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A total of 34 courses have been found.
The United States in historical, contemporary, and transnational perspective; social and cultural diversity and conflict in American life; debates on concepts of America, the American Dream, national culture, citizenship. Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Cultural significance of production, distribution, and consumption of food in the United States.

What do we eat? Why do we eat it? When and how do we eat? How did certain foods get to be in our diet and on the table? How does food contribute to our understanding of family? Of rituals and holidays? Of gender, racial, and ethnic diversity? Of our own self-identities? What can food tell us about America as a nation in the present and past? Our goal will be to examine the cultural significance of American production, distribution, and consumption of food. Topics include: immigration, migration, and how American food culture was shaped; the American business of food and the rise of fast food; industrialization technologies and the kitchen; ethnic identities and eating; food and popular culture. We will study autobiographies, histories, novels, journalism, movies, TV shows and, of course, cookbooks about food in American life. Requirements: readings and class participation; regular reading quizzes; 1 written report; 3 take-home examinations. 

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Comparative study of culture, social organization.

‘Culture’ consists of the ideas and behaviors that people acquire as members of a social group.  These are inherent in the various ways in which people adapt to and utilize their environment, organize and identify themselves, interact with one another, and express their thoughts and feelings.  When we speak of “a culture,” therefore, we are basically referring to a particular people’s way of life.

This course is an introduction to Cultural Anthropology—the comparative study of culture based on descriptive information drawn from various societies (that is, groups of interrelated, interacting people) all over the world.  The course is intended to (1) introduce the fundamental concepts that constitute the discipline of Cultural Anthropology, (2) promote a greater appreciation for the richness and diversity of culture throughout the world, and (3) provide students with a better understanding of other ways of life, as well as deeper insight into their own.

Social Sciences Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Development of Buddhism in India, its spread across Asia, and arrival in the West; exploration of diverse Buddhist philosophies, practices, and cultures; readings from India, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia.

Buddhism is a living religion that for several thousand years has shaped the societies and lives of people in most Asian countries. Today, it continues as a major influence on how people in Asia understand human existence, and it has also become an influence on the lives of a significant number of people in the Western world -through mindfulness practices and in many other ways. This course gives an introduction to the main ideas, practices and institutions of Buddhism with special attention to those that are meaningful to most people, and specifically to women and minority groups in society. We will trace the historical development of Buddhism in India and its further spread throughout Asia, and examine important aspects of how Buddhism is understood and practiced in different Asian societies, as well as discuss its recent transmission to the West. The course will seek to highlight the colonialist, racist, and gendered history of the study of Buddhism, and examine how this still affects the field today. We will work with images, videos, historical documents, interviews, religious/philosophical texts, and scholarly articles. No prior study of Buddhism is required or expected. Grades are based on course participation, a midterm exam, a writing assignment, peer review of other students’ writing assignments, and a final exam. 

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Introduction to 4,000 years of South Asian civilization through popular stories. Taught in English.

Exploration of Asian Humanities: India. 

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Literary and philosophical texts of China in English translation.

Asian Humanities: China is a general introduction to the various aspects of Chinese humanities from antiquity to the present, including philosophy, religion, literature, art, music, and history. This course will examine a selection of historical documents in different genres, such as stories, poems, novels, and plays, as well as the foundational documents of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Students will examine key facets of Chinese civilization, ranging from identity, family, self and society through these literary and philosophical documents. Primary sources will be analyzed to understand the similarities and differences between the East and the West, the changing interpretations of the religious and philosophical documents over Chinese history, and the evidence of the impact of historical values on current Chinese society.


This course will promote critical thinking and advances rhetorical and writing skills by prioritizing active learning via classroom discussion, supplemented with lectures. Students will be assessed on active class participation and preparation, their knowledge of the course materials, and their critical engagement with the sources and themes through interpretation and analysis. Class format will be at-home reading, in class lecture and discussion, and short answer assessments.


Readings are in English, and no prior knowledge of Chinese language or culture is expected.

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Ancient Greek and Roman writings on magic, including ancient spells and charms.

