New Fall 2017 MALAS Seminar in Conjunction with Religious Studies, SDSU: In God We Trust with Professor Bartel!

In God We Trust

Professor Rebecca Bartel

MALAS-600A 01 22167 IN GOD WE TRUST 3.0 Seminar 1600-1840 M HH-150 R. Bartel 8/8 Footnotes: 01 , ZL

Why is God on our money? Whose God is it? What does that tell us about the market? What does that tell us about religion? How can we think about religion and economics productively? This course explores the ways that religion and the economy are entangled. From Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” to the present moment of financial recovery, scholars have long been asking the question about religion and economy, morality and finance, and the ways these issues relate to each other. This course will introduce you to the theoretical foundations in anthropological and historical approaches to economics and religion, and illustrate these theories through specific case studies. The course will engage critical analysis from historical, post-colonial, gendered, and intercultural perspectives. The course also considers current events, financial markets, the credit industry, and debt as they are debated and discussed in the public sphere.     

New Fall 2017 MALAS Seminar (in Collaboration with Classics & Humanities, SDSU)! Specters of Modernity: Supernatural Fictions in the Age of Reason with Professor Raechel Dumas!

Specters of Modernity

Supernatural Fictions in the Age of Reason

Professor Raechel Dumas

MALAS-600A 03 22169 SPCTRS OF MDRNTY:SUPER FI 3.0 Seminar 1600-1840 T AH-2103 R. DUMAS 8/8 Footnotes: 03 , ZL

Who speaks for the past? After all, the project of modernity has centered largely on manufacturing a break with history, deploying the rhetoric of freedom, reason, and progress to suggest the possibility of liberation from religious and political authority, folk traditions, and cultural conventions. Nevertheless, specters continue to haunt the modern imagination, routinely surfacing as reminders that the repressed remains a vital force in the present, however much we might yearn to leave it behind. This course explores the phenomenon of haunting across modern literature, film, visual arts, and real-world geographical locales, with emphasis on how narratives produced at different historical moments and in different places across the globe similarly deploy specters to engage with significant historical phenomena and cultural developments. In particular, it focuses on counter-Enlightenment impulses in the transnational Gothic imagination; psychological repression and the spectral uncanny; specters of national trauma; and the postmodern horror trope of the “ghost in the machine.”  In considering these topics, students will evaluate and utilize diverse theoretical frameworks—provided by thinkers such as Michael Mayerfeld Bell, Sigmund Freud, Julia Kristeva, and Bracha Ettinger, among others—for thinking about the enduring place of specters in the collective imagination.

MALAS Lecture Event! The Ohio State University's Frederick Luis Aldama Reading from his New Book LONG STORIES CUT SHORT @ SDSU! Templo Mayor in the Aztec Student Union at 2pm

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More on Frederick Luis Aldama! Jump here.

MALAS Major Lecture Event of the 2017! Purdue University's RYAN SCHNEIDER @ SDSU! Hedonic Thrills: Theory of Mind and the Pleasure of Exhibition, Thursday, April 20th, 11am in M-120

M.A.L.A.S. The Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences is thrilled to welcome Ryan Schneider back to his old stomping grounds @SDSU! Come on out to campus next Thursday morning at 11am for his presentation in Music Building 120. Click the poster to enlarge or see it here!

Huge thanks to San Diego State University Press and SDSU Department of English & Comparative Literature for co-sponsoring the lecture with MALAS, malas.sdsu.edu

A MALAS Co-Sponsored Lecture by Bernhard Schlink author of The Reader

Bernhard Schlink
Monday, March 20, 2017, 2 pm
Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center Gold Auditorium
San Diego State University

Acclaimed German Novelist Bernhard Schlink will speak about his latest novel, The Woman on the Stairs, a powerful exploration of obsession, creativity, and love. Moving between West Germany in the late 1960s − the era of the student movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, violent domestic terrorist attacks − and contemporary Australia, the novel plots alternate pathways into the present rooted in the same turbulent moment in time.

