
Spring
2010 MALAS Courses
MALAS
600 D Monday nights from 7 to 9:40pm
HIP
HOP AESTHETICS: MUSIC, CULTURES, SPIRIT,
MIND
...with the one and
only ROY WHITAKER running the show...
Hip-Hop is one of
the most important and misunderstood
cultural expressions of the past 40 years.
For instance, this movement has been widely
appropriated by urban and suburban youth;
however, it’s been viewed as a pseudo-art
form with little relevance for academic
reflection. This course examines this core
problem and many other criticisms leveled
against Hip-Hop – e.g. use of the N-word,
homophobia, misogyny, materialism, and
hedonism. To be sure, Hip-Hop is a panoply
of sorted issues that concerns critical
thinkers in post-modernity like democracy,
empire, capitalism, feminism, hegemony, and
internationalism. Topics covered in this
class will include: commercialization of
Hip-Hop; Hip-Hop movies; Hip-Hop and women;
rap, politics, and resistance; Hip-Hop
Chicano/a; global dimensions of Hip-Hop;
Hip-Hop as mediated narrative; Hip-Hop and
graffiti; just to name a few.The course’s title – “Hip-Hop
Aesthetics” – indicates the larger concern
that frames the class discourse: the
nature of artistic expression in an
inhumane world. “Hip-Hop Aesthetics”
pushes the boundary of what is considered
“great works” and what is not.
Furthermore, since Hip-Hop is a global
phenomenon, this class utilizes and
encourages a multidisciplinary approach to
this subject matter – e.g. sociology,
politics, economics, communications
theory, American studies, musicology,
cultural studies, and film studies.
Spring
2010 MALAS-approved
courses (in other departments)
ENGL 563.2
Drugs, Sex, Rock & Roll

with MALAS Director, Bill Nericcio, in Hepner
Hall 210, aka 'the HOUSE of Love' from 9:30am to
10:45 Tuesdays and Thursdays
Do please consider making
English 563: Drugs, Sex, & Rock'nRoll:
Seductive Hallucinations of Film,
Photography, Art, Music, and Literature
part of your Spring repertoire each
Tuesday and Thursday from 9:30am to
10:45am. Though designed for lit and film
junkys, the class is open to all majors!
In particular, cinema, art, theatre,
music, and television addicts are strongly
encouraged to add this vice-focused class
to your menu of dynamic courses from SDSU!
Texts will include CONFESSIONS OF AN
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER by Thomas De Quincey,
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM by Darren Aronofsky, A
BIGGER BANG by The Rolling Stones, JUNKY
by William Burroughs, art by Tara
McPherson (work, opposite), Banksy,
Magritte, & Remedios Varo. List of
works tentative--more to come.
History
680
Genocide
in the Twentieth Century
with Professor Lawrence Baron
Mondays 1800 2040 AL 566
The
perpetration of genocide by states intent on
eradicating ethnic, indigenous, racial,
religious, or socio-economic groups that
purportedly pose a threat to their colonial
control, national security, political unity,
or racial homogeneity has increased in both
efficiency and frequency during the course of
the 20th Century. This seminar will
examine a variety of disciplinary explanatory
models for why genocide occurs and test their
validity by applying them to genocides against
indigenous peoples, the Armenian genocide, the
Holodomor famines in the Ukraine, the ìRape of
Nanking,î Nazi euthanasia, the Jewish
Holocaust, the Gypsy Porajmos, the Cambodian
genocide, the Mayan genocide in Guatemala,
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, the Rwandan
genocide, and the current crisis in
Darfur. It also traces the development
of modern international law to punish
genocide, treaties to prevent it, and
reconciliation commissions to provide
political closure to post-genocidal
societies.
ENGL 528
Investigating
Shel Silverstein
with Professor Joseph Thomas
New
seminar investigating the life & work of
Shel Silverstein offered this Spring, 2010:
ENGL 528. Perfect for MALAS students, this
course engages Silverstein's diverse artistic
output: his short plays, screen writing, comic
strips, cartoons, picture books, poetry,
music, fiction, travel writing (for Playboy
magazine, no less), & of course, his
lifetime project of living the life of the
unrepentant, iconoclastic wag, Shel
Silverstein. The professor, SDSU English
professor Joseph Thomas, author of the
award-winning book Poetry's Playground: The
Culture of Contemporary American Children's
Poetry, is currently working on a book-length
study of Silverstein, tentatively titled The
Devil's Favorite Pet: Shel Silverstein,
American Iconoclast. Join him in investgating
one of the U.S's most inventive & popular
artistic & literary figures.
