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Course Criteria
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2.00 Credits
How we speak provides a window into the social nature of human beings. The dialects that we speak are intertwined with the place we live, in addition to our gender, race, and social class. This course explores the interplay of language in society and its correlation with identity, privilege, stereotypes and code-switching, in areas such as school and the workplace. We will discover these aspects of language and society through popular articles and documentary films in the fields of linguistics and education.
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2.00 Credits
This course is focused on digital ethnography as a means to study how culture shapes and is shaped by social media. We will focus on the symbolic and cultural elements of technology in the roles it plays in fashion, social protests, revolutions and building community amongst marginalized groups. While it is arguable that social media has had positive effects, such as the democratization of the Internet, this course will also study negative effects of social media, such as cyber bullying, sexual predators and isolation. The focus of this course is on the collection of information that social media produces and/or encourages and the impact it has on a particular group or movement regardless of geographic limits. We will pay special attention to how people are motivated or, as some would argue, manipulated to feel empathy for marginalized groups, get involved in politics and partake in events around the globe from the safety of their homes. You will be required to participate in social networks such as Tumblr, Twitter, Vine, YouTube and Snapchat. There are no traditional essays for this course. Instead your final will result in a Tumblr page that serves as an archive that draws on the "feelings" produced by social media.
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4.00 Credits
This course aims to study the evolution of sex in mainstream films through a selection of U.S. films from the late 1920s to our present time. We begin with the pre-code Hollywood era. These films were made between the introduction of sound and the adoption and enforcement of the Motion Picture Guidelines, better known as the Hayes Code, which censored overt depictions of sex, illegal drug use and extreme violence. The films chosen from this period explore strong female characters whose sexuality and violent behavior are seen as heroic. This course then moves on to the sexploitation films of the 1960s. Filled with gratuitous nudity and outrageous plots, these films both embrace and abuse the ideology of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Although emerging at around the same time as Sexploitation films, the Golden Age of Porn depicts non-simulated sex acts on film. These films were shown across the U.S. in regular movie theaters. Norman Mailer described this period in American film as "living in a world between crime and art." This brief, and some would argue, magical moment in the American film industry lasted from 1972 until 1975 when the US Supreme Court began to effectively crack down on "obscene films". With the law hot on their tracks and the mass-market effect of the VCR, non-simulated sex films went underground. This course ends with the recent turn towards non-simulated sex on films of the last ten years. The films selected for this section of the course bring together the fearless approach to sexuality of the pre-code era, the fun, and, in some cases, exploitative nature of Sexploitation and the graphic depiction of the Golden Age of Porn. One of the goals of this course is to explore what sex on film can teach us about social conventions in relationship to law, science, politics and religion. The pedagogical and theoretical approach of this course is through a feminist perspective and looks at how feminists discuss sex on film. Some feminists take a militant stance that sex on film-regardless of its artistic qualities-are always misogynistic. But there are other feminists who believe that there is value (and dare I say virtue) in depicting simulated and non-simulated sex on films. This point of conflict-what is the social/artistic/political worth/meaning of sex-will fuel many of our conversations. Please note that most of these films have been banned (at one time or another) and, in some cases, the filmmakers and actresses/actors arrested due to obscenity laws in the U.S. and abroad.
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4.00 Credits
Participants will travel to Western India to explore and understand social, cultural, economic, and environmental determinants of health through coursework, field trips, and service learning activities, primarily in the village of Wai, Maharashtra. Students will engage with local schools, women's groups, and community centers to advance community health and social entrepreneurship, primarily through the art of storytelling. Students and local community members will share and record their exchanges through written, oral, or visual stories that will be the basis of a multimedia reflective project that students will submit after the trip. In addition to immersion and service work in Wai, students will gain a broad appreciation for the range of Indian culture, history, and health conditions by visiting sites of cultural importance. Trip leaders have expertise in global health, Indian culture, literature, and storytelling, and social entrepreneurship. The transformative learning that takes place through active listening and learning with community groups and first hand observations of the broader pursuit of health and wellbeing in India will shape each student's personal philosophy of global citizenship.
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2.00 Credits
This course will feature some of the best short stories published in Europe, Latin America, and the United States since the 19th century. While reading a wide assortment of texts each week, we will explore critical questions of genre and enjoy the unity of effect developed in these literary masterpieces. Our list of authors will include Chekhov, de Maupassant, Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Joyce, Orwell, Borges, Cortazar, Marquez, Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, Wharton, Chopin, Jackson, and many other outstanding modern writers.
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2.00 Credits
This is a workshop course in crime fiction. You will write two short crime fiction stories for workshop and read a variety of works spanning a period from 1920-2010. Readings will include works by Raymond Chandler, Donna Tartt, Walter Mosley among others. We will explore narrative structures, characterization, and style to develop plot. In the process, we will learn how forensics construct crime motives and compare that with how writers construct character motives.
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4.00 Credits
This course aims to study the ethics of video game culture by playing video games. Our class time will be split between playing across different video game genres (such as role-playing video games, action-adventure, life simulation games, strategy video games, sports games, music games, etc.) and participating in current academic debates around gaming and game studies. Our class discussions will engage with the ludic and narrative elements of game theory while at the same time considering gaming as a practice that engages with traditional constructs of race, class and gender. This engagement at times challenges the traditional view that gamers are white and male. As seen with #gamergate, the misogynistic nature of online gaming, which does not exist in a vacuum, demonstrates a strong resistance to accepting female players. Our theoretical approach will be based on the works of Clara Fernndez-Vara, Jane McGonigal, Anita Sarkeesian, Graeme Kirkpatrick and Miguel Sicart. This course does not require prior experience with gaming but I welcome students who can bring their experience (along with their games) to our class discussions. The requirements of this course are weekly reaction papers in the form of vlogs.
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2.00 Credits
This course concerns the genre-bending fiction of Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentinian thinker who wrote fascinating and easy-to-read short stories that simultaneously constitute philosophical investigations of freedom, being, reality and illusion, ethics, identity, and the nature of creativity. We will read a modest collection of his short stories and discuss them in seminar style.
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2.00 Credits
Since the first publication of Dungeons and Dragons in 1974, roleplaying games have been viewed as an esoteric-even dangerous-pastime enjoyed by a fringe culture. This misconception ignores the long history of roleplaying in education (going back to ancient Greece), the popularity of parlor games with roleplaying elements in Renaissance and 19th-century Europe, not to mention the widespread use of roleplaying in theatre and of world-building in literature. Real Fantasy: Roleplaying Games in Society examines roleplaying games (RPGs) from rhetorical, literary, historical, philosophical, sociological, and psychological perspectives. We will examine how RPGs address the problem of evil, depict gender, and have inspired not only many aspects of popular culture but have informed forensic psychology. Assignments will include an ethnography based on first-hand observations of interactions in an RPG group.
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4.00 Credits
Magical realism has been one of the most popular literary styles in contemporary world literature. Originated in Europe, reshaped in Latin America, and popularized all over the world, it has fascinated international audiences with its elements of the fantastic and surreal. This course will explore some of the most innovative examples of magical realist literature and film produced in Latin America and other parts of the world. Class discussions and assignments will be in English, but those proficient in Spanish may choose to read and write in Spanish.
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