Bernhard Schlink’s background as a former constitutional court justice and a legal scholar informs the clarity and incisiveness of his poetic language, as well as the moral questions he raises. Professor Schlink teaches law and legal philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin and at the Benjamin N. Cardoza School of Law in New York City. He is best known for his 1995 novel The Reader, a story of love and secrets, horror, and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany. It became the first German novel to reach #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The 2008 film adaptation, directed by Stephen Daldry, starred Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet, whose performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress.

New MALAS Spring 2017 Seminar: Europe and Terrorism MALAS 600/ European Studies 501

Europe and Terrorism 

MALAS 600/EUROP 501

Professor Veronica Shapovalov

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In this course we shall explore the complex historical, cultural, and moral dimensions of terrorism—one of the central political and moral issues of the 21^st century.  

What can the artists’ insights in terrorism teach us about the reality of terrorists’ attacks?  How does the imaginable become reality? How do artists approach the theme of “the unspeakable”? 

Using a variety of literary, historic, and media sources we shall explore extremist ideologies, the morality of political violence in general and terrorists’ violence in particular.

Section Details:

Course	MALAS-600C
Course Title	EUROPE AND TERRORISM
Section	03
Schedule #	22047
Units	3
Session	SPRING CAMPUS
Seats	8/8
Meetings	Seminar 1600-1840 TH SH-316 V. SHAPOVALOV
Full Title	Europe and Terrorism
Description	MALAS seminars are divided into four general areas with content that varies semester to semester. Each course may be repeated once with new content. See Class Schedule for specific content. Maximum credit six units for each of the following courses: MALAS 600A, 600B, 600C, 600D.
Prerequisite	Graduate standing.
Footnotes	02 May also be taken as EUROP 501. Not open to students currently enrolled in or with prior credit in EUROP 501 "Europe and Terrorism." ZL The following student levels are allowed: Graduate.

MALAS Spring 2017 Class in Collaboration with Sociology @ SDSU: SOC554/MALAS 600C U.S. / Mexico Transborder Populations and Globalization with Professor Norma Ojeda

SOC554/MALAS 600C
U.S. / Mexico Transborder 
Populations and Globalization
Spring Semester 2016
Wednesday 4 - 6:40 PM
SDSU Room SH213 and UABC
Norma Ojeda, Ph.D. – Office: SDSU - NH 223 (professor in charge) Telephone (619) 594 – 1320 Office hours: Tuesday 3 - 4 PM and by appointment: nojeda@mail.sdsu.edu
 Pedro Pablo, Orraca Romano, Ph.D. - Facultad de Economia - UABC – pedro.orraca@uabc.edu.mx 

COURSE PRESENTATION

 An international border of almost two thousand miles long, a long history of international migration, and daily interaction between social groups and people living in both sides of the U.S.-Mexico Border for more than a century has made this region a highly complex and intriguing social space. More recently, the war on terrorism, an increasing globalized economy and growing social transnationalism are changing the social dynamics of the U.S.-Mexico Border. Sociological analysis of the relationship between population and social change at the U.S.-Mexico border region is needed in order to understand the new transborder and transnational relations in the future of this region and of the two nations involved. Particular attention will be paid to the transborder and transnational life-styles of population groups and families.

COURSE ORGANIZATION

The course is organized in two different parts. The first part is oriented to provide students with a sociological framework to understand and analyze the transborder dimension of the population and society in the United States – Mexico border region. This part of the course is based on a series of lectures that combine some classical sociological theories with contemporary conceptual contributions from Border Studies and Transnational Migration Studies. The second part of the course is oriented to help students in the development of critical thinking and social analysis skills on U.S.-Mexico transborder and transnational issues. For this purpose, students will be required to deconstruct and analyze pre-selected research papers on key border issues. Additionally, students will conduct field research on a transborder topic of their choice. Active participation of students is expected through student’s presentations in class and participation in class discussions. This semester the class will take place in the Facultad de Economia at the Universidad de Baja California (UABC) campus Tijuana, Mexico to support the border learning experience of students.