In this class we will study ancient magical practices and beliefs. We will begin with the Egyptian Book of the Dead, since it foreshadows many of the Greek and Roman beliefs. This illustrated papyrus scroll explains how the newly deceased will find his or her way through the Underworld and survive the many dangers that lurk there to imperil the deceased's soul. We will then consider the Orphic writings and other Greek materials dedicated to the soul's journey in Hades, as well as what we know about other so-called "mystery Religions" of Greece, which taught that the soul was immortal and could be saved from the perils of the Underworld. We will then turn to writings on witches, ghosts, and sorcerers in the Greek and Roman traditions, including the literary models of Medea and Circe as well as quasi-historical dealers in magic. We will also focus on two divine sages and miracle-workers in antiquity: Pythagoras and Apollonius of Tyre, comparing their use of magic and claims to wisdom and truth. Finally, we will look at actual magical texts that purport to describe how to perform spells and curses. These will include the use of love charms, coercion by means of dolls and other images, and the use of protective amulets. Grades will be based on student performance on one short paper, a midterm, and a final.

This course has online proctored exams, all of which will be administered via Proctorio, an online proctoring service. Generally, students will need:

  • a computer with 2 GB of free RAM
  • a reliable internet connection
  • a webcam capable of scanning the testing environment
  • a working microphone
  • a quiet, private location
  • the Google Chrome browser with the Proctorio extension installed
Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Introduction to ancient Greek and Roman myths with focus on using these sources as interpretations of culture and human psyche; emphasis on flexibility of myth and its importance for understanding ancient history, art, literature, religion, and philosophy.

Hercules, Odysseus, Achilles and Oedipus all share one major characteristic: they are all heroes whose adventures and stories are chronicled in timeless Greek and Roman sacred stories, or myths. This course looks at these heroes (and more!), in addition to the gods and goddesses whom these peoples believed ruled their world. The study of Greco-Roman mythology offers an excellent window into the past by providing us with a unique opportunity to examine how the Greeks and Romans attempted to answer questions about the nature of the universe and mankind’s place in it.  The myths of any people betray attitudes concerning life, death, life after death, love, hate, morality, the role of women in society, etc.; we will pay particular attention to how Greco-Roman mythology addresses these important issues.
This course is designed to offer a general introduction to the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Because ancient myths have come down to us in various works of literary and physical art, this course will also introduce you to some of the most influential works produced in ancient Greece and Rome. Moreover, because the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome have exercised such an influence in the shaping of the modern western world, we will equip ourselves with the background necessary to make modern literature, philosophy, religion, and art intelligible and meaningful. By examining and scrutinizing the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans, we will learn not only a great deal about their cultures, but we will also put ourselves in a position from which to question, criticize, and (hopefully) better understand the foundations of the world in which we find ourselves.
This course meets the Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts general education requirement, as well as the Values and Culture requirement, through its use of ancient works of art (literary and visual) and focus on the ways in which ancient Greek and Romans managed the human experience.

Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Survey of gender and sexuality issues in the social, political, and religious life of ancient Greece and Rome; evidence from literature, the visual arts, archaeology.

What did ancient sex toys look like? How scandalous could Roman love poets be before getting banished by the emperor? Why do the heroes in the Iliad and the Odyssey cry so much? In this class we will learn about systems of gender and sexuality in the classical world through a survey of literary, visual, and archaeological evidence. We will pay particular attention to how ancient views of sex and gender differed from our own and what this means for our conceptions of our own cultural categories. Requirements: completion of GE CLAS Core Rhetoric and sophomore standing.

Requirements: completion of GE CLAS Core Rhetoric and sophomore standing
Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Processes and effects of mass communication; how mass media operate in the United States; how mass communication scholars develop knowledge.

 

 

 

Social Sciences Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Dance, music, historical, and social contents of Brazilian Carnival production, critical theories of performance, religious backgrounds, and theatre making in carnival parades.

