Trinity College

No poet coming out of the Greco-Roman world has done more for the perpetuation of classical myths in Western art and literature than Ovid. In his great work, the Metamorphoses, he collected 250 myths and organized them into what he calls a “perpetual song.” Most of the myths deal with stories of change. His arrangement starts with creation and ends with Rome and the deification of Augustus. His poem is a lengthy (fifteen books) marshalling of myths, which seamlessly flow from one to the next. Read books 1 and 2 for the first session. The text can be downloaded from the internet for free: http://etext.virginia.edu/latin/ovid/trans/Metamorph.htm .

John C. Williams is Hobart Professor, Emeritus, of Classics at Trinity College where he taught Latin, Greek, and Classical Civilization for 24 years. He has received awards for outstanding service and teaching from Trinity College, the Classical Association of Connecticut, and the Classical Association of New England. He has also taught at Dartmouth College in a special summer program for teachers of the Classics. Many teachers and professors of Classics throughout New England and the United States are his former students. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University.

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This course will examine of the dynamics of the Arab-Israeli conflict, from Ottoman times until the present day. It will also focus on the changing interests and positions of the parties involved: the Zionists (and the state of Israel), the Palestinians (and the various Palestinian state-like entities), the Arab states, and the important international players. The course will also explore the internal workings and conflicts within the major camps and between the various parties.

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Ronald C. Keiner is Professor of Religion at Trinity College and Director of Trinity's Jewish Studies Program. He holds his B.A. in Hebrew Literature from the University of Minnesota and his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. He has served as a Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem as well as at Tel Aviv University. He has published a comparative study of Egyptian and Israeli fundamentalist thought and is the author of The Early Kabbalah published as part of the Classics of Western Spirituality series. He is currently working on a scientific edition

of Saadia Gaon's Book of Beliefs and Opinions as well as a book entitled Ecstatic Kabbalah: A Reader.

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It has been more than fifty years since the structure of DNA has been revealed to the world by Watson and Crick. At that time, these investigators could little have realized the far-reaching consequences their discoveries would have on everyday life. After DNA structure was revealed, it soon became apparent that DNA could be manipulated, spliced and “recombined” to form new genetic combinations never before seen in nature. In this course we will explore many of the potential and realized concerns surrounding biological methods in use today and the responsibility that must accompany the wielding of genetic power.

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Robert Fleming is an Associate Professor of Biology at Trinity College and teaches courses in Genetics and Developmental Biology. He received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1987, performed postdoctoral research at Yale University in cell-to-cell communication, and has researched and taught at the University of Rochester and at Trinity College. His research interests continue to be in the area of cell-to-cell communication mechanisms and genes required for nuclear import in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.

Although the presidential election of 2008 is less than a year away, the primary season has arrived early. This course on the 2008 Presidential Primaries will be taught jointly by Professors Ned Cabot, Adrienne Fulco, and Kevin McMahon. Each faculty member will lead one discussion with the class. Topics include: the evolution from party conventions to the current primary system (Professor McMahon), the “frontloading” of primaries in the current presidential election cycle (Professor Fulco), the role of money, the importance of the Internet, and suggested reforms of the primary process (Professor Cabot.) The final session on Feb. 20 will feature a roundtable discussion with the class and all of the faculty.

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Adrienne Fulco is an Associate Professor and Director of the Public Policy and Law Program who teaches courses that focus on the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. She offers a broad range of courses on topics that include constitutional rights and liberties, the policy process, the Supreme Court, and gender discrimination. Professor Fulco is also the Faculty Coordinator of the Legal Studies Minor and serves as the Pre-Law Advisor for students interested in attending law school. She has presented her works at professional conferences in Venice, Ghent and Oxford and across the United States and has served as a political commentator for local and national media. She received her Ph.D. from City University of New York.

Kevin J. McMahon is Associate Professor of Political Science. His research examines the presidency and the political origins and consequences of Supreme Court decisions, covering a range of areas, including civil rights and liberties, constitutional law, American political development, political parties, and elections. His book, Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown won the American Political Science Association’s Richard E. Neustadt Award for the best book published on the American presidency in 2004. Before earning his Ph.D. at Brandeis University in 1997, Professor McMahon taught for two years in Russia with the Civic Education Project (a.k.a., the “academic Peace Corps”).

Ned Cabot, Trinity College Adjunct Professor of Public Policy and Law is the former National Chairman of the citizen advocacy organization Common Cause. He also served as Vice President, Associate General Counsel and Public Affairs Officer of Equitable Financial Services. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, Cabot was an aid to U.S. Senator Jacob Javits and has held other positions in state and local government.

The eighteenth century saw the emergence of the novel as a major vehicle for social commentary. In our three class meetings, we will review how the novel evolved as a literary tool for social change, with emphasis on two masterpieces of Western civilization: Montesquieu’s The Persian Letters and Voltaire’s Candide.

TEXTS: Candide by Voltaire. Barnes and Noble Classics edition with introduction and notes by

Persian Letters by Montesquieu. Paperback, Penguin Publishers USA, 73rd edition.

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James F. Jones, Jr. has degrees from the University of Virginia, Emory, the Sorbonne, and Columbia. He is the author of three books and more than sixty articles, reviews, and review articles. He currently serves as Trinity College Professor in the Humanities and as President of the College.

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The Watkinson Library, Trinity College’s rare book and manuscript library and an institution of exceptional cultural significance, was founded by the will of Hartford merchant David Watkinson in 1858. The collection, numbering ca. 200,000 volumes, ranges from the Middle-Ages to the present and includes a wealth of important printed books and manuscripts on a broad variety of subjects from the Renaissance to natural history, as well as notable examples of book illustration and fine printing. Its holdings of Americana are particularly strong. This course in 2 sessions will provide an overview of the collection and its history and give participants the opportunity to view original materials first hand. The sessions will be held in the Watkinson’s newly renovated public spaces in the Raether Library and Information Technology Center.

