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Communication and Literature Department course descriptions
School of Arts and Sciences

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Communication Courses



Com110 Introduction to Human Communication
This course is a survey of human communication. Included are discussions of intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, organizational, media, non-verbal, intercultural, family, and linguistic issues. Varied communication performances are required of all students. Satisfies the General Education Core requirement.
Credits: 3.

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Com202 Interpersonal Communication
This course introduces students to topics such as relationship types; relational development, maintenance, deterioration; power dynamics; types of conflict; conflict management; conflict resolution; negotiation; compromise; cooperation/competition; cohesion; and isolation, loneliness, rejection/acceptance.
Prerequisite: Com 110. Credits: 3.

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Com212 Intercultural Communication
This course introduces students to the concept of cultural communication. Topics include ways people talk about and listen to others' discussion about culture shock; ethnocentrism; assimilation and accommodation; subcultural identification; cultural conflicts and negotiations; cultural stability, change, and deterioration; and cultural borrowing.
Prerequisites: sophomore standing and Com 110. Credits: 3 credits..

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Com217 Contemporary Issues In Mass Communication
The history and role of the mass media in society are analyzed with particular attention given the impact of digital tele-communications on the form and content of various media.
Prerequisite: Com 110. Credits: 3.

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Com218 Introduction to Audio and Video Production
An introduction to the planning and production processes necessary for non-fiction audio and video production.
Prerequisite: Com 110. Credits: 3 credits..

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Com255 Oral Interpretation and Readers Theatre
The analysis and study of literature and performance techniques in preparation for public performance with particular attention given to the needs and expectations of culturally diverse audiences. Students will participate in exercises designed to develop skills in performance and script compilation.
Credits: 3.

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Com301 Mediated Persuasion
This course prepares students to influence others and be influenced ethically, purposefully, and successfully. Mediated examples from advertising, entertainment, politics, society, church, and government examples are used as instructional aids.
Prerequisites: sophomore standing and Com 110. Credits: 3 credits..

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Com302 Gender Issues in Communication
This course introduces students to ways people, groups, and institutions produce and interpret messages about differences between sex and gender; gender and the self; gender and culture; gender development, norms, and expectations; how gender issues affect our social, vocational, religious, educational, and political lives; and what control we can exert on our own gendered lives.
Prerequisites: sophomore standing and Com 110. Credits: 3 credits..

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Com312 Family Communication
The course introduces students to the ways people, groups, and institutions communicate about family types; family conflict and its resolution; family identification, development, and change; family cohesiveness; blended, adoptive, foster, non-traditional family dynamics; family nurturance and influences; and family styles, needs, choices, and legitimacy.
Prerequisites: sophomore standing and Com 110. Credits: 3 credits..

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Com315 Communication in Groups and Organizations
This course examines how organizational communication is specialized, formalized, and compartmentalized. Topics such as leadership; hierarchy; power; how upward, downward, lateral, and staff communication operate; how organizations communicate with each other and the outside world; organizational stability, innovation, change; and organizational culture are included.
Prerequisites: sophomore standing and Com 110. Credits: 3.

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Com317 Analysis of Mass Media
An examination of the development of select genres through time and across media to expose the ways in which media affect content. Genres to be considered include documentary, news magazines, situation comedy, and serial drama.
Prerequisite: Com 110. Credits: 3.

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Com327 Public Relations
An examination of ways public relations practitioners help clients maintain effective relationships with others. Students study the techniques and ethical issues involved when organizations communicate with their internal and external publics.
Prerequisites: Com 110 and Com 218. Credits: 3 credits..

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Com485 Senior Project
The Senior Project is an application of student learning and experiences to an individually designed project. Senior projects may be a research project, an on- or off-campus internship, or other appropriate projects. Senior projects must be approved by the Senior Project Coordinator before registration.
Prerequisite: 9 hours of upper level Com courses. Credits: 3.

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English Courses




English (Eng) courses at the 200 level designated with a "W" satisfy the writing-intensive course requirement in the General Education Core.
Credits: .

