Courses

Exploration of the development of major genres of Western literature and thought (from the fall of the Roman Empire to the 18th century), including epic and narrative poetry, drama, the novel, and literary nonfiction. Authors read may include St. Augustine, Dante, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, and others. Through reading, writing, and discussion of complete works, the student is introduced to those humanistic skills and critical methods that have traditionally distinguished the liberally education person. Course not offered every year.

Multidisciplinary survey of issues, concepts, and approaches to peace and justice at individual, social, and cultural levels. Topics include models of peace, the nature and causes of conflict, theory and practice of nonviolence, arms and disarmament, international peace-keeping strategies, and the relationship between peace, human rights, and social justice. This course may contain a service learning and/or internship component.

This course will examine the nature of philosophy (‘the love of wisdom’) through a particular question: what is the meaning of love? Love is arguably one of the most basic, most universal, most natural things that human beings do, and yet it is also one of the most complex and paradoxical; and many of our most basic intuitions about love are irreconcilable. We believe that love should be passionate, and yet that it should transcend bodily desires. We believe that love is the fusion of two incomplete selves, and yet, we also believe that love should be grounded in one’s own emotional and moral strength. We believe in ‘soul mates,’ while also holding that ‘there are a lot of fish in the sea.’ We believe that love makes us stronger, and that ‘love hurts.’ We see it as both a basic biological impulse, and as a reflection of the divine in humanity. In this course we shall examine the nature of this complex phenomenon through the lenses of religious thought, film, and philosophy.

An exploration of Jewish responses to the holocaust, looking at Jewish religious, literary, ethical, and philosophical responses to the Holocaust. The theme of the course will be how the Holocaust threatens traditional understandings of Judaism, and monotheism, social ethics, spirituality, and community.

Introduction to Native American culture, history, and identity with an interdisciplinary approach and attention to the on-going indigenous struggles since European colonization. Students consider issues of Native perspectives on the people-land relationship, religion, and contemporary cultural expression and politics.

Interdisciplinary exploration of the history, cultural meanings, and contemporary practices of team sports and individual athletes of Indigenous nations of the Americas before and after European contact. The course examines the historic disruptions of these practices by European colonization and how Native Americans respond(ed) to those intrusions. Issues of Indigenous sports mascots, colonial narratives of Native peoples in relation to their physicality and identities, the role of sports at Indian boarding schools, the prevalence of Euro-formed historic narratives of Natives in media today, and critical Indigenous actors in the world of sports are discussed.

Introduction to linguistics and language pedagogy. The main goal of this course is to learn ways of looking at languages to gain perspectives that are necessary in teaching languages as second, foreign, or heritage languages. Students learn about the nature of human language and become familiar with subfields of formal and functional linguistics, first and second language acquisition, bilingualism and heritage languages, and language pedagogy.

Course focuses on strains of Christian thought from the 19th and 20th centuries that defy “one size fits all” notions of faith, favoring instead understandings of God that enable concrete engagement in the world. That is to say, for these thinkers, Christianity is an inherently world-oriented way of life, one that is profoundly on the side of the excluded, the marginalized, and the oppressed. It is, simply put, a pluralistic philosophy of spiritual and political liberation. We shall be exploring this thread through various lenses—existentialist theology, weak theology, death of God theology, black liberation theology, feminist Christianity, and process theology, among others.

Overview of ancient and contemporary Jewish belief and practice through an examination of sacred texts, theology, and history. Special attention is given to Jewish theology, holidays, and life-cycle.

Graphic novels and their film adaptations examination. Graphic Novels to Film investigates the linkage between graphic literature, especially in its comic narrative form, and cinema. Through readings and screenings, the course seeks to compare and contrast the storytelling techniques unique to graphic novels with cinematic language systems.

This course introduces students to the study of warfare from an interdisciplinary context. Students will approach the subject of war through five distinct perspectives: the philosophy of war; the history of war; the experience of war; war, culture, and society; and the memory of war. The overall goal of the class for students to develop a sophisticated approach to the study of war through an interdisciplinary way of analyzing conflicts both in the past, but also, in our present. By the end of the semester, students will endeavor to answer the following questions: what is war; how does war affect participants/victims; how do societies remember war?

