BGS Social Science Seminar, Fall 2007“TERRARIUM, CYBERSPACE, AND MALL” --
GLOBALIZATION: PROCESS AND MEANINGS
BGS Social Science Seminar Fall 2007 Providence
Shepard Bldg. Room ---- Mondays and Wednesdays 6:00 pm to 8:45 pm
Alan Shawn Feinstein College of Continuing Education, The University of Rhode Island
Instructor: Dan Novak E-mail: dnovak@etal.uri.edu ; Phone: 397-4586
Individual conferences available (usually before or after regular class sessions)
TEXTS
Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.
Hartmann, T. (1999). The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. New York: Harmony Books.
Harvey, M. (2003). The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.
Novak, D. (2007). Weblog. http://dan-novak.blogspot.com/ (outlines and articles)
Pink, D. (2005). A Whole New Mind. New York: Riverhead Books.
Schor, J. (1998). The Overspent American. New York: Basic Books.
Strathern, O. (2007). A Brief History of the Future. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers.
(Note: A small fee will be requested for the xeroxing of additional articles and excerpts)
EXPECTATIONS, POLICIES AND GRADES Desired outcome: maximum individual student and group success; good academic output, building self-confidence and a useful learning strategies and community; ATTENDANCE, yes, all classes… contact instructor as soon as possible before (or after!) any contingency arises…
CONDUCT OF CLASS: courtesy and respect; we will operate in different modes and styles: lecture-tours to present vistas, guest lecturers to advocate for diff points of view, individual work, sharing in the round, collaborative work in groups and as whole class…
GRADING CRITERIA AND HOLISTIC EVALUATION PRINCIPLES:
There is no mechanical or statistical grading procedure for this course. There will not be a final exam. There are many ways to succeed in our effort. In terms of the assessment, some guiding criteria or ‘holistic rubrics’ to keep in mind are:
Actual response – whether assignment actually done, task or question aptly answered
Quantity – length of response (note: sometimes brevity is apt, sometimes more is needed)
Quality – excellence, the degree of thoughtfulness, depth or thoroughness
Effort – evidence of genuinely trying to understand and/or respond to an assignment
Progress – the evolution of a student’s work throughout the portfolio
Organization and clarity – how well assignments are structured or presented
Creativity / “X-Factor” – significant originality (vividly or subtly) displayed
Special Contribution – made in any form to the group or class/course as a whole
Note: A student doesn’t pass or fail on the basis of one assignment! Some rough and ready letter designations: F=always attainable! D=very weak, needs lots of work, C=passing/OK, B=good (good means good! have a beer!), A=outstanding contributions (champagne!)
SYLLABUS PHASES
PART I INTRODUCTION AND WARM UPS
PART II THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND RESEARCH
PART III GLOBALIZATION AS FACT: A THEMATIC EXPLORATION
PART IV GLOBALIZATION: MEANINGS, INTERPRETATIONS, SCENARIOS
PART V GLOBALIZATION: STUDENT GROUP ADVOCACY PROJECTS
COURSEWORK
CLASS PARTICIPATION (each class)
PORTFOLIO ASSIGNMENTS (each class, collections on 9/24, 10/10 and at end)
AN APPROXIMATELY 7 PAGE APA STYLE PAPER (due on 10/17; revisable)
A GROUP PROJECT/PRESENTATION (due between 11/26 and 12/10)
PORTFOLIO ASSIGNMENTS: There will be a variety of kinds of assignments, exercises and project notes, but there will one kind of generic format, STANDARD RESPONSE MODES (“SRM”) (4 necessary, 4 optionals) -- occasionally modified -- which will allow students to shape their portfolios in their individual ways and according to their individual interests:
(a) your choice of a “juicy word” and its definition {JUICY WORD}
(b) brief summary of author’s essential contrast or main points {SUMMARIZE}
(c) your reaction to the text (e.g., your choice of a quotation from the text and briefly why you think this is significant/surprising to you) {REACTION}
(d) a question you have arising from the reading {QUESTION}
(e) bring in some field data: a cultural exhibit or live “specimen” relating to class themes or discussions – e.g. share a brief but revealing personal anecdote or interaction that took place that day; a magazine photo; a found news article; note the subtext of a TV commercial; a street observation, etc. {SPECIMEN}
(f) agree with at length or dispute an author’s position in a text; take a stand and provide reasoning and/or evidence to back up your view {AGREE/DISAGREE}
(g) probe a text’s meaning, not worrying about being right or wrong – thinking out loud on paper, just analyzing slowly and/or patiently unpacking till you have a better handle on what an author is saying {EXPLORE}
(h) devise an exercise or try an experiment – imagine, design, create, invent, play, or plan something new! {EXPERIMENT/CREATE}
* ……NOTE: PAPER AND GROUP PROJECT GUIDELINES WILL BE GIVEN AND DISCUSSED TOGETHER AT LENGTH IN CLASS
PART I: INTRODUCTION AND WARM UPS
Wed. 9/5: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
Mutual introductions… syllabus overview… texts and themes… expectations, policies and courtesies… criteria and grading… class participation and discovery, portfolio assignments, short required APA research paper, group collaborative project…
QUESTION: “What does it mean to learn, work and play in a globalized environment?” -- theme: survival in different historical settings requires different sets of skills
TWO SOCIOLOGICAL WARM-UPS (What’s happening around us?)