The course is designed to provide students an opportunity to explore interdisciplinary and foundational learning in the area of the world dance through interactions with explorations of two of the main aspects of the Brazilian popular culture (Samba and Carnival).  Through extensive literature, video presentations and practice of popular dances of Brazil, students will be exposed to one of the most important and influential expression of popular culture in the world, according to place, time and event.  This includes all aspects present in the Brazilian Carnival: dance, music, historical and social contents; production; critical theories of performance; religious backgrounds; and theatre making in the Carnival Parades – from current to centuries-old tradition. 

Engineering Be Creative Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity

This course explores the role of the performing arts in the human experience, and examines the nature of the creative impulse in different performance media, cultures, societies and historical contexts.  Much of the class work is based on attendance at live performances of theatre, music, and dance on campus and in the community.  Readings, films and videos will augment live performances. Emphasis is on analyzing performance and the experience of the audience through writing and in-depth class discussions. 

Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Influence of social factors such as discrimination, diversity, equity, racism, sexism, and ethnic and socioeconomic pluralism on American schools and classrooms; for teacher education candidates.

The focus of this course, which is required for teacher certification, is on social factors such as discrimination, diversity, equity, racism, sexism, and ethnic and socioeconomic pluralism and their influence on American schools and classrooms. The class is limited to persons who plan to obtain a teaching certificate or who are required to have the course because they will be working in schools. The class is organized with a lecture/discussion section format. The lectures are given by faculty and guest speakers; the discussion sections are taught by TAs and faculty members. Papers, individual and group projects and presentations, reports, and tests are among the class activities and assignments. There is a final exam on the lectures in addition to the exams for each discussion section. Several texts and a book of readings are required.

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Nazi literature, literature of the Holocaust and the Opposition, and exile literature in English translation. Taught in English.

This course introduces students to the film and literature of the Holocaust. We will analyze the origins and development of historical and religious anti-Semitism, the role of Nazi propaganda, the state-sponsored attack on Jewish businesses, homes and bodies in 1938 (Reichspogromnacht), the establishment of ghettos and the concentration camp system across Europe and the role of ‘ordinary Germans’ in the Holocaust. We will examine documentary films—from the liberation of the camps (Nazi concentration camps) to later interview films (Lanzmann, Shoah) —as well as European and American feature films (Spielberg, Schindler’s List) and pay special attention to the function of testimony and witnessing (Renais, Night and Fog; Doron & Sinai, Numbered). We will also discuss representations of Auschwitz, the Auschwitz Sonderkommando revolt in literature and film (Nemes, Sons of Saul), survivor accounts and testimonials (e.g., Jean Améry, Primo Levi), Yiddish poetry written during the Holocaust (e.g., Abraham Sutzkever) and Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel MAUS.  We will also examine how Germany remembers the Holocaust by analyzing recent constructions of memorials and museums.

Required books:

Art Spiegelman, Maus I; Maus II

Jean Améry, At the mind’s limits

Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Role and status of women in society; sex differences, sex role socialization, theories about origin and maintenance of sexual inequalities, changes in social life cycle of women, implications for social institutions and processes; focus on contemporary United States.

This course is designed to give you an introduction to the sociological analysis of gender in American society. As part of its focus, sociology investigates and exposes aspects of social life that are usually taken for granted. In this course, we will critically examine the multiple ways that gender organizes and structures the social world in which we live. To this end, we will be investigating such topics as the predominant theoretical stances related to the study of gender, femininities and masculinities, how gender structures everyday social interaction, and how social institutions (e.g., education, work, family, the media) create gendered meanings and structures. Finally, we will conclude by considering ways to intervene in many of the processes that perpetuate gender-based inequality.

 

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Women in the Islamic community and in non-Muslim Middle Eastern cultures; early rise of Islam to modern times; references to women in the Qur'an and Sunnah, stories from Islamic history; women and gender issues.
More information on Prof. Souaiaia's website.
 