An examination of how the Civil War has been presented by various American filmmakers from the silent era to the present. Students are asked to consider the various themes common to Civil War films: violence, race, politics, and iconography, among others. The class serves as an introduction to cinematic language systems while using Hollywood images of the Civil War as its central documents for analysis. Course not offered every year. IDS 217 and CIMS 217 are cross-listed.

Consideration of the current state of international media, combining theoretical approaches to globalization with case studies of films, websites and broadcasting systems. Lecture and discussion is complemented by live interactions (either in person or online via skype) with media producers from across the world. The course emphasizes the development of students’ abilities to merge theoretical insights with empirical data, allowing class participants to engage in original analyses of specific aspects of the rapidly growing world of international media.

Global overview of media industries in the world today. With a primary focus on cinema and TV, this course interrogates the political economy of the globalized media industries through economic, political, legal, and aesthetic analysis. Topics include the rise of multimedia, multinational conglomerates, followed by the impact of new technologies creating media convergence, and ending with sections on key global players in Europe and outside of the west. Course cross-listed as CIMS/IDS/PP 219.

This course is an introduction to capitalist & Marxist philosophy, with some emphasis on its underlying philosophical assumptions and arguments. Over the course of the semester we will come to understand how the philosophies of capitalism & Marxism involve philosophical anthropological historical theories that inform our understanding of societies organization and social economic classes. Unfolding from this, the course demands student reflection on the role these two economic philosophies play in the construction of the students’ own socio-econ/philosophical/political orientation. In doing this, the course will also focus on the methodological commitments of the theorists we read.

Multidisciplinary survey of issues, concepts, and approaches to peace and justice at individual, social, and cultural levels. Topics include models of peace, the nature and causes of conflict, theory and practice of nonviolence, arms and disarmament, international peace-keeping strategies, and the relationship between peace, human rights, and social justice. This course may contain a service learning and/or internship component.

Introduction to continuing debates about purposes and legitimacy of the corporation in American society. Three contrasting conceptions of the modern corporation are critically assessed through justice and historical inquiry. Contested meanings of the corporation are studied using a variety of texts, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, autobiography, and social criticism. Course is designed as a cluster-friendly opportunity for students to fulfill the Integrative Thinking goal in the Gettysburg Curriculum.

Investigation of the major theories that guide the study of media texts and systems. This course aims to enhance the student’s ability to analyze film, radio, television, the Internet and video games from a perspective that emphasizes the cultural significance of these media. Through an overview of thinkers from traditions including structuralism, Marxism and British Cultural Studies, students will learn to write about specific texts in a manner that engages deeply with broader traditions of social thought.

Explores instrumental Western Philosophers’ discussions of the definitions and characteristics of God, the interrelationship between faith, reason, revelation, the meaning of morality in religious thought and subsequent existential concerns.

Once considered dormant in the United States, political movements and individual actors espousing antisemitism have made headlines here in the past two years, most notably after the October 27, 2018 shooting attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, which claimed the lives of eleven people. The perpetrator had made Jewhating statements on social media before the attack. (Many of us in Jewish Studies no longer use the word antisemitism, but Jew-hatred. The word ‘anti-Semitism’ was coined by a Jew hating man named Wilhelm Mahr in 29th century Germany. We thus now identify antisemitism for what it is, hatred of Jews.) Globally, some commentators have observed a resurgence of Jew-hatred over the past two decades. Attempts by policy-makers and activists to identify and combat Jew-hatred, whether on the streets of urban centers, across social media spaces, or in college dormitories, are often hobbled by a lack of knowledge about the history of the phenomenon. Academic scholarship, on the other hand, sometimes suffers from a lack of attention to its contemporary manifestations.

