Fall 2007
Principles of Food and Resource Economics
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: S
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2539 | Evan Drummond |
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AEB 3103 is a comprehensive, introductory economics course with emphasis on the economics of agriculture, the food industry and natural resources in a global context. The course includes both microeconomics and macroeconomics. The microeconomic portion of the course emphasizes production economics and the theory of the consumer. The macroeconomic portion of the course deals with the role of government in a domestic and global environment with particular emphasis on agricultural policy and trade. The honors section of this course entails a weekly enrichment session that meets on Fridays at the regularly scheduled time slot. This seminar deals with current events, supplements to course topics, and a case study of a major agribusiness firm. There are no extra tests or exams associated with the seminar. Some extra reading is required. The grade from the seminar is based on attendance and participation. It constitutes 20% of the final course grade. Students in the honors section are expected to complete all requirements of the regular section.
Evan Drummond (a.k.a. The Food Dude) is Professor of Food and Resource Economics and Senior Associate Director of the University Honors Program. His areas of interest include food policy and international economic development. He teaches introductory agricultural economics and is co-author of a book for that course. In his second year at UF he was selected Teacher of the Year by the students of the College of Agriculture and in his first year of eligibility was chosen as the national Teacher of the Year (with more than ten years experience) by the American Agricultural Economics Association.
Seeds of Change
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: B
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1481 | Maria Gallo-Meagher |
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Seeds of Change is an introductory course that focuses on the role of genetically-altered plants in agriculture, the environment, foods, and medicine. Basic concepts of DNA technology are introduced in a non-technical way as a foundation for studying the applications and implications of plant biotechnology.
In the Agronomy Department at the University of Florida, Maria Gallo-Meagher is responsible for the molecular genetics of peanut and other agronomic crops of importance to the state of Florida. The central theme of her research is the use of molecular approaches to create novel/improved genotypes, and to gain a better understanding of mechanisms which regulate gene function.
Butterfly Ecotourism
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: B
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 8138 | Jaret Daniels |
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Butterflies are the most popular of all insects worldwide. As such, many butterflies function as ideal conservation flagships, species selected for their attractiveness, distinctiveness or vulnerability in order to best engender public support and acknowledgement for broader conservation issues or concerns. For similar reasons, butterflies are particularly useful engagement tools to help promote science literacy, environmental stewardship, and participatory learning, especially in youth. More recently, butterflies are playing an ever increasingly important focal role in ecotourism, wildlife viewing, and environmental landscaping with the growth of butterfly watching, wildlife-friendly gardening, butterfly farming and live butterfly exhibits. This course provides students with an introduction to the important nontraditional role butterflies can play in public education, sustainable development and ecotourism.
Designed primarily as a practical internship, the course format will be small and informal combining short lectures, discussions, hands-on experience and some public interaction. Students will receive both in-class and laboratory experience related to living exhibit operation, butterfly farming and environmental education. A key component will be the development of a small butterfly breeding operation. Students will work with both the instructor and staff of the Butterfly Rainforest exhibit at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center.
Dr. Jaret C. Daniels is an Assistant Curator of Lepidoptera at the Florida Museum of Natural History and IFAS Assistant Professor of Entomology and Nematology. His interests include insect conservation biology, population ecology and environmental education.
Fred's Food Factory
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: S, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1847 | Evan Drummond |
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Food. Essential for life yet taken for granted by most of us. Issues associated with the production, distribution and consumption of food will be examined from economic, social, political and ethical perspectives within a global context. Some typical issues will include: Why do we pay farmers to not produce? Should we save the family farm? Are we ready for genetically altered food? Do you want to eat irradiated food? Americans are overweight and Somalis are starving--why? Corporate governance in major agribusiness. The course will require regular attendance and participation in topic discussions. Grades will be based on class participation, two papers and two exams.
Evan Drummond (a.k.a. The Food Dude) is Professor of Food and Resource Economics and Senior Associate Director of the University Honors Program. His areas of interest include food policy and international economic development. He teaches introductory agricultural economics and is co-author of a book for that course. In his second year at UF he was selected Teacher of the Year by the students of the College of Agriculture and in his first year of eligibility was chosen as the national Teacher of the Year (with more than ten years experience) by the American Agricultural Economics Association.
Parasitic Diseases, Microbes, and Bioterrorism
Writing or Math Req: W - 2000
Gen Ed: B
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2786 | Pauline Lawrence |
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NOTE: This class is located in the Entomology Building on Natural Area Drive near the Performing Arts Center. Please plan accordingly.
Malaria, onchocerciasis, plague ("black death"), Lysteria, ebola, smallpox, birdflu, West Nile virus, etc. have caused devastation, death, and misery to people in various parts of the world. Some of these parasites, bacteria, fungi, and viruses have developed resistance to drugs and have the potential to quickly evolve into more lethal strains, far outpacing our current ability to control them. These "emerging pathogens" and the diseases they cause are transmitted by insect vectors, contamination, or sadly, by terrorists who use them in silent warfare. How do these parasites and microbes develop? Where do they live? What characteristics do they have that make them a global threat or effective biowarfare agents? These topics and more will be addressed in this introductory course. We will study the life cycles, basic methods of transmission, and diseases caused by these agents. We will also discuss historical and potential new examples of microbes used in warfare as well as selected aspects of U.S. policy in the "War on Terror" as it relates to bioterrorism.
This is a very interactive class with lots of discussion and a philosophy of active learning in which students generate questions and with the Instructor's help, seek the answers. Attendance is essential.
We will have several specialists who study various microbes, parasites, and other infectious diseases,and disease vectors, as invited guests throughout the semester. Come ready to participate in your learning!
Dr. Pauline O. Lawrence has been Professor of Entomology and Nematology in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) since 1994. Prior to that time she was Professor of Zoology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) where she taught a variety of courses including Cells, Organisms, and Genetics and Ecology and Behavior to non-science majors, Animal Parasitology to senior undergraduates, and honors courses in Parasite Biology.
Dr. Lawrence's major research interest is in host-parasite co-evolution. She uses state-of-the-art technology in her National Science Foundation-funded research to study the symbiotic relationship between a poxvirus and a parasitic wasp and their separate and combined interactions with their host. She is especially interested in host immune responses to infection, the relationship between viral gene expression and the regulation of host immune gene expression. The undergraduates in her lab conduct research on a variety of topics in host-parasite responses and immunity and utilize various molecular, biochemical, and cell culture tools to test their hypotheses. Students interested in research experience or short-term volunteer opportunities are welcome to contact her at pol@ifas.ufl.edu or call 392-1901, ext 127.
Some Like it Hot: a Discussion of Animal Thermal Biology
Writing or Math Req: W - 4000
Gen Ed: B
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1146 | Daniel Hahn |
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How do fish survive under the polar ice? What can live in the steaming waters of a hot spring? Are fevers helpful or harmful? These questions and more will be covered in this Honors course on Thermal Biology. This will be an introductory course using extreme examples from the animal world to illustrate basic principles in biology. We will survey a wide variety of behaviors and physiological adaptations that animals use to deal with heat and cold and make ties back to how our own bodies work. The course format will be small and informal combining short lectures, discussions, demonstrations, and hands-on experiments (many with insects which are my specialty). Grading will rely on a combination of participation, short assignments, scheduled quizzes, and a project/term paper. Please note that the Entomology and Nematology building (Bldg 970) is located on Natural Area Drive near the Performing Arts Center. Don’t worry, you will be allowed an extra 15 minutes to get there from your previous class (i.e., class begins at 3:15 and ends at the normal time of 4:55), and there is both plenty of available parking at the Entomology and Nematology building and frequent bus service from main campus to help you get to us.
Daniel A. Hahn is an Assistant Professor of Entomology and Nematology at the University of Florida. His interests include understanding why animals vary so much in shape, size, and physiology (for example, why do rabbits have relatively big ears and mice small ones?) and using animals with unusual behaviors and physiologies to study basic processes in human diseases; especially diabetes, obesity, and infertility.
America in the Fifties
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: H, D
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4644 | Alan Petigny |
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The course will focus on the political, social, and intellectual currents of the 1950s. Among the subjects that will be addressed are the Cold War, McCarthyism, the consumer culture, postwar psychology, the stuggle for racial equality, the critique of conformity, and the sexual revolution. Students will be required to write book reviews and complete a research paper.
