Interdisciplinary Seminar Research Articles

The Catholic Puzzle: Parishes and Civic Life

This paper is one of a number of case studies prepared for an interdisciplinary seminar on religion in American civic life which examined the roles and functions of religion in congregations and communities. “The Catholic Puzzle” is the apparent discrepancy between the Catholic church’s official social teachings and what actually goes on in Catholic parishes and the everyday lives of Catholics. This paper combines theology and social science to examine the question of why Catholics seem to be less involved than members of other religions in volunteer and civic life.

Reading Girlhood in Victorian Photography

Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy. —Susan Sontag, On Photography (23). The purpose behind my interdisciplinary seminar, which combined the "Origins and Developments" with the "Radical Visual" strands of CLISS, was twofold: to practice reading photographs and to examine examples of Victorian photography's construction of girlhood. In this essay I will provide a snapshot of the seminar's texts and concerns and then a brief close reading of one of its central issues: the relationship between poetry and portraiture. Preliminaries To prepare for in-depth discussions of the photographs that would form the core of the seminar's texts, participants were asked to read selected essays that situate Victorian photography in general, and Charles Lutwidge Dodgson1 and Julia Margaret Cameron in particular, within cultural and ideological parameters: Lindsay Smith's chapter on "The Politics of Focus: Feminism and Photography Theory" in The Politics of Focus: Women, Children and Nineteenth-Century Photography (1998); Elizabeth Heyert's "The Victorian Amateur" from The Glass-House Years: Victorian Portrait Photography, 1839–1870 (1979); and Julia Margaret Cameron's autobiographical fragment, "Annals of My Glass House" (1874). In addition, participants were asked to read two poems: Carroll's "Beatrice" (1862) and Cameron's "On a Portrait" (1876). Suggested secondary reading (see Works Cited) included critical works that offer additional analyses of Dodgson's and Cameron's photography, a reevaluation [End Page 190] of the meanings of Victorian photography in contemporary life, and Roland Barthes's classic essay, "Rhetoric of the Image" as a piece that provides vocabulary and a theoretical framework to assist in thinking critically about the images. Introducing Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and Julia Margaret Cameron These readings provided a substantial introduction to both Dodgson's and Cameron's photographic work. Although everyone knew Lewis Carroll's Alice books, of course, the details of his hobby were not well known to all (though very well to some of the Japanese participants). Similarly, Cameron's work was well-known to some but not to others. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's interest in photography as a hobby was piqued in 1856 by watching a favorite uncle taking pictures. Between 1856 and 1880 (when he stopped taking pictures in part because he did not like the new dry-plate process), Dodgson used his camera to help him in making child friends—sometimes by way of pleasing their parents through the offer of photographs of their children—and in meeting notables of the day such as the Rossettis, Ellen Terry, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. He filled album after album with portraits. Though an amateur who exhibited only four photographs during his lifetime, Dodgson has been called one of the most outstanding child photographers of the Victorian age (Gernsheim, Lewis Carroll 28). Julia Margaret Cameron enthusiastically embraced the art of photography after her daughter and son-in-law gave the forty-eight-year-old a camera in late 1863. She transformed the chicken coop at her home on the Isle of Wight into a glass-house (Dodgson had one built on the roof over his rooms at Christ Church, Oxford). Cameron exhibited her photographs widely at home, internationally (she won numerous prizes) and in one-woman shows. Although also considered to be an amateur, Cameron became quite famous for her portraits and sold her work as prints, often in series. After moving to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) with her husband in 1875 to be near her sons who maintained the family's tea plantations, she took very few photographs. Both Dodgson and Cameron used the wet collodion process (described below) to make their portraits. Locating Ourselves Given the many differences between the seminar participants in age, nationality, and degree of familiarity with children's literature (they were master's or doctoral candidates, independent scholars, and professors in [End Page 191] their respective countries), as well as the vast span of time that separated every participant from the historical moment of the photographs we were...

