Knowledge, Identity, and Power

This course provides an examination of intellectual and creative productions, developments, and events that have come to be recognized as the discipline of African American Studies. The course explores literature, history, popular culture (music, television, magazines, newspapers, movies, film documentaries), and politics as a way to identify the historical and political origins and objectives of Black Studies and the 1960s Black Liberation struggles, the early academic and social concerns of Black Studies advocates, the theoretical and critical approaches to Black Studies as a discipline, and the early objectives of Black Studies in relation to present goals of multiculturalism.

Environmental justice can only occur with rich and complex understandings of the intersections of culture, ecology, politics, history, and community. This course seeks to understand the persistence of environmental racism in an inclusive and historicized landscape, one that considers multiple forms of knowledge and expertise and embodies the idea that imagining a more equitable, sustainable future is not possible without a grounded notion of the past and its present articulations. The course will use transdisciplinary perspectives to trace economic and environmental processes over time, situate them within rich cultural bodies of knowledge, and consider the differential impacts of inequalities on a range of regions and peoples. Students will undertake place-based case studies, examinations of broad patterns, commodity- and resource-specific process tracing, and engage with the surrounding human and natural environment. Consequently, this course demands a full critical engagement across disciplines and landscapes, and with each other and the local community.

This course is designed to be both an introduction and a deep dive into the interconnectedness of African Americans and Capitalism within the United States. Capitalist ideologies are continually at the foundation of the captivity (oppression) of African Americans. Emphasis is on the ways in which African Americans have financed the capitalist gains in this country, and the ways that capitalism in the U.S. has harmed African Americans. The necessities of life--healthcare, education, job and food security--are more accessible to some than all, and one's status within the U.S. economy is a major determinant. This inequity becomes very apparent during national emergencies. This course focuses on the economic intricacies within U.S. systems, using a social impacts approach to engage with the inequity of the U.S. economy. Major areas of economic oppression potentially to be covered include: The Slave Trade & U.S. Slavery, Mass Incarceration (free labor), Education (Student Loan Debt), Sports and Music (Black culture/White Ownership), Housing policies (Redlining/Blockbusting), Medical Industry (Health Advancements/Black Bodies), Drug Industry (Marijuana), Lottery (The Numbers), and Pandemics and Natural Disasters (Hurricane Katrina & COVID-19).

This special topics course is dedicated to an international Black population with the additional course component of a faculty-led study abroad after the semester concludes. It provides students the opportunity to connect the literature-based course curriculum, along with additional content on historical, environmental, political, health, and gender related materials, with a guided experience within the African Diaspora. West African novels provide the primary curriculum of this course, covering various time periods and experiences. The course content also incorporates supplemental materials to guide in course discussions. Materials provide students with a general understanding of the past and current contexts of West Africa. Students gain a new perspective into the African American experience by reading and experiencing the culture and history of Africa. AFAM 310 provides students with alternative narratives of African experiences. It provides students tools to engage with persons from non-western societies in a productive, respectful, and culturally aware manner that will guide them in collaborating cross culturally.

This course examines the distinct historical experience of African American women and explores the importance of race and of gender in the American past. Some of the topics considered include African American women and slavery, free black women in antebellum America, African American women and reform, issues of the family in slavery and freedom, sexuality and reproductive issues, African American women and the world of work, African American women in the struggle for education, and African American women and organized politics. The exploration of values is an important component of the course. Readings emphasize the use of primary sources ranging from slave narratives to contemporary fiction.

This course employs an interdisciplinary approach to explore the history and expressive culture of the civil rights era. Emphasizing what historians call the "long civil rights movement," the course explores earlier strategies of resistance, the civil rights and black power movements, and legacies of these movements. An interdisciplinary approach is particularly applicable for a course focused on the civil rights movement because the literature of racial protest and of the "black arts" was not simply parallel to the political upheavals. As Amiri Baraka put it in 1971, "Art is Politics." Readings and assignments engage the complex, sometimes contradictory, legal, political, literary, artistic, and musical responses of this charged historical period, and the intersecting struggles over knowledge, power, and identity.

The purpose of this course is to enhance students' understanding of diversity issues as they relate to the study of communication. The course looks at how the media, its images and discourses, shape one's understanding of experiences, shape the experiences of women, and the experiences of people of color. The course also explores the ways in which elements of the media socially reproduce prejudice and foster resistance to prejudice. As a result of engagement in the course, students gain the ability to critically analyze and evaluate media products. They also become aware of critical professional issues in relation to a diversified workforce as it relates to the production, distribution, and consumption of media products.

Cross-listed as AFAM/COMM 370.

This course examines the renaissance of African American literature, music, and visual art that, for the most part, emerges from Harlem, a cultural hub in the 1920s and 1930s. The course also approaches the literature, music, and visual art, as well as the social changes in Harlem, from different disciplinary perspectives, including literary criticism, cultural history, music criticism, art criticism, and aesthetic theory. Students explore social and aesthetic debates that arose during the Harlem Renaissance and connect these to parallel debates today. Students also make connections between and among different artists and thinkers of the period, including Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Jean Toomer, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay, Sargent Johnson, Romare Bearden, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, and Walter White. The course invites students to make connections between literature, visual art, and music from the period and between the Harlem Renaissance and their own ideas about art and society.

This course is the primary methods course for the major. The course provides students with a thorough grounding in the interdisciplinary literatures and research approaches within African American Studies. In this course students are taught to understand and investigate historical and contemporary phenomena through thoughtful reflection on their positionality and community experiences. Assignments give students practice in integrating the three main facets of the field of African American Studies, scholarship, education, and advocacy that are expected of them as upper-division participants in the African American Studies tradition. AFAM 398 is intended to be taken in the junior or senior year with the purpose of writing a proposal for the AFAM 402 Research Capstone. Students minoring in AFAM or majoring in other disciplines looking for research approaches centering marginalized communities are also welcome.

The 1619 Project is a signal development in the social, political, and intellectual life of the United States. This New York Times Magazine special project, a brainchild of The New York Times staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones has sparked widespread conversations, reconsiderations, and controversies concerning the national narrative about the founding and development of the United States of America. This course addresses The 1619 Project, its subjects, and impact and as such is a study of racial inequalities, racism, and antiracism. Students in the course will explore the range of issues addressed by The 1619 Project through an examination of select artifacts from the broad range of materials that make up this dynamic and expanding project. These issues include slavery, racism, electoral politics and democracy, capitalism and economics, and popular culture, including music, literature, and photography. As an African American Studies course, AFAM 400 employs a critical interrogative approach that considers the contexts and counterarguments essential to a full understanding of The 1619 Project, its reception, and its impact. The course therefore incorporates an examination of the critics and counter-programs challenging The 1619 Project.

This course explores the history of the discipline of art history from the 16th through the 21st century and serves as an introduction to fundamental art historical methods. The development of art history as a discipline--whose foundational thinkers were overwhelmingly white European men of the middle and upper middle classes--is implicated in European colonial and imperialist practices. The course lays bare how imperialism, colonialism, and the identity of its founders shaped the development of the discipline and the formation of the art historical canon. The course interrogates the systematic marginalization and/or exclusion of women and non-European (and later non-Euro-American) artists and artistic traditions in/from the history of art and critiques the Eurocentric and colonialist heritage of the discipline. The course explores what is accepted as "legitimate knowledge" in the field, who is entitled to produce and communicate it, and what institutions maintain and bolster this system. The course further examines recent art historical approaches (e.g., postcolonial, intersectional, decolonizing) that critique the narrowly defined parameters of the field and offer effective interventions that reconfigure the exclusionary practices of the discipline and aim to reshape its institutional system. Students develop and refine their analytical and research skills through discussions, response papers, presentations, and a substantial research project; as part of this work, students regularly examine the positionality of the scholars and artists whose work forms the content of the course and reflect on how their own social position impacts their learning and scholarly practices. The course prepares students for more advanced courses in art history, including the capstone seminar, ARTH 494.

