GLS (MALS)
and Gerontology
GLS (MALS) and Hispanic Studies
Aside from GLS 502: Contemporary Issues in Liberal Studies and GLS 598: Final Project in Liberal Studies, GLS General Concentration courses are arranged on the basis of three broad thematic areas:
- social concerns and cultural systems (GLS 510-529)
- environment, science, and society (GLS 530-535)
- literature, arts, and society (GLS 560-569)
Depending on the topic, GLS 592: Special Topics in Liberal Studies generally conforms to one of the three thematic areas specified above. GLS students also have the option of undertaking a directed independent study (DIS) in graduate liberal studies (GLS 591) under the supervision of a qualified faculty person. DIS projects must be approved by the student's academic advisor, the instructor, the GLS Program Director and the Dean of the Graduate School. Click here to obtain a DIS form.
Note: Course titles (green text) provide links to course descriptions expanded beyond the brief UNCW catalogue descriptions provided below. Please be aware that if the course is not being offered in the current or upcoming semester/summer session, the expanded course descriptions may contain outdated information on book requirements, course evaluation criteria/processes, attendance requirements, etc. In these cases,, the content of the expanded course description is "For Your Information" only. No action, e.g., purchase of books, etc., should be taken based on its content.
The above statement does NOT apply to the GLS 598 and GLS 599 links. These links take you to other "major" instructional web pages on this website.
GLS 502 Contemporary Issues in Liberal Studies (3) Required for all MALS students. A review of critical issues in liberal studies that may be influencing disciplinary methodology, discourse or research techniques. Emphasis on forms of oral and written communication, computer presentations and library research techniques.
GLS 510 Religion and Sex (3) Through an examination of the major world religions' views on sex, procreation, marriage, abstinence, masturbation, incest, and sexual orientation as expressed in their scriptures, exegesis, and practice, this course explores the close connections between various conceptions of the sacred and their impact on this biological activity.
GLS 511 The Social Organization of Cruelty (3) This course examines the origins and organization of cruelty (slavery, torture, genocide, child abuse, the treatment of "inmates" in nursing homes and mental hospitals) with the aim of: 1) developing a general theory of cruelty, and 2) better understanding cruelty as an ongoing social achievement.
GLS 512 The Renaissance of Scottish Culture (3) The current phenomenon of Scottish cultural rejuvenation and preeminence (with Glasgow its City on a Hill) is seen through the lens of recent developments in Scottish literature as necessarily connected with analogous developments in economics, politics, and the arts, all interacting with each other to produce the renaissance.
GLS
513 Transitions from Communism (3) An interdisciplinary
approach to the problems of transition in four regions: Eastern Europe,
Russia, Central Asia, and China. After an examination of the historical,
geographical, and cultural foundations of current issues, the course focuses
on the prospects for democracy and civil society.
GLS 514 Post-Modern Childhood (3) Interdisciplinary exploration
of contemporary childhood. Popular media, scholarly sources, and
a variety of qualitative methods will be used to analyze the social worlds
of children and the social construction of childhood in post-modern and
increasingly global consumer culture.
GLS 515 Religion,
Women, Gender in Early Modern Europe: Texts and Contexts (3)
A study of the religious and cultural context of early modern Europe through
the lens of texts by women and about women and gender, including the newly
revived querelle des femmes ; creative religious writing (poetry,
plays, devotional works, stories, letters and diaries), and theological
treatises on the nature of "woman."
GLS 516 Utopias and
Dystopias: Literary Visions, Past, Present and Future (3)
Discussion of fiction by British and American writers such as Atwood,
Wiesel, Lessing, and Burgess, set in a timeless space, that imagines ideal
societies and societies gone awry. Consideration of generic traits
of this fiction.
GLS 517 Affirmative
Action and Social Justice (3) Introduction, through discussion,
debate and dialogue, to the philosophy of racial justice. Topics
include equality and the Constitution, slavery and segregation, the philosophy
of civil rights, affirmative action, and theories of social justice, and
racial healing.