Mon. 9/10: SOBRIETY
Readings: Juliet Schor, The Overspent American – Preface, chapters 1 to 3 (pp. 1-63), chap. 4 (pp. 67-74) and chap. 6 (pp. 154-158)
Assignment: SRM
Some themes
-- a micro-lens on the dynamics of our famously consumer society
-- social scanning and aspiration; issues of optimism and pessimism
-- evidence and inference; field specimens (Nancy Drew: everything is evidence!)
Wed. 9/12: OPTIMISM
Readings: Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class – Preface, chaps. 1 (pp.1-17), 2 (pp.21-37), 9 (pp. 144-162), and 10 (pp. 166-170)
Assignment: SRM
Some themes:
-- an optimistic view of a new and economically significant “creative class” emerging
-- a reinterpretation of our ‘time warp’… and a transformation of everyday life?
-- the “creative ethos” and a hunger for active (and quality) experience
PART II THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND RESEARCH
“The Social Sciences” – An Historical Sociology of a Variety of Kindred Disciplines… A Variety of Methodological Approaches
Some disciplinary cousins: psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, and political economy -- the distinctive perspective and kind of imagination found in the social sciences… (Bertrand Russell quote: “Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.” The Arts & Humanities=what you yearn to know…The Social Sciences=what you maybe possibly know… Life, Business, Politics, Spirituality=what you absolutely must know!)
Mon. 9/17: WHAT IS “OUR TIME,” OUR ERA? WHERE ARE WE?!…
Readings: DN/ “Three Worldviews and Their Pedagogical Traditions”
DN/ “Three Modes of Inquiry” and (optional) DN/ “A Learning Community Mandala”
Assignment: SRM for “Three Worldviews”… and a Crystal Ball Exercise
Some themes: In what age or time or period are we living? – Modern? Postmodern? Global? Planetary? Space Age? Information Age? What is happening? What is the primary dynamic of our time? A next step in the evolution of our culture?
A Mega-historical and a Magical History Tour… A ‘Crystal Ball Exercise…
Three historical and philosophical paradigms, three traditions of inquiry and their toolboxes and styles, particularly empirically-oriented methodological approaches…
Wed. 9/19: WHAT AND HOW DO SOCIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY AND ECONOMICS STUDY?
Readings: Neil Postman, excerpt from his The End of Education (“Spaceship Earth”) on archeology, anthropology and astronomy as the new fundamental ‘basic subjects’
Articles by Ruby Payne (on the persistence of poverty and social class) and Barbara Ehrenreich (on dancing – collective exuberance -- as the real revolution)
Assignments: SRM for Postman; surprising quotes from the two articles; and a mini profile of a classic or contemporary economist, anthropologist or sociologist
Sociology, anthropology and economics in particular: quantitative and qualitative kinds of studies -- from econometrics and mathematical models to empirical field studies to several types of phenomenological approaches…
What is the ‘unit of study’ or primary dynamic of sociology? – the interaction? the encounter, the pack, the behavior of large numbers or masses, power hierarchy, the organization, the grid, the matrix, the all but invisible structural environment?….. Society as a contesting ensemble of practices (projects, games, zones, clubs, classes).
