course background and objectives · an analytical paper related to thomas more’s utopia, and...

Students are expected to have read and understood the contents of this syllabus.

Spring 2011 Prof. Greg Morrow

Classtime: Mon, Wed, Fri 11:30 am – 12:25 pm, Johnson 209 Office hours (at the Cooler): Mon, Wed, Fri 12:30 – 1:30

email: [email protected] Course Background and Objectives This seminar for first-year students emphasizes research and writing to develop critical thinking. As early as Plato (Republic, 380 BC), humans have imagined a more perfect society, using literature (and more recently, film, architecture, etc) to imagine alternatives that address the perceived problems of their time. The objective of this course is to provide students with an introduction to utopias (and anti-utopias) and their influences as catalysts for political and social change, both historically and the potential for utopian thinking today. In particular, we will explore the relationship and tensions between utopias and the form and nature of cities. We will examine the historical roots of utopian thinking and read four original utopian texts that revolve around the themes of the state, work, science/technology and nature. In so doing, we will trace the rise and fall of utopian thinking in relationship to modernism and post-postmodernism. We will also consider the utility of utopian thinking in what is often called the “ post-utopian” era of today – whether utopian thinking is useful or even desirable as a vehicle for approaching the challenges we face today. This trajectory leads us to the study of eco-cities as one of the most pervasive applications of utopian thinking today. By the end of the course, it is hoped that students will be able to do the following:

- to evaluate the relationship between texts and their historical and cultural context - to understand and appreciate the genres of utopia and anti-utopia - to understand the relationship between utopias and the form and nature of our cities

- to respond critically to course material, using synthesis and analysis - to effectively articulate arguments and positions through well executed writing

- to apply lessons of utopian thinking to critical contemporary problems

CSP 78: Eco-Cities, Utopias, and Political Change – Spring 2011 v4

2

Course Structure The course is organized as a discussion seminar. Seminars are less formal and differ from lecture –style courses in that everyone present is expected to participate in a two-way dialogue about the texts and ideas. The course is organized into 3 parts. In Part A, we will examine theories and foundations of utopian thinking. In Part B, we will explore modern utopias and their influences, both socially and spatially. To conceptualize the underlying ideas, Part B is divided into 4 themes or threads (state, work, science/technology, nature) that run throughout utopian literature and their contemporary manifestations. In Part C, we will turn to contemporary applications. Running parallel to the seminar will be a 6-session writing workshop that is meant to help students become better writers (and thus better thinkers). Finally, 3 sessions are reserved for Oxy’s CSP core requirements – a lecture by Sarah J. Ray on Feb 7 in Thorne Hall related to students’ summer reading (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), a related timed writing exercise on Feb 18, and a 1st year survey on Mar 25. Required Texts All texts are available at the Occidental College bookstore (x2630). 1. More, Thomas. 1516 [1997]. Utopia. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. 2. Bellamy, Edward. 1887 [2009]. Looking Backward: 2000-1887. New York: Signet Classics. 3. Morris, William. 1890 [2009]. News From Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 4. Huxley, Aldous. 1931 [2006]. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perrential. 5. Callenbach, Ernest. 1975 [2004]. Ecotopia. Berkeley, CA: Heydey Books. Course Website All course readings and correspondence will be posted on the course website:

https://moodle.oxy.edu/course/view.php?id=5035 You need to be registered to access the website. All reading responses, essays and research paper will be uploaded to the appropriate section of the Moodle website. Between-class updates will be posted to the “News forum” section, at the top of the website. To schedule a time slot for office hours, see the “Office hours” section of the website. Requirements and Grading The course requires completion of the following. No late assignments will be accepted without prior approval, which will NOT be granted as last minute requests in person or by email. No exceptions.


3

1. PARTICIPATION (30% of grade) Participation and active engagement in class discussions, exercises, and assignments are a critical component of the course.