GLS 518 Puzzles of
Society (3) An examination of different interdisciplinary
perspectives that undergird the variety of ways both laymen and social
professionals attempt to make practical sense of social life. Also,
emphasis is placed on matching these perspectives with some of the tools
or skills that are available to address everyday social problems.
GLS 519 Poverty,
Social Policy, and the American Welfare State (3) A seminar
considering America's struggle against poverty and related social problems.
Examination of social policy and programs, the changing character of poverty
over the past century, the influence of reform movements, and the future
of the U.S. social welfare system.
GLS 520 Atheism and Unbelief
(3) Examines the beliefs and assumptions of atheists by exploring
an atheist's response to common theistic arguments, by surveying the historical
and philosophical traditions of atheism, and by considering how atheists
explain all those things atheists need gods for, with special reference
to the theories of Freud, Durkheim, Marx, Skinner, Harris, and Sperber.
GLS 521 Media and Society (3) Examines the relationship between media, culture, and society,
with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives. Focuses
on the roles the mass media play in the production, reception, and representation
of the news, race, class, gender and sexuality in contemporary society.
GLS 522 Shamanism (3)
Cross-cultural study of shamanism. Topics include importance of
cultural context, altered states of consciousness, balance with nature,
and use of plants. Exploration of the shaman as healer, medium, and conduit
of spiritual knowledge. Shamanism as a personal journey.
GLS 523 Popular Culture (3) Cross-cultural study and semiotic study of popular forms of everyday life (food, fashion, fads, entertainment trends, television, movies, music, myths, stereotypes, and icons of mass-mediated consumer culture), with a special emphasis upon thinking and writing critically about popular culture by examining tacit assumptions about how the world works and our place in it as well as the role language plays in shaping reality.
GLS 524 The Contemporary American Workplace (3) Examines the contemporary American workplace from a number of disciplinary perspectives--economic, sociological, psychological, historical, philosophical, and literary--and considers such concerns as work and identity, ethics and the workplace, gender and ethnic discrimination, work as reality and myth, work and leisure, the workaholic syndrome, job satisfaction, management and labor relations, and education and the marketplace.
GLS 525 Communications Law, Policy, and Ethics (3) Legal and ethical limitations on human communication; rights and responsibilities of journalists and other professional communicators.
GLS 526 Persuasion in American Life (3) This course is a multidisciplinary examination of how American life is influenced by the advertising and public relations industries as well as the mass media, particularly the newspaper editorial page. The course will include lecture, class discussion, student presentations, and guest speakers.
GLS 527 The Historical Geography of American Race Relations (3) This course will focus on the Historical Geography of Race Relations between whites and blacks in America from slavery to the Civil Rights era. I envision spending roughly a third of the time on the period of African slavery, emancipation and Reconstruction, another third on the Jim Crow era through WWI and up to WWII, and the last third on Brown vs the Topeka, KS Board of Education and the Civil Rights era.
GLS
528 Cultural Images of America in the 60s (3) An interdisciplinary
examination of the United States in the 1960s, with a focus upon such
major political, social, and cultural developments as the anti-Vietnam
war movement, the free speech movement, the civil rights movement, the
women's movement, the sexual revolution, the Black Arts movement and the
environmental movement as well as the evolution of a distinctive counterculture.
GLS 529. Cultural Images of
America in the 50s (3) An interdisciplinary examination of
the United States in the 1950s from a variety of socio-cultural perspectives,
with a focus upon such topics as fashion, automotive design, food and
kitchen technology, roadside architecture, suburban development, consumerism,
the nuclear family, the evolution of a distinctive youth culture, segregation,
the "Red" scare, popular fads, and the popular media.
GLS 530 The Shaping of
America: Cultural Landscapes and the American Sense of Place (3)
Examination of the material cultural landscapes of America from geographical,
historical, and aesthetic perspectives, and how attachment to place has
shaped the landscape. A study of the rich spatial tapestry of our
nation's fields, towns, cities, architectural styles, railways, and roadscapes,
and how those patterns reflect five centuries of diverse ethnic and cultural
evolution.