A brief canvass of the views of classical and contemporary economists and sociologists…
Beyond simple prediction and confirmation: the newer approaches of computerized projections or imaginative projection: scientific simulations and futurist scenario building
Mon. 9/24: LANGUAGE AND POWER; RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC WRITING
Readings:
DN/”Language and Power” – language, social place, agency, achievement and power
Michael Harvey, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing – chap. 6 (pp.56-61), chaps. 7, 8 and Appendix: Document and Citation Format – APA format
Juliet Schor, “Prices and commodities: Unsustainable consumption and the global economy”
Assignments: SRMs for DN/”Language” and Harvey, chap.7 “Paragraphs” –
(Survey the structure of the Schor paper and see how she documents her material.)
Different types of intelligence and imagination…writing in different modes and styles… writing as process and as product… finding reliable sources online… helpful hints…
Research in the Social Sciences… APA paper style… anatomy of a sample paper
Assignment of an approximately seven page student paper on any topic of your choice that demonstrates knowledge/skill in APA style citation, ability to find reliable sources, and produce an acceptable APA style paper {N. B. However many revisions necessary, this accepted short paper is required to pass the course!…}
------------ ** First Collection of Individual Student Portfolios ** -----------------
PART III GLOBALIZATION AS FACT – THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS
“Learning, Work, and Play in the New Globalized Environment”
Wed. 9/26: COMMUNICATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Reading: George Myerson, excerpt from his Heidegger, Habermas and the Mobile Phone
Assignment: SRM
-- the mobile phone (iPhone!) as medium and metaphor of the new technology
-- the technology of desire and “concrete metaphysics”
-- the speed/saturation of information and messages versus dialogue and communication
-- silence and noise, silence and violence, silence and intimacy
-- rationality as slowness, and giving reasons, inquiry as patience and togetherness
Mon. 10/1: LEARNING, WORK, PLAY
Reading: Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind – “Afterword” (pp. 232-234), and pp. 13-153
Assignment: SRM – with emphasis on the optionals!
-- a liberal optimistic view stressing opportunities
-- the globalization of labor and demands
-- left and right brain orientations and styles of discourse: analysis vs. sympathy
-- old skills in a new key: holistic and symphonic use of the mind’s powers
-- the new global environment’s paradoxes and playbooks
-- new and expansive forms of expression
Wed. 10/3: WEALTH AND POVERTY
Readings: Thom Hartmann, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (pp. 243-248), Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class chap. 3 (pp. 44-66) and
Dinesh D’Souza, The Virtue of Prosperity (short excerpts)
Assignment: SRM (spanning the three readings)
-- traditional and new sources of wealth, different kinds of poverty – especially that generated by industrialization; notions of abundance and prosperity
-- techno-capitalism and American affluence as a good thing and how it beneficially impacts inequality and redefines poverty
-- prosperity as attitude, virtue and social practice; moral qualms and moral critique
Wed. 10/10 POWER AND COMMUNITY
Reading: Thom Hartmann, The Last Days of Ancient Sunlight, Part Two (pp. 97-203)
Assignment: SRM
-- two ‘socio-logics’: the dominator versus the partnership models (Eisler and Korten) ---their characteristic forms of empire (‘younger culture’ as expansive and aggressive) and earth-based, ‘older’ tribal cultures
-- corporate, commercial globalization versus a new orders of human consciousness and the mission of building an inclusive narrative/network of global citizenship ‘from below’
----------- ** Second Collection of Individual Student Portfolios ** ------------------
Mon. 10/15: APA PAPER: RESEARCH & WRITING ON A TOPIC OF INTEREST
------------ ***Note: APA PAPER DUE ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER17th*** -------
PART IV GLOBALIZATION -- MEANINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS:
SIX FUTURE SCENARIOS
(Scenarios as exploratory vehicles… exploring six distinct global dynamics)
Wed. 10/17: A HISTORY OF THE FUTURE AND SCENARIO I: REGRESSION
Readings: Oona Strathern, A Brief History of the Future, chap.7 (pp. 242-255), chap.1;
DN/“A Futurist Manifesto” (2002);
DN/ “Savages, Cyborgs, and Saints” Scenario I;
a short illustrative excerpt, e.g. from "Soldier" in Bruce Sterling's Tomorrow Now
Assignment: begin group advocacy project notes
Film video selections: from Mel Gibson’s “Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome” or Kevin Costner’s “Waterworld”
extreme social fragmentation and militaristic regression; rule by thugs; apocalyptic, catastrophic and/or dire scenarios; societal ungovernability, chaos or a new feudalism
Mon. 10/22: SCENARIO II – MALL, MONOCULTURE AND EMPIRE
Readings: Strathern, A Brief History, chaps. 2 and 3 (pp. 44-116)
DN/ “Savages, Cyborgs, and Saints,” Scenario II;
excerpt, e.g. from Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle
Assignment: project notes
Film video selection: from “Alphaville” or “Gattica” or “Fahrenheit 451”
extreme homogenization or monoculture, commercial/corporate hegemony {GUEST?}
Wed. 10/24: SCENARIO III – TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS AND RADICAL SPECIES CHANGES -- MULTIPLE FUTURES
Readings: Strathern, chap. 7 (pp. 219-241)
DN/ S, C, & S, Scenario III;
excerpt, e.g. from "The Conquest of Human Nature" in D'Souza's The Virtue of Prosperity
Assignment: project notes
Film selection: Michael Keaton in “Multiplicity” ?