A. Reading responses (15%) You are responsible for completing all readings listed on the class website, and submitting a written response by midnight the night before every class. Readings listed for each class are to be done before that class (i.e. the readings listed for Jan 24 are the readings we will discussion in that class). Reading responses are meant to prepare you for class discussions, therefore they must be submitted on time to receive credit. They are graded pass/fail. Students are expected to cite at least 2 readings in your response. Throughout the course, we will use the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) author-date system for citations – see CITATIONS FORMAT below. Reading responses are NOT a summary of the readings nor a commentary about whether or not you liked the reading or not, but rather a critique, assessment, opinion, protest about the author’s key arguments, or any combination of these. They may also highlight issues that are unclear to you or that you wish to discuss further in class. Reading responses should be about 200-250 words and must be posted to the appropriate forum (by date) on the class website. B. Attendance & Class Participation (15%) Class attendance and active participation in class is essential. An attendance sheet will be passed around at the beginning of class, so please be on time (it is your responsibility to ensure that you have signed the attendance sheet to get credit).

2. ESSAYS (20% of grade) In the first half of the term, students will write two essays. Essay #1 (due Feb 11) will be an analytical paper related to Thomas More’s Utopia, and Essay #2 (due Feb 25) will be an analytical paper related to Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward. Together with the required CSP in-class timed writing exercise (on Feb 18), these 3 written pieces contribute towards your first year writing assessment. Essays should use proper citations – see CITATION FORMAT below. Grading for all essays will be based on your ability to state a clear and compelling argument, provide some evidence to back up this/these claim(s), organize your paper logically, cite references properly, use proper grammar and spelling, and be professionally presented (typed, double-spaced, 12-pt font, have a title, your name and date on the first page, etc). Essays should have page numbers. Essays are expected to be about 3 pages (about 800 words). The use of graphic evidence (photos, tables, maps, charts, etc) to strengthen your points is also encouraged (not included in the 3 page suggestion).


4

3. FINAL EXAM (15% of grade) There will be a final essay exam to test your understanding of the themes, concepts, and ideas of the course. The final exam is scheduled for Tue, May 3, 8:30 to 11:30 am. 4. RESEARCH PAPER (35% of grade) The purpose of your final paper is to conduct research on a topic related to utopian thinking and its influence. You must meet with the professor in office hours to discuss your paper topic (the professor must approve the topic). When selecting a topic and research question, explicitly write out your topic, what question you hope to answer and why that question is important; complete the following 3 steps:

STEP 1: name your topic; be as specific as possible. Fill in the blank: I am trying to learn about (working on, studying) _________, STEP 2: add a question that specifies something you don't know/understand about your topic but want to. Fill in the blank: because I want to find out who/what/when/where/whether/ why/how _________, STEP 3: state why the answer to your question is important. Fill in the blank: in order to help my reader understand how, why, or whether __________.

A. BENCHMARKS (5% of grade) You should begin work on your research paper early. To ensure you work on your paper throughout the term (and not leave it to the last minute, which invariably leads to a poor grade), we have set a series of benchmarks (uploaded to Moodle website by 5pm):

(1) Identify topic and 2-3 possible questions: Feb 4 (2) Narrow topic and complete 3 steps: Feb 18 (3) Annotated bibliography: Mar 4 (4) Draft Outline: Mar 18 (5) Detailed Outline: Apr 1 (6) Draft paper: Apr 15

B. CLASS PRESENTATION (5% of grade) At the end of the term (Apr 25 and 27), students will complete a 5x5 presentation – 5 minutes and 5 Powerpoint slides to explain the key argument of your paper. Think of this as a précis (a condensed summary of the key pieces of your paper).


