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MCWP 50 Course Descriptions

All students with more than 90 cumulative units will receive notification from the Muir Writing office before enrolling in MCWP courses.

  • Important Note: Unenrolled students (including those on the waitlist) who miss any class meeting of Muir Writing will be considered NOT ELIGIBLE to enroll in the course. Enrolled students who miss the first two class sessions will be asked to drop. Responsibility for dropping the class from the Registrar’s records belongs solely to the student.
  • The reading and writing requirements are the same for all sections.
  • Books can be purchased through the UC San Diego Bookstore.

MCWP 50 TOPICS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

 

 

Texts

The Craft of Research, Fourth Edition

  • The Craft of Research, Fourth Edition by Wayne Booth, Gregory Colomb, Joseph Williams, Joseph Bizup and William T. FitzGerald

A Writer's Reference 10th Edition

  • A Writer's Reference, 10th Edition by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers 

Please purchase it from the bookstore, as we have a version that is specific for the Muir College Writing Program.

Photocopied Reader

Each class will have its own required reader that can be purchased through UCSD bookstore.

Spring 2023

Centering Indigenous Perspectives (Social and Environmental Justice)

The acronym BIPOC, which stands for “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color,” is increasingly deployed by activists, journalists, and scholars in broader conversations about systemic racism, social justice, and structural inequality. While many use this term to highlight shared connections, some critics argue that it is a term with the ability to obscure, rather than elevate, the unique experiences of these groups within the United States, as well as their differences. In this course, we will read a variety of texts by scholars that focus on issues central to Indigenous peoples and communities in the 21st century. Our class will examine the arguments of these scholars, and others in our class discussions, to increase our knowledge of how such arguments are created. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

138709

001

TTh 9:30-10:50

HSS 2305A

David Quijada 

138784

012

MW 8:00-9:20

HSS 2305A

Kelly Silva

138795

013

MW 9:30-10:50

HSS 2305A

Kelly Silva

138803

018

TTh 8:00-9:20

MANDE B-146

Pamela Redela

138804

019

TTh 9:30-10:50

MANDE B-146

Pamela Redela

138850

028

TTh 11:00-12:20

HSS 2305A

David Quijada

Where Science Meets Community for Better Mental Health (Science)

In response to the high rates of mental health needs, this course will encourage students to engage in and critically examine new medical, psychological, sociology, technology, and education research to provide equitable, accessible, and culturally sensitive mental health treatment. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, our class will examine the arguments of scholars and others in our class discussions to increase our knowledge of how such arguments are created. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

138713

002

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2346A

Andrea Carter

138718

003

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 2346A

Andrea Carter

138775

010

TTh 11:00-12:20

MANDE B-146

Kathleen Bryan

"Let's Get in Formation": Race, Gender, & Intersectionality in Popular Culture (Social and Environmental Justice)

With movements such as #OscarsSoWhite, Popular Culture institutions like Hollywood are increasingly critiqued for their nefarious lack of diversity, inclusion, and equity. This course questions the historical legacies, and contemporary violences, of ideological and economic practices that have often marginalized and exploited people of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people with disabilities. Focusing on media that blend narratives with visuals--film, television, commercials, public speeches, concerts, and music videos--students in this course will interrogate how Popular Culture has been, or can be, leveraged in the building or dismantling of systemic oppressions. Our class will examine the arguments and performances of scholars and public figures in our investigation of how Popular Culture renews, revises, and resists institutional and individual investments in white, wealthy, patriarchal, heteronormative, able-bodied privileges. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

138725

004

MW 3:30-4:50

HSS 2305A

Haydee Smith

138727

005

MW 5:00-6:20

HSS 2305A

Haydee Smith

138730

006

TTh 2:00-3:20

HSS 2305A

Jarret Krone

138732

007

TTh 3:30-4:50

HSS 2305A

Jarret Krone

How to Make a Monster (Humanities)

Through time and across cultures, humanity has invented monsters as a way of conceptualizing, understanding, and even “exorcising” that which it fears. The difference of the Other is certainly a fear all societies have had, and continue to have. Fear of the queer, fear of the immigrant, fear of the disabled, fear of the woman—each of these (and more) have been made monstrous in the arts and in public discourse since time immemorial. Through an engagement with texts engaging with Monster Theory, we can gain unique and urgent insight into how marginalized peoples are relegated to the margins in the first place.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

138769

008

TTh 8:00-9:20

HSS 2305B

Jennifer Carter

138770

009

TTh 9:30-10:50

HSS 2305B

Jennifer Carter

Empathy, Narrative, and Social Change (Social and Environmental Justice)

How do stories increase empathy ultimately help spark change in an increasingly divided society? In response to increasing racial, gender, and ideological divides, this course encourages students to explore the role of empathy and narrative in making social change. Through a variety of media and diverse voices, we will investigate how stories, specifically the creation of empathy through narrative, catalyze social movementsIn keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, our class will examine arguments of scholars, thinkers, storytellers and changemakers. Class discussions and individual research will help students craft a strong research-based argument about the role of empathy and narrative in a relevant social issue. 

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

138783

011

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 2305A

Michele Bigley

Talking to the People (Science)

In this course, we will read, discuss, and write about the academic research surrounding the communication from scientists and technologists to specific audiences, such as lawmakers, technology users, consumers, and patients. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

138796

014

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 2305B

Michael Morshed

138800

015

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 2305B

Michael Morshed

Show and tell: Visuality, Collection and Display (Humanities)

The human propensity to both collect and display things has been present in visual culture throughout history, including cabinets of curiosity, museum exhibitions, hobby collectors, and the movement to divest institutional interests. Conceptions of collections and display effect on the way we view things, what fine “art” is, and audience participation. This topic explores issues from the late nineteenth-century museum complex, object ownership, contemporary critique, and curatorial discourses within a global context.
How did we start accumulating all this stuff? What does it reveal about the collector and the viewer? Who are some of the groups denied access to these cultural activities?
Research projects will address how students can explore a topic around some of these debates and arguments. Possible research topics include emerging Indigenous inclusion and representation in institutions, the complex and interwoven histories of Black museum communities, or inquiries into outsider objects from folk communities.

Students will then propose a joint writing and research proposal to argue for their project viability, amass an annotated bibliography of sources, and create an academic research-based argument.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

138801

016

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 2305A

Vincent Pham

138802

017

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2305B

Vincent Pham

The Idea of News in America (Humanities)

Journalism in the United States today struggles through a variety of crises — economic, epistemic, and technological. Digital networks have upended traditional models of funding, distributing, and practicing journalism. In addition, cultural shifts have wrested journalism’s previous centrality to national discourse, even challenging the institution in what’s often called an era of “post-truth.”

In this theme, students will quickly survey a history of American media ¬— from the initially partisan function of colonial newspapers, through the professionalization of the practice of news gathering, to the commodification of news content. Students then will develop their own arguments about the role and future of contemporary journalism within this particular democracy.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

138843

026

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2305A

Thomas Conner

Winter 2023

Food Insecurity: Causes, Impacts, and Remedies (Science Track)

Feeding America’s recent report, Map the Meal Gap 2022, finds that “children’s food insecurity rates are higher than 40%” in some states’ counties. Moreover, Black and Latino individuals’ food insecurity rates are higher than those of white individuals in “almost 99%” of US counties. The racial inequities and escalating food prices that contribute to food insecurity are challenging our society to acknowledge and reverse food insecurity. Medical, scientific, and economic researchers have investigated different aspects of these inequities and base their arguments and recommendations on their research. Our class will examine the arguments of these researchers and others in our class discussions to increase our knowledge of how authors develop their arguments. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

104232

001

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 2346A

Carrie Wastal

Talking to the People (Science track)

In this course, we will read, discuss, and write about the academic research surrounding the communication from scientists and technologists to specific audiences, such as lawmakers, technology users, consumers, and patients. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

104236

005

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 2305B

Michael Morshed

104238

007

TTH 2:00-3:20

McGill 2315

Michael Morshed

104239

008

TTH 3:30-4:50

McGill 2315

Michael Morshed

How Healthy Can We Get Together? Where Science Meets Community for Better Mental Health (Science Track)

In response to the high rates of mental health needs, this course will encourage students to engage in and critically examine new medical, psychological, sociology, technology, and education research to provide equitable, accessible, and culturally sensitive mental health treatment. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, our class will examine the arguments of scholars and others in our class discussions to increase our knowledge of how such arguments are created. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

104237

006

TTh 12:30-1:50

HSS 2305B

Kathleen Bryan

104240

009

TTh 11:00-12:20

HSS 1106A

Andrea Carter

104241

010

TTh 12:30-1:50

HSS 1106A

Andrea Carter

104242

011

TTh 3:30-4:50

HSS 2305B

Andrea Carter

Centering Indigenous Perspectives (Social and Environmental Justice track)

The acronym BIPOC, which stands for “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color,” is increasingly deployed by activists, journalists, and scholars in broader conversations about systemic racism, social justice, and structural inequality. While many use this term to highlight shared connections, some critics argue that it is a term with the ability to obscure, rather than elevate, the unique experiences of these groups within the United States, as well as their differences. In this course, we will read a variety of texts by scholars that focus on issues central to Indigenous peoples and communities in the 21st century. Our class will examine the arguments of these scholars, and others in our class discussions, to increase our knowledge of how such arguments are created. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

104243

012

TTh 3:30-4:50

HSS 1106A

Michele Bigley

104250

019

MW 9:30-10:50

Mandeville B-146

Kelly Silva

104251

020

MW 11:00-12:20

Mandeville B-146

Kelly Silva

104252

021

MW 12:30-1:50

Mandeville B-146

Kelly Silva

Show and tell: Visuality, Collection and Display (Humanities track)

The human propensity to both collect and display things has been present in visual culture throughout history, including cabinets of curiosity, museum exhibitions, hobby collectors, and the movement to divest institutional interests. Conceptions of collections and display effect on the way we view things, what fine “art” is, and audience participation. This topic explores issues from the late nineteenth-century museum complex, object ownership, contemporary critique, and curatorial discourses within a global context.
How did we start accumulating all this stuff? What does it reveal about the collector and the viewer? Who are some of the groups denied access to these cultural activities?
Research projects will address how students can explore a topic around some of these debates and arguments. Possible research topics include emerging Indigenous inclusion and representation in institutions, the complex and interwoven histories of Black museum communities, or inquiries into outsider objects from folk communities.

Students will then propose a joint writing and research proposal to argue for their project viability, amass an annotated bibliography of sources, and create an academic research-based argument.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

104244

013

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 2152

Vincent Pham

104245

014

MW 2:00-3:20

McGill 2315

Vincent Pham

104246

015

MW 3:30-4:50

McGill 2315

Vincent Pham

How to Make a Monster (Humanities track)

Through time and across cultures, humanity has invented monsters as a way of conceptualizing, understanding, and even “exorcising” that which it fears. The difference of the Other is certainly a fear all societies have had, and continue to have. Fear of the queer, fear of the immigrant, fear of the disabled, fear of the woman—each of these (and more) have been made monstrous in the arts and in public discourse since time immemorial. Through an engagement with texts engaging with Monster Theory, we can gain unique and urgent insight into how marginalized peoples are relegated to the margins in the first place.

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

104247

016

TTh 8:00-9:20

HSS 2305A

Jennifer Carter

104248

017

TTh 9:30-10:50

HSS 1106B

Jennifer Carter

104249

018

MW 5:00-6:20

HSS 2305B

Jennifer Carter

"Let's Get in Formation": Race, Gender, & Intersectionality in Popular Culture (Humanities track)

With movements such as #OscarsSoWhite, Popular Culture institutions like Hollywood are increasingly critiqued for their nefarious lack of diversity, inclusion, and equity. This course questions the historical legacies, and contemporary violences, of ideological and economic practices that have often marginalized and exploited people of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people with disabilities. Focusing on media that blend narratives with visuals--film, television, commercials, public speeches, concerts, and music videos--students in this course will interrogate how Popular Culture has been, or can be, leveraged in the building or dismantling of systemic oppressions. Our class will examine the arguments and performances of scholars and public figures in our investigation of how Popular Culture renews, revises, and resists institutional and individual investments in white, wealthy, patriarchal, heteronormative, able-bodied privileges. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

104253

022

MW 9:30-10:50

HSS 2315

Haydee Smith

104254

023

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 2315

Haydee Smith

104255

024

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2315

Haydee Smith

117939

025

TTh 9:30-10:50

HSS 2305A

Jarret Krone

117940

026

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 2305A

Jarret Krone

117944

027

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 2305B

Jarret Krone

Summer 2022 

Art and Politics

The political sphere includes and regulates many things that have a direct effect on our livelihoods and communities: minimum wage, access to healthcare, immigration, infrastructure, the regulation of our bodies, whom we can marry, and so much more. This topic explores art in politics and politics in art, ranging from antiwar arts activism in the 1960s, the social politics of representing BIPOC histories and individuals, boycott and divestment, and various case studies of both artists and notorious controversies that highlight the tensions between artists/makers, artworks, audiences, local communities, and the museum as mediating institution. Assigned readings draw on art history and museum studies, but the subject matter of the course will also touch on various social histories. How do the arts intersect with and/or represent political issues, movements, themes, and identities? What roles does politics play in the arts, and vice versa? What are some of the past and recent controversies in the arts, and what kinds of art have been considered transgressive? Possible research topics include (but are not limited to) the connections between the arts and politics pertaining to climate change, social justice movements, activism, globalization, labor practices, funding structures, war, museums and/or stakeholders, and more. Students will identify a scholarly debate, or research conversation (in relation to the course topic), propose a project that will participate in that conversation, engage with and analyze sources from the research process in the form of an annotated bibliography, and construct an academic research-based argument.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

094067

F00

TTH 11:00-1:50

REMOTE

Elizabeth Miller

Disability and Popular Culture

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will look at the way disability intersects with issues of race, gender, sexuality, and the environment to better understand the ways disability is constructed (and reconstructed) through social practices and spaces. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

085464

B00

MW 11:00-1:50

REMOTE

Jennifer Marchisotto

How to Make a Monster

Through time and across cultures, humanity has invented monsters as a way of conceptualizing, understanding, and even “exorcising” that which it fears. The difference of the Other is certainly a fear all societies have had, and continue to have. Fear of the queer, fear of the immigrant, fear of the disabled, fear of the woman—each of these (and more) have been made monstrous in the arts and in public discourse since time immemorial. Through an engagement with texts engaging with Monster Theory, we can gain unique and urgent insight into how marginalized peoples are relegated to the margins in the first place.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

085463

A00

TTH 8:00-10:50

REMOTE

Jennifer Carter

085467

E00

TTH 11:00-1:50

REMOTE

Erik Homenick

Silent Crisis: Mental Health in the Pandemic

Mental health conditions have increased along with the pandemic but very little about this crisis has made its way into everyday conversation. The CDC has reported that among those experiencing more mental health problems are racial and ethnic minorities and young people. It is important to acknowledge the mental health impacts brought about by the stress, grief, and loss of the pandemic. There is also the work of finding help to deal with mental health conditions and their impacts. The pandemic has brought to light the deep need for connection and community while recent discoveries in neuroscience have brought new therapeutic possibilities. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, in this course students will propose, research and write their own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this important course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

TBD

TBD

TBD

REMOTE

Andrea Carter

Storytelling and Its Uses

There are universal elements that stories share no matter the culture they come from. Experts see this as evidence of how embedded stories are in the human experience. Stories have the power to persuade us, reinforce social norms, entertain us, pass knowledge, even influence our biology. In the course, students will research and write about the practice of storytelling while using the LMS Canvas (available to enrolled students) and its tools, including Zoom, Video, Peer Review, Chat, Assignments, Quizzes or Worksheets, and Turnitin.com.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

085465

C00

MW 2:00-4:50

REMOTE

Vince Pham

085466

D00

MW 5:00-7:50

REMOTE

Mike Morshed

Spring 2022 

Disability and Popular Culture

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

074899

035

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 1138

Laurie Nies

074906

042

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 1106A

Trung Le

074907

043

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 1106A

Trung Le

How to Make a Monster

Through time and across cultures, humanity has invented monsters as a way of conceptualizing, understanding, and even “exorcising” that which it fears. The difference of the Other is certainly a fear all societies have had, and continue to have. Fear of the queer, fear of the immigrant, fear of the disabled, fear of the woman—each of these (and more) have been made monstrous in the arts and in public discourse since time immemorial. Through an engagement with texts engaging with Monster Theory, we can gain unique and urgent insight into how marginalized peoples are relegated to the margins in the first place.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

074865

001

MW 8:00-9:20

HSS 2333A

Jennifer Carter

074866

002

MW 9:30-10:50

HSS 2333B

Erik Homenick

074867

003

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 2333A

Erik Homenick

074879

015

MW 9:30-10:50

HSS 2333A

Jennifer Carter

074885

021

TTH 8:00-9:20

HSS 2333A

Jennifer Carter

074886

022

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 2333A

Jennifer Carter

074888

024

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333B

Grant Leuning

074900

036

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 2333B

Grant Leuning

"Let's Get in Formation": Race, Gender, & Intersectionality in Popular Culture

With movements such as #OscarsSoWhite, Popular Culture institutions like Hollywood are increasingly critiqued for their nefarious lack of diversity, inclusion, and equity.  This course questions the historical legacies, and contemporary violences, of ideological and economic practices that have often marginalized and exploited people of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people with disabilities.  Focusing on media that blend narratives with visuals--film, television, commercials, public speeches, concerts, and music videos--students in this course will interrogate how Popular Culture has been, or can be, leveraged in the building or dismantling of systemic oppressions. Our class will examine the arguments and performances of scholars and public figures in our investigation of how Popular Culture renews, revises, and resists institutional and individual investments in white, wealthy, patriarchal, heteronormative, able-bodied privileges.   In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

074868

004

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 1128B

Jenni Marchisotto

074869

005

MW 2:00-3:20

HSS 1128B

Vince Pham

074870

006

MW 3:30-4:50

HSS 1128B

Vince Pham

074878

014

MW 8:00-9:20

HSS 1128B

Jenni Marchisotto

Silent Crisis: Mental Health in the Pandemic

Mental health conditions have increased along with the pandemic but very little about this crisis has made its way into everyday conversation. The CDC has reported that among those experiencing more mental health problems are racial and ethnic minorities and young people. It is important to acknowledge the mental health impacts brought about by the stress, grief, and loss of the pandemic. There is also the work of finding help to deal with mental health conditions and their impacts. The pandemic has brought to light the deep need for connection and community while recent discoveries in neuroscience have brought new therapeutic possibilities. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, in this course students will propose, research and write their own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this important course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

074871

007

MW 5:00-6:20

HSS 2333B

Andrea Carter

074880

016

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 2333B

Andrea Carter

074881

017

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333B

Andrea Carter

074883

019

MW 3:30-4:50

HSS 2333B

Andrea Carter

074892

028

MW 9:30-10:50

HSS 1128B

Kathy Bryan

074893

029

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 1128B

Kathy Bryan

Storytelling and Its Uses

There are universal elements that stories share no matter the culture they come from. Experts see this as evidence of how embedded stories are in the human experience. Stories have the power to persuade us, reinforce social norms, entertain us, pass knowledge, even influence our biology. In the course, students will research a story or aspect of storytelling and write an original argument on how the story or aspect makes humans take action or change their perspective on an issue.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

074889

025

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 2333A

Mike Morshed

074890

026

TTH 3:30-4:50

HSS 2333A

Mike Morshed

074894

030

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333A

Mike Morshed

074895

031

MW 2:00-3:20

HSS 2333A

Mike Morshed

Water & the West

As increasing aridity and growing water scarcity continue to redefine the American West, debates and conversations over water rights and access have grown in significance. As pressing as these matters may be, they are recurring themes in the region's history and development. In this course we will explore the economic, cultural, social, and increasingly racialized contours of the debates over water in the American West, as well as the responses of states, municipalities, and local communities to these challenges with innovative and creative solutions. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, our class will examine the arguments of these scholars and others in our class discussions to increase our knowledge of how such arguments are created. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic. 