Women in Islam and the Middle East is a course about women within and without the Muslim community. It focuses on women from the early time periods of the rise of Islam until modern times. We will consider the textual references to women in the primary religious texts (Qur’ân and the Sunnah) and references and stories of prominent women as told in the Islamic history books. In order to provide a comprehensive exploration of the status of women and gender issues, the course will also rely on interviews, guest lectures, images, documentaries, and films produced from a variety of perspectives and through the lenses of a number of disciplines.In this course, we aim to explore the role and status of women in the modern and pre-modern Middle East with respect to institutions such as the law, religious practices, work, politics, family, and education. Additionally, we will examine themes of social protocols, sexuality, gender roles, and authenticity as contested norms.The course will also discuss contemporary Muslim women, the factors informing constructions of gender in Islam and the Middle East. We will focus on contemporary Muslim women in a number of different cultural contexts in order to highlight a variety of significant issues including, veiling and seclusion, kinship structures, violence, health, feminist activism, literary expression, body and mind, and other themes.
 
 
International and Global Issues Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Physical activity determinants in society; school, workplace, community-based health promotion interventions to improve activity levels.

The course will introduce students to physical activity as a health determinant. Students will gain an understanding of the individual, social, and environmental factors that influence physical activity participation and ultimately physical fitness and health throughout the life cycle. Requirements of the course include: weekly assignments & quizzes, papers, a physical activity log, and examinations.

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Introduction to Italian food culture; students explore how Italian culinary tradition was born and evolved over time, often reflecting historical and economic developments in the country; the different geographical regions of Italy and how each region established its own food culture, while at the same time being part of a national food culture; how Italian food has become a defining element of Italianness in the world, with focus on the birth of Italian-American foodways. Taught in English.

The course will introduce students to Italian food culture and will be comprised of two parts. The first part of the course will explore how the Italian culinary tradition was born and evolved over time, often reflecting historical and economic developments in the country. Students will explore the different geographical regions of Italy and examine how each region established its own food culture, while at the same time being part of a national one. The first part of the course will also examine current culinary trends in Italian foodways, and how they are influenced by current social changes in Italy. The second part of the course will look at how Italian food has become a defining element of Italiannes in the world. This part will focus on the birth of Italian-American foodways and Italian American food culture through the analysis of images of food in literature and films. 

Requirements include class attendance and participation, 4 short writing exercises, a group project, a midterm and a final project.

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Prehistory of social media and identification of ideas, events, and elements in ancient and historical times; earliest days of online posting and interacting; first instances of social engagement on the Web; how social media (journalism, politics, health care, romance and lifestyle, entertainment, war and terrorism, professions and jobs) affects individual areas of life, culture, and society; what's next and how social media changes lives in the future and affects the fate of humanity.

Social Media Today is a survey course with no prerequisites, intended for students of any major and interest. This course offers an overview of our current understanding of a wide range of social media phenomena from the point of view of researchers, professionals, and critics. We will begin with a brief history of communication technologies, including the first instances of social engagement on the Web. Next, we will discuss key conceptual and theoretical developments that ground informed discussions of social media. We then will examine what the rise of social media means for contemporary culture and society, focusing on a range of topics including: journalism, politics, justice, romance, and marketing. Finally, we will consider future possibilities for digital and social media.

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Introduction to premodern, modern, and contemporary Japanese culture; special attention given to the relationship of classical texts to contemporary novels, short stories, manga, anime, music, and film; students consider relationships of textual and visual cultures, high art and low art, moments of crisis and the everyday, the sacred and the profane, men and women. Taught in English.

This course is an introduction to 1300 years of Japanese literature and culture with special attention paid to the relationship of classical texts to contemporary novels, short stories, manga, anime, music, and film.  Throughout this course we will consider the relationships of textual and visual cultures, of high art and low art, of moments of crisis and the everyday, of the sacred and the profane, and of men and women.  All readings for this class will be in English translation; no knowledge of Japanese is necessary.  This course includes screenings of film and anime with English subtitles.   

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
How to listen to jazz and recognize a variety of processes that are taking place in performances and recordings; historical, social, and political issues, including race and gender; the unique blend of jazz of a particular region; attendance at live performances, meet and interview musicians, critics, and educators. Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Major 20th-century styles, artists, seminal works, and recordings; developments between 1917 and 1972.

This course is a survey of Major 20th-century styles, artists, seminal works, and recordings; developments between 1900 and today. Course materials include a written text, ICON listening list, films and live performances. Requirements include online quizzes, two exams and writing assignments.

Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity

Contemporary ethical controversies with life and death implications; topics may include famine, brain death, animal ethics, abortion, torture, terrorism, capital punishment.

In this course we begin by examining theoretical questions about morality: What constitutes a good or valuable life for a human being?  What is it for an action to be right or wrong? Is morality relative to culture? Does it depend on God’s authority or command?  Is the rightness/wrongness of actions determined solely by the consequences of actions?  What role, if any, do agents’ motives or intentions play in determining the rightness or wrongness of actions?  We then turn to applied ethics, examining the controversial topics listed below with help from ethical theory.

  • Poverty: There are people who are starving, or who lack basic necessities (heat, water, food, clothes, safety, health, etc.), and whose life I could save or improve by giving up some of my income or wealth.  It would be good to do so.  But is it my duty to do so, or am I morally entitled to keep my money, perhaps because I earned it? If there is some other justification for keeping what I don’t need to survive while other die, what is it?    
  • Immigration, Refugees, and Military Intervention: Similar questions can be raised in other contexts: Does a well-off and powerful country like the US have a duty to aid refugees trying to flee a war or oppressive regime, or duties to intervene and stop a genocide from happening…. What are the best arguments for and against a right to immigration?
  • Abortion: Is it permissible to have an abortion? If it is permissible because the fetus is not a person, then why is it wrong to kill a newborn infant?  If it is impermissible to kill a fetus because doing so keeps a future possible person from existing, then why is contraception and abstaining from sex, which keeps some possible future persons from existing, permissible? 
  • Animal Ethics: Is it ever permissible to kill animals for food when we don’t need to do so to survive? If it is permissible, would it be permissible to kill humans for food too?  If it is not, what’s the difference?  Because we are more rational than animals? More powerful than animals?  Of a different species than animals? Because we are the top of the food chain?  Are any of these reasons good reasons to kill animals for food but not kill humans for food?
  • Pandemic Ethics: What is the appropriate response to a pandemic like Covid-19? How does the risk of death from Covid19 compare to the risk of death from other causes, e.g., car accidents, earth quakes, cancer, and the common flu?  How do we compare the negative effects of the virus and the negative effects of aggressively slowing down the economy? When is constraining people’s freedom in a pandemic justified?  How might living through a pandemic help us reflect on the value and meaning of our lives?  

A central objective of the course is to help you understand and be able to explain different positions on some of these controversial problems, and more importantly, to help you develop the skills and abilities needed to compare and critically evaluate competing solutions to moral problems. We end the course by reflecting on the moral importance of philosophical thinking, and the value of the examined life. 

Gen Ed requirement satisfied:  Values, Society, and Diversity

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity

Varied topics; may include personal identity, existence of God, philosophical skepticism, nature of mind and reality, time travel, and the good life; readings, films.

Have you ever wondered who you are? Whether you are a physical body or an immaterial mind? Have you ever asked yourself what makes you the same person you were ten years ago? Have you sometimes worried that you cannot know anything with certainty? Have you ever wished that someone would provide a decisive argument for the existence of god? Have you ever been concerned with how you ought to act towards others? In this course, we will explore these and other important philosophical questions through a selection of classical and contemporary readings. We will engage in lively class discussions and writing; we will learn to analyze others’ philosophical arguments and build our own; and we will gain a better understanding of our own philosophical outlook and the philosophical questions that matter most to us. 

 

 

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity

Analytical and historical introduction to ethical theories; issues such as the nature of the goodness, distinction between right and wrong.

