Is medicine dying as a profession? How is the professional power of physicians developed in different kinds of societies? Are the forms taken to strengthen or limit professional power different in societies with different contrasting political economies? Is state power central in the analysis of professional power? What is the relationship between the state and the medical profession and where are doctors better off? In this tutorial we will examine the changing status of the medical profession in six countries - the United States, Britain, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and Canada. We will explore the extent to which nation states have singled out the profession guilds for control. Readings will include McKinley's and Hafferty's The Changing Medical Profession, Kruase's Death of the Guilds, and OECD's Internal Markets in the Making.
This course is an introduction to philosophy via the undead. With their help, we will take up a number of philosophical questions, including the following. Is death bad? Is undeath worse? Does human life have meaning? Would the life of a zombie be any more or less meaningful? What, if anything, makes a person one-and-the-same through time? Could a person become a zombie or would that simply be the end of them? Is the mind or consciousness a necessarily non-physical aspect of us? Could an indistinguishable physical replica of us be unconscious? Would immortality be good (for us)? Might an immortal have good reason for becoming mortal? Along the way we will watch a number of movies having in one way or another to do with the undead and with the philosophical themes we wish to take up. We will dedicate some weeks to the discussion of these movies, not confining ourselves to the philosophical questions they may raise.
It seems like America has always been haunted. From classic stories like Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" to Toni Morrison's novel of slavery Beloved to the Lore podcast, ghostly figures of various sorts populate U.S. cultural production. But what is a ghost? Why has haunting functioned as such a prominent trope in American literature and culture? How is the conceptual metaphor of the ghost useful for thinking about and addressing historical and contemporary violence—and what are the limits of this metaphor's usefulness? In this class, we will examine fiction, visual art, folklore, comics, and film that feature ghosts or other haunted/haunting figures. We will pay particular attention to what ghosts and haunting have to do with gender, race, class, and sexuality. Authors may include Washington Irving, Toni Morrison, Anna Lee Walters, and Allison Bechdel; we will also view a range of visual art and other media. Students will produce a substantial research paper, present orally to the class, and make their own ghostly creations.
This intermediate-advanced level course will introduce students to a variety of artistic texts (including literature, painting, and cinema) as well as other cultural materials from the Spanish-speaking world. This will allow students to gain a greater appreciation for the artistic expressions of the Hispanic world and the historical context to which they belong, while building their linguistic, communicative, critical and analytical skills.
Prerequisite: SPAN 225 or placement above 225. Diversity. Group III. Honors in class option
How do societies change? How have cultures been changing? Is society as we know it coming to an end? This course explores the local and global forces that have been changing societies and cultures around the world. We compare past and contemporary societies and think about what the cultures and societies of the future will be like. We study examples of the influence of technological, political, economic, and environmental changes on societies and cultures, the changing forms of social inequality, and the ways in which societies and cultures influence one another. In their research projects, students will analyze either 1) their own family histories within crucial social processes or 2) the ways in which our future will unfold. For the Fall 2024 semester, class sessions are held in a prison facility near Delaware, OH. Class sessions will include OWU students and incarcerated students learning together, and OWU students will spend additional time reflecting about their learning experiences on the way back to the OWU campus.
This seminar examines famous, and infamous, trials to understand significant legal, social, and cultural issues in US History. Additionally, we will consider how legal institutions and legal values, such as notions of justice and rights, have evolved over the course of US history. Some trials will also illuminate race and gender issues. For example, the US Government's prosecution of Susan B. Anthony for voting and the prosecution of "The Scottsboro Boys" in segregated Alabama. No prior knowledge of law or legal history or specific US History is expected. Professor Terzian will provide the contextual history to understand the trials.
Chemistry is the language used by molecules to coordinate and regulate all biological processes. This course is designed to help students 'decode' that language, and strengthen and enrich their understanding of communications between molecules that drive cellular processes. The focus of the course will be on the structure and function of three major classes of biomolecules: proteins, carbohydrates and lipids, as well as catabolic processes of carbohydrate fuel sources (glycolysis, citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation), membrane transport and enzyme kinetics. The laboratory provides experience with current biochemical techniques and their applications.
The WHO estimates that seven million people per year die prematurely due to polluted air. Dengue Fever, a dangerous mosquito-borne disease, is spreading to countries that have never before seen it as a result of climate change. Noncommunicable chronic disease, like diabetes and high blood pressure, is on the rise as a result of changing diets. Armed conflict, displacement, and drought are causing one-quarter of the world's population to be in crisis. These health problems fall under the umbrella of global public health. Global public health is often described as being a collection of problems rather than a discipline. Understanding why a person might become gravely ill demands an interdisciplinary approach. Global public health efforts must be expanded if we are to avoid increased suffering in the decades to come. This course examines global health problems, challenges, institutions, and commercial enterprises from an anthropological and sociological perspectives.