Film adaptations, as a popular cross-media practice, offer a valuable lens for exploring conversations about knowledge production across historical, cultural, and national boundaries, the sociopolitical and economic systems and institutions shaping it, and the power dynamic involved. This course examines case studies of film adaptations based on Chinese literature and beyond. Many of these literary texts and films were created by Chinese authors and directors and intended for Chinese readers and audiences. Other--such as films by the internationally renowned directors like Ang Lee, Hou Hsiao-Hsian, and Zhang Yimou, the Japanese film Princess Yang Kwei-fei (1955), or the American films like Mulan (1998) and Shang-Chi (2019)--were designed to appeal to cross-cultural audiences. Through readings, discussions, written assignments, and group projects, students will critically reflect on such issues as cultural exchange within the context of Western-dominated capitalism and globalization, cultural authenticity and appropriation, gender construction, politics of popular culture, the commercialization of religion, and the representation of Chinese American culture in the U.S.

Chinese-language films produced in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora have been global powerhouses, winning major international awards and capturing remarkable box office receipts. With a long and intricate history, Chinese-language cinema is not only one of the most important forms of cultural productions within the region, it also has assumed an increasingly important role in the global cultural industry and imagination. This course introduces students to the broad historical scope of the Chinese-language cinema, covering three major traditions of Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The films examined in the course powerfully capture the ethos of their times, from the early twentieth century to the present. They address important issues such as gender, modernity, national identity, ethnicity, and globalization. While these issues define the contemporary societies under study, they also condition the making of the films.

This course explores the interactions of Asian peoples ' the commodities, social practices, and ideas which they produce ' across borders, both political and imagined. The course crosses disciplinary borders, as well, drawing upon divergent materials from the humanities and social sciences in an attempt to do justice to a contemporary context that could be called 'Asia in motion.' An underlying thesis holds that, since nineteenth-century colonialism, nations in the 'West' and 'Asia' participate in a global, dialectical movement in which notions of identity (national, cultural, ethnic, religious, territorial, linguistic) share moments of fluidity and fixity.

This course develops understandings of the dynamics and consequences of power differentials, inequalities, and divisions among cultural groups through the lens of criminal and civil law in US state and federal law. In both criminal and civil contexts, students examine the feasibility of legal pluralism in three types of cases: intra-cultural, inter-cultural, and no-longer accepted cultural practices in an intra-cultural event. In the criminal context, students consider criminalization of culturally appropriate acts of non-mainstream cultural communities, the "cultural defense," and the role of law as an instrument of tolerance or tyranny. In the civil context, students examine taboo language, reappropriation or reclaiming of words, and law. Students examine law as a cultural artifact, including who it favors and who it silences or punishes, in tandem with its production of knowledge related to "right and wrong." This course promotes critical engagement with the nature of law, the role of the state and its police powers to regulate disputes between diverse groups, and institutionalized power. This is a seminar-based course, requiring active student participation. Students learn to discuss cultural differences in the legal context and consider their own cultural perspectives vis-a-vis "the law." Satisfies the Knowledge, Identity and Power graduation requirement.

Using a variety of different organizational lenses (e.g. culture, workgroup, and agent), students learn to think through how social identity issues materialize in modern organizational policy and practice. Course materials encourage students to take the role of diverse organizational agents as they face ethical dilemmas in examining contemporary social identity issues such as gender, race, class, and age. Students can expect a variety of theory and application integration through intensive class discussion, reflective and analytic writing assignments and a final research project. The goal of the course is to encourage students to identify issues of organizational power and practices of oppression, particularly as these practices may result in disparate material consequences of economic health and well-being.

The purpose of this course is to enhance students' understanding of diversity issues as they relate to the study of communication. The course looks at how the media, its images and discourses, shape one's understanding of experiences, shape the experiences of women, and the experiences of people of color. The course also explores the ways in which elements of the media socially reproduce prejudice and foster resistance to prejudice. As a result of engagement in the course, students gain the ability to critically analyze and evaluate media products. They also become aware of critical professional issues in relation to a diversified workforce as it relates to the production, distribution, and consumption of media products.

Cross-listed as AFAM/COMM 370.

The course focuses on critical understanding and evaluation of Disney as a constitutive element of contemporary culture both in the United States and globally. Through analysis of Disney animated films, Disney corporate reach and marketing, and Disney theme parks ("Where dreams come true") students engage questions highlighted by Henry Giroux about Disney, "such as what role [Disney] plays in (1) shaping public memory, national identity, gender roles, and childhood values; (2) suggesting who and what qualifies as an agent; and (3) determining the role of consumerism in American Culture around the globe" (The Mouse that Roared, p. 10, 2010). The course draws heavily on literature and theory from rhetorical criticism, media criticism, and cultural studies to engage the textual productions of Disney, Disney's historical location in U.S. culture, Disney's corporate structure and self-presentation, and its experiential vacation through theme parks, resorts, and vacation clubs. Disney broadly, and its theme parks specifically, offers highly orchestrated and managed immersive entertainment spaces. A clearer understanding of Disney cultural reach allows the course to enter discussions about citizenship, identity production including race, gender, ethnicity, and nationalism, labor and capital flow, ideology and interpellation, cultural appropriation and homogenization, consumerism and commodification, hyperreality, narrative, and resistance. Satisfies the Knowledge, Identity, and Power graduation requirement. Prerequisite: COMM 240.

Global climate change is considered by many to be the most significant environmental challenge of the 21st century. Unchecked, the continued accumulation of greenhouse gases over this century is projected to eventually warm the planet by about 6 to 14 °F, with associated impacts on the environment, economy, and society. This course explores the economic characteristics of the climate change problem, assesses national and international policy design and implementation issues, and provides a survey of the economic tools necessary to evaluate climate change policies. It is largely discussion-oriented and thus requires a high degree of participation by students in the classroom. Cross-listed as ECON/ENVP 327.

This course focuses on the ways in which educators, politicians, and the public view the state of American schools. Broad philosophies of education guide an analysis of schools, which include historical lenses as well as the current literature on classroom reforms. This course contrasts central issues of schooling as seen from the "outside" political domain and the "inside" experience of students. In particular, the course addresses how issues of race and social class as well as economic inequality surround current debates over the best way to improve schools in the 21st century. This course is intended both for prospective teachers and for students interested in examining critically the policies that shape one of the key institutions in American society. Required for the Education Studies minor and for admission to the MAT program.

The central topic of this course is the ways teachers view learning, instruction, classroom organization, and motivation. This course takes a micro-analytical approach focusing on classroom interactions and how a teacher plans for a range of student interests, experiences, strengths, and needs. Students in the course consider 1) how the teacher inquiry cycle of planning, teaching, and reflecting supports teacher identity development and improves instruction, and 2) how the interactions between teachers and students, and amongst students, are located at the intersections of issues of knowledge, identity, and power.

This course focuses on the ways in which educators, politicians, and the public view the state of American schools. Broad philosophies of education guide an analysis of schools, which include historical lenses as well as the current literature on classroom reforms. This course contrasts central issues of schooling as seen from the "outside" political domain and the "inside" experience of students. In particular, the course addresses how issues of race and social class as well as economic inequality surround current debates over the best way to improve schools in the 21st century. This course is intended both for prospective teachers and for students interested in examining critically the policies that shape one of the key institutions in American society. Required for the Education Studies minor and for admission to the MAT program.

The central topic of this course is the ways teachers view learning, instruction, classroom organization, and motivation. This course takes a micro-analytical approach focusing on classroom interactions and how a teacher plans for a range of student interests, experiences, strengths, and needs. Students in the course consider 1) how the teacher inquiry cycle of planning, teaching, and reflecting supports teacher identity development and improves instruction, and 2) how the interactions between teachers and students, and amongst students, are located at the intersections of issues of knowledge, identity, and power.