View introduction video

Consider the following scenario:  You are walking alongside some train tracks when you discover that a runaway trolley is headed right for five people tied to the tracks.  As it happens, you can pull a lever to divert the trolley in a different direction, thereby saving the five – but also killing one person who happens to be tied to the side-track.  What ought you to do in this situation?  Most people would say they would pull the lever.  But now consider a variation on this scenario: Suppose instead that you are on the trolley that is headed toward the five people, and the only way you can save them is by pushing a very large person standing beside you over the front of the trolley so that his bulk stops it, killing him but saving the other five.  (Of course, you considered sacrificing yourself, but realized that your slender body would not stop the trolley.)  Now what should you do? Notice that if you push the person, you get the same consequence:  five persons live and one dies.  Or consider a parallel medical case: If a medical team has enough time and resources to save either one person or a group of five others, but not both, it seems they should save the five; but what if they could only save the five by killing the one and using the organs to save the others?  Once again, if they do so then the consequences would be the same: five live and one dies.  But then, why hesitate to kill the one to save the five?

The trolley case and other cases like it highlight a central problem in ethical theory.  In evaluating whether an action is right or wrong, should we look only to the consequences of these actions, or is something else relevant?  If only the consequences matter, why do we feel, at least initially, that killing the one to save the five is wrong?  If something else is relevant, what is it, and why does it matter?

We make moral judgments on a regular basis in our lives, judgments to the effect that some goal or purpose is good, that some decision or action is right or wrong, or that some person is a good or bad person.  Despite the fact that such judgment are commonly made and acted upon, and have deep and significant consequences, people rarely subject them to much critical reflection.  We rarely ask what exactly we mean by such judgments, or on what basis they ought to be made. What is it for something to be good or bad?  What constitutes a good or valuable life for a human being?  What is it for an action to be right or wrong? Is the rightness of actions determined solely by the value of the consequences of actions?  What role, if any, do agents’ motives or intentions play in determining the rightness or wrongness of actions?  In this course we examine classical and contemporary works that articulate and defend particular answers to such important questions.

Course objectives:  To help you 

  • identify central questions in ethics;
  • understand and be able to explain the leading answers to such questions;
  • develop the skills needed to compare and critically evaluate competing answers to these questions;
  • develop the skills needed to examine the implications such answers have for some controversial moral problems;
  • improve your ability to write clear argumentative essays.

 Readings:  ICON site.

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Common problems, literature, analytic techniques.

At the turning point of Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore tells students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, “We are all facing dark and difficult times.” Yet Harry’s times are ours; and many of their troubles are political: racism, sexism, terrorism, totalitarianism, environmental catastrophe, elitism, imperialism, bureaucracy, mass society, torture, war, and worse. This course uses Potter takes on politics as dark arts, as well as our defenses against them, to explore political thought and action for our dark times.


Introductions to political theory typically acquaint students with several ideologies and movements in politics. But in everyday life, we usually practice politics as styles of personal action. Some of these styles enact ideologies such as liberalism or conservatism, some pursue movements like environmentalism or populism; yet many don’t link to prominent ideologies or movements. Fortunately the Potter books focus on many styles of action in speaking to our troubles. So this course analyzes Potter novels for their takes on our several kinds of politics.


Each Potter book educates Harry and his friends in at least two styles of personal action, and often they are political contraries. For example, the first three books contrast perfectionism to conformism, fascism to populism, and realism to idealism. Potter and company enact these as personal styles of conduct available to most of us readers, and likely practiced by people we meet. The Rowling novels also probe bureaucratic, conservative, nationalist, and other styles.


We read a Potter novel every two weeks. To replace lectures, we also read chapters from the teacher’s book on Defenses Against the Dark Arts: The Political Education of Harry Potter. All are available from the University Bookstore in the Iowa Memorial Union. This approach lets us use class time for discussing Potter issues as our issues. The Covid-19 pandemic has the course meeting online rather than in a classroom. But since we use a seminar format, our Zoom sessions twice a week can work largely as if we are talking in person.


Classes are for discussing politics in each novel’s characters and situations, linking to our political situations, and debating their implications for current action. Students take short-answer tests on politics in several novels. Students also write two brief exercises in analysis on Potter politics, each a maximum of five double-spaced pages.

Social Sciences Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
History, religion, and thought of early Christians as recorded in the New Testament.

This course will introduce the student to the contents of the New Testament, and examine these individual writings within their historical contexts. The purpose of this course is to understand this work within the broader cultural backgrounds of both Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures, the history of the people who composed the books, and how its literary contents reflect, reject, or otherwise interact with the cultural and historical circumstances of the times.

