Emory QUEST: Intellectual Journeys with Emory Faculty

Dr. Ricardo Gutiérrez-Mouat is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, as well as the Honors coordinator for LACS and the Spanish Department. Dr. Gutierrez-Mouat is the author and editor of three books and many articles of literary criticism published in professional j...ournals.

Magic realism took off in Latin America with Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and is now a global literary style. In Latin America, magic realism was both an attempt to connect with the history of the region and a critique of European realism’s inability to address a culture grounded in myth and utopian visions. As magic realism spread internationally, critics connected it with emancipation from colonial domination. Join this discussion of three acclaimed novels by authors characterized by their cultural diversity (Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, and Toni Morrison), as we relate their narrative style to the political visions they embody. Tuition includes textbooks.Read More

Dr. Hashem Dezhbakhsh has taught at Emory University, Ohio State University, Purdue University, and University of Cape Town in doctoral, bachelors, masters, and executive MBA programs. Dr. Dezhbakhsh’s articles have appeared in leading economic journals, and his research has been cited in publications such as Newsweek,... USA Today, Economist, New York Times, and the Chicago Sun-Times. He has appeared as an expert on many radio talk shows including NPR as well as on CNN, FOX News Channel, and ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates in Atlanta. Dr. Dezhbakhsh is the recipient of several awards including Emory University’s Williams Distinguished Teaching Award.

Confused by the economic jargon used by the experts to explain the current financial crisis? Worried about the impact on your economic well-being? Gain an intuitive understanding of the crisis, its causes and potential effects, and explore proposals to mitigate its impact. We’ll discuss the mortgage market, the Fed’s actions and monetary policy, and the credit crunch in the banking system. Once we understand the roots of the problem, we’ll examine remedies (including the $700 billion bailout), reforms, and the economic outlook for the U.S. We end by discussing strategies you can use to guard against the adverse effects of this historic crisis.Read More

Prior to joining the Center for Ethics, Dr. Queen served as Faculty and Curriculum Development Advisor to the Faculty of Law of South East European University, Macedonia where he taught courses on the transition to democracy. A specialist in issues related to religion and culture and religion and philanthropy, Dr. Que...en's research interests are religion and nonprofits, professional ethics, democratization, human rights, and civil society.

From Terry Schiavo to primate rights, genocide to female genital mutilation, the headlines confront us with new ethical issues and bring us deeper awareness of old ones. Advances in medicine, information technology, and the media make us increasingly aware of challenges to our understanding of right and wrong. Examine some of the emerging contemporary moral dilemmas ripped, as the saying goes, from today’s headlines. Gain greater facility in thinking about moral decisions in a culture permeated by the twin poles of relativism and absolutism, and challenged by technological advances that impact our very understanding of what it means to be human.Read More

Dr. Shalom Goldman taught at Dartmouth College from 1987 to 1996 and has been teaching at Emory since 1997. Dr. Goldman has published many works and his recent book is God’s Sacred Tongue: Hebrew & the American Imagination. Dr. Goldman has lectured at universities in Europe and the U.S. and in 1999-2000 was visiting ...professor at the University of Tel Aviv.

How has Iraq’s history brought it to the forefront of today’s geopolitics? It was in ancient Iraq that the world’s first cities developed, the first places of worship were built, and the first school system was organized. Early Islamic Iraq was acutely attuned to its Mesopotamian origins, an awareness that persists even today as Iraq’s ancient narratives have been reinterpreted in modernity. During Saddam Hussein's rule, the glories of Mesopotamian civilizations, including their military prowess, were used to justify Baath party policies. Discussions are complemented with slides from archeological sites, Iraq’s Islamic arts, and political posters of the Baath period. Tuition includes textbooks.Read More

Dr. Lori Marino is an adjunct faculty member in Emory’s Department of Psychology and is a Research Associate with The Smithsonian Institution. In 2001, Dr. Marino and her colleague Diana Reiss published the first evidence for mirror self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins in the Proceedings of the National Academy of S...ciences.

Because animals can’t speak, scientists use behavior-based tests and observation to assess their abilities to learn and remember, and to solve problems. Advances in the study of animal behavior confirm that humans and other animals share much of their psychological make-up and that other animals have surprisingly sophisticated cognitive capacities. Dolphins and whales possess cultural traditions. Great apes have a sophisticated understanding of tool use. Magpies recognize themselves in mirrors, and dogs maintain mental images of human faces. Explore the intriguing subjects of animal intelligence, emotion, and self-awareness. Learn about these exciting scientific findings and examine the implications for our relationship with other animals and our own nature.Read More

Dr. Sheila Cavanagh previously served as the Masse-Martin/NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor and serves as editor of the Spenser Review. Dr. Cavanagh is also the Director of the Emory Women Writers’ Research Project, an award-winning web project that features writing by women from the 16th - 20th centuries.

The unive...rsal themes in Shakespeare’s plays continue to captivate audiences around the world. Join us as we explore films that are as diverse as the countries they represent. See a Chinese Hamlet in the tradition of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and Peking Opera adaptations of Hamlet and Macbeth. Enjoy India’s Othello and Macbeth set in the criminal underworld. Discuss Finland’s Hamlet farce, New Zealand’s Maori Merchant of Venice, and a Macbeth set in Madagascar, using local fishermen as actors. Learn more about the central textual issues in Shakespeare’s plays across a range of diverse and intriguing international cinematic cultures. Tuition includes copies of the plays.Read More

Dr. Andrew Mitchell has published on the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Bataille, as well as on the work of James Joyce and the films of Fassbinder. Dr. Mitchell was a post-doctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Stanford University where he taught in the German Studies and Philosophy departments before joinin...g Emory.

Discover the major ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: the will to power, the eternal recurrence of the same, and his conception of a "death" of God. A pivotal point in Nietzsche’s career is the 1882 book The Gay Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft), which introduces such crucial themes as the death of God, the importance of giving style to one’s character, and the injunction to live dangerously. By close-reading this important work in its entirety, we’ll learn how different philosophies either foster or hinder the growth of life, and how the claim that “God is dead” is a call for the centrality of interpretation in our lives. Tuition includes textbook Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science. Recommended text: David Allison, Reading the New Nietzsche.Read More