This course examines the theoretical foundations and aesthetics of Afrofuturism. The term Afrofuturism was developed in 1993 by scholar Mark Dery and is an all-encompassing term used to describe science fiction work (literature, music, art, etc.) that focuses on Afro-diasporic ways of being and knowing. We will examine the contours of the field of Afrofuturism and decenter traditional science fiction perspectives that erase the existence of people of color in their visions of future worlds. The course will explore the "other stories of things to come." Afrofuturist authors speak into the legacies of colonialism and slavery as well as persistent inequality to examine their impact on imaginings of future worlds and the ongoing technological age. In the course students will read science fiction texts produced by Afrofuturist authors to study the ways that they reimagine the future from the perspectives of Afro-diasporic peoples in the New World.

This course is a survey of Native American literature from beginnings to the contemporary moment. Students gain awareness of tribal distinctions and points of critical and socio-political concern within the field of study.

This topics course offers an introduction to the fiction of a designated popular genre (fairy tales, sci-fi, detective fiction, romance, etc.), covering constitutive elements of the genre and its history. Readings explore both conventional and experimental iterations of the genre, and consider the relationship between individual works, the conventions of genre, and their specific social contexts. In this course students think about the relationship between formal conventions, subject positions, and historical context, to gain a better understanding of the ways in which popular fiction reflects, refracts, or even challenges popular mores. The course topic is determined by the instructor. Recent topics include "Fantasy Literature," "Superhero Comics," "Afrofuturism," and "Multiethnic Detective Fiction." Please consult the department website for information on current and upcoming offerings.

Literary and critical theory asks big questions about literature, culture, and society. How are our identities shaped by race, class, gender, and sexuality? What is the nature of language and meaning? How can culture contribute to social change or reinforce the status quo? In its quest to solve these fundamental problems, critical theory presents surprising and often controversial perspectives on the world. This course will provide an introduction to literary and critical theory by inviting students to read major texts by groundbreaking philosophers, critics, and social thinkers alongside fictional works including Henry James's classic ghost story, The Turn of the Screw. Students will encounter in these theories a strange cast of characters ranging from cyborgs and revolutionaries to paranoids and prisoners. At the same time, students in this class will be challenged to rethink their basic assumptions about themselves, their society, and their relationship to literature and culture.

Through the study of Douglass's and Whitman's work and biographies, students understand major concerns of the nineteenth century, including enslavement and abolitionism; shifting ideas about gender and sexuality; the possibilities and limitations of American ideals like freedom, equality, and self-reliance; and the role of narrative, oratory, and poetry in the formation of national culture.

The aim of this course is to come to an understanding of our English-language ancestries and to develop a critical appreciation for the lexicons that we carry with us in every utterance or essay, text or tweet. This offering is unlike other English courses, and in fact more closely resembles courses in history, foreign language, and science. Students examine the development of the English language from its Indo-European roots to the present day, gain the knowledge to approach pre-modern texts with confidence (including the rudiments of Old English and Middle English), develop sensitivity to the ways language functions and changes, and explore the current state of English as a world language.

Students learn about the status and function of English in different areas of the world, and its variations. Currently, the majority of people who use English as a language for work, school, and daily communication learned English as a second or
foreign language. Through reading linguistic theory about global Englishes, case studies of how English usage has shaped and been shaped by local cultures, and literary examples of various global Englishes, students become familiar with the complexity of the language that may seem to come naturally to Americans. Students leave this course better equipped to navigate situations requiring cross-cultural communication at the university and beyond. The class engages in focused analysis of English in Taiwan, one country where English is rapidly being adopted (and adapted). The class considers Taiwan's Bilingual 2030 policy and explores what the stories of English in other places in the world suggest might happen in Taiwan. Following the conclusion of the semester, the class visits Taiwan together for a 10-day trip. In preparation for the trip, students each research an aspect of Taiwanese culture and/or global English to present to the class.

This course examines major concepts and theorists within the rhetorical tradition from antiquity to the present. Issues central to the course include whether the goal of rhetoric is necessarily persuasion, and whether the mode of presentation in speech or writing alters the meaning of rhetoric. Students explore the implications of rhetorical theory for daily life, particularly through the intersections of rhetorical theory and writing instruction, political and social activism, and visual media.

Environmental justice can only occur with rich and complex understandings of the intersections of culture, ecology, politics, history, and community. This course seeks to understand the persistence of environmental racism in an inclusive and historicized landscape, one that considers multiple forms of knowledge and expertise and embodies the idea that imagining a more equitable, sustainable future is not possible without a grounded notion of the past and its present articulations. The course will use transdisciplinary perspectives to trace economic and environmental processes over time, situate them within rich cultural bodies of knowledge, and consider the differential impacts of inequalities on a range of regions and peoples. Students will undertake place-based case studies, examinations of broad patterns, commodity- and resource-specific process tracing, and engage with the surrounding human and natural environment. Consequently, this course demands a full critical engagement across disciplines and landscapes, and with each other and the local community.

Conserving wild places through the creation of national parks is not only a reflection of environmental priorities, but a profoundly political undertaking that can bring significant changes to local landscapes. This course examines the intersection of protected areas and political priorities in local, regional, and global context, including discussion of issues such as tourism, human-wildlife conflict, forced displacement, and community-based conservation.

Global climate change is considered by many to be the most significant environmental challenge of the 21st century. Unchecked, the continued accumulation of greenhouse gases over this century is projected to eventually warm the planet by about 6 to 14 °F, with associated impacts on the environment, economy, and society. This course explores the economic characteristics of the climate change problem, assesses national and international policy design and implementation issues, and provides a survey of the economic tools necessary to evaluate climate change policies. It is largely discussion-oriented and thus requires a high degree of participation by students in the classroom. Cross-listed as ECON/ENVP 327.

This course examines the intersections of a Buddhist worldview with environmentalism, broadly understood. It asks what affitnities exist between the two, and what the implications of such affinities might be for engendering a sense of both place and engagement in environmental context. The course explores these intersections both philosophically and experientially, engaging with local nature and Buddhist practice, to deepen the possibilities of understanding shared ground between the two.

This course is a critical examination of key texts and influential figures coming from, focusing on, or relevant to the Francophone world. The course emphasis is mainly on various aspects of cultures of Quebec, Francophone Africa, and the French Caribbean, and ends with an examination of the Francophone postcolonial context.

Close analysis of modern Francophone literature by women. Writings from France, Canada, Africa, and the Caribbean that address issues of personal autonomy, female creativity, social constraints, and clichés of sexual identity are examined.

This course is for all students interested in African studies, in Francophone writers, and issues related to Gender Studies in Africa. No prerequisite or French language is required. Lectures and all in-class discussions are conducted in English. French Studies majors read and turn in their assignments in French. Other students read and turn in their assignments in English. This class explores African women writers and critics, looking at their theoretical priorities and cultural positions. This course is designed to provide students with specific and a general view of the status, achievements and experiences of African women in fiction. Reading authors from diverse African countries gives students a broad understanding of the challenges African women encounter. The course allows students to decipher the nuances of women's experiences and the diversity of African societies. A contrast is made with Western feminist traditions. Authors include Chimananda Ngozi Adiche (Nigeria), Mariama Ba (Senegal), Assia Djebar (Algeria), Buchi Emecheta (Nigeria) and Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe). The discussion focuses on issues of identity, oppression, tradition, resistance, exile, language, and colonialism.

This course serves as an introduction to global development and provides an overview of several problems associated with development and globalization. There are two themes that run throughout the course. First, what are the tradeoffs inherent to the process of industrialization, globalization, and economic growth? Second, what are the political, social, and economic challenges faced by low-income countries? In pursuing these two themes, this course will cover several topics related to development and globalization: the historical trajectory and meaning of the development idea; the role played by colonialism in shaping the contours of the contemporary world; the policy dimensions of development and globalization; the tradeoffs associated with the modernization of agriculture; the causes and consequences of the debt crisis; patterns of health and illness in low-income countries; the environmental impact of industrialization and growing global consumerism; and the challenges faced by women in low-income countries. Crosslisted as IPE/GDS 211.

