18 courses with the subject ISLS, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
ISLS 3000Transformations: Reading, Thinking, and Communicating in the Liberal Arts3
Effective Date 04/22/2016 Develops reading, writing, critical thinking, technology and research proficiencies necessary for success at college level and beyond; orients students to the culture of the University and the community of the BIS program. Introduces the breadth of campus resources and addresses academic advising; utilizes the theme of transformation as subject matter for reading, writing and discussion to provide opportunities for multi-disciplinary exploration.
Effective Date 08/01/2019 Focuses on theories about the origins of nations; examines the historical and cultural substance of nations; and explores related questions about national identity, nationalism, ethnic violence, and citizenship. Considers contemporary alternatives to national identity, such as supranational movements and multinational organizations.
ISLS 3100Age of Discovery: Europe and the Wider World, 1500-17003
Effective Date 01/01/2011 Examines intellectual and social/political upheavals of the early modern period in Europe including the opening of the wider world to European explorers and traders. Considers the mutual impact of Western and non-Western civilizations through the analysis of primary sources including literature, maps, and works of art.
Effective Date 03/01/2009 This course examines the current use of the police power in a variety of situations, informed by the past and motivated by the future. Particular emphasis is on contemporary real-life examples to inform the discussion on the proper use of the police power. Those examples are subjected to a variety of perspectives, societal and individual, to gain a fuller understanding of the delicate balance of competing values.
ISLS 3210The Frost is Hard-Edged and Quick: Metaphor - Making a Final Unity3
Effective Date 03/01/2009 What is a metaphor? What role does it play in the way we see the world, ourselves and others? What metaphors guide our own thinking - as a society and a culture about politics, crime, illness, ourselves, love and life? If we take metaphor seriously, is it possible to draw a hard line between fact and fiction, between arts and sciences, between the objective and subjective? Does metaphor refute reason? In this course students investigate these and related questions using a variety of media. Texts will be drawn from a spectrum of disciplines including poetry, cognitive psychology, linguistics, philosophy, literature and literary criticism.
Effective Date 01/01/2011 Explores Russia’s political themes of the 20th century, especially events since the fall of the Soviet Union. Includes Russia’s tentative steps towards capitalism and democracy in the last two decades. Employs different analytical tools to craft an interdisciplinary portrait of Russia. Provides an opportunity to substantially improve critical thinking and basic academic writing.
Effective Date 08/01/2026 Studies culture as a creation of the shared beliefs and experiences of individuals, and the stories of the lives of those individuals both describe the culture and prescribe the direction in which it must move. The Americas have a long series of disparate and interconnected cultural histories; this course examines some of the earliest narratives to unravel them.
Effective Date 08/01/2009 Explores the myriad meanings of home through such questions as: is home a preposterous notion? Considers and analyzes personal definitions of home. Explores readings from sermons of Puritan New England to personal narrative of Native Americans to testimonials of the homeless.
ISLS 3280Science as a Cultural System: Challenging Our Presuppositions3
Effective Date 08/01/2025 Focuses on the production of the scientific method from its eighteenth-century roots in natural philosophy, which demonstrates that the methodology which produces science is the same which produces natural philosophy.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 Examines the origins of the Bill of Rights and the specific rights listed, as well as the contours of those rights as they have been interpreted by the Supreme Court. Discusses the issue of what prominence should be accorded to the original intent of the Framers.
Effective Date 08/01/2009 Explores the complex, historically-conditioned role of the poet in society as it has played out within two very different cultural traditions: the Western democratic tradition of free expression, as practiced in the U.S. and Western Europe, and the Russian/Soviet/East European tradition of the past century, in which censorship and repression of free speech has been the rule.
ISLS 3620Ritual and Becoming in the Arts of Africa3
Effective Date 02/02/2015 Examines the traditional arts produced on the African continent such as painting, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, architecture, and body modification as they are incorporated into age-grade initiation, fertility ceremonies and curative rituals.
ISLS 3780An Examination of the Criminal Justice System3
Effective Date 08/01/2009 Provides students with an overview and understanding of the criminal justice system as a social institution inside of the American institution. Enables students to gain an understanding of the various components of the criminal justice system and its responsibilities to include courts, corrections, and law enforcements.
Effective Date 08/01/2026 Explores what was reborn, and why — specifically art and literature in Europe beginning in the 13th century and continuing through the first decades of the 16th century. Considers materials, techniques, the aims of art-making, and artistic training. Examines through an evaluation of period texts the revival of Classicism in European art, architecture, and philosophy as well as the dynamics between artists, patrons, and institutions.
ISLS 4260The World Turned Upside-Down: English Society in the 17th Century3
Effective Date 08/01/2026 Examines the history and historiography of 17th century England under the Stuart Monarchs and the Cromwellian Protectorates. Teaches skills in research, composition of an in-depth research project, analytical thinking, and research methodology.
Effective Date 05/01/2026 Teaches the examination of ‘Culture’ not as a monolith, but as a result of specific historical conjunctures and conceits, differing intellectual frameworks, varying modes of social production and reproduction. Considers the transmission of ideas across cultures, historical periods, and disciplines, and the traveling of texts through the press as a producing society.
