Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

Instructor(s): Brian Libgober

Description: Complex societies require systems for settling private conflicts and, in so doing, producing civil justice. In recent years, scholars have documented a profound, multi-dimensional crisis in the basic infrastructure of providing civil justice, with particular flash points including eviction, child welfare, and debt collection. Our course will explore how the civil justice system has reached this state of crisis, the consequences of this crisis for social and economic inequality, and how and why the political system has struggled to arrive at policy solutions. We will also discuss prospects for reform to civil justice and draw connections and contrasts to the criminal justice system. The course aims to give students a familiarity with how social scientists think about thorny policy issues crossing many substantive areas.

Instructor(s): Sara Monoson

Description:

This seminar introduces students to recent research across academic fields on the cultural problems that have wittingly and unwittingly arisen from the prevalence of very sophisticated digital technologies in multiple spheres of life today (e.g., internet, AI, generative AI, social media, cloud computing, internet of things, big data).

The integration of these technologies into many spheres of life has been thrilling in many ways. It also requires rethinking what it means to enjoy - and protect - freedom, equality, autonomy and democracy. Are our conceptual tools adequate to the task of understanding the complexities of our current situation?

Overall, our learning objective is for students to gain a facility with some conceptual material of value for thinking critically about the transformative moment in the history of technology we are at present experiencing.

No tech background will be assumed or needed.

The title of the seminar is a nod to a book we read to start our critical inquiry, You Are Not a Gadget, by visionary computer scientist Jaron Lanier. Other researchers whose work we will consult include technology ethicist Tristan Harris (Center for Humane Technology), economist Shoshanah Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the Frontier of Power), mathematician Cathy O'Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy), tech writer Nicholas Carr (The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains), journalist Max Fisher (The Outrage Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired our Minds and Our Worlds), "poet of code" and AI researcher Joy Buolamwini (The Algorithmic Justice League). Documentary films also feature in our sampling of recent research. News coverage of policy debates in various nations and litigation in US courts will also be discussed. Frequent short student oral presentations. As a fall college seminar, we will also set time aside for open discussions of “transition to university” matters.

Instructor(s): Ryan Platte

Description:

In this course we will examine, and learn how to write about, the role of Ancient Greece and Rome in American film and culture. Preliminary steps in this study will involve introductions to various historic eras of the ancient Greco-Roman world as well as important elements of ancient culture. Our emphasis will, however, not be analysis of antiquity itself but rather of recent American engagement with that antiquity, particularly in film. We will examine not just how antiquity perseveres in American culture, but how popular art creatively and critically engages with inherited Classical traditions. We will also consider engagement with Classical antiquity in some non-cinematic media as well, such as the graphic novel and even the architecture of the city of Chicago.

In addition to the scholarly elements of this course, it will also serve as an introduction to college life itself. We will learn about specific resources on campus that exist to enable student success as well as discuss student well-being and personal success strategies. Your instructor will be your academic advisor this term and this will incorporate advising related activities to help students succeed not only in this class but at the university generally.

Instructor(s): William Reno

Description:

This course traces the development of American military strategy, beginning with the War for Independence when US forces waged a guerrilla war campaign to defeat a stronger British force. The US Civil War featured a military strategy of applying overwhelming force to defeat separatists. The use of overwhelming force to annihilate an adversary informed US strategies in the First and Second World Wars and remains a vital influence on strategic thinking that shapes the organization and the culture of our armed forces.

This course considers challenges to American strategic thinking: What is the utility of force against a nuclear-armed adversary that can annihilate its attacker? The Iraq War of 2003-2011 and the 20-year US military operation in Afghanistan to 2021 raise a host of questions about the utility of force against insurgents. Yet the campaign against the Islamic State from 2014 to 2019 showed how the selective application of superior US military force can play an important role in annihilating an adversary.

