Extra-Departmental Courses

Humanities Courses 2007-2008

Humanities 18 (formerly Religion 1801). For the Love of God and His Prophet:
Religion, Literature, and the Arts in Muslim Cultures
Catalog Number: 0110
Ali S. Asani
Half course (spring term). Tuesday, Thursday, 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14

The course surveys the literary and artistic dimensions of the devotional life of the world’s Muslim communities, focusing on the role of literature and the arts (poetry, music, architecture, calligraphy, etc.) as expressions of piety and socio-political critique. An important aim of the course is to explore the relationships between religion, literature, and the arts in a variety of historical and cultural contexts in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Europe, and America.

Note: No prior knowledge of Islam required. Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3627.

Please note: Humanities 24 has been changed to a Core Class
Literature and Arts A-17. Childhood: Its History, Philosophy, and Literature
Catalog Number: 4852 Enrollment: Limited to 40.
Maria Tatar
Half course (spring term). Tuesday, Thursday, at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15

With the so-called discovery or invention of childhood in the 16th and 17th centuries came a newfound emotional attachment, imaginative investment, and philosophical interest in the child. We explore literature for the child (Alice in Wonderland) as well as literature about the child (Lolita) and investigate how childhood has been constructed, investigated, and represented. Analysis of works by Locke, Rousseau, and Freud, as well as Dickens, J. M. Barrie, Henry James, and Roald Dahl.

Humanities 25. Literature and Human Suffering
Catalog Number: 6766
James Engell
Half course (spring term). Tuesday, Thursday, at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13

How does literature represent life visited by loss, pain, disappointment, and even death? The course pursues aesthetic and ethical issues grouped around such themes as sorrow and love; racial oppression, genocide, and slavery; individual, family, state—crime and justice; war and duty; and anguish of existence and belief. Discussion of literary genres (epic, novel, drama, memoir). Works by Shakespeare, Goethe, Tolstoy, Anne Frank, Primo Levi, Melville, Douglass, Athol Fugard, Sophocles, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Homer, Camus, Hardy.

Note: Works not in English read in translation. This course, when taken for a letter grade, meets the Core area requirement for Literature and Arts A.

Humanities 27. A SILK ROAD COURSE: Travel and Transformation on the High Seas: An Imaginary Journey in the Early 17th Century
Catalog Number: 6630
Stephen J. Greenblatt
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 11 and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13

A course about global mobility, encounter, and exchange at the time that Harvard College was founded in 1636. Using the interactive resources of computer technology and drawing upon faculty experts from many disciplines, we follow imaginary voyages of three ships that leave England in 1633. Sites include London’s Globe Theatre, Benin, Barbados, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Morocco, Istanbul, Venice, Virginia, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Topics include the slave trade, reconnaissance, colonization, conversion, geography, navigation, and literary culture.

Extra-Departmental Courses 2007-2008

Extra-Departmental Course 186
Introduction to Health Care Policy
Catalog Number: 4045
Richard G. Frank (Medical School)
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 1-2:30; and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16

Provides overview of US health care delivery system, components, and policy challenges. Health care system considered from an organizational perspective: analysis of roles of patients, providers (doctors and hospitals), health plans, and payers. Considers objectives, constraints, incentives, knowledge, and conduct. Evaluates problems faced by each component using both "insider" and "outsider" perspectives. What makes health care so hard to reform? How shall we understand recent proposals? Reading includes selections from medical sociology, economics, politics, and ethics.

Note: Offered jointly with the Kennedy School as HCP-100. Meets at the Kennedy School.
This course may not be taken for credit in addition to General Education 186.

Extra-Departmental Course 187
The Quality of Health Care in America

Catalog Number: 4587 - Enrollment: Limited to 35
Donald M. Berwick (Medical School), Howard H. Hiatt (Medical School), and Warner Slack (Medical School)
and guest lecturers
Half course (spring term). Tuesday & Thursday, 4:30-6, with one hour weekly sections.

Offers information and experiences regarding most important issues and challenges in health care quality. Overview of dimensions of quality of care, including outcomes, overuse, underuse, variation in practice patterns, errors and threats to patient safety, service flaws, and forms of waste. Each session focuses on one specific issue, exploring patterns of performance, data sources, costs, causes, and remedies. Explores desirable properties of health care systems that perform at high levels in many dimensions of quality.

Note: This course may not be taken for credit in addition to General Education 187.