5

You should discuss:

1. The issue you studying (i.e. your topic). 2. How you studied it (e.g. comparison of cases, interviews, etc). 3. Your central claim/argument/thesis statement. 4. A couple piece of evidence to back up your claim/argument. 5. Lessons learned or potential remedies. (note: these 5 things do not necessarily correspond to your 5 images)

Since you only have 5 minutes, it is essential that you rehearse your presentation – know exactly what you want to say. Having notes to remind yourself of key points is fine, but do not read your presentation. Use your 5 images wisely -- they should be primarily photos, graphs, charts, diagrams, etc rather than text (remember a picture is worth a thousand words!). Your Powerpoint files are due (uploaded to Moodle) by midnight on Apr 24 (these will be compiled into a single Powerpoint file for each day). C. WRITTEN PAPER (25% of grade) The papers should be between 12 -15 pages (not counting endnotes, bibliography, and graphic evidence), double-spaced, 12-pt font. Your research paper should not be a description of what you found out, but rather must answer an important research question; as such, students are expected to make a claim or argument (taking the form of a thesis statement) and provide evidence to back up your claims. The best papers will be grounded in research of a variety of sources, especially scholarly journal articles. The best papers will explore policy responses, either in place, proposals under discussion, or new ideas. The best papers will draw on and integrate concepts and discussions from the course as well as outside sources. Use of proper CMS format for citations is expected – see CITATION FORMAT below. Grading will be based on your ability to conduct an independent research paper and answer a well-defined research question, your depth of analysis and critical thinking. Also taken into account will be the quality of your sources, use of graphic evidence (maps, tables, charts, photos, etc), integration of course readings, meeting minimum requirements (timeliness, length, etc) and professional presentation (proper citation format, work cited list, spelling, grammar, overall organization, etc). The final research paper is due by midnight on Apr 27.


6

Citation Format For your reading responses, essays and research paper, we will use the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) author-date system for citations. This is a standard format for social science writing and may be slightly different from other formats you have encountering, so please take the time to familiarize yourself with it. The CMS format involves 2 things: (1) within-text reference: within the body of the text, when making a reference to another

author’s unique ideas or thoughts, you must give credit. In CMS author-date format, this is done by adding the author’s last name followed by the year of the publication in parenthesis at the end of the sentence. For example:

Price claims that many people see Los Angeles as having no “nature” at all (Price 2005).

If you quote directly (verbatim) from another author, you must put it in quotations and

cite the page number(s) after the publication date. For example:

As Price says, Los Angeles is “sort of the Death Star to American nature lovers.” (Price 2005, 222)

(2) Works cited list: for each reference you make within the body of your text, you must

provide the full citation in a ‘works cited’ list at the end of your reading response/essay/research paper. For example, for the Price reference above, the full citation would look like this (note the year of publication comes directly after the author’s name):

Price, Jennifer. 2005. “Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in Los Angeles,” in Land of

Sunshine: An Environmental History of Metropolitan Los Angeles, edited by William Deverell and Greg Hise, 220-244. Pittsburgh: University Pittsburgh Press.

Below are a few websites that should provide guidance: http://departments.oxy.edu/cae/writing/index.html http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html (author-date tab) http://library.osu.edu/sites/guides/chicagogd.php


7

Readings and Class Schedule Reminder: all readings are available on the class website – see CLASS WEBSITE above. The course will be organized into 3 parts: A THEORIES & FOUNDATIONS (8 sessions) A-1 INTRODUCTION (2 sessions)

19-Jan Syllabus & Introductions Students are asked to post on the course website by midnight before next class a response to the following 2 broad questions:

1. What needs to be changed to bring about a better society? 2. How is this change brought about?

21-Jan Prospective Utopias UTOPIA DUE

Vieira, Fatima. 2010. The concept of utopia. In The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature, edited by Gregory Claeys, 79-106. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

A-2 OVERVIEW (3 sessions)

24-Jan Historical Overview Kumar, Krishan. 2000. Utopia and Anti-Utopia in the Twentieth Century.

In Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World, ed. by Roland Schaer, Gregory Claeys, and Lyman Tower Sargent, 251-267.

Polak, Fred. 1955 [1973]. The Future as a Work of Reconstruction. In The Image of the Future, 1-23. New York: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co.

26-Jan Paradigm Shifts, Ideology & Utopia

Kuhn, Thomas. 1962 [1996]. The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed., 92-111. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mannheim, Karl. 1929 [1985]. The Utopian Mentality. In Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, 192-210. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.

