COOL STUDIES

HERE ARE FIVE PRETTY RIGOROUS COURSES THAT SOUND DARE WE SAY IT? LIKE FUN.

Course: Engineering 2, The Technology of Sailing • Professor: Horst Richter

It was Professor Horst Richter's idea during the America's Cup a few years back to turn his lifetime sailing hobby into a course. He would introduce the world of technology to the broader Dartmouth community by teaching students the physical mechanics of the increasingly hi-tech sport of sailing. Richter explains that Engines 2 doesn't teach students how to sail but focuses more on technical aspects like why sails are shaped the way they are, what makes boats fast, and the functions of modern boat designs.

The course is open to anyone; students range from people who have never been on a sailboat to champion sailors from the Dartmouth Sailing Team. The students get a chance to practice with the nationally ranked College team on Lake Mascoma. In the future Richter hopes to get an old boat that the class could eventually use as a floating lab.

Said one sailor after taking the class: "I knew before that the sailing team was fast, but now I know why."

Course: Film Studies 35, Animation: Principles and Practice • Professor: David Erlich

Taught by award-winning animator David Erlich, this class is a theoretical and historical survey of animated film art. Erlich combines screenings and discussions covering everything from prehistoric cave drawings to commercials and contemporary computer animation. Some highlights of the course: Polish and Soviet graphic animation, Czech puppet animation, and "Fritz the Cat," a socially risque cartoon depicting a non-PC animal kingdom.

But watching the films of animation pioneers is only half the fun. Students also experiment with their own weekly projects, making flip books, kinetic paintings, and other forms of animated film. As a final project they film their own animation using the techniques they have learned with puppets, clay, and computers. The films are later presented at a campus-wide animation festival in the Hopkins Center. Some titles of last spring's student projects: "Music and Love in the South Pole, "Ninja Babe," and "Around the World in 80 Seconds."

Course: Sociology 30, Deviance and Social Control • Professor: Deborah King

Prostitution, witchcraft, gangs, organized crime, jail, and mental institutions are standard topics of discussion in Professor Deborah King's course. In class, students try to find out what deviance is and how and why it occurs. The syllabus includes The Godfather and Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex inPublic Places. Students are also encouraged to watch several films on the topic of deviant behavior; "Pumping Iron: Management of Deviant Identity Among Women Bodybuilders" is one class favorite.

By far the most talked-about part of Socy 30 is the project: Each student must act out some type of deviant behavior and then record the reactions. Projects range from the just plain weird to the downright obnoxious. One student stood outside the revolving door of Baker Library, jumping in with each person who went through. Two others held a candlelit dinner for two on the Green complete with champagne and tablecloth. Another spent 20 minutes in a Hanover flower shop picking out the perfect flower, paid the florist, and then ate the whole thing, petals and all. Student deviance can only go so far, however. Professor King warns students not to do anything that might get them arrested.

Course: Women Studies 23/80, Women and Culture • Professor: Brenda Silver

The informal title of this class says it all From My Guy toSci Fi: Popular Culture and Feminist Critique. Where else can you study the pop-culture genres and activities of romances, detective fiction, pornography, fashion, and shopping through gender and feminist literary theory? Each week a different student does a presentation on such aspects of mass culture as cyberpunk and the matriarchal worlds of women science-fiction writers. One assignment for the whole class: learn the "politics" of shopping by taking a field trip to a nearby mall. As one woman explained, "You study the stuff that's all around you but never got to study in school."

Course: Music 42, Fieldwork Laboratory on Documenting Musical Traditions • Professor: Theodore Levin

Music Professor Theodore Levin has searched the world for isolated cultures to capture their music. This spring students are getting a chance to preserve a particular tradition themselves. And where is this pocket of hidden culture? Berlin, New Hampshire (population 12,000), where two-thirds of the residents are Acadian French, many of whom still speak the old tongue and sing the old songs. The course's main project is a CD, to be distributed, Levin hopes, by the Smithsonian.

It's not easy to get into the class; students must be proficient in French and have some background in music. While producing the album the students are expected to visit the town each week, getting to know Berlin's francophone community, researching the music tradition's background, interviewing the musicians, and transcribing the music.

Levin hopes the CD will help the community take pride in its musical tradition; the album may even encourage tourism in the small mill town, he thinks.

Then again, it may not. Sites of Levin's last albums: Siberia, Central Asia, the Republic of Georgia, and Bosnia.

DEVIANCE AND SOCIAL CONTROL

WOMEN AND CULTURE

Hoist the Mainsail! Calculate the Parabola!

THIS IS NO MICKEY MOUSE COURSE

TO PASS, YOU HAVE TO SUBVERTTHE PARADIGM

FORGET CLARK KENT, LET'S LOOKAT LOIS LANE

CLASS PROJECT: CUT AN ALBUM