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

074874

010

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 2333A

Kelly Silva

074875

011

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 1128B

Kelly Silva

074905

041

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 2333B

Kelly Silva

Winter 2022 

Bioethical Quandaries

The interdisciplinary field of bioethics grapples with conflicts that arise in medical practice, such as patients’ refusal of life-saving treatment or how to allocate scarce resources such as organs. It also considers dilemmas that emerge in response to new biotechnologies, such as stem-cell research, human genetic engineering, and prenatal diagnostics. In this course, we will explore some of the ethical and legal questions that arise in healthcare, medical research, and the use of biotechnology and bioengineering. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

069253

001

TTH 12:30-1:50

CENTR 208

Sophie Staschus

069262

010

TTH 11:00-12:20

CENTR 208

Sophie Staschus

Disability and Popular Culture

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

069254

002

TTH 8:00-9:20

HSS 2305A

Laurie Nies

069255

003

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 2305A

Laurie Nies

069258

006

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 2333B

Trung Le

069259

007

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333B

Trung Le

Exploring the “I” in BIPOC

The acronym BIPOC, which stands for “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color,” is increasingly deployed by activists, journalists, and scholars in broader conversations about systemic racism, social justice, and structural inequality.  While many use this term to highlight shared connections between the experiences of Black and Indigenous peoples, some critics argue that it is a term with the ability to obscure, rather than elevate, the unique experiences of these groups within the United States, as well as their differences.  In this course, we will explore issues central to Indigenous peoples and communities in the 21st century.  We will explore debates about land, culture, health care, resource management, economic development, tribal sovereignty, and the ongoing legacies of America’s colonial past. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments by scholars and others in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing an original, research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

069236

025

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 1138

Kelly Silva

069237

026

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 1138

Kelly Silva

069238

027

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 1138

Kelly Silva

Health, Racism, and the Environment in the Time of Climate Change

Racial inequities in healthcare and the environmental dangers caused by climate change are challenging our society to acknowledge and repair the systemic inequities in our healthcare, communities, and the health dangers caused by the changing environment. Medical, scientific, and environmental researchers have investigated different aspects of these inequities and based their arguments and recommendations on their research.  In this era of uncertainty of who or what to believe, our class will examine the arguments of these scholars and others in our class discussions to increase our knowledge of how such arguments are created. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.   

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

069241

030

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 2346A

Carrie Wastal

How to Make a Monster

Through time and across cultures, humanity has invented monsters as a way of conceptualizing, understanding, and even “exorcising” that which it fears. The difference of the Other is certainly a fear all societies have had, and continue to have. Fear of the queer, fear of the immigrant, fear of the disabled, fear of the woman—each of these (and more) have been made monstrous in the arts and in public discourse since time immemorial. Through an engagement with texts engaging with Monster Theory, we can gain unique and urgent insight into how marginalized peoples are relegated to the margins in the first place.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

069256

004

TTH 8:00-9:20

 HSS 2333B

Jennifer Carter

069257

005

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 2333B

Jennifer Carter

069263

011

TTH 8:00-9:20

HSS 2346A

Erik Homenick

069264

012

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 2305A

Erik Homenick

069230

019

MW 8:00-9:20

HSS 2333A

Jennifer Carter

069231

020

MW 9:30-10:50

HSS 2333A

Jennifer Carter

"Let's Get in Formation": Race, Gender, & Intersectionality in Popular Culture

With movements such as #OscarsSoWhite, Popular Culture institutions like Hollywood are increasingly critiqued for their nefarious lack of diversity, inclusion, and equity.  This course questions the historical legacies, and contemporary violences, of ideological and economic practices that have often marginalized and exploited people of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people with disabilities.  Focusing on media that blend narratives with visuals--film, television, commercials, public speeches, concerts, and music videos--students in this course will interrogate how Popular Culture has been, or can be, leveraged in the building or dismantling of systemic oppressions. Our class will examine the arguments and performances of scholars and public figures in our investigation of how Popular Culture renews, revises, and resists institutional and individual investments in white, wealthy, patriarchal, heteronormative, able-bodied privileges.   In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

069269

017

MW 3:30-4:50

HSS 1128B

Jenni Marchisotto

069232

021

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333A

Vince Pham

069233

022

MW 2:00-3:20

HSS2333A

Vince Pham

069242

031

MW 8:00-9:20

HSS 2346A

Jenni Marchisotto

Storytelling and Its Uses  

There are universal elements that stories share no matter the culture they come from. Experts see this as evidence of how embedded stories are in the human experience. Stories have the power to persuade us, reinforce social norms, entertain us, pass knowledge, even influence our biology. In the course, students will research a story or aspect of storytelling and write an original argument on how the story or aspect makes humans take action or change their perspective on an issue.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

069260

008

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 2333B

Mike Morshed

069261

009

TTH 3:30-4:50

HSS 2333B

Mike Morshed

069266

014

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 2333A

Mike Morshed

069268

016

MW 2:00-3:20

HSS 1128B

Mike Morshed

 

 

Fall 2021

Cultures of Crime

Everyone says we need to stop crime, but crime seems to happen whether we want it to or not. Some even make a living from it. How we treat those who have broken rules has changed over time as our morals and definitions of crimes have evolved.

In this course, we will consider how modern society identifies and reacts to criminals and how punishment is determined by examining a variety of scholarly arguments that cross crime with subjects such as the US Justice System, terrorism, revenge, class, gender, and pop culture.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

051206

003

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 1128B

Mike Morshed

051207

004

MW 2:00-3:20

HSS 1128B

Mike Morshed

051213

010

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 1138

Mike Morshed

051214

011

TTH 3:30-4:50

HSS 1138

Mike Morshed

Disability and Pop Culture

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

051211

008

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 1138

Trung Le

051212

009

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 1138

Trung Le

051204

001

MW 8:00-9:20

HSS 2305A

Laurie Nies

Health, Racism, and the Environment in the Time of Climate Change

Racial inequities in healthcare and the environmental dangers caused by climate change are challenging our society to acknowledge and repair the systemic inequities in our healthcare, communities, and the health dangers caused by the changing environment. Medical, scientific, and environmental researchers have investigated different aspects of these inequities and based their arguments and recommendations on their research.  In this era of uncertainty of who or what to believe, our class will examine the arguments of these scholars and others in our class discussions to increase our knowledge of how such arguments are created. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.   

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

051215 012 TTH 9:30-10:50 HSS 2346A Carrie Wastal

"Let's Get in Formation": Race, Gender, & Intersectionality in Popular Culture

With movements such as #OscarsSoWhite, Popular Culture institutions like Hollywood are increasingly critiqued for their nefarious lack of diversity, inclusion, and equity.  This course questions the historical legacies, and contemporary violences, of ideological and economic practices that have often marginalized and exploited people of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people with disabilities.  Focusing on media that blend narratives with visuals--film, television, commercials, public speeches, concerts, and music videos--students in this course will interrogate how Popular Culture has been, or can be, leveraged in the building or dismantling of systemic oppressions. Our class will examine the arguments and performances of scholars and public figures in our investigation of how Popular Culture renews, revises, and resists institutional and individual investments in white, wealthy, patriarchal, heteronormative, able-bodied privileges.   In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

051218

015

TTH 8:00-9:20

REMOTE

Haydee Smith

051219

016

TTH 9:30-10:50

REMOTE

Haydee Smith

The Elastic Lens: Documentary, Portraiture, and the Avant Garde.

Photography is often conceived as simply a mode for (re)presenting the “real.” However, in this course, we will approach the phenomenon of photography as a means to question the act of documentation itself. This topic explores the discourses surrounding photography in contexts ranging from ethnography to social documentation, policing, medical imaging, portraiture, and the visual arts. We will ask such questions as: in what ways does photography intersect culture? How might photography reinforce or undermine social and historical dynamics? In this course, students will be given the opportunity to research and analyze the histories that lay dormant beneath the surface of images. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, students will examine a variety of arguments related to the course topic in an effort to understand their contents and structure. Students will be asked to introduce and support their own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course themes.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

051208 005 MW 3:30-4:50

HSS 1128B

Vincent Pham
051209 006 MW 5:00-6:20

HSS 1128B

Vincent Pham

Spring 2021

90 Day Fiancé: Immigration, Gender, and American Exceptionalism

What issues arise when the United States’ government gives citizens 90 days to marry their foreign fiancé and what does this tell us about immigration law, gendered expectations, and cultural stereotypes? Since 2014, TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé has enthralled viewers with their take on the challenges faced by international couples. Taking into account the politicized, familial, cultural, and financial barriers faced by these couples, this course examines issues such as: the private and public role and romanticization of marriage; uses of technology in markets of desirability; implicit biases in the US immigration system; reality television and documentary storytelling; and racialized and gendered stereotypes. While the 90 Day Fiancé offers a useful framework, students may create their own research projects along any of the aforementioned categories. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, we will work to understand academic arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own research-based argument about an issue relevant to this course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

045652

015

MW 11:00-12:20

RCLAS R240

Nur Duru

045653

016

MW 12:30-1:50

RCLAS R190

Nur Duru

045658

021

TTH 11:00-12:20

RCLAS R260

Nur Duru

045659

022

TTH 12:30-1:50

RCLAS R217

Nur Duru

045676

038

TTH 2:00-3:20

RCLAS R224

Haydee Smith

045675

039

TTH 3:30-4:50

RCLAS R198

Haydee Smith

Bioethical Quandaries

The interdisciplinary field of bioethics grapples with conflicts that arise in medical practice, such as patients’ refusal of life-saving treatment or how to allocate scarce resources such as organs. It also considers dilemmas that emerge in response to new biotechnologies, such as stem-cell research, human genetic engineering, and prenatal diagnostics. In this course, we will explore some of the ethical and legal questions that arise in healthcare, medical research, and the use of biotechnology and bioengineering. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

045646

009

MW 11:00-12:20

PETER 104

Kathy Bryan

045647

010

MW 12:30-1:50

PETER  104

Kathy Bryan

045656

019

TTH 9:30-10:50

RCLAS R262

Sophie Staschus

045657

020

TTH 11:00-12:20

RCLAS R189

Sophie Staschus

045679

042

MW 11:00-12:20

RCLAS R239

Andrea Carter

045681

044

MW 2:00-3:20

RCLAS R199

Andrea Carter

045682

045

MW 3:30-4:50

RCLAS R162

Andrea Carter

Cultures of Crime

Everyone says we need to stop crime, but crime seems to happen whether we want it to or not. Some even make a living from it. How we treat those who have broken rules has changed over time as our morals and definitions of crimes have evolved.

In this course, we will consider how modern society identifies and reacts to criminals and how punishment is determined by examining a variety of scholarly arguments that cross crime with subjects such as the US Justice System, terrorism, revenge, class, gender, and pop culture.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

045639

003

TTH 11:00-12:20

 TM 102 -1 

Mike Morshed

045642

005

TTH 2:00-3:20

 WLH 2115

Mike Morshed

045643

006

TTH 3:30-4:50

 WLH 2115

Mike Morshed

045684

047

MW 9:30-10:50

RCLAS R233

Melinda Guillen

045685

048

MW 11:00-12:20

RCLAS R234

Melinda Guillen

Disability and Popular Culture

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

045650

013

MW 8:00-9:30

RCLAS R161

Trung Le

045651

014

MW 9:30-10:50

RCLAS R223

Trung Le

045665

028

TTH 12:30-1:50

RCLAS R218

Ayden LeRoux

045666

029

TTH 2:00-3:20

RCLAS R119

Ayden LeRoux

045671

034

TTH 8:00-9:20

RCLAS R67

Laurie Nies

045672

035

TTH 9:30-10:50

RCLAS R235

Laurie Nies

 

 

TTH 11:00 - 12:20

 

Ayden LeRoux

Exploring the “I” in BIPOC

The acronym BIPOC, which stands for “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color,” is increasingly deployed by activists, journalists, and scholars in broader conversations about systemic racism, social justice, and structural inequality.  While many use this term to highlight shared connections between the experiences of Black and Indigenous peoples, some critics argue that it is a term with the ability to obscure, rather than elevate, the unique experiences of these groups within the United States, as well as their differences.  In this course, we will explore issues central to Indigenous peoples and communities in the 21st century.  We will explore debates about land, culture, health care, resource management, economic development, tribal sovereignty, and the ongoing legacies of America’s colonial past. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments by scholars and others in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing an original, research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

045637

001

TTH 8:00-9:20

RCLAS R70

Kelly Silva

045638

002

TTH 9:30-10:50

RCLAS R234

Kelly Silva

045664

027

TTH 11:00-12:20

RCLAS R262

Kelly Silva

“Now Let’s Get In Formation”: Race, Gender, & Intersectionality in Popular Culture

With movements such as #OscarsSoWhite, Popular Culture institutions like Hollywood are increasingly critiqued for their nefarious lack of diversity, inclusion, and equity.  This course questions the historical legacies, and contemporary violences, of ideological and economic practices that have often marginalized and exploited people of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people with disabilities.  Focusing on media that blend narratives with visuals--film, television, commercials, public speeches, concerts, and music videos--students in this course will interrogate how Popular Culture has been, or can be, leveraged in the building or dismantling of systemic oppressions. Our class will examine the arguments and performances of scholars and public figures in our investigation of how Popular Culture renews, revises, and resists institutional and individual investments in white, wealthy, patriarchal, heteronormative, able-bodied privileges.   In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this course topic.  