Class attention then turns to contemporary American military strategy. How are national interests defined in an increasingly competitive global environment and what is the role of the US military as a tool of American power and influence? How do rivals and potential adversaries respond to US power and influence? We consider the expansion of domains of warfare, such as the weaponization of information, of global supply chains, and of societies against themselves.

New technology impacts American military strategy too. This course considers plans to integrate AI into warfighting and debates about the warfighter—AI interface. Autonomous weapons are considered, as is the proliferation of nuclear weapons in an increasingly competitive environment.

Instructor(s): Tracy Hodgson

Description: Do animals think? Are they self-aware? How can we humans ever hope to find out? Topics for exploration and discussion include: The evolution of cognition; the history and current state of research on animal thinking; how studies of animal thinking may help us better understand human cognition.

Instructor(s): Tara Fickle

Description:

This course introduces students to Asian American comics and graphic narratives. How do these texts define what it means to be Asian in America, and what counts as Asian American literature? How do they graphically capture the unique position of Asian Americans as both racially hyper-visible and socially invisible?

Readings will include comics by authors such as Gene Yang, Mira Jacob, Adrian Tomine, and G.B. Tran

LEARNING OBJECTIVES • Reading comic books and critical texts with a view to better understanding their conventions. • Drawing on relevant information to situate these texts within their cultural, political, and historical contexts. • Employing creativity and interpretive skills to produce original, persuasive arguments. • Becoming familiar with the genealogy of Asian American history and the basic scholarly terminology and theories for analyzing Asian American culture.

Instructor(s): Fred Rasio

Description:

For many centuries scientists and philosophers speculated about the existence of other worlds—planets orbiting other stars, some perhaps harboring life, or even entire alien civilizations. It is only in the last 30 years that astronomers have been detecting exoplanets, and astrophysicists are now modeling these worlds guided by rich data sets, some suggesting the possibility of alien life. In particular the James Webb Space Telescope has opened an exciting new epoch of exploration, revealing for the first time the detailed atmospheric chemistry of exoplanets and the physical conditions on the surfaces of alien earths.

This seminar will cover the brief history of this field and recent developments, through (nontechnical) readings and class discussions.

Instructor(s): Kalyan Nadiminti

Description:

This reading-intensive first year seminar will consider how colonialism and contagion together produce racialization in science fiction. In the year of the pandemic, European nations voted for strict vaccine export control measures, effectively slowing down access to medications for the Global South. Phrases like “vaccine nationalism” as well as “vaccine passports” have become commonplace. This twilight zone of deepening crises, and the imperial paranoid imaginary of what Neel Ahuja calls “bioinsecurities,” have long been represented by science fiction authors. Keeping a firm eye on epidemiology, race, and imperialism, this course charts a path along genre-bending, speculative fictions that imagine contagion and infection not just as disease but as racialized others from the late-nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. Contagion emerges not just as a moral panic or embodied paranoia about infection, but as a method of relationality that draws tightly controlled, governmentalized worlds around raced and differentiated bodies.  We will think about how these fictional netherworlds produce new subjectivities of life, death, and living death. Alongside science fictional as well as speculative novels, spanning postcolonial, British as well as multiethnic US writing, we will also watch films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Night of the Living Dead, District 9, Arrival.

But that’s not the only agenda for this course: on the way, we will simultaneously encounter SF that offers us important insights on the question of race and empire more broadly, i.e. narratives that don’t necessarily take contagion as their point of departure but are key in understanding racialization and the postcolony. Similarly, while the course is largely organized around science fiction, we will also ask what it might mean to think about speculative fiction or realism alongside SF. Thus, we will encounter texts that are thinking more abstractly about difference in order to understand different registers of SF. Required Texts: H,G, Wells, The War of the Worlds (Edward Gorey edition) Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome Ling Ma, Severance Victor LaValle, The Destroyer

Instructor(s): Marcelo Vinces

Description: Biology refers to the characteristics and processes of life and living organisms, as well as the discipline that studies these. In this seminar we cover a selection of topics in biology (cell biology, genetics, evolution, molecular biology, microbiology) and take an interdisciplinary approach to explore (1) the social, behavioral, and ethical aspects of the study of biology as a scientific discipline, and (2) the impact of cultural, political, and economic forces on biological phenomena such as infection and disease. A major focus will be the human stories behind the science using readings from press articles, academic literature, and non-fiction books.

