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9/11 FRESHMAN SEMINARS
The War from the Web: Reading for Rhetoric in September 11 Documents on the Internet Elizabeth Losh, Humanities Core Course This course will focus on documents on the Internet related to the September 11th attacks. Documents will be available on-line via the hypertext syllabus at http://e3.uci.edu/faculty/losh/syllabi. Primary sources will include presidential speeches, missing persons posters, essays written by public intellectuals, the hijackers' letters, flyers dropped in Afghanistan, transcripts from Arabic television, coverage in international newspapers, and political cartoons. Short readings in the history of verbal and visual rhetoric will provide background. Internet research skills will also be provided. At the end of the seminar we will analyze documents collected by members of the class during our ten weeks together. Although many of these documents contain powerful emotional and ideological appeals, this seminar will emphasize rhetorical complexity rather than validate anyone particular political viewpoint. Survivor Stories and War Memorials Adrienne Hurley, East Asian Languages and Literatures We will explore how wartime trauma is "memorialized" in the poetry, fiction, visual art, and music of some Korean American, American Indian, Japanese American, Chicana/o, African American, Japanese, Korean, and Polish survivors of war. The creative arts provide a unique vehicle through which personal stories of wartime trauma can, and often do, emerge. But rendering trauma in the form of "art" involves clearing enormous hurdles, not the least of which is language itself. In order to write about trauma, one must first find words to convey what no one wants to hear or say, to speak the unspeakable. Some survivors communicate their experiences in images or sounds —asking us to look at or listen to what we might otherwise wish to avoid. We will examine different ways in which "survivor stories" call us to bear witness to the horrors of war and apply our understandings to how the events of September llth and the current war are represented or repressed in a variety of contemporary media. Speaking and Writing about Terrorism and War Susan Jarratt, English and Comparative Literature The events of September 11, 2001, have inspired a flood of speeches, print journalism, and electronic communications from government leaders, political commentators, and concerned citizens. In this seminar, we will try to make some sense of these communications both by analyzing print materials in the classroom and through public participation. We will begin by reading and discussing key texts produced in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks—Bush's declaration of war, the letter from an Afghan resident in LA circulated to thousands of e-mail addresses, and prominent dissenting opinions--as well as articles commenting on the uses of language in this crisis situation. You will develop our own position on the issues through class discussion, collecting current writings, and attendance at least one public event related to the events (a forum, a lecture, apolitical or religious group meeting, etc.) Finally, each student will produce a piece of writing or a speech (individually or in collaborative groups) that will be sent to or performed for an audience (e.g., a letter to the editor of a newspaper, a posting to a web site, a speech delivered to a UCI or community group). Thus the seminar will provide the opportunity not only for intellectual analysis of these world-changing events but for informed public participation Waratory: Argument as War Christopher Kuipers, English and Comparative Literature Cognitive linguists have suggested that we most often understand argument as if it were a war: we "attack" others' "positions," but they "fight back," "shoot down" our "defenses," and we feel disappointed that we didn't "win." This course will focus on two things: how the oratorical performances surrounding the events of September 11 invoked war in their arguments, and how persistent the metaphor of argument as war is, despite other satisfactory alternatives. To help in analyzing notable cases of "waratory" before and after September 11, we will briefly review some of the traditional components of rhetoric, as well as exploring the argument of Robin Tolmach Lakoff that sustained public arguments tend to degenerate into wars over language. In addition to readings, the course will require keeping a journal in the form of a rhetorical "commonplace book" in which themes of waratory and its alternatives can be compared. The (Western) Image of Islam Jane Newman, English and Comparative Literature An introduction to several of the ways that the image of Islam has been manufactured by and handed on to the West. Counter balancing images will be offered to see how it looks from "the other side" (i.e., Arab renderings of the Crusades). Special attention will be paid to the period between 1350 and 1850. Historical and some literary texts will be our primary focus, but we may also dip into how Islamic Studies has been created as a discipline and course of academic study too. Students will be asked to use the materials we cover in the seminar to analyze how these inherited images form the representation of Islam in today's media (newspapers, TV, movies) and political discourse. We will also use the example of Islam to wonder about what is taught and how it gets taught in the Western university (including UCI) today! News Media Representations of War, Terrorism, and National Crisis Leslie Rabine, French and Italian After several people began falling ill from anthrax this past October, the news media warned viewers to take precautions against this bioterrorist attack. One TV station in San Francisco reported that people were calling the local health authorities to ask just how seriously to take these warnings. The incident suggests the deep contradiction attending our status as informed citizens of a democratic society. On the one hand, we watch TV news and read the newspaper as if we were receiving reliable, impartial information. On the other hand, many Americans recognize that news information is inseparably fused with hype, sensationalism, competition for market share, censorship, and simplification. At a time of crisis, it becomes even more necessary to separate