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

045667

030

MW 3:30-4:50

RCLAS R167

Jennifer Carter

045668

031

MW 5:00-6:20

RCLAS R142

Jennifer Carter

045669

032

TTH 11:00-12:20

RCLAS R259

Erik Homenick

045670

033

TTH 12:30-1:50

RCLAS R214

Erik Homenick

045688

051

TTH 3:30-4:50

RCLAS R201

Jennifer Carter

Pre-Exisiting Conditions: Anti-Blackness in the Medical Industrial Complex

According to the CDC, Black individuals are approximately five times more likely to be hospitalized by—and twice as likely to die—from COVID-19 than their white counterparts. While these statistics are the most pressing to our current moment, similar ratios exist throughout the healthcare system, showing Black Americans to be dying from treatable illnesses at disproportionate rates. Access to healthcare in America is an economic privilege. As a result, BIPOC are far less likely to receive quality care. Moreover, healthcare professionals consistently dismiss or discredit complaints by marginalized communities, a habit intricately tied to the anti-Black, misogynist, and xenophobic roots of the American Medical Industrial Complex (MIC). In this course, we will examine how race, gender, and sexuality affect access to care in the MIC. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider both the historical foundation for and contemporary perpetuation of these disparities. Students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—with the objective of making and defending an original focused argument about Anti-Blackness in the MIC in a research paper.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

045644

007

MW 8:00-9:20

RCLAS R160

Michael Berman

045645

008

MW 9:30-10:50

RCLAS R225

Michael Berman

045660

023

TTH 2:00-3:20

RCLAS R223

Jenni Marchisotto

045661

024

TTH 3:30-4:50

RCLAS R196

Jenni Marchisotto

The Elastic Lens: Documentary, Portraiture, and the Avant Garde

Photography is often conceived as simply a mode for (re)presenting the “real.” However, in this course, we will approach the phenomenon of photography as a means to question the act of documentation itself. This topic explores the discourses surrounding photography in contexts ranging from ethnography to social documentation, policing, medical imaging, portraiture, and the visual arts. We will ask such questions as: in what ways does photography intersect culture? How might photography reinforce or undermine social and historical dynamics? In this course, students will be given the opportunity to research and analyze the histories that lay dormant beneath the surface of images. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, students will examine a variety of arguments related to the course topic in an effort to understand their contents and structure. Students will be asked to introduce and support their own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course themes.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

045654

017

MW 2:00-3:20

RCLAS R201

Michael Witte

045655

018

MW 3:30-4:50

RCLAS R165

Michael Witte

045686

049

TTH 12:30-1:50

RCLAS R216

Vincent Pham

045687

050

TTH 2:00-3:20

RCLAS R221

Vincent Pham

Upvote/Downvote: The Social Roles of Pop Culture Criticism

Movies, music, TV, books, visual art — how do you decide which of it is any good? Importantly, where do those debates actually occur, how do various media shape these discourses, and why should it matter? Students in this course will read texts from media studies and the humanities about the social maintenance of standards for art and culture, particularly the sanctioned role of the arts critic and ways that online media have helped decentralize that gatekeeping role with varying impacts on culture’s creators, consumers, and capitalists. According to the mission of MCWP 50, these arguments will be examined in order to understand their structure and synthesize their claims before students craft their own informed, research-based argument about the roles of arts criticism in society.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

45673

036

TTH 2:00-3:20

RCLAS R222

Thomas Conner

45674

037

TTH 3:30-4:50

RCLAS R126

Thomas Conner

Winter 2021

Cultural Imperialism: Constructing the “Other”

How do sensationalized tales, and false dichotomies, of heroes and villains shape our understandings of majority and minority communities? Taking interlocking systemic oppressions— racism, sexism, heteronormativity, classism, xenophobia, ableism—into account, students in this class will unpack the overlapping layers of popular culture, ideology, representation, oppression, and privilege. In this course students will analyze arguments about how stories function to replicate, resist, and rewrite the dominant narratives that shape our educational, legal, medical, and social institutions while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.  

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

034597

016

TTH 11:00-12:20

RCLAS

Nur Duru

034598

017

TTH 12:30-1:50

RCLAS

Nur Duru

034536

020

MW 9:30-10:50

RCLAS R140

Nur Duru

034537

021

MW 11:00-12:20

RCLAS R234

Nur Duru

Cultures of Crime

Everyone says we need to stop crime, but crime seems to happen whether we want it to or not. Some even make a living from it. How we treat those who have broken rules has changed over time as our morals and definitions of crimes have evolved.

In this course, we will consider how modern society identifies and reacts to criminals and how punishment is determined by examining a variety of scholarly arguments that cross crime with subjects such as the US Justice System, terrorism, revenge, class, gender, and pop culture.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

034585

005

MW 2:00-3:20

RCLAS

Melinda Guillen

034589

008

MW 9:30-10:50

RCLAS

Melinda Guillen

034590

009

MW 11:00-12:20

RCLAS

Melinda Guillen

034591

010

TTH 11:00-12:20

CENTR 214

Mike Morshed

034593

012

TTH 2:00-3:20

PETER 102

Mike Morshed

034594

013

TTH 3:30-4:50

PETER 102

Mike Morshed

Disability and Popular Culture

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

034581

001

MW 8:00-9:30

RCLAS

Trung Le

034582

002

MW 9:30-10:50

RCLAS

Trung Le

034542

026

TTH 8:00-9:20

RCLAS R44

Laurie Nies

034543

027

TTH 9:30-10:50

RCLAS R231

Laurie Nies

034544

028

TTH 11:00-12:20

RCLAS R224

Ayden LeRoux

034545

029

TTH 12:30-1:50

RCLAS R202

Ayden LeRoux

Exploring the “I” in BIPOC

The acronym BIPOC, which stands for “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color,” is increasingly deployed by activists, journalists, and scholars in broader conversations about systemic racism, social justice, and structural inequality.  While many use this term to highlight shared connections between the experiences of Black and Indigenous peoples, some critics argue that it is a term with the ability to obscure, rather than elevate, the unique experiences of these groups within the United States, as well as their differences.  In this course, we will explore issues central to Indigenous peoples and communities in the 21st century.  We will explore debates about land, culture, health care, resource management, economic development, tribal sovereignty, and the ongoing legacies of America’s colonial past. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments by scholars and others in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing an original, research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

034592

011

TTH 12:30-1:50

RCLAS

Kelly Silva

034595

014

TTH 8:00-9:20

RCLAS

Kelly Silva

034596

015

TTH 9:30-10:50

RCLAS

Kelly Silva

Media & Materiality: The Spirit of Digital Engagement

Every day, many of us are steeped in digital media engagements — communicating via social media, consuming digital video, and now even conducting our education via teleconferencing platforms. But when we look at the screens, what do we actually see? How is it that we “forget” the laptop in front of us in order to engage with the absent people at the other end of the media system? Students in this course will read texts from cultural studies and media studies that consider these issues from a possibly surprising perspective: discussing everyday media encounters as metaphors of spiritual events, and positing that media allow interaction with both the living and the dead. According to the mission of MCWP 50, these arguments will be examined in order to understand their structure and synthesize their claims before students craft their own informed, research-based argument about a related topic.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

044934

033

TTH 2:00-3:20

RCLAS

Thomas Conner

044945

034

TTH 3:30-4:50

RCLAS

Thomas Conner

“Now Let’s Get In Formation”: Race, Gender, & Intersectionality in Popular Culture

With movements such as #OscarsSoWhite, Popular Culture institutions like Hollywood are increasingly critiqued for their nefarious lack of diversity, inclusion, and equity.  This course questions the historical legacies, and contemporary violences, of ideological and economic practices that have often marginalized and exploited people of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, and people with disabilities.  Focusing on media that blend narratives with visuals--film, television, commercials, public speeches, concerts, and music videos--students in this course will interrogate how Popular Culture has been, or can be, leveraged in the building or dismantling of systemic oppressions. Our class will examine the arguments and performances of scholars and public figures in our investigation of how Popular Culture renews, revises, and resists institutional and individual investments in white, wealthy, patriarchal, heteronormative, able-bodied privileges.   In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to this course topic.   

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

034599

018

TTH 2:00-3:20

RCLAS

Haydee Smith

034600

019

TTH 3:30-4:50

RCLAS

Haydee Smith

Pre-Exisiting Conditions: Anti-Blackness in the Medical Industrial Complex

According to the CDC, Black individuals are approximately five times more likely to be hospitalized by—and twice as likely to die—from COVID-19 than their white counterparts. While these statistics are the most pressing to our current moment, similar ratios exist throughout the healthcare system, showing Black Americans to be dying from treatable illnesses at disproportionate rates. Access to healthcare in America is an economic privilege. As a result, BIPOC are far less likely to receive quality care. Moreover, healthcare professionals consistently dismiss or discredit complaints by marginalized communities, a habit intricately tied to the anti-Black, misogynist, and xenophobic roots of the American Medical Industrial Complex (MIC). In this course, we will examine how race, gender, and sexuality affect access to care in the MIC. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider both the historical foundation for and contemporary perpetuation of these disparities. Students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—with the objective of making and defending an original focused argument about Anti-Blackness in the MIC in a research paper.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

034546

030

TTH 2:00-3:20

RCLAS R151

Jenni Marchisotto

034547

031

TTH 3:30-4:50

RCLAS R90 

Jenni Marchisotto

034583

003

MW 11:00-12:20

RCLAS

Matthew Howland

034584

004

MW 12:30-1:50

RCLAS

Matthew Howland

The Elastic Lens: Documentary, Portraiture, and the Avant Garde

Photography is often conceived as simply a mode for (re)presenting the “real.” However, in this course, we will approach the phenomenon of photography as a means to question the act of documentation itself. This topic explores the discourses surrounding photography in contexts ranging from ethnography to social documentation, policing, medical imaging, portraiture, and the visual arts. We will ask such questions as: in what ways does photography intersect culture? How might photography reinforce or undermine social and historical dynamics? In this course, students will be given the opportunity to research and analyze the histories that lay dormant beneath the surface of images. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, students will examine a variety of arguments related to the course topic in an effort to understand their contents and structure. Students will be asked to introduce and support their own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course themes.

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

034540

024

MW 3:30-4:50

RCLAS R187

Michael Witte

034541

025

MW 5:00-6:20

RCLAS R133

Michael Witte

034538

022

MW 12:30-1:50

RCLAS R175

Vincent Pham

034539

023

MW 2:00-3:20

RCLAS R203

Vincent Pham

The Myth of a White Western Wilderness

Part of the myth of the wild west is one of intrepid white settlers, cowboys, and lawmen setting out to forge new lives of freedom and opportunity in the wilderness. However, the myth is only partially true given the experiences and contributions of black people in settling the wild west. Many historical documents (including John Muir’s essays) reflect the attitudes of the day by focusing on white men and ignoring the black men and women who also shaped life in open spaces of the west. What can we learn from this history that we can apply to today’s continual, yet mutable, exclusion of black participants in the wilderness?       

In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures. The course culminates with your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.   

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

037057

032

TTH 9:30 -10:50

RCLAS

Carrie Wastal

 

 

Fall 2020

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

014974

001

MW 8:00-9:20 RCLAS

Laurie Nies 

014975

002

MW 9:30-10:50

RCLAS

Laurie Nies

Upwards of 43 million Americans are experience some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment. Yet despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped—and thus further marginalized—in popular culture as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is portrayed as a difficult existence. We will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

The Elastic Lens: Documentary, Portraiture, and the Avant Garde

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

014977 004 MW 2:00-3:20 RCLAS Vince Pham
014979 006 MW 5:00-6:20 RCLAS Vince Pham
025054 015 MW 3:30-4:50 RCLAS Michael Witte
034108 017 MW 5:00-6:20 RCLAS Michael Witte

Photography is often conceived as simply a mode for representing the “real.” However, in this course, we will approach the phenomenon of photography as a means to question the act of documentation itself. This topic explores the discourses surrounding photography in contexts ranging from ethnography to social documentation, policing, medical imaging, portraiture, and the visual arts. We will ask such questions as: in what ways does photography intersect culture? How might photography reinforce or undermine social and historical dynamics? In this course, students will be given the opportunity to research and analyze the histories that lay dormant beneath the surface of images. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, students will examine a variety of arguments related to the course topic in an effort to understand their contents and structure. Students will be asked to introduce and support their own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course themes.

Bioethical Quandaries

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

014981 008 TTH 11:00-12:20 RCLAS    Sophie Staschus
  014982      009 TTH 12:30-1:50 RCLAS    Sophie Staschus
The interdisciplinary field of bioethics grapples with conflicts that arise in medical practice, such as patients’ refusal of life-saving treatment or how to allocate scarce resources such as organs. It also considers dilemmas that emerge in response to new biotechnologies, such as stem-cell research, human genetic engineering, and prenatal diagnostics. In this course, we will explore some of the ethical and legal questions that arise in healthcare, medical research, and the use of biotechnology and bioengineering. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Ghosts in the Machines: Are Media Technologies Haunted?

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

014983 010 TTH 2:00-3:20 RCLAS Thomas Conner
014984 011 TTH 3:30-4:50 RCLAS Thomas Conner

In the modern media age, death is not so final— from dead singers on radio and dead actors on TV, to Facebook feeds that transition into memorial sites and “hologram” concerts featuring pop stars in posthumous performances. How do these encounters with technology negotiate everyday relationships between the living and the dead? Students in this course will read texts from cultural studies and media studies that consider these issues from ideological, sociological, material, and spiritual perspectives. According to the mission of MCWP 50, these arguments will be examined in order to understand their structure and synthesize their claims before students craft their own informed, research-based argument about a related topic.

What’s New? New Media and Innovation

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

014986 013 TTH 2:00-3:20 RCLAS Jonathan Walton
014987 014 TTH 3:30-4:50 RCLAS Jonathan Walton

 In contemporary times, we are surrounded by newness: new media, new technologies, and new ways of being. Innovations in science, computing, and communication continually threaten to upend established norms of human societies. But the promises and perils of new media and innovation stretch back in time to the Scientific Revolution. How can we put the newness of contemporary technological developments in context and critically analyze the social changes that accompany them? Students will conduct a research project on a new development in science, technology, or media, resulting in a substantial research paper.

The Myth of a White Western Wilderness

 

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

014985 012 TTH 9:30-10:50 RCLAS Carrie Wastal

Part of the myth of the wild west is one of intrepid white settlers, cowboys, and lawmen setting out to forge new lives of freedom and opportunity in the wilderness. However, the myth is only partially true given the experiences and contributions of black people in settling the western wilderness. Most historical documents and images reflect the attitudes of the day by focusing on white men and ignoring the experiences of the black men and women who also shaped life in open spaces of the west. What can we learn from this history that we can apply to today’s continual, yet changeable, exclusion of black participants in the wilderness?

Our class will examine the arguments of these scholars and others in our examination of the contributions of black settlers unacknowledged in the mythic western wilderness. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, we will work to understand the arguments’ structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.   

Pre-Existing Conditions: Anti-Blackness in the Medical Industrial Complex

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

033572 016 TTH 3:30-4:50 RCLAS Jenni Marchisotto

According to the CDC, Black individuals are approximately five times more likely to be hospitalized by—and twice as likely to die—from COVID-19 than their white counterparts. While these statistics are the most pressing to our current moment, similar ratios exist throughout the healthcare system, showing Black Americans to be dying from treatable illnesses at disproportionate rates. Access to healthcare in America is an economic privilege. As a result, BIPOC are far less likely to receive quality care. Moreover, healthcare professionals consistently dismiss or discredit complaints by marginalized communities, a habit intricately tied to the anti-Black, misogynist, and xenophobic roots of the American Medical Industrial Complex (MIC). In this course, we will examine how race, gender, and sexuality affect access to care in the MIC. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider both the historical foundation for and contemporary perpetuation of these disparities. Students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—with the objective of making and defending an original focused argument about Anti-Blackness in the MIC in a research paper.

Summer 2020

Bio-ethical Quandaries

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 019667

D00 

TTH 8:00-10:50

HSS 2346A

Sophie Staschus

The interdisciplinary field of bioethics grapples with conflicts that arise in medical practice, such as patients’ refusal of life-saving treatment or how to allocate scarce resources such as organs. It also considers dilemmas that emerge in response to new biotechnologies, such as stem-cell research, human genetic engineering, and prenatal diagnostics. In this course, we will explore some of the ethical and legal questions that arise in healthcare, medical research, and the use of biotechnology and bioengineering. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Cultures of Crime

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 019666

C00 

MW 2:00-4:50

HSS 2346A

Melinda Guillen

Everyone says we need to stop crime, but crime seems to happen whether we want it to or not. Some even make a living from it. How we treat those who have broken rules has changed over time as our morals and definitions of crimes have evolved.

In this course, we will consider how modern society identifies and reacts to criminals and how punishment is determined by examining a variety of scholarly arguments that cross crime with subjects such as the US Justice System, terrorism, revenge, class, gender, and pop culture.

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 019664

B00 

MW 8:00-10:50

HSS 2346A

Laurie Nies

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

Thank U, Next: Cultural Imperialism and Politically Enchanting Plots

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 019663

A00 

MW 11:00-1:50

HSS 2346A

Nur Duru

How do sensationalized tales of pop stars, superheroes, princesses, and villains shape our understandings of majority and minority communities? Just as Ariana Grande “breaks free” from “7 rings” of systemic oppression—sex, gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality, dis/ability—students in this class will unpack the overlapping layers of popular culture, ideology, representation, oppression, and privilege. In this course students will analyze arguments about how stories function to replicate, resist, and rewrite the dominant narratives that shape our educational, legal, medical, and social institutions while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Spring 2020

"Beyond Mascots": Native American Experiences in the 21st Century

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 000783

001

MW 8:00-9:20 HSS 2333A

Kelly Silva

 000784

002

MW 9:30-10:50

HSS 2333A

Kelly Silva

000786 004 MW 12:30-1:50 HSS 1128B Kelly Silva

In 2016, Native American peoples from across the country, along with environmentalists and activists, came together to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota.  With the hashtag #NoDAPL, these protests made visible to a wider American audience longstanding political, cultural, and economic concerns facing Native American peoples and tribal communities and pushed the conversation beyond public debates over sports mascots.  In this course, we will explore issues central to Native American peoples and communities in the 21st century.  This includes, but is not limited to, ongoing debates over land, resources, representation, memory, health care, sovereignty, and the ongoing legacies of America’s colonial past.  In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Bio-ethical Quandaries

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

000807

025

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 1128B

Sophie Staschus

000831

049

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 1106A

Sophie Staschus

010464

047

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 2333A

Shelton Lo

010465 048 TTH 3:30-4:50 HSS 2333A Shelton Lo

The interdisciplinary field of bioethics grapples with conflicts that arise in medical practice, such as patients’ refusal of life-saving treatment or how to allocate scarce resources such as organs. It also considers dilemmas that emerge in response to new biotechnologies, such as stem-cell research, human genetic engineering, and prenatal diagnostics. In this course, we will explore some of the ethical and legal questions that arise in healthcare, medical research, and the use of biotechnology and bioengineering. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.   