Assistant Professor Alan Petigny received his Ph.D. in 2003 in U.S. History from Brown University, his M.A. in 1995 from Brown University, and his B.A. in 1992 from the University of South Florida. He joined the University of Florida Department of History in 2000. His current interests include the liberalization of values and norms in the U.S. in the twentieth century, the rise and fall of Freudian analysis in the twentieth century, and anti-authoritarianism in American life after World War II.
History by Hollywood: Cold War to Civil Rights
Writing or Math Req: W - 4000
Gen Ed: H, D
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4640 | Louise Newman |
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This course uses Hollywood films to explore how historian-filmmakers have represented the sensibility, politics and events of the (long) 1960s. Each of the films selected for study deals with an important historical event or movement: the Cold War (The Manchurian Candidate), the Vietnam War (Platoon), civil rights activism and black nationalism (Thunderheart, Malcolm X), the counterculture and the sexual revolution ((The Big Chill, Lone Star). These Hollywood films provide an excellent vehicle for examining cultural beliefs concerning historical change, economic goals, racial conflict and gender/family relations and thus will enable us to analyze some of the larger questions and themes concerning American politics and culture in the Cold War and Civil Rights era. To help us with this task, we will read extensively-- including novels, autobiographies, and works of cultural criticism and historiography.
Louise Newman (Ph.D, Brown University) is Associate Professor of U.S. History at the University of Florida, specializing in gender and women's history. She is author of White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States and editor of a sourcebook on scientific writings about woman's nature, Men's Ideas/Women's Realities: Popular Science, 1870-1920. Currently, she is working on a book about Hollywood films that purport to relate the history of the 1960s.
Introduction to Forensic Science
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1208 | Jason Byrd |
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This course addresses the various disciplines within the forensic sciences. Specifically, this course will focus on the application of the medical and natural sciences to forensics. The development of the medical examiner, coroner, and crime laboratory systems within the United States will be discussed as well as the scientific and non-scientific methods used to establish human identity, and the pathological conditions commonly found in forensic casework. This is a three-credit course designed to familiarize the student with the application of science to law and the courtroom.
Dr. Byrd is a Board-Certified Forensic Entomologist and is a past Chairman of the American Board of Forensic Entomology. He has conducted over 100 workshops specializing in the education of law enforcement officials, medical examiners, coroners, attorneys, and other death investigators on the use and applicability of arthropods in legal investigations. He has published numerous scientific articles on the subject of forensic entomology, and has also published two books dealing with the use of insects in legal investigations.
Beginning Chinese I
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1889 | Cynthia H. Shen |
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As one of the most widely used languages in the world, Chinese is spoken natively by an estimated population of about 1.3 billion. This course teaches the standard Mandarin, which serves as the official language of China and Taiwan and is one of the four official languages in Singapore. In cultivating students' language ability the course will endeavor to integrate the four skills aessential in language acquisition: listening, speaking, reading and writing. While providing students with grammatical and structural analysis of language to facilitate a better comprehension, the course will create many occasions for students to communicate in the target language so as to expedite the command of their communication ability in Chinese. Since the Chinese language is intimately related to its culture, cultural implications of the language will be occasionally introduced to enrich the learning experience.
Cynthia Hsien Shen is a native Chinese speaker. She grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. She was awarded a B.A. degree from National Taiwan University. She pursued her graduate studies in the U.S. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Cincinnati and Cornell University. She taught and served in various positions at the Gainesville Chinese School before she joined the Department of African & Asian Languages and Literatures as a lecturer.
One-Semester General Chemistry
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1953 | Staff |
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| 1956 | Staff |
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| 5636 | Staff |
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| 5638 | Staff |
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| 9475 | Staff |
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Students must have a good (AP, IB) high school chemistry background or an SAT II score of 630 or higher to enroll in this course. At Preview sessions, advisors will verify that these requirements are met.
This course is suitable for chemistry and biological science students including those intending medical, dental, and veterinary professions. Good mathematics skills and disciplined, focused study habits help.
Note:Engineering students whose majors require a total of eight hours of chemistry credit may enroll in CHM 2047 and its lab with the expectation of fulfilling the remaining four credit requirement with CHM 3120, Analytical Chemistry, and its lab or another approved Chemistry course. Engineering majors that require only one chemistry course (e.g., CHM 2045) [aerospace, computer, electrical, industrial and systems, and nuclear engineering] may enroll in CHM 2047 and its lab to satisfy the chemistry requirement.The course condenses the usual two-semester sequence of undergraduate general chemistry into a single semester consisting of this lecture course and a companion lab, CHM 2047L, for a total of 5 credit hours (instead of the usual 8 in the two-semester sequence). Although some fundamental knowledge of chemistry is assumed, the course covers most of the general chemistry topics in detail. It fulfills the general chemistry prerequisite so students can begin advanced courses (such as analytical, organic, inorganic, and physical chemistry) earlier than usual.
The course has four lecture days a week and a discussion period each Thursday run by the teaching assistant. The lectures cover the basic principles of chemistry (e.g., atomic theory, bonding, thermodynamics, kinetics, states of matter, etc.) and are supplemented with guest lectures by faculty involved in modern chemical research. The discussion sections are run in smaller groups to allow for more detailed consideration of the material. The course grade is determined by progress tests, a final exam, and homework assignments.
One-Semester Organic Chemistry
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0808 | Nigel Richards |
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Prereq: CHM 2046, CHM 2047 or CHM 2051; CHM 2046L or CHM 2047L, or permission of instructor. Please contact Dr. Keaffaber in the chemistry department (Flint Hall room 251, jjk@chem.ufl.edu) if you would like to register.
CHM3217 is a relatively small class that focuses on problem solving based upon understanding of structure and reaction mechanisms. This course is the first part of a CHM 3217-3218 organic/biochemistry class. These two classes together satisfy both organic chemistry and biochemistry requirements for CLAS, IDS, and microbiology majors. It is not accepted by food science or pharmacy. It is accepted by the Junior Honors Medical Program, most Medical schools (State of Florida, Harvard, Chicago, Hopkins, etc.), graduate programs, Vet school, and Dental schools, except the Dental school at the University of Florida.
Nigel Richards is a professor in the Chemistry Department. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.
Bioorganic Chemistry
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0809 | Staff |
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Prereq: CHM 3217 or CHM 2211, or permission of instructor.
An introduction to the basic concepts of biochemistry and molecular biology from the structural and mechanistic perspective of organic chemistry.
Women in Antiquity
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H, D
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 8474 | Judy Ann Turner |
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Women in the ancient Mediterranean world (emphasis upon Greece and Rome) are the subject of the course. The topic remains controversial among ancient historians. Until recently historians did not question the preponderance of our ancient evidence which originates from ancient males (authors, artists, lawmakers) and often reflects a male-biased or vastly distorted view of females. Inscriptional evidence and careful analysis of archaeological and written texts offer a much different, less stereotyped depiction of ancient women. Our course goal is to attempt a more accurate understanding of females in ancient societies. Through use of film, slides, primary and secondary resource readings, and discussion the class will investigate ordinary and extraordinary women from Minoan Greek times through the fall of the Roman Empire. We will explore ancient females' expected and actual societal roles, occupations, and lifestyles. Special attention will be given to females in religion since religious involvement always was one notable way for ancient females to achieve the highest status (and occasionally great independence) and power in their societies.
Judy Ann Turner (Ph.D. in Ancient History, University of California) was the Andrew Mellon Research/Teaching Fellow at the University of Southern California '84- '85 and taught at Cal Poly State University '85-'89. In Florida, she taught at SFCC (Humanities, '90-'93) and at U.F. (Honors Program and Classics Dept.) since '93. She has been an officer in the Archaeological Institute of America, Gainesville Society for more than a decade. Her publications include articles on sacerdotal women in the Linear B tablets and and articles on Greek Priesthoods. She is writing a book on Greek priestesses and ancient cults.
