Please check back for updates.

Eight hundred years before Bram Stoker gave us the West's most memorable vampire in Dracula (1897) and long before the exploits of Vlad "the Impaler" Tepes horrified Europe (1431-46), the Russian Primary Chronicles write of a Novgorodian priest as Upyr' Likhij, or Wicked Vampire (1047).  The Slavic and Balkan worlds abound in histories, legends, myths and literary portraits of the so-called undead, creatures that literally draw life out of the living. This course examines the vampire in the cultures of Russia and Eastern Europe, including manifestations in literature, religion, art, film and common practices from its origins to 2013.  Texts – both print and non-print media – will be drawn from Russian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Serbian and Croatian sources.  Participants will be asked to separate historical fact from popular fiction, and form opinions about the place of the vampire in Slavic and East European cultures. 

Prerequisites:  The course is conducted in English.  No knowledge of Russian required, though readings in Russian and other Slavic languages are available for majors and concentrators in these related fields.

Readings:  

• The Vampire in Slavic Culture, Course Reader (CR), T. J. Garza, ed., Cognella Press, San Diego: CA, 2010. [order online]

• The Vampire: A Casebook, Alan Dundes, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998.

German-speaking scholars and professionals lost their worlds because of the 20th century's two great European Wars, but Europe's loss was the US's gain.  From philosophers, psychoanalysts, and sociologists through theorists of art, film, and power -- between the end of the First World War (1918) and the aftermath of the Second World Warm these scholars and professionals at the top of their intellectual games were displaced, deported, or sent into exile on a diasporic course.  No small number of them ended in the US.

This course will combine history with the study of disciplinary philosophies  in order to pursue the problem of what forced intellectual migration can imply for the disciplines to which these scholars belonged.  What is the responsibility, for example, of a scholar like Adorno when he brings a study from Weimar Germany and uses it to help support the myth of Hitler as a father figure, or like Siegfried Kracauer, who theorizes representations of the "mass ornament" in films to write From Caligari to Hitler,  or of Heidegger's followers who refuse to look Nazi complicity in the face? Or, looking back to WW I, what it meant to claim your work as the product of a national school of thought, when the nation that It purportedly belonged to did not exist before 1918 and had not educated or sponsored you? 

In pursuing these examples, students will learn not only new ways of reading philosophy and theories that were central to the 20th century and remain viable today, but also how to evaluate the costs for individuals caught between history, exile, and intellectual work. 

Readings will include:

Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

Erik Erikson, Identity and the Life Style

 Kracauer: From Caligari to Hitler

Arendt:  Origins of Totalitarianism

Adorno, et al.;  Authoritarian Personality

Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man

Cassirer, Myth of the State

Neurath, 1937. Die neue Enzyklopaedie des wissenschaftlichen Empirismus = .

---. The Departmentalization of Unified Science', Erkenntnis VII, pp. 240–46

---. 1940. Argumentation and action.

---. 1941. The danger of careless terminology

Joel Isaac, Working Knowledge:  Making the Human Sciences from Parsons to Kuhn (2012)

Klemperer:  LTI:  Language of the Third Reich

Neumann, ed.  Secret Reports on Nazi Germany.

Claus-Dieter Krohn and Rita Kimber.  Intellectuals in Exile: Refugee Scholars and the New School for Social Research

Martin Jay, Permanent Exiles

Franz L. Neumann and Peter Hayes.  Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944

Grading:

• 4 précis situating texts into historical context to address the covert ethical / valuative assumptions of theory = 4 x 5% of course grades = 20 % of grade
• 1 short essay (5- 8 pp) analyzing a selection of the readings as representing both an intellectual and an ethical problem = 20 % of Grade (will be done in groups)
• 1 essay for the defense or prosecution of an immigration trial:  combing historical research in the history of a particular discipline with a systematic case for guilt or innocence, done in phases:  10% of grade= abstract/proposal;  20 % for bibliography and "history of" section, and 20% for the final essay presenting a case.

Please note: “Introduction to the Holocaust” is an upper-division history course with a substantial reading and writing component.