"Greek Tragedy and Opera": An Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Seminar

"Greek Tragedy and Opera": An Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Seminar

WEAVING CULTURAL CONTEXT INTO AN INTERDISCIPLINARY END-OF-LIFE CURRICULUM

Over the last several decades, increasing emphasis has been placed on taking an interdisciplinary approach to designing end-of-life (EOL) education curricula. Such EOL curricula have focused on a wide range of policy and practical themes, including culture, ethics, spirituality, and religion, as well as on legal, political, economic, and clinical topics. Despite the more frequent inclusion of cultural issues today, the organization of EOL curricula remains highly problematic, as culture is often handled as a single, self-contained module. The authors of this article argue that a more effective educational strategy involves treating culture as a major thread permeating many aspects of EOL communication and decision-making, one which contributes profoundly to perceptions of whether "a good death" occurs. An interdisciplinary graduate seminar on EOL issues was designed and piloted incorporating cultural issues. This article highlights the approaches used to provide education concerning cultural variability in responses to the dying experience. Ultimately, there is a critical need for EOL curricula to more effectively address the central role of culture in the dying process. By educating practitioners more broadly regarding cultural issues, such curricula may alleviate patients' suffering through a decrease in cultural misunderstandings at time ofdeath.

A Study of Catholicism: An Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar

ABSTRACTThis essay describes an intensive eight-month long interdisciplinary faculty seminar which brought together faculty from the social sciences and humanities to explore, with different methodologies, the nature and traditions of Catholicism. It describes the way in which the seminar was organized, the participants selected, the syllabus chosen and how the discussion unfolded. It concludes with an evaluation by the author of what was learned, and then provides a brief description of the research projects undertaken by the seminar participants.

Intellectual Border Crossing in Graduate Education: A Report From the Field

This article reflects on the author’s experience in leading an interdisciplinary seminar that draws together doctoral students who are preparing for careers in educational research in diverse departments across a large School of Education. The article details the work of the seminar and changes in its design as the faculty gained experience. The seminar presents a common underlying structure in a broad range of social scientific educational research, while also exploring very different tacit assumptions brought to that model by different research traditions. The author explores the faculty’s intentions, the students’ responses, and pedagogical lessons about education for interdisciplinary fluency that may be drawn from three years of experience with the seminar.

Interdisciplinary Seminar on Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism

This group comprises psychoanalysts, professors of literature and philosophy, and a number of colleagues who combine disciplines. Each year we invite a guest leader who is a distinguished literary critic. We usually read a piece of fiction complemented by criticism written by our invited guest. Our meetings are extremely lively, fun, and satisfying. Our guest leaders have included: Stanley Fish, Patrick Mahony, Samuel Weber, Peter Brooks, Wayne Booth, Barbara Johnson, Joan Scott, Judith Butler, Terry Eagleton, Marjorie Garber, Meredith Skura, and Diane Middlebrook. Our aim is to learn more about critical reading of fiction and occasionally of history or biography.

Linking Environmental History and Earth Studies in an Undergraduate Seminar

The ability of individuals to make informed political, social, and economic decisions about environmental issues is rooted in a basic understanding and awareness of Earth, its processes and materials, and their significance to human life. The challenge that educators face to explain how humans have interacted with and perceived the physical environment through time is one crucial part of efforts to improve earth-science literacy in America and increase the accessibility of the earth sciences. Courses that evaluate and incorporate views and findings from different disciplines in the study of human-landscape connections have the potential to enhance more effective interaction and communication across disciplinary borders and lead to a more integrated understanding of Earth. This paper presents a detailed outline of an interdisciplinary seminar, “Perspectives on the Earth and Environment,” in which students examine aspects of the link between earth studies and the human environmental history of North America...

An interdisciplinary undergraduate seminar: “Death and dying in psychology and theater”

Abstract This case report describes the development of an interdisciplinary course entitled Death in Psychology and the Theater. The course, conceived as a method of using dramatic literature to illustrate psychological concepts involved in death, dying, grief bereavement, suicide, and AIDS, was team-taught by two professors in psychology and theater arts. This article discusses planning for the course, course content, processes used in the course, assignments given, and student and, faculty reactions to the course, which attest to the ability of undergraduate students to utilize dramatic literature as an aid to understanding psychological principles.