Instructor(s): Almaz Mesghina

Description:

Race is something that is constructed and something that constricts us. The field of psychology is responsible for both, but also has solutions for both. This class considers blackness and psychology from three perspectives: 1) How psychology has helped create the notion of race, 2) How psychology has treated black bodies historically, and 3) How these show up in the modern, everyday interactions we have. T

hrough course readings, discussions, and written assignments, we will develop and apply an understanding of how psychology makes blackness, and the psychological implications of a race-aware society. We'll also learn how to read, critique, and write psychological research. Course readings will include journal articles and select chapters from popular press books. There is no required textbook.

Instructor(s): Wen-Fai Fong

Description: In this course, we will learn about major astronomical discoveries in the past century, highlighting the crucial role and contributions of women astrophysicists to our understanding of the Universe. Such fundamental contributions include developing a stellar classification system, laying a foundation for the expansion of the Universe, providing evidence for the existence of dark matter, and discovering a class of neutron stars, called pulsars. We also celebrate the first major observatories to be named after women pioneers, which will come online in the next few years. By bringing these contributions to the forefront, we will also examine and discuss our own biases in how we attribute credit for scientific discoveries.

Instructor(s): Shelby Hatch

Description:

In earlier times, “The Green” referred to a literal green space in the center of a town or village where residents would gather for public events. These events might be social or political in nature. In current parlance, we often use the word “green” to refer to something environmentally benign, and this includes the practice of “green chemistry.”

In this course, we will blend these dualities of “green” by communicating chemistry on the metaphorical green through essays, podcasts, 1-minute documentaries, and presentations. The course will culminate with a “Chemistry on the Green” event on campus.

Instructor(s): Akin Ogundiran

Description:

This course is about the relationships between climate and human society from historical perspectives. It is a discussion-oriented class on the role of climate in human experience, covering three themes: how the shifting atmospheric (weather) patterns impacted the dawn of humanity and Early Holocene cultural evolution about 10,000 years ago; the effects of the Little Ice Age on global history; and the implications of the human-induced climate change of the recent centuries for our unfolding future.

We will develop skills to read, listen, and observe critically, effectively draw inferences, and summarize compelling ideas about how climate has shaped the human experience, including our notions of time, culture, and progress and how human ambitions and innovations are changing the planet. The class will explore various sources for studying climate history, from documents, visual arts, geosciences, oral literature, and artifacts to documentaries. Students will also discuss the different debates and ideas about the human-induced climate change epoch (Anthropocene), using the historical approach to understand the problems and solutions. In addition, students will be guided in setting and evaluating their academic goals and adjusting to the rhythm of college life.

Instructor(s): Maxim Sinitsyn

Description: We will discuss various findings from the fields of marketing, psychology, and economics that help us understand consumers' decision making. This background will be useful for critical evaluation of standard economic theories.

Instructor(s): Dotun Ayobade

Description:

Skilled writers paint lively pictures with words, as do thinkers whose expert writing compels us to reimagine the world. Description is a practice of evoking the observable properties of a thing, event, text, or cultural phenomena for a reader that may not experience it firsthand. This course introduces students to the craft of thick description of cultural artefacts and happenings, and its application in a range of academic and creative pursuits at/beyond the university. Students will also learn to mobilize description as evidence in academic writing, theory making, and as a means for forging persuasive arguments about the world around them.

Course activities include a combination of critical ethnography assignments; close reading of objects; events and ephemera; classroom readings; peer feedback; and, crucially, the patient art of revising. The craft of description should prepare students for a multitude of disciplines and intellectual curiosities.

