HPSS Courses
HPSS S227-01
INDIGENOUS GLOBAL CINEMA CLASSICS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course presents Indigenous-produced, -directed, and -acted productions from all over the world. It provides a cultural and artistic framework for world Indigenous filmmaking and centers classic cinema and film pieces that are foundational works. Through lectures, screenings, discussion, project work, and guest speakers the students will learn how to identify various narratives, aesthetics, styles, approaches and delivery of story from indigenous groups from around the world.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S227-101
INDIGENOUS GLOBAL CINEMA CLASSICS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course presents Indigenous-produced, -directed, and -acted productions from all over the world. It provides a cultural and artistic framework for world Indigenous filmmaking and centers classic cinema and film pieces that are foundational works. Through lectures, screenings, discussion, project work, and guest speakers the students will learn how to identify various narratives, aesthetics, styles, approaches and delivery of story from indigenous groups from around the world.
Elective
HPSS S229-01
U.S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course takes up the constitutional history of the United States, in both its legal and political dimensions. Topics will include the founding of the republic, constitutional crises, the relationship between common law and the constitution, the transformation of the constitutional order in the Civil War and Reconstruction, Supreme Court jurisprudence, and the great challenges posed in holding politics and law accountable to constitutional accountability. Through mini-lectures, readings, class discussions, written work, and presentations, students will improve their skills in engaging history as an analytical discipline.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students.
Elective
HPSS S232-01
DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THE LIFESPAN II
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Developmental psychology provides an overview of human development throughout the lifespan. The goal of the course is to establish a basis for understanding the processes of developmental change through which humans progress. Physical, cognitive, and psychosocial aspects of human development are explored as well as the methods and philosophies that guide the associated research. Coursework consists of weekly readings with comprehension quizzes, lectures, small group discussions and a final project of student's choosing related to a developmental period. Students pursuing a career that will necessitate working with and being sensitive to people of various ages will find this course valuable. Prenatal development up to young adulthood will be covered in the spring 2021 semester. Middle adulthood to death will be covered in the Fall 2021 semester.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S239-01
WAYSOFSEEING/WAYSOFLEARNING: ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDWORK
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to acquaint students with some of the basic methods and tools that are part of the discipline of ethnography, and learn to feel comfortable in settings that might be unfamiliar to them. Apart from using the technology available to anthropologists and ethnographers, such as cameras and audio recording equipment, many ethnographers find themselves engaged in fieldwork in communities where their very presence is questioned, and the use of equipment such as cameras/cell phones is unacceptable or logistically difficult. In such circumstances, ethnographers turn to tools that are easily available, learn to respect cultural norms, allow for the sharing of viewpoints, and work through the ethical considerations of our discipline. Artists and designers might find equally challenging contexts in cultural settings in which they wish to engage in dialogue in a more participatory manner. We will explore some of these basic "fieldwork" tools, concepts, ethics, cultural and contextual considerations, interviewing skills, the use of sketching and other ways of learning about new settings.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S240-01
WHAT IS WISDOM?
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course investigates the questions and answers posed by sources chosen across history, across the world, drawn from philosophy, world religions, and psychology regarding the nature of wisdom. Methodological frameworks from transcendentalism, existentialism, pragmatism, and recent cognitive psychology will frame these explorations. The course will involve lectures, discussions, and student presentations. It will require short papers, tests, and a final project with presentation.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S243-01
BLACK FEMINISM
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course exposes students to the key figures, texts and concepts that constitute Black Feminism. In this course we will establish a solid understanding of Black feminist thought and related theoretical concepts by exploring the lived experiences of Black women. We will develop a historical understanding of Black feminism and how it supports intersectionality. We will assess new schools of thought like hip-hop feminism and trace the influence of Black feminism in critical race theory and Women's Studies as a whole.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S243-02
BLACK FEMINISM
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course exposes students to the key figures, texts and concepts that constitute Black Feminism. In this course we will establish a solid understanding of Black feminist thought and related theoretical concepts by exploring the lived experiences of Black women. We will develop a historical understanding of Black feminism and how it supports intersectionality. We will assess new schools of thought like hip-hop feminism and trace the influence of Black feminism in critical race theory and Women's Studies as a whole.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S250-01
NATIVE AMERICAN FILM & MEDIA
SECTION DESCRIPTION
What is the popular perception of the indigenous peoples in the media today? How do media constructions of Native people tell us as much, if not more, about American identity than the indigenous peoples they depict? How do these various representations impact the indigenous people whose images are featured in documentaries, films, television shows, and internet media? How are Native American people taking charge of their image and stories through media production? This course explores the construction and depiction of Native American and Indigenous identity, history, culture, and language and some of America's major issues facing contemporary indigenous peoples through film and media. We will examine issues of representation, visual and textual imagery, and aesthetically distinctive but recognizable design choices that often stand in for Indigenous media. We will view award-winning films, theater depictions, television episodes, internet media, social media, comic books, and documentaries to explore these issues.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S252-01
THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH
SECTION DESCRIPTION
How we die says as much about us as how we live. As a result, much can be learned by exploring America's changing attitudes toward death and dying, funeral rites, burial practices, and mourning rituals. Part personal tragedy, part communal experience, and part political event, our individual and collective responses to death should be treated as socially constructed artifacts, offering valuable insight into complex cultural, historical, and socio-economic forces. Buried within the American way of death are clues to understanding how this nation's physical, spiritual, economic, scientific, and political landscapes have changed over time. Rituals and practices surrounding death reflect the realities of class conflict, gender politics, race relations, and an increasingly diverse population. So often, deathcare has often been at the forefront of major cultural shifts and national debates over who belongs here, the role of government, the shape of our cities and towns, patterns of consumption, and, more recently, the future of our planet. Growing interest in green burials suggests not only a burgeoning concern with the carbon footprint of human remains, but shifting ideas about our individual legacies and what we leave behind. A discussion-based course, student engagement and active participation are key. Each student will be required to select a portion of the assigned reading to present to the class. In addition, students will work in small groups to craft a 20-minute oral presentation that examines and contextualizes the funeralization practices of a particular segment of the American people. Finally, each student will complete a 5 - 7 page research paper using a combination of primary and secondary sources (to be approved by the instructor) that elucidate and interrogate a specific aspect of the American way of death.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S256-01
FEMINIST UTOPIAS/DYSTOPIAS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Feminist writers and filmmakers have used their utopian/dystopian fiction and films to comment on the politics of gender and to imagine worlds where the standard systems of male/female (or even human/machine) do not work. In this course we will examine feminist utopias/dystopias across historical periods and within the context of feminist and queer theories about gender, race, sexuality, environmental justice, reproductive rights/justice, colonization, capitalism, and the connections between humans and other animals. The course will be primarily discussion based. Students will be asked to keep and hand in informal journals, give occasional presentations, and produce two research papers/projects.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S263-01
RUSSIA AND UKRAINE: PAST AND PRESENT
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In the wake of the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine, this seminar course is designed to equip students with the historical and geo-political context required to analyze and grapple knowledgeably with the past, present, and future of Russian-Ukrainian relations. The question of Russian and Ukrainian national identity (both historically and today) and the dynamics of the relationship between imperialism and nationalism will be over-arching themes of this course. As part of an introduction to the history of medieval Russia, Imperial Russia, and the Soviet Union, this course will pay particular attention to the evolving understanding of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people within and in relation to the Russian imperial narrative. The main themes that will be developed in this course include: the spatial dimension in Russian history; the historical process of imperial formation, transformation, and collapse; the incorporation and assimilation of multi-ethnic and multi-confessional groups into an imperial polity; Islam in Russia; pan-Slavism; and political violence and revolution. This course is organized around assigned readings, a representative sampling of primary historical documents relating to the history of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and in-class discussions designed to isolate and illuminate the core themes and topics of the course. In combination with engaged reading of the assigned textbook for the course and the content provided through "mini-lectures", films, videos, and literary works will be mobilized to extend the imaginary and visual dimensions of the course.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S264-01
ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY FOR A RAPIDLY WARMING WORLD
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is a survey of current research in environmental sociology as it relates to climate change, pollution, and other pressing environmental topics. After introducing some core sociological concepts, each week will consist of reading, lecture, and small group discussions of a different key topic of environmental sociological research. You will write a 2-page response paper for four weeks of your choosing and then be asked to write a paper relate/apply one or two topics to your own field of work. For example, if you are pursuing industrial design, you might consider how your new knowledge of unequal exposure to pollution might inform your practice in the future. While we will not dwell long on any one topic, questions of environmental inequality and environmental racism are common themes tying together this body of research.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S264-02
ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY FOR A RAPIDLY WARMING WORLD
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is a survey of current research in environmental sociology as it relates to climate change, pollution, and other pressing environmental topics. After introducing some core sociological concepts, each week will consist of reading, lecture, and small group discussions of a different key topic of environmental sociological research. You will write a 2-page response paper for four weeks of your choosing and then be asked to write a paper relate/apply one or two topics to your own field of work. For example, if you are pursuing industrial design, you might consider how your new knowledge of unequal exposure to pollution might inform your practice in the future. While we will not dwell long on any one topic, questions of environmental inequality and environmental racism are common themes tying together this body of research.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S265-01
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
SECTION DESCRIPTION
What is mental health and mental illness? When is anxiety helpful and when does it start to become unhelpful? Is an existential crisis part of the human condition? How do different internal experiences impact how humans interact and perceive the world? This course aims to examine these questions and many more through an introduction to psychopathology. Psychopathology examines the conceptualization, etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of various psychological disorders. Through promoting greater awareness and knowledge about mental health and illness, this course hopes to help increase perspective and reduce stigma associated with mental disorders. For this seminar, students will engage in weekly class discussion, as well as complete readings from a textbook and articles. There will be reflective writing assignments and a final paper or creative project.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S266-01
PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY
SECTION DESCRIPTION
What is personality? What makes you unique? In this course we will explore “personality” from the perspective of major psychological theories and research. We will consider how different areas of psychology explain how personality is developed, what different aspects of our personality are related to other aspects of our lives, and how we can measure personality traits. This course is intended to be an introductory course, and will cover a broad understanding of the major topics in personality psychology. Classes will consist of lecture and discussion. There will be weekly assignments, papers, and a final.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for undergraduates
Elective
HPSS S267-01
ISLAM AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Following an introduction to the Qur’an and the core elements and concepts of the religion of Islam, this course surveys the development and articulation of the Islamic World in the medieval, early-modern, and modern periods. While not discounting the centrality of the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula and Middle East to the venture of Islam, this course will highlight the establishment of Islamic states, societies, and communities in Africa, Asia, Russia, Europe, and North America. A survey of the Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca and Medina and its role in generating and sustaining an Islamic World will be addressed. The course concludes with a survey of Islamic societies in the contemporary world and is built around the reading and analysis of works by important Muslim scholars and thinkers across the 1,500-year history of the Islamic World.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S268-01
UNITED STATES & CHINA: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
As two of the largest economies and political powers in the world, the U.S.-China relations are one of the most important bilateral relations in the twenty-first century. To better understand the challenges and opportunities between China and the United States and reduce conflicts, we need to study the long and complicated relationships between the two nations and peoples. This course examines the interactions between the two countries from the eighteenth century until present. It will bring the perspectives from both sides in the global context into the conversation. We will discuss how each side interpreted and responded to the other in major historical episodes, such as the China trade, the Open-Door Policy, the first and second world wars, the Chinese revolution, the Korean War, the Taiwan Strait crisis, the Vietnam War, the Mao-Nixon rapprochement, and the post-Mao relationship. In addition to state-to-state diplomacy, we will take a closer look at the activities of merchants, missionaries, students, engineers, and other individuals and civilian groups who had cross-culture experience. In doing so, we will identify the core factors which have shaped the American-Chinese relations.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for Undergraduate Students
Elective
HPSS S269-01
RELIGION AND DIASPORA: TRANSMISSION, TRANSNATIONALISM, TRADITION
SECTION DESCRIPTION
How does the ambience at a gurudwara in London transport visitors to the Punjab? What makes the replica of a Shinto shrine in Hawaii as sacred as its original in Japan? Why are St. Patrick’s Day parades larger in New York than they are in Dublin? Is a Vedic fire ritual conducted in Dubai less efficacious or equal to one in Mumbai? Do the consecrated images of gods need passports when being transported across international borders? Inspired by these questions, this discussion-intensive seminar interrogates the seemingly locked connections between religion and nationality. Both popular and scholarly notions of religious authenticity have frequently distinguished specific geographical locations as uniquely sacred, prizing the doctrinal and praxis systems in these original centers as authoritative models. This course challenges the emphasis upon territorial particularism by highlighting accounts of religion from locations deemed marginal to grand narratives of religious traditions. Through close engagements with numerous case studies centered in the North American context, it exposes students to religious beliefs and practices held by diverse communities–professing identities grounded in histories of dispersion, travel, and movement–that may be variously termed as immigrant, transnational, or diasporic. These perspectives will assist in decentering ideas of homelands as stationary sources of credible religious experience. Instead, they will enable students to better understand definitions of religion that stress dynamism, process, communication, and movement. The final project for this class entails conducting ethnographic fieldwork among a diasporic community to gain a better understanding of religious diversity in the Greater Providence Area.
Prerequisite: HPSS-S101 for undergraduates
Elective
HPSS S270-101
YOGA: HISTORY & TRANSFORMATIONS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Fitness. Health. Wellness. Spirituality. Kinky Sex. These are only a sampling of the many buzzwords that come to mind when thinking about allied practices such as Yoga, Tantra, and Ayurveda. With mythologized origins among obscure holy men in South Asia, yoga-centered traditions are presently part of a multi-billion-dollar global business that draws endorsements from celebrities, and common people alike. Indeed, the local popularity of this industry is revealed by the statistic that at least ten percent of the American population today has some kind of regular yoga practice. Our course explores the development of yogic systems through three distinct temporal phases: the classical, colonial, and current moments. This historically situated approach will allow us to closely interrogate continuities and ruptures between yogic philosophies, as conceptualized in ancient times, and more contemporary practices. As such, we will also consider how yoga-related concepts have developed against the backdrops of spiritual liberation, capitalist success, and racial justice. In addition to exploring reading materials from the burgeoning discipline of yoga studies, the course will also feature guest lectures from speakers who have played crucial roles in establishing yoga-focused institutions in the American Northeast. Students may ground their final project in a topic connected to their own work, relating it to their major or any another concentration.
Elective