Explores the ways in which G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy of history informs Jewish philosophy in the nineteenth century. Hegel’s view – that history unfolds meaningfully and that it tends toward the ends of freedom and justice – is in tension with the increasing hostility of intensifying antisemitism in 19th century Europe, provoking a variety of responses on the part of Jewish thinkers as to the future of Jewish life and Judaism’s place in Western culture. This arc, coupled with the infamous “Dreyfus Affair” in Paris, gave rise to the Zionist movement, which would ultimately lead to the formation of the Jewish state of Israel in the mid-20th century. Figures to be discussed in this class are Moses Hess, Hermann Cohen, Karl Marx, and Theodor Herzl.

Literature, Language, and Life explores the unique ways in which literature enables human beings to make meaning – philosophical, religious, cultural, etc. – out of their lives. It does so through three distinct pedagogical avenues: (1) works of philosophy and literary criticism dedicated to the question of the meaning of literature itself; (2) readings of key novels from the last three centuries; (3) writings in the areas of philosophy, religion, and psychoanalysis, that are either contextually important background texts for the works in question, or works of analysis on said fiction works. In addition, the course will address some of the major characteristics of the dominant artistic and cultural periods, such as Romanticism, Surrealism, Modernism, Postmodernism, and Metamodernism.

An exploration of how 20th century Jewish thinkers critically address many of the religious, spiritual, existential, social and ethical issues that face contemporary, Western society. Their insights are used to help us understand the world in which we live. Discussion is an important part of this course.

Religion and Politics in the Middle East is a course designed to introduce students to the variety of ways that Muslims, Christians and Jews in the contemporary Middle East have struggled to define their religious traditions and national aspirations in light of the changes brought about by modernity. The course will specifically look at the role of religion in the political sphere of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Exploration of the evolution of modern Irish theatre within the matrix of the esthetic and political revolutions that occurred, and continue to occur, in twentieth-century Ireland. Irish dramatists have produced a body of literature remarkable for both its unparalleled artistic achievement and its acute political and social responsiveness. Major emphasis is accorded W. B. Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory, John M. Synge, Sean O'Casey, Samuel Beckett, and Brian Friel. Course not offered every year.

The famous inscription Woody Guthrie placed on his guitar in 1943 says something profound about how many artists and musicians view their work: while art entertains us, it also can enlighten and liberate us as well. Unfortunately, the history of America often taught in schools focuses largely on names, dates, and other facts pieced together in an effort to tell a particular kind of story about America—one that does little to help us appreciate the struggle that runs like a swift current just beneath the surface of daily life. In this hybrid/online seminar we will revisit some of that history, focusing specifically on the way musical artists have attempted to right wrongs, educate sensibilities, and awaken the consciences of people in an effort to make America a place that lives up to its promise.

Survey of Irish literature since the 1940s. Course examines how poets, dramatists, and writers of fiction have responded to the problems of maintaining an Irish identity on a partitioned island and in the contemporary world. Special attention is given to the interrelationship of Catholic and Protestant and rural and urban traditions. Authors studied include dramatists such as Samuel Beckett, poets such as Seamus Heaney, and fiction writers such as Sean O'Faolain. Not offered every year.

Interdisciplinary analysis of one subject, topic, or discipline as viewed through distinct disciplinary methodologies or through the methods and inquiries of one discipline as viewed through the lens of another discipline. Course not offered every year.

This course will introduce the numerous ways in which Arab youth charted an alternative path towards social and political change in the Middle East through the use of new media and modern technologies. Discussions focus on the challenges Arab youth face in their 21st-century, globalized environments, and on their engagement with their regimes and societies, particularly in the context of the Arab Spring. Arab youth’s artistic and political expressions are discussed as a primary aspect for the transformation in the region. This course will place engagement in new media platforms within the broader context of the Arab media landscape and its history, as well as examine the socially constructed category of “youth" within a regional and historical context. Additionally, contemporary cultural and political events in the Arab world will be frequent sources of discussion. Readings for this course will be drawn from a variety of fields of scholarship, including sociology, anthropology, and media studies, among others.