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Eng101 Composition and Literature I
The first part of a two-semester sequence in writing and the study of literature for idea and form. Emphasis on expository prose. Attention to grammar and syntax, the writing process, rhetorical patterns in exposition, the mechanics of the essay, and library research.
Prerequisite for Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng102 Composition and Literature II
The second part of a two-semester sequence in writing and the study of literature. Critical reading of selected texts in one or more of the following literary types: expository prose, fiction, drama, verse. The texts may range from classics in European, British, and American literature to contemporary writings, depending upon the individual instructor. The purpose of the course is three-fold: to introduce the student to literary works that consider questions of fundamental importance to the meaning of human existence; to develop the studentıs ability to read literature for theme, structure, style, and tradition; and to broaden the studentıs intellectual and cultural experience. Continued attention to development of the studentıs writing skills, including the research project.
Prerequisite for all other English courses at the 200 level or above. Credits: 3.

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Eng201 The Writing of Stories, Poems, Essays, and Plays
An introduction to the basic principles and practices of writing stories, poems, essays, and plays. Emphasis on selecting strong subjects, developing materials from life and from the imagination, and using fresh, exact details. Required in all English major and minor programs and in the Elementary Education Subject Major in English. A student may submit a portfolio of writing to the English faculty and request a waiver of Eng 201. Open to all students. Required for Eng 311, 312, 313, and 314.
Prerequisites: Eng 101 and Eng 102 (may be taken concurrently with Eng 102). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: 3.

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Eng213W Advanced Writing
This course gives instruction in the writing process, but with higher expectations for performance in essential skills of critical reading, reasoning, and writing than in Eng 101 and Eng 102. Students will learn a variety of methods of understanding, analyzing, and communicating information by engaging in rigorous study of exposition and argument in the academic disciplines. The core skills of comprehension, analysis, and judgment will be linked to their applications in other disciplines through extensive engagement with research methods, practice in organization and synthesis of information, and writing about that information in a manner appropriate to academic study. Students will learn to recognize and employ conventions of presentation, the vocabulary of critical analysis, and discipline-specific terminology as appropriate for individual projects.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng251 English Literature-Beginning Through 1789
English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period to 1789. A comprehensive introduction to and survey of English literary traditions through wide reading of significant authors together with experience in methods of literary analysis and research.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng252 English Literature-1789 to Present
English literature from the Romantic Age to the present. A continuation of Eng 251. May be taken without Eng 251.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng255 American Literature-Beginning Through 1865
American literature from the period of colonization and settlement through the Civil War. A comprehensive introduction to and survey of American literary traditions through wide reading of significant authors together with experience in methods of literary analysis and research.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng256 American Literature-1865 to Present
American literature from the Civil War to the present. A continuation of Eng 255. May be taken without Eng 255.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng257 World Literature I
A comprehensive introduction to and survey of world literary traditions through wide reading of significant writings of authors of ancient Greece, Rome, Palestine, Asia, and medieval Europe and Asia, together with consideration of historical, philosophical, and religious developments and connections with English-speaking culture, and experience in methods of literary analysis and research. Exploration of myths and symbols, from folklore to High Style, common to the human experience. Selections drawn from the sacred and secular traditions of China, Japan, India, Iran (Persia), with the literature of the Western tradition as the chronological frame of reference. Representative readings from the Mahabharata, the Shahnamah, the Bible, the Iliad, and others, in excerpt or entirety.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng258 World Literature II
World literature from the European Renaissance to the present. A continuation of Eng 257 with consideration of the literary traditions of Western and Eastern Europe, the far East, Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. May be taken without Eng 257.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng308 Studies in Shorter Fiction
Consideration of theory and practice in shorter prose from its beginning as a literary art form in the nineteenth century to the present. Reading and analysis of short stories and novellas representative of world authors, past and present, including British, American, and (in translation) Russian, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin American, African, and Japanese. Selections will vary with different instructors.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng311 The Writing of Verse
A workshop in which students write, read, and discuss poetry.
Prerequisite: Eng 201; a student may submit a portfolio of writing to the English faculty and request a waiver of Eng 201. Course may be repeated for an additional 3 credits with permission of the instructor. Credits: 3.