This course on the Holocaust examines the mass killing of Jews and other victims in the context of Nazi Germany’s quest for race and space during World War II.  Using sources that illuminate victim experiences, perpetrator perspectives, and bystander responses, we investigate the Nazi racial state, the experiments in mass killing, the establishment of a systematic genocidal program, collaboration and complicity, resistance and rescue, as well as the memory of the Holocaust in western culture.

Doris Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (2nd edition)

Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany

Lianna Millu, Smoke over Birkenau

Gitta Sereny, Into that Darkness: An Examination of Conscience

Attendance and Participation: 20%

Tests incl. final exam: 35%

Essays: 45%

Designed to develop a geographical understanding of the Circumpolar region of the North, an ancient human habitat and a home to distinct, millenia old, civilizations. These indigenous Arctic cultures and livelihoods are being constantly challenged by modern industrial powers, and the clash between two contesting realities is profound. Emphasis is given to a historical geographical perspective on the major processes forming cultural and natural landscapes (including global warming), and influence society, economy, spiritual life and politics. Regions include: Alaska, the Canadian northern territories, Scandinavian North, including Sapmi (Lapland), Iceland, Greenland, the Russian North, and Siberia.

This course is a systematic introduction to geography of all regions of Europe, from Iceland to Sicily and European Russia and Finland to Bretagne and Galicia. The course is based on a renowned textbook by Alexander B. Murphy, Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov and Bella Bychkova Jordan and focuses on all the major aspects of the European makeup: its physical, economic, political, and cultural geography, geolinguistics and environmental issues. A special attention is given to such issues as expansion of the European Union and NATO, problems associated with immigration and ethnic tensions, challenges of multiculturalism and integration. A significant portion of the class is dedicated to the analysis of demographic, urban and agricultural patterns. The historical perspective allows the analysis of the evolution of the European civilization during the last two millennia and resulting geographical patterns in modern Europe.

Readings:

• Alexander B. Murphy, Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov and Bella Bychkova Jordan.  The European Culture Area: A Systematic Geography, 2009, 5th edition. Rowman and Littlefield: Lanham, Boulder, CO. Available at The Co-Op and amazon.com

This course will examine the complex relationship between the Church and the Jews over two thousand years. It will analyze Christian ideas and policies regarding Jews as expressed in both elite and popular culture. We’ll examine various sources, including theological texts, canon law, church art, and popular preaching. We’ll consider how the Church’s powerful anti-Jewish teachings provided a basis for restrictive legislation and violence against Jews, even if Church authorities sometimes acted to protect Jewish communities. The course emphasize the factors that led to striking changes in attitudes and policies over time, with emphasis on how the theological legacy was adapted in the face of changing realities. It will examine the consequences of the Protestant Reformation and conclude with a look at the radical shift in the perspective of the Catholic Church in the 1960s, with the documents issued by Vatican II.

TEXTS:

• Revised Standard Version of the Bible (any edition)
• The course will make used of a website designed specifically for it by the instructor. The website includes many of the readings. Other assigned readings will be posted on Canvas.

GRADING:

• Class attendance and participation (10%)
• participation on Discussion Board (20%)
• two 1-3 pp. assignments (20%)
• mid-term exam (20%)
• final exam (30%)

What were the crusades? Was a crusade an armed pilgrimage, holy war, or a war of conquest? What motivated those who fought and those supported these expeditions? What were the political, cultural, and religious developments that led to the crusades and what were their legacies both in Europe and in the eastern Mediterranean? This class explores these questions by examining both accounts of crusades written by medieval authors and modern historians' interpretations of these documents. In the process, we will investigate religious encounters between eastern and western Christians, Christian heretics, Jews, Muslims, and polytheists; political, military, and cultural changes of the high middle ages; and the ways that crusading ideas and symbols have been reused in contemporary politics and popular culture.

TEXTS:

• Susanna Throop, The Crusades, An Epitome (Leeds: Kismet Press, 2018)
• The Crusades:  A Reader  ed. S. J. Allen and Emilie Amt (Toronto:  University of Toronto Press, 2014)
• Selected documents and articles in a reader.