Classics and Science Fiction
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3362 | Jennifer Rea |
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The purpose of the course is to explore the influence of classical literature upon science fiction, and also to study the beginnings of science fiction in Greek and Roman literature and mythology. We will read some exciting books, watch some interesting films and videos, and discuss these materials in class. We will concentrate on certain aspects of science fiction that are particularly relevant in the context of modern political and social issues and I hope that this course will be an opportunity for constructive learning and an enjoyable experience. Students will be expected to participate in this course, by preparing the assigned readings and taking an active interest in the class discussions, and attending the viewings of audiovisual materials. Emphasis will also be placed on writing about the influence of classical literature on modern science fiction.
For more details please see the course web site.
Jennifer A. Rea (Ph.D., Wisconsin) specializes in the literature and culture of the Augustan Age and Roman Topography. Recent works include articles on Tibullus and Petronius, and her first book, Legendary Rome, will be published by Duckworth in April 2007. She is also the recipient of an NEH stipend to attend the summer seminar on Roman Religion at the American Academy in Rome in 2002 and a CLAS teaching award from the University of Florida.
Ancient Greek Medicine and Literature
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: S, H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1253 | Bruce Kraut |
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Ancient Greece, the birthplace of western civilization, gave us a foundation not only for democracy, law, mathematics and literature, but also for medicine. The medical treatises of Hippocrates offer a unique perspective on the emergence of rational medicine and are just now being fully appreciated as the great milestones of human thought which they represent. The literature of ancient Greece teems with material on death, disease, healing, and the human condition. The Hippocratic corpus helps to shed new light on these texts. This course will review some of the great literary works of ancient Greece, beginning with Homer, Hesiod, and Herodotus, then focusing on the fifth century B.C.E. (the Golden Age) with the dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Students will also be provided with numerous excerpts from other contemporary writers, including dramatists, philosophers and historians. Our discussions will navigate back and forth between the works of these literary masters and the medical treatises in elucidating ancient perspectives on health, philosophy and life.
Students will gain an understanding and appreciation of Greek literature as well as of various aspects of ancient medical thought and medical practice. There's no need to have any preparation in classical languages or in science and medicine, but each student is expected first and foremost to keep up with reading assignments and also to participate fully in class discussions. There will be periodic short presentations by each student based on material from the readings and a term paper of the student's choice at the end of the course.
Bruce Kraut received his Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Princeton University and his M.D. from Emory University. He is a former Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Georgia and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Classics at the University of Florida and a Pediatrician in private practice. His special interests include Greek drama, Greek papyri, and ancient medicine.
Fiction Writing
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1655 | Staff |
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Prerequisite: CRW 1101 or completion of 60 credits
This course will continue instruction in basic techniques of voice, plot and character, while also introducing advanced ones. Students read a lot of good stories and write a few themselves. Samuel Johnson said, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." Juniors or seniors who have not taken CRW1101 or 1301 must have strong composition skills.
Honors Poetry Workshop
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1657 | Sidney Wade |
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Prerequisite: CRW 1301 or completion of 60 credits
This is an introductory level class in the writing of poetry. We will be reading hundreds of poems and analyzing, in detail, a dozen or so, for the purposes of instruction. Students will be charged with leading the discussion on one of these poems and turning in an extensive written analysis of the piece. Students will be asked to turn in responses to writing assignments on a weekly basis. Class participation is crucial and graded, as the workshop format requires generous criticism from all participants.
Sidney Wade is the author of four books of poems, the most recent of which is "Celestial Bodies," published in 2002. A new collection, "Stroke," is due out late in the fall of 2007. She has published poems and essays in all the major literary journals in the US and abroad, including "The New Yorker," "Poetry," and "The Paris Review," among a great many others. She is currently the president of AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs), and she has taught in the MFA@FLA creative writing program since 1997.
Empirical Research
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5574 | Larry Kenny |
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Prereq: ECO and ES majors with ECO 2013 and ECO 2023, or B or better in ECO 2013 and ECO 2023
This course develops skills in the development and empirical testing of economic models. Toward this end, each student will develop and test his or her own empirical economic model. The course is broken into three parts, which are described below.
We begin the first part with a discussion of how knowledge advances and a self-contained development of statistical testing of hypotheses with regression analysis. To gain some feeling for what constitutes good empirical economic research and for what constitutes mediocre empirical economic research, we then read and discuss several published papers in economics. We also examine how papers on positive economics are best written. Finally you will be shown how easy it is to run regressions on a PC.
In the second part, you present a proposal that develops the hypotheses to be tested and describes how they will be tested. You must ascertain whether the data that are required to test the hypothesis are available. Your proposal should describe your sample (e.g., all states in 1980, annual data from 1950 to 1990), the variables you will create, your predictions about the effect of each independent variable on your dependent variable, and from what sources your data will be obtained.
In the third part, you present a complete description and analysis of your results. In your handout, develop your predictions, describe your sample, indicate how your variables were constructed, discuss whether your results support or refute your hypothesis and whether your independent variables have a big impact on the dependent variable. In the second and third parts there also will be some discussion of other empirical papers, statistical problems, and issues involving economic data. The final paper develops the predictions and discusses how the data were gathered and the hypotheses tested.
Larry Kenny was chairman of the UF Department of Economics for 7 years and serves on the editorial boards for the journals Public Choice and Education Finance and Policy. His research has dealt with inequality in school spending, adoption of school vouchers, the structure of taxes in different countries, the effects of a candidate's economic performance and voting record on electoral success, voter information and turnout, the effects of voter enfranchisement on government spending, term limits, the determinants of how efficient schools are and redistribution.
Introduction to Education
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1272 | Jeff Hurt |
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This course is intended to be an introductory exploration of the PreK-12 teaching profession. It presents issues and conditions currently relevant to teachers and the teaching profession, and examines standard practices, teaching environments, professional obligations and requirements, qualifications for entrance into the profession, certification, legal aspects of the profession, alternative and innovative programs, non-teaching educational positions, and the future of education. Students will participate in a variety of activities, including researching "current issue" topics, such as grades, classroom discipline, teacher tenure and promotion, extra-curricular activities and homework. As part of the requirements for successful completion of the course, all students will complete a minimum of 30 hours of volunteer work in a PreK-12 school system.
Dr. Jeff Hurt has been teaching for 35 years. He has been on the College of Education faculty at the University of Florida since 1985. He has experience in teaching and/or supervision at the elementary, middle school and high school levels. He has degrees in English Education, Social Science Education, Library and Information Science, and Educational Technology and Communication.
Public Health Engineering
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 7626 | Joseph J. Delfino |
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Prereqs: AP or college level science will be helpful.
Application of engineering principles to protect public health. Areas covered include water supply, waste treatment, air pollution, radiological health, occupational health, milk and food sanitation, vector control, solid wastes and housing hygiene.
This is a non-traditional engineering course. Class discussion is emphasized. In addition to topics in the catalog description, the course will cover public health aspects of current news events, to include natural disasters, environmental law, economics and eithics, contaminants in food and the environment, endocrine disruptor compounds and their environmental impact, environmental security and ways in which environmental and health threats are assessed.
Joseph J. Delfino is Professor and Graduate Coordinator of the Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences (EES). He served as Department Chairman from January 1990 through August 1999, Interim Chaiman during 2002-2003 and has been on the faculty since 1982. Previously, he served on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and other institutions, including the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he was concurrently a 1st Lt and Captain in the USAF.
Speaking and Writing for Engineers
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4746 | Creed Greer |
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Note: This course will substitute for ENC 2210, Technical Writing.
This course has been expressly designed for engineering students to equip them for speaking and writing assignments associated with undergraduate coursework and careers in the field of engineering. Students will learn valuable techniques and tools that will help them become effective communicators of technical material, capable of organizing and expressing ideas to satisfy the demands of both general and specialist audiences. Writing and speaking assignments will mirror actual tasks in school and in the field. In the process, students will learn how to become critical evaluators of their own communication skills by commenting on and evaluating the spoken and written work of peers in class. The primary writing assignments include a résumé and a cover letter, a procedural manual, and a final team design proposal. Oral assignments include an interview supporting the cover letter and résumé, a presentation of the team proposal, and role-playing as peer reviewers of other team projects.
