This seminar presents a history of modern natural and physical sciences from the 15th to 20th centuries, by looking at the development of modern astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, and biology. By looking at the history of science through the scientists and their ideas, the course examines how the methodological, technological, and experimental systems that underpin the scientific fields led to the development of techniques still used today. The course uses conflicts in scientific inquiry, the development of a culture of science, and the scientists over time. Examples of thematic topics include the development of the heliocentric planetary view, the quest for a theory of everything, the age of the earth and its distance from the sun, the search for a means of calculating longitude, and how the Darwinian synthesis compares to 19th century evolutionary theories.

The course includes brief weekly readings and discussion that result in a journal of the readings – there will be three collections of the journals over the course of the semester, three brief presentations on elements of the various themes we look at, a book review of a history of Science book of the student’s choosing and a final summary in-class discussion on the exam day. There will be two to three field trips near campus to see some of the history of modern science around us. Finally, due to the importance of class participation in the course, a significant portion of the grade relies on participation not only in discussions but also in class activities as well as attendance in each class.

Elective

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.

Elective

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.

Elective

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.

Elective

Native American oral traditions, which include storytelling, teachings, family and tribal history, and contemporary Indian literature, lie at the heart of tribal culture. It is mainly through oral tradition that American Indian cultures have been preserved and transmitted through the generations. American Indian stories, teachings, and oral histories are rich in cultural context. They provide great insight into the worldview, values, and lifestyle, which are an integral part of the heritage of American Indians. This course examines the cultural and historical contexts of Native American and Indigenous oral traditions with a focus in North America and other Indigenous traditions.

Elective

Feminist movements have changed the world in profound ways, despite often radical resistance to and backlash against those movements. Primarily through readings and film, this course will consider the ways in which the various strands of feminism have theorized and acted around reproductive justice, environmental justice, and anti-militarism. We will situate contemporary issues within a historical context and examine and critique the methods by which feminist activists and scholars question, challenge, and reshape structures of power. 

Elective

Set within a transnational and transdisciplinary feminist framework, Writing Resistance will unfold and examine the ways traumatic, lived experiences of gender and structural violence, systematic oppression and precarity, incarceration, racism, and colonialism, have been silenced or submerged in canonical writing and official history making. As an antidote, we will attempt a queering of this patriarchal and "colonial archive" (Stoler), by shedding light and focusing on diverse forms of writing, autobiographies and biomythographies, poetry and fiction, and theoretical readings that are either produced by or centered on the lived experiences, psyches and bodies, of women, people of color, dissidents and incarcerated people, queer, transgender, and non-binary individuals, refugees and other historically and systematically marginalized voices and identities. Students will familiarize themselves with various forms of creative and testimonial narratives, feminist and queer theory texts, while being exposed to a series of case studies and various political and historical contexts. The course requires several one-page reflections, one short paper, as well as an individually designed creative final project at the end of the term. As always, classroom participation is important.

Elective

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.

Elective

What is phenomenology, and why does it matter for art? This course will serve as an introduction to phenomenology and some of its central methods, themes, and questions. Working within and between philosophy, art, and design, we will explore how phenomenology can enliven and enrich artistic practices, and how artistic practices can broaden and enrich our understandings of perception, sensation, and embodied experience. We will consider a range of philosophical views, from canonical figures in the field (Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty) to key insights from critical phenomenologists (Alia Al-Saji, Mariana Ortega, Lisa Guenther) who question how socially and historically contingent systems of power shape our experiences in and of the world. Students will be required to complete weekly readings and participate in class discussions. The course will also include long and short form writing assignments as well as student presentations.

Elective

Leaders, teachers, writers, artisans, laborers, mothers. While this brief list may look like a small selection of roles available to women today, it also represents positions held by women in the Middle Ages. In taking the broadest possible chronological approach to this time period from the years 500 to 1500, this course will examine the lives of medieval women. From queens to peasants, nuns to wives, and mystics to proprietors, we will explore the wide variety of roles and statuses that these women had. Over the course of the semester, we will investigate whether these figures were marginalized members of society, powerful agents, or a combination of both.

Elective

How do indigenous communities and nations express their values?  This is a seminar course exploring the strategic planning, collaboration, and implementation of art as a means of activism, protesting, and mobilizing community-led initiatives to protect ancestral Indigenous lands and public lands spaces in the United States. These art projects include press and media campaigns, social media and low-key local activism, full community-based participatory projects, and national and international art campaigns which cross-pollinate with other sectors of land conservation such as non-profits, wilderness and conservation groups, tribal nations, and federal lands management agencies. This course prioritizes the Native American and Indigenous art contributions through art mediums such as illustration, design, painting, sculpture, architecture, films, music, agriculture, and social media contexts. These indigenous art examples are going to be placed into dialogue with United States western frameworks of conservation, including critiques and case study examples of the application of these techniques, narratives, and artistic projects that have influenced visibility, participation, dialogue, messaging, and policy outcomes on land protection.

Elective

-What are some differences between classic Western Philosophy and Native American Philosophy?

-How do we tell the diversity and variety of philosophical concepts amongst Native American tribes and regions?

-What kinds of ideas and stories outline philosophical guidelines for culture and background in certain Indigenous communities?