GRADING:

Class attendance, preparation and reading worksheets, discussion, and in-class work: 30%

Research paper on a topic of a student's choice (15 pages): 70%

•  Library Assignment/ Annotated bibliography 5%
•  Source analysis 5%
•  Draft 20%
•  Oral presentation 10%
•  Peer Review of others 5%
•  Final draft 30%

COURSE OBJECTIVES

The goal of this course is for students to gain an understanding of the succession of styles and movements of late 19th and early 20th -century European modern art based on issues of form/style, art theory, and cultural context. Class discussion and reading assignments, including analyses of specific essays, aim to increase a student’s ability to read critically and evaluate texts by artists, art critics, and art historians. [This course fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) component of the university core curriculum (#050) and addresses the four core objectives established by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: communication skills, critical thinking skills, teamwork, and social responsibility. The course also carries the Global Cultures Flag.] ALL DOCUMENTS FOR THIS CLASS WILL BE ON THE CANVAS PAGE FOR THE COURSE.

Please check back for updates.

Dante: Fall 2019

ITC 348, same as E 366D, crosslisted with EUS 347

The Divine Comedy offers a remarkable panorama of the late Middle Ages through one man's poetic vision of the afterlife. However, we continue to read and study the poem not only to learn about the thought and culture of medieval and early modern Europe but also because many of the issues confronting Dante and his age are no less important to individuals and societies today. Personal and civic responsibilities, governmental accountability, church-state relations, economics and social justice, Dante's influence on artists and other writers, benefits and limitations of interdisciplinarity—these are some of the themes that will frame our discussion of the Divine Comedy. Although you will read the poem in English, a bilingual edition will enable you to study and learn famous lines in the original Italian. The course is taught in English and contains flags for Writing and Global Cultures.

Danteworlds (http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/): In addition to detailed entries, audio recordings, and study questions, this Web site contains hundreds of images from works by Sandro Botticelli, an anonymous 16th-century artist, John Flaxman, William Blake, Gustave Dorè, and Suloni Robertson.

Through close reading, class discussion, and the use of Danteworlds, you are expected to identify and explain the significance of major characters, references, and ideas in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise) and Vita Nuova. You will be tested on this ability in responses to study questions (a low-stakes writing assignment) and two in-class exams. An essay, which you will rewrite and expand based on my feedback, will assess your ability to support an interpretation of a specific aspect of Dante's poetry with detailed textual analysis and scholarly research. A peer-editing activity will help you to revise and edit your own work. I expect you to have read the assigned cantos and reviewed the corresponding material in Danteworlds (including the study questions) before class.

Required Texts: (you must use the editions of these texts ordered for the class)

            Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso (Trans. Allen Mandelbaum)

            Vita Nuova (Trans. Barbara Reynolds)

Recommended Text (also ordered for this class): The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the "Divine Comedy" (Raffa)

Canvas: We will use the CANVAS learning management system to organize and provide course content on-line. When you log in to Canvas (http://canvas.utexas.edu/) and select the course, you will have access to the syllabus, assignments, lecture presentations, grades, and a discussion forum. You will be required to submit most assignments on-line using Canvas. For assistance, consult the student tutorials (https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028/pages/student-tutorials) or contact support staff (https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028).

Assignments and Computation of Grade:

10%: 1500-word essay on the Inferno (credit for successful completion)

25%: Rewrite and expansion of this essay incorporating scholarly research (graded)

5%:   Annotated bibliography of research sources (credit for successful completion)

5%:   Peer-review (credit for successful completion)

10%: Responses to study questions in Canvas Discussion Forum (credit for successful completion)

30%: Two in-class examinations  (graded: 15% each)

15%: Classwork and participation

Please check back for updates.

Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) was arguably the greatest filmmaker of the twentieth century. His career spanned over sixty years and includes such works as the sophisticated comedy Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), the allegorical Seventh Seal (1957), the avant-garde Persona (1966), the masterful television adaptation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (1975), and the television miniseries Fanny and Alexander (1982). He also wrote scripts for many other filmmakers, including Bille August and Liv Ullmann. In 2003, he directed the television film Saraband, and in recent years many of his films have been adapted for the stage both in Sweden and elsewhere.

