--------------------------------- Course Catalog from February 1995 --------------------------------- U.S. FOREIGN POLICY Faculty: Noam Chomsky & Stephen R. Shalom There is a mainstream consensus on U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War which fails in one crucial respect: it is utterly false--false as description and false as explanation. This course will provide an alternative analysis of U.S. foreign policy since World War II, trying to illuminate the actual record and the ways in which policy has been rooted in the structures of U.S. society. The examination of the historical patterns should facilitate understanding of current-day policies and those we can expect in the future. Topics to be covered will include U.S.-Soviet contention, Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Middle East, Central America, and the end of the Cold War, the Gulf War, Somalia, and Haiti. Readings will be provided online. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIME, WORK, AND MONEY: U.S. CONSUMERISM Faculty: Juliet Schor Consumerism has found fertile ground in the United States: malls are now the main public space, commercials saturate our culture, and kids kill for sneakers. Savings rates have been falling and millions of American are deeply in debt. In this course we will take a critical look at consumerism, trying to understand where it came from, where it's headed, and how people are resisting it. We will explore the various contexts of consumer society: its history; connections to work, including the "work and spend" cycle; time use and consumerism; social processes such as "keeping up with the Joneses"; consumption and addiction; the environmental impacts of consumerism; the globalization of consumer culture; and anti-consumerist movements. The course will draw on economics, sociology, history, and other fields. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONCEPTUALIZING A BETTER ECONOMY Faculty: Michael Albert People opposed to exploitation, alienation, ecological degradation and the many other ills that characterize contemporary economic life are often asked--OK, so what are you for? This course is devoted to developing answers to this question. We will not present a set of answers, fait accompli. We will instead together develop the conceptual tools and insights prerequisite to developing answers, only later using these to develop and evaluate some competing models for what a better economy might be like. Along the way we will develop a participatory economic vision and evaluate social democratic as well as market and centrally planned post capitalist alternatives. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - INTRO TO POLITICAL ECONOMY Faculty: Robin Hahnel What is economic activity? Economic efficiency? What types of economic institutions exist and what are their effects? What are classes and how do they affect societies and economies? How do individual capitalist economies differ: U.S., Swedish, Japanese, French. What are the defining features of non-capitalist economies (Cuba, China, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia)? How do markets work? How do we evaluate them? How do they impact on the ecology, on people's lives and development? What is going on when the U.S. government uses fiscal and monetary policies to influence the economy? What social and economic motives are at work in debates about health care, full employment, welfare, etc. and in efforts to affect interest rates, employment levels and other economic indices? How do trade and foreign investment affect economies? These and other issues having to do with contemporary economic life will be our focus. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE U.S. Faculty: Howard Zinn This course will be based on a reading of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, and a dialogue with the author. As Zinn writes in the introductory chapter. "...in that inevitable taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis in history, I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil War as seen by the New York Irish, of the Mexican War as seen by the deserting soldiers of Scott's army, of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, of the Spanish-American War as seen by the Cubans, the conquest of the Philippines as seen by black soldiers on Luzon, the Gilded Age as seen by southern farmers, the First World War as seen by socialists, the Second World War as seen by pacifists, the New Deal as seen by blacks in Harlem, the postwar American empire as seen by Peons in Latin America." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - STRATEGIC RESEARCH FOR EFFECTIVE ANALYSIS Faculty: Holly Sklar & Chip Berlet This course will provide training in research, investigative reporting, and analysis. Participants will have the opportunity to conduct their own research projects individually or in groups. Topics to be covered through readings and discussion will include: methodologies for planning and carrying out research projects; essential information sources-- print and electronic; computerized databases and on-line research; different styles of storing and retrieving information; finding expert sources; techniques for conducting phone and in-person interviews; developing a cooperative research style; logic and rational methodology; point of view and ethical obligations. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ELECTRONIC ACTIVISM ON THE INTERNET Faculty: Harel Barzilai In this course, students will use the Internet as a tool with which to explore this very medium. We will explore the Internet as a communication and information resource generally, and as a tool for 'electronic activism' in particular. Participants will learn about email, automated email-servers, mailing lists and list-servers, the UseNet (the world's largest bulletin board system) ftp, gopher, telnet, the world wide web, and more. Homework exercises (optional, of course) will allow participants to make this as 'hands-on' an experience as they choose. Examples will be given, from anti-Gulf War organizing, to more recent anti-Contract With America coalitions, illustrating electronic activism in practice. In addition to learning the 'tools of the trade' of electronic activism, we will compare and discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages for everything from coalition-building to electronic leafleting. We will also explore the "online culture", especially on the noncommercial and quasi-anarchic UseNet, including how UseNet and the radical "GNU" project have provided, online, living proof of the power of cooperative rather than competitive economics. We will conclude by discussing the tremendous potentials, as well as pitfalls, ahead of us on the 'information super-highway' -- from privatization and commercialization, to the great potential of democratizing the airwaves through internet 'virtual broadcasting' radio (and eventually TV) stations beaming left/activist programs directly into America's homes. The information highway offers seeds for creating and sustaining a truly democratized media -- provided activists take the initiative rather than leaving things to Corporate America. Course graduates will be in the position to be actors in, not merely spectators of, this unfolding drama. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Bio: Harel Barzilai, an electronic activist since the late 1980s, is co-founder and co-moderator of the ACTIV-L mailing list and the UseNet newsgroup "misc.activism.progressive" (MAP), with a global readership of 30,000 to 60,000. His _Electronic Activism: Part I_ has been electronically published throughout the world, including being translated into Spanish and Dutch -- in fact, it was text-converted by fellow LOLU faculty member, Chip Berlet. Parts I and II of _Electronic Activism_ will form the basis for the first part of the course. He has been a volunteer/consultant for IGC (PeaceNet/EcoNet/LaborNet); the 1992 presidential campaign of former mayor of Irvine, Larry Agran; The Nation; Z and LBBS; FAIR; Mark Achbar (co-producer of _Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media_) and David Barsamian; and others. He welcomes further inquiries, including about the course, at "harelb@igc.org".