28-Jan Space & Utopia

Soja, Edward W. 1980. "The Socio-Spatial Dialectic," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70(2): 207-225.

Bloch, Ernest. 1938 [1986]. Building on Hollow Space. In The Principle of Hope, 733-745. London: Basil Blackwell.


8

A-3 ORIGINS & PRECEDENTS (3 sessions)

31-Jan Plato & More Plato. 380BC [1999]. Republic. In The Utopia Reader, edited by Gregory

Claeys and Lyman Tower Sargent, 27-56. New York and London: NYU Press.

More, Thomas. 1516 [1997]. Utopia. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.

2-FEB WRITING WORKSHOP (LIBRARY SESSION) 4-Feb Utopia as Prototype

Choay, Francoise. 1997. Utopia, or Beyond the Mirror. In The Rule and the Model: On the Theory of Architecture and Urbanism, 137-172. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Harvey, David. 2000. The Spaces of Utopia. In Spaces of Hope, 133-181. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

7-FEB CSP LECTURE @ THORNE HALL (REQUIRED)

9-Feb Influences of Utopia Pinder, David. 2005. Introduction and Partisans of Possibilities. In Visions

of the City: Utopianism, Power and Politics in Twentieth-Century Urbanism, 1-23, 239-265. New York and London: Routledge.

Roemer, Kenneth. 2010. Paradise transformed: varieties of nineteenth-century utopias. In The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature, edited by Gregory Claeys, 79-106. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

B THEMES, MODERN UTOPIAS & THEIR INFLUENCE (12 sessions)

B-1 THE STATE (3 sessions)

11-Feb Looking Backward ESSAY #1 DUE Bellamy, Edward. 1887 [2009]. Looking Backward: 2000-1887. New

York: Signet Classics. 14-Feb Socialist Utopias

Neville-Sington, Pamela and David Sington. 1993. The Great Trust. In Paradise Dreamed: How Utopian Thinkers Have Change the Modern World, 217-230. London: Bloomsbury.

Marx, Karl and Freidrich Engels. 1848 [1969]. "Bourgeois and Proletarians," Manifesto of the Communist Party. In Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. 1, 98-137. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

16-FEB WRITING WORKSHOP (FROM TOPICS TO QUESTIONS TO PROBLEMS)


9

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. 2003. "From Topics to Questions" and "From Questions to Problems". In The Craft of Research, 2nd ed., 40-71. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

18-FEB IN-CLASS CSP TIMED WRITING EXERCISE (REQUIRED)

23-Feb The Role of the State & Urbanism Scott, James C. 1998. Introduction, Authoritarian High Modernism and

The High-Modernist City. In Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, 1-8, 87-117. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Ben-Joseph, Eran. 2005. Neighborhoods Developed Scientifically. In The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making, 47-74. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

B-2 WORK (3 sessions)

25-Feb News From Nowhere ESSAY #2 DUE Morris, William. 1890 [2009]. News From Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford

University Press. 28-Feb Communitarianism

Neville-Sington, Pamela and David Sington. 1993. The Pursuit of Happiness. In Paradise Dreamed: How Utopian Thinkers Have Changed the Modern World, 193-216. London: Bloomsbury.

Hayden, Dolores. 1976. "Communal Idealism and the American Landscape," Landscape 20 (2): 20-32.

2-MAR WRITING WORKSHOP (INTRODUCTIONS & THESIS STATEMENTS)

4-Mar Suburbanization as the American Dream

Howard, Ebenezer. 1898 [1965]. The Garden City Idea and Modern Planning and The Town-Country Magnet. In Garden Cities of To-Morrow, 29-40, 50-57. London: Faber and Faber.

Ciucci, Giorgio. 1979. The City in Agrarian Ideology and Frank Lloyd Wright: Origins and Development of Broadacres. In The American City: From the Civil War to the New Deal, edited by Giorgio Ciucci, 352-375. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

***** SPRING BREAK *****


10

B-3 TECHNOLOGY (3 sessions)

14-Mar Brave New World Huxley, Aldous. 1931 [2006]. Brave New World. New York: Harper

Perrential.