This course is intended as an introduction both to the films of Ingmar Bergman and to the viewing of films in general. We will look at representative films by this prolific and gifted filmmaker, considering them in the contexts of the director's life, Scandinavian culture, and issues of film theory and aesthetics.

This course carries the Writing Flag. Writing Flag courses are designed to give students experience with writing in an academic discipline. In this class, you can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback from your instructor to help you improve your writing. You will also have the opportunity to revise one or more assignments, and to read and discuss your peers' work. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from your written work.

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING:

One two-page paper which may be rewritten (5%); one five-page paper which may be rewritten (25%); one storyboard (10%) accompanied by a five-page essay (25%), and five quizzes (25%; you may drop the lowest grade). Class participation will count 10%.

From Michelangelo’s spectacular paintings of the Sistine Chapel and Bernini’s moving sculpture of Apollo and Daphne, to the intense music of Puccini’s Tosca and the fantastic imagination of Fellini’s La dolce vita, Italy has given the world an unparalleled abundance of masterpieces in all the arts. This course will examine some of them in details touching on painting, sculpture, architecture, opera and cinema. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, Caravaggio’s provocative religious paintings, Renato Guttuso’s scenes of Sicily, Lorenzo Bernini’s “Apollo and Daphne” and “The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa,” are only a few of the visual treasures we will study. We will sample the greatest Italian poetry of Dante Alighieri and Giacomo Leopardi’s; the narrative of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and Italo Calvino; and the plays of Nobel prize winner Luigi Pirandello, who revolutionized the theater in the 20^th century. Since the most popular art form in the 19^th century Italy was opera, we shall study selected masterpieces by Italy’s two most renowned opera composers: Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini. The course will conclude with the films La dolce vita by Federico Fellini and Divorce Italian Style by Pietro Germi. The aim of the course is not only to familiarize students with the richness of Italian culture, but also to inspire them to continue exploring it.

Grade Computation: Two exams 60%; Short quizzes 10%; One Research Paper 20%; Class Participation 10%

Texts:

Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, Inferno on line

Giacomo Leopardi: Poems - on Canvas

Italo Calvino: Marcovaldo

Luigi Pirandello: It is so (if you think so), Six Characters in Search of an Author

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: The Leopard

Giuseppe Verdi: Otello (Libretto on line)

Giacomo Puccini: Tosca (Libretto on line)

Luchino Visconti: The Leopard (link on Canvas)

Pietro Germi: Divorce Italian Style (link on Canvas)

Works of art by Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Bernini on Canvas (in Power Point) and some critical essays on Canvas and on line.

This course carries the Global Cultures Flag.  Global Cultures courses are designed to increase your familiarity with cultural groups outside the United States. 

This course will introduce students to nineteenth- to twenty-first-century children’s literature from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Authors highlighted will include Heinrich Hoffmann (Struwwelpeter), Wilhelm Busch (Max and Moritz), Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking, Ronja the Robber’s Daughter, The Red Bird, The Brothers Lionheart), Erich Kästner (Emil and the Detectives), Dick Bruna (Miffy), Jostein Gaarder (Sophie’s World), Bjarne Reuter (The Boys from St. Petri), Tove Jansson (Finn Family Moomintroll), Otfried Preussler (The Robber Hotzenplotz, Krabat), Walter Moers (Capt’n Bluebear), Cornelia Funke (Inkworld, Mirrorworld), Sven Nordqvist (Pancakes for Findus), Michael Ende (Momo, Jim Button, The Neverending Story), Jacques Vriens (You’re a Hen!), Annie M. G. Schmidt and Fiep Westendorp (Jip and Janneke), and Klaus Schädelin (My Name is Eugen). Students are encouraged to explore additional authors and works for papers or group projects. Emphasis will be placed on the prominent place of children’s literature in the popular culture of central and northern Europe, as well as the serious issues and themes which north Americans might otherwise consider “adult” that are often found in this genre -- death, war, poverty, social justice, and family conflict, for example – alongside whimsy, warmth and wonder.

This class is about the art and culture of northern Europe during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. It is inherently interdisciplinary since we have to address the reasons art was made, where it was placed, how it was used, and how it relates to broader historical developments. With the advent of book publishing and prints, these technological innovations impacted literacy and the dissemination of knowledge across Europe. This was a period where the status of the artist rose dramatically. Much of the art was religious so we explore iconographic themes.