Creed Greer is Associate Program Director and Senior Lecturer in the Humanities for the Dial Center for Written and Oral Communication. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1989. Dr. Greer's specialties include professional and technical communication, composition, and recent literary theory. Since joining the Dial Center in 1995, he has conducted research in and developed disciplinary writing courses for undergraduate and graduate-level work in law, engineering, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and business administration.
Speaking and Writing for Premed Students
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 7858 | Mickey Schafer and Christa Arnold |
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Medical professionals have a special obligation to communicate without ambiguity, either in the written or spoken word; they depend on their communication skills to interact productively with other medical experts, their colleagues, clients and their families, and the public at large. This team-taught course will provide students with the opportunity to participate in a range of activities: researching, processing, and sharing medical information with others. Students will learn to do research using medical databases and other research tools, as well as discovering how best to organize and present their findings to other medical professionals or patients. The physician must often act as intermediary between the specialized world of scientific research and the more pragmatic world of the general public; consequently, we will also investigate how best to present technical medical information to the layperson. This course is predicated on the idea that the ability to write and speak clearly are learned skills, not innate talents, which means that better communication can be learned by practice. Students will experiment with a range of communication strategies in class: lectures will be followed by focused written and oral activities that allow students to put theory and strategies into practice. We will read and dissect examples of both good and bad writing in order to learn from them, in addition to examining several types of medical writings: written patient instructions, technical/research papers, case reports, and patient records. Students will also participate in a variety of speaking assignments in class, ranging from impromptu to prepared presentations. We will discuss techniques for improving public speaking, interviewing and listening skills, and patient-doctor communication.
Christa L. Arnold, Ph. D. and Mickey Schafer, Ph.D. are faculty members in the Dial Center for Written and Oral Communication. Dr. Arnold's past positions include Assistant Professor in Speech Communication at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She has taught over ten different communication courses on the collegiate level but specializes in public address courses. Dr. Arnold has over 40 International, National, and Regional competitive research papers with several winning top paper awards. Her research in the area of Speech Communication includes publications in International, National, and Regional journals. Dr. Arnold also has skills in Forensics, having competed in Speech and Debate, as well as having coached Forensics teams. She has also been nominated to Americas Outstanding Names and Faces. Dr. Schafers background is in linguistics, applied and theoretical. Her specialities include medical professional communication, cross-cultural communication, and composition for professionals in various fields.
Writing for Prelaw Students
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2562 | Robert Uttaro |
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In courts of law people's lives depend on the character of words, and the livelihood of lawyers depends on their ability to put language to its most productive ends. It is with these ideas that we take up the subject of writing and law. Lawyers are notorious for producing impenetrable documents. On the other hand, some of the most eloquent writing about our society has been set down by attorneys and judges. Our job will be to learn what we can from those well-stated arguments and opinions and to avoid what makes legal writing so notoriously difficult to read. This course is designed to be, in large part, a practical workshop on the most common forms of legal writing. It is also a consideration of the character of legal communication in general. To these ends, we will write three documents: a legal brief, a legal memorandum, and an analytical essay. In writing the first two, we will become familiar with legal research and law library resources. In the analytical essay we will examine how common perceptions of legal institutions are played out in popular venues, such as film or theater, as well as in the media. In all of the writing we will develop the rhetorical skills of argument and persuasion while mastering the basic elements of style. Several field trips, including at least one to the county court and one to the law school's moot court, will show how speaking is integral to this discipline. Hence, our course also has an oral communications component wherein students will learn the basic skills of legal debate.
Writing After the AP 3
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H, C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5230 | Brian McCrea |
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The good news is that you received a 3 or better on one (perhaps both) of the AP English exams and received credit in advance for ENC 1101 and 1102. Congratulations.
The bad news is that several important studies, most notably the Bok report on undergraduate writing proficiency at Harvard, have indicated that students who do not use their writing skills lose them. Writing is not like riding a bicycle, where once you master the skill you always have it. Rather, writing is more like a good golf swing; if you don't practice and play, it goes away.
This course will give you the opportunity to write. It will also engage the question of how American society defines good writing, looking in particular at work by the late James A Berlin, who argues that university writing classes frequently have been the accomplices of a privileged elite.
In the first part of the course, you will read Michael Harvey's successful handbook The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing as well as once-classic essays by George Orwell, E. B. White, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others. We will study several prose models--illustration, definition, comparison-contrast and analysis--and you will write short essays that follow those models. We will discuss both sentence and paragraph structure, with particular emphasis on how periodic and parallel sentences have come to be associated with "graceful" writing, loose sentences with "clear" writing. One goal will to help you write as clearly and directly in the third person (the kind of writing you are likely to do in the business and professional worlds) as you do in the first.
In the second part of the course, you will read essays by Gloria Anzaldua, Amy Tan and others who criticize the criterion of grace as Orwell and White developed it. These contemporary writers argue that the standards for good writing from the 1940s through the 1960s made writing the property of upper-middle class, Anglo-Saxon males. To write as Orwell would have them write, Tan and Anzaldua complain, they have to give up their ethnic voices and heritage, their "tongue." Several essays by Berlin will help us both to observe and to analyze the debate between Orwell, White and their critics. In this part of the course, you will work on a longer essay in which you narrate in the first-person your history as a writer, and then in the third person use your history to suggest where the definition of good writing is headed, and perhaps even more important, whether we need a definition of good writing.
Throughout the course, you will look regularly at the Independent Florida Alligator and Gainseville Sun and try to improve your skills as an editor (of yourself and others). Just because writing appears in print does not mean it is clear, direct or graceful. As you work to improve the sentences of published authors, you also will learn how to improve your sentences.
My name is Brian McCrea, and I have taught at the University of Florida for thirty years. During that time, I have published three scholarly books and two writing handbooks. I do not believe that we write; we rewrite. I take great pleasure is seeing my students become successful editors of their prose. I try to give my students keys to use as they look at all those words on a page and wonder how to make them say something clear, direct and important.
I play golf badly and run, sometimes competitively. I have trained for the past several months to do the 15 kilometer River Run in Jacksonvillle, and I look forward to that event.
I write on topics in eighteenth-century British literature. I will be offering a course at the University of Florida's Paris Research Center on Frances Burney--an 18th Century novelist who lived in Paris from 1810-1812--during Spring Break 2006.
Sensory Processes
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: B
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4018 | Keith White |
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Prereq: Any PSY course with grade of C or better.
An introductory survey of the human senses and their role in perception, consideration of how we sense the physical environment and what factors influence our perception of it. The capacities and the limitations of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell are explored from physiological and behavioral perspectives. Inasmuch as the phenomena under study can also be experienced, lectures are frequently supplemented with demonstrations and discussions. The aim is to improve understanding of how one's own perceptions may plausibly relate to structures and functions of the nervous system.
Keith D. White, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology with joint/affiliate appointments in Ophthalmology, Clinical and Health Psychology, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the McKnight Brain Institute. He also is a Research Scientist in the Brain Rehabilitation Research Center of the North Florida/South Georgia Veteran's Affairs Medical Center. His research concerns vision and visual perceptions, altered visual perceptions in individuals with psychiatric disorders, and the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging to study neuroplastic changes during rehabilitation of stroke patients.
French Grammar & Composition
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3039 | Alioune Sow |
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FRE 3300 is the follow-up to FRE2201. The aim of "Grammaire et composition" is to enhance students' French grammatical knowledge, reading, writing and compositional skills.
Alioune Sow is Assistant Professor of French and African Studies. His research interests include the autobiography and the representations of childhood in African literature, the democratic transition and the cultural transformations in Mali.
Plant/ Health Spirituality
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: S, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 6965 | Nigel Smith |
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Plants used in treating the sick and enhancing health, both organic and spiritual, are explored with examples drawn from around the world. The course thus surveys plants used in healing, communicating with the supernatural, and in bringing aesthetic pleasure. The scope is international with an emphasis on understanding the sacred origins of many of today’s “drug” plants such as marijuana and how cultural and ecological diversity have contributed to a rich array of plants domesticated for their ability to help users achieve altered states of consciousness. The role of traditional healers, their practices and perspectives, is discussed. Public health surprises occur with some frequency, such as the emergence of AIDS as a global threat to human health in the last few decades, so the course underscores the importance of conserving plant biodiversity and indigenous knowledge to enhance options for tackling future challenges to human health. The emerging market for "organic" foods is also explored within the context of a desire for "healthier" food and reducing damage to the environment. Political, economic, and environmental issues surrounding the development of transgenic foods (derived from crops that have been developed with the use of recombinant DNA technology) are analyzed since movements have arisen in some countries to ban such foods on health grounds. The growing demand for plant-based dietary supplements, such as energy boosters, is examined along with regulatory issues.