16-MAR WRITING WORKSHOP (SOURCES OF EVIDENCE) 18-Mar Technotopias, Good and Bad

Posner, Richard A. 2000. "Orwell Versus Huxley: Economics, Technology, Privacy, and Satire," Philosophy and Literature 24: 1-33.

Mitchell, William J. 2000. Lean and Green. In e-topia "urban life, jim -- but not as we know it", 147-155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

21-Mar Megastructures and the 1960s

Rosenblatt, Arthur. 1968. "The New Visionaries," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series 26 (8): 322-332.

Deamer, Peggy. 1997. "The Everyday and the Utopian," unpublished. MIT Press. "Amazing Archigram: A Supplement," Prospecta 11: 131-154.

B-4 NATURE (3 sessions)

23-Mar Ecotopia Callenbach, Ernest. 1975 [2004]. Ecotopia. Berkeley, CA: Heydey Books.

25-FEB IN-CLASS 1ST YEAR SURVEY (REQUIRED)

28-Mar Ecological Utopias & Green Politics

de Geus, Marius. 1999 [1996]. Ecological Utopias: Envisioning the Sustainable Society, 17-39, 207-227, 247-260. Utrecht: International Books

Girardet, Herbert. 2004. Big Feet, Small Planet. In Cities People Planet: Liveable Cities for a Sustainable World, 1-19. London and New York: Wiley.

30-MAR WRITING WORKSHOP (BODY & TOPIC SENTENCES)

1-Apr “Sustainable” Cites

Hall, Peter. 2003. The Sustainable City in an Age of Globalization. In Girard, Luigi Fusco et al, eds. The Human Sustainable City: Challenges and Perspectives from the Habitat Agenda, 55-69. Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

LaBarre, Suzanne. 2010. "What's Next: The 1-5-10 Issue," Metropolis 29 (6): 46-59.


11

C CRITIQUE, REVIVAL & APPLICATIONS (10 sessions) C-1 CRITIQUE & REVIVAL (4 sessions) 4-Apr Critique: The Un-Freedoms of Utopia

Friedman, Milton. 1962. The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom. In Capitalism and Freedom, 7-17. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Popper, Karl R. 1947 [1985]. Utopia and Violence. World Affairs 149 (1): 3-9.

6-Apr Postmodernism and Post-Utopia

Jameson, Fredric. 2004. The Politics of Utopia. New Left Review 25: 35-54.

Foucault, Michel. 1984 [1997]. Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias. In Rethinking Architecture, edited by Neil Leach, 350-356. New York and London: Routledge.

8-Apr Revival/Reclamation of Utopia

Jacoby, Russell. 2005. Preface and Epilogue. In Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age, ix-xviii, 145-149. New York: Columbia University Press.

Pinder, David. 2002. "In Defense of Utopian Urbanism: Imagining Cities After the 'End of Utopia'," Geografiska Annaler 84 B (3-4): 229-241.

11-Apr The Contemporary Manifesto Bloc Québécois. 2011. “Policy Statement.” Montréal, QC.

Conservative Party of Canada. 2006. “Stand Up For Canada.” Ottawa, ON.

Green Party of Canada. 2010. “Vision Green.” Ottawa, ON. Liberal Party of Canada. 2011. “Your Family. Your Future. Your

Canada.” Ottawa, ON. New Democratic Party. 2011. “Platform 2008.” Ottawa, ON.

13-APR WRITING WORKSHOP (GRAPHICS & LAYOUT)

C-2 ECO-CITIES AS UTOPIA (4 sessions)

15-Apr Songdo, the Aerotropolis? DRAFT PAPER DUE Hallman, J.C. 2010. A City. In In Utopia: Six Kinds of Eden and the

Search for a Better Paradise, 189-229. New York: St. Martin's Press. Whitman, Christie Todd et al. 2008. "New Songdo City -- The Making of

a New Green City," CTBUH 8th World Congress. Chicago: Congress on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.


