? Why does it stand so often at the center of major human enterprises, from social movements to economic revolutions to war? Without understanding the importance of religion to human culture, it’s very difficult to understand anything about the way that societies function and change.

We will begin by exploring what religion actually is — how to define and understand something that takes so many forms in different cultural contexts. We will consider theories about the origins of religion, and the functions it performs in human culture. We will also examine some key aspects of religion across cultures — things like ritual, magic, myths, pollution and shamanism. We will bring some of these ideas together by focusing on two examples of witchcraft beliefs, one among the Azande in the early 20th century and one in colonial New England.

We’ll also discuss some practical issues about how anthropologists study religion. Anthropology doesn’t get most of its data from books — anthropologists learn about culture through fieldwork, by taking part in and observing the lives of people in other cultures. To get a sense of this, students in this class will conduct a field project here in Plattsburgh. Students will be asked to observe a ritual from a religious tradition different from their own, and use that observation as the basis for an analytical paper. Part of the course will involve learning how to do this kind of fieldwork safely, respectfully and effectively.

THIS SEMINAR WILL SATISFY THE GLOBAL ISSUES COMPONENT OF THE PLATTSBURGH GENERAL EDUCATION PROGRAM.

THIS COURSE WILL BE HELD ON THE WEB ON MW AND IN PERSON ON FRIDAY.

• Dr. Monica Ciobanu
• TR 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. (Zoom)
• 3 credits

In the last three decades the question of a reckoning with the past has become intertwined with the main priorities and challenges faced by transitional governments. Addressing past abuses and human rights violations and ensuring that such acts will not occur in the future has direct implications for designing and consolidating democratic practices and institutions, establishing the rule of law, promoting a robust civil society and an engaged citizenry. Economies and infrastructures weakened by internal conflicts or corruption and mismanagement of previous oppressive regimes also need to be rebuilt. Transitional justice has become the catch-all term used by both academics and policymakers to encompass both legal and non-legal mechanisms for addressing the past.

The seminar will review several aspects of the vast domain of transitional justice represented by human rights and international justice concerns, including restitution (both material and non-material), amnesties, criminal trials (national, hybrid and international) truth commissions, memorializations and exclusion of former state officials from democratic politics (vetting and lustration).  A wide range of case studies from various regions of the world (Africa, Asia, Easter Europe, Latin America, and North America) will be discussed.  This comparative and transnational perspective will help students understand why some countries chose to prosecute and punish human rights abusers, while others have forgiven and forgotten similar crimes.

Objectives

Essentially, this seminar will enhance students understanding of the following issues:

• Understand why some countries chose to prosecute and punish human rights abusers, while others have forgiven and forgotten similar crimes.
• Acquaint students with the wide range of legal and non-legal responses to past crimes.
• Familiarize students with specific mechanisms for dealing with the authoritarian past: restitution, symbolic compensation, amnesties, truth commissions, exclusion of former state officials from democratic politics (lustration).
• Understand the role and limitations of truth commissions.
• Familiarize students with transitional justice methods after periods or episodes of mass-violence and genocide.
• Discuss the topic of children and transitional justice.
• Analyze the role of women in transitional justice processes.
• Discuss a wide range of case studies from several main regions of the world (Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America).

THIS SEMINAR WILL SATISFY THE GLOBAL ISSUES COMPONENT OF THE PLATTSBURGH GENERAL EDUCATION PROGRAM.

THIS IS A ZOOM SEMINAR.