fact from marketing hype, not only to protect ourselves against a possible immediate terrorist attack, but in a broader senses to understand the crisis itself and our place within it. While it may not be possible to obtain pure information, we can learn to read the news with a critical eye. We can learn to recognize and analyze representational strategies that represent bias as impartial fact, superficiality as in-depth coverage, reports riddled with exclusions as complete coverage. One way to practice such an analysis, and broadly inform ourselves at the same time, is to compare different media organs deploying differing points of view, ideologies, and representational strategies. In this course, we will read comparatively weekly articles from Netscape/CNN, Newsweek, the New York Times, The Nation, and The London Guardian. Students will do oral presentations of their analytic findings. Understanding Terrorism Wolfgang Bialas, German What are the questions to be asked? What is the knowledge to be applied in order to come to terms with the events of September llth and their aftermath? What's going on in the world? Why this hatred against the West? What motivates terrorists? Who are they? What do they want? What do they blame America for? Who are their backing communities? What is this "Holy War" about that the Islamic fundamentalists declared against the West? Political philosophy uses concepts like "political religion," "new world order," "globalization," "hegemony," and "the clashes of cultures" to deal with these problems. How do these categories help us to understand? This course will give you an opportunity to not only express your anxieties and feelings with respect to the recent events of terrorism, but also to discuss scholarly attempts to come to grips with these events. Topics to be discussed will be, among others: • Ideology, politics, and religion: the phenomenon of political religion. • Vulnerabilities of the western world: responding to terrorism globalization and American hegemony: Ambiguities of the new world order. • The "Holy War" against the secular world: the "Clash of Civilizations?" • The readiness to kill and die: the morality of religious terrorism. • Religious fundamentalism: contesting cultural modernity. • State terrorism versus religious terrorism. • The psychology of terrorism: understanding the terrorists' mindset. • International morality: the cultural accommodation of human rights. Al-Andalus: Medieval Islamic Spain Michelle Hamilton, Spanish and Portuguese The Islamic civilization that flourished on the Iberian Peninsula between 711 and 1492 has been called the Golden Age of Arabic civilization. Al-Andalus, i.e., medieval Muslim Spain, has been held up in the contemporary Arab/Islamic world by critics of Usama bin Ladin as a model of a tolerant Islamic society in which coexistence with Christians and Jews was a reality, yet it has also been held up by the Taliban as an example of Christian atrocities toward Muslims. In addition, politicians and the press have described the attacks of Sept. 11 as "medieval" and couched their discussion of the attacks in the rhetoric of the Crusades. But to what extent are these claims true? What was medieval Muslim Spain like? Does Usama bin Ladin have a "medieval" perspective? What is a "medieval perspective"? This class will explore these questions and how medieval Muslim society in Spain dealt with many of the same issues behind the attacks of Sept. 11, such as cultural and ethnic diversity, linguistic difference, and religious fundamentalism. Crime and Terrorism Michael Gottfredson, Criminology, Law and Society This seminar will consider terrorism from the point of view of crime and criminology. Terrorist acts involve many issues of longstanding interest to criminologists, including the definition of crime (when is terrorism a crime?), the causes of homicide and other types of violence (can terrorism be explained in the same way as ordinary crime?), the crime of conspiracy (how does the criminal law deal with agreements to do harm?), and the justifications for punishment (why punish terrorist acts?). The seminar members will read articles on such topics and discuss them in relation to recent events. Tolerance vs. Terror: After September 11, 2001, What Should Be Our Mission in Today's World? A. Marco Turk, Criminology, Law and Society A discussion of the issues and factors which must be considered when we contemplate where we go after September 11, 2001 as "America Strikes Back at Evil." President George W. Bush has said: "Our nation, this generation, will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause, by our efforts and by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." There are no easy answers here. This approach will be analyzed from all perspectives, especially in connection with how the "dark threat of violence" can be lifted "from our people and our future" in the world as it exists following September 11, 2001. No prior or current experience in Social Sciences courses is required for this seminar. Global Terrorism and U.S. National Security: Understanding September 11th Richard Matthew, Urban and Regional Planning This seminar seeks to place the September 11 attacks into a broader geographical and historical context and offer students an opportunity to discuss central issues, such as: What is terrorism? Why are we the number one target of terrorists? What do current trends suggest might happen in the near future? What can we do? Jinnah's Pakistan: Its Ideological Corruption and "Islamization," with Emphasis on its Effect on Regional Politics with Reference to the Events in Afghanistan, Iran, and India Tahseen Mozaffar, Neurology In the mid seventies, a wave of Islamization and fundamentalism swept through Pakistan, dramatically challenging its ideological basis and severely impacting its policies and relationship with neighboring countries. It fundamentally changed Pakistan, and its effects are still influencing the region's politics. This seminar will attempt to define the factors leading up to these events, helping us understand the challenges faced by the Western world currently in dealing with the countries in this region. The seminar will also include topic discussions on the history of Islam, its spread in South Asia, and a brief history of Pakistan. |
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