New CCI Electives: From The Clash of Heroes and Dragons to the Alliance of Civilizations
This spring semester, the Program in Cultures, Civilizations and Ideas (CCI) is offering two special elective courses: HUM 335 - Intercultural Relations: Issues and Debates, taught by Professor Mehmet Aydın; and HUM 293 - Medieval Epic and Saga, taught by Visiting Assistant Professor Denis Ferhatovic.
HUM 335 will give students a unique opportunity to learn about the issue of "interculturality" from a scholar who has served in government and been involved with this question at the national and international levels. Prof. Aydın has been a member of the Turkish parliament and a minister of state. He served on the High Advisory Committee for Human Rights in Turkey, and as co-chair of the United Nations High Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations Initiative. His scholarly contributions have focused on philosophical and religious topics as well as on broader cultural issues, human rights policies and dialogue.
In HUM 293, medieval texts and modern films will be used to explore centuries-old themes that still resound in popular culture today, with the mythic clash of heroes and monsters being played out at the cinema and in video games. Asst. Prof. Ferhatovic, whose scholarly interests include poetry of the Middle Ages in several languages, has chosen texts such as "Beowulf" and "The Nibelungenlied" and several recent films, including "Beowulf and Grendel" (dir. Gunnarsson, 2005), "How to Train Your Dragon" (dir. DeBlois and Sanders, 2010) and "Thor" (dir. Branagh, 2011), for the class to examine the cultural implications of the heroic tradition.
Admission to these new electives is still open, but we urge students to register as soon as possible, before the course limits are reached. HUM 335 is open to undergraduate students in all departments. HUM 293 is open to undergraduate students in all departments at the second-year level and above; students must contact Asst. Prof. Ferhatovic before registering.
Additional details about the content of the courses are given below.
HUM 293: Medieval Epic and Saga
Thanks to popular cinematic modernizations, we are all now familiar with mighty, stoic men and women who face adversity that assumes the form of a cannibalistic monster, winged dragon or rival tribe leader, with a firm grasp on their weapon and a brutal sense of humor. But is there more to this type of heroism than meets the eye? We will read about different Germanic heroes from three overlapping but distinct traditions (Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse and Middle High German), their allies and adversaries, their spectacular accomplishments and sometimes equally spectacular failures. We will ponder such issues as military strategies, gender dynamics, portrayal of enemies, return of the repressed past, ambivalence of heroism, and afterlife of these texts in film, video games and comic books.
HUM 335: Intercultural Relations - Issues and Debates
"Interculturality" has now become a major issue that paves the way for many multifaceted debates in the so-called "global city." With this in mind, we will in our course focus on the following selected themes: cultural pluralism and the need for constructive dialogical encounter; the good (democratic) governance of cultural diversity; cultural recognition; culture and global security; intercultural problems and multicultural organizations; cultural rights; integration, political (ideological) culturalism and cultural oppression; the alliance (or "clash") of cultures and civilizations; the cultural dimension of Turkey-EU relations; multicultural education for democracy and peace.