Study of the effect of technology on the many issues related to nuclear weapons and the scientific principles associated with their production. Coverage includes nuclear weapons effects, strategic arsenals, past and current attempts at arms control, environmental impact of weapons production, testing and dismantlement the post cold war climate, and nuclear disarmament. Special emphasis is given toward understanding current nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

Exploration of antisemitic representations of Jews in European and American literature and film, as well as responses to specific works and figures by Jewish writers and filmmakers. Topics include Shylock; Fagin; Nazi propaganda; how names and surgery work to render someone Jewish or non-Jewish; the Jewish American Princess and Jewish Mother stereotypes; twenty-first-century stories; and the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Conducted in English. GER 265 and IDS 264 are cross-listed.

Explores the role of Enlightenment thinking in the context of Jewish intellectual history. While the Enlightenment marked a genuine revolution that affected every corner of the Western world, its radical impact is all the greater against the backdrop of Jewish intellectual life, as the cultural and intellectual space of Judaism itself within the history of the West has always been precarious and ill-defined. As a result, the collisions and renegotiations between Enlightenment thinking and Jewish thinking provide rich and fertile soil for intellectual exploration and innovations. This course will look at some of the key writings of Jewish thinkers who grappled with the implications of Enlightenment thinking, and who left a lasting impact on Jewish and Christian thinking, and on Western thought more broadly, exploring questions concerning the relation between revelation and reason, religion and the state, humanity, nature, and God.

In the span of a single century, and from completely different areas of study, these four thinkers completely revolutionized the way that human beings understand themselves and their place in the cosmos. Displacing the Enlightenment notion of the self-interested, rational agent who reflects the image of God with an innate sense of the Good, these thinkers tore back the veils of all of our most cherished idols – God, language, justice, morality, rationality, market forces, and cosmic order. Their works not only overturned millennia of cultural assumptions; they prophesied the horrors of the 20th century, and established the framework of critical suspicion thatinforms much of humanistic study to this day.

This course will offer a general mosaic survey of the linguistic, geographical, historical, social, religious, cultural, and artistic aspects of the modern Arab world. Special attention will be given to the education, politics, family, gender relations, the Arab experience in the U.S., Arab American relations, the role of the past and of social change, and Arab art and music. The course also, analyzes and discusses Arab Spring and modern post-colonial concerns, problems and challenges. A good deal of the course is specifically intended to increase students' sensitivity to racial bias and sharpen awareness of multicultural issues.

Study of the broad thematic and linguistic content of the media of the contemporary Middle East, especially news media and the new social media. The course examines contemporary social and political issues through an historical and cultural lens, focusing on such themes as dissent and revolutionary resistance, globalization and Arab mass media, media culture and political discourse, gender and national identity, media and social life, and youth culture, Facebook and the blogosphere.

Examination of the interrelationship of linguistics, culture and politics with emphasis on the interpretation of conflict. Readings examine how differences in pronunciation, vocabulary choice, non-verbal communication, and communicative style serve as social markers of identity and differentiation in Arab cultures. Emphasis is given to discourse analysis of news media, political speeches, regime and opposition media, blogs and Facebook communities, and virtual political dialogue.

Using artifacts associated with the American Civil War as a lens for exploring museum collections, this course will introduce students to the history, methods, and practices of interpreting and preserving Civil War collections across a spectrum of disciplines (including art, history, archaeology, and ethnography). It will also explore the methods used to understand the significance of objects and collections, the techniques used to bring them to light in the exhibit environment, and the principles and practices that ensure their longevity for future visitors and scholars. CWES 285 and IDS 285 are cross-listed.

Explores some of the major works of 20th century French thinker and cultural critic, Michel Foucault. Few thinkers of the 20th century had a greater or more lasting impact than Foucault. Giving a new meaning to the adage, ‘knowledge is power,’ Foucault’s work challenges accepted orthodoxies regarding the concept of ‘truth’ by examining fundamental questions of power and knowledge, demonstrating the ways in which they are intertwined, as well as how that ‘knowledge’ shapes our understanding of ourselves. Fueled by the turmoil of the 1960s, Foucault’s writing crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries, leaving an indelible mark in areas as diverse as philosophy of education, history, literary theory, sociology, aesthetics, health studies, epistemology, gender and sexuality studies, and prison reform.

