COL 112 Cross-Cultural Explorations
Shaun Irlam
Tues/Thurs
11:00am-12:20pm
Park 146
Class #10018

The principal objective of this course is the study of the diversity of Western, East Asian, and African cultures from the Renaissance to the Modern Age. Although we will explore cultural diversity in its various expressions in politics, religious thought, social customs, everyday beliefs, and scientific advances our primary focus will be the study of art, literature, and big ideas. One of the central concerns of this course will be different cultural and historical conceptions of the human and its relation to nature, politics, and science. In the first part of the course we will examine the different formations of humanism in the Western cultures from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment; from Romanticism to Marxism.   In the second part of the course we will focus on the non-Western ideas of the human and humanity and their expression in religions, political organizations, and artworks. We will begin with Daoism and Confucianism and their impact on Chinese ethics, philosophy, politics, and culture during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) Dynasties. We will also briefly discuss the Cultural Revolution and Maoism in 20th century China. We will follow the influence of Confucianism in Japanese culture and its confluence with Zen and the Shinto Revival. In the context of politics we will focus primarily on the Tokugawa Shogunate. In the context of the arts we will analyze the place of the human in nature as reflected in Japanese landscape paintings, poetry, and woodblock prints. We will conclude our course with the discussion of the devastation of colonialism and the struggle for independence in Africa. We will analyze the influence of traditional (for example, masks and music) and modern African cultures (Fanon, Achebe, and Soyinka) in the contemporary world.

COL198 On Democracy
David Johnon
Monday
3:00pm-3:50pm
Room TBD
Class #24315

COL198 On Democracy
David Johnon
Monday
4:00pm-4:50pm
Room TBD
Class #24315

The one credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps transition to UB through an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 198 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester

COL 200 Democracy and Justice in America
Devyona Havis
Tues/ Thurs
8:00am-9:20am
Clemens 708
Class #23280

This course explores issues central to democracy. First, it examines the relation between democracy's claim to protect and promote both universal freedom and universal equality. Second, it considers the unresolvable tension between popular sovereignty ("we") and individual rights ("I"). Third, it considers the limitation of democracy in its necessary calculus of citizenship, the dual question of both how to count and who counts. Fourth the course takes up the role of narrative (recounting and accounting, telling) in establishing citizenship and the tradition or legacy of democracy. The course focuses on detailed readings and discussions of founding and foundational documents of the United States' democratic experiment: declaration of independence, articles of confederation, constitution of the United States, debates on the constitution; writings of Jefferson, Douglass, Lincoln, Stanton and Anthony, Larsen, MLK, Morrison; and major supreme court decisions concerning citizenship, racial equality, reproductive rights, rights to privacy, same sex marriage. In sum, "We the people" asks what it means to be a citizen and why democracy is at once the worst and the best form of government. In sum, in its consideration of the language of democracy--of citizenship and rights--"We the People" asks what it means when African-American novelist Toni Morrison remarks, in Beloved, that the story of slavery and of a mother's desire to "free" her daughter is "not" one "to pass on." What does it mean not "to pass on" the haunted narrative of our cultural and legal inheritance?

COL 330 Colonial & Postcolonial Lit
Shaun Irlam
Tues/Thurs
12:30pm-1:50pm
Capen 110
Class #10020

 Africa is a vast and diverse continent whose political and cultural complexity continues to elude Western scholars, journalists and observers. If you want to see modern Africa through the eyes of Africans, then this course is for you! During the semester we will explore the rich and diverse creative geographies of the continent. We will ecounter some major contemporary writers and film directors in Africa. We also the historical, political, social and ideological forces that shape modern African cultures. We will read a selection of major novels in relation to three important phases of 20th-century African politics and history: the era of colonialism; the era of decolonization and independence; and thirdly, the present challenges of the post-colonial and, in some cases, neo-colonial era. We shall situate these works in terms of recent theoretical work on the concepts of otherness, marginality, "subaltern"/ Third World studies, postcolonialism and inter-cultural intelligibility. In this regard we shall address the anthropological problem of observing, addressing, and reading the Other in terms of our own (i.e., Western) critical categories, biases and expectations. Among the writers we read are Mariama Bâ (Sénégal), Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe), Mia Couto (Mozambique), Nthikeng Mohlele (South Africa), Chimamanda Adichie (Nigeria & USA), Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya), Peter Kimani (Kenya), Fiston Mujila (D.R. Congo) and Gaël Faye (Burundi). We will screen films and music videos from Sénégal, Mali, Rwanda and South Africa.

COL 199: "Ethics of Refusal" 
Devonya Havis
Tues/Thurs
11:00-12:20pm
Clemens 123
Class #21696
How we move through the world is shaped by our contexts – the technologies we use, social media platforms we follow, learned community perspectives, what we navigate based on where we live, and the ways others perceive us. While our varied contexts contribute to our uniqueness, they often encourage us to follow a particular status quo or to lean into social trends without questioning or examining whether conforming is the best way to live. At what point does living a certain kind of life make us responsible for challenging the given status quo? When is it an ethical responsibility to question authority? What role do critical thinking and knowledge play in helping us determine how best to live? Is there an ethics associated with resisting or refusing? This seminar will use philosophical texts and contemporary readings as a starting point for exploring these questions.

