Confucius, Mencius, Zhuangzi and other Chinese thinkers who lived more than 2,000 years ago would argue that the contemporary Western emphasis on self-discovery (Find yourself) and self-acceptance has led you astray. See what they have to say and discuss what relevance it has for the modern world as we study how early Chinese thinkers wrestled with questions of existence, morality, and governance. No previous knowledge of Chinese philosophy and history will be assumed and no prerequisites are required. We will discuss ideas that are both historical and relevant to students' lives. What is "the Way"? How do we cultivate spontaneity? Is there a stable self? How can we be more alive? These are questions important for ancient kings but also for UMD students choosing a major, or wondering how ARHU can benefit them.

Muslims and Urdu feature prominently in the Hindi cinema of Bollywood, which is centered in the cosmopolitan, coastal city of Mumbai, India. Urdu is Bollywood's preferred language of love, duty, and sacrifice, but it is also closely associated with India's minority Muslim community--the world's largest--and with the conventions of a feudal past. This course introduces students to scholarly methods used to understand how films have represented the nation and its minorities, paying close attention to visual and sonic aesthetics. Upon completion, students will have mastered basic terms and vocabulary of cinematic analysis, studied key concepts from Indian and South Asian Studies needed to contextualize the films culturally and historically, and applied concepts from Cultural Studies to critically analyze representations of identity, power, and media.

Introduces issues of linguistic diversity in the framework of the U.S. as a multilingual society. Special emphasis is placed on attitudes toward language diversity, specifically, how regional, social, generational, ethnic, racial and gender differences in language use contribute to notions of identity.