Was National Socialism the incarnation of evil in the modern world? How could twelve years of Nazi control in Germany alter world history? Did its culture consist only of propaganda and party rallies? Why did the Nazi leadership consider art and culture so central to its political goals? In the past 25 years scholars have taken a serious look at Nazi culture and revealed a much more complex set of factors at work in all areas of cultural life. This interdisciplinary course introduces students to the often contradictory but fascinating historical, social, and economic conditions that led to cultural shifts when the Nazis came to power in 1933 and then examines how Nazi policies simultaneously and systematically influenced all aspects of life in Nazi Germany (Gleichschaltung). Students consider both the 'lowbrow' culture and everyday life as well as the more traditional and sophisticated domains of 'high' culture. Topics include: religion, youth education, the 'camp system,' Fascism, environmentalism, racial theories, disability and discrimination, propaganda and entertainment films, colonial ambitions, art and architecture, gender roles and family, and consumer culture.

Students in this course explore ancient Greek and Roman ideas about race and ethnicity and reflect upon how that thinking remains influential today. Students investigate how categories of race and ethnicity are presented in the literature of the Ancient Mediterranean through reading such authors as Homer, Herodotus, Aristotle, Vergil, Caesar, and Tacitus and through examining visual evidence. They study concepts such as racial formation and origin; ancient theories of ethnic superiority; and linguistic, religious, and cultural differentiation as a basis for ethnic differentiation. They also examine ancient racism as seen in such social processes as colonization, migration, assimilation, and imperialism. Students have to consider the impact of a number of divergent factors on conceptions of race and ethnicity, including: power (who defines the categories?); source (do all authors treat these terms in the same way?); and context (in what ways do identities shift due to historical events and changing political or social contexts?).

This course examines sex, gender, and sexualities in ancient Greece and Rome. Building upon foundational readings in feminist and queer theory, this course examines critically both historical evidence for and representations of love, gender, sex, and sexuality in a wide range of ancient literary texts, as well as epigraphic, art historical, and archaeological sources. Through this combination of using both Greek and Roman primary sources and modern gender theory, this course aims to make sense of such topics as women's lives, marriage, prostitution, sexual violence, medicine, pederasty, sex manuals, and non-normative or "Other"-bodied (e.g. trans*) individuals.

This course examines classical, world, and contemporary myths, with a particular emphasis on the history of theories used to study myth. The course starts with Greco-Roman theories for analyzing classical myths, then analyzes in detail theories that have arisen since the end of the eighteenth century: comparative approaches, linguistics, psychology, structuralism, religion and ritual, class-, race-, and gender-based approaches. It is recommended that students have previously taken a course in myth or literary/gender theory (e.g., GLAM 210, ENGL 344, GNDR 201, etc.).

This course serves as an introduction to Gender, Queer and Feminist Studies. It surveys the history of feminism, and then explores the rise and trajectories of gender studies and queer studies. The course engages with the ways in which gender, sexuality, race, class, ability/disability, and other facets of identity intersect with each other. Students will consider the implications of activism as well as the academic development of these disciplines, and they will engage with the ways that the readings touch upon their own lives.

This course explores "queer" as an open question rather than a stable set of identities, asking: what kinds of bodies, desires, histories, and politics does queer describe? Students consider the complexity of queer identities and investigate the social and historical processes of identity construction. The class asks, with insights from queer theory: What governs the formation of legible social identities? What dynamics of erasure and illegibility accompany these formations? This course takes up these questions with attention to "queer self-fashioning," asking: How have "queer" identities and communities defined themselves--and been defined--in and through clothing and style? While clothing and fashion might seem to typify personal and a-political work, our inquiry explores the politics of self-fashioning: How is the fashioned body governed by laws, policies, and social norms? How has style played an important role in collective movements of dissent and social change? Students also explore these questions through a guided, hands-on project: each student will sew a wearable garment as a process of tactile meditation on the material, time, labor, and creativity involved in queer self-fashioning.

This course is organized around a set of interlocking questions: Who tells the story of scientific knowledge? Through what lens? Who does the work of producing scientific knowledge? To what end? While "the sciences" are often figured as disciplines and practices that both value and produce objectivity and facts -- categories imagined to exist independent of the identities of the people making scientific inquiry or serving as the object of that inquiry -- this course seeks to situate scientific knowledge within the matrix of gender, race, and sexuality that is inextricable from the human experience. We ask: How would a more diverse scientific community change the lives of those working in the sciences? And how would it change science?

This course is designed to introduce prospective majors to the discipline and Department of History. In it, students learn what history is and how historians think and work. The course teaches students to do the two things that historians do: develop interpretations from primary sources and critically evaluate the interpretations advanced by other historians. Emphasis is placed on the methods and skills of reading, analyzing, discussing, and writing history. Reading assignments expose students to a variety of current approaches to history. Writing assignments give students practice in the types of historical writing that are expected of them in upper-division history courses. History 200 is intended to be taken in the sophomore year or as soon as a History major is declared. At least one prior course in History is desirable but not required. Students minoring in History or majoring in other disciplines are also welcome.

In recent years, the status of monuments and the ways the United States remembers its history in public have come under intense public scrutiny. Statues have been toppled and debates have erupted over the way history is taught and remembered in this country. At the same time, new and more inclusive histories have flourished that challenge whitewashed versions of American history. In this course, we explore how major events and topics in the broad sweep of U.S. history have been remembered, represented and contested, and what these reveal about who "we" are as a nation and as individuals with different identities. These may include: Indigenous histories and settler colonialism; the American Revolution; slavery; the Civil War, other wars and battlefields; LGBTQ histories; the histories of different ethnic communities; massacre sites and sites of gun violence; local, environmental and urban history; the Civil Rights Movement and other social and political movements. We will consider how power and narrative function in creating and curating histories, the relationship between history and memory, and the ways that memory and history have been both trivialized and weaponized. While actual monuments will be a focus of the course, we will also explore the memorialization of U.S. history in a number of other forms, such as murals and artistic representations; film, podcasts and public performances; and museums and public history sites. This course is not a history of the making of the United States. Instead, it invites students to participate in exploring how and why the history of the United States has been made in the ways it has been--and to participate in the always ongoing and contested remaking of that history.

This course examines the construction of gender in European contexts from Late Antiquity through the medieval and early modern period, addressing historical continuity and change in understandings of femininities, masculinities, and gender nonconformity, as well as in related ideas about sexuality, marriage, family, and romantic love. Students gain an understanding of how gender intersected with social, economic, political, educational, and religious structures in premodern Europe, and consider the merits of various historical approaches to gender. Special topics to be considered include: gendered concerns with virginity and celibacy; marriage and domestic life; reproductive health; the location of LGBTQI+ identities in premodernity; courtly love and its paradoxes; gender and labor in preindustrial economies; and the gendering of educational institutions.

The military campaigns that comprised the Crusades lasted only two centuries, but their impact on Europe and the Middle East was far more lasting, and the post-medieval legacy of the Crusades continues to be debated. This course focuses on European military expeditions to the Levant between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, attempting to understand these events and their consequences from a number of perspectives through firsthand accounts by Eastern and Western Christians, as well as Muslims and Jews. We begin by considering the world from which the first crusaders came, paying special attention to the social, political, and spiritual hierarchies which shaped their undertaking. After reconstructing the First Crusade in detail, the course then considers the crusader states of the eastern Mediterranean as a lens through which to explore medieval ideas about religious difference, race, cultural assimilation, and tolerance, before tracing the expansion of the crusading project in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We end by considering crusading's long-term consequences, and assessing modern appropriations of the Crusades in service of a range of political and religious agendas.