Cultures of Crime

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

000805

023

TTH 11:00-12:20 HSS 1128B

 Mike Morshed

000806

024

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 1128B

 Mike Morshed

000808 026 TTH 3:30-4:50 HSS 1128B  Mike Morshed
000809 027 MW 8:00-9:20 HSS 1128B Melinda Guillen
000810 028 MW 9:30-10:50 HSS 1128B    Melinda Guillen
      000825         043    MW 12:30-1:50    HSS 1138    Melinda Guillen
000826 044 MW 2:00-3:20 HSS 1138    Melinda Guillen

Everyone says we need to stop crime, but crime seems to happen whether we want it to or not. Some even make a living from it. How we treat those who have broken rules has changed over time as our morals and definitions of crimes have evolved.

In this course, we will consider how modern society identifies and reacts to criminals and how punishment is determined by examining a variety of scholarly arguments that cross crime with subjects such as the US Justice System, terrorism, revenge, class, gender, and pop culture.

Cyborg Ecologies

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

000794

012

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 2333B

 Thomas Conner

000795

013

TTH 3:30-4:50

HSS 2333B

Thomas Conner

000820

038

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 1138

Johnathan Walton

000821

039

TTH 3:30-4:50

HSS 1138

Johnathan Walton

The relationships between humans and nonhumans are under increasing pressure. In the current era of both technological innovation and environmental crisis, humanity’s future is directly intertwined with other living organisms, nonliving machines, and organic-machine hybrids. Consequently, many interdisciplinary scholars are actively working to bridge or blend the natural and social/humanistic sciences, exploring how humans operate alongside our nonhuman "cousins." Linked together in interdependent networks, how can we survive and thrive? Following the guidelines for MCWP 50, students will conduct independent research towards a final paper on a topic of their choice.

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

000799

017

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333B

 Ayden LeRoux

000800

018

MW 2:00-3:20

HSS 2333B

Ayden LeRoux

000803

021

TTH 8:00-9:20

HSS 1128B

Laurie Nies

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

Latin America and the United States: Internationalism and the Politics of Cultural Production

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

000792

010

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 2333B

Vince Pham

000793

011

TTh 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333B

Vince Pham

000814

032

MW 3:30-4:50

HSS 1128B

Michael Witte

000815

033

MW 5:00-6:20

HSS 1128B

Michael Witte

In what ways has Latin America influenced U.S. discourses in fine arts, architecture and cinema, and how does this testify to the vital role of Latin America in U.S. cultural production? This course will examine the ways that Latin American subject matter is replicated, represented and repurposed in U.S. contexts. Influences range from ancient archaeological sites like Machu Picchu to modern architectural works like Luis Barragán’s Jardines del Pedregal, to the works of Rio de Janeiro’s Grupo Frente, among many other examples. In doing so we will consider the relationship between American cultural production and the racial and cultural hierarchies that in many ways define U.S. national identity. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Substance (Ab)use: Contexts and Conversations

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 000785

003

MW 11:00-12:20 HSS 1128B

Andrea Carter

 000787

005

MW 2:00-3:20

HSS 2333A

Andrea Carter

000788 006 MW 3:30-4:50 HSS 2333A Andrea Carter
000797 015 MW 9:30-10:50 HSS 2333B Kathy Bryan
000798 016 MW 11:00-12:20 HSS 2333B Kathy Bryan

Mind-and body-altering substances and prescription medications have a contested history in the U.S. Lysergic acid, alcohol, marijuana, opioids, and amphetamines are a few examples of the substances that are a part of that history. Of particular interest to this class are the shifting attitudes and policies that make such drugs taboo or acceptable, legal or illegal, and sometimes, legal again.

Our class will look at aspects of past and current debates that reflect the changing attitudes of society, including its institutions, toward body- and mind-altering substances. Our readings will look evolving political climates as well as the social and medical contexts for the uses and abuses of mind-altering substances. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Thank U, Next: Cultural Imperialism and Politically Enchanting Plots

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

000811

029

MW 11:00-12:20 HSS 2333A

 Nur Duru

000812

030

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333A

 Nur Duru

000818 036 TTH 11:00-12:20 HSS 1138  Nur Duru
000819 037 TTH 12:30-1:50 HSS 1138  Nur Duru
000822 040 MW 8:00-9:20 HSS 1138      Jennifer Carter
      000823         041    MW 9:30-10:50    HSS 1138      Jennifer Carter
000824 042 MW 11:00-12:20 HSS 1138      Jennifer Carter

How do sensationalized tales of pop stars, superheroes, princesses, and villains shape our understandings of majority and minority communities? Just as Ariana Grande “breaks free” from “7 rings” of systemic oppression—sex, gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality, dis/ability—students in this class will unpack the overlapping layers of popular culture, ideology, representation, oppression, and privilege. In this course students will analyze arguments about how stories function to replicate, resist, and rewrite the dominant narratives that shape our educational, legal, medical, and social institutions while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Winter 2020

Cultures of Crime

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

991407

002

MW 9:30-10:50 HSS 1106B

Melinda Guillen

991408

003

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 1106B

Melinda Guillen

991410 005 MW 2:00-3:20 HSS 1106B Melinda Guillen
991415 010 TTH 11:00-12:20 HSS 1106B  Mike Morshed
991417 012 TTH 2:00-3:20 HSS 1106B    Mike Morshed
       991418         013    TTH 3:30-4:50    HSS 1106B    Mike Morshed
991435 030 MW 3:30-4:50 HSS 2333A  Melinda Guillen

Everyone says we need to stop crime, but crime seems to happen whether we want it to or not. Some even make a living from it. How we treat those who have broken rules has changed over time as our morals and definitions of crimes have evolved.

In this course, we will consider how modern society identifies and reacts to criminals and how punishment is determined by examining a variety of scholarly arguments that cross crime with subjects such as the US Justice System, terrorism, revenge, class, gender, and pop culture.

“Beyond Mascots”: Native American Experiences in the 21st Century

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

991413

008

TTH 8:00-9:20

HSS 1106B

Kelly Silva

991414

009

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 1106B

Kelly Silva

991416

011

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 1106B

Kelly Silva

In 2016, Native American peoples from across the country, along with environmentalists and activists, came together to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota.  With the hashtag #NoDAPL, these protests made visible to a wider American audience longstanding political, cultural, and economic concerns facing Native American peoples and tribal communities and pushed the conversation beyond public debates over sports mascots.  In this course, we will explore issues central to Native American peoples and communities in the 21st century.  This includes, but is not limited to, ongoing debates over land, resources, representation, memory, health care, sovereignty, and the ongoing legacies of America’s colonial past.  In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Thank U, Next: Cultural Imperialism and Politically Enchanting Plots

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

991421

016

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 2333B

 Nur Duru

991422

017

MW 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333B

Nur Duru

991426

021

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 2305B

Nur Duru

991428

023

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 2305B

  Nur Duru  

How do sensationalized tales of pop stars, superheroes, princesses, and villains shape our understandings of majority and minority communities? Just as Ariana Grande “breaks free” from “7 rings” of systemic oppression—sex, gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality, dis/ability—students in this class will unpack the overlapping layers of popular culture, ideology, representation, oppression, and privilege. In this course students will analyze arguments about how stories function to replicate, resist, and rewrite the dominant narratives that shape our educational, legal, medical, and social institutions while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

The Question of Human Extinction

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

991431

026

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 2346A

Carrie Wastal

You are likely familiar with the extinction of the East Asian woolly mammoth, the early Holocene Epoch likely due to radical climate change and possibly through human actions. Now, some researchers argue that the planet is approaching the Anthropocene Epoch, in which another species—homo sapiens—will face extinction.  The driving concern of our class is whether or not humans will go the way of extinct non-sentient animals.

In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.   

Substance (Ab)use: Contexts and Conversations

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 000164

039 

TTH 2:00-3:20 HSS 2333B

Kathy Bryan

 000165

040 

TTH 3:30-4:50

HSS 2333B

Kathy Bryan

991427 022 TTH 11:00-12:20 HSS 2305B Andrea Carter
991429 024 TTH 2:00-3:20 HSS 2305B Andrea Carter
991430 025 TTH 3:30-4:50 HSS 2305B Andrea Carter

Mind-and body-altering substances and prescription medications have a contested history in the U.S. Lysergic acid, alcohol, marijuana, opioids, and amphetamines are a few examples of the substances that are a part of that history. Of particular interest to this class are the shifting attitudes and policies that make such drugs taboo or acceptable, legal or illegal, and sometimes, legal again.

Our class will look at aspects of past and current debates that reflect the changing attitudes of society, including its institutions, toward body- and mind-altering substances. Our readings will look evolving political climates as well as the social and medical contexts for the uses and abuses of mind-altering substances. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Make up your Mind: Cultures of Neuroscience

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

991438

033

TTH 11:00-12:20

HSS 1106A

Sophie Staschus

991439

034

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 1106A

Sophie Staschus

Will brain imaging become the ultimate lie detector? Can a brain scan tell you if you are hungry, depressed, or a criminal? Do “mirror neurons” explain empathy? Neuroscientific claims pervade contemporary culture, shaping our understanding of ourselves and influencing many areas of social life, including law, education, clinical practice, and social policy. This course will examine scholarship on the scope and limits of neurobiological explanations, and how neuroscience both influences and is influenced by culture, by focusing on social and historical studies of how neuroscientific knowledge is made and circulated. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about a scientific concept, practice, technology, or representation issue relevant to the course topic.

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

991409

004

MW 12:30-1:50 HSS 1106B

Ayden LeRoux

991423

018

MW 2:00-3:20

HSS 2333B

Ayden LeRoux

991440 035 TTH 12:30-1:50 HSS 2305A Laurie Nies
991442 037 TTH 3:30-4:50 HSS 2305A Haydee Smith
000163 038 TTH 12:30-1:50 HSS 2346A Haydee Smith

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

Fall 2019

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 977678

006

TTH 8:00-9:20

HSS 1128B

Laurie Nies

 977679

007

TTH 9:30-10:50

HSS 1128B

Laurie Nies

Upwards of 43 million Americans are experience some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment. Yet despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped—and thus further marginalized—in popular culture as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is portrayed as a difficult existence. We will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

From Quantifying To Qualifying Happiness

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

977680

008

TTH 11:00-12:20 HSS 1128B

Kelly Silva

977681

009

TTH 12:30-1:50

HSS 1128B

Kelly Silva

977684 012 TTH 9:30-10:50 HSS 2346A Carrie Wastal

 The Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator will certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” According to the architects of the Declaration, happiness is not guaranteed; however, citizens have the right to pursue it. How will we know when we find or achieve happiness? What is happiness dependent on? In our own exploration of happiness, the class will look at published arguments that examine the ways that society, economics, health, and public policies measure happiness and how they contribute to or otherwise impact human happiness.

In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Latin America and the United States: Internationalism and the Politics of Cultural Production

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

977677

005

MW 5:00-6:20 HSS 1138

Michael Witte

977682

010

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 1128B

Vince Pham

977683 011 TTH 3:30-4:50 HSS 1128B Vince Pham
986704 017 MW 5:00-6:20 HSS 1138 Michael Witte

In what ways has Latin America influenced U.S. discourses in fine arts, architecture and cinema, and how does this testify to the vital role of Latin America in U.S. cultural production? This course will examine the ways that Latin American subject matter is replicated, represented and repurposed in U.S. contexts. Influences range from ancient archaeological sites like Machu Picchu to modern architectural works like Luis Barragán’s Jardines del Pedregal, to the works of Rio de Janeiro’s Grupo Frente, among many other examples. In doing so we will consider the relationship between American cultural production and the racial and cultural hierarchies that in many ways define U.S. national identity. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Food Beyond the Plate

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

977685

013

TTH 2:00-3:20

HSS 1106B

Melinda Guillen

977686

014

TTH 3:30-4:50

HSS 1106B

Melinda Guillen

977687

015

MW 9:30-10:50

HSS 1106B

Melinda Guillen

977688

016

MW 11:00-12:20

HSS 1106B

Melinda Guillen

As fast food workers join the Fight for $15 campaign seeking a living wage, the profitability of the food industry as a whole, along with the wealth of celebrity chefs and restaurant entrepreneurs, has soared. We see countries of wealth secure food in excess while poorer countries suffer famines. How can we make sense of these divergent trends? In this course, we will explore issues of justice in the production, preparation, and consumption of food in the 21st century. We will consider how class differences, health concerns, and technological developments impact the food that we eat and the way the current food industry operates.  In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Spring 2019

"A Diva Is a Female Version of a Hustler”: Engendering Power, Politics, and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 973038

003

MW 11:00-12:20

APM 2301

Jennifer Carter

 973039

004

MW 12:30-1:50

APM 2301

Jennifer Carter

 973061 026 T/TH 12:30-1:50 1138 Jennifer Carter

 973064

029

MW 8:00-9:20

2333A 

Alison Ogunmokun

 973065

030

MW 9:30-10:50

2333A

Alison Ogunmokun

The entrepreneurial spirit is much celebrated in contemporary American culture.  From our latest presidential election to media mogul icons such as Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Oprah and Jay-Z, the iconicity and perceived authority of business savvy permeates cultural understandings of how power, politics, and popular media interact with and inflect each other.  Considering the processes of gendering, commodification, celebrity formations, and the intersections of power and ideology, students in this course will examine primary sources drawn from popular culture alongside academic arguments situated within political economies, gender and sexuality studies, critical feminisms, film and media studies, and literary analysis. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Make up your Mind: Cultures of Neuroscience

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 973043

008

T/TH 8:00-9:20

2333A

Sophie Staschus

 973044

009

T/TH 9:30-10:50

2333A

Sophie Staschus

Will brain imaging become the ultimate lie detector? Can a brain scan tell you if you are hungry, depressed, or a criminal? Do “mirror neurons” explain empathy? Neuroscientific claims pervade contemporary culture, shaping our understanding of ourselves and influencing many areas of social life, including law, education, clinical practice, and social policy. This course will examine scholarship on the scope and limits of neurobiological explanations, and how neuroscience both influences and is influenced by culture, by focusing on social and historical studies of how neuroscientific knowledge is made and circulated. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Substance (Ab)use: Contexts and Conversations

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 973076

041

T/TH 8:00-9:20

1128B

Andrea Carter

 973077

042

T/TH 9:30-10:50

1128B

Andrea Carter

 973079 044 T/TH 12:30-1:50 1128B Andrea Carter

 973036

001

MW 8:00-9:20

CENTR 224C 

Kelly Silva

 973037

002

MW 9:30-10:50

CENTR 224C

Kelly Silva

974976

049

T/TH 9:30-10:50

CENTR 224B

Shelton Lo

974977 050 T/TH 3:30-4:50 CENTR 224B Shelton Lo

Mind- and body-altering substances and prescription medications have a contested history in the U.S. Lysergic acid, alcohol, marijuana, opioids, and amphetamines are a few examples of the substances that are a part of that history. Of particular interest to this class are the shifting attitudes and policies that make such drugs taboo or acceptable, legal or illegal, and sometimes, legal again. Our class will look at aspects of past and current debates that reflect the changing attitudes of society toward these substances. Our readings will look evolving political climates as well as the social and medical contexts for their uses and abuses. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 973058

023

T/TH 8:00-9:20

1138

Laurie Nies

 973059

024

T/TH 9:30-10:50

1138

Laurie Nies

 973054 019 T/TH 11:00-12:20 2333B Suzy Woltmann

 973055

020

T/TH 12:30-1:50

2333B

Suzy Woltmann

Upwards of 43 million Americans are experience some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment. Yet despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped—and thus further marginalized—in popular culture as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is portrayed as a difficult existence. We will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Latin America and the United States: Internationalism and the Politics of Cultural Production

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 973045

010

T/TH 11:00-12:20

2333A Elizabeth Miller

 973046

011

T/TH 12:30-1:50

2333A

Elizabeth Miller

 973048 013 T/TH 3:30-4:50 2333A Elizabeth Miller

 973041

006

MW 3:30-4:50

CENTR 224C

Kelly Hutton

 973042

007

MW 5:00-6:20

CENTR 224C

Kelly Hutton

973047

012

T/TH 2:00-3:20

CENTR 224B

Vince Pham

973073 038 T/TH 12:30-1:50 CENTR 224B Vince Pham
973050 015 MW 3:30-4:50 1138 Michael Witte
973051 016 5:00-6:20 1138 Michael Witte

In what ways has Latin America influenced U.S. discourses in fine arts, architecture and cinema, and how does this testify to the vital role of Latin America in U.S. cultural production? This course will examine the ways that Latin American subject matter is replicated, represented and repurposed in U.S. contexts. Influences range from ancient archaeological sites like Machu Picchu to modern architectural works like Luis Barragán’s Jardines del Pedregal, to the works of Rio de Janeiro’s Grupo Frente, among many other examples. In doing so we will consider the relationship between American cultural production and the racial and cultural hierarchies that in many ways define U.S. national identity. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Community and Identity in the Middle East

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 973067

032

MW 5:00-6:20

CENTR 224A Ted Falk

 973068

033

MW 2:00-3:20

CENTR 224A

Ted Falk

 973069 034 MW 3:30-4:50 CENTR 224A Ted Falk

What is a nation? Does it come from a map, a language, a race or a religion? The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been periods of intense change, as Middle Eastern nations have emerged and states have been broken down by internal and external forces. We will explore the racial, religious, and political beliefs that bring people together and break them apart both in the Middle East as well as worldwide. Reading historical nationalist works alongside critical theory will allow us to reconsider ideas of communal identity from the nineteenth century through the present day. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Food Beyond the Plate