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Eng312 The Writing of Fiction
A workshop in which students write, read and discuss fiction.
Prerequisite: Eng 201; a student may submit a portfolio of writing to the English faculty and request a waiver of Eng 201. Course may be repeated for an additional 3 credits with permission of the instructor. Credits: 3.

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Eng314 The Writing of Plays
A workshop in which students write, read, and discuss dramatic literature.
Prerequisite: Eng 201; a student may submit a portfolio of writing to the English faculty and request a waiver of Eng 201. Course may be repeated for an additional 3 credits with permission of the instructor. Credits: 3.

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Eng331 American Poetry to 1912
Reading and discussion of the poetry of such writers as Bradstreet, Wheatley, Longfellow, Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, and Robinson. Consideration of the role of the poet in defining, interpreting and shaping the varied American experience.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng332 The American Renaissance
A study of major American Romantic and Transcendentalist writers with emphasis on selected works of Irving, Cooper, Poe, Emerson, Stowe, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Melville.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng333 Realism and Naturalism in American Literature
Reading and discussion of the prose fiction of such naturalists as Norris, Crane, and Dreiser and such realists as Twain, Howells, James, Jewett, Chopin, Freeman, and Wharton. Consideration of the uses and limitations of literary labels; attention to the unique achievement of each author and to such topics as class, ethnicity, gender, immigration, settlement, and expansion as they are treated by the writers.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng341 Chaucer and the Literature of Medieval England
A study of the significant writings of the Old and Middle English periods in modern translation. Major emphasis on Chaucer. Attention to developing social ideals, including the courtly love tradition, and literary forms such as the dream vision, the fabliau, the frame story, the epic, the verse romance, and satire.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng342 The English Renaissance
A study of English non-dramatic poetry and prose of the 16th and 17th centuries. Special attention to the works of Sidney, Spenser, Donne, Herbert, and Milton. Topics covered will include Renaissance conceptions of the individual and society, the development of lyric poetry, especially the sonnet, and the nature and function of the epic.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng343 The English Neoclassical Tradition
A study of the poetry and prose of the Restoration and 18th century English literary traditions, with emphasis on the works of Dryden, Pope, Swift, and Johnson. Topics considered will include Neoclassical literary theory and concepts of the grotesque and the ideal in satire, epic, pastoral, and biography.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng344 The Romantic Revolution in England
An examination of the poetry and prose, exclusive of the novel, of the period 1789-1832. Emphasis on the poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats and the expository prose of Lamb, Hazlitt, and DeQuincey. Topics covered will include changing concepts of the self and nature, Romantic mythmaking, and Romantic literary theory.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng345 The Victorian Age
Literature from 1832-1901, with special attention to Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Carlyle, Ruskin, Swinburne, and Hopkins. Topics covered will include the effects of artistic, religious, social, scientific, and gender controversy on the literature; industrialism and attitudes concerning education.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng347 The Early English Novel
The development of the English novel through Scott, including the novels of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Burney, Smollett, Radcliffe, Austen, and others.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng348 The Victorian Novel
The development of the English novel after Scott, including works of Dickens, Thackeray, Eliot, Disraeli, Collins, Hughes, Trollope, the Brontes, and Hardy. Specific selections will vary with different instructors.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng351 Twentieth-Century American Poetry
An examination of technique and vision in such major poets as Frost, Stevens, Williams, Pound, Moore, and Eliot with historical overview of literary movements and schools of thought. Consideration of such mid-century poets as Roethke, Bishop, Hayden, Berryman, Lowell, Sexton, and Plath; older contemporaries such as Kunitz, Brooks, Dickey, Levertov, Bly, Ginsberg, Ashbery, Merwin, Rich, and Snyder; mature contemporaries such as Strand, Clifton, Simic, Didart, Olds, and Gluck; and younger poets such as Timothy Steele, Jorie Graham, Rita Dove, Gary Soto, and Leslie Scalapino.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng352 Twentieth-Century American Prose
Significant prose from World War I to the present, including such figures as Dos Passos, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Wright, Ellison, Bellow, Baldwin, Updike, Momaday, McMurtry, Pynchon, Oates, Morrison, Anaya, Irving, Walker, Beattie, and Silko, with attention to the themes inherent in the cultural reality of America as a nation of nations.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng353 Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry
Significant poetry from W.B. Yeats to the present, including such figures as Hardy, Lawrence, McDiarmid, Graves, Bunting, Kavanagh, Auden, Dylan Thomas, Stevie Smith, Larkin, Kinsella, Montague, Holden, Hughes, Hill, and Heaney, with consideration of poetic schools and movements such as Georgianism, Imagism, the Trench Poets, the Movement, the Mavericks, the New Apocalypse, the Liverpool Poets, and the Martians.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng354 Twentieth-Century British and Commonwealth Prose
Significant British prose from Conrad to the present, including such writers as Forster, Woolf, Joyce, Lawrence, Orwell, Lessing, Waugh, Maugham, Pritchett, Durrell, Amis, Golding, Fowles, Burgess, Murdoch, Narayan, Naipaul, Rushdie, Drabble, and Carter. Consideration of such modes as the novel of education, the psychological novel, utopian and dystopian visions, and proletarian literature.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng367 Shakespeare
A selection of Shakespeareıs comedies, histories, and tragedies; consideration of the sonnets and the narrative poems ³Venus and Adonis,² and ³The Rape of Lucrece²; emphasis on Shakespeareıs development as a dramatist. The choice of specific plays will vary with different instructors.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng370 Maine Writers
Reading and discussion of the works of Sarah Orne Jewett, E.A. Robinson, E.B. White, May Sarton, Theodore Enslin, Cathy Pelletier, Carolyn Chute, John Gould, Ruth Moore, and others.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng378 African-American Literature from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present
A study of representative works of Afro-American poets, novelists, essayists from 1920 to the present, including such writers as W.E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Claude McKay, Paule Marshall, Alice Walker, and Ernest Gaines.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng402 History of the English Language
A study of the development of the English language from its earliest known stage to present-day British and American English. Consideration of aspects of sound, word formation, syntax, and vocabulary; and of cultural influences on linguistic change and social attitudes affecting usage. The course will acquaint the student with some of the concerns of linguistics, etymology, and philology. Required of English majors.
Prerequisite: Eng 102. Credits: 3.

