ARB 183-90: Special Topic: Arabic for the Community
Language, culture, and the lived reality of the Lehigh Valley’s large and diverse Arabic-speaking community are at the core of this high-beginner Arabic course. With culture at the core, weekly visits with native speakers, regular excursions into the Middle Eastern neighborhoods here, and a community-based service project, students will learn about the gifts that Arabic-speaking immigrants brings as well as their interests and needs within the broader community. Working with a local calligrapher, students will learn to read and create the calligraphy that is one of Arabic’s great gifts to global language and art.
ARB 384-90 Special Topic: Black Radicalism in the Era of Anti-Communism
The Russian Revolution of 1917 set off a first wave of anti-communism (Red Scare) in the United States. McCarthyism, during the 1950s in the early years of the Cold War, proved to be a particularly virulent second Red Scare but anti-communism permeated the entire Cold War period (1946-1989). This seminar will explore Black radicalism during this entire period of U.S. history (1917-1989). Two of the many questions we seek answers in our work with primary and secondary sources are: Why was there a surge of interest by Black Americans in the Socialist Party and the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) during the 1920s and 1930s? In what ways did anti-communism impact the fight for Black liberation in the United States? What role did the United States government play in that impact? We will use the experiences of a number of individuals and organizations including Paul Robeson, Charlotta Bass, W.E.B. DuBois, Angela Davis, the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), the National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions, and the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), among others, as case studies in our efforts to answer these key research questions.
ARH 383-90 Special Topic: The Art of Curating
Curating, the conceptualization and organization of public experiences centered on the presentation of art and ideas is at the core of the art museum experience. Central to the preservation and interpretation of both the past and the present, curatorial perspectives have helped establish the canons of political, social, and aesthetic history. This seminar will introduce students to a wide array of curatorial practice and a myriad of ways of working with communities to impact art, technology, communication, health, and education while serving as a conduit for the ideas and creativity of many. Throughout the course we will look at controversial issues and key moments of leadership and community engagement with case studies of remarkable contemporary and historical exhibitions in this country, Europe, Latin America and Africa.
BUS 385-90: Special Topic: Project Management Theory & Practice
This course provides an in-depth introduction of project management principles and theory. It is designed to blend praxis and theory. It applies the learned principles and theories to cases studies, simulations and an actual project. This course deals with the fundamentals of project management including project definition, project selection, project planning, estimating, scheduling, resource allocation, stakeholder management, risk management and project control. At the completion of this course the overarching goal of this course is to have the student be capable of managing a straightforward project. Can be used as an elective within the Management concentration. Prerequisite: BUS 236 Management and junior or senior standing, or permission of instructor.
BUS 386-90: Special Topic: Negotiation
This is a comprehensive course in Business Negotiation Theory and Practice. A key element of the pedagogy is self-assessment and examination of the students’ negotiating style and default behaviors. Their current negotiating competencies are also assessed. The Global 5 and Myers Briggs Type Indicator are used to enrich self-awareness and the self-assessment process. The students will negotiate a legal contract, a labor agreement, an agreement with another culture, and nine other business simulations requiring them to understand and use negotiating leverage, use and counter negotiating tactics, and deal with different negotiating styles and strategies.
BUS 387-90: Special Topic: Disruptive Companies & Marketing Innovations
As technology matures, radical changes are taking place in our everyday lives. From the downfall of rick-and-mortar stores to the rise of trillion-dollar user experience-based businesses, intangible technology has a massive footprint on the economy. It has become ingrained in the fabric of business and everyday lives, and brought forth revolutions in ideas, culture and behaviors. With it comes a host of issues facing businesses and consumers alike; from legal dilemmas and privacy concerns to security risks and cyber warfare. This course presents an overview of the core issues businesses face when dealing with disruption from intangible technology. We will study: what makes technology “good” for business; patterns of technology adaptation; behavioral change though the use of technology; big data; social media; data security; and user experience. Leading texts and quantitative analysis are used to highlight competitive challenges and opportunities. Can be used as an elective within the Marketing concentration. Prerequisites: BUS 233 Operations & Info Systems and BUS 239 Marketing.
EDU 289-90: Special Topic: Representations of Disability in America
This course will investigate how disabilities and difference have been defined and regarded, shaping and being shaped by the interrelationships of culture, law, politics, policy and education. The inherent tensions and debates between the various proposed models defining disability will be analyzed. Topics include Deaf culture, intellectual disabilities, chronic illness, mental health, Tourette’s, autism, giftedness, and gender identity. The complexities of what we know, how we know it and the ways in which disability has been represented and, in some instances, misrepresented in American society thereby perpetuating stigma and stereotypes will be examined. Meets the general education requirement SL.
ENG 288-90: Special Topic: This Land is Your Land: Potomac
This course is the first domestic short-term study abroad course offered by Muhlenberg College. It importantly broadens the MILA acronym to Muhlenberg Integrated Learning Away. It is a team-taught, intensive traveling course broadly centered on the Potomac River. Students in this course will gain a deeper and more multidimensional understanding of the United States - its stories, lived histories, occupied habitats, and cultural geography - by traveling in the lands bordering the Potomac River, from mouth to source. Water is ever-changing, by its very nature: it becomes the shape of its container. The banks of a river are liminal spaces of border and flux, never absolute, and dependent on where you stand to look at them, and when. Similarly, the American landscape is an equally dynamic, messy contention of shifting perspectives. In this course we imagine the Potomac River - the ‘Nation’s River’ - as the literal intersection of the cultural, biological, economic, and historical forces that give shape to the stories of America. Students will read broadly from philosophy, anthropology/sociology, performance theory, fiction, creative nonfiction and environmental studies, as we engage in dynamic conversations, experiential learning, and writing/performance workshops. The course culminates in a 16-day trip along the Potomac in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. Satisfies Departmental "Prose" and "Social Justice" requirement.
ENG 388-90: Special Topic: Advanced Speculative Literature
This course is an advanced creative writing workshop in speculative fiction, fiction in which some element goes beyond the real, is supernatural, futuristic, fairytale-esque, and/or weird. Speculative fiction utilizes the tactics of both literary fiction and genres such as horror, fantasy, and science fiction. We will practice seeing deeply and differently, and constructing strange/magical/haunting-yet-convincing worlds with language. Speculative fiction poses fundamental questions about morality and the purpose of human existence. As such, we will explore—through writing speculative stories and work shopping—why and how speculative fiction frequently mirrors—albeit oddly—our deepest insights, desires, hopes, and fears.
ENG 486-90: Special Topic: Reading for Writers
This course is a culminating experience for Creative Writing minors, in which they will study poetry and fiction beside the manifestos, letters, definitions, apologia, protests, and other assorted writings by their authors' and others that argue, examine, or ask what poetry and fiction should or should not do or be. We will interrogate the imaginative, critical, and formal processes involved in creative writing and the nature of aesthetics (in both others' work and our own); what do we mean, for example, when we experience a text as compelling or beautiful? Students will become acquainted with the current modes of what is considered the best of contemporary writing and establish their own sense of aesthetics and purpose in concordance or contrast to these movements. We will ask: what role does and should the creative writer play in society? How does the way we approach or analyze a text influence its effect on us? In addition to critical responses, students will create a sustained creative piece that is in conversation with the readings, and learn to approach their own writing with enhanced purpose, clarity, and pleasure. Readings may include writings by Paul Celan, Frank O'Hara, Adrienne Rich, Roland Barthes, David Foster Wallace, Alice Fulton, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Junot Diaz, Elif Shafak, and others. Prerequisite: One 300-level workshop.