Please check back for updates.

This is a “macro” course that considers international business primarily from the perspective of aggregate impact, general forces, and overriding theories and focuses less on individual management decisions. Although the concepts are generally broad, I’ll attempt to talk about how they affect business decisions. Aug 8, 2018 Page 2 Most course material will be presented through lectures and the textbook. Most lectures will be in class, with supplementary “mini-lectures” of 1-5 minutes available online. I will also assign readings to update material in the text, apply concepts we cover, and to go deeper into certain subjects. To direct your own learning and learn from your classmates, you will research topics of interest to you and present your findings in class. You will also apply what you learn to a country and evaluate how that country’s economic dynamics can impact a company, an organization, or another country.

This is a “macro” course that considers international business primarily from the perspective of aggregate impact, general forces, and overriding theories and focuses less on individual management decisions. Although the concepts are generally broad, I’ll attempt to talk about how they affect business decisions. Aug 8, 2018 Page 2 Most course material will be presented through lectures and the textbook. Most lectures will be in class, with supplementary “mini-lectures” of 1-5 minutes available online. I will also assign readings to update material in the text, apply concepts we cover, and to go deeper into certain subjects. To direct your own learning and learn from your classmates, you will research topics of interest to you and present your findings in class. You will also apply what you learn to a country and evaluate how that country’s economic dynamics can impact a company, an organization, or another country.

Please check back for updates.

The Nazi party was the first in modern history to rely heavily on culture to establish and sustain its regimes of power and terror. During the Third Reich, the art of propaganda played a key role in mobilizing mass support for the party and its policies. But the Nazis went even further, creating an aestheticized vision of nation, folk, and community. Architects build or planned monumental roads and cities to the Führer. Artists and writers celebrated the beauty of the Aryan man and the strength of the racial community. Filmmakers created compelling mass spectacles and diversions. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we will study the relationship between culture and power during the Third Reich through its main proponents (Joseph Goebbels, Leni Riefenstahl) and events (Degenerate Art Exhibit). We will discuss the new ministries of “enlightenment and propaganda” and the changed conditions of cultural life, study the systematic suppression of oppositional voices and modernist sensibilities, and analyze the characteristics of fascist aesthetics and official Nazi art. Examples will be taken from art, architecture, literature, music, and film; also considered will be the so-called inner emigration and the activities of the exiles in the United States and elsewhere.  

 By providing an overview of culture and politics in the Third Reich, the course also addresses more fundamental questions about the unique role of culture in modern democracies and dictatorships—questions about the relationship between political propaganda and modern entertainment, mass media and authoritarianism, political aesthetics and ideology, and the dynamics of oppression, resistance, and consent. The question of fascist aesthetics and its later manifestations and interpretations will be a major theme throughout the course

What role do narratives of the past play in current politics and policies in Germany and the United States? This course addresses this question by engaging with key theoretical and empirical debates from the burgeoning research field of politics of the past. We will look at the role that memories play in German and US politics today from a comparative perspective, and with several case studies, we will ask questions such as:  how are transnational political events like the Second World War, the Cold War and historical immigration movements articulated and used in current political debates? How do narratives of the past reproduce or challenge contemporary power relations? To what extent do political actors and institutions construct particular historical narratives that serve their current interests? In answering these questions, the course will put a specific focus on the role of memory in German and US immigration politics.

The course aims to enable students to understand central theories and concepts of memory studies, and to apply them in an empirical case study. At the end of the course, students will have a thorough theoretical and empirical understanding on the ways in which memory and politics intersect both as research fields and as political practices in contemporary societies.

Readings

Assmann, Aleida/Conrad, Sebastian (eds.) (2010): Memory in a Global Age. Discourses, Practices and Trajectories. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Halbwachs, Maurice (1980): The Collective Memory. New York: Harper and Row.

Kleist, Olaf/Glynn, Irial (eds.) (2012): History, Memory and Migration. Perceptions of the Past and the Politics of Incorporation, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Nebow, Richard N./Kansteiner, Wulf/Fogu, Claudio (2006) (eds.): The Politics of Memory in Post-war Europe. Durham: Duke University Press.