Course will explore the figure of the Devil through various historical, religious, philosophical, literary, and cinematic lenses. He is known by a number of different names: Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Satan, Prince of Darkness, Prince of this World, or Lord of the Flies; but all of these are proper names and titles for that elusive figure most prominently known as the embodiment of pure evil and rebellion in Christianity. Despite the fact that very little is said about this figure in the Bible, the Devil has, throughout history, served as an abstract canvas onto which human beings have projected their greatest fears and adversarial forces, be they political, natural, epidemiological, religious, or moral. As a result, an entire mythos has grown around this elusive figure, complete with the allure and romance that accompanies characters associated with rebellion and transgression.

Theoretical analysis of the reasons for which revolutionary violence may or may not be justifiable, and the conditions that would make it so. It explores through a textual-historical lens the basic nature and purpose of the modern nation-state, and with it the nature of violence—in the forms that the state itself implements, in the forms that the state’s organization fosters in its citizens, and in the forms that revolutionary forces bring (and have brought) in opposition to the state.

Explores the economic-theoretical developments that have taken place in the Western world since the Great Depression, as well as the ethical and philosophical considerations that those developments entail. The three central tenets of neoliberal ideology are: (1) Deregulation; (2) Privatization; and (3) Free Trade. But as a holistic vision of the world, neoliberalism entails the commodification of every facet of our lives. Issues to be discussed in the course include: the relation between the state and the individual, the connections between social and economic conservatism, the responses (or lack thereof) to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, globalization and its impacts, immigration and racism, “fake news”, and the extent to which economic encroachment may impede the egalitarian aims of democracy.

This is a course on war stories. It is based on a simple concept: that war has long been a muse for writers, artists, and filmmakers and that representations of war have a lasting cultural legacy. War stories profoundly influence our understanding of violence. They create myths – important social and political narratives on the past – that help us understand and justify violence in history. In this course, students will read a broad sampling of war literature and study thematically corresponding war films to learn how to conceptualize and contextualize war stories. More broadly, students will also learn how war stories are constructed as sources of memory and how they, in turn, become powerful memorial expressions for veterans, ones that influence the way that societies interpret violence over time.

This is a course that will examine, primarily, two conflicts in modern history and their lasting representations in cultural history and literary memory. Wars have long cultural legacies. Both the American Civil War and First World War changed not only the ‘war generation’ of each conflict, but also, demonstrate case studies of the representation of war and the polemics of memory within nation states. In this class students will engage with the cultural and military histories of two different conflicts and compare their lasting impact in our contemporary perception of war and society. As such, the ‘experience of war’ will be our broad topic of consideration. We will access this theme by examining memory sources that detail and represent these experiences over time. The class’s methodological themes will address the following: conceptions of victory and defeat, the memory of participants and their representations of war, the writing of history and the mythologies created by conflicts and their chroniclers. By studying the cultural history of combat and its aftermath, students will learn something about the way history is written and historical events depicted over time. Through interdisciplinary representations of war in film and literature, it is hoped that students will gain an understanding of the changing perceptions of wars, within the conception of modern memory.

An interdisciplinary course taught in England by a Gettysburg College faculty member during the one-month presession to the Gettysburg in England program at Lancaster University. Topics and instructors vary annually.

This course explores modern Jewish thinkers who critically address how technology has changed Western attitudes concerning religion, ethics and community. In addition, we will use the readings as springboards to discuss such issues as alienation, labor, abortion, cloning and more. The insights of these thinkers will help us better understand the world in which we live. An exploration of how modern Jewish thinkers critically address the question of technology and its effect on Western attitudes concerning religion, ethics and community. The course uses the readings as springboards to discuss such issues as alienation, labor, abortion, cloning and more. The insights of these thinkers help to better understand the world in which we live.

Interdisciplinary analysis of one subject, topic, or discipline as viewed through distinct disciplinary methodologies or through the methods and inquiries of one discipline as viewed through the lens of another discipline. Course not offered every year.

Seminar for selected senior students addressing an important contemporary issue affecting the future of humanity. Approach to this issue is multidisciplinary. Authorities of national stature are invited to serve as resource persons, and seminar participants present a final report on the topics discussed. Course not offered every year.