EARTHQUAKES AND GEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY

I was recently asked to speak about my research in an interdisciplinary faculty seminar at Boston College. I was surprised to discover that much of what I think of as common knowledge about seismology was “news” to my audience of highly-educated faculty from across the campus. Doesn't everybody know that it is through the analysis of seismograms that we have obtained most of our knowledge about the Earth's interior? Doesn't everybody in the Boston area know that earthquakes do occur in New England, and that the reason why it is so difficult to understand their offgins is because this area is far from any plate boundaries? Doesn't everybody know that seismology is a fascinating, scientifically sophisticated, modern and multi-disciplinary science? Brace Bolt should be commended for providing us with a valuable resource for “getting the word out” about seismology: Earthquakes and Geological Discovery is an enjoyable book that gives a...

CONTINUING EDUCATION, THE PROMOTION OF CULTURE, AND THE SOCIAL ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY

For many years, the author has been thinking about the problem of how to combine continuing education courses in universities with efforts to promote the dissemination of culture in the broadest sense. He begins his article with two definitions, one of the concept of continuing education itself, the other of the concept of culture. He indicates that increasingly a popular demand is being manifested for courses combining both objectives, particularly on the part of those who had to interrupt their studies prematurely or who completed them some time ago. He cites two seminars currently being offered at the University oE Athens, one an interdisciplinary seminar in philosophy, organized eight years ago, the other, a seminar in the philosophy of art. Both of them have opened their doors to all interested persons. They have been extremely popular, despite the fact that enrol‐lecs earn no credit for attending them. With the aid of the appropriate national authorities, similar programmes could be created in other universities in the countries belonging to Unesco so as to respond to a genuine social need.

Teaching Policy Analysis and Development

This article presents the rationale, structure and process underlying an interdisciplinary seminar focused on policy research, analysis and development. Emphasis is placed on the value of an interdisciplinary approach to teaching social welfare policy as well as the problems of linguistics and interdisciplinary communication. Examples of language discontinuities between social workers, lawyers and educators are provided along with a grid which guides faculty in addressing crucial interdisciplinary conflicts in areas such as professional values, ethics, theoretical and doctrinal beliefs, role differentiation and overriding societal values.

Teaching legal medicine. An interdisciplinary seminar in professional ethics for medical students and law students.

Teaching legal medicine. An interdisciplinary seminar in professional ethics for medical students and law students.

Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie — ein biologischer Ausverkauf der Philosophie?

The author takes the interdisciplinary seminar on Evolutionary Epistemology at the 7th International Wittgenstein Symposium as the occasion to discuss the question of the status, achievements and limits of Evolutionary Epistemology. She comes to the conclusion that neither its critique of thequid juris question in traditional epistemology nor its own philosophical pretensions can be justified. But it is a new science which is relevant and a challenge to traditional epistemology and philosophy of science in that it opens up a horizon of new questions which they will have to take seriously. Sie sind den Kindern ahnlich, die, wenn sie in einen Spiegel geguckt, ihn sogleich umwenden, um zu sehen, was auf der anderen Seite ist.

Review

Originally published by Curzon Press, London, The City in South Asia is a collection of essays presented to an ongoing interdisciplinary seminar at the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of London. Basically the book is an historical study of a number of towns and cities spread over the northern and eastern parts of the subcontinent. The contributors examine in a somewhat eclectic manner the role of political, social, geographical and economic factors in the shaping of the cultural content as well as the physical growth and decay of urban life in the selected regions. The picture that emerges is only a partial one as large industrial and commercial cities of southern India are not covered, and the two articles on Calcutta and Karachi are limited primarily to the treatment of religious communities.