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 974970

048

MW 12:30-1:50

CENTR 224C

Stephanie Fairchild

 973052

017

T/TH 8:00-9:20

2333B

Melinda Guillen

 973053 018 T/TH 9:30-10:50 2333B Melinda Guillen

 973060

025

T/TH 11:00-12:20

1138 

Mike Morshed

 973062

027

T/TH 2:00-3:20

1138

Mike Morshed

973063

028

T/TH 3:30-4:50

1138

Mike Morshed

As fast food workers join the Fight for $15 campaign seeking a living wage, the profitability of the food industry as a whole, along with the wealth of celebrity chefs and restaurant entrepreneurs, has soared. We see countries of wealth secure food in excess while poorer countries suffer famines. How can we make sense of these divergent trends? In this course, we will explore issues of justice in the production, preparation, and consumption of food in the 21st century. We will consider how class differences, health concerns, and technological developments impact the food that we eat and the way the current food industry operates.  In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Thank U, Next: Cultural Imperialism and Politically Enchanting Plots

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 973078

043

T/TH11:00-12:20

1128B Nur Duru

 973080

045

T/TH 2:00-3:20

1128B

Nur Duru

 973081 046 T/TH 3:30-4:50 1128B Nur Duru

 973056

021

T/TH 2:00-3:20

2333B 

Haydee Smith

 973057

022

MW 3:30-4:50

2333B

Haydee Smith

How do sensationalized tales of pop stars, superheroes, princesses, and villains shape our understandings of majority and minority communities? Just as Ariana Grande “breaks free” from “7 rings” of systemic oppression—sex, gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality, dis/ability—students in this class will unpack the overlapping layers of popular culture, ideology, representation, oppression, and privilege. In this course students will analyze arguments about how stories function to replicate, resist, and rewrite the dominant narratives that shape our educational, legal, medical, and social institutions while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Nonhuman Studies: Ecologies, Cyborgs, Networks

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 973040

005

MW 2:00-3:20

CENTR 224C

Jonathan Walton

 974969

047

MW 11:00-12:20

CENTR 224C

Jonathan Walton

The relationships between humans and nonhumans are under increasing pressure. In the current era of both technological innovation and environmental crisis, humanity’s future is directly intertwined with other living organisms, nonliving machines, and organic-machine hybrids. Consequently, many interdisciplinary scholars are actively working to bridge or blend the natural and social/humanistic sciences, exploring how humans operate alongside our nonhuman "cousins." Linked together in interdependent networks, how can we survive and thrive? Following the guidelines for MCWP 50, students will conduct independent research towards a final paper on a topic of their choice.

Winter 19

Section ID

Section #

Topic

954363

001

Disability and Popular Culture

954364

002

Disability and Popular Culture

954365

003

Make up your Mind: Cultures of Neuroscience

954366

004

Make up your Mind: Cultures of Neuroscience

954367

005

Community and Identity in the Middle East

954368

006

Community and Identity in the Middle East

954369

007

Community and Identity in the Middle East

954370

008

Make up your Mind: Cultures of Neuroscience

954371

009

Make up your Mind: Cultures of Neuroscience

954372

010

Food Beyond the Plate

954373

011

Non-Binary Code

954374

012

Food Beyond the Plate

954375

013

Food Beyond the Plate

954376

014

Food Beyond the Plate

954377

015

Food Beyond the Plate

954384

022

Disability and Popular Culture

954385

023

Disability and Popular Culture

954386

024

Non-Binary Code

954387

025

Non-Binary Code

954388

026

Non-Binary Code

954389

027

Non-Binary Code

954390

028

Latin America and the United States

954391

029

Latin America and the United States

954392

030

Latin America and the United States

954393

031

Latin America and the United States

954394

032

Food Beyond the Plate

954395

033

Food Beyond the Plate

954396

034

Community and Identity in the Middle East

954397

035

Food Beyond the Plate

954398

036

Community and Identity in the Middle East

954399

037

Community and Identity in the Middle East

954402

040

Latin America and the United States

954403

041

Latin America and the United States

Spring 2018 

"A Diva Is a Female Version of a Hustler": Engendering Power, Politics, and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 935477

003

T/TH 11:00-12:20

2346A

Jennifer Carter 

 935478

004

T/TH 12:30-1:50

2346A

Jennifer Carter

 935493 019 MW 9:30-10:50 2333B Jennifer Carter

 935494

020

MW 11:00-12:20

2333B 

Jennifer Carter

 935481

007

MW 8:00-9:20

2346A

Laurie Nies

  935482 

008

MW 9:30-10:50

 2346A

Laurie Nies

The entrepreneurial spirit is much celebrated in contemporary American culture.  From our latest presidential election to media mogul icons such as Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Oprah and Jay-Z, the iconicity and perceived authority of business savvy permeates cultural understandings of how power, politics, and popular media interact with and inflect each other.  Considering the processes of gendering, commodification, celebrity formations, and the intersections of power and ideology, students in this course will examine primary sources drawn from popular culture alongside academic arguments situated within political economies, gender and sexuality studies, critical feminisms, film and media studies, and literary analysis. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Out There: American Deserts, Land Use, and Spatial Difference

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 935475

001

T/TH 8:00-9:20

2346A

Stephanie Fairchild

 935476

002

T/TH 9:30-10:50

2333A

Stephanie Fairchild

 935491 017 T/TH 2:00-3:20 2333B Michael Morshed

 935492

018

T/TH 3:30-4:50

2333B 

Michael Morshed

 935499

025

T/TH 8:00-9:20

1128B

Melinda Guillen

  935500 

026

T/TH 9:30-10:50

 1128B

Melinda Guillen

 935501

027

T/TH 11:00-12:20

1138

Michael Morshed

Deserts are used frequently as signifiers in film, television, art, and literature of everything from prehistory to post-apocalyptic fantasy, all the while, maintaining complicated ties to grand narratives of “The American West.” Desert landscapes are also where militarized weapons testing and nuclear waste depositories are set, despite forever changing the ecological vitality of the land, its natural resources, and all those that call the desert home. We will explore key texts by cultural critics, urban theorists, historians, and artists in the development of original research projects examining how spatial hierarchies and the extended fantasies of Frontierism continue to mark the American Southwest in various and complex ways. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Make up your Mind: Cultures of Neuroscience

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

935496

022

MW 2:00-3:20

2333B

Sarah Klein

 935505

031

MW 9:30-10:50

1138

Sarah Klein

 935506

032

MW 11:00-12:20

1138

Sarah Klein

 935502 028 T/TH 12:30-1:50 1138 Jonathan Walton

 935514

040

T/TH 2:00-3:20

1138 

Jonathan Walton

Will brain imaging become the ultimate lie detector? Can a brain scan tell you if you are hungry, depressed, or a criminal? Do “mirror neurons” explain empathy? Neuroscientific claims pervade contemporary culture, shaping our understanding of ourselves and influencing many areas of social life, including law, education, clinical practice, and social policy. This course will examine scholarship on the scope and limits of neurobiological explanations, and how neuroscience both influences and is influenced by culture, by focusing on social and historical studies of how neuroscientific knowledge is made and circulated. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about a scientific concept, practice, technology, or representation issue relevant to the course topic.

Substance (Ab)use: Contexts and Conversations

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 935479

005

T/TH 2:00-3:20

2346A

Mallory Pickett

 935480

006

T/TH 3:30-4:50

2346A

Mallory Pickett

 935487 013 T/TH 8:00-9:20 2333B Michael Berman

 935488

014

T/TH 9:30-10:50

2333B 

Michael Berman

 935507

033

T/TH 12:30-1:50

2333A

Kelly Silva

  935513 

039

T/TH 11:00-12:20

 2333A

Kelly Silva

Mind-and body-altering substances and prescription medications have a contested history in the U.S. Lysergic acid, alcohol, marijuana, opioids, and amphetamines are a few examples of the substances that are a part of that history. Of particular interest to this class are the shifting attitudes and policies that make such drugs taboo or acceptable, legal or illegal, and sometimes, legal again. Our class will look at aspects of past and current debates that reflect the changing attitudes of society, including its institutions, toward body- and mind-altering substances. Our readings will look evolving political climates as well as the social and medical contexts for the uses and abuses of mind-altering substances. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Camerawork and Cultures of Persuasion

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 935483

009

MW 11:00-12:20

2333A

Vince Pham

 935484

010

MW 12:30-1:50

2333A

Vince Pham

 935485 011 MW 2:00-3:20 2333A Alex Kershaw

 935486

012

MW 3:30-4:50

2333A 

Alex Kershaw

There’s no doubt that photographing is a predatory act. Scholars often liken the camera with the gun to characterize the power imbalances of ideologically charged images. Conversely, how might photography redress forms of social inequality by demanding justice? As a tool of surveillance, how does photography intervene in our lives in ways that are coercive? This course explores the ways photography represents, enacts, and counteract forms of oppression in contexts ranging from photojournalism, ethnography, war, the visual arts, and policing. Students will develop skills in visual analysis, by analyzing the rhetorical tropes and charged histories that lay dormant beneath the glossy surface of images. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 935515

041

T/TH 3:30-4:50

1106A Jenni Marchisotto

 935503

029

T/TH 2:00-3:20

1128B

Haydee Smith

 935504

030

T/TH 3:30-4:50 1128B Haydee Smith

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

Community and Identity in the Middle East

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 935508

034

MW 2:00-3:20

1138

Nur Duru

 935509

035

MW 3:30-4:50

1138

Nur Duru

 943664 042 T/TH 2:00-3:20 1138 Nur Duru

 943665

043

T/TH 3:30-4:50

1138

Nur Duru

 What is a nation? Does it come from a map, a language, a race or a religion? The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been periods of intense change, as Middle Eastern nations have emerged and states have been broken down by internal and external forces. In this writing and research seminar, we will explore the racial, religious, and political beliefs that bring people together and break them apart both in the Middle East as well as worldwide. Reading historical nationalist works alongside critical theory will allow us to reconsider ideas of communal identity from the nineteenth century through the present day. From these topics, students will develop a research topic and write their own primary source research paper.

Latin America and the United States: Internationalism and the Politics of Cultural Production

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 935495 021  MW 12:30-1:50 2333B Elizabeth Miller
 935497 023 MW 3:30-4:50  2333B    Elizabeth Miller

 935498

024

MW 5:00-6:20

   2333B 

Elizabeth Miller

 935511

037

T/TH 8:00-9:20

1138

Crystal Perez

  935512

038

T/TH 9:30-10:50

1138

Crystal Perez

By the 1940s, New York City had overtaken Paris as the “center” of the art world, but American discourses meanwhile neglected many other influences on U.S. cultural production. Since the conclusion of the Spanish-American War in 1898 (and arguably long before Spain’s evacuation of the Americas), Latin America has had a tremendous impact on U.S. cultural production. This course uses the vantage point of fine arts, architecture and cinema to examine the ways that Latin American subject matter is replicated, represented and repurposed in U.S. contexts. Influences range from ancient archaeological sites like Machu Picchu and Teotihuacán, to modern architectural works like Luis Barragán’s Jardines del Pedregal, to the works of Rio de Janeiro’s Grupo Frente or the Mexican Muralists, among many other examples. The broader aim of this course is to foster a more complex understanding of the unusual and occasionally overlooked relationship between American cultural production and the racial and cultural hierarchies that in many ways define U.S. national identity. How have representations and transpositions of Latin American subject matter in the U.S. reflected changing political relationships in the Americas? In what ways has Latin America influenced U.S. discourses in fine arts, architecture and cinema, and how does this testify to the vital role of Latin America in U.S. cultural production?

Winter 2018 

"A Diva Is a Female Version of a Hustler”: Engendering Power, Politics, and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 920530

001

MW 9:30-10:50

2333B

Jennifer Carter 

 920531

002

MW 11:00-12:20

2333B

Jennifer Carter

 920538 009 T/TH 11:00-12:20 2333B Jennifer Carter

 920539

010

T/TH 12:30-1:50

2333B 

Jennifer Carter

 920540

011

T/TH 2:00-3:20

2333B

Haydee Smith

  920541 

012

T/TH 3:30-4:50

 2333B 

Haydee Smith 

The entrepreneurial spirit is much celebrated in contemporary American culture.  From our latest presidential election to media mogul icons such as Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Oprah and Jay-Z, the iconicity and perceived authority of business savvy permeates cultural understandings of how power, politics, and popular media interact with and inflect each other.  Considering the processes of gendering, commodification, celebrity formations, and the intersections of power and ideology, students in this course will examine primary sources drawn from popular culture alongside academic arguments situated within political economies, gender and sexuality studies, critical feminisms, film and media studies, and literary analysis. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Camerawork and Cultures of Persuasion

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 920532 

003

MW 12:30-1:50

2333B

Vince Pham

 920533 

004

MW 2:00-3:20

2333B

Vince Pham

920534

005

MW 3:30-4:50

2333B

Alex Kershaw

920535

006

MW 5:00-6:20

2333B

Alex Kershaw

There’s no doubt that photographing is a predatory act. Scholars often liken the camera with the gun to characterize the power imbalances of ideologically charged images. Conversely, how might photography redress forms of social inequality by demanding justice? As a tool of surveillance, how does photography intervene in our lives in ways that are coercive? This course explores the ways photography represents, enacts, and counteract forms of oppression in contexts ranging from photojournalism, ethnography, war, the visual arts, and policing. Students will develop skills in visual analysis, by analyzing the rhetorical tropes and charged histories that lay dormant beneath the glossy surface of images. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Out There: American Deserts, Land Use, and Spatial Difference

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

920536

007

T/TH 8:00-9:20

2333B

Stephanie Fairchild

920537 008 T/TH 9:30-10:50 2333B Stephanie Fairchild

 920546 

 017

T/TH 8:00-9:20

2333A

Melinda Guillen 

920547

018

T/TH 9:30-10:50

2333A

Melinda Guillen

920548

019

T/TH 11:00-12:20

2333A

Michael Morshed

920550 021 T/TH 2:010-3:20 2333A Michael Morshed

920551

022

T/TH 3:30-4:50

2333A

Michael Morshed

920552

 023

 MW 11:00-12:20

1128B 

 Kelly Silva

920553

 024

 MW 12:30-1:50

1128B 

 Kelly Silva

Deserts are used frequently as signifiers in film, television, art, and literature of everything from prehistory to post-apocalyptic fantasy, all the while, maintaining complicated ties to grand narratives of “The American West.” Desert landscapes are also where militarized weapons testing and nuclear waste depositories are set, despite forever changing the ecological vitality of the land, its natural resources, and all those that call the desert home. We will explore key texts by cultural critics, urban theorists, historians, and artists in the development of original research projects examining how spatial hierarchies and the extended fantasies of Frontierism continue to mark the American Southwest in various and complex ways. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Make up your Mind: Cultures of Neuroscience

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 920543

  014 

MW 9:30-10:50 

2333A

Sarah Klein 

 920554

 025

MW 12:30-1:50 

 2305B

 Sarah Klein 

 920555

 026

MW 2:00-3:20 

 2333A

 Sarah Klein 

Will brain imaging become the ultimate lie detector? Can a brain scan tell you if you are hungry, depressed, or a criminal? Do “mirror neurons” explain empathy? Neuroscientific claims pervade contemporary culture, shaping our understanding of ourselves and influencing many areas of social life, including law, education, clinical practice, and social policy. This course will examine scholarship on the scope and limits of neurobiological explanations, and how neuroscience both influences and is influenced by culture, by focusing on social and historical studies of how neuroscientific knowledge is made and circulated. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about a scientific concept, practice, technology, or representation issue relevant to the course topic.

Substance (Ab)use: Contexts and Conversations

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

 920557

  028 

T/TH 9:30-10:50 

2346A

Carrie Wastal

 920560

 031

T/TH 2:00-3:20 

 1138

 Mallory Pickett 

 920561

 032

T/TH 3:30-4:50 

 1138

 Mallory Pickett

Mind-and body-altering substances and prescription medications have a contested history in the U.S. Lysergic acid, alcohol, marijuana, opioids, and amphetamines are a few examples of the substances that are a part of that history. Of particular interest to this class are the shifting attitudes and policies that make such drugs taboo or acceptable, legal or illegal, and sometimes, legal again.


Our class will look at aspects of past and current debates that reflect the changing attitudes of society, including its institutions, toward body- and mind-altering substances. Our readings will look evolving political climates as well as the social and medical contexts for the uses and abuses of mind-altering substances. In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Fall 2017

**Every FALL QUARTER, we hold the majority of seats in classes (MCWP 40, 50, and 125) for incoming students.**

A Borderlands Art History: Politics, Performance and Art between Mexico and the U.S.

SEC. ID

SEC.

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

906893

003

T/TH 11:00-12:20

2305A

Sara Solaimani

906894

004

T/TH 12:30-1:50

2305A

Sara Solaimani


Description
In the past three decades in particular, there has been incredible growth and change in art’s response to the political tensions and growing border security infrastructure on the Mexico-U.S. border. The local art histories of different border regions such as Tijuana-San Diego have each made unique contributions to enriching the history of the border and borderlands. There many potential connections between these practices that have yet to be analyzed and understood, especially by residents north of the border. In this MCWP 50 course, we will develop research projects investigating the many different contexts, practices, and artworks by transborder artists in the region, considering in particular the representations of the struggle for social justice for people whom the border marginalizes, or denies entry.