This course explores the history of sports in the United States and uses that history as a lens for investigating and understanding more fully the range of issues with which that history intersects. To interrogate the history of sports is to situate our current practices in their historical context. We will explore issues such as the following: the historical origins of spectator sports; the impact of major transformations such as industrialization, immigration and the nation's growth into a world power in shaping sports and the athletics industry; the commercialization of athletics and the role of media; racialized, gendered and sexual exclusion and the fight for inclusion in athletics; the relationship between sports and understandings and practices of gender, sexuality, class, race, and ethnicity; the economics of athletics and the athlete as laborer; health and athletics; the contested role of the athlete in American public life and politics; the tension between athletics and academics at educational institutions. All of these are questions that will help us explore important dynamics in the American past and present.

The region referred to as the U.S.-Mexico borderlands has been the subject of wide-ranging popular and scholarly treatment, especially focusing on politics, cultural contact, economic exchange, and violence. Readings cover examples of how the geo-political boundary and socio-cultural space encompassed by the region have produced persistent debate about identity formation, the fluidity of the border, and the inability of governments to restrict the movement of peoples and goods. Through close reading of primary and secondary sources, students explore several questions throughout the semester: How are "borderlands" defined? What role do the historical shifts in political boundaries that have occurred along the U.S.-Mexico border play in defining the geographical limits of "borderlands"? What are the origins of cross-border violence, and how have official approaches to dealing with this violence changed over time? How does the historiography on borderlands contribute to an understanding of the causes of, and popular and official reactions to, the Drug Wars currently underway? This seminar provides students with a general understanding of the scholarship and theoretical foundation of U.S.-Mexican borderlands history.

This course has as its subject matter the individual's relation to society and the relationships that arise among individuals, organizations, and institutions over questions of value. This course aims to enable the student to understand his/her relation to the social world considered as a web of complex and dynamic interrelationships among cultural, economic, psychological, political, ethical and social factors. To this end, the course examines various theories and methods used to analyze this social world, their embedded assumptions, and their application to a variety of contemporary social issues.

What is America? This course provides a comparative, interdisciplinary, and critical examination of "America" (the U.S.) and its endurance as both idea and ideal. Students consider what "America" means--as a place and as a concept, historically and in contemporary times, and to different constituents. Readings and discussion topics address broad issues that have shaped U.S. history and contemporary life, especially those areas around which national identity coheres and those about which the nation has been most conflicted: politics and governance; slavery and freedom; the natural world; capitalism and consumption; industry and technology; immigration and exclusion; civil rights and social justice; culture and the arts.

This course presents a constellation of influential critiques of Western intellectual history, especially examining Enlightenment liberalism and its ideological afterlives. Themes include: critique, Euro-American centrism, orientalism, de-colonial struggles, postcolonial theory, pathologies of freedom, power, hegemony, racialization, identity, liberalism, the democratic illusion, mass deception, the Holocaust, camps, mass migration, terrorism, comprador intellectuals, and culture war. Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment provides the starting point for our humanist and aesthetic critique via readings of Homer, mythology, philosophy, and religion. Important "non-western" authors might include Aime Cesiare, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Sylvia Wynter, Gayatri Spivak, and Hamid Dabashi.

Throughout the world, societies, markets, and governments are in upheaval. Some would even argue that we are on the brink of a new world order. So how do we understand the current historical moment? How are nation-states being remade in the face of the hyper-mobility of capital? Are global corporations the new arbiters of rule? What is the fate of global cooperation in an era of growing nationalism? How are emerging economies and global social movements challenging the terms of the globalization debate? How are power and wealth distributed between and within nations? International Political Economy engages students to understand how the relationship between states, markets and civil society on a global stage affect issues like poverty, inequality, unemployment, security, and climate change.

This course serves as an introduction to global development and provides an overview of several problems associated with development and globalization. There are two themes that run throughout the course. First, what are the tradeoffs inherent to the process of industrialization, globalization, and economic growth? Second, what are the political, social, and economic challenges faced by low-income countries? In pursuing these two themes, this course will cover several topics related to development and globalization: the historical trajectory and meaning of the development idea; the role played by colonialism in shaping the contours of the contemporary world; the policy dimensions of development and globalization; the tradeoffs associated with the modernization of agriculture; the causes and consequences of the debt crisis; patterns of health and illness in low-income countries; the environmental impact of industrialization and growing global consumerism; and the challenges faced by women in low-income countries. Crosslisted as IPE/GDS 211.

This course introduces students to the history, literature, and culture of the different Latin American regions. It examines the products of individual and collective experience and creativity in a variety of ways. Using historical and anthropological texts, the course provides a brief overview of historical periods and legacies, and considers how anthropologists have understood the cultures of urban and rural, racial and ethnic existence. In addition, using a series of literary works, students reflect on the cultural and national identity, moral and religious values, and individual experience of Latin Americans as well as the cultural, intellectual, and linguistic influence of these people in the United States. Classes are organized around discussion and occasional presentations by guest speakers. In addition to exams, students write several short evaluations of readings and are involved in several group presentation projects. The course serves as a required introduction to the Latin American Studies minor.

More than 50 million Latinos live in the United States of America, which makes the U.S the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. In this course, students analyze the cultural, historical, political and social experiences of U. S. Latinos, or "Latinx America." This course understands the place of Latinx communities in the rising U.S. nation as a political and economic agent that shaped the history of the world in the 19th and 20th century. First, the course examines the roots of the US Hispanic populations, and also how colonization imposed Hispanic cultures and languages in North, Central and South America. Second, the course analyzes the experiences of the Latinx communities in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries through various topics: Latino immigration, practices of racism and colonization, strategies of resistance, political and social movements, U.S. policies regarding Latino communities, and Latinx gender practices, among others.

Latina/o literature explores the heterogeneity of Latina/o experiences in the U.S. While the course is not a survey of Latino literary history, it introduces students to contemporary expressions of Latina/o literature. Plays, short stories, novels, testimonies, poems, essays, and film help students to study the complex and often-silenced histories of the Latina/o communities. The course understands literature and cultural productions as a platform for social, historical, and political histories. Literature becomes a place where ideologies are contested, debated and articulated. In this course, students will explore questions related to community, diaspora, immigration, racism, transnational politics, discourses of privilege, and intersections of sexuality, gender, and class. This course is taught in English, with some readings in Spanglish, a language that resulted from interaction between Spanish and English.

A historical survey that focuses on the principal elements and styles of jazz, its trends and innovators, and its sociology. The course is designed to develop a critical awareness, understanding, and appreciation of jazz.

This course critically explores women's contributions to music in a variety of roles and cultural contexts. Figures studied include historical and contemporary popstars, composers, directors, dancers, and everyday women, who make music as part of their daily lives.

This course explores a diverse range of musicians and musical genres through the lens of Tacoma's history. Utilizing primary source readings, listening examples, and guest lectures by local musicians and historians, the course presents a survey of the musical history of Tacoma, from the region's native peoples and early settlers to the present day. The final project engages students with primary research to share local music history stories.

This course will introduce students to methods and issues in the discipline of ethnomusicology, wherein music is studied among its complex intersections with daily life. The course introduces pathways for studying music ethnographically, rendering transparent how music can be explored as culture. Students will approach the study of ethnomusicology through a variety of world music case studies, and will have the opportunity to conduct their own ethnographic fieldwork.

Every opera's characters and situations reflect the times and societies in which they were created, and in performances decades or centuries later, they continue to adapt to reflect changing circumstances. A few operas go further, actually portraying people and events plucked from the history books, or even the headlines. This course considers a selection of operas "based on a true story." What is the true story, as far as we can discern? Who transformed the event into words, music, sets, costumes, and movement onstage? What decisions did they make, and how do those decisions serve to interpret the historical event? How do works and productions reflect, or at times subvert, societal power structures involving class, race, gender, and nationality? How have productions changed over time to reflect shifting attitudes about their subject matter? And what are the ethical and political implications of turning historical events into prestigious aesthetic objects?