Mothers and Daughters: A Seminar for Older Returning College Students

Questions of identity and self-worth often nag at older women as they return to college. Many older women decide to return to college when they become involved in domestic crisis, separation, or divorce. Others, facing empty-nest syndrome, find that they have more time to pursue college study. For some older women, return to college is a chance to develop marketable job skills or a means of exploring a possible mid-career change. Many students come to Empire State College because they are hungry for an intellectual life, and many are convinced that their life experiences-years of child rearing, volunteer work, part-time jobs, or personal interests-will never mesh with their academic pursuits. During spring of 1977, we co-taught an interdisciplinary seminar on Mothers and Daughters, in which we integrated our interests and academic disciplines: literature and sociology. In studying topics like mother-daughter relationship, which build on personal knowledge, older women students discover that their own life experiences illuminate their studies and their studies illuminate their lives. In collective consideration of their roles and experiences, they also learn extent to which private experience is socially structured. In words of women's movement, they learn that the personal is political. Thirteen women students (including one graduate who had completed an independent project on this topic but wanted to be involved in group discussions) signed up for our seminar. We met regularly for three months in sessions which usually lasted well beyond two hours we had scheduled. The mother-daughter relationship was fast becoming a major focus of women's intellectual and emotional concerns; books exploring mother-daughter relationship were beginning to appear and, in plays and films, topic was attracting serious creative interest. A study of mother-daughter relationship, an exciting topic to explore and teach in many settings, had special appeal to our nontraditional older women students.

An Interdisciplinary Seminar for Preparing College Teachers

We are now experiencing a period of retrench ment wherein it has once again become legitimate to talk about quality instead of quantity in education. With the supply-demand function for college teachers almost completely reversed from what it was in the 1960s, col1ege and university administrators are now re quiring various kinds of evidence representing teaching of prospective candidates for academic po sitions. This has implications for graduate students who are seeking their first position as college or university teachers. LTntil very recentV, most graduate students have neither been encouraged to pursue know1edge about college teaching, nor had an adequate amount of supervi sion and training for their career development as college teachers. These deficiencies have been cited by several investigators: for examp^, Hanzeli,1 Costin,2 Morrow,3 Berelson,4 Heiss,5 and Eble.6'7 Concern about the improvement of co1lege teaching and the career development of college level teachers has been recognized also by some professional societies and private foundations. During the spring of 1971 a con ference was held in Sante Fe, New Mexico in conjunc tion with the National Project to Improve College Teaching.8 This meeting, arranged by Dr. Kenneth E. Eble, director of the project, was the final general ses sion associated with a two-year project sponsored by the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American Colleges and funded by the Carnegie Corporation. The conference participants rep resented a diverse group of educators concerned about improving the quality of col'ege teaching. As one might expect from a group of this nature, there were many divergent opinions among the participants regarding so lutions for improving teaching. One topic, however, in which there was almost unanimity of opinion was the need for a set of teaching and learning experiences for all graduate students planning careers as college or uni versity teachers. During the conference a task committee headed by Dr. Michael Scriven was formed to draw up an outline for such an experience, or course, which would speak to some of the dimensions of teaching and learning thought to be crucial to a good beginning or first step on the road to success as a college teacher. Inspired by the conference and fo'lowing guidelines offered by Eble9 and Williams,10 then adding some ideas of our own, we designed and offered an seminar on college teaching. Having developed and con ducted the seminar for the past six years, we feel that what we have learned is worth sharing with colleagues who are also interested in providing some vehicle whereby beginning teachers may gain valuable knowl edge and experience which can contribute to their effec tiveness as future college teachers. For the most part, past efforts in teaching seminars have been focused within a single discipline.11,12'13 The distinguishing feature of the approach cited in the pres ent report is the nature of the seminar. The word interdisciplinary here refers to the composi tion of the student participants, not necessarily the teach ers or resource people. We assumed that such topics as establishing instructional objectives. writing examin ation questions, evaluating teaching effectiveness and the use of media, to mention only a few, are not the private domain if any one discipline. On the contrary, most of the critical dimensions of effective teaching are common to all disciplines. In addition, having students from a variety of areas results in the distinct advantage of being able to view teaching through individual disci plinary prisms. The potential give and take among stu dents from different areas could also emphasize that general principles of teaching apply across many subject matter fields. Finally, it was believed that through an exchange the students would gain an appreciation and respect for other discip1ines and view points, a characteristic so often absent in the curricular and supervision structure of most graduate training. Graduate students in a given discipline usually have little or no professional or academic contact with graduate students from other departments during their training, and their supervision is nearly always under their own department. It shou\l be pointed out that this seminar was not designed to replace teaching supervision received in the student's own department. The Seminar