This course will cover three areas of inquiry. First, how cultural and societal contexts impact the everyday and on-the-ground experience of health and disease. Second, how ways of knowing about medicine and healing practice are shaped by politics, cultures, and societies thus are imbued with inequity and power structures. Third, how the key global health organizations, institutions, and commercial enterprises are part of larger global political power structures that are not always in the best interest of the very populations in which they seek to decrease suffering.
This course will be of particular of interest to social science, public health, and pre-health majors because it will bring to light new ways to think about healthcare, health and illness, interactions in healthcare settings, and broader social, cultural, state, and global forces influencing disease and well-being. Similarly, it will be of interest to students interested in international policy as it asks questions about ethics, equity, and power imbalance in the development and operations of policy. There are no prerequisites for this class.
How can works written centuries or even millennia ago speak to the problems we face today? If these works do speak to us, is it their voices we are hearing or our own? What happens when an actor or playwright, especially one from a minoritized group, turns to the canon for inspiration? This class will consider the ways that modern theatre professionals reimagine premodern plays for a contemporary audience. Throughout our course of study, our attitude will be one of respectful curiosity. Rather than judging classical plays against the standards and practices of our own time, we will try to reconstruct what originally made these works meaningful to their original audiences. Then, reversing the procedure, we will examine modern transformations of these works, evaluating them not according to the standards of their forebears, but on the profundity of their engagement with the present.
In this course, students will learn about the American electoral process, voting behavior, and how campaigns influence said behavior. We will learn why people are turned off of politics and consider what kind of changes might be necessary to rekindle the interest of voters and maintain the legitimacy of elections in the future. Students will learn how citizens evaluate candidates, issues, parties and their political context. Students will then use the concepts learned in the class to follow and analyze the results of a major race (governor's, Senate, or House of Representatives) in the 2024 General Election.
This course encourages the development of critical thinking skills and academic skills through in-class participation, exams, and short assignments. Examinations are formatted to test students on concepts and scholarly arguments.
The Victorian age (c. 1832-1901) saw unprecedented technological, social, and political transformations. Indeed, the Victorians were probably the first people in history to experience "future shock": the disorientation that comes when the pace of change is too rapid for human beings to process. In this class, we will read widely in the extraordinary literature that arose in response to these transformations. Texts will include fiction by Stevenson, Dickens, and Eliot; poetry by Tennyson and the Brownings; and non-fiction prose by Darwin, Nightingale, and Ruskin. We will also find time to read some nonsense poetry and working-class literature—and to savor what is probably the funniest play in the English language.
This class is appropriate for students of any major (and required for English majors and minors). It provides a wide-ranging—and sometimes free-wheeling!—introduction to the study and appreciation of literature. We will read a wide variety of classic literary texts—including works of fiction, poetry, drama—and cultivate the skills of close reading and thoughtful analysis. Along the way, we will experiment with different theoretical approaches to literary interpretation, including feminism, psychoanalysis, and ecocriticism. We also consider some fundamental questions: What makes literature different from other kinds of writing? What kinds of knowledge and experience do literary works offer their readers? Does the meaning of a literary text change depending on where and when it is read and who is doing the reading? Writing Course; Diversity Course.
This course is an introduction to mythology in the classical (Greek and Roman) world. Primarily we will be concerned with the mythology of Greece, as the Romans did not have much of a mythology of their own. Mythology from the ancient world is accessed via literary texts that have been handed down to the modern era. For us these pieces of literature will come in various genres of poetry (epic and tragedy). We will think through major questions in these texts for their literary and cultural, and "philosophical" value. The primary objective of this course is to instruct students in strategies of literary analysis and to aid in reading comprehension. Over the course of our investigation, we will think through the ways that mythology, as a literary and cultural nexus, impacted both the classical and modern world. The themes that will be explored in this course are ethics, justice, societal formation, emotion, and human growth and independence. Obtaining an honors in the course will require students to read additional ancient works and to discuss them with the professor in addition to completing a longer research paper on a question of scholastic interest that the student will arrive at during the course of the semester.
The main objective of this course is to gain knowledge of sports medicine and apply relevant knowledge to a population of people who share specific exercise, fitness, or movement needs. This course is designed as a case-based class intended to allow students to explore the breadth of concepts presented in class with greater depth. The course is focused on future health professionals, coaches, physical and athletic trainers, and fitness specialists. The goal of the course is to increase student understanding of the complexity of issues impacting effective and healthy fitness or performance training. In addition to learning and applying concepts of sports medicine, students will investigate a specific population of interest and research likely injury or movement limitation risks and their causes or mechanisms. Students will then research evidence-based strategies to prevent and care for these injuries or movement limitations. They will also consider the role of movement in preventing, rehabilitating, or prehabilitating injury or illness risk.