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

906895

005

T/TH 2:00-3:20

2305A

Suzy Woltmann 

906896

006

T/TH 3:30-4:50

2305A

Suzy Woltmann

906905

015

T/TH 11:00-12:20

1138

Haydee Smith

906906

016

T/TH 12:30-1:50

1138

Haydee Smith


Description
Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

It’s Not So Simple: Complex Ways to Understand Our Complex World

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

906897

007

MW 9:30-10:50

1106A

Matthew Sitek

906898

008

MW 11:00-12:20

1106A

Matthew Sitek

906900

010

MW 2:00-3:20

1106A

Matthew Sitek


Description
This course will utilize the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of complexity science to frame our discussion of the academic research process. We will investigate how researchers from vastly different disciplines use different scales of analysis to identify the interacting networks of agents from which complex systems emerge to form some of life’s most important phenomena. We will explore how the study of one complex system can teach about us the dynamics in other complex systems – what can beehives teach us about people’s decisions in voting booths? Through the lens of complexity we will reframe classic scientific models, such as biological evolution. We will consider how complexity frameworks can inform us about the origins of sociopolitical complexity in the ancient past and socioeconomic inequality in our society today. In this MCWP 50 section students will use course readings and independent research to develop their own academic argument about one of these systems in which the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Latin America in the United States: Regionalism, Internationalism and the Politics of Cultural Production

SEC. ID

SEC.

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

906899

009

MW 12:30-1:50

1106A

Elizabeth Miller

906901

011

MW 3:30-4:50

1106A

Elizabeth Miller

906902

012

MW 5:00-6:20

1106A

Elizabeth Miller


Description

By the 1940s, New York City had overtaken Paris as the “center” of the art world, but American discourses meanwhile neglected many other influences on U.S. cultural production. Since the conclusion of the Spanish-American War in 1898 (and arguably long before Spain’s evacuation of the Americas), Latin America has had a tremendous impact on U.S. cultural production. This course uses the vantage point of fine arts, architecture and cinema to examine the ways that Latin American subject matter is replicated, represented and repurposed in U.S. contexts. Influences range from ancient archaeological sites like Machu Picchu and Teotihuacán, to modern architectural works like Luis Barragán’s Jardines del Pedregal, to the works of Rio de Janeiro’s Grupo Frente or the Mexican Muralists, among many other examples. The broader aim of this course is to foster a more complex understanding of the unusual and occasionally overlooked relationship between American cultural production and the racial and cultural hierarchies that in many ways define U.S. national identity. How have representations and transpositions of Latin American subject matter in the U.S. reflected changing political relationships in the Americas? In what ways has Latin America influenced U.S. discourses in fine arts, architecture and cinema, and how does this testify to the vital role of Latin America in U.S. cultural production?

Substance (Ab)use: Contexts and Conversations

SEC. ID

SEC.

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

906892

002

T/TH 9:30-10:50

2346A

Carrie Wastal


Description

Mind-and body-altering substances and prescription medications have a contested history in the U.S.  Lysergic acid, alcohol, marijuana, opioids, and amphetamines are a few examples of the substances that are a part of that history.  Of particular interest to this class are the shifting attitudes and policies that make such drugs taboo or acceptable, legal or illegal, and sometimes, legal again. 

Our class will look at aspects of past and current debates that reflect the changing attitudes of society, including its institutions, toward body- and mind-altering substances.  Our readings will look evolving political climates as well as the social and medical contexts for the uses and abuses of mind-altering substances.  In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.

Spring 2017

Funny Business: A Critical Reading of Comedy in Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896045

001

MW 9:30-10:50

2333B

Amy Forrest

896046

002

MW 11:00-12:20

2333B

Amy Forrest

896061

017

TTH 8:00-9:20

2333A

Amy Forrest

896062

018

TTH 9:30-10:50

2333A

Amy Forrest

From Shakespeare's fools to Key and Peele, from Mark Twain to Mindy Kaling: humor is inextricably connected to culture. When we miss a joke, surely it's not because we lack a sense of humor, but because we lack the cultural assumptions that enable us to understand the punch line. In this course, we will analyze arguments in a variety of comedic texts, critical essays, and scholarly journal articles, examining both how they are made, what they teach us about comedy, and the ways in which comedy engages critically with social, cultural and political issues. Additionally, we will explore comedy's ability to reveal the pettiness and pathos at the heart of the human condition, and how comedians use race, class, gender, language, sexuality, and identity to challenge our assumptions about ourselves and the society in which we live. In Funny Business, you will choose a comedic text (visual, video, or written) and will create an extended academic argument about it with the support of theoretical concepts that we will work with in class and other texts from your own research.

Oppressive Visuality: The Representational Politics of Photography and Film

SEC. ID

SEC.

DAYS

TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896047

003

MW

12:30-1:50

2333B

Alex Kershaw

896048

004

MW

2:00-3:20

2333B

Alex Kershaw

896065

021

TTH

2:00-3:20

2333A

Haydee Smith

896066

022

TTH

3:30-4:50

2333A

Haydee Smith

Subject/Object. Predator/Prey. Mimesis/Diegesis. Camera/Image. Although images seem to be impartial recordings of conflict, encounters mediated via the camera can exacerbate or even placate tensions by demanding justice. This course explores the ways film and photography represent, enact, and counteract forms of oppression in contexts ranging from Hollywood cinema to photojournalism. Students will develop skills in visual analysis—by experimenting with a variety of lenses for reading images within their cultural and political moments.  By taking into account issues like gender, race, sexuality, class, religion or disability, students will argue for how social justice and visual culture are intertwined. Students will develop individualized arguments, through a focused research paper project, and contribute to the ongoing academic discourse related to how film, photos, and cameras simultaneously critique and catalyze forms of oppression in diverse cultural spheres.

It’s Not So Simple: Complex Ways to Understand Our Complex World

SEC. ID

SEC.

DAYS

TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896049

005

MW

3:30-4:50

2333B

Matthew Sitek

896050

006

MW

5:00-6:20

2346A

Matthew Sitek

This course will utilize the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of complexity science to frame our discussion of the academic research process. We will investigate how researchers from vastly different disciplines use different scales of analysis to identify the interacting networks of agents from which complex systems emerge to form some of life’s most important phenomena. We will explore how the study of one complex system can teach about us the dynamics in other complex systems – what can beehives teach us about people’s decisions in voting booths? Through the lens of complexity we will reframe classic scientific models, such as biological evolution. We will consider how complexity frameworks can inform us about the origins of sociopolitical complexity in the ancient past and socioeconomic inequality in our society today. In this MCWP 50 section students will use course readings and independent research to develop their own academic argument about one of these systems in which the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

The Culture of Work: Why Work Is the Way It Is and Why We Think About Work the Way We Do

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896053

009

TTH 11:00-12:20

2333B

Yi Hong Sim

Where did the 40-hour work week come from? Why do some jobs have paid leave but not others? How does the policy of equal opportunity hiring actually play out in real life? In this course, we will explore the worldviews, ideas, and practices that make the institution of work what it is today. Influential factors we will consider in course readings and through students' individual research include history, law, policy, race, gender, capitalism, economics, technology, and leisure, among other issues. In the final project of the course, students will write a research-based argument on a specific issue of their choice that concerns the culture of work. The issue can be historical or contemporary, and may be focused either on a topic or on explicating the significance of a particular primary document related to the culture of work (e.g. a piece of policy, a law, a TV show set in a work environment, a news event, a court ruling, etc.).

Community and Identity in the Middle East

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896054

010

TTH 12:30-1:50

2333B

Nur Duru

896055

011

TTH 2:00-3:20

2333B

Nur Duru

What is a nation? Does it come from a map, a language, a race or a religion? The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been periods of intense change, as Middle Eastern nations have emerged and states have been broken down by internal and external forces. In this writing and research seminar, we will explore the racial, religious, and political beliefs that bring people together and break them apart both in the Middle East as well as worldwide. Reading historical nationalist works alongside critical theory will allow us to reconsider ideas of communal identity from the nineteenth century through the present day. From these topics, students will develop a research topic and write their own primary source research paper.

Art, Architecture, and the Politics of Space

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896056

012

TTH 3:30-4:50

2333B

Elizabeth Miller

896071

027

TTH 8:00-9:20

1138

Melinda Guillen

896072

028

TTH 9:30-10:50

1138

Melinda Guillen

896073

029

TTH 11:00-12:20

1138

Elizabeth Miller

896074

030

TTH 12:30-1:50

1338

Elizabeth Miller

SPACE: the final frontier? . . . not quite. The idea of space has been widely contested over the centuries, particularly with regard to the built environment and cultural production. This course explores some of the key thinkers and cultural producers implicated in the discourses about public space during the latter half of the 20th century. This topic spans the fields of urban studies, geography, art history, architecture and cultural theory, and the course will engage texts by figures as diverse as urban theorist Mike Davis, Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre and artists Robert Smithson and Suzanne Lacy, among others. We will consider: How do notions of public vs. private mediate our experiences of art and architecture? How do different geographies of the mid- to late 20th century--the modern city, the desert and the ‘burbs--influence our conception of space? What are the political systems that define and control space? And how have artists, architects, urban theorists, and other cultural producers expanded our understanding of space and its tenuous political history?

Translating Monstrosity: Affect and the Making of Modern Monsters

SEC. ID

SEC.

DAYS

TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896063

019

TTH

11:00-12:20

2333A

Jenni Marchisotto

896064

020

TTH

12:30-1:50

2333A

Jenni Marchisotto

896051

007

TTH

8:00-9:20

2346A

Megan Haugh

896052

008

TTH

9:30-10:50

2333B

Megan Haugh

896057

013

MW

8:00-9:20

2346A

Megan Haugh

896058

014

MW

9:30-10:50

1106A

Megan Haugh

What makes someone or something monstrous? Can you tell just by looking at them? Not all monsters have fangs, and they are not always fictional. We will look at vampires, werewolves, and ogres, but also think about how we as a culture apply their characteristics to certain communities. How do figures from myths and fairy tales inform our understandings of people different than us? What makes certain monsters more sympathetic than others? Why do types of monsters, zombies for example, become popular at certain moments in history? Why do news outlets and political figures consistently use language that implies monstrous behavior to describe both individuals and groups, labeling them as deviant? We will read scholarship from different perspectives analyzing the way society marks certain bodies as monstrous, and how those markings delineate social power dynamics. Drawing support from course readings as well as individual research, students will apply their knowledge to a primary text and construct an academic argument that engages the tension between monstrous facts and monstrous fictions.

Borders, Journeys, and Home

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896067

023

MW 11:00-12:20

2305B

Luis Sanchez Lopez

896068

024

MW 12:30-1:50

2305B

Luis Sanchez Lopez

896069

025

MW 2:00-3:20

2152

Ulices Pina

896070

026

MW 3:30-4:50

2152

Ulices Pina

We live a stone’s throw away from the most frequently crossed international border in the world.  How does this border—and the countless reasons why it is crossed every day—contribute to our idea of home?  In this course we will examine theories about displacement, migration and diaspora, and how these theories challenge or support cultural constructions of home.  In addition we will explore the ways in which home becomes mythologized for refugees, those in exile and economic migrants and consider how personal, social, national, ethnic or feminist identity is formed during journeys that take us far away from home or return us there.

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896075

031

TTH 2:00-3:20

1138

Suzy Woltmann

896076

032

TTH 3:30-4:50

1138

Suzy Woltmann

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

Imagining the Transborder: Politics, Performance and Art between Tijuana and San Diego

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896077

033

MW 2:00-3:20

2346A

Sara Solaimani

896078

034

MW 3:30-4:50

2346A

Sara Solaimani

In the past three decades in particular, there has been incredible growth and change in art’s response to the political tensions and growing border security infrastructure on the Tijuana-San Diego border. This local art history has many interesting potential connections yet to be analyzed and understood, especially by residents north of the border. In this MCWP 50 course, we will develop research projects investigating the many different contexts, practices, and artworks by transborder artists in the region, considering in particular the representations of the struggle for social justice for people whom the border marginalizes, or denies entry.

Funhouse Mirrors: Constructing Identity through Visual Culture and Hemispheric Relationships

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896079

035

TTH 11:00-12:20

2305B

Jennifer Huerta

896080

036

TTH 12:30-1:50

2305B

Jennifer Huerta

Everyday we are inundated and interact with visual images and media from sharing Grumpy Cat memes to viewing time-lapse videos of Earth from NASA to swiping Tinder profile pictures. We also freely distort, reflect, and refract visual sources depending on our own needs and interests. Yet, how do our interactions with seemingly innocuous products such as videos, television shows, photographs, and paintings, among many other visual mediums, shape deeply ingrained individual, regional, and even national identities? This class looks at global processes of identity construction through the lens of visual culture. Readings will serve as a primer to understand the transmission and communication of visual culture across borders and oceans as well as how its interpretation varies according to the historical context in which it is articulated. The significance attached to such interpretations not only depends on the producer’s intentions, but also by how people consume and manipulate visual sources to make sense of the world around them or facilitate social change. The course will culminate in a final research project in which students will research a specific visual source or trend, providing subsequent analysis from what we have learned in the readings throughout the quarter.

As the World Turns: Social Representations in Prime Time Television

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

896081

037

TTH 2:00-3:20

2305B

Camielyn West

896082

038

TTH 3:30-4:50

2305B

Camielyn West

What makes Scandal so scandalous? Is Modern Family really modern? These are the types of questions scholars ask when studying the relationship between entertainment television and changing social mores, and how we understand the world around us through media. In this class, we will read television as a text to not only analyze the content itself but also examine the historical contexts in which a program’s politics are (explicitly or implicitly) situated. We will explore the ways in which sitcoms and dramas offer a useful point of convergence for discussions of race, class, gender, and sexuality during the historical moment that such programs aired. Through reading critical essays, scholarly journal articles, and watching TV shows you are expected to contribute to the academic discussions on television’s powerful reach. Students will apply this scholarship—in addition to selected readings from the course reader—to their own research on a television text with the objective of writing a research paper based on their own argument about representations of social change in prime-time TV.

Winter 2017

Funny Business: A Critical Reading of Comedy in Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

897948

002

TTH 12:30-1:50

2333B

Amy Forrest

887612

005

TTH 8:00-9:20

2333B

Amy Forrest

887613

006

TTH 9:30-10:50

2333B

Amy Forrest

From Shakespeare’s fools to Key and Peele, from Mark Twain to Mindy Kaling: humor is inextricably connected to culture. When we miss a joke, surely it’s not because we lack a sense of humor, but because we lack the cultural assumptions that enable us to understand the punch line. In this course, we will analyze arguments in a variety of comedic texts, critical essays, and scholarly journal articles, examining both how they are made, what they teach us about comedy, and the ways in which comedy engages critically with social, cultural and political issues. Additionally, we will explore comedy’s ability to reveal the pettiness and pathos at the heart of the human condition, and how comedians use race, class, gender, language, sexuality, and identity to challenge our assumptions about ourselves and the society in which we live. In Funny Business, you will choose a comedic text (visual, video, or written) and will create an extended academic argument about it with the support of theoretical concepts that we will work with in class and other texts from your own research.

As the World Turns: Social Representations in Prime Time Television

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

887610

003

MW 11:00-12:20

2333A

Kate Flach

887611

004

MW 12:30-1:50

2333A

Kate Flach

887636

029

TTH 11:00-12:20

1138

Camielyn West

887637

030

TTH 12:30-1:50

1138

Camielyn West

What makes Scandal so scandalous? Is Modern Family really modern? These are the types of questions scholars ask when studying the relationship between entertainment television and changing social mores, and how we understand the world around us through media. In this class, we will read television as a text to not only analyze the content itself but also examine the historical contexts in which a program’s politics are (explicitly or implicitly) situated. We will explore the ways in which sitcoms and dramas offer a useful point of convergence for discussions of race, class, gender, and sexuality during the historical moment that such programs aired. Through reading critical essays, scholarly journal articles, and watching TV shows you are expected to contribute to the academic discussions on television’s powerful reach. Students will apply this scholarship—in addition to selected readings from the course reader—to their own research on a television text with the objective of writing a research paper based on their own argument about representations of social change in prime-time TV.

Grimm Retellings: Adapting Fairytales, Adapting Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

887615

008

TTH 8:00-9:20

2333A

Jenni Marchisotto

887616

009

TTH 9:30-10:50

2333A

Jenni Marchisotto

887632

025

TTH 2:00-3:20

1128B

Haydee Smith

887633

026

TTH 3:30-4:50

1128B

Haydee Smith

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess, a valiant knight and an evil queen….Fairy tales often begin in much the same way, but they transform with every re-telling over time, reflecting and critiquing shifting cultural ideals. From The Ballad of Mulan to Disney’s Mulan, from the Brothers Grimm to NBC’s Grimm, story tellers offer new versions of old stories in response to contemporary social norms. In their reimagining these stories reflect and question ideas about everything from gender, to race, to disability. In this class we will analyze a variety of academic texts that investigate the different cultural aspects of fairy tales and their adaptations. We will explore the different ways in which values are inscribed through the repetition of themes across different fairy tales, but also how adaptations work to shift those values. Drawing support from course readings as well as individual research, students will choose an adaptation of a fairy tale and construct an academic argument concerning its cultural function.