Instructor(s): Sandy Zabell

Description:

Overview of class Topic: Cryptology Cryptology is the study of secret writing, or more generally secure communication. We will discuss classical methods of cryptography, followed by the use of the German Enigma machine during World War II, and end by discussing modern cryptosystems such as RSA and PGP, digital signatures, and their use in internet security. Registration Requirements Register as a College Seminar. Learning Objectives Methods of encryption and decryption for both classical and modern systems.

Class Materials (Required) Simon Singh, The Code Book, Paperback: 432 pages, Publisher: Anchor; Reprint edition (August 29, 2000), Language: English, ISBN-10: 0385495323 Simon Singh, The Code Book, Paperback: 432 pages, Publisher: Anchor; Reprint edition (August 29, 2000), Language: English, ISBN-10: 0385495323 Secret History: The Story of Cryptology (Chapman & Hall/CRC Cryptography and Network Security Series); Bauer, Craig Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chapman and Hall/CRC; 1st edition (April 20, 2021) Language ‏ : ‎ English Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 640 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1138061239 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1138061231 eBook ISBN9781315162539 Available online from the University Library Class Notes 

Instructor(s): Maayan Hillel

Description:

The modern history of Israel / Palestine is usually studied through the lens of the Jewish-Arab conflict. Most historical studies in the field focus on political and military aspects, which reflect the world views of the leadership and elites. In this course, however, we will examine the social and cultural history of Israel / Palestine by focusing on daily life aspects of ordinary people such as women, children, workers, and immigrants. We will read primary sources through which we will learn how major historical events were experienced and interpreted by both Jewish and Arab societies.

Because this is a first-year seminar, we will also spend time learning about and reflecting on different aspects of your transition to Northwestern, including developing study skills and skills in critical reading and writing that you can bring to future coursework in the Humanities.

Instructor(s): Brady Clark

Description:

When academics discuss communication, they tend to focus on ideal uses of language involving cooperative, honest, helpful, and trustworthy speakers. Real-world communication is not like this at all. This seminar examines communication in our non-ideal world.

Our focus will be several forms of deceptive communication: lying, bullshitting, and misleading. We will explore a wide range of topics: what are the linguistic cues to deceptive communication, if any? does lying necessarily involve deception? why is there so much bullshit in contemporary political speech? how is fake news related to lying, misleading, and bullshitting? is fake news a useful notion at all? Our goal will be to figure out what tools and concepts we need to understand the varieties of deception that characterize human language interaction.

Instructor(s): Deborah Rosenberg

Description: What do we do about a world that doesn't conform to our expectations? Do we set out to mold reality to our vision or accept it as it is? How do we forge ahead with our dreams if others do not share our values or goals? Cervantes' Don Quixote tackles these big questions in ways that are both moving and funny as it narrates the adventures of the bedraggled hero--a man driven mad by reading too many fantasy novels--and his earthy sidekick Sancho Panza. The novel contains themes that resonate with our lives today, exploring not only what it means to write--and read--fiction but also asking us to evaluate what kind of person we want to be in the world. In our class, we'll read the novel closely and debate how its essential questions can shape our personal choices moving forward. We will read the novel in English; no prior knowledge of Spanish or Spanish literature is needed.

Instructor(s): Pete Carroll

Description:

Tibet is an ethnic autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. This status recognizes the distinctive cultural and political heritage of Tibet but nonetheless affirms Tibet as an integral part of China. Tibet was "Peacefully Liberated" by the People's Liberation Army in 1950-1951. Previously, the Republican and Qing imperial states variously claimed sovereignty or suzerainty over Tibet. Many Tibetans, whether living in Tibet or abroad, contest the historical and moral legitimacy of this rule, or question the particular arrangements that govern the place of Tibet, Tibetan people, and Tibetan language and culture as part of China's mosaic of fifty-six ethnic groups.

