Academics

All courses are 3 credit hours. Participants are required to enroll in two courses for a total of six academic credits during the summer session.  Below are the courses that will be offered in the Summer 2010 session.  Some courses, however, are still pending consideration to fulfill university requirements or to be cross listed.  These will be updated as information comes in. 

ARHI 34489: London as Art Capital

Professor Giles Waterfield

(Under consideration to fulfill University Fine Arts Requirement)

With its outstanding permanent collections of historic and modern art from the entire world, the thousands of exhibitions opening annually, its contemporary art scene, its commercial galleries and auction houses, London is one of the liveliest and most important cities in the world for the presentation of old and new art.

This course introduces students to the London art world today.  It considers art museums and their functioning (notably questions of display, conservation and acquisitions); contemporary art galleries in the East End and historic galleries in the West End; auction houses, and the changing fortunes of the art market; exhibition design; and the world of public relations and journalism.  The course includes lectures by visiting speakers and numerous visits to relevant sites, balanced by a consideration of the practical and theoretical literature on the subject.

A high level of commitment will be required of students on this course.  Students will be expected to undertake independent visits to galleries and museums as part of their course work, and to demonstrate their interest in the subject to the numerous experts they will meet.

Venues to be visited

A central element of the course will be the contrast between the old and the new: the relationship between old-established museums, ways of publishing and buying and selling works of art on the one hand, and the powerful ongoing innovations that are currently taking place in many fields, on the other.  The location of creativity and artistic celebrity will be a recurring theme.  Among places to be visited will be the following:

• The Print Room at the British Museum: traditional curatorial care at its best (illustrated by a selection of works made available for the class)
• The Whitechapel Art Gallery: one of the most active non-profit-making galleries of contemporary art, recently refurbished
• White Cube:  a highly successful commercial gallery with sites in both the East End and Mayfair
• Christie’s Rooms, St James’s:  we would aim to attend part of an auction sale at this leading auction house.

The location of the London Centre of Notre Dame, close to many museums and to the traditional locus of the art world, is ideal for these purposes.

POLS 34530: Politics in a Global World: Comparing and Contrasting Political Leadership in the Britain and the USA

Professor Richard Heffernan

This course explores the institutional, political, social, and cultural differences which help distinguish the British prime minister from the US president and which thereby explain the different ways in which political leadership is formed and then enacted in both a parliamentary-unitary state such as in Britain and a presidential-federal state such as the USA.  By focusing directly on the role of the parliamentary (Britain) and the presidential (US) chief executive the  course will touch upon a number of topics including national particularities and similarities between Britain and the USA; fixed versus fluid constitutional politics; parliamentarianism versus presidentialism; federal versus unitary states; executive politics in Downing Street and the White House and in Whitehall and Washington DC; legislative politics within Westminster and in Congress; the different forms of party systems in Britain and the USA; elective politics; changing forms of political electioneering; the role of political communications and the news media; and the role played by cultural influences and non-political factors.

HIST 34414:  The British Empire, 1760-1965: An Exercise in Globalization?

Professor Keith Surridge

Satisfies the university history requirement (UHR)

Satisfies the following major breadth categories – HCT3 (modern Europe); HCT6 (special/other/global)

The British Empire was the largest ever, encompassing at its height about one quarter of the globe, and a fifth of the world’s population. For about a century and a half the British were able to retain their imperial supremacy, but in a period of about twenty years after the Second World War, the empire was broken up and only small fragments remain today.  The remarkable events that led to the rise and fall of British imperialism have left an enormous impression on the world today, and this course will examine how that empire was created, and how it was given up. 

The course begins with the history and development of the British Empire from the late eighteenth-century and finishes in the mid-1960s. It starts with the abolition of the slave trade, and of slavery, events which helped give the British the moral justification for empire thereafter. The next area explored is Britain's empire in India (the ‘jewel in the crown’). At first Britain tried to reform Indian society but provoked a military and social revolt – The Mutiny; afterwards, the British once again consolidated the Indian empire but on different terms. During the nineteenth-century millions of people left the shores of Britain and Ireland, one of the greatest migrations in history. These events led to the establishment of new colonies, whose impact on the indigenous peoples was profound. Furthermore, with British settler societies spread throughout the globe, the world’s economy became shaped by Britain’s interests, a process already underway since the eighteenth-century. All these changes had crucial repercussions on British attitudes to race and gender, and on culture at home. The first half of the course will conclude with a look at how Britain acquired a vast African empire, and how Britain fought the greatest of its colonial conflicts.

The second half of the course looks at the twentieth-century, a period when Britain and the empire fought two world wars together, and led to the empire reaching its greatest extent. Yet we know size isn’t everything, as territorial expansion led to greater challenges. The settler colonies became states – Dominions, and began to question the nature of their connection to Britain. Nationalists in India contested British rule and succeeded in gaining independence, but at a huge cost as the Indian empire was partitioned. Britain also withdrew from its African empire, sometimes peacefully, sometimes after much bloodshed. But perhaps the most damaging area to British prestige was Palestine, held for only thirty years, but the legacy of which still haunts us today. Thus the course looks at how the empire affected Britain; how the British regarded their colonial peoples and tried to reconcile them to British rule; Britain's changing relations with its self-governing colonies, or Dominions; and finally, the empire's decline and fall. In the end, to what extent had the empire, as the historian Niall Ferguson suggests, promoted not so much globalization, but ‘Anglobalization’?

Shakespeare in London (CRN Pending)

Professor Boika Sokolova

(Under consideration to fulfill university Fine Arts requirement)

Shakespeare in London connects the classroom study of his plays with the potential of London as a hub of theatrical activity. The course will start by acquainting students with the conditions of the Elizabethan theatre, its place in society, and the way these affected the nature of plays written in this period. Students will be able to visit the replica of the Globe, as well as places associated with theatrical history, such as Southwark Cathedral, the remains of the Rose theatre, and the sites of the Fortune and the original Globe.