Olick, Jeffrey (2007): The Politics of Regret. On Collective Memory and Historical Responsibility. London/New York: Routledge.

Torpey, John. 2006. Making Whole What Has Been Smashed: On Reparations Politics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 

Wittlinger, Ruth (2011): The Merkel’s Government Politics of the Past, German Politics and Society 26 (4), 9-27.

Please check back for updates.

GOV 324L/EUS 350: Government and Politics of Western Europe

Fall 2019

The University of Texas at Austin

Unique:

Course concept

This course is a comparative study of select advanced industrialized countries (AICs) and newly emerging democracies of Europe. This seminar will emphasize what we as students of political science can gather from the examination of the political regimes of other states. It will challenge you to reconceptualize your views of American politics and international relations based on the knowledge you gain from the study of other states’ political systems, and will seek to highlight the similarities as well as the differences between state actions in international relations.

We will begin the course with a brief introduction to the study of comparative politics, followed by an examination of the United Kingdom, the first ‘modern’ state and arguably the world’s oldest democracy. From there, the course moves to an examination of France, the Continent’s oldest democracy and one with a particularly interesting history. Next is a study of Germany, one of the most dynamic states in Europe since its founding as a modern nation state in the late 1800s. We then look at Italy, a bifurcated state with a strongly developed North and a less-developed South, and Sweden, a Nordic social democracy with a strong economy and deep tradition of citizen participation. We then examine Russia and Poland as examples of newly democratizing (and potentially newly authoritarian) Europe, and conclude the course with a two-part brief look at the European Union.

Required readings:

The required text for this course is Hancock et al., Politics in Europe (7th ed.), CQ Press, 2018 [hereafter Hancock]. There will also be a considerable number of supplementary journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. Average reading load will be around 60 pages/week, with some lighter weeks and some heavier.

Finally, as part of the student participation grade, students will be required to find one contemporary online news article on the country we are studying at the time and post a short summary (and link) on the Canvas course site. Readings will not be vetted or approved by the instructor, but students are expected to use reputable and impartial news sources as the basis for the articles submitted and summarized.

Course requirements:

This course has two in-class mid-term exams and a take-home final exam. Each midterm exam will be worth 25% of your overall grade. Each midterm will be conducted via Canvas. This year, the midterms will be conducted using Proctorio.com. Information on how the exam will be conducted in conjunction with Proctorio.com will be forthcoming after the semester begins.

Attendance / Participation / Discussion Questions: 20%

Class discussion in a an upper-level seminar is more than expected; it is a given. Everyone has his or her own style of discussion, and I do not expect to turn those who prefer not to speak often in class into debate champions. Participation will be divided into two sections:  Discussion questions and in-class participation. Since not everyone enjoys speaking in class, discussion questions will count for more than in-class participation. Online discussion questions and in-class participation will each count for 5% of your course grade. 

Discussions:

Each week’s discussion questions will be due every Saturday at midnight; the discussion forum locks at that time and there is no chance to post to that week thereafter. Postings can be drawn from the readings; in this case, they should reflect any questions, comments, or cries of outrage you may have regarding the arguments set forth by the authors. They most definitely will help you get the most from the class. Postings may also be brief synopses of newsworthy events. In this case, you must post both the link to the news story and a brief (50-word) précis of what the article discusses. Finally, postings may be replies to others' questions or news stories, as long as they are informative replies and not merely agree/disagree posts. One post (or a thoughtful reply to a post) counts as your post for that week.

There are no discussion postings necessary for midterm week. The total number of discussion postings will be counted at the end of the semester, and also will be examined throughout the semester for evidence of consistent posting. Do not expect to “catch-up” post only at the end of the semester and receive full participation credit.

• 12-15 postings: Full credit
• 8-11 postings: 70% credit
• 5-7 postings: 50% credit
• Less than 5 postings: No credit

Attendance and participation:

There is also a distinction between attendance and participation. Attendance will be managed through Canvas and will take place at five random intervals throughout the semester. Each of these five attendance days will count for 2% of your course grade (for a total of 10%).