Individualized tutorial counting toward the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded A-F

Individualized tutorial counting toward the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded S/U

Individualized tutorial not counting in the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded A-F

Individualized tutorial not counting in the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded S/U

Individualized research counting toward the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded A-F

Individualized research counting toward the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded S/U

Individualized research not counting in the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded A-F

Individualized research not counting in the minimum requirements in a major or minor graded S/U

Required Capstone Thesis or Research for the Special Major

Internship counting toward the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded A-F

Internship counting toward the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded S/U

Internship not counting in the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded A-F

Internship not counting in the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded S/U

Summer Internship graded A-F, counting in the minimum requirements for a major or minor only with written permission filed in the Registrar's Office.

Summer Internship graded S/U, counting in the minimum requirements for a major or minor only with written permission filed in the Registrar's Office.

Half credit internship, graded S/U.

Half credit internship, graded S/U.

Elements of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing Arabic.

This course is a continuation of work begun in Arabic 101. It aims at developing and advancing four language skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.

Practice in oral and written expression, grammar review, readings, and discussions of writing in Arabic. Prerequisite: Arabic 102 or its equivalent.

Continuation of practice in oral and written expression, grammar review, readings, and discussions of writing in Arabic. Prerequisite: Arabic 201

Study of advanced level of Modern Standard Arabic with careful attention paid to all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing in addition to culture. Significant stress will be placed on vocabulary expansion, particularly during the second half of the course. Acquisition of more advanced grammatical structures will take place primarily through directed in-class practice, coupled with an emphasis on the functional use of language through communication in context.

Study of advanced level of Modern Standard Arabic with careful attention paid to all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing in addition to culture. Acquisition of more advanced grammatical structures will take place primarily through directed in-class practice, coupled with an emphasis on the functional use of language through communication in context.

Individualized tutorial counting toward the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded A-F

Individualized tutorial not counting toward minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded A-F

Individualized tutorial not counting in the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded S/U

Overview of the criminal justice system in the U.S. and the role of police, attorneys, judges, trials, and prisons. Primary goal is for students to gain an understanding of how the criminal justice system works in the U.S., both from a criminal justice studies and legal perspective. Major U.S. Supreme Court cases are read to illustrate the nature of legal reasoning and criminal justice problems, with each student having his or her own case to work on throughout the term.

Introduction to the application of law and legal reasoning by analyzing films as stories to which the law is to be applied. Students are asked to analyze elements of films based on the actual statutes, rules of evidence, and/or attorney ethics rules in force at the time and place that is the film's setting. Traditional law-based films are not the primary subject of this course, although several will be used to help understand certain legal principles.

This course is designed to expose and introduce students to the theory and practicality of criminal trial advocacy in the American Judicial System (with an emphasis on the Pennsylvania system including the rules and laws). This will be done by way of reading, discussing and doing. In this class, students will take on the role of attorney and witness in a series of exercises including opening statements, witness examination, closing arguments and other things that occur during the course of a trial. Students will acquire a basic understanding of the Pa. Rules of Court/Rules of Evidence and the art of trial advocacy. If you are interested in or thinking about attending law school this class is for you.

An examination of law as a tool of oppression, beginning with the Code of Hammurabi, with its detailed class-specific codes, and working up through the various slave codes of the enlightenment era to modern times. Recent U.S. laws have attempted to rectify some of the oppression caused by US law in the past, and this course asks is it working or is it just another way to keep people down by law.

Course asks students to apply comparative law theory to the worlds represented in the modern fictional settings of superheroes and science fiction. While comparative law generally involves the consideration of theory as applied to EU countries, “Intergalactic Super Law” takes the Marvel and DC universes and the worlds in Star Wars and Star Trek as case studies to cogently argue that Gotham has a Continental as opposed to an Anglo-American System, or that the Empire under Palpatine followed Hindu law closely, drawing on real world global examples to sustain their arguments.

Individualized research not counting in the minimum requirements in a major or minor, graded A-F.