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Quests for destiny in terms of perceived options/goals and ability to recognize, pursue, achieve them. Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Examination of the persuasive dimension of stories; students master the skill of storytelling by examining stories circulating within their culture and exploring the effects these stories have on thinking about their identities and discovering their own voices; integration of speaking and writing skills with persuasive storytelling skills through short oral and written assignments that lead to a final multimodal project of two interrelated storytelling assignments—production of a website and a podcast.
Prerequisites: RHET:1030 or RHET:1040 or RHET:1060
Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Development of cultural history in Russia during the Romanov period (1613-1917); painting, music, architecture, and literature viewed against their political, historical, and social settings. Taught in English.

How terrible was Ivan the Terrible? How great was Catherine the Great? And who the heck was that Rasputin dude? We will try to find answers to these and other slightly more pressing questions in the course of this sweeping overview of pre-revolutionary Russian history, literature, and culture. 2013 marked the 400th anniversary of the first Romanov tsar on the Russian throne and 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the collapse of the dynasty. We will look at Russian culture through the eyes of writers (Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov), painters (Repin, Kramskoi, Perov, Vasnetsov, Ge, Vrubel), composers (Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov), and film directors (Sergei Eisenstein, Alexander Nevsky (1938), Sergei Bondarchuk, War and Peace (1965-67), Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrei Rublev (1969), Alexander Sokurov, Russian Ark (2002). Students are evaluated on the basis of attendance and class participation (30%), two exams (15% each), two papers (15% each), and a presentation (10%). Knowledge of Russian is not required. Course taught in English. 

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity

Russia Today 3 s.h.

Contemporary Russia, with focus on prevailing social, political, economic, ethnic, environmental conditions; attention to historical evolution of problems, current factors; what these factors might portend for the future. Taught in English.

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia.  It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."  (Winston Churchill, 1941)   Despite the official break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, this famous quote perhaps rings more true today than ever – even to the vast majority of so-called Russian experts and academics. It is my hope that throughout the course of this semester students will come away with an improved understanding of the unique historical, political, socio-economic, cultural, and literary events of the past 100 years that continue to guide and influence Russia in 2019 as one of the world’s most unique, powerful, yet perpetually misunderstood countries. Course materials will include literary works by Russian authors, biographers, and historians (in English), documentary and artistic films (by both Russian and US directors),  government and NGO presentations on the changing health care system post-1991, and a several specialist guest speakers on Russian law, education, economics, the former Soviet Republics, and youth culture today in Russia.

International and Global Issues Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity

Historical development of social welfare and social justice in the United States; individual values and ethics; role and responsibilities of enhancing society; contemporary practice to address social injustices including poverty, discrimination, various forms of violence; small group discussions and debates of various issues to allow for an exchange of diverse views and perspectives; volunteer work.

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
Major theoretical perspectives for understanding inequality in economics, power, prestige; the magnitude of social inequality in the United States; sex and race inequality; trends in and causes of social mobility; selected consequences of social inequality.

In this course we will examine the major forms of social inequalities in the contemporary United States and the global community. We will explore the characteristics, causes, and consequences of how wealth, power, and other resources are unequally distributed across social groups. We will also analyze the role of public policy and the dominant cultural ideology on maintaining and/or reducing these inequalities.

Students from different disciplines would benefit from being able to answer some questions regarding contemporary society such as: Why is economic inequality getting more evident? How much do race, ethnicity, or gender affect individuals’ chances for getting ahead in life? Is globalization generally good or bad for workers? What is the role of the state, as well as major social institutions such as the media, corporations, and education in all this?

We will achieve the course goals through our readings, writing, active participation, discussions, and using critical thinking in this class.

 

Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity
How comedy reflects, comments upon, and intersects with western culture, society, and identity; roots of western comedy, satire, censorship; stand-up comedians, improv and sketch troupes, satirists; race, gender and sexuality, class perception; how portrayals of African Americans in popular culture evolved from 19th century to present; videos, readings, live performances. Values and Culture Values, Society, and Diversity