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Eng415 Senior Tutorial for Writers
An opportunity for students who select a Writing Concentration and who have shown unusual ability in Eng 311, 312, 313, 314, or Jou 201 and 202 to develop special projects under English faculty supervision. Individual enrollment.
Credit/No Credit. Prerequisites: Eng 201; successful completion of 12 credits from Eng 311, 312, 313, 314, Jou 201, 202; senior standing; and permission of the English faculty and the Department Coordinator. Credits: 1-6 Credits..

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Honors Courses



Hon421 Senior Honors Essay
The honors student will begin work in the junior year on an individual creative or scholarly project, under the supervision of a faculty advisor and the Director of the Honors Program, to be completed by the end of the fall semester of the senior year. The project will be of sufficient depth and originality to warrant the awarding of 4 credit hours, and graduation with University Honors. The project may be in any field for which professional academic guidance may be provided on our campus. Weekly meetings with the Director of the Honors Program are required.
Credits: 4 credits..

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Journalism Courses



Jou201 News Reporting and Writing
An introduction to basic newspaper style. Students will have beat assignments and learn principles and practices of local news gathering. Assignments will include such specialized tasks as sports writing and feature writing. Participation in publication of The University Times expected.
Prerequisite: Eng 101 or permission of the instructor. Credits: 3.

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Jou202 Workshop in Journalism
Practice in news, feature, and editorial writing, with expected publication in The University Times. Experience with copy preparation, layout and design, advertising, business management, and copy editing. Suggested prerequisite: Art 251.
Prerequisite: Jou 201 or permission of the instructor. Credits: 3.