Four plays (the choice of which depends on the season’s theatre bill) will be studied during the six-week period.  The discussion will focus on issues of history, genre, language, gender, ethnicity, class, and the specificity of each play’s performance on the Elizabethan and contemporary stage. Since the students will experience the plays in the living environment of the theatre, part of the work will focus on understanding and appreciating performance and on writing reviews. Since performance is inscribed in the cultural climate of a particular place and time, discussion will also consider the influence of the cultural and political context of the moment, i.e., the question of how the modern Shakespearean stage reflects modern concerns.

Towards the end of the course students will be introduced to ideas concerning the creation of Shakespeare as a cultural icon and the process of his re-invention as a commentator on modern concerns.

The program also includes workshops with theatre practitioners and a one-day trip to Stratford-upon-Avon with a tour of the town, a lecture at the Shakespeare Centre, and a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Global Medicine

Professor Cornelius O’Boyle

In the past the provision of professional healthcare services was a relatively private matter, negotiated confidentially between the patient and his or her medical practitioner. Today, healthcare services are directed as much by governments, banks, transnational corporations, international charities, administrative bureaucracies, and profession organizations as individual medical practitioners. This course introduces students to the vested interests and ideological commitments of these new participants in healthcare and explores how these interests and commitments have shaped medical services throughout the world at the beginning of the 21st century.  In particular, we will discuss:

• How international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and The World Bank direct the provision of healthcare services in the developing world through their control of funding
•  How national governments seek to control the provision of healthcare services throughout the world through international organizations such as the G8, the G20, and the World Trade Organization (WTO)
• How big transnational pharmaceutical companies (“Big Pharma”) control the supply and pricing of medical drugs throughout the world
• How governments seek to structure medical provision through either socialized healthcare services (e.g. the UK’s National Health Service [NHS])  or private healthcare services (e.g. US private insurance companies) or mixed systems (e.g. the French state / private system).
• How the medical professions seek to influence to development of healthcare policy
• How independent international medical organizations (e.g. “Medecins sans frontieres” [Doctors Without Borders], the Red Cross, and the Red Crescent) and popular movements (e.g. “Feed the World”) structure our understanding of medical need in the developing world and the third world
• How our perception of illness and medical need is now shaped by our understanding of the relationship between poverty, malnutrition, public health, and economic development.

BAUG 34155: Internationalization of Consumer Services

Professor Michael Etzel

This course counts towards the Mendoza College of Business International Business Certificate

All products are categorized as either goods or services.  The simplest distinction is that goods are physical objects whereas services are intangible.  Except possibly in the most primitive circumstances, services have accounted for some portion of all households’ purchases.  As local economies develop and labor becomes increasingly specialized, the portion of spending allocated to services tends to grow.  For example, by the mid-1950s, half of all U.S. consumer purchases were for services.  Now services account for nearly two-thirds of what American consumers buy. Common examples of service product categories are transport (e.g. trains, buses, airlines, rental cars), accommodations (hotels, motels, resorts), professional practices (legal, accounting, financial planning banking), health (medical care, lab tests), education (private schools, adult education), recreation (spas, participation sports), entertainment (movies, concerts, theme parks), insurance, audiovisual (television, radio), and domestic (home repair, cleaning, lawn service).

Domestic production and consumption of services has attracted the attention of analysts for a quarter century.  In recent years there has been a growing interest in the sale of services across national borders.  For example, Aflac (the “duck insurance company”) is a U.S. firm that insures one-fourth of all households in Japan, Universal Music Group (UMG) the world’s largest producer and marketer of recorded music is part of Vivendi, a French company, and Holiday Inns are part of a British firm, Six Continents.  Another indication of interest is improved tracking.  The United Nations, in response to a growing demand from governments, business, and analysts for more and better internationally comparable data on services trade, invested nearly a decade developing the Manual of Statistics of International Trade in Services.  The stated objective is to encourage the development and use of common definitions, classifications, and concepts and promote the availability, quality, and comparability of international trade statistics in services.

In this course we will focus on consumer services produced by firms based in countries other than the location of the intended purchasers. Students completing the course will appreciate the economic, social, cultural, and environmental significance of the internationalization of consumer services; examine the experiences of consumers and businesses and therefore how consumption of services can be influenced; and identify important marketing principles in the design of service strategies.

Students recognizing the career opportunities in international consumer services, especially those interested in the businesses of travel, tourism, and hospitality marketing and management will benefit most.  Others simply interested in a developing business phenomenon should find the material of interest.  The course content is based on the presumption that the students are willing to invest the time and effort to understand fundamental business concepts.

PHIL 24412: Beauty, Temptation, and Self-Discovery

Professor David O’Connor

Satisfies either the University Requirement for a second philosophy course or the College of Arts and Letters requirement for a College Seminar (but not both)

How and how far can we trust ourselves to beauty and eloquence? We can be moved by beauty in so many ways: a persuasive speaker, a tragic drama, a powerful musical performance, a striking painting or sculpture, a lovely human being. But can we let ourselves be moved, without letting go of something of ourselves? The draw of beauty upon us can provoke as much anxiety as exhilaration. To focus our discussions of these issues, we will draw on three classic texts: Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, Aristotle’s treatise On Rhetoric, and a Shakespeare play, preferably one we can see in performance. Our own experiences of the art, architecture, and music of London will also be a regular part of our conversations. In the spirit of the College Seminar, and of the Phaedrus and the Rhetoric, the course will emphasize precise and energetic speech, both in conversation and in more formal presentations.

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