GLS 531 Science and Pseudoscience (3) Study of criteria for description and explanation in science
and the use of those criteria to demarcate between scientific and pseudoscientific
claims to knowledge. Evaluation of specific areas such as
parapsychology, astrology and alternative medicine. Consideration
of psychological factors influencing people's tendency to accept unsupported
beliefs.
GLS 532 Conservation and Culture (3) A discussion
of both contemporary and historical links between conservation and human
cultures, with a focus on wildlife and other natural resources.
Includes topics such as the Dust Bowl, attitudes toward predators, the
founding of the Hudson Bay company, Smokey the Bear, Rachel Carson and Silent Spring , and the conservation ethics of Muir, Pinchot,
and Leopold.
GLS 533 The Environmental
Crisis (3) An intensifying environmental crisis has arisen
from local, national and transborder encounters with water and air pollution,
habitat destruction and species extinction, and possible global warming,
all in the context of unprecedented population growth. This course
is an America-centered, historically oriented examination of our environmental
dilemmas and their possible solutions.
GLS 534 Culture Wars
and the Origin of Difference (3) Intensive study of significant
themes in the literature on the encounter of European peoples with the
Third World. Interdisciplinary and anthropological readings focus
on explanations for the origin of cultural differences, the dynamics of
the colonial encounter, the contemporary clash of cultures, and multiculturalism.
GLS 535 The Historical Geography
of Food (3) Examines the foodways of different cultural regions
from prehistoric hunter/gatherers through Neolithic sedentary agriculture
up to modern agri-business, including the diffusion of agricultural practices
and products, famine's causes and effects, the decline of world fisheries,
climatic and economic parameters of food production, and the role of foods
in cultural practices and prohibitions.
GLS 536 America during the Great Depression (3) An examination of the United States during the Great Depression from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, ranging from literature, photography, popular music, and popular film to sociology, geography, climatology, agronomy, politics, economics, public health, and education. Featured texts include fiction, autobiography, oral history, public history, letters, newspaper and photojournalism, and relevant historical and sociological studies.
GLS 537 American Roadways (3) An examination of such classic American roadways as the Mississippi River, the Appalachian Trail, Route 66, the Burlington-Northern rail system, the "underground railroad," and the "Trail of Tears" from such disciplinary perspectives as cultural and transportation geography, folklore, history, literature, photography, popular music, the popular media, and sociology.
GLS 541 Psychology and Religion (3) A study of the relationship between Easter views of higher conciousness and Western views of the collective unconcious. The course shall also explore depth dimensions of Western Religions.
GLS 542 Creative Nonfiction: Memoir and Truth Telling (3)
In this course, we will read works that grapple with the notion of truth-telling, essential or emotional truths to get at the “real story”. In our discussions, we will explore how authors compose their lives, construct an identity—and create a somewhat coherent self often against enormous personal, societal, and cultural obstacles. More specifically, we will attempt to understand how memory and imagination, history and fiction, fact and invention intersect in the act of creating a self, and of engaging in a meaningful and/or complicated relationship with the past—a past that inevitably weaves itself int o the present.
GLS 560 Art in Social
Science Perspective (3) Art both organizes and is organized
by social interaction. This course examines this dialectical relationship
between art and society, focusing upon the complex networks of social
relationships--among artists, critics, aestheticians, patrons, and institutions
that powerfully influence the ways in which art is performed, exhibited,
evaluated, and supported.
GLS 561 Theatre and Cinema (3) Aesthetic study of theatre and film and the relations
between them. Examination of key texts in each medium, emphasizing
rhetorical analyses of language, mise-en-scene, performance, cinematography,
editing and other properties particular to dramatic art forms. Three
seminar hours and two screening hours each week.
GLS 562 Our Cultural
Heritage through Dance (3) This course provides an opportunity
to experience and examine dance forms and cultures from around the world.
These experiences will provide the focus and impetus for students to make
connections to their lives, to show connections to the global studies
curriculum, and for future independent study by individual class members.
