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Requirements
First
Year Seminars
Dana
Associates Internships
Dana Associates Directed Studies
Dana Forum
Dana
First Year Seminars
These seminars are held
in the Fall 2006 semester for 1.0 course unit. One seminar is
entitled "Boundaries and Belonging," and will be taught by Dr. Janine
Chi, and the other is "Other Bodies"," and
will be taught by Dr. Jeremy Alden Teissere.
Boundaries and Belonging
This seminar
will investigate the impact of historical and contemporary movements
of peoples across international borders on definitions of
citizenship and identities. By raising questions about the
permeability of national borders and the fluidity of cultural
boundaries, and challenging the binary boundaries of “home” and
“abroad,” we will critically examine the cultural and institutional
productions of transnational migrant communities and consider the
negotiations of belonging within and between these peoples and their
host societies with the following questions: How and why do peoples’
identities change when they move across borders? In what ways do the
construction of boundaries, both physical and symbolic, affect and
are affected by the ability of individuals to develop their senses
of self and community? A range of course readings, including
theoretical, literary, and empirical works, will focus on selected
case studies like that of the Irish, Chinese, and African Diasporas
to study the different forms of transnational, diasporic, and
cosmopolitan identities that arise from the complex negotiations of
belonging.
Dr. Janine Chi is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at
Muhlenberg College. Dr. Chi, a native of Singapore, received her B.S.
from the University of Iowa and proceeded to earn her M.A. and Ph.D. at
the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research focuses on
understanding the ways in which ethnic and cultural politics intersect
with nation-building projects in postcolonial societies. Her most recent
work has involved the application of contemporary theories of
citizenship and cosmopolitanism to study recent restaurant industry and
food trends. At Muhlenberg, Dr. Chi teaches a variety of classes such as
Inequality and Power, Imagined Communities, and American
Ethnic Diversity.
DNA 108 - Other
Bodies
In current practice,
Western medicine has been largely obsessed with cataloguing
bodily deviations from the norm. These deviations – labeled
“ugly”, “monstrous”, “freakish” – embody deep-seated
cultural fears about the limits of normalcy.
Representations of extraordinary bodies generally fall prey
to two simultaneous arenas: the surgical suite, in which
the freakish body is hidden and “cured” to pass as normal,
and the freak-show, in which the same body is garishly
displayed to satisfy cultural tastes for the amazing and
fantastical. Our conversations in this seminar will be
guided by the premise that definitions of the marginal body
shape what counts as “normal,” “ordinary” and “healthy.”
We will consider several bodily deviations, including nose
shape, conjoinment, size, reproductive anatomies, and
mobility differences, and their relationship to identity,
power, and ideology. Our raw data will include histories of
medicine, circuses, and sideshows; memoirs; critical theory;
and representations in film and fiction.
Dr. Jeremy Alden
Teissere is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Muhlenberg
College. His undergraduate training was in English, with a focus on
American modernism (BA, Willamette University. After college, Dr.
Teissere chose to redirect his studies toward the natural sciences,
focusing his PhD on molecular neuroscience (University of Wisconsin) and
a postdoctoral fellowship on neuropharmacology (Emory University). His
scholarship broadly centers on the molecular basis of anxiety. At
Muhlenberg, Dr. Teissere is the director of the Neuroscience Program and
teaches Drugs & Drug Abuse, Mind & Brain, Neurobiology,
and Advanced Topics in Neuroscience.
960. Dana Associates Internships:
1.0 course unit required
Everyone goes about getting an internship in different ways. The important thing is to keep your mind open. Think of something that interests you, address your interest to a professor at Muhlenberg that could be your faculty advisor or at least guide you in the right direction. Make sure to get the internship approved, by your faculty advisor and the supervising faculty and fill out the proper forms in order for the internship to count: Follow this link for examples of internships Danas have completed in the past. The internships requirement can be fulfilled over one semester as a full credit unit (1.0) or may be split over two semesters as two half (0.5) credit units.
975. Dana Associates Directed Studies
1.0 course unit required
Dana Students develop their Directed Study (mentorship) with a faculty member of their choice. Students are encouraged to develop projects that emphasize creativity or original thought, rather than producing summaries of previous work. The Directed Study should be treated as a research project. Directed Studies can take any form as long as it is agreeable to the student and the mentoring faculty member. The Study may culminate in a paper, performance, and/or presentation. Make sure to get the internship approved, by your faculty advisor and the supervising faculty and fill out the proper forms in order for the internship to count.
Beginning with the Class of 2007, 1.0 unit of the mentorship requirement will be satisfied with a course called the Dana Forum.
The DANA Forum:
1.0 course unit.
In the Forum, students in teams of two or three will research a topic related to the College's Center for Ethics theme. The Dana Forum will be completed during the spring semester of the Dana Scholar's senior year. Each team will work with one or two faculty members much in the same way that students currently work on their mentorships. Dr. Mark Sciutto will serve as the administrator of the Forum. Work for the fall semester will be heralded at a beginning of the year dinner for senior Dana students and selected faculty. The Forum Administrator will announce the requirements of the Forum and provide a schedule of the Center for Ethics events for the academic year. On or around November 1, students will submit to their selected mentor(s) and the Forum Administrator a list of the members of their group, other mentors in the group, and a brief description of the proposed topic and research. A more detailed proposal will be submitted at the end of the Fall Semester. Students need to register for the Dana Forum by the first week of Spring semester of your Senior year. For more details about the DANA Forum click here.
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