12

18-Apr Masdar, Eco Gated Community? Mubadala Development Company. 2011. "Masdar City: One Day All

Cities Will be Built Like This." Abu Dhabi, UAE. Ouroussoff, Nicolai. 2010. "In Arabian Desert, a Sustainable City Rises,"

New York Times. 25 September. Accessed 22 January 2011. http://nyti.ms/etbEpx

20-Apr Treasure Island, the Socially Just City?

Treasure Island Development Authority. 2010. Treasure Island + Yerba Buena Design for Development - Public Review Draft. San Francisco, CA. March 5.

22-Apr Reflections

Students will answer the follow questions: 1. What needs to be changed to bring about a better society? 2. How is the change brought about? 3. How have your thoughts to questions #1 and #2 changed since the

beginning of the course?

C-3 PAPER PRESENTATIONS (2 sessions)

25-Apr Presentations 27-Apr Presentations FINAL PAPER DUE FINAL EXAM 3-May (8:30-11:30 am)


13

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

(no class)

WednesdayMonday Friday

Influences of Utopia

Writing Workshop (Topics to Questions)

The Role of the State & Urbanism

News From Nowhere (essay 2 due)

Suburbanization (annotated biblio due)

25-Feb

4-Mar

26-Jan

2-Feb

9-Feb

16-Feb

23-Feb

Course Overview

writing exercise (req'd) (3 steps due)18-Feb

11-Feb

4-Feb

28-Jan

21-Jan19-Jan Syllabus & Introductions

Looking Backward (essay 1 due)

Utopia as Prototype (topic/questions due)

Space & UtopiaParadigm Shifts, Ideology & Utopia

Writing Workshop (Library Session)31-Jan

24-Jan

18-Mar

25-Mar

1-Apr

14-Mar

21-Mar

28-Mar

Writing Workshop (Thesis Statements)2-Mar28-Feb

21-Feb

14-Feb

7-Feb

16-Mar

23-Mar

30-Mar

6-Apr

13-Apr

20-Apr

27-Apr

Case: Treasure Island

Writing Workshop (Graphics & Layout)

Postmodernism & Post-Utopia

Writing Workshop (Topic Sentences)

Ecotopia (Callenbach)

Intro

duct

ion

Orig

ins

Stat

e

A -

Orig

ins &

Fou

ndat

ions

President's Day (no class)

Wor

k

Prospective Utopias (utopia due)

Technotopias (draft outline due)

Writing Workshop (Sources of Evidence)

(presentations) (final paper due)

Your First College Year Survey (req'd)

"Sustainable" Cities (detailed outline due)

Revival/Reclamation of Utopia

Case: Songdo (paper draft due)

Reflections

4-Apr

11-Apr

18-Apr

25-Apr

Historical Overview

Utopia (More)

CSP Lecture @ Thorne Hall (req'd)

Socialist Utopias

C -

Crit

ique

, Rev

ival

& A

pplic

atio

nsB

- M

oder

n U

topi

as &

The

ir In

fluen

ce

Nat

ure

Rev

ival

Eco-

Citi

esC

oncl

.

Spring Break (no classes)

Scie

nce

3-May Final Exam (8:30-11:30)

Communitarianism

Brave New World (Huxley)

Megastructures

Ecological Utopias

Critique: The Un-Freedoms of Utopia

The Contemporary Manifesto

Case: Masdar

(presentations)

8-Apr

15-Apr

22-Apr


14

POLICIES & SUPPORT Late Work Students are expected to submit their work by the stated due dates. No late assignments will be accepted without prior approval, which will NOT be granted as last minute requests in person or by email. No exceptions. Academic Integrity Occidental College assumes that students and faculty accept and respect the principle of academic honesty. The policies on academic misconduct are outlined in the Student Handbook (http://www.oxy.edu/StudentHandbook.xml). Plagiarism is representing others work as your own. Students are expected to understand and abide by Oxy’s plagiarism policy (http://www.oxy.edu/x8000.xml). Classroom Responsibilities Teachers and students share the responsibility of learning and teaching. We see our responsibilities as creating the space and stimulating enthusiasm for learning, coming prepared to class, creating the goals and structure for a course, introducing concepts and ideas, and facilitating the sharing of knowledge amongst the students and between ourselves and the students. Students are responsible for attending and participating in class, completing assignments in a timely manner, and being prepared to discuss readings and material in class. Students are also responsible for engaging in respectful, open and thoughtful discussion with each other and with the professors. Classroom Policies There are five basic rules in this classroom:

(1) Read all assigned material before class (2) Ask questions if you don’t understand (3) participate in the discussion if you have something to say (4) respect others, and (5) turn off your wireless devices.

Support Services The college provides a set of resources to students to support them in learning. The Center for Academic Excellence (CAE) provides writing assistance to students to develop ideas, draft, and revise papers. See http://departments.oxy.edu/cae/. If you have specific physical or learning disabilities and require accommodations, please let me know early in the semester so that we can meet your learning needs. The Center for Academic Excellence also provides services to assist students with physical or learning disabilities; these students need to contact Magen Todd, Learning Strategies & Disabilities Specialist, x2849, [email protected] in the Center for Academic Excellence (x2545). The Emmons Health and Counseling Center provides support for issues of stress, medical and mental health. See http://www.oxy.edu/EmmonsHealthCenter.xml.


15

Excerpts from “Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes” Andy Goodman & Cause Communications, pp 10-11 The “Fatal Five” 1. Reading the slides. More respondents complained about this behavior than anything else – and by a wide margin. Many indignantly asked why a presenter would read slides aloud when audience members were entirely capable of reading them for themselves…“Watching someone read PowerPoint slides is a form of torture that should be banned under the Geneva Convention,” wrote one respondent. 2. Too long, too much information. How long is too long? If a presentation is boring, respondents told us, even 10 minutes can seem too long. And boring presentations appear to be rampant across the sector… “Too many slides with too many words, too many points, too much data, too long, too didactic.” 3. Lack of interaction. The problem that first appeared when we asked respondents to describe the typical presentation resurfaced strongly in subsequent answers to open-ended questions. Many complained about being “talked at” for 30, 40, even 60 minutes at a time… 4. Lifeless presenters. Presenters who speak in a monotone, who seem to lack interest in their own material, or who appear to have wandered in from the set of “Night of the Living Dead” were also reported by many in the survey… 5. Room/technical problems. LCD projectors that don’t work, air conditioning that works too well, sound systems that are either too soft, too loud, or have too much hiss – just about every room or technical problem you can imagine showed up in survey answers…many are preventable, and even those that cannot be avoided do not have to ruin a talk…presenters often do not anticipate them or fail to have a backup plan.

The Three Most Wanted In another open-ended question, we asked, “What one or two key things make a presentation excellent?” Again, respondents provided a wide range of answers, although a few unhappy campers claimed they had never seen an excellent presentation. A consensus emerged around three characteristics, and unsurprisingly each is a direct opposite of a common problem cited above. 1. Interaction. Nearly one out of every four respondents mentioned interaction – with the speaker, with other audience members, or both – as a hallmark of excellent presentations. “Interactive presentations that create opportunities for the audience members to work together and with the presenter are almost always top notch,” one respondent told us. 2. Clarity. Some used the words “well organized,” and some wrote “concise,” but if you were to scan the verbatim responses to this question, you would see a long run of answers that begin with “clarity.” One such response: “Clarity of three to four well-framed key points the speaker wanted the audience to take away, coupled with smart use of metaphors/anecdotes that helped speaker drive them home.” 3. Enthusiasm. Whether respondents used the words energy, passion, charisma, engaging, dynamic or lively, they all wanted the same thing: presenters who were enthusiastic about their topic and conveyed that interest to the audience. Four other qualities that each received a high number of mentions were: humor, use of stories, relevance, and well-produced visuals.

course background and objectives · an analytical paper related to thomas more’s utopia, and...

Documents