GLS 563 Comic Strips
and Political Cartoons as Literature (3) A consideration
of comic strips and cartoons as popular literature. Provides
a brief history of each genre in America and Britain and then focuses
on recent examples. Studies such contemporary masters of political
cartooning as Jeff MacNelly and Pat Oliphant and such comic strips as Calvin and Hobbes, Pogo, Cathy, and Dilbert .
GLS 564 Autobiography
from the Margins: Race, Gender, Ethnicity and Age in America (3)
Study of American autobiography as genre and of race, gender, ethnicity,
and age as they influence the texts and our reading of them. Includes
such authors as Richard Wright, Jill Ker Conway, Maxine Hong Kingston,
and Philip Roth.
GLS 566 Documentary Film: Moving Images (3) The
Documentary Tradition. One documentary film will be shown and discussed
each week so that students will develop an awareness of how these films,
both classics and current-day documentaries, were put together.
Narration, interview, historical photos and footage as well as actual
filming of action, people and scenes will be analyzed to see how a documentary
story is told. The student will be able to see how various
video and audio segments make up a documentary and will become a more
critical viewer of documentaries.
GLS 567 Slums, Manors, and the
American Dream (3) A discussion of the effects of rapid urbanization,
greed, and the rationalization of immense wealth upon American writers
from about 1890 to1925. The course examines fiction, plays, muckraking
journalism, and documentary film to understand how writers employ sensation,
sentiment, melodrama, and realism to elicit responses from their readers.
GLS 568 Black Intellectual
Tradition (3) An interdisciplinary study of the black intellectual
tradition in the humanities, social sciences, and the fine arts that spans
nearly two hundred years, two continents, and most of the academic disciplines
with special emphases upon African intellectual heritage, African philosophical
thought forms, Afro-American philosophy of religion, black education,
the black social conscience, and Blacks in literature.
GLS 569 Sex and Social Change in the Early Twentieth-Century U.S. (3) An exploration of the construction of the American "New Woman" in fiction and drama written by both men and women. Topics include the influence of the suffrage movement, the introspection occasioned by new conceptions of sexuality, the aesthetics of protest literature. the effects of increased social freedom for women, the impact of women entering the work force, and especially new conceptions of "male" and "female."
GLS 570 Black Mountain School of North Carolina (3) Intensive study of the highly innovative and interdisciplinary Black Mountain School (1933-1956), its root in European and American culture, and its remarkable legacy. Special emphasis on poetry, the visual arts, and performing arts and such leading figures as Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Robert Motherwell, William de Kooning, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham.
GLS 571 Main Street U.S.A. (3) An examination of small-town America from a variety of topical and disciplinary perspectives, including art and architecture, business and commerce, cultural and transportation geography, education, folkways, and folk customs, history, kitsch, literature, photography, popular media, psychology, religion, sociology, and sports and recreation.
The dance courses mentioned in the 2009-2009 graduate catalogue are no longer offered.
GLS 591 Directed Independent
Study (1-3) Students must secure permission of the graduate coordinator.
May be taken once . May not be taken concurrently with GLS 598 or
used for thesis/final project research.
GLS 592 Special Topics in
Liberal Studies (1-3) Exploration of a special topic in
liberal studies not regularly covered in other courses. May
be repeated under different titles for up to eighteen hours of credit.
To provide some idea of the range and type of special topics courses that
have been offered, a listing of some past and current course titles is
available by clicking on "Special Topics in Liberal Studies " above.
GLS 598: Final Project in Liberal Studies (3) Required for all students. Focused study of topic or question selected by student and approved by faculty advisor and director of GLS. Synthesizes or represents the student's interdisciplinary theme or concentration. Written analysis and oral presentation of project is required.
GLS 599: Post-Masters Certificate Qualifying Exam (2) Required for all GLS post-Master's candidates. An extended written exam that provides post-Masters certificate candidates with the reflective opportunity to assess the quality and significance of their learning experience as graduate liberal studies students and to examine the value and relevance of graduate liberal studies in the contemporary world, particularly in regard to those agendas of interdisciplinarity, cultural diversity, internationalism, and active citizenship that inform the graduate liberal studies program at UNCW.
Last Update: February 20, 2009
