ʻATENISI INSTITUTE
An institute for critical education in the South Pacific
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Meʻetuʻupaki (2009)
HUMANITIES
E.L. 100, 200 • English Literature
In-depth analysis of selected novels, short stories, and plays by British, American, Canadian, Indian, South African, Australian, and New Zealand writers. The course focuses on the characterisation, plot, thematic development, and vocabulary of each work.
Fr.L. 100, 200 • French Language and Culture
Hist. 100 • Ancient Global History
The Sumerian and Semitic-speaking civilisations of the Tigris/Euphrates Rivers, the Nile River, and the Levant are contrasted with the Indo-European speaking civilisations of Persia, Greece, and Rome, with the tension between tyranny, oligarchy and populism closely studied in the latter two.
Hist. 120, 220 • History of Tonga and Sāmoaʻatoa
The course is an intensive critical study of Tonga and its historical connection to Samoa’atoa, an ancestral socio-political type of organisation in Polynesia. The course’s scope will extend to the socio-politics of contemporary Tonga.
Phil. 110 • Introduction to Political Philosophy
See Political Studies 110
Phil. 115 • Philosophy of Language
The course is a reasoned inquiry into the origins of language, the nature of meaning, the usage and cognition of language, and the relationship between language and reality. It asks questions like “What is meaning?”, “How does language refer to the real world?”, “Is language learned or is it innate?”, and “How does the meaning of a sentence emerge out of its parts?”
SCIENCE
Env.S. 100 • Introduction to Sustainability
This course begins with the history and roots of sustainability in environmental science. It next explores various concepts of sustainability. It concludes with the application of sustainability to architecture and the local Tongan situation. Upon completion, the student will be literate regarding sustainability and will be able to engage critically with its principles and implications.
Math. 100 • Basic Mathematics
The course reviews basic calculation skills in a wide context. It begins by examining the history of mathematics, starting with the ancient Babylonians and Greeks, then traces the ensuing philosophical development of the discipline. Throughout the survey, the course will focus on the application of mathematics to the problems of everyday life.
ARTS
Mus. 100 • Introduction to Music
The course examines the fundamentals of music, focusing on identifying tones and pitches (as well as their rhythm and duration) bass and treble clefs, scales, intervals, key signatures, and harmonic analysis. Using these musical building blocks, students develop practical skills in keyboard, ear and sight training, voice leading, and harmony construction.
Mus. 105 • Vocal Training
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Anth. 100 • Introduction to Anthropology
The course examines the history of anthropology from the first ethnographers of Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, and from the first developments of anthropology as a scientific discipline in the mid-19th century to the more recent trends of the late 20th. The evolution of key concepts – e.g., culture, society, and race – are traced through the study of the main theoretical schools of thought – e.g., evolutionism, functionalism, diffusionism, Marxism, and structuralism.
Econ. 100 • Introduction to Economic Thought
The economic perspective of ancient Greece, via Aristotle, and medieval Islam, via Ibn Khaldun, frames the ensuing Western European debate between mercantilism, physiocracy, and the simple capitalism proposed by Adam Smith. The course next considers the abuses of industrial capitalism and its catalysis of the Marxian critique.
Geog. 102 • Social Geography
An overview of the elements of geography – planetary movement, cartography, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere – followed by an analysis of how these elements interact with demographics, urbanisation, agriculture, and socio-political change.
Geog. 110 • Civilisation and Culture
In different places of the world people live – and have lived – in their environment in different ways. These different worldviews play a role in each person’s daily reality, such as his or her academic or workplace environment. Civilisation is a kind of relationship between human society and the natural world, with the degree to which a particular society is civilised measurable on a scale of its own making. But cannot it cannot be called a civilisation if it does not possess culture.
Geog. 118 • Global Preservation
Global preservation entails preservation of cultural and natural heritage. Cultural heritage refers to monuments, buildings and sites with historical, aesthetic, archeological, scientific, ethnological or anthropological value. Natural heritage refers to outstanding physical, geological or biological features and includes habitat of threatened species, as well as areas with scientific, environmental or aesthetic value.
Pol.St. 110 • Introduction to Political Philosophy
The initial democratic idealism of Pericles is placed in counterpoint to the empiricism of Aristotle and Machiavelli … as well as the authoritarianism of Plato and Hobbes. The liberalism of Locke, Montesquieu, and the U.S. and (early) French Revolution is next contrasted with the transcendentalism of Hegel and elitism of Nietzsche.
Psych. 105 • Introduction to Social Psychology
An interdisciplinary examination of the psychology of social groups. The discipline generally studies concepts of the self within groups, as well as social perception and attitudes; these components are then presumed to interactively shape social conformity, affiliation, cohesion, and cooperation, as well as rebellion, alienation, aggression, and conflict.