Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Jan. 4, 2002 — A new spring semester course at Williams College, “Terrorism & National Security” (Sociology 202) will be open to community residents on a space available basis.
The course will focus on an analysis of modern terrorism, its threat to national security, and actions in countering terrorist acts. Biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction will be discussed, as well as the media’s influence on the public’s view of terrorism.
Attention will be paid to the resurgence of militant Islam and the reasons for its antagonism toward the west; the recruitment, training, and indoctrination of terrorists; the ideologies and self-images of terrorists, terrorist attacks and their social psychological effects on American citizens, the structure and ethos of intelligence work, the investigation of terrorist networks and their financing, and the control of illegal immigration.
Robert Jackall, Gaudino scholar and Class of 1956 Professor of Sociology & Social Thought will teach the course. Throughout the course, experts in different fields will give guest lectures.
It will meet from Jan. 31 to May 9, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:20 a.m. to 12:35 p.m. Participants are expected to be able to attend all class meetings. Those interested in enrolling in the course, are asked to email their request to [email protected].
Jackall, who received his B.A. from Fordham University and his Ph.D. from New School for Social Research, has taught at Williams since 1976, and served as chair of the department of anthropology and sociology from 1984 to 1991 and again from 1993 to 1994. He has done extensive fieldwork in several worlds: corporations, public relations and advertising agencies, and most recently, the New York City Police Department and the office of the District Attorney of New York. His books include “Image Makers: Advertising, Public Relations, and the Ethos of Advocacy,” “Wild Cowboys: Urban Marauders and the Forces of Order,” and “Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers,” among others. He is also the general co-editor of Main Trends of the Modern World, a twelve-book series that brings together classical and contemporary analyses of the institutional foundations of modern society.
He has received numerous awards and honors, including two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and research grants from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. In 2001, he was chosen Gaudino scholar from among the Williams faculty “to be an independent and critical voice, working for the good of the whole community” by promoting intellectual experiences for students “that have the creative potential to unsettle and disturb.”
The course “Terrorism & National Security” is a Gaudino Course Initiative and made possible through the generosity of the Gaudino Fund.
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Published January 4, 2002
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