The Dial
(Elective Upper Division Courses)
The Compass Dial has four points. Choose your course so that the disciplinary and intellectual direction you take feeds your passion and advances the goals you’ve set for your Compass journey. All courses are three credits.
Battleground: European War and Remembrance, 1914 – 1989
(History 397)
If you’re a history major, or just love history, then get ready for the most intense and dynamic course of your life. Focusing on the key national histories and entanglements that caused the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War, Battleground will show you how and why Europe was ripped apart so brutally in the 20th century. Prepare for a difficult and emotionally charged interrogation into the torturous meanings of what the brutally conflicting ideologies of modern life did to this continent. Verdun, The Somme, Auschwitz, Normandy, Potsdam and Check Point Charlie: You won’t ever see a map of Europe again without remembering how these places and so many like them conspired to make our world what it is now.To meet your Battleground professor, click here.
Madness: Civilization and its Psychopathologies from Freud through the Cold War.
(Psychology 492)
Are you a student of psychology or sociology fascinated by the “fear and loathing” of the 20th century mind? Then welcome to your home on The Dial. Few entry points into “the modern condition” are as powerful as the themes selected for Madness. Starting in Berlin, you will examine how the Nazis and their Communist counterparts studied and used the theories of psychology to underlay their propaganda, politics and torture techniques. Next, you will chart a topography of terror that characterized the trembling lives of soldiers, prisoners and civilians during and after the world wars. Finally, you will delve deeply into the history of psychiatry and psychopathology, with Charcot’s Paris and Freud’s London as your classrooms.
Spysight: Surveillance and Survival in the 20th Century European Police State (Political Science 499)
Do you devour spy novels? Ever wonder about the “world of shadows” that was the life and death of so many practitioners of espionage before, during and after the world wars of the last century? What about the ”internal enemies” that Fascists, Nazis, Bolsheviks and Communists identified, spied on, captured, tortured and murdered in the police states of Europe and the Soviet Union? If these are issues you care about, then Spysight is your Dial class on The Compass. And the former headquarters of the Gestapo in Berlin, as well as the archival repository of the even more dreaded Stasi police, will be among the learning sites that will haunt you and your classmates as you plot your pathway on the Compass Dial.To meet your Spysight professor, click here
Shutter/SPEED: Flashpoints of Beauty in the Empire of the Camera (Art 499)
Camera optics were originally not fast enough to keep up with the human smile. By the time that changed, the pace of modern life had increased to a frenzied degree that nobody could have imagined when photography began. If you love art, museums, cameras and photography, dial Shutter/SPEED for your Compass journey and prepare to see life in an entirely new way. As you traverse The Compass cities, you will make galleries, museums, urban ruins, monuments and the hidden vestiges of Europe’s complicated past your unforgettable classrooms.