An introduction to foundations of music education with emphasis on junior high and high school band, choir, orchestra, and jazz programs. This course explores theories of learning as applied to music and of teaching as a career. Topics include development of skills in curriculum building, lesson planning, comprehensive musicianship, reflective teaching and inquiry in music education. Practicum teaching and observing within school music programs is included throughout the semester.

A selected ethnomusicological topic is studied in a seminar format. Emphasis is given to the relationships between performance practices and associated social contexts, as well as on the praxis and ethics of ethnographic research, analysis, and representation.

This course provides a capstone experience for students earning a Neuroscience Emphasis and is designed for senior undergraduates who have completed all other course requirements in the emphasis. This course offers students in the program the opportunity to explore and discuss more sophisticated theories and complex methods in neuroscience than was possible at the introductory level. This seminar features student-led discussions of advanced topics in the discipline, including nervous system organization, neurochemistry, brain plasticity, neural bases of learning and memory, diseases and injury of the nervous system, and neuropharmacology. Also includes evening presentations by guest experts.

This course is designed to provide an introduction to the enduring masters of political thought (Plato, Locke, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Marx) who enhance our understanding of the political order and its values by asking questions with clarity and determination.

This course introduces students to the nature, functions, and processes of law. The course surveys criminal and civil trials in the U.S., England, and France, appellate deliberations in several countries, constitutional courts and public law, and specific extra-judicial legal institutions. The latter third of the course details lessons of the first two-thirds by case study of litigation in the United States.

This course examines the creation, function, and influence of international organizations in global governance. We explore why states join institutions that may limit their sovereignty and how these organizations can impact state behavior. Through theories, case studies, and simulations, students critically analyze power dynamics within global institutions like the UN and WTO, and in regional bodies like the EU and ASEAN. The course encourages reflection on how international organizations shape and are shaped by power structures, considering whose interests are served and how marginalized voices are represented in--or excluded from--the institutions that "run the world."

This course interrogates intersectionality as an approach to the study of politics. Students will study the history and theory of intersectionality and will engage current debates about the application, benefits, and limitations of the intersectional method. In the second part of the semester, students will undertake an archival, group-based research project as a way to test the intersectional method.

Students explore the concepts of citizenship and personhood in the American political imagination as filtered through a racial valence. Perhaps what is most striking about this valence is the way that it and Americans' conceptions of whiteness, citizenship, and personhood has evolved through America's history. Students will consider what role such images play in constructing a "shared" political community, and to what extent the exclusions they engender strengthen or undermine this community.

This course investigates the ways in which power relations--such as racism, sexism, and ableism--structure two significant areas of individual and collective behavior: language and knowledge. It shows the necessity of philosophizing in critical engagement with the world by connecting social phenomena with social scientific theories. It also shows philosophy's strength in making fundamental inquiries and bridging academic disciplines by drawing on diverse types of empirical evidence.

In this course students first read about the experience of disabled people and the history of the disability rights movement in the US, and how the approach to disability has evolved through time. Then, students devote some time thinking about the nature of disability; two families of approaches to disability are discussed (naturalism and social constructionism) with particular attention to philosophical accounts. The course transitions toward more applied questions, such as: What is the relation between disability and well-being? Is disability intrinsically bad? How is disability analogous to other social identities, and how does ableism differ from other forms of oppression, if it does? Are genetic screening and selective abortion on the basis of disability morally permissible? How does mental disability differ from physical disability? Finally, students work on a group project that answers the question: How can we build a world that includes disability?

The construct of race is omnipresent in the way people think, the way society is structured, and even in the materials that people use. Despite its omnipresence, race remains difficult to discuss, if it is discussed at all, because of its theoretical complexity, contested social history, and emotional triggers. This course challenges students to engage in courageous conversations about the nature of race and its relations to mind, language, and aesthetics. Students will confront difficult questions such as: What is race? How does race influence human cognition? How does race structure human communication? How does race shape human aesthetic preferences and artistic endeavors? Students use tools developed in different areas of philosophy and its cognate disciplines to construct answers to these difficult questions about race. At the same time, students learn that these difficult questions about race can challenge and extend common conceptions of analytic philosophy.

This course is a study of a number of philosophical and political questions related to gender and with the relation between these two types of questions. The course will be concerned first, with some metaphysical issues concerning gender: What is gender? Are gender terms purely natural categories or are they to some extent socially constructed? Second, with epistemological issues that relate to gender difference: Do women, for example, see the world differently from men? What kind of implications does this have for scientific and philosophical knowledge? Finally, with ethical issues related to gender: Granted that everyone has an equal right to flourishing regardless of gender, are there gender variations related to what constitutes flourishing? To what extent are we culturally biased when we think that those who don't conform to the gender norms of other cultures are oppressed? In investigating questions such as these, the course will consider a diversity of perspectives, exploring intersections between gender and other social categories such as race or class and contrasts among different gender theories.

This course considers the ways in which human culture and human behavior varies across cultural contexts. Students review psychological research on culture, examine the theoretical and methodological foundations of cross-cultural research in psychology, and discuss the mounting evidence suggesting that many psychological processes are culture-specific and context dependent.

This course explores how people make sense of themselves and others in the dynamic context of social interaction. Students read and discuss classic and current empirical research in the areas of self-perception, interpersonal perception, and intergroup perception. Readings and discussion focus on theoretical knowledge supported by basic research on human cognition, motivation, and behavior and the relevance of that knowledge for issues of practical and personal importance such as academic achievement, interpersonal relationships, stereotyping, stigma, racism, sexism, aggression, homelessness, and criminal justice.

This course provides an introduction to the vocabulary, methods, and theoretical assumptions of the academic study of religion. By examining several diverse religious communities and traditions--including Lakota Sioux, Southern Pentecostal, Nation of Islam, and Zen Buddhist--we examine patterns, themes, and issues that scholars commonly encounter across world religions. We also examine how specific communities give voice to themes found within the larger world religion from which they emerge. In each case, particular attention is paid to the role of religion in social justice and salvation movements, and in the formation of individual and group identities.

In addition, this course provides a setting in which to practice and develop critical thinking skills through reading, writing, reflection, and discussion. Students should come away from the course with a greater understanding of critical issues facing religious communities historically and in the world today, with a greater appreciation of the diversity of world religions within the United States, and with a grounding in influential scholarly approaches to the study of religion.

This course teaches students to understand Islamophobia and antisemitism as historical, social, and cultural phenomena. It takes up both local and global examples of these phenomena. As students encounter the materials about the separate and entwined histories of these two phenomena, they will be asked to reflect on the degree to which antisemitism and Islamophobia should be considered under a shared rubric or in the same course. Embedded in this question are several historical, epistemological, and political questions: are these phenomena historically linked to the degree that they should be studied together? Can these phenomena be understood to be similar enough to one another and different enough from other forms of bias, hatred, and oppression that they should be studied together? What are the political and ethical stakes of approaching these as related topics? The course puts the classroom in relationship to the world. Students will gather information about incidents of Islamophobia and antisemitism have occurred on our campus and others. They will think critically about the links between these local cases and global cases, across time. Additionally, the course asks students to assess models that institutions, individuals, and organizations have developed to address these forms of hate. Therefore, this course asks students to critically reflect on the relationship between academic knowledge and practice in anti-bias work.

This course provides students with tools of ethical analysis so that they can think critically about pressing contemporary moral issues through the lens of justice. The course focuses on ethical methods from world Christianity and western philosophy. The course introduces both ethical theories and justice theories, and examines multicultural perspectives of the long-standing religious, theological, and philosophical understanding of justice. It analyzes how social justice concepts have been applied in different cultural contexts, including nonwestern communities. Students examine different models of justice and their implications for contemporary moral issues (e.g. racism, healthcare, social welfare, capital punishment, human rights, immigration, refugees, property rights, and the environment). The class includes interactive lectures on justice theories and students actively participate in discussions on selected case studies. Course readings may include excerpts from Aristotle, Aquinas, Mill, Locke, Calvin, Kant, Rawls, Sandel, Nussbaum, Singer, Cone, Williams, Hauerwas, and Ahn.