This survey course examines Spanish literature, culture and cinema from the 1800s to the present. The course will focus on short story, poetry, drama, essay, novel, and cinema in relation to the major literary movements and periods in Spain (romanticism, pre-modernism, realism, naturalism, vanguardias, civil war, postwar, democracy and new millennium). The goal is to help students develop an extensive knowledge of the selected works within a broader socio-political and cultural national and global context, to enhance their skills in the Spanish language, and to develop a critical and analytical thought. Theoretical exposition will be combined with collective discussion based on active and spontaneous participation, weekly readings and comprehension handouts, and oral presentations. The course follows an interdisciplinary approach to the study of literature, with additional emphasis on cinema. A selection of documentaries, paintings, journal articles, artistic adaptations and other forms of popular culture will be used along with the main texts to familiarize students with the cultural developments of the Spanish literary and visual art scene. Prerequisite: a minimum of three intermediate courses beyond Span 225 (Span 226, Span 250, Span 310, Span 350) or permission of instructor. Group III, Honors in course optional.
This course is taken in the same semester as the senior honors project (490H). Students will meet weekly to share their progress and their scholarly work with fellow honors students. This course allows students to practice their oral and written communication skills about their scholarly or creative works to a diverse audience without close knowledge of their discipline. The course also provides opportunities for students to practice scholarly discourse across disciplinary boundaries.
This course is designed to be taken the semester preceding the senior honors project (490H). In this course, students will first identify an area of inquiry and a faculty member who will serve as their honors research mentor. Students will begin to formulate a research thesis or define a creative project and learn how to conduct relevant background research in different disciplines. The seminar will culminate in an honors project proposal to be submitted to the honors program that is developed in collaboration with a student's thesis mentor. The process will include peer- review from fellow honors students in the seminar.
Time. Everyone knows what it is, but nobody can define it. We won't succeed in defining time in this tutorial either, but we will investigate many attributes and associations of time: how time has been measured throughout history, time as a fourth dimension, time dilation, the arrow of time, the history of time, the reversibility of time, time travel, time perception.
This is a varying topics course that will be held at Marion prison, where Ohio Wesleyan students will form a learning community with a select group of men at the prison. In 2025, the topic will be philosophy and social change. Readings by Immanuel Kant, Emma Goldman, Simone Weil, James Baldwin, and others will guide us in exploring questions related to responsible engagement in social and cultural change. Class discussion will provide an opportunity for sharing perspectives on these issues with people from diverse backgrounds.
In this Honors section of the First Year Writing Seminar, students will learn a range of techniques to create more strategically structured paragraphs and more forceful, stylish sentences. Students will read the essays of other writers regularly and will read and comment on other students' work. Through both experiences, students will develop their awareness of different writing strategies and writerly voices. The course will also provide an introduction to the specialized resources of a university library, increasing students' confidence in their ability to find & engage with the best scholarly sources for future research papers.
This course will focus on the political and social role of noble women in early modern Spain. We will study power relations and views of gender, religion, race and class in order to understand their level of influence and contributions. We will also examine how women's experience and society in general were shaped during this period. Some of the historical figures - queens, art patrons, writers - we will study are: Isabel I, Juana I (better known as Juana la Loca), Isabel de Portugal, María de Zayas, and Ana Caro among others. Course readings will be supplemented with secondary sources, including works of art, films, TV series and other forms of modern media. The course will be taught in Spanish. Prerequisite: 350 or permission of instructor.
This course is designed to provide an in-depth understanding of food, nutrients and how nutrients are digested, absorbed and used in the body. This course builds on previous content covered in Introduction to Nutrition, but will take a more physiological and biochemical approach to nutrition processes. We will outline complex metabolic pathways as well as functions of various micronutrients. In addition, we will find and utilize current scientific literature to write a review of a specific topic related to a nutrient. Students completing the Honors requirement will use this literature review to create a research proposal based on gaps in current knowledge. Prerequisites: NUTR 100.2, CHEM 110, and BIOL 251 or permission from the instructor. Writing requirement.
"We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us." – John M. Culkin Artificial intelligence, robots, microchip implants: these technologies inspire wonder. But they also raise anxieties. Is technology developing too quickly for our species to adapt? Are we at risk of losing control of our own creations? Does the improvement of technology come at the cost of the devaluation of human beings?
In this class, we will gain perspective on these questions by studying the work of authors, filmmakers, and thinkers who have grappled with these questions. Likely texts include Frankenstein, He, She and It, Klara and the Sun, as well as the films Her, Ex Machina, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This course is taken in the same semester as the senior honors project (490H). Students will meet weekly to share their progress and their scholarly work with fellow honors students. This course allows students to practice their oral and written communication skills about their scholarly or creative works to a diverse audience without close knowledge of their discipline. The course also provides opportunities for students to practice scholarly discourse across disciplinary boundaries.
This course is designed to be taken the semester preceding the senior honors project (490H). In this course, students will first identify an area of inquiry and a faculty member who will serve as their honors research mentor. Students will begin to formulate a research thesis or define a creative project and learn how to conduct relevant background research in different disciplines. The seminar will culminate in an honors project proposal to be submitted to the honors program that is developed in collaboration with a student's thesis mentor. The process will include peer-review from fellow honors students in the seminar.