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Philosophy Courses




Philosophy (Phi) courses at the 200 level designated with a "W" satisfy the writing-intensive course requirement in the General Education Core.
Credits: .

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Phi201W Introduction to Philosophy
Through dialogue, study of classical and contemporary texts, and writing, the course introduces students to the practice of critical thinking, with an emphasis on the structure of argument, and the creative process of generating ideas. By examining the views of major philosophers and other important writers, the course explores such essential questions as: What is a person? What are the differences between reason and intuition? How can we best define values, and put them into action? Authors and texts treated in lectures, discussion, and student writing, may include, among others, Plato, Aristotle, the Tao Te Ching, Stoic philosophers, Descartes, William James, Heidegger, Suzanne Langer.
Satisfies core requirement for writing intensive course. Credits: 3.

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Phi210W Introduction to World Religions
Introduction to five religions that, because of their impact on world civilizations, are known as the ³great² religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Other ancient and modern religions are considered in relationship to the five. Particular emphasis is given to these religions as active contributors to culture and civilization, and as shapers of current political ideologies and dilemmas.
Satisfies core requirement for writing intensive course. Credits: 3.

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Phi251W American Philosophy
A study of the development of American philosophy from its roots in British empiricism and Puritan theology to the transcendentalist movement, to pragmatism and pragmatic idealism. Emphasis is given to the central themes of individualism, moral authority, and spirital intuition.
Satisfies core requirement for writing intensive course. Credits: 3.

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Phi311 Philosophy of Art and Creativity
What does it mean to say that we see in a new way? How do new ideas and perspectives originate? What is creative intuition? Do we have conscious control over imagination and the springs of creativity in human consciousness? The course asks such basic questions about the nature of the creative impulse and the creative process. Answering them involves study of the philosophy of consciousness, stressing the types of consciousness that find expression in the arts of painting, music, and poetry. The course examines major texts in the philosophy of art from Plato to Heidegger and Dewey, and explores the forms of creative consciousness through study of writings by selected artists, and works of art.
Credits: 3.

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Phi312 Philosophy and Religion
The course examines a variety of topics in religious philosophy dealing with manıs religious experience from primitive to modern times. It is a study of prophets, poets, artists, philosophers, and others who bring philosophic knowledge or methods to bear on religious concerns. The course investigates the use of philosophy to support religious truth-claims, and examines philosophic aspects of theistic world-views, mysticism, meditation and spirituality. Authors and texts may include Buber, Tillich, Eliade, Blake, the Bible, and the Tao Te Ching.
Credits: 3.

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Phi321 Introduction to Ethics
The course focuses on the problems of conscience and relationship as developed by philosophers. Attention is given to the evolution of ethical principles in the tradition of natural law. Specific topics include love, power, justice, rights, civil disobedience, and the difference between moral obligation and legal restraint. Both classical and contemporary philosophical texts will be discussed in terms of their relevance to contemporary ethical problems.
Credits: 3.

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Phi343 Marxism
The course analyzes the background and content of Marxist philosophical and political thought. Emphasis is placed on the Marxist criticism of classical German philosophy in arriving at the mature conclusions of scientific socialism. Marxıs treatment of the dialectic method, alienated self-consciousness, historical determinism, and revolutionary class consciousness receives detailed study.
Credits: 3.

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Phi445 Philosophy of Education
The course offers an opportunity for critical examination of theory and philosophic assumptions involved in educational practice. Emphasis on study of texts in the philosophy of education by classical as well as contemporary writers, including such thinkers as Plato, Locke, Dewey, Montessori, Buber, Adler, Freire, Illich, Skinner, Eisner, and Bruner. Inquiry into theories of knowledge and of human nature underlying various educational systems. Discussion of the distinction between education as technical training vs. education as investigation and appropriation of values.
Credits: 3.

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Phi486 Special Topics
Offered according to special interests and needs of students, and available faculty resources. Potential topics include focussed study of individual philosophers, topics such as environmental philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy and literature.
Credits: 3.

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