Section Details:

Course	MALAS-600C
Course Title	SOC TRNSBRD POP GLOBLZTN
Section	02
Schedule #	22046
Units	3
Session	SPRING CAMPUS
Seats	5/5
Meetings	Seminar 1600-1840 W SH-213 N. OJEDA
Full Title	SOC TRNSBRD POP GLOBLZTN
Description	MALAS seminars are divided into four general areas with content that varies semester to semester. Each course may be repeated once with new content. See Class Schedule for specific content. Maximum credit six units for each of the following courses: MALAS 600A, 600B, 600C, 600D.
Prerequisite	Graduate standing.
Footnotes	01 Travel required - class meets at 4pm on UABC campus in Tijuana. Students traveling from SDSU's campus to border should be prepared to leave campus by 2:45pm. Students who wish to add the class after the first day must contact mdumont@mail.sdsu.edu. Because course includes international travel, enrolled students are required to purchase SDSU's foreign travel insurance. Cost per semester is approximately $60.00. Course requires passport or border-crossing card and Mexican visa (if applicable). Course is conducted in English. 06 May also be taken as SOC 554. Not open to students currently enrolled in or with prior credit in SOC 554 "Sociology of Mexico, Trnsbrdr Pltns". ZL The following student levels are allowed: Graduate.

New MALAS Graduate Seminar, Spring 2017: GENDER AND RHETORIC

MALAS 600D/RWS 730
Body Language: Gender and Rhetoric
Professor Suzanne Bordelon

This graduate seminar, a collaboration between the Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies and the MALAS Program, explores the intersection of gender, rhetoric, and the body. As Jack Selzer explains, in recent years scholars have noted the “rhetorical turn,” in both the liberal arts and the sciences. Although this turn has made various fields more reflective about disciplinary practices, particularly in terms of language, “it has consequently deflected scholarly attention from material realities and toward the way those realities are represented in text” (4). However, scholars, especially those in Rhetoric and Composition, have stressed that the material and the body matter: they contribute to rhetorical action and, thus, deserve our attention. We will begin our study by examining the term gender itself, both from popular and theoretical perspectives. We then will investigate the work of scholars concerned with the embodiment of the feminine in the rhetorical tradition. More specifically, we will explore efforts to regender and to enact new methods and methodologies of research for approaching the history of rhetoric. During the second unit of the term, we will focus on gendered sites, genres, and styles of rhetoric. We will read essays that will “expand rhetorical realms, complicate analytical terms, and recognize gendered means of persuasion” (Buchanan and Ryan). In the third unit, we will examine the intersection of gender, rhetoric, and the body in contemporary times, particularly depictions of bodies in the media. The class will be structured both as a seminar and as a writing workshop. It will serve as a laboratory for you to test out and discuss your ideas, as well as a place for you to practice and enhance your academic writing abilities.

Section Details:

Course	MALAS-600D
Course Title	SEM: GENDER AND RHETORIC
Section	01
Schedule #	22048
Units	3
Session	SPRING CAMPUS
Seats	8/8
Meetings	Seminar 1530-1810 M AH-2111 S. BORDELON
Full Title	Seminar: Gender and Rhetoric
Description	MALAS seminars are divided into four general areas with content that varies semester to semester. Each course may be repeated once with new content. See Class Schedule for specific content. Maximum credit six units for each of the following courses: MALAS 600A, 600B, 600C, 600D.
Prerequisite	Graduate standing.
Footnotes	04 May also be taken as RWS 730. Not open to students currently enrolled in or with prior credit in RWS 730 "Sem: Gender and Rhetoric." ZL The following student levels are allowed: Graduate.

Spring 2017: MALAS 601: Dream Spaces and Other Aberrations: An Introduction to Cultural Studies with Professor Andy O'Clancy

MALAS 601: Dream Spaces and Other Aberrations
Professor Andy O'Clancy 

Recognizing the vast array of practices, disciplines, and schools of influence Cultural Studies draws from, this Spring 2017 we will proceed where limits and the boundary lines of ownership collapse, connecting paths and texts often considered at the extremes of marginalized space in ways sometimes considered “not with the grain.” This in mind, an overall mood of intellectual and artistic wandering underscores our seminar’s move toward “stumbling onto things” across various mediums, genres, and disciplines. Of course, intellectual or not, subversive strolls are not typically without distress, and, fittingly, we will occasionally find ourselves negotiating the disorienting fields of theory. However, these discourses will also aid in foregrounding ways to question, critique, and re-imagine spaces. Among some of the many emerging issues to examine in our disruptive blend of novels, essays, poetry, music, plays, paintings, films, journals, manifestos, and other aberrations are critical notions of legitimacy, language, race, gender, sexuality, and technology.

