Course Offerings Include `Justice'

Other than the mysterious substance used to smear the formula of ozone on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Courses of Instruction, this year's catalog differs from last year's in several ways.

Perhaps most notable is the renewed availability of the perennial Core favorite Moral Reasoning 22, "Justice," last offered in 1990-91.

"The Sandel course has traditionally been large," said Susan W. Lewis, director of the Core program.

This year's Core offerings include about the usual ration of new to old, she said, and no one can predict which will be largest.

"Of the new courses, it's always nearly impossible to tell," she said. "It's very hard for us to second-guess you."

Perennial favorites like Social Analysis 10 and Literature and Arts C-14 are expected to remain large, she said, but the popular Historical Studies A-12 is taught this year by Stanley Hoffmann and J. Lawrence Broz.

Lewis pointed out that Hoffman originated the class often identified with Joseph S. Nye, but students will have to wait for the spring to figure out how, other than the trademarked Hoffman accent, the course will differ.

Historical Study B-37, "The Baroque: Forms of Authority in 17th-century Europe," is vanished with much-mourned Simon M. Schama, who has moved to Columbia University.

And new professor Sela Benhabib, a specialist in continental and feminist political theory, offers new core Moral Reasoning 50, "The Public and Private in Politics, Morality and Law."

And finally, Lewis said that the apparently new course Historical Study A-70, "The World of the Great Powers, 1870-1890," which in a time twisting achievement will cover the Cold War, is nothing but a typo. The class' time period is actually 1870 through 1990, Lewis said.

Outside the 41 pages of the Core Curriculum, the number of new classes in the constantly dymanic FAS offerings is hard to pinpoint exactly.

Some of the more prominent:

Celebrity professor Spike Lee has returned again to offer Afro-American Studies 182, "Contemporary African-American Cinema." Also in Afro-American Studies, visiting professor Mark T. Tucker will offer a seminar on Duke Ellington tracing his history and importance for music and American culture.

The Creative Writing subdivision of the English Department has expanded its offerings of uniquely named--all are three letters, rather than course numbers--classes. More options are available for fiction writers than they saw in the past, and Jamaica Kincaid returns to teach English Cvr, "Fiction Writing."

And English 5 and English 6 have broken the department's offerings into the single digits again. Five is an introduction to poetry and six is a drama survey class for beginners.