How does social change happen? Religious groups were central to many instances of transformative social activism like the Civil Rights movement, Feminism and Occupy Wall Street. This course addresses how religious beliefs, identities, affiliations, and practices shape social activism and justice in the United States and the world. The class examines the multiple ways that religion intersects with power and resistance with particular attention to how religion acts as a resource and identity for enacting both reformative and radical social change. The course uses history, fiction, sociology and theory to examine religion in both conservative and progressive movements including Immigrant rights, Prison Abolition, the Civil Rights movement, white supremacy past and present, suffrage and voting rights, reproductive rights, #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. Students will have the opportunity to do oral histories of people involved in religious activism and study a movement or group in depth.

This course provides an opportunity for students to examine the contours of an ethical framework of responsibility by exploring contemporary moral and religious narratives about the "other" from a multicultural perspective. Students learn to apply various ethical theories to particular issues and dilemmas, such as race-class-gender, violence, sexuality, and issues of "difference."

What is the relationship between the university and the prison? How does college in prison raise questions of authority, power and privilege? This is an experiential learning class that combines involvement in a college program at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) and academic classes and readings. Students read texts on the history of prisons, theories of punishment, higher education in prison, and how the intersection of race, gender and sexuality impact the experience of incarceration and education in prison. Students also participate as research partners and study hall co-learners with students at the prison in collaboration with the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS), a signature initiative of the University of Puget Sound. Through collaboration with FEPPS students, students in this class will gain knowledge about the challenges and benefits of the liberal arts in prison.

This course examines multiple configurations of and debates about gender and sexuality in Muslim societies. Topics covered include gender in the Qur'an, sex in Sufi poetry, Islamic laws on sexuality and gendered difference, masculinity, non-binary genders, and queerness in disparate Muslim contexts. The course will also explore links between some feminisms and imperialism, the ways that colonialism has shaped gendered discourses, and the ties between Islamophobia, homophobia, and foreign interventionism. Students will be immersed in art, ethnographic accounts, legal literature, theology, and film about these topics.

This course examines and engages influential theories and approaches to the study of religion developed by scholars with diverse intellectual views. Through theoretical readings and case studies, students receive a broad grounding in classical and contemporary theories of religion, including comparative psychoanalytic, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern approaches. In addition to locating religious studies within wider intellectual movements, the course is designed to help students articulate the values and assumptions they bring to their own studies of religion.

This course is designed to introduce students to the field of sociology. Sociology is a broad discipline which, at its core, constitutes the scientific study of society. Students in this course are exposed to basic concepts, theories, and methods used in modern sociology. Upon successful completion of Introduction to Sociology, students have a basic understanding of the sociological perspective and the ways in which the discipline frames human behavior at all levels, from a brief encounter of two strangers to global social systems. The course also provides students with specific sociological tools that they can use to better understand their world; the theories, concepts, and ideas covered in this class will help students to recognize the connection between self and society, biography and history, as well as the individual and social structures.

This course introduces students to the discipline of anthropology, with an intent focus on the sub-discipline of cultural anthropology. Students gain an understanding of the methods, theories, and debates that characterize cultural anthropology through a critical exploration of the concept of culture, the central frame through which anthropologists grapple with gender, ethnicity, politics, economics, religion, tradition, technology, identity, globalization, and much more. The fundamentally cross-cultural, cross-temporal, holistic orientation of anthropology makes it unique among the disciplines, and its practitioners try to broaden any discussion of human beliefs and practices to include examples that are as diverse and varied as possible, while insisting on a singular, underlying, and universal "humanity." The course draws on ethnography, a term that applies to both the immersive field research that anthropologists engage in, as well as the written analyses of cultures that anthropologists produce to better understand how culture and representations of culture structure relationships of power and inequality in the contemporary world.

The goal of this course is to provide an introduction to the forms of difference and inequality reflected, constructed, and reproduced through notions of race and ethnicity. It asks: what are the forms of knowledge, practices, institutions, and values that have informed the nature and meaning of race and ethnic relations in both the U.S. context and globally? Using a historical, theoretical, and comparative approach, the course examines both the origins of contemporary race and ethnic categories and the way those categories have been reconfigured and deployed over time and space as part of diverse political, social, and economic projects. Drawing on specific cases, students explore how notions of race and ethnicity intersect with other forms of difference such as class, gender, and national identity. Through engagement with sociological and anthropological analyses of race and ethnic difference, the course thus provides students with a conceptual and theoretical toolbox with which to critically examine contemporary race and ethnic relations and engage in informed debate about their implications.

This course explores lived culture in Southeast Asia with a focus on the themes of power and inequality, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, humans and the environment, as well as religion and syncretism. Described as the crossroads of influences from East and South Asia to Europe and beyond, Southeast Asia is one of the most diverse and fascinating regions of the world. The course includes case studies from throughout the region, with a focus on Indonesia. Students begin by working through the prehistory and initial migration to the area, but focus on contemporary themes related to the peoples, cultures, political economies, and representational practices surrounding the region. In addition to providing a cultural overview of the region, this course critically examines sociocultural change that has occurred in Southeast Asia in recent decades. Spurred by new media and communications technologies, environmental challenges, globalized supply chains, volatile inter/national politics, shifting social norms, and new approaches to religious practice, Southeast Asia is experiencing a rapid transformation. Taking an anthropological approach to understanding these themes and foci, students will read and discuss ethnographic work as well as scholarship from a range of disciplines that explores both the background and contemporary manifestations of these cultural shifts.

Disability studies offers perhaps the most trenchant critique of "the hegemony of the normal"--that is, the reification and privileging of certain numerical indices (for example, IQ score; body mass index; weight and height; complete blood count; range of motion; brainwave frequencies; and other such measurements which are then regarded as "better" or "worse" than comparable numbers). While certainly accepting the importance of such measurements in designing treatments and strategies to improve the quality of life for people living in pain, disability studies seeks to balance this "experience-distant" emphasis on "the quantified life" with "experience-near" insights. Thus disability studies seeks out, reflects on, and tries to incorporate and prioritize the meta-biological realities of the lived experiences of people with disabilities (defined here as lifelong or chronic biological and/or psychological impairments), especially in policy-making endeavors inspired by ideals of social justice. Hence this course focuses on issues of power, disparity, and diversity of experience and identities, particularly as these affect and are affected by the minds and bodies of individuals who "have" (or are socially close to people who "have") conditions that mark them as "not normal". Unlike studies done from the perspective of the healing professions, where non-normalcy is regarded as a condition to be helped or remedied, this course, following the perspective of disability studies, is less concerned with identifying and "fixing" deviation from some statistically defined ideal range, and more directly focused on socially grounded, ever-dynamic identity construction and its relation to emancipatory social change, especially when these processes involve confrontations between individuals with disabilities and the various social institutions (e.g. education, health care, legal and economic systems) they (or their caregivers) must deal with throughout their lives.

This course examines the importance of various food products in the development of the original civilizations of the American continent, and the impact that the crops imported by the colonizers have had on the destruction of human cultures and natural ecosystems. Crops native to the Americas (corn, potato, tomato, squash, beans, cacao) and those introduced during colonial times (sugarcane, rice, coffee, bananas), have defined the modern world's foodscapes and have shaped the culture, the history, the economy and the politics of countries around the world. The course will focus on corn in particular, examining its farming, harvesting and cooking methods throughout history, reviewing religious myths and cultural traditions connected to it, and studying its presence and relevance in today's food industry and in our daily lives.