In-class participation will be graded as follows:

• Attending every day, but not participating in class: 80/100
• Attending every day, participating via question answering (from instructor): 90/100
• Attending every day, participating via question answering and active learning (extending discussion, asking follow-up questions): 100/100

** A word on late or missed assignments. Over the course of the semester, it is inevitable that some event will cause a time management issue, which might lead to a missed assignment deadline. Though normally handled on a case-by-case basis, there are some baseline penalties for missed or delayed assignments, detailed here:

• Late topic choices will receive a 1% deduction per day before
• Late topic outline and list of references will receive a 2% deduction per day before
• Late paper drafts will receive a 5% deduction per day before
• Missed exams will receive a 5% deduction per day until made up.

Extra credit (up to 6 points):

Students who attend an academic lecture/event dealing with an international/global issue and hand in a typed, one-page summary may receive a three-point increase on an exam grade.  The maximum extra credit for the semester is two lectures/events (a total of 6 extra credit points).  Summaries must be turned in within seven days of the event.

Grading standards:

I will use the following grade standards. All grades will be converted to a 100-point scale.

• 93 and higher: A
• 90-92: A-
• 87-89: B+
• 80-86: B
• 77-79 B-
• 75-76 C+
• 70-74 C
• 67-69 C-
• 60-66 D
• lower than 60: F

Other important information

Plagiarism / academic misconduct:

Don’t do it. Minimum penalties for cheating are zeros on quizzes or exams where the cheating takes place, and a grade of F on a paper that has been plagiarized. Questions about what constitutes academic misconduct should be brought to my attention.

Undergraduate Writing Center: 

The Undergraduate Writing Center, PCL 2.330, 512.471.6222  http://www.uwc.utexas.edu/) offers free, individualized, expert help with writing for any UT undergraduate, by appointment or on a drop-in basis. Any undergraduate enrolled in a course at UT can visit the UWC for assistance with any writing project. They work with students from every department on campus, for both academic and non-academic writing. Their services are not just for writing with "problems." Getting feedback from an informed audience is a normal part of a successful writing project. Consultants help students develop strategies to improve their writing. The assistance they provide is intended to foster independence. Each student determines how to use the consultant's advice. The consultants are trained to help you work on your writing in ways that preserve the integrity of your work.

University of Texas Honor Code:

The core values of The University of Texas at Austin are learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity, and responsibility. Each member of the university is expected to uphold these values through integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, and respect toward peers and community.  Any student found guilty of scholastic dishonesty may receive an “F” in the course and be remanded to the appropriate University of Texas authorities for disciplinary action.  For more information, view Student Judicial Services at http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs.

Religious Holidays:

According to UT-Austin policy, students must notify the instructor of an impending absence at least 14 days prior to the date of observance of a religious holy day. If a student must miss a class, an examination, a work assignment, or a project in order to observe a religious holy day, the student will be given an opportunity to complete the missed work within a reasonable time after the absence.

Student Privacy: 

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requires that student privacy be preserved.  Thus the posting of grades, even by the last four digits of the social security number, is forbidden.  All communication will remain between the instructor and the student, and the instructor will not be able to share details of the student’s performance with parents, spouses, or any others.

Documented Disability Statement:

The University of Texas will make reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities. Any student with a documented disability who requires academic accommodations should contact Services for Students with Disabilities at 471-6259 (voice) or 1-866-329-3986 (Video Phone) as soon as possible to request an official letter outlining authorized accommodations.

Emergency Evacuation Policy:

In the event of a fire or other emergency, it may be necessary to evacuate a building rapidly.  Upon the activation of a fire alarm or the announcement of an emergency in a university building, all occupants of the building are required to evacuate and assemble outside.  Once evacuated, no one may re-enter the building without instruction to do so from the Austin Fire Department, University of Texas at Austin Police Department, or Fire Prevention Services office.  Students should familiarize themselves with all the exit doors of each room and building they occupy at the university, and should remember that the nearest exit routes may not be the same as the way they typically enter buildings.  Students requiring assistance in evacuation shall inform their instructors in writing during the first week of class.  Information regarding emergency evacuation routes and emergency procedures can be found at http://www.utexas.edu/emergency.