Andy O'Clancy has published in The Texas Review, Sublime Art and Literature, Oulipo Anthology Series, and New Orleans Book Review. He has taught Literature at UCSD and SDSU. His forthcoming novels are Witness Collection Program and The Magic Paper Seeing Shop.

Course	MALAS-601
Course Title	INTRO TO CULTURAL STUDIES
Section	01
Schedule #	22049
Units	3
Session	SPRING CAMPUS
Seats	25/25
Meetings	Seminar 1600-1840 W PSFA-436
Full Title	Seminar in Interdisciplinary Thinking
Description	Nature of interdisciplinary thinking. Ways of knowing and schools of thought in multiple disciplines. Interdisciplinary methods to analyze social issues. See Class Schedule for specific content.
Prerequisite	Graduate standing.
Footnotes

First MALAS Monthly with CLAS and LASSO, Thursday October 13, 2016 @ 5pm at Nazca Grill

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MALAS, The Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences is Proud to Co-Sponsor Carlos Cortés's “A Conversation with Alana: One Boy’s Cultural Rite of Passage”

The SDSU Department of Religious Studies (with MALAS) presents: 
“A Conversation with Alana: One Boy’s Cultural Rite of Passage” 
performed by the author and playwright, Dr. Carlos Cortés 
UC Riverside Professor Emeritus of History 
Thursday, November 3 11:00 am-12:15 pm 
Montezuma Hall 
Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union

New Fall 2016 MALAS Seminar! Politics, Food, and Latin America with Professor Ramona Pérez

MALAS-600B
Politics, Food, and Latin America
Professor Ramona Pérez, Director
Center for Latin American Studies, SDSU

The study of food and its relationship to culture, human and environmental sustainability, economic strategies, access and distribution, and human rights has become an integral part of research, public policy, and health. In this seminar we will explore the connections between what we eat and how individual identities are created via the production, preparation, distribution, and consumption of food; how shifts in the environment, public policy, and economics contribute to food (in)security; the impact that migration/displacement has on food, nutrition, and consumption; and how to research issues related to food and nutrition. This seminar aims to provide you with theoretical and empirical tools to understand and critically evaluate food systems at both local and global levels. We will explore the history of particular foods that have moved from the Americas to other parts of the world; the formation of cuisines that mark identity; food as status symbol and marker of class; and the way in which food is conveyed from one generation to the next. Underlying this multidisciplinary, comparative approach is a primary focus on how food equates to power.

MALAS-600B
Schedule # 22112
1600-1840 T AH-3130

Ramona L. Pérez, Ph.D.
Professor, Anthropology
Director, Center for Latin American Studies
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182-6022
619-594-1155
http://ramonaperez.sdsu.edu/

New Fall MALAS Fall 2016 Seminar! MALAS-600A A SHORT HISTORY OF EVIL w/ Professor DREW THOMASES

RS 580/MALAS 600 A Short History of Evil

This course explores “evil,” both its meaning, and how the language of evil has been used by diverse religious communities. We will address a wide range of subject matter, including but not limited to portrayals of Satan and hell, Buddhist and Hindu conceptions of demons, literature on the Holocaust, and contemporary conversations about war, terrorism, and torture. Ultimately, the goal is not simply to identify instances of evil, but instead to see how different people use the word and concept of “evil” in order to articulate complex feelings of loss, fear, and alienation. The course combines scholarly material with literature, art, and film, the idea being that all types of media inform the way we perceive and understand evil in our world.

MALAS-600A  01
22109
SHORT HISTORY OF EVIL
3 Units / Seminar
1600-1840 Mondays
PSFA-436
DREW THOMASES