GEOG 575
GEOGRAPHY OF
RECREATIONAL LAND
USE
with Professor Diana Gauss
Richardson
Geography
of
Recreational Land Use examines the importance
of location and environment in the use,
management, and quality of recreation
areas. The significance of recreation in
the human psyche is reviewed through a
historical context and carried through to
current trends. Socioeconomic variations
among regions and populations are considered
in the analysis of established and proposed
recreational land uses. Land use
policies and political influences are included
in the examination of the establishment of
areas set aside or used for recreation.
Field trips are required, and consist of local
(San Diego) trips to city/county/regional,
state and federal recreational areas, as well
as a 4-day trip to Yosemite National Park.
ENGL
549.1 from 11:00am to 1215 TTh
Dystopias and
Utopias: From the Erotic
Electric
to the Anarchy of Technology
with MALAS Director,
Bill Nericcio, in Hepner Hall 222,
aka 'The Mad Lab'
 Intoxicatingly disturbing and
visionary novels! Mesmerizingly
evocative cinema! That's what's on the
menu in this peculiar seminar where, among
other things, we will explore the notion
of a perfect society: a Utopia. Good old
Webster's reassures us with its notion of
the term: "Utopia n. [NL., fr. Gr. utopia
not + a place.] 1. An imaginary island,
represented by Sir Thomas More, in Utopia,
enjoying the greatest perfection in
politics, laws, and the like; hence, any
place or state of ideal perfection." But
literary history and world cinema is awash
in what may be thought of as Utopia's
"other"--books and films, that is, bearing
the distinct aroma of Utopia's nemesis:
Dystopia. From January to May 2010, we
will hang out in both Utopias and
Dystopias.
The tentative list of texts include Aldous
Huxley's Brave New World, Daniel Clowes's
Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, George
Orwell's 1984, Terry Gilliam's Brazil,
Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men, Phillip
K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep, and Orson Welles's Touch of
Evil--we will also delve into my own
deathless prose tome Tex[t]-Mex in the
last part of the semester as we turn to
the verge, the US/MEXICO, that MOST
dystopic of geocultural enigmas, rich in
tradition, conflict, etc. The class is
open to all MALAS and English/ Comparative
Literature students, but all other
interested parties from history,
philosophy, political science and the like
are welcome to tag along as well.
RS581
Sex and the Sacred
with Dr. Mary
Kelly
Depts. of Religious Studies and Women’s Studies
Spring Semester 2010 Tuesday 4-6:40 AH3130
A course exploring how religions and sexualities
are interrelated Students from any department or
program welcome! Ever wonder: Why there are so
many religious rules regarding sex? Does God
have a sex? Does God have a gender?
Is there sex in heaven? Is heterosexual monogamy
the norm in all religions? How and why do people
alter their bodies for religious purposes? Why
are monks and nuns celibate? Why are so many
religions led by men? How do religions regard
same-sex sexuality? How are transgendered
people treated in various religions and
cultures?
ENGL 700:
Seminar: Virginia Woolf
with Professor Bonnie Kime Scott on Mondays 3:30-6:10, CSQ 208
Contact: bkscott@mail.sdsu.edu
This course approaches the major novels and
essays of Virginia Woolf from selected literary
and cultural angles. These include Woolf’s
association with modernist authors and their
experimental work, her contributions to the
emergence of feminist writing and theory, her
reflections on the politics of imperialism and
war, her expressions of sexuality, and ways that
she performs today as a cultural icon and a
staple of the literary canon. We will
accompany the primary works with art, media,
and scholarship allowing students to
develop various analytical approaches.
Students will have a substantial role in
planning these readings and the accompanying
discussion. Texts include the novels The
Voyage Out, Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the
Lighthouse, The Waves, and Between the Acts, as
well as selected essays and her germinal study
of women writers, A Room of One’s Own.
Chicana/o
Studies 596.
The U.S.-Mexican Border Region:
Development, Environment,
& Sustainability
4 to 6:40 on Mondays with Paul Ganster,
Ph.D. at the helm!
This course examines the
historical development of the U.S.-Mexican
border region and the interaction of human and
natural systems. It discusses the environmental
effects of this economic development and
analyzes the long term sustainability of the
region. |