The Dalai Lama (a Buddhist spiritual leader), and foreign supporters as diverse as Bjork and Paris Hilton, have made "Free Tibet" a familiar slogan and social cause. Within China such sentiments are commonly viewed as a serious attack on national integrity. This course examines competing claims regarding the national status of Tibet in light of the historically complex cultural and political relationships between Tibet and China. We will focus on the specifics of 20th c. Chinese and Tibetan nationalisms and probe the nature of nations and nationalism generally. As a famous essay we will study asks, "What is a nation?" We will also consider the relevance of history-based nationalist arguments concerning religious freedom, cultural autonomy, modern progress, and the nature of complex, multi-cultural nations, such as China (or, for that matter, the USA).

Instructor(s): James O'Laughlin

Description:

Imagining worlds gone wrong, dystopian stories plunge us into places that may seem not only unthinkable but also troublingly familiar. We'll explore a number of questions about these worlds: how do the people in them understand why things are the way they are? What stories about the past do these worlds rely on? What exactly is dystopian about these worlds, as imagined? How do the people or the state in these worlds envision their own futures? How do these dystopian worlds compare with worlds we already know, or with the way things were when these dystopias were written?

Short stories, novels and films may include: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, "Friday Black"; Margaret Atwood, "Oryx and Crake" or "Handmaid's Tale"; Octavia Butler, "Parable of the Sower"; Ted Chiang, "What's Expected of Us"; Philip K. Dick, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"; Terry Gilliam et al, "Brazil"; Kazuo Ishiguro, "Never Let Me Go"; Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"; Yoko Ogawa, "The Memory Police."

Instructor(s): Scott Ogawa

Description: We will read Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. We will also read parts of Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, and use it to discuss political polarization and speech on college campuses.

Instructor(s): Mark McClish

Description:

Overview of class Ancient India produced two of the world's great epics: the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. The former tells the story of an apocalyptic civil war within a ruling dynasty that comes to engulf all of the peoples of the world. The latter tells the story of the righteous king, Rāma, and the abduction of his beloved wife, Sītā, by the demon-king Rāvaṇa. Both stories have edified audiences, in different versions, for over two-millennia, and both are considered by many to be sacred texts that reveal deep truths about the nature of human existence. In this course, we will read abridged translations of the classical Sanskrit versions of both stories, reflect on their meaning, and explore their continuing significance in different forms to audiences today.

Teaching Method: Seminar Readings Group work,  Class participation,Writing assignments and Discussion 

Instructor(s): Elizabeth Smith

Description:

How do students build community at Northwestern University, in the years after pandemic has turned the world upside-down and transformed many social practices? How do cultural anthropologists write about people and places? What is your place at Northwestern? To find out, you will learn and practice cultural anthropology's most famous methods of research and writing, participant observation and writing ethnography.

Weekly readings and class discussions will inform your observations of one aspect of college life on campus you choose to study throughout the quarter, building toward a final creative/academic project presentation. An important part of the course consists of in-class roundtables which pair NU campus groups with Evanston and Chicago organizations and individuals examining intersecting power structures such as race, gender, sexuality, and economic inequality, and cultural production. Conducting your own participant-observation research will empower you to 1. make sense of your environment in the current moment, 2. turn an analytical eye toward Northwestern as an institution, and 3. critically develop your new role as a college student.

Requirements include participation in class discussion and roundtables, developing your field research project, and your final project presentation which can be creative, analytic, or a mix of both—prior students have written songs, created podcasts, maps, and hand-drawn illustrations to present their research results along with more traditional academic analyses. Course materials include one text for purchase ($18/ebook to $35/new print copy) as well as book chapters, articles, and film/media accessed in Canvas.