Nigel Smith is a professor of geography whose primary area of research is the management and conservation of natural resources in the humid tropics, especially in the Amazon. He is currently conducting field research on land use change in the headwaters of the Amazon in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and is also studying the use of wild fruits by people in the lowlands of the Peruvian Amazon. The author of a dozen books, Professor Smith was awarded a TIP teaching award in 1996.
Beginning German I
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2387 | Christina Overstreet |
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Discover German is unlike any other language course you may have had! All materials are presented online in VISTA. You need a Gatorlink account, a computer, and a head set to participate in this course. Since Discover German aims to teach the language from the beginning in the context of the German culture, we have many live links to German sites and pictures. Think of it as working with an e-book: each chapter has a dialog, grammar pages, exercises, and homework assignments. All homework is done online and may be oral or written. For example, you will read and listen to a dialog and questions about that dialog. Then you will record your answers, attach your soundfile to the assignment and submit it. For written assignments, you simply write/copy your word file into the submission area and click 'submit'. The instructor will provide individualized and immediate feedback.
The Discussion Board will be used as a springboard for conversation in class. For example, you "virtually" shop for furniture by going to IKEA (practicing numbers, vocabulary etc.) or you Google Ritter Sport Schokolade. When you come to class, you are prepared to tell your classmates in German what furniture you bought and what chocolate you like best.
Students also write, perform, and video record "Situationen". For example, you may go shopping for winter clothes with a friend, buy tickets for a theater performance in Berlin, or create a "Before" and "After" Commercial Spot (using the imperative mood and comparative and superlative of adjectives).
Yes, you are required to learn the grammar! Discover German grammar pages are written in English for you to study at home. Grammar exercises are interactive and you can practice on your own at your own pace.
For more information, please go to http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/overstre/
Christina Overstreet, Ph.D. is a senior lecturer in the Department of Germanic and Slavic studies. She is a native speaker of German and trained in Foreign Language Pedagogy and Second Language Acquisition. Ms. Overstreet has directed the Summer Program at the University of Mannheim and has extensive experience in teaching German language and culture on the beginning and intermediate levels. She has been instrumental in developing and implementing web-based courses that present language in the context of culture. Her research interests include the effective integration of new technology into the foreign language classroom. In her free time, Dr. Overstreet enjoys walking at the beach and traveling.
Introduction to Global Change
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 9531 | David Hodell |
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The Earth can be thought of as a complex system of interacting components that includes the atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere. The human species has increased its population and technology to the point where we are no longer passive members of the earth system. Rather, we have begun to modify components of the earth system by our industrial and agricultural activities. GLY1073 seeks to understand the complex issues of global environmental change that challenge society today (e.g., greenhouse warming, ozone depletion, deforestation, acid rain, desertification, biodiversity, etc), from a systems' perspective. Students will learn to view the Earth as a complex system of interacting components that exchange mass and energy, and we will explore the complex linkages and feedback processes that exist among its components. This system's perspective fosters an appreciation for how the Earth works as a whole and provides the conceptual framework for discussion of relevant global change issues. The laboratory portion of the course consists of a series of simple computer models using a system modeling software package called Stella. Models build upon one another throughout the semester and include population growth, energy resources, carbon cycling and the earth's climate system. No advanced knowledge of computers or modeling is assumed or required. Students will also undertake a term project on some issue of global change that will be presented in class using PowerPoint and published electronically on the Web. Honors students are encouraged to browse the class homepage at http://ess.geology.ufl.edu to learn more about the class.
David Hodell is Professor of Geology and originator of the Earth System Science Program. His area of research is paleoclimatology, which seeks to understand how Earths climate has changed through geologic time. He was the recipient of a TIP (Teaching Incentive Program) Award, a curriculum development award from NASA and OIR (Office of Instructional Resources) to specifically develop this course in Earth System Science. Dr. Hodell was awarded Honors Professor of the Year in 2001-2002.
Physical Geology
Writing or Math Req: W - 4000
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 8923 | Staff |
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This course is designed to give Honors students an understanding and appreciation of the materials and processes that have shaped the Earth and continue to affect our natural environment. The first part of the course deals with the origin of the earth and the development and application of plate tectonic theory. We will discuss the origin and occurrence of various rock types and volcanoes and I emphasize the dramatic and often devastating aspects of volcanic eruptions. In addition, I spend a significant amount of time discussing the sea floor, ocean ridges, the interior of the earth, earthquakes and mountain building. We will also discuss topics that range from groundwater in Florida to mass extinctions on Earth and tsunamis.
I have limited the class size to about 15 so that I can have maximum interaction with students.
Geology is a science that can be seen and experienced nearly every day and can be appreciated outside the realm of the classroom, long after graduation. I have developed this course so that the classroom lectures, outside readings and lab exercises enhance the text and will hopefully capture the student’s attention and imagination. The laboratory section is designed to give you some "hands-on" experiences with geologic materials and data. Hopefully, we will be able to take a few field trips so that students can experience real geology.
Western Humanities 1
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2637 | James Hodges |
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This section of Honors Humanities is a survey of Western culture from ancient Greece through the Renaissance, with readings from literature, philosophy, and religion. In addition to selections from the Bible, the course includes The Iliad, plays from Sophocles and Euripides, Plato's Republic, The Aeneid, Dante's Inferno, Machiavelli's The Prince, and Shakespeare's King Lear. Readings about and viewings from classical, medieval, and renaissance architecture, sculpture, and painting are also part of the curriculum. There will be a series of reaction papers required on the assigned readings and a cultural event report.
James Hodges is a Professor Emeritus of English. In addition to his thirty-three years on the faculty at UF, Dr. Hodges has also taught at the Sewanee Military Academy (Tennessee), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and East Tennessee State University. He holds degrees from Vanderbilt University (B.A. and M.A.) and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Western Humanities 2
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2638 | James Hodges |
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This section of Honors Humanities is a survey of Western culture from the Eighteenth Century to the present, with readings from literature, psychology, and philosophy. The course includes Voltaire’s Candide, Goethe’s Faust, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Dostoyevski’s Notes from Underground, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and other plays, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and other poems, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and Sartre’s No Exit and other plays; also included are Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents and Jung’s Man and His Symbols. Readings about and viewings from architecture, sculpture, and painting are also part of the curriculum. There will be a series of reaction papers required on the assigned readings and a cultural event report.
James Hodges is a Professor Emeritus of English. In addition to his thirty-three years on the faculty at UF, Dr. Hodges has also taught at the Sewanee Military Academy (Tennessee), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and East Tennessee State University. He holds degrees from Vanderbilt University (B.A. and M.A.) and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Business & Leadership Writing
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H, C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 8603 | Vikram Rangala |
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Writing in the world of work is not done for a grade or praise, but to inspire action and create relationships. Therefore, a professional writing course cannot focus only on technique. It must also consider the processes and contexts within which an individual document gets written. Much of leadership, in business or anywhere, consists of creating or altering perceived contexts, and guiding others along healthy, meaningful processes. For example, a manager who has repeatedly acted in ways that lessen trust and create resentment cannot write a peppy memo to the troops and reasonably expect it to unite and cheer them. It is likely to backfire unless she remains aware of the other ways in which she has influenced them. Writing assignments will include personal and analytical essays, as well as business documents such as memos. While this is not a technical writing course, careful attention to grammar, word choice, and spelling are ways in which writers show care, professionalism, and competence. I will therefore grade written assignments both for technical excellence and for the way in which they show understanding of people, situations, and likely results. Our readings will include topics such as the psychology of persuasion, ethics, and how organizations foster excellence, as well as the writings of successful leaders in a variety of positions and times.
Vikram Rangala is the Honors Writing Coach. He received his B.A. from Rice University and his M.F.A. in creative writing from UF. He has been named Honors Professor of the Year and also teaches Professional Writing for the Warrington College of Business graduate programs.
Magic and Witchcraft
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H, D
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1940 | Judy Ann Turner |
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"Magic and witchcraft, the fear of daemons and ghosts, the wish to manipulate invisible powers--all were very much a part of life in the ancient world." --Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi, p. xiii. The occult, folklore, mystery cults, oracles, and superstition--the 'darker side' of religious experience--impacted the lives of average Greeks and Romans much more than did the Olympian or 'civic' gods. Yet this significant feature of ancient religious practices receives little attention in scholarship. This course is an effort to lessen the void in topics of ancient religion available to students. Through the use of film, lecture, reading of ancient (in translation) and modern sources, the course will examine origins and practices of ancient magic, witchcraft, mystery cults, demonology, astrology, alchemy, religious 'possession'and other occult subjects. We will explore continuity or resurgence of some ancient occult practices, and if schedules permit, there will be some guest speaker talks on course topics.
Judy Ann Turner (Ph.D. in Ancient History, University of California) was the Andrew Mellon Research/Teaching Fellow at the University of Southern California '84- '85 and taught at Cal Poly State University '85-'89. In Florida, she taught at SFCC (Humanities, '90-'93) and at U.F. (Honors Program and Classics Dept.) since '93. She has been an officer in the Archaeological Institute of America, Gainesville Society for more than a decade. Her publications include articles on sacerdotal women in the Linear B tablets and and articles on Greek Priesthoods. She is writing a book on Greek priestesses and ancient cults.
Writing & Love
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H, C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2535 | Vikram Rangala |
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| 2536 | Vikram Rangala |
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Writing and loving are similar disciplines requiring similar decisions: a willingness to put aside one’s self, careful attention to detail, a willingness to see people and things as they are and value them, relentless sincerity, a modicum of grace, a sense of humor. Writing and love are both sometimes painful. Both must be done even when we don’t feel like it, even without inspiration. Both are likely to make us embarrass ourselves. This is not a lightweight course, not a support group, not a course in romance fiction, not really about romance at all. Love, in this definition, is not romantic love. It is not a feeling, not something to fall into. It is a verb, a practice, a way of engaging the world; it is a willful action. Most of the problems we face, together and individually, are ultimately problems of how to love: they require us to make better decisions about what to say to each other, how to see each other and ourselves, about what is important, about how to better give of ourselves. Writing is about precisely those decisions. Students will write personal essays weekly. They will also be required to practice writing every day for 10 to 30 minutes. There will be regular, though short, reading assignments, but in this course, the students themselves are the primary text. Whereas in other courses you study a subject, in this course we study ourselves. Weekly essays will be graded rigorously for grammar and style. Students will also be asked to get physical exercise, at their own level and pace, for 30 minutes three times a week.
Vikram Rangala is the Honors Writing Coach. He received his B.A. from Rice University and his M.F.A. in creative writing from UF. He has been named Honors Professor of the Year and also teaches Professional Writing for the Warrington College of Business graduate programs.
Age of the Blockbuster
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3862 | Dana Peterson |
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This course examines American popular culture in the Age of the Blockbuster. Beginning in the mid-1970s--Steven Spielberg released Jaws on June 30, 1975; Stephen King published his first novel, Carrie, in 1974; George Lucas launched Star Wars in May 1977--the Age of the Blockbuster heralded America's current obsession with bigger, louder, and richer. This section of IDH 3931 will ask students to think critically about American popular culture in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Students, therefore, should be interested in learning more about who "we" are, and in turn, be willing to consume as much "culture"--i.e., movies, books, TV, music, sports, advertising--as they can. Students will also be expected to share these experiences in classroom discussions and presentations. Course requirements include a series of reading responses/journals and a group project.
Dana H. Peterson is on parole for a variety of offenses committed on his (unfortunately under-publicized) nationwide 1985 crime spree that ended just outside Dollyland in Tennessee. He currently teaches at the University of Florida under his mother's maiden name, Staff. Highly regarded for the level of expertise he brings to a variety of subjects, Dr. Staff also directs the AIM Program, the university's initiative to help disadvantaged students succeed at UF. Though Dr. Peterson died at the end of 2004, he still continues to teach this course as part of his penance for how he lived his life. He also continues to answer e-mail, so feel free to contact him at peterson@clas.ufl.edu.
Chick Lit: Junk or Genre?
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: D
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2825 | Mary Ellen Drummond |
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A bonanza for the publications industry during the past decade, Chick Lit has forged its place in popular culture. Bridget Jones’ Diary, Sex and the City, and The Devil Wears Prada are Chick Lit classics that survived and prospered in their transition from the printed page to silver screens large and small.
Alternately acclaimed and reviled by literary and feminist commentators, Chick Lit novels with their twenty- and thirty-year-old conflicted and imperfect Everygirl heroines have become a sub genre of women’s literature, producing a host of sub genres of their own: Black Chick, Latina Chick and Hen (or Mommy), even Lad Lit. British and American authors were the mothers of Chick Lit, but their novels in translation around the world have caused an explosion of Indian and Polish and other national Chick Lit imitators.
Chicktion is hugely popular, fun to read, and here to stay. But are chicklits worth your time? That’s the major question to be addressed by this course.
Topics to be covered include:
Definitions of Chick Lit
Origins of the genre
Sub genres of Chick Lit
Chick Lit and feminism
Chick Lit and literary fiction
Chick Lit around the world
Basic texts for the course include two anthologies:
This is Chick Lit, edited by Lauren Baratz Logsted.
Benbella Books, 2006.
This Is Not Chick Lit, edited by Elizabeth Merrick.
Random House, 2006.
Students will be evaluated on the basis of reading journal entries, a class presentation, a term paper, and participation in classroom discussion.
Mary Drummond (Ph.D., UF) has been a teacher of Spanish and English for many years and a reader for even more. She loves to share her addition to the printed page with students of all ages.
Contemporary Moral Issues in Biotechnology and Regenerative Medicine
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 6279 | Gayle Brown |
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This course is designed to introduce students to some of the central issues of biomedical ethics. Ethics addresses questions such as:
How should I act?
How do I decide whether one way I could act is morally better than some other way?
Are different ethical systems equally acceptable, or are some people's values just wrong?
Biomedical ethics addresses these questions in the context of patient care and the distribution of medical attention, and seeks to determine which actions or options in medical practice are obligatory, which permissible, and which impermissible. By the end of the course students will be familiar with the major ethical theories relevant to medical practice, and be able to apply these theories to current issues in biomedical ethics. Specific topics include: abortion, physician-assisted suicide, genetic engineering, reproductive technology, patient confidentiality, HIV/AIDS, and race and gender issues in the allocation of scarce resources.
G.M. Brown has taught a wide variety of courses in philosophy in both the Honors Program and the Philosophy Department at UF, including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science. She also teaches the popular Tao of Star Trek course. In addition to philosophy, her academic interests include poetry, literature, archeology, theology, theoretical physics and evolutionary biology.
Disease and Society
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: S, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 7767 | Robert Kwong |
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This course examines diseases and epidemics have affected society. Famous disease and known outbreaks discussed include leprosy, Black Plague, anthrax, HIV/AIDS and SARS. Discussions will focus on how fear, misperceptions and mass hysteria impact healthcare education, healthcare delivery and societal or cultural norms. It is the goal of this course to provide insight and awareness about why healthcare providers need to be better educated about the social effects disease have; it is the hope students will become compassionate and sensitive to those individuals who suffer from discrimination or ridicule because of the disease for which they are affected. This will course will require significant student participation, a research paper and poster presentation is required at the end of the term.
Robert Kwong graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a B.S. in Chemistry and a minor in Biology and continued to get his M.S. in Biomedical Science at Barry University in Miami, FL. He has taught pre-health courses in the Biology departments at National-Louis University, North Park University and Loyola University of Chicago since 1995. While at Loyola University he was a Learning Assistance Counselor helping students learn the "right" study strategies for science coursework. Robert is now the Chief Pre-Health Professions Advisor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida.
Dostoevsky and Nietzsche
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0085 | Dragan Kujundzic |
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Dostoevsky wrote that "If God is dead then one has to kill oneself," and Nietzsche wrote that "God is dead and we killed him." Raskolnikov in "Crime and Punishment" and Zarathustra both dream of becoming a superman, and Nietzsche writes that "What does not kill you makes you stronger..." These are some of the many scandalous and provocative statements written by the two arguably most provocative writers of the 19-Century. In this course, we will explore those two "prophets of modernity" whose thought has, in many ways, anticipated the philosophical and political developments of the 20-Century (existentialism, nihilism, Nazism, Communism) and in general defined our time.
Readings: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, Untimely Meditations, Will to Power. Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Notes From Underground, Brothers Karamazov.
Films to be viewed: Mefisto, Triumph of the Will, Idiot, Crime and Punishment, A Clockwork Orange
Dragan Kujundzic is Professor of Germanic and Slavic Studies, Jewish Studies and Film and Media Studies. He has numerous publications on South-Slavic literatures and cultures, Russian literature and culture from the eighteenth to twenty-first century, South Slavic, Russian and Polish cinema, German philosophy, French and American philosophy as well as literary theory. His edited volumes include books and special editions of journals on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and J. Hillis Miller. His essays and books have been published in over fifteen countries in Czech, Polish, Russian, German, French, Serbian-Croatian and Slovenian, among others. He is currently working on his fourth monograph book titled vEmpire, Glocalization, and the Melancholia of the Sovereign, and is co-editing a volume on tRaces, Deconstruction and Critical Theory.
Engineering and Astronomy of the Ancients
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4317 | Jonathan Walz |
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Have you ever wondered how & why Egyptians constructed pyramids? Why the ancient Mayans and Chinese observed celestial events? Or, whether meaning or function empowers an Aboriginal boomerang? In this course we explore ancient technologies & ideologies through archaeology & other sources. Whether you’re interested in the Seven Ancient Wonders or the origins of tools 2.6 million years ago, this course seeks, quite explicitly, to challenge the technology/ideology dichotomy of our modern world. My intent is to force a reconsideration of the cultural roots of human technology, construction, travel, time-keeping & religion.
Jonathan R. Walz is a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at UF. His current interests range from the archaeologies of Africa to the interface between ideologies and technologies and from ornithology to classical music. University studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, UF, and the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) inspired his passion for teaching and learning.
Epidemics, Endemics, and the Social Fabric
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: S, H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5391 | Antoinette Emch |
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A lecture course with discussions on the impact epidemic diseases had, and still have, on individuals and their community. From Antiquity to the present, diseases such as leprosy, smallpox, bubonic plague, tuberculosis, syphilis, cholera, typhus, poliomyelitis, malaria, and AIDS have played havoc in people's lives and in society's organization. The scourge of epidemics and endemics will be studied in its medical, ecological, social, and political dimensions. Grading: two in-class exams, one final exam, four book-reviews, one in-class presentation on a specific disease as part of the preparation for a ten-page term paper.
Texts: Man and Microbe (1995); Pox Americana (2001); Breakout (1996); Silent Travelers (1994).
An intellectual historian, Antoinette Emch-Dériaz received her Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in 1984. She has published a book, Tissot: Physician of the Enlightenment (1992), numerous articles on 18th-century medical and intellectual history, and contributed chapters to several books. Dr. Emch-Dériaz’s research interests include the study of mentality in Europe and of the concept of health and disease in the evolving milieu of absolutist and enlightened societies. She is currently working on the edition of the correspondence between the 18th-century physicians Tissot and Zimmermann to be published by Slatkine Edition in 2005. She has been nominated several times as an Anderson Scholar Faculty.
Ethics: Theory and Practice
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0581 | Gayle Brown |
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The aim of this course is to help you reason more clearly and effectively about moral issues. The subject matter of the course can be divided roughly into two parts. First, we want to explore general issues about morality: what is morality? Is there a systematic way of understanding our moral judgments? What principles should we use to decide difficult moral issues? The second and main part of the course consists of an examination of difficult moral problems. Specific topics include as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, affirmative action, welfare reform and privacy.
Our focus shall be three-fold. First, we want to see how different moral theories may lead to different conclusions about what the right response is to these problems. Second, we shall aim to be as precise as we can about the arguments supporting these conclusions. Third, we want to critically evaluate these arguments--that is, we want to determine whether they are good arguments or bad arguments. It is important to realize that philosophy is not fundamentally about imparting information; it is about learning to reason more carefully and thoroughly. Thus, the main objective of the course is to improve students' skills in understanding and evaluating arguments.
G.M. Brown has taught a wide variety of courses in philosophy in both the Honors Program and the Philosophy Department at UF, including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science. She also teaches the popular Tao of Star Trek course. In addition to philosophy, her academic interests include poetry, literature, archeology, theology, theoretical physics and evolutionary biology.
Icelandic Sagas: The Sword and the Cross
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2445 | Avery Cahill |
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Trolls, dragons, battle and revenge, the very stuff of the Icelandic Sagas. This course is designed to give students an in-depth introduction to the myths and sagas of Icelanders. We will study the Icelandic sagas as literature written by Christians about their pagan ancestors, focusing on the cultural history of Iceland in the Viking era and the Middle Ages. It begins with an overview of Medieval Scandinavia with an emphasis on Iceland from its settlement to the end of the Viking Age. In light of the heroic ideal, the role of women, and the interplay between pagan codes of honor and Christian ethics, we will analyze a number of these blood drenched yarns, including the Vinland sagas-the first European discovery of America, Hrafnkel's saga-revenge and the pagan priest of Frey, Egil's saga-the murderous poet, Gisli's and Grettir’s sagas-Iceland’s most famous outlaws, and selections from the mythic stories in the prose and poetic Eddas. Emphasis will be placed on writing and thinking about the past.
Avery D. Cahill received his MA in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin in 2000. He has lived and studied abroad in Oslo and Tromso, Norway. After graduation, he was hired to teach Norwegian Language and Literature at Luther College in Decorah, IA. After capably teaching the entire Luther College football team to curse in Norwegian and to speak like the old fishermen he met in Norway, he came to the University of Florida in 2002, where he has taught, among other things, a course on Medieval Latin. When he is not teaching, you will most likely find him either in the library reading about Medieval Scandinavia or studying kung fu under the watchful eye of Sifu Des Jackson of the Gainesville Dojo.
Immigration, Race, Gender and Ethnicity in American Culture
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: S, D
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5571 | Esther Romeyn |
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The goal of this course is to introduce the student to various social and cultural issues related to the experience of immigration and the place of ethniciy within American culture. The primary focus will be on the period between 1880 and the present. The class is structured around the reading of four autobiographies. We will explore the meaning of such concepts as immigration, ethnicity, ethnic identity, Americanization, acculturation, globalization, and transnationalism by drawing on social and cultural theory. We will examine how ethnicity is experienced, in particular in relation to such factors as language, memory, race, and gender. We will also discuss the tension between ethnic diversity/pluralism and national unity, and the parameters of contemporary debates about such issues as bi-lingual education and affirmative action.
Required Readings:
Abraham Cahan, The Rise of David Levinsky; Piri Thomas, These Mean Streets; Maxine Hong Kingston, Woman Warrior; Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory
Esther Romeyn received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota. She taught in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program at Arizona State University from 1998 until 2005. Her main interests lie in Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, Performance Studies, Jewish Studies, Urban Studies, and cross-cultural psychology. Her publications are concerned specifically with immigrant acculturation as a process of cultural “translation” (or “mistranslation”); the performance of ethnic identity (in daily life, festivals, parades, and theater); and the shifting boundaries of “race” in American culture.
Introduction to Forensic Anthropology
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: S
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4259 | Jason Byrd |
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Forensic anthropology, an applied subfield of biological anthropology, is a science that utilizes methods developed in skeletal biology, archaeology, and other forensic sciences to solve cases of medico-legal significance. This course is a three-credit class designed to present how forensic anthropologists help resolve modern and historic crimes both in the laboratory and the field. Students will be introduced to the techniques that forensic anthropologists use to recover and identify individuals who died as a suicide, homicide, accidents and mass disasters.
Dr. Byrd is a Board-Certified Forensic Entomologist and is a past Chairman of the American Board of Forensic Entomology. He has conducted over 100 workshops specializing in the education of law enforcement officials, medical examiners, coroners, attorneys, and other death investigators on the use and applicability of arthropods in legal investigations. He has published numerous scientific articles on the subject of forensic entomology, and has also published two books dealing with the use of insects in legal investigations.