The Culture of Work: Why Work Is the Way It Is and Why We Think About Work the Way We Do

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

887617

010

TTH 11:00-12:20

2333A

Yi Hong Sim

887618

011

TTH 12:30-1:50

2333A

Yi Hong Sim

Where did the 40-hour work week come from? Why do some jobs have paid leave but not others? How does the policy of equal opportunity hiring actually play out in real life? In this course, we will explore the worldviews, ideas, and practices that make the institution of work what it is today. Influential factors we will consider in course readings and through students' individual research include history, law, policy, race, gender, capitalism, economics, technology, and leisure, among other issues. In the final project of the course, students will write a research-based argument on a specific issue of their choice that concerns the culture of work. The issue can be historical or contemporary, and may be focused either on a topic or on explicating the significance of a particular primary document related to the culture of work (e.g. a piece of policy, a law, a TV show set in a work environment, a news event, a court ruling, etc.).

Art, Architecture, and the Politics of Space

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

887619

012

TTH 2:00-3:20

2333A

Elizabeth Miller

887620

013

TTH 3:30-4:50

2333A

Elizabeth Miller

SPACE: the final frontier? . . . not quite. The idea of space has been widely contested over the centuries, particularly with regard to the built environment and cultural production. This course explores some of the key thinkers and cultural producers implicated in the discourses about public space during the latter half of the 20th century. This topic spans the fields of urban studies, geography, art history, architecture and cultural theory, and the course will engage texts by figures as diverse as urban theorist Mike Davis, Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre and artists Robert Smithson and Suzanne Lacy, among others. We will consider: How do notions of public vs. private mediate our experiences of art and architecture? How do different geographies of the mid- to late 20th century--the modern city, the desert and the ‘burbs--influence our conception of space? What are the political systems that define and control space? And how have artists, architects, urban theorists, and other cultural producers expanded our understanding of space and its tenuous political history?

Borders, Journeys, and Home

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

887622

015

MW 9:30-10:50

1128B

Luis Sanchez Lopez

887623

016

MW 11:00-12:20

1128B

Luis Sanchez Lopez

887634

027

TTH 8:00-9:20

1138

Matthew Sitek

887635

028

TTH 9:30-10:50

1138

Matthew Sitek

We live a stone’s throw away from the most frequently crossed international border in the world.  How does this border—and the countless reasons why it is crossed every day—contribute to our idea of home?  In this course we will examine theories about displacement, migration and diaspora, and how these theories challenge or support cultural constructions of home.  In addition we will explore the ways in which home becomes mythologized for refugees, those in exile and economic migrants and consider how personal, social, national, ethnic or feminist identity is formed during journeys that take us far away from home or return us there.

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

887624

017

MW 12:30-1:50

1128B

Suzy Woltmann

887625

018

MW 2:00-3:20

1128B

Suzy Woltmann

Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

Funhouse Mirrors: Constructing Identity through Visual Culture and Hemispheric Relationships

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

887628

021

TTH 8:00-9:20

1128B

Jennifer Huerta

887629

022

TTH 9:30-10:50

1128B

Jennifer Huerta

Everyday we are inundated and interact with visual images and media from sharing Grumpy Cat memes to viewing time-lapse videos of Earth from NASA to swiping Tinder profile pictures. We also freely distort, reflect, and refract visual sources depending on our own needs and interests. Yet, how do our interactions with seemingly innocuous products such as videos, television shows, photographs, and paintings, among many other visual mediums, shape deeply ingrained individual, regional, and even national identities? This class looks at global processes of identity construction through the lens of visual culture. Readings will serve as a primer to understand the transmission and communication of visual culture across borders and oceans as well as how its interpretation varies according to the historical context in which it is articulated. The significance attached to such interpretations not only depends on the producer’s intentions, but also by how people consume and manipulate visual sources to make sense of the world around them or facilitate social change. The course will culminate in a final research project in which students will research a specific visual source or trend, providing subsequent analysis from what we have learned in the readings throughout the quarter.

Imagining the Transborder: Politics, Performance and Art between Tijuana and San Diego

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

887630

023

TTH 11:00-12:20

1128B

Sara Solaimani

887631

024

TTH 12:30-1:50

1128B

Sara Solaimani

In the past three decades in particular, there has been incredible growth and change in art’s response to the political tensions and growing border security infrastructure on the Tijuana-San Diego border. This local art history has many interesting potential connections yet to be analyzed and understood, especially by residents north of the border. In this MCWP 50 course, we will develop research projects investigating the many different contexts, practices, and artworks by transborder artists in the region, considering in particular the representations of the struggle for social justice for people whom the border marginalizes, or denies entry.

Community and Identity in the Middle East

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

887638

031

TTH 2:00-3:20

1138

Nur Duru

887639

032

TTH 3:30-4:50

1138

Nur Duru

What is a nation? Does it come from a map, a language, a race or a religion? The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been periods of intense change, as Middle Eastern nations have emerged and states have been broken down by internal and external forces. In this writing and research seminar, we will explore the racial, religious, and political beliefs that bring people together and break them apart both in the Middle East as well as worldwide. Reading historical nationalist works alongside critical theory will allow us to reconsider ideas of communal identity from the nineteenth century through the present day. From these topics, students will develop a research topic and write their own primary source research paper.

Fall 2016

Art, Architecture, and the Politics of Space


SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

875679

005

TR 2:00-3:20 HSS 2333A Miller, Elizabeth

875680

006

TR 3:30-4:50

HSS 2333A

Miller, Elizabeth

875682

010

MW 9:30-10:50

CNTR 204

Miller, Elizabeth

SPACE: the final frontier? . . . not quite. The idea of space has been widely contested over the centuries, particularly with regard to the built environment and cultural production. This course explores some of the key thinkers and cultural producers implicated in the discourses about public space during the latter half of the 20th century. This topic spans the fields of urban studies, geography, art history, architecture and cultural theory, and the course will engage texts by figures as diverse as urban theorist Mike Davis, Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre and artists Robert Smithson and Suzanne Lacy, among others. We will consider: How do notions of public vs. private mediate our experiences of art and architecture? How do different geographies of the mid- to late 20th century--the modern city, the desert and the ‘burbs--influence our conception of space? What are the political systems that define and control space? And how have artists, architects, urban theorists, and other cultural producers expanded our understanding of space and its tenuous political history?

As the World Turns: Social Representations in Prime Time Television

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

875683

011

MW 11:00-12:20 CENTR 204 Flach, Kathryn

875684

012

MW 12:30-1:50

CENTR 204

Flach, Kathryn

What makes Scandal so scandalous? Is Modern Family really modern? These are the types of questions scholars ask when studying the relationship between entertainment television and changing social mores, and how we understand the world around us through media. In this class, we will read television as a text to not only analyze the content itself but also examine the historical contexts in which a program's politics are (explicitly or implicitly) situated. We will explore the ways in which sitcoms and dramas offer a useful point of convergence for discussions of race, class, gender, and sexuality during the historical moment that such programs aired. Through reading critical essays, scholarly journal articles, and watching TV shows you are expected to contribute to the academic discussions on television's powerful reach. Students will apply this scholarship - in addition to selected readings from the course reader - to their own research on a television text with objective of writing a research paper based on their own argument about representations of social change in prime-time TV.

Funhouse Mirrors: Constructing Identity through Visual Culture and Hemispheric Relationships

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

875677

003

TR 11:00-12:20 HSS 2333A Huerta, Jennifer

875678

004

TR 12:30-1:50

HSS 2333A

Huerta, Jennifer

Everyday we are inundated and interact with visual images and media from sharing Grumpy Cat memes to viewing time-lapse videos of Earth from NASA to swiping Tinder profile pictures. We also freely distort, reflect, and refract visual sources depending on our own needs and interests. Yet, how do our interactions with seemingly innocuous products such as videos, television shows, photographs, and paintings, among many other visual mediums, shape deeply ingrained individual, regional, and even national identities? This class looks at global processes of identity construction through the lens of visual culture. Readings will serve as a primer to understand the transmission and communication of visual culture across borders and oceans as well as how its interpretation varies according to the historical context in which it is articulated. The significance attached to such interpretations not only depends on the producer’s intentions, but also by how people consume and manipulate visual sources to make sense of the world around them or facilitate social change. The course will culminate in a final research project in which students will research a specific visual source or trend, providing subsequent analysis from what we have learned in the readings throughout the quarter.

Grimm Retellings: Adapting Fairytales, Adapting Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

875675

001

TR 8:00-9:20 HSS 2333A

Marchisotto, Jenni

875676

002

TR 9:30-10:50

HSS 2333A

Marchisotto, Jenni

875681

009

MW 8:00-9:20

CNTR 204 

Marchisotto, Jenni

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess, a valiant knight and an evil queen….Fairy tales often begin in much the same way, but they transform with every re-telling over time, reflecting and critiquing shifting cultural ideals. From The Ballad of Mulan to Disney’s Mulan, from the Brothers Grimm to NBC’s Grimm, story tellers offer new versions of old stories in response to contemporary social norms. In their reimagining these stories reflect and question ideas about everything from gender, to race, to disability. In this class we will analyze a variety of academic texts that investigate the different cultural aspects of fairy tales and their adaptations. We will explore the different ways in which values are inscribed through the repetition of themes across different fairy tales, but also how adaptations work to shift those values. Drawing support from course readings as well as individual research, students will choose an adaptation of a fairy tale and construct an academic argument concerning its cultural function.

Oceans

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

875685

013

TR 9:30-10:50 HSS 2346A Wastal, Carrie

The majority of scientists and researchers agree that climate change is one of society’s imminent problems.  This is tied to the idea that climate change is due in some part to human activity.  However, there are still “deniers” who claim that human activity and climate change are not related.  We often conceive of the planet and its oceans as able to absorb whatever humans throw at them whether it is emissions like carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas, which scientists say corresponds to the change in our climate that is global warming, and leads to ocean acidification, coastal flooding, decreased biodiversity, and thermal expansion.

This course will explore society’s view of the need for sustainable energy prompted by climate change. We will look at the different aspects of the current debate surrounding climate change.  We will explore the following questions: Do humans have an ethical or moral responsibility to future generations?  Does that responsibility extend to other forms of life like animals and plants? How widespread are the effects of climate change?  What are the links between politics, climate change, and public policy? And can we develop viable energy  alternatives?  In keeping with the goals and requirements of MCWP 50, you will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their content and structure while introducing and supporting your own informed research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.   

Spring 2016

Art, Architecture, and the Politics of Space

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870262

003

MW 11:00-12:20 2333A Alex Kershaw

870263

004

MW 12:30-1:50

2333A

Alex Kershaw

870289

029

MW 2:00-3:20

1138

Elizabeth Miller

870290

030

MW 3:30-4:50 1138 Elizabeth Miller

870297

037

TTH 2:00-3:20

2305A

Melinda Guillen

870298

038

TTH 3:30-4:50 2305A Melinda Guillen

SPACE: the final frontier? . . . not quite. The idea of space has been widely contested over the centuries, particularly with regard to the built environment and cultural production. This course explores some of the key thinkers and cultural producers implicated in the discourses about public space during the latter half of the 20th century. This topic spans the fields of urban studies, geography, art history, architecture and cultural theory, and the course will engage texts by figures as diverse as urban theorist Mike Davis, Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre and artists Robert Smithson and Suzanne Lacy, among others. We will consider: How do notions of public vs. private mediate our experiences of art and architecture? How do different geographies of the mid- to late 20th century--the modern city, the desert and the ‘burbs--influence our conception of space? What are the political systems that define and control space? And how have artists, architects, urban theorists, and other cultural producers expanded our understanding of space and its tenuous political history?

As the World Turns: Social Representations in Prime Time Television

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870268

009 TTH 11:00-12:20 2333A Haydee Smith

870270

011 TTH 2:00-3:20 2333A Haydee Smith

870272

013 MW 9:30-10:50 2333B Yi Hong Sim

870273

014 MW 11:00-12:20 2333B Yi Hong Sim

870274

015 MW 12:30-1:50 2333B Kate Flach

870275

016 MW 2:00-3:20 2333B Kate Flach
What makes Scandal so scandalous? Is Modern Family really modern? These are the types of questions scholars ask when studying the relationship between entertainment television and changing social mores, and how we understand the world around us through media. In this class, we will read television as a text to not only analyze the content itself but also examine the historical contexts in which a program’s politics are (explicitly or implicitly) situated. We will explore the ways in which sitcoms and dramas offer a useful point of convergence for discussions of race, class, gender, and sexuality during the historical moment that such programs aired. Through reading critical essays, scholarly journal articles, and watching TV shows you are expected to contribute to the academic discussions on television’s powerful reach. Students will apply this scholarship—in addition to selected readings from the course reader—to their own research on a television text with the objective of writing a research paper based on their own argument about representations of social change in prime-time TV.

Borders, Journeys, and Home

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870279

020 TTH 9:30-10:50 2333B Luis Sanchez-Lopez

870281

021 TTH 11:00-12:20 2333B Luis Sanchez-Lopez
We live a stone’s throw away from the most frequently crossed international border in the world.  How does this border—and the countless reasons why it is crossed every day—contribute to our idea of home?  In this course we will examine theories about displacement, migration and diaspora, and how these theories challenge or support cultural constructions of home.  In addition we will explore the ways in which home becomes mythologized for refugees, those in exile and economic migrants and consider how personal, social, national, ethnic or feminist identity is formed during journeys that take us far away from home or return us there.

Community and Identity in the Middle East

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870264

005 MW 2:00-3:20 2333A Nur Duru

870265

006 MW 3:30-4:50 2333A Nur Duru
What is a nation? Does it come from a map, a language, a race or a religion? The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been periods of intense change, as Middle Eastern nations have emerged and states have been broken down by internal and external forces. In this writing and research seminar, we will explore the racial, religious, and political beliefs that bring people together and break them apart both in the Middle East as well as worldwide. Reading historical nationalist works alongside critical theory will allow us to reconsider ideas of communal identity from the nineteenth century through the present day. From these topics, students will develop a research topic and write their own primary source research paper.

Consciousness

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870282

022 TTH 12:30-1:50 2333B Matthew Piper

870283

023 TTH 2:00-3:20 2333B Matthew Piper
What is the single greatest scientific mystery?  Dark matter?  String Theory?  Many scientists and philosophers actually have an infinitely more intimate mystery in mind: consciousness.  How can your brain – just a collection of neurons – create your mind?  How can electrical events in your head create the flavor of chocolate, the feeling of pleasure, or free will?  The difficulty in answering this question – how to naturally explain, in full, your experience reading this now, for example – has motivated many to think that the mystery of consciousness is beyond human understanding.  This MCWP 50 course examines various aspects of this mystery, from both scientific and philosophical perspectives.  Designed to help students do research on the nature of their own conscious experiences, this course provides students with multiple lenses to consider the very phenomenon that allows them to do research – or be aware of anything at all – in the first place!

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870260 001 MW 8:00-9:20 2346A Suzy Woltmann
870261 002 MW 9:30-10:50 2346A Suzy Woltmann
870291 031 TTH 8:00-9:20 1138 Jennifer Marchisotto
870292 032 TTH 9:30-10:50 1138 Jennifer Marchisotto
Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

Funny Business: A Critical Reading of Comedy in Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870293

033 TTH 11:00 -12:20 1138 Amy Forrest

870294

034 TTH 12:30-1:50 1138 Amy Forrest
From Shakespeare’s fools to Key and Peele, from Mark Twain to Mindy Kaling: humor is inextricably connected to culture. When we miss a joke, surely it’s not because we lack a sense of humor, but because we lack the cultural assumptions that enable us to understand the punch line. In this course, we will analyze arguments in a variety of comedic texts, critical essays, and scholarly journal articles, examining both how they are made, what they teach us about comedy, and the ways in which comedy engages critically with social, cultural and political issues. Additionally, we will explore comedy’s ability to reveal the pettiness and pathos at the heart of the human condition, and how comedians use race, class, gender, language, sexuality, and identity to challenge our assumptions about ourselves and the society in which we live. In Funny Business, you will choose a comedic text (visual, video, or written) and will create an extended academic argument about it with the support of theoretical concepts that we will work with in class and other texts from your own research.

Iconic Identities: Star Wars, Cosplay, and the Performance of Identity

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870295

035 TTH 2:00-3:20 1138 William Given

870296

036 TTH 3:30-4:50 1138 William Given
Cinema allows us the possibility to escape every day life for a couple of hours by immersing ourselves in the world of our heroes.  What happens though when the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur?  What happens when we want so much to be part of the fiction that we start allowing it to shape our own identity?  In our class, we will engage with debates over how identity is being performed, and in some instances manipulated, in the hyper mediatized 21st century.  Using popular science fiction films such as Star Wars and the practice of cosplay at comic conventions, we will engage with issues such as the dangers of groupthink and questions of who ultimately has control over the representation of the self in order to develop an argumentative research paper that will ultimately shape the academic discourse on the performance of identity.

Revolutions and Social Movements in 20th Century Latin America

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870269

010 TTH 12:30-1:50 2333A Ulices Pina

870271

012 TTH 3:30-4:50 2333A Ulices Pina

During the twentieth-century Latin America experienced a cycle of revolutionary upheavals and insurgencies—from the Mexican, Cuban, and Nicaraguan revolutions to guerrilla movements, such as the ‘Shining Path’ in Peru, the FARC in Colombia, and the Zapatistas in Mexico. In this course, we will examine the relationship between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary developments in Latin America and explore how they unfolded within the context of struggles for democracy, industrialization, and the United States’ hemispheric and global domination. Students will apply this scholarship—in addition to selected theoretical and substantive readings from the course reader—to their own research on a social movement and/or revolution in the region with the objective of writing a research paper based on primary and secondary sources.

Funhouse Mirrors: Constructing Identity through Visual Culture and Hemispheric Relationships

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870287

027 MW 11:00-12:20 1138 Jennifer Huerta

870288

028 MW 12:30-1:50 1138 Jennifer Huerta
Everyday we are inundated and interact with visual images and media from sharing Grumpy Cat memes to viewing time-lapse videos of Earth from NASA to swiping Tinder profile pictures. We also freely distort, reflect, and refract visual sources depending on our own needs and interests. Yet, how do our interactions with seemingly innocuous products such as videos, television shows, photographs, and paintings, among many other visual mediums, shape deeply ingrained individual, regional, and even national identities? This class looks at global processes of identity construction through the lens of visual culture. Readings will serve as a primer to understand the transmission and communication of visual culture across borders and oceans as well as how its interpretation varies according to the historical context in which it is articulated. The significance attached to such interpretations not only depends on the producer’s intentions, but also by how people consume and manipulate visual sources to make sense of the world around them or facilitate social change. The course will culminate in a final research project in which students will research a specific visual source or trend, providing subsequent analysis from what we have learned in the readings throughout the quarter.

Imagining the Transborder: Politics, Performance and Art between Tijuana and San Diego

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

870266

007

TTH 11:00-12:20

2346A

Norell Martinez

870267

008

TTH 12:30-1:50

2346A

Norell Martinez

870284

024

TTH 3:30-4:50

2333B

Sara Solaimani

In the past three decades in particular, there has been incredible growth and change in art’s response to the political tensions and growing border security infrastructure on the Tijuana-San Diego border. This local art history has many interesting potential connections yet to be analyzed and understood, especially by residents north of the border. In this MCWP 50 course, we will develop research projects investigating the many different contexts, practices, and artworks by transborder artists in the region, considering in particular the representations of the struggle for social justice for people whom the border marginalizes, or denies entry.

Winter 2016

As the World Turns: Social Representations in Prime-Time Television

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853386

003

MW 12:30-1:50

2333B

Kate Flach

853387

004

MW 2:00-3:20

2333B

Kate Flach

What makes Scandal so scandalous? Is Modern Family really modern? These are the types of questions scholars ask when studying the relationship between entertainment television and changing social mores, and how we understand the world around us through media. In this class, we will read television as a text to not only analyze the content itself but also examine the historical contexts in which a program's politics are (explicitly or implicitly) situated. We will explore the ways in which sitcoms and dramas offer a useful point of convergence for discussions of race, class, gender, and sexuality during the historical moment that such programs aired. Through reading critical essays, scholarly journal articles, and watching TV shows you are expected to contribute to the academic discussions on television’s powerful reach. Students will apply this scholarship - in addition to selected readings from the course reader - to their own research on a television text with objective of writing a research paper based on their own argument about representations of social change in prime-time TV.

Uncanny Architecture and the Modern Imagination

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853388

005

MW 3:30-4:50

2333B

Elizabeth Miller

853389

006

MW 5:00-6:20

2333B

Elizabeth Miller

The “uncanny” describes a number of phenomena, from the surreal and eerily familiar to the bizarre and supernatural. In this course, we will examine uncanny architecture in history, including not only domestic spaces and archetypal haunted houses, but also places of entertainment like haunted theatres and institutional architectures like penitentiaries and asylums. Haunted spaces predate the modern era by hundreds of years. However, this course will focus on the ways that uncanny architecture has taken on new life since major historical developments like the scientific revolution, the rise of capitalism, and the advent of secularism. How have modern intellectualism and literature—typified by the writings of figures such as Sigmund Freud or Edgar Allan Poe—dealt with uncanny architecture? Students will be free to approach this and other questions from a variety of perspectives. Using selected articles from the course reader and a combination of primary and secondary sources, students will write a research paper on a subject related to the course topic.

Consciousness

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853392

009

TTH 2:00-3:20

2333B

Matthew Piper

853393

010

TTH 3:30-4:50

2333B

Matthew Piper

What is the single greatest scientific mystery?  Dark matter?  String Theory?  Many scientists and philosophers actually have an infinitely more intimate mystery in mind: consciousness.  How can your brain – just a collection of neurons – create your mind?  How can electrical events in your head create the flavor of chocolate, the feeling of pleasure, or free will?  The difficulty in answering this question – how to naturally explain, in full, your experience reading this now, for example – has motivated many to think that the mystery of consciousness is beyond human understanding.  This MCWP 50 course examines various aspects of this mystery, from both scientific and philosophical perspectives.  Designed to help students do research on the nature of their own conscious experiences, this course provides students with multiple lenses to consider the very phenomenon that allows them to do research – or be aware of anything at all – in the first place!

Disability and Popular Culture

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853394

011

MW 8:00-9:20

1138

Suzy Woltmann

853395

012

MW 9:30-10:50

1138

Suzy Woltmann

853402

019

TTH 11:00-12:20

2305A

Haydee Smith

853403

020

TTH 12:30-1:50

2305A

Haydee Smith

853414

031

TTH 8:00-9:20

1138

Jenni Marchisotto

853415

032

TTH 9:30-10:50

1138

Jenni Marchisotto


Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

Funhouse Mirrors: Constructing Identity through Visual Culture and Hemispheric Relationships

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853396

013

MW 11:00-12:20

1138

Jennifer Huerta

853397

014

MW 12:30-1:50

1138

Jennifer Huerta

Everyday we are inundated and interact with visual images and media from sharing Grumpy Cat memes to viewing time-lapse videos of Earth from NASA to swiping Tinder profile pictures. We also freely distort, reflect, and refract visual sources depending on our own needs and interests. Yet, how do our interactions with seemingly innocuous products such as videos, television shows, photographs, and paintings, among many other visual mediums, shape deeply ingrained individual, regional, and even national identities? This class looks at global processes of identity construction through the lens of visual culture. Readings will serve as a primer to understand the transmission and communication of visual culture across borders and oceans as well as how its interpretation varies according to the historical context in which it is articulated. The significance attached to such interpretations not only depends on the producer’s intentions, but also by how people consume and manipulate visual sources to make sense of the world around them or facilitate social change. The course will culminate in a final research project in which students will research a specific visual source or trend, providing subsequent analysis from what we have learned in the readings throughout the quarter.

Performance and Technology

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853398

015

MW 2:00-3:20

1138

Samara Kaplan

853399

016

MW 3:30-4:50

1138

Samara Kaplan

Should computer avatars be held to ethical standards? Are flash mobs a form of art? What is performance in today’s mediated society? The past century has seen a rapid development of technologies, from the Machine Age to the Age of Information. Looking specifically at how humans perform through these innovations, this course will focus on technology as a platform for cultural production. While the course will pick up in the 1960s with early conceptions of the effects of media on society, students will have the opportunity to conduct scholarly research on any of the conversations surrounding performance and technology in the 20th and 21st centuries, including photography, video games, and social media.

Borders, Journeys, and Home

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853401

018

TTH 9:30-10:50

2305A

Luis Sanchez-Lopez

853410

027

TTH 2:00-3:20

2305B

Nur Duru

853411

028

TTH 3:30-4:50

2305B

Nur Duru

853416

033

TTH 11:00-12:20

1138

Luis Sanchez-Lopez

853417

034

TTH 12:30-1:50

1138

Sara Solaimani


 We live a stone’s throw away from the most frequently crossed international border in the world.  How does this border—and the countless reasons why it is crossed every day—contribute to our idea of home?  In this course we will examine theories about displacement, migration and diaspora, and how these theories challenge or support cultural constructions of home.  In addition we will explore the ways in which home becomes mythologized for refugees, those in exile and economic migrants and consider how personal, social, national, ethnic or feminist identity is formed during journeys that take us far away from home or return us there.

Iconic Identities: Star Wars, Cosplay, and the Performance of Identity

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853404

021

TTH 2:00-3:20

2305A

William Given

853405

022

TTH 3:30-4:50

2305A

William Given

Cinema allows us the possibility to escape every day life for a couple of hours by immersing ourselves in the world of our heroes.  What happens though when the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur?  What happens when we want so much to be part of the fiction that we start allowing it to shape our own identity?  In our class, we will engage with debates over how identity is being performed, and in some instances manipulated, in the hyper mediatized 21st century.  Using popular science fiction films such as Star Wars and the practice of cosplay at comic conventions, we will engage with issues such as the dangers of groupthink and questions of who ultimately has control over the representation of the self in order to develop an argumentative research paper that will ultimately shape the academic discourse on the performance of identity.

Photography and the Cult of Celebrity

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853408

025

TTH 11:00-12:20

2305B

Melinda Guillen

853409

026

TTH 12:30-1:50

2305B

Melinda Guillen

 How can photos be utilized to not only construct an individual’s identity, but to also create a following of fans who worship that person based on his or her image alone?  How can a single image become iconic?  In this class, we will examine the role photography has played in creating celebrity, both famously, in the examples of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, as well as with the more infamous figures ranging from Bettie Page to Charles Manson.  Our work will lead to the development of a research paper that can approach this subject through many different lenses.  Whether it is arguing why particular photos should or should not be labeled as controversial, why gallery exhibitions by artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe have generated outrage in certain communities, or why groups have attempted to ban books by photographers like Helmut Newton or Steven Meisel, you will be free to explore these issues from various perspectives and ultimately contribute to the academic discourse on the power dynamics involved with issues of identity construction as shown through photography.

Propaganda's Ploys: What Are You Selling?

SECTION ID

SECTION

DAY/TIME

ROOM

INSTRUCTOR

853390

007

TTH 11:00-12:20

2333B

Amy Forrest

853391

008

TTH 12:30-1:50

2333B

Amy Forrest

853412

029

TTH 2:00-3:20

1138

Alan Ward

853413

030

TTH 3:30-4:50

1138

Alan Ward

Every day we face a bombardment of propaganda. It ranges from political campaign ads to the constant affirmation of consumerism within U.S. society and it comes in a variety of mediums including advertisements on television, the radio and print media.  In this class we will explore various theories of argumentation and apply them to different pieces of propaganda. Instead of focusing simply on whether or not the specific piece of propaganda convinces us, the goal of this class is to explore the different ways that various forms of propaganda make their arguments. It is important to contextualize each of these arguments and as a class we will investigate different types of propaganda and interrogate how each one utilizes social norms, including constructions of femininity/masculinity, “family values” and patriotism to persuade, entertain or inform the audience. Each student will choose a specific type of propaganda as the basis of their analysis and illustrate the different ways that it uses different argumentative tools to construct an argument.

Fall 2015

The Real-World Multiverse: Photoshopping a New Reality

Section ID Section Day/Time Room Instructor
842584 001 MW 8:00 - 9:20 HSS 1106A William Given
842585 002 MW 9:30 - 10:50 HSS 1106A William Given
Image manipulation is becoming more commonplace in today’s society.  Whether we simply use a filter to make our sunset photos more dramatic on Instagram, or utilize a more powerful tool such as Photoshop to remove an unwanted item (or person) from a photograph, we have become accustomed to having the power to control the images we create and share with others.  What happens though when the manipulated image becomes regarded, even subconsciously, as real?  What happens when we begin to believe that the models and celebrities adorning our favorite magazine covers actually look the way they do in their photographs?  In our class, we will examine what happens when the lines between reality and fantasy begin to be blurred and when notions such as truth begin to have multiple meanings.  Our work will lead to the development of an argumentative research paper that can approach this subject through many different lenses.  Whether it is arguing how new standards of beauty are being created in magazines to perpetuate unrealistic and unobtainable body images, or arguing what happens when individuals start to emulate the reality they believe exists within images such as found in extreme cosplay or body modification examples, you will be free to explore these issues from various perspectives and ultimately contribute to the academic discourse on the power in, or subsequent dangers of, creating our own forms of reality.

Photography and the Cult of Celebrity

Section ID Section Day/Time Room Instructor
842587 004 MW 12:30 - 1:50 HSS 1106A Melinda Guillen
842588 005 MW 2:00 - 3:20 HSS 1106A Melinda Guillen
How can photos be utilized to not only construct an individual’s identity, but to also create a following of fans who worship that person based on his or her image alone?  How can a single image become iconic?  In this class, we will examine the role photography has played in creating celebrity, both famously, in the examples of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, as well as with the more infamous figures ranging from Bettie Page to Charles Manson.  Our work will lead to the development of a research paper that can approach this subject through many different lenses.  Whether it is arguing why particular photos should or should not be labeled as controversial, why gallery exhibitions by artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe have generated outrage in certain communities, or why groups have attempted to ban books by photographers like Helmut Newton or Steven Meisel, you will be free to explore these issues from various perspectives and ultimately contribute to the academic discourse on the power dynamics involved with issues of identity construction as shown through photography.

Disability and Popular Culture

Section ID Section Day/Time Room Instructor
842590 007 TTH 8:00 - 9:20 HSS 2305B Jenni Marchisotto
842591 008 TTH 9:30 - 10:50 HSS 2305B Jenni Marchisotto
Upwards of 43 million Americans are currently experiencing some kind of physical, cognitive, or sensory impairment, and that number is on the rise. And yet despite the pervasiveness of these kinds of disabilities among the U.S. population, and despite the fact that disabled people comprise one of the largest U.S. minority groups, disabled figures are often stereotyped in movies, comic books, commercials, novels, and on television shows, as being deserving of the viewer’s pity, or as being excessively courageous because of their ability to overcome what is often portrayed as a troubled or difficult existence. These stereotypes mark disabled people as ‘other’, thus marginalizing an already marginalized population. In this course, we will examine popular representations of disability to uncover assumptions about the normal or ideal body. We will read scholarship from a variety of perspectives that consider impairments in relation to history, nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. In the process, students will apply this scholarship—and their own independent research—to a popular cultural form with the objective of making and defending an argument about disability in a research paper.

Borders, Journeys, and Home

Section ID Section Day/Time Room Instructor
842592 009 MW 9:30 - 10:50 HSS 2333A Sara Solaimani
842593 010 MW 11:00 - 12:20 HSS 2333A Sara Solaimani
We live a stone’s throw away from the most frequently crossed international border in the world.  How does this border—and the countless reasons why it is crossed every day—contribute to our idea of home?  In this course we will examine theories about displacement, migration and diaspora, and how these theories challenge or support cultural constructions of home.  In addition we will explore the ways in which home becomes mythologized for refugees, those in exile and economic migrants and consider how personal, social, national, ethnic or feminist identity is formed during journeys that take us far away from home or return us there.

Consciousness

Section ID Section Day/Time Room Instructor
842594 011 TTH 2:00 - 3:20 HSS 2305B Matthew Piper
842595 012 TTH 3:30 - 4:50 HSS 2305B Matthew Piper
What is the single greatest scientific mystery?  Dark matter?  String Theory?  Many scientists and philosophers actually have an infinitely more intimate mystery in mind: consciousness.  How can your brain – just a collection of neurons – create your mind?  How can electrical events in your head create the flavor of chocolate, the feeling of pleasure, or free will?  The difficulty in answering this question – how to naturally explain, in full, your experience reading this now, for example – has motivated many to think that the mystery of consciousness is beyond human understanding.  This MCWP 50 course examines various aspects of this mystery, from both scientific and philosophical perspectives.  Designed to help students do research on the nature of their own conscious experiences, this course provides students with multiple lenses to consider the very phenomenon that allows them to do research – or be aware of anything at all – in the first place!

Propaganda's Ploys: What Are You Selling?

Section ID Section Day/Time Room Instructor
842596 013 TTH 11:00 - 12:20 HSS 1106A Stacey Trujillo
842597 014 TTH 12:30 - 1:50 HSS 1106A Stacey Trujillo
Every day we face a bombardment of propaganda. It ranges from political campaign ads to the constant affirmation of consumerism within U.S. society and it comes in a variety of mediums including advertisements on television, the radio and print media.  In this class we will explore various theories of argumentation and apply them to different pieces of propaganda. Instead of focusing simply on whether or not the specific piece of propaganda convinces us, the goal of this class is to explore the different ways that various forms of propaganda make their arguments. It is important to contextualize each of these arguments and as a class we will investigate different types of propaganda and interrogate how each one utilizes social norms, including constructions of femininity/masculinity, “family values” and patriotism to persuade, entertain or inform the audience. Each student will choose a specific type of propaganda as the basis of their analysis and illustrate the different ways that it uses different argumentative tools to construct an argument.

Uncanny Architecture and the Modern Imagination

Section ID Section Day/Time Room Instructor
842598 015 TTH 2:00 - 3:20 HSS 1106A Liz Miller
842599 016 TTH 3:30 - 4:50 HSS 1106A Liz Miller
The “uncanny” describes a number of phenomena, from the surreal and eerily familiar to the bizarre and supernatural. In this course, we will examine uncanny architecture in history, including not only domestic spaces and archetypal haunted houses, but also places of entertainment like haunted theatres and institutional architectures like penitentiaries and asylums. Haunted spaces predate the modern era by hundreds of years. However, this course will focus on the ways that uncanny architecture has taken on new life since major historical developments like the scientific revolution, the rise of capitalism, and the advent of secularism. How have modern intellectualism and literature—typified by the writings of figures such as Sigmund Freud or Edgar Allan Poe—dealt with uncanny architecture? Students will be free to approach this and other questions from a variety of perspectives. Using selected articles from the course reader and a combination of primary and secondary sources, students will write a research paper on a subject related to the course topic.