This course introduces students to the culture and civilization of Spain with emphasis on the history, art and prevalent cultural myths and practices integral to the development of the Spanish nation. This course considers the relevance of these cultural elements within an Hispanic context and a global perspective.

How do new ways of seeing and being seen shape the divergent experiences of modernity in Latin America? This is the basic question that SPAN 322 asks by examining a series of case studies that roughly span the last two hundred years of its history. "Modernity" is an object of much debate, but might be provisionally defined as the competing accounts of the major sociopolitical, economic, and cultural processes shaping our world. Traditionally, the foundational literary works of the so-called "lettered city" have been the sources privileged by scholars to understand Latin American modernities. Drawing on recent scholarship, this course adopts the interdisciplinary approach known as "visual culture" in order to understand how emergent technologies and their attendant practices have been instrumental in constructing and critiquing particular configurations of power. These may include photography, pavilions at international expositions, museums, performance art, and multimedia spectacles.

This course explores the diversity of the Latina/o/x/e experiences and introduces students to the originality of artistic and cultural expressions of the Latinx communities in the United States, focusing on texts written originally in Spanish. Plays, performance pieces, short stories, novels, testimonies, poems, essays, films, documentaries, and blogs help students understand the complex and often silenced histories of the U.S. Latinx population. Thus, literature becomes a place where identities and ideologies are articulated, debated and contested. Through readings and discussions, students explore questions related to community building, migration and diaspora, racism and racial relations, transnational politics, discourses of power and privilege, and the intersections of sexuality, gender, race, and class. Most readings are in Spanish, with some in English and Spanglish. Discussion, writing assignments and tests will be conducted in Spanish.

In this course, students examine how post-dictatorial Spain (from 1975 to present) remembers competing accounts of a recent violent past. First, the class analyzes a series of transatlantic cultural artifacts that constructed the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the anti-Francoist resistance as international battles against Fascism. Second, the class concentrates on the ways in which contemporary memory artifacts (films, graphic novels, memoirs, etc.) thematize ideological battles in gender, sexual, and racial terms, paying close attention to the divergent articulations of these conflicts by peripheral nationalisms within Spain (Catalonia, Basque Country and Galicia).

This course focuses on the exploitation of the land and the people of Latin America by the global agro-industrial complex, as seen through its literature. Students examine three novels that detail the power dynamics at play in the growing and harvesting of cash crops (in particular sugar, coffee, and bananas) grown in a plantation system exclusively for exportation. These narratives depict the basic tensions that both define and undermine their communities, and serve as allegories of the region's past and present. We read, discuss, and research these novels alongside other textual and cultural artifacts, as well as a corpus of contemporary scholarship, in order to understand both specific historical moments as well as the broader sociopolitical processes common to the region that we know today as Latin America. Central to the course is the power dynamics at play in the construction of historical narratives, racial justice, and collective memory; the systems of oppression that privilege certain stories while silencing others; the resistance to remembering a violent past that continues to shape the political present; and the potential of memory as a tool for resistance.

This course explores the history of public health in the U.S. In doing so the course examines debates regarding the following: the goals of public health, the role of quantitative and qualitative methods and sciences in describing and assessing a
population's health, the nature of evidence, the environmental and biological factors that influence health, the relation of public health to biomedicine, and the social determinants of health. Throughout, the course examines both the history of racism,
sexism, classism, and ableism in the field of public health (and biomedicine) and the history of efforts to make public health more equitable and inclusive.

This class examines the history of natural history museums. Drawing on the resources and history of Puget Sound's natural history museum, the course is guided by the following questions: How have natural history museums influenced the history of biology? What alternative ways of knowing have historically been excluded from museums as sites of knowledge production? How have debates about human origins and diversity played out in museum settings and to what end? How and why are museums changing as both science and society change, from serving as sites for environmental education to tracking human impacts on the environment? Key topics include the role of museums in racializing human variation, the close relationship between imperialism and natural history, the important role natural history museums played in inspiring Darwin and Wallace's theories of evolution, and recent efforts by museums around the globe to contribute to biodiversity conservation while wrestling with the problematic legacies of their pasts.

This course examines the historical relationship between the theory of evolution and society in the twentieth century, with an emphasis on Britain, Germany, and the United States since 1870. Students examine a range of efforts to apply evolution theory to human society (including social Darwinism, eugenics, scientific racism, and the biology of war and peace), and place these efforts in historical context. In doing so, students study the complex relationship between science and society, and the place of science in the intellectual, social, and cultural history of the twentieth century.

This course surveys the history of medicine in the United States, guided by the following questions: How and why did a particular way of understanding the body, health, and medicine become established as "scientific medicine" in the U.S.? What role have alternative understandings of health and disease played in challenging the status and assumptions of biomedical approaches? How has "progress in medicine" been defined, by whom, and for whom? What political, social, and cultural histories are needed to understand both historical and present-day health inequities in healthcare? How do we develop a narrative of the past that acknowledges both the historical triumphs and tragedies of the U.S. healthcare and medical system and why should we try? How can studying this history improve medical practice, institutions, and education, including provider-patient relationships?

Through the lens of tradition and innovation, students explore contemporary theatre of the African Diaspora with an emphasis on the plays of Suzan-Lori Parks. Students in this and all contemporary world theatre courses engage with and collaborate in a set of informed, imaginative explorations of plays with a particular emphasis on dramatic action. They work toward the completion of this goal 1) by investigating, in light of performance, a play's dramaturgy both from within (formally) and from without (historically, culturally); 2) by cutting, arranging, and producing scenes from plays they are studying; 3) by discovering formal and thematic threads that run through the plays, readings, and topics of the class; 4) by considering ways to increase the breadth and depth of theatre productions at Puget Sound through course work grounded in the Knowledge, Identity, and Power rubric. Although contemporary world theatre classes have similar learning outcomes and a common methodology, the plays and fields of study (e.g. African Diaspora, Asian Theatres, Voices of the Americas) differ from one class to another. Taught in rotation with THTR 252, 254, and 256.

Through the lens of tradition and innovation, students explore the dramaturgy of Asian theatres from classic forms (e.g. - Noh drama) to contemporary plays by Asian American/Canadian authors. Students in this and all contemporary world theatre courses engage with and collaborate in a set of informed, imaginative explorations of plays with a particular emphasis on dramatic action. They work toward the completion of this goal (1) by investigating, in light of performance, a play's dramaturgy both from within (formally) and from without (historically, culturally); (2) by cutting, arranging, and producing scenes from plays they are studying; (3) by discovering formal and thematic threads that run through the plays, readings, and topics of this class; (4) by considering ways to increase the breadth and depth of theatre productions at Puget Sound through course work grounded in the Knowledge, Identity, and Power rubric. Although contemporary world theatre classes have similar learning outcomes and a common methodology, the plays and fields of study (e.g., African Diaspora, Asian Theatres, Voices of the Americas) differ from one class to another. Taught in rotation with THTR 250, 254, and 256.

Through the lens of tradition and innovation, students explore the dramaturgy of contemporary theatre from the Americas, north and south, including plays that speak to Latina/o experience. Students in this and all contemporary world theatre courses engage with and collaborate in a set of informed, imaginative explorations of plays with a particular emphasis on dramatic action. They work toward the completion of this goal (1) by investigating, in light of performance, a play's dramaturgy both from within (formally) and from without (historically, culturally); (2) by cutting, arranging, and producing scenes from plays they are studying; (3) by discovering formal and thematic threads that run through the plays, readings, and topics of this class; (4) by considering ways to increase the breadth and depth of theatre productions at Puget Sound through course work grounded in the Knowledge, Identity, and Power rubric. Although contemporary world theatre classes have similar learning outcomes and a common methodology, the plays and fields of study (e.g., African Diaspora, Asian Theatres, Voices of the Americas) differ from one class to another. Taught in rotation with THTR 250, 252, and 256.