major and centrifugal technologically mediated transformations of the human species into different evolutionary lines and multiple futures {GUEST?}
Mon. 10/29: SCENARIO IV -- TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY AND THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM
Reading: DN/ S, C, & S, Scenario IV;
excerpt, e.g. from Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History
Assignment: project notes
Film selection: chauvinistic celebration of democratic icons and/or principles? ---
John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Ken Burns?…
modernity pro and con: the eventual triumph of steady state modernity (science, capitalism, technology, and liberal democracy)
classical liberal and incrementalist views of global development; the conservative wisdom of inertia vs. the ‘new growth’ theory of progressive economic expansion;
trans-national corporate hegemony versus critical interpretations of modernity; the lure of luxury versus radical Marxist and leftist concepts of historical progression and struggle…
{GUESTS: LEFT, RIGHT, AND “CENTER”?!….}
Wed. 10/31: (CONTINUED)
continuance of previous class discussions; {GUEST?}
Mon. 11/5: SCENARIO V – PLANETARY ENLIGHTENMENT
Reading: DN/ S, C, &S, Scenario V;
excerpt, e.g. from David Korten, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community
Assignment: project notes
Film selection: from “The Lathe of Heaven” (film version of Ursula Le Guin’s novel)
the new age evolution and planetization of consciousness: enlightened cybernetic infrastructure; the materialization of global sensitivity and intelligence {GUEST?}
Wed. 11/14: SCENARIO VI – CO-CREATION AND THE DRAMATIC UNIVERSE
Reading: DN/ S, C, & C, Scenario VI;
excerpt, e.g. "caves, frogs, birds, and angels" -- assorted parables from Plato to Parker Palmer
Assignment: project notes
Film selection: “What Dreams May Come”? “Siddhartha”? “The Razor’s Edge”? (to be decided)
the participatory/dramatic/existential nature of the universe; the paradoxes, polarities and ‘politics’ of an “alternation cosmology”
PART V GLOBALIZATION ADVOCACIES: STUDENT GROUP PROJECTS
(Student “symphonies”: based on the platform of the six previous scenarios, vividly articulating, arguing for, and gaining sympathy for your considered vision of the future)
Mon. 11/19 and Wed. 11/21:
STUDENT GROUP CHOICES AND PLANNING; PROJECT PREPARATION AND RESEARCH
------------------ ** Thanksgiving Break** ------------------------------
STUDENT GROUP PRESENTATIONS: imaginative projections and advocacies; testings, defenses, discussions; critiques and evaluations
Mon. 11/26
Wed. 11/28
Mon. 12/3
Wed. 12/5
Mon. 12/10 FINAL GROUP PRESENTATION…
END OF COURSE: ALL INDIVIDUAL PORTFOLIOS, FINAL PAPER REVISIONS, AND ALL COLLABORATIVE PROJECT SCRIPTS DUE
Between December 17th or 19th:
FINAL GRADES AND RETURN OF ALL STUDENT WORK;
IN LIEU OF A FINAL EXAMINATION, AN IN CLASS
NARRATIVE EVALUATION OF THE COURSE
(Note: top graphic on title page is from NASA.)