Book Reviews

AbstractThe mentally retarded and society: a social science perspective. M. J. Begab and S A. Richardson (eds.) Baltimore: University Park Press. 1975 $U.S. 17.50. 492 pp.Understanding and living with brain damage. P. E. Logue, Springfield, Illinois Charles C. Thomas, 1975 Pp. vii + 106 U.S $8.50 cloth, U.S. $5.75 paper.Teaching the Moderately and Severely Retarded: Curriculum Objectives, Strategies, and Activities by Michael Bender and Peter J Valletutti Baltimore: University Park Press Volume I: Behaviour, Self Care, and Motor Skills. 1976 361 pages Spiral Bound. $20.20 Volume II: Communication, Socialization, Safety and Leisure Time Skills. 1976 420 pages Spiral Bound. $22.30 Volume III Functional Academics for the Mildly and Moderately Handicapped. 1976 263 pages Spiral Bound $18.85Developmental Psychophysiology of Mental Retardation. Concepts and Studies. Rathe Karrer, PhD (Ed.) (C.C. Thomas).Maintaining effective token economies. R L. Patterson (ed.) Springfield, Illinois. Charles C. Thomas, 1975. pp. 176. $A14.50.Piagetian Theory and the Helping professions 5th Annual Conference. Ed M. K. Poulsen, J. F. Magary, G. I. Lubin. Proceedings 5th Interdisciplinary Seminar: Co-sponsored by University Affiliated Program, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and University of Southern California School of Education 1975. Published 1976 $8.50 (U.S.), University of Southern California BookstorePrevention of Mental Retardation. John B Fotheringham, Mary Morrison. Publisher: The National Institute on Mental Retardation, Toronto, Ontario 1976, 142 pp.

The Search for Transcendence: A Humanistic Perspective

AbstractAn interdisciplinary seminar focusing on various attempts to articulate the human aspiration toward transcendence. Through selected readings, reflection and discussion, this course will consider the personal and psychological odyssey towards relation, wholeness and health; the aesthetic quest for beauty and richness of meaning; the philosopher's search for clarity, understanding and ultimacy; and the historical and political struggle for purpose and direction—in terms of an underlying thematic unity which all of these expressions of the human spirit share: the human desire to transcend.

Cleft and Case: Two Sources of Interference for FL Learners

disappointing and largely useless. sSee Mills F. Edgerton, Jr., (A Philosophy for the Teacher of Foreign Languages, Northeast Conference, 1971, p. 46): What does the American student have left of value to him for the rest of his life when he has forgotten the grammar and lexicon of the foreign language he has studied? 6See W. M. Mullen, Learners, Many Goals, Many Curricula, ACTFL Review, 5, p. 48. 7The Contributions of Psychological Theory and Educational Research to the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ML], 1965, rpt. in The Teaching of German, Problems and Methods), p. 51. 8See R. W. Brown, et al., Developing Cultural Understanding Through Foreign Language Study. Report of the MLA Interdisciplinary Seminar in Language and Culture (PMLA, Dec. 1953, rpt. in The Teaching of German. Problems and Methods), p.69. 9See Michel Beaujour and Jaques Ehrmann, A Semiotic Approach to Culture (FL Annals, 1967, rpt. in The Teaching of German. Problems and Methods), p.83. 10See Mills F. Edgerton, Jr., p. 52.