COL 199: “On Dignity and Death” 
David Johnson
Tues/Thurs
2:00-2:50pm
Class #24527
What is “dignity”? What is the relationship of dignity to what Victor Hugo calls the “inviolability of life,” but also and no less trenchantly to both the death penalty and the right to die? How does the concept of “dignity” work both to defend and to challenge both the death penalty and the right to die? “On Dignity and Death” explores these questions through readings of philosophy (Cicero, Kant, Foucault), criminology (Beccaria), cultural critical (Dworkin), literature (Hugo, Camus, Capote, Mailer), and abolitionists (Reynolds, Prejean). We will also read the Universal Declaration of Universal Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (proposed 1966, ratified 1976) in order to examine the paradox of a universal human right to life that coexists with the death penalty. In addition, we will read several United States Supreme Court decisions concerning both the State’s right to put to death and its right to make live. The largest goal of the seminar is to teach students how to track the complexity of—and thus to think critically about—a concept that is all too often deployed as if everyone already knew what it meant. How is it that the concept of dignity can be invoked on both sides of both arguments, both for and against the death penalty, both for and against abortion? How can a man, a woman condemned to death for having violated the dignity of others invoke his, her right (and his, her desire) to die with dignity? What does “dignity” mean in this case? Moreover, is the death penalty a just punishment for one who desires to die? Where does one draw the line between execution and State assisted suicide? In order to develop the concept of “dignity,” we will have to consider such foundational notions as autonomy, sovereignty, freedom, rights and obligations, life. We will ask about the role of “grace” and “pardon” in the death penalty. How is the law constituted in and through exceptionality? We will consider the role of time in the debates on both the death penalty and the possibility of a death with dignity. We will be concerned with the time of death and the time of life. What does it mean to “do time” and to “kill time”? What is the time of dignity?

COL 199: "Literature of/and Human Rights"
Shaun Irlam 
Mon/Wed/Fri
10:00-10:50am
Baldty 119
Class #23178
This course will explore the intersections between literature and human rights through a number of contemporary post-modern, diasporic and post-colonial works.Summary: a). Narratives of witness; b). poetics of sentiment, creating an audience; c) politics of representation / aestheticization d.) suffering of others, e.) articulation of rights. How does literature bear witness to human suffering and crimes against humanity? A prominent dimension of the novel since its inception has been the drama of human suffering and championship of the persecuted. In the 18th century, an iconic instance of this was Richardsons heroine, Clarissa; in the 19th century, the social protest novels of Charles Dickens, Mrs. Gaskell and others charted the horrors of industrialization in Victorian Britain while Zola¿s Rougon-Macquart cycle did the same for the French underclasses. Across the Atlantic, a large corpus of slave narratives and novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin gave momentum to the abolitionist movement which became to precursor to the contemporary discourse around human rights. 

COL 199: "Literature of/and Human Rights"
Shaun Irlam 
Mon/Wed/Fri
12:00-12:50pm
Baldty 120
Class #16287 
This course will explore the intersections between literature and human rights through a number of contemporary post-modern, diasporic and post-colonial works.Summary: a). Narratives of witness; b). poetics of sentiment, creating an audience; c) politics of representation / aestheticization d.) suffering of others, e.) articulation of rights. How does literature bear witness to human suffering and crimes against humanity? A prominent dimension of the novel since its inception has been the drama of human suffering and championship of the persecuted. In the 18th century, an iconic instance of this was Richardsons heroine, Clarissa; in the 19th century, the social protest novels of Charles Dickens, Mrs. Gaskell and others charted the horrors of industrialization in Victorian Britain while Zola¿s Rougon-Macquart cycle did the same for the French underclasses. Across the Atlantic, a large corpus of slave narratives and novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin gave momentum to the abolitionist movement which became to precursor to the contemporary discourse around human rights. 

COL 199: "Quarrel between Philosophy and Literature"
Krzysztof Ziarek
Mon/Wed
4:15-5:35pm
Clemens 123
Class #18357
Why do philosophers read poets, and why do poets read philosophy? The course will trace the history of this question, beginning with the ¿quarrel¿ between philosophy and poetry in antiquity and leading up to the contemporary conversations and polemics between the two disciplines. This quarrel between philosophy and poetry is mentioned in Plato, and already at that time it was perceived as ¿ancient.¿  The course will begin by exploring the provenance and the stakes of this quarrel as seen by Plato and proceed on this basis to inquire into its formulations in later texts, from ancient Greece to 20th literature, philosophy, and film. 

This seminar is open to all students interested in exploring the fascinating and challenging intersections between the two main areas of the humanities: literature and philosophy. Reading literary and philosophical texts, we will discuss such questions as the nature of human existence, the problem of time, death, and finitude, the role of gender, as well as the differences and similarities between imagination and reason, passion and logic, literary language and philosophical argumentation. What is the difference between how poetry and philosophy address and express those issues?  How is poetic/literary saying different from philosophical ways of telling?  How do we think between poetic images and philosophical reasoning/argumentation?  

In the first part of the course, we will examine convergences and differences between literary and philosophical texts in antiquity (Plato, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Sophocles' tragedies), the Middle Ages (Boethius), and the Enlightenment (Voltaire). Rethinking the heritage of Greek culture and tragedy for the moderns, Nietzsche's influential study The Birth of Tragedy will serve as the transition to the questions that characterize contemporary debates between philosophy and literature. After The Birth of Tragedy, we will read essays by Heidegger and Irigaray, and a number of literary texts: short stories by Dinesen, Borges, and Faulkner, poetry by Wislawa Szymborska, Reggio¿s film, Koyaanisqatsi.