Multicultural Communication
Writing or Math Req: W - 2000
Gen Ed: S, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4306 | Tim Fogarty |
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Multicultural Communications is a participatory experience in understanding how ethnocentricity keeps us from communicating effectively with a large percentage of our fellow Americans, not to mention millions of others around the world. But our learnings will not be solely theoretical, but will include actual experiences of cross-cultural communication. The basic text (one of two required readings for the course) will be Intercultural Communication by Everett M. Rogers and Thomas M. Steinfatt (1999).
Multicultural communication is not an optional skill in our pluralistic society and globalizing world; rather it may be the most important skill that a person can acquire both from the point of view of being a productive member of the economy and a productive national and world citizen. Lack of ability to communicate cross-culturally leads to such undesireable social outcomes as ethnocide, war, and so called "clashes of civilization". The diversity that we find in the classroom itself will serve as a microcosm of the campus, community and world around us. We will become personally involved in bridging differences of social class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, age, etc. and in so doing we will be personally, emotionally as well as cognitively, changed. The theoretical fields that underlie the readings and class activities are those of socio-linguistics and anthropology, especially linguistic anthropology which has been applied to cross-cultural communication since the 1950s.
About Tim Fogarty: I have a BA in philosophy, an MA in Religion, and Ph.D. in Anthropology (2005 University of Florida). My research is in development anthropology, a sub-field of socio-cultural anthropology. My research program is to understand how solidarity forms between North Americans and Central Americans across national, social class, ideology and life style differences.
I have participated in over 20 different short term small group tours to Nicaragua and other countries in Central America, accompanied by North Americans who travel there to do something helpful in the midst of the second worst poverty in the Western Hemisphere. These trips have been hosted by small non-governmental organizations and often go to remote and isolated rural communities as well as the typical tourist attractions. I am planning to take UF honors students to Nicaragua for a summer experience of cross-cultural communication. Multicultural communication would be a good preparatory course for such a journey.
Music and Health
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1008 | Miriam Zach |
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We will explore the relationship of music and medicine via readings, recordings, lectures, discussions, and musical experiences, investigating the history, theory, and practice of the creative power of music in health care settings. In addition to reviewing music therapy research in the medical literature, we will study the work of musicians-physicians, medical problems of perfoming artists, medical histories of composers, and music in hospitals. Students are expected to listen to musical compositions of various styles and genres, be able to identify them by composer, historical context, stylistic and aesthetic characteristics, and their potential use as treatment in clinical application. There will be two tests and a research paper/creative project presentation. Required readings include: Joseph Machlis and Kristine Forney's The Enjoyment of Music, chronological version, 9th edition with accompanying CD's; and Randall McClellan's The Healing Forces of Music.
Miriam Zach, Ph.D. (minerva@ufl.edu or http://www.womencomposerslibrary.org) is Assistant Professor in the Honors Program at the University of Florida. She holds degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. Aside from teaching courses on music history, and music and health, she maintains her own music studio in Gainesville giving lessons in piano, harpsichord, and pipe organ. In 2003 she became co-principal with her husband Dr. Mikesch Muecke in the design/build architectural practice misumiwaDesign ( misumiwadesign.com). Last year she published For the Birds: A Women Composers’ Music History Speller with Culicidae Press (http://www.culicidaepress.com). In 1998 she recorded the CD Hidden Treasures on the Princeton University Chapel organ, and plans to record future CDs of music by women composers on her new house organ, designed and built by A. David Moore in 2005.
Neurotheology
Writing or Math Req: W - 6000
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1256 | Lou Ritz |
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Are religious and spiritual experiences brain-based? If they are, what are the implications to understanding brain circuitry? If they are not, what are the implications to our understanding of who we are? Our course, Neurotheology, will investigate the neural correlates of religious and spiritual experiences and the implications of such relationships.
The course will consist of weekly presentations and discussions led by the course instructor. Student group dialogue and exchange will be emphasized. Topics to be explored include: organization of higher cortical function in the human brain; effects of cortical brain lesions on our perception of reality; the variety of religious experiences; modern brain imaging; meditation and spiritual experiences; brain correlates of meditation; eastern and western views of the mind; how the brain constructs reality; attention and awareness; mind-body medicine; psychedelics and mystical experiences; the neurobiology of emotions; how the mind can change the brain; and the God gene--the genetic basis of spiritual experiences.
The instructor is a founding member of the University of Florida Center for Spirituality and Health, and co-teaches a well-received Honors course in Spirituality and Health Sciences. (For more information, see www.spiritualityandhealth.ufl.edu).
Dr. Lou Ritz is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience, within the College of Medicine and the McKnight Brain Institute. His research interests that have been funded by the National Institutes of Health are concerned with spinal cord injury and repair. He is the course director for Medical Neuroscience, taken by all first year medical students, and a member of the College of Medicine Curriculum Committee. Dr. Ritz is the Director of the University of Florida Center for Spirituality and Health and a co-director of the John Templeton Spirituality and Medicine Award for incorporating spirituality, cultural diversity, and end-of-life issues into the UF medical school curriculum. He has a longtime personal interest in meditation and spiritual development. Questions about the course can be sent to: ritz@mbi.ufl.edu
Newspapers for Nonmajors
Writing or Math Req: None
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3076 | Angela Brammer |
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What exactly is news? Who defines it? And, how can you tell a newspaper's ear from its leg?
Dip your toe into the media pool to do a little interviewing, fact checking, page designing and headline writing of your own. We'll dissect the front page in class, taking it apart piece by piece to see how it was all put together. You'll tighten up your writing by employing newspaper style, and you'll take better photos once you learn the basic elements of photo composition. All the while, you'll be scouring the Gainesville Sun for examples of journalism principles in action to paste up in your clip book.
In addition to weekly quizzes, weekly assignments and your clip book, you'll also be expected to complete an original research project. This course is for non-journalism majors with little to no experience in journalism.
Angela Brammer teaches high-school journalism at P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School here in Gainesville. She received her bachelor's degree in journalism and her master's degree in entomology from UF. She has worked for the Seattle Times, the Winston-Salem Journal, and yes, even the Independent Florida Alligator.
Race, Class, and Schools
Writing or Math Req: W - 4000
Gen Ed: S, D
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5957 | Regan Garner |
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American schools, as products of a democratic society, symbolize the degree of success or failure of social, political, economic and moral customs. This course will analyze the school as a social system and the cultural contexts that shape educational systems in the United States and abroad. In particular, how do the politics of race and class complicate the attainment of the equality of educational opportunity?
Films and reading assignments will facilitate class discussion, and students will be expected to participate. Grading will be based on short weekly response papers, a final research paper (5 pages) and class attendance and participation.
Regan has a BA in Classical Studies and a M.Ed. in Social Foundations from UF. Her research interests are desegregation and the socioeconomic and racial components of the American public school experience.
Seafarers, Sultans, Slaves, and Spices: The Indian Ocean in Antiquity
Writing or Math Req: W - 4000
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4329 | Jonathan Walz |
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The Indian Ocean lies at the crux of the ancient Afro-Asian world. Navigable seaways and monsoon winds channeled peoples, ideas, and resources across this vast space over three millennia. Imperial expeditions from Egypt foretell of later Portuguese, Dutch, and Omani duels of political ambition. Elites and religious pilgrims from Arabia to Thailand sought ideological converts while merchants traded heavily in ivory, pepper, and opium. Slaves from Ethiopia and India, embroiled in such contests, toiled as fieldworkers in Mauritius or served as concubines in Persia. All the while, musical, architectural, and philosophical ideas diffused across the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and beyond, creating countless variations on aspects of shared heritages. This course introduces the vibrant societies and rich histories of the Indian Ocean while questioning their silencing in standard world histories.
Jonathan R. Walz is a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at UF. His current interests range from the archaeologies of Africa to the interface between ideologies and technologies and from ornithology to classical music. University studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, UF, and the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) inspired his passion for teaching and learning.
SKETCHBOOK/JOURNAL: Illustrating the Human Condition
Writing or Math Req: No