These are some of the questions and ideas that will be explored in this course. This course will examine American Indian philosophy through introductory and culturally specific contexts using a variety of sources, both historical and contemporary. Sources will range from being recorded texts from archives, books, journals, and other audio/visual materials, as well as online websites, journals, and other repositories of knowledge. It is designed to give people who have very little familiarity with indigenous, philosophical concepts, in a broad overview. Interaction with these ideas in conjunction with other western philosophical concept will by no means be a comprehensive coverage of philosophy, but it will be complementary to western academic fundamental philosophical, and well-known European and American philosophy concepts for deeper conversations for people to examine further in class discussions.

Elective

What is knowledge, and how do we know things? How is this "knowing" shaped by relationships of politics and power? This class will serve as an introduction to the philosophical tradition of epistemology with a particular focus on critical epistemologies, i.e., studies of epistemic injustice, ignorance, and resistance. The course will cover some of the central figures and concepts within the field, as well as critical interventions borne of feminist philosophers, critical race theorists, Indigenous philosophers, and crip theory. The course will include long and short form writing assignments, discussions, as well as student presentations. 

Elective

Is AI-generated art actually art? What does generative AI mean for artists, audiences, workers, or the most marginalized in society? This course is a deep dive into the politics of this technology and the kinds of images it produces. We'll examine AI image generation's actual and imagined functionality, the invisible (racialized, classed, gendered) labors behind it, the impact of its use, and how it relates to our cultural and political present. This context will set us up to ask big questions about the labor and consumption of art, the aesthetics of fascism, and what kinds of social relations are required in order to build the technofutures we want to see. 

Elective

This is a course about how to think, write, and read philosophically. Samples of classic philosophical writings in existentialism on topics such as free will, personal identity, subjective value, the existence of God, and the meaning of human existence will be the launching pads for students’ oral and written analysis. Philosophical and literary texts in addition to class discussions will be used to encourage close scrutiny of underlying assumptions, logical progression, and how well claims are substantiated. By noting the strengths and weaknesses in the arguments of others and practicing the skill of philosophical argumentation, students will be better able to navigate through the thickets of challenges arising from everyday living as persons of careful thought and considered action.

A version of this course was taught previously as an S101: Topics in History, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences. If you took this topic as your S101, please do not enroll in this course.

Elective

From its humble origins in LiveJournal and the woman-rating origins of Facebook, social media has come a long way to reach its current iterations. This course will look at the emergence and development of social media platforms, asking how we construct ourselves online and how being online constructs us. Paying particular attention to race, class, gender, and sexuality, we’ll examine issues such as how attention has become a commodity, the politics of emotion and The Algorithm™, and the benefits and limits of online activism. You’ll never look at your FYP the same way again. 

Elective

Do you think before clicking “Accept Cookies” when visiting a website these days, or is it just second nature? This course will examine the politics of technological and data surveillance, how we have come to consent to it, and what happens once it’s collected. We will engage interdisciplinary critical internet and data studies to explore the politics of information and how it interacts with cultural norms and systems of racialized and gendered surveillance. We'll also look at the status of data politics in the age of AI and ask how we might create digital worlds based in social justice and liberation.

Elective

Transformative Technologies and Cultural Change is a lecture course centering on the cultural and social impacts of technologies. Choices of technologies for the class discussions will be limited to those that together have transformed how we live, work, and experience leisure.  Among included technological systems communication, transportation, energy generation, health and longevity, and mass production will be examined. The course requires reading about three to four brief articles or excerpts per meeting. These provide context and content for in-class discussions related to lectures.  Student discussion leaders guide the class and must volunteer to run at least 2 discussions during the semester.  Hence, attendance and class participation are both important elements of Transformative Technologies.  There will also be 3 brief writings derived from prompts and requiring some research beyond assigned readings. There are two tests including one at the midterm and one during the Liberal Arts Examination Day.  In addition, a presentation expanding on course topics and of your own choosing will complete the requirements for the course.

Elective

Infectious disease has been the biggest threat to human life throughout history. Through a survey of the global history of epidemics and pandemics, from smallpox in colonial America to influenza in World War One, tuberculosis in the 19th century and COVID-19 in the present day, this course addresses, from an historical perspective, humanity’s response to the appearance and spread of infectious diseases. In order to draw historical lessons to grapple with current and future epidemics and pandemics, this course will focus on the social, political, economic, and cultural consequences, dimensions, and outcomes of outbreaks of infectious diseases. Specific themes and topics addressed in this course include: the nexus among climate, migration, and disease; imperialism and disease; displacement, migration, and disease; the development and evolution of medical institutions, quarantines, and public health systems; animal-human interactions and outbreaks of infectious diseases; disease and warfare; racism and social stigma in the context of epidemics and pandemics; vaccination campaigns; and the memorialization/memory of past pandemics. The infectious diseases addressed in this course include COVID-19, smallpox, tuberculosis, malaria, yellow fever, influenza, HIV/AIDS, and cholera.

Elective

How does technology make you feel? What can those emotions tell us about our social reality? This course will explore the interdisciplinary study of affect and emotion as it relates to the structure and culture of the digital realm—through memes, video games, social media, and more. We will examine these issues with particular attention to how feelings operate along lines of race, gender, class, and sexuality to understand how emotion, digitally mediated, can be a site of control as well as of resistance.

Elective