Instructor(s): Barbara Newman

Description:

This seminar will explore some classics of fantasy literature by diverse writers, asking what’s at stake when an author decides to create a new world. How do the challenges and opportunities afforded by fantasy differ from those of the realistic novel? How have writers used this genre to experiment with new social arrangements and technologies, alternative ways of imagining gender, and beliefs about the supernatural? Why do animals and monsters play such important roles? Is there a clear dividing line between “adult” and “young adult” fantasy?

The objectives of the course will be to gain a fuller understanding of this genre and to develop skill and confidence in interpreting literary texts, both orally and in writing. Texts may include Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist (1926); Madeline L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (1962); Italo Calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destines (1969); Ursula K. Le Guin, The Compass Rose (1982); Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990); Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (1995); and G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen (2012).

Instructor(s): Jim Hodges

Description: This writing-intensive course focuses on the films of Jordan Peele: Get Out (2017), Us (2019), and Nope (2022). The main goal of the course is to introduce students to the conventions and rigors of humanistic forms of evidence-based argumentation and analysis. We will pursue this goal by studying film form and its significance for the expression and art of one of the most significant American filmmakers working today. Put more concretely, our task will be to think about the major ideas, feelings, and themes of individual films, including their treatment and expression of race, genre, technology, interpersonal relationships, and film and cultural history. We will do this by focusing on editing, shot composition, sound, mise-en-scene, editing, and other elements of film form. No required texts discussion and short lecture analytical writing

Instructor(s): Michael Allen

Description:

This discussion-based seminar, titled "First Generations: Higher Ed in Modern America: A Social and Emotional History," offers a multi-generational encounter with successive waves of first generation students who have transformed higher education--and been transformed by it--over the past century or so. Mixing memoirs and biographies with short fiction, journalism, historical studies, and university data, we will review the entry of various historically underrepresented groups of students into higher education, from Jewish, Irish, and low-income white students in the early 20th-century to growing numbers of women and Black students in subsequent decades, to openly gay and lesbian students, Asian Americans, and Latinos more recently.

In addition to reading about the lives of such students, we will consider how they helped change the universities, and explore the ideas and pressures that motivated university leaders to diversify higher education, and limits to those efforts. Northwestern alumni and administrators will be invited to join us to discuss their relationship to this history, and when possible we will focus on Northwestern while putting it in the context of larger trends. The hope is that this course will introduce students to their new college and help them feel empowered and at home here, wherever they may be coming from.

Instructor(s): Michele Zugnoni

Description:

Embark on a captivating exploration of heroic journeys, including your own journey into Northwestern University. In this course, we’ll examine timeless tales, classic to contemporary. From ancient legends like the epic of Gilgamesh to modern bestselling novels, our journey will traverse cultures and millennia. We’ll analyze cinematic masterpieces from studios like Marvel, Disney and Universal, watching as heroes embark on epic quests that inspire and captivate. Through immersive discussions, written analyses, and interactive activities, we’ll unravel the archetypal stages of the hero's journey – from the call to adventure to the ultimate showdown with destiny.

More than an academic pursuit, this seminar is a call to adventure, an invitation to embark on your own heroic odyssey. In this course, you'll craft your own hero's journey narrative, exploring themes of courage, resilience, and personal growth as they apply to your journey into college. The hero’s journey you create will become a time capsule – your professor will email it back to you in four years so you can relive the heroic journey you took during your first quarter at Northwestern.

Instructor(s): Rebecca Ewert

Description:

How does The Bachelor shed light on modern courtship rituals, and what can Dance Moms teach us about the social functions of the family? What messages can we learn about the gendered and racialized social constructions of health and illness from The Biggest Loser?

Reality television shows may seem like silly “guilty pleasures,” but they are also illuminating cultural artifacts that reflect contemporary American behaviors, norms, and tastes. In this course—by reading sociological literature, paired with episodes of reality shows—we will learn to analyze these forms of entertainment through a social scientific lens.

We will consider the following questions: What messages about race, class and gender do these shows promote? What kