Tentative Course Outline:

See also: Discussion Section Outline

Introduction Click on blue titles for lecture notes Updated: January 15, 2007
Lecture 1	Play: More Than Just Fun and Games (Assignment: “Why Play = Learning: A Challenge for Parents and Educators”/Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, and Singer; “Why Grudman was so keen”/Nelson and Cohen; In the News - “Inside the Teen Brain”; Optional: “Meeting the 'Chocolate Slaves”/Hawksley; In the News - “The Parent Trap”)
Lecture 2	Play Theories (Assignment: “Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon”/Huizinga; Optional: In the News - “Enjoy the video game? Then join the Army”)
Lecture 3	The Sexual Selection Theory of Play
Lecture 4	Animal Emotions and Animal Play (Assignment: “Social Play Behavior: Cooperation, Fairness, Trust, and the Evolution of Morality”/Bekoff; “Play’s the Thing”/Furlow)
Lecture 5	Play and Its Relationship to Violence and Genius (Assignment: “Play as an Organizing Principle: Clinical Evidence and Personal Observations”/Brown; Endangered Species: Play and Creativity, Consuming Kids, Chapter 4 –/Linn)
Lecture 6	Utopian Visions and B.F. Skinner (“A Well-being Manifesto for a Flourishing Society”)
Lecture 7	Discovering Walden Two
Lecture 8	The Making of Things (Assignment: “The Extravagant Gesture: Nature, Design, and Transformation of Human Industry”/McDonough and Braungart; Optional: In the News - "Building in Green" )
Lecture/ film 9	The Search for Meaning (Optional: “In the Beginning: Missing Pages in Our Photo Album of the Infant Universe”/Loeb)
Lecture 10	School of Rock: John Lennon’s Search for Meaning (1980 Playboy interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono)
Lecture 11	Waiting for the Weekend (Assignment: Waiting for the Weekend, Chapter 5/Rybczynski; Optional:The Overworked American, Chapter 2/Schor “Bring Back the Sabbath”/Shulevitz) Leisure Theory #1/Compensation and Spillover
Lecture 12	Branded Nation (Assignment: On Advertising: Sut Jhally vs. James Twitchell) Leisure Theory #2/Iso-Ahola's Pyramid (Assignment: "Leisure Needs and Motives"/Iso-Ahola; In the News - "TV found to be a painkiller for children")
Lecture 13	Exploiting Our Children (Assignment: Consuming Kids, Chapter 5 – Students for Sale: Who Profits from Marketing in Schools?/Linn "Little Spenders"/People; Optional: Consuming Kids, Chapter 6 – Through Thick and Thin: The Weighty Problem of Food Marketing/Linn)
Lecture 14	Hectic Families and Stagnant Happiness (Assignment: “A Theory of Human Motivation”/Maslow; Take Back Your Time, Chapter 5 – Overscheduled Kids, Underconnected Families/de Graaf; “We're Not in the Mood”/Newsweek; Optional: “Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Generation”/Fitzsimmons; In the News - “Study: 25% of Americans Have No One to Confide In”; In the News - “19 Minutes – How Long Working Parents Give Their Children”) Leisure Theory #3/Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow ( Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man/Russell)
Lecture 15	Growing Old Is Not For Sissies, show The Checker King film The Checker King must be completed
Final Exam

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