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Class meets in the Watkinson Library in Trinity’s Raether Library and Information Technology Center

Jeffrey Kaimowitz has been Head Librarian of the Watkinson Library for thirty years. He has an A.B. (Classics) from Johns Hopkins, a Ph.D. (Classics) from the University of Cincinnati, and an M.S. in library service from Columbia. Before coming to Trinity, Dr. Kaimowitz taught Classics for four years at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and worked in the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library. He has published studies on Renaissance and early American book history.

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Gioachino Rossini was the most celebrated composer of his time. He dominated the world of early 19th-century Italian opera and outstripped even Beethoven in fame and financial success. This course will provide an introduction to Rossini's operas, focusing in particular on his wonderful La cenerentola ("Cinderella") from 1817. We will learn about the standard musical forms and styles that Rossini used in his operas and come to understand how his music delighted both the public and the virtuoso singers for whom he wrote. As the culmination of the course we will attend a live performance of La cenerentola by the Connecticut Opera on Sunday afternoon, March 9.

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John Platoff is Professor of Music at Trinity. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania with a dissertation on the operatic finales of Mozart and his contemporaries. His publications, chiefly on Mozart and Italian opera buffa, have appeared in publications including Cambridge Opera Journal, The Journal of Musicology, Early Music, and Nineteenth Century Music. At Trinity he teaches courses on (among other subjects) Mozart, Beethoven, and the Beatles.

This class will examine issues related to the violation of the right to dissent in the United States. The main topics we will consider are: the suppression of public protest, laws that infringe on constitutional liberties, the place of secret government agencies in a democracy, and a comparison of the anti-communism of the 1950s to the anti-terrorism of today. Each session will include first-hand accounts of persons targeted by government actions, discussion of the issues underlying those experiences, and an examination of the context for them.

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Charles Schultz was a professor at Trinity College from 1971 to 1994, teaching courses in the Educational Studies program. His research interests were in the social and psychological foundations of education. For the past two decades, with his wife, Ruth, he has collected oral histories of persons whose constitutional rights had been violated. That work resulted in It Did happen Here (1989) and The Price of Dissent (2001), and the forthcoming, We Will Be Heard: Portraits of Americans in the Struggle for Constitutional Rights, Past and Present (2008).

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In the 1920s Italian anti-fascists labeled Mussolini’s regime “totalitarian.” Mussolini liked the word so much he adopted it as a positive description of the fascist state. In the 1930s “totalitarian” seemed an appropriate label for Hitler’s Germany. During the Cold War political scientists defined it in such a way that it applied to Stalin’s Soviet Union as well, but others objected that “totalitarian” was an artifact of the Cold War that sought to emphasize the similarities between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union without acknowledging the differences. When the Berlin Wall came down commentators in Eastern Europe revived the word as an apt description of the oppressive regimes that had ruled them for forty years. It has also been used to describe societies outside of Europe such as Mao’s China and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. This course will explore the use of this much-debated term and its application to these various regimes from the 1920s to the present.

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Borden Painter is Professor of History and President Emeritus of Trinity College after serving 40 years on the faculty, teaching courses in European history from the Renaissance and Reformation periods to 20^th-century Europe. He served as chairman of the History Department on two occasions, as dean of the faculty for three years, and as director of Italian programs for 15 years. He is the author of the book entitled, Mussolini’s Rome: Rebuilding the Eternal City.

This course explores the position of the Third World in the contemporary global economy. In particular, it looks at the role of multinational corporations, the effectiveness of the global assembly line in lifting third world workers out of poverty, the role of international labor migration on poor countries, and the impact of globalization on women. Attention will also be paid to the role of international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization in helping to lift Third World countries out of poverty.

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Brigitte Schulz specializes in international political economy and development studies. She received her M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and her doctorate from the African Studies Center at Boston University. She has published two books and numerous articles that have been translated into seven different languages. Professor Schulz currently chairs the department of political science at Trinity College.

The impact of religion on the 2004 presidential campaign and election provoked widespread consternation and surprise. Given the intensity and closeness of the results, however, the role of religion should not have come as a shock. In fact, religion and faith have for some time played a vital and heightened role in American elections and in our public life. Throughout American history, political identity has been closely correlated with religious identity. Our course will explore such correlations and how over time they have contributed to the major political realignments of American history. The course will also focus on a new "religious gap" that has opened over the past 20 years based on religious observances, particularly attendance at worship and belief. We will examine these patterns and discuss how religion is playing out as the 2008 campaign gathers momentum.

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Andrew Walsh is a specialist in modern American religious and urban and life and is the Associate Director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College. He is also a former reporter for The Hartford Courant. He earned his B.A. from Trinity College, an M.A.R. from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

This course will take the class through the labyrinth of Chinese and Indian history and explain the circumstances that led India and China---the world’s two most populous nations and close Asian neighbors---to choose radically different paths to development and modernization. The class will analyze the historical similarities and dissimilarities between the two ancient civilizations and show how traditional cultural differences impacted the way these countries reacted to the forces of change in the modern period, turning one into a communist state and the other into a fundamentally democratic one. The course will conclude with an explanation of the differing scenarios that mark the rapid economic growth in China and India.

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Ranbir Vohra, Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Trinity College, earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University. Upon the completion of his doctorate he had the unique distinction of being invited to join Harvard faculty for a few years. Professor Vohra retired from Trinity after completing 24 years of teaching to devote himself entirely to research and writing. He is the author of several books including, China’s Path to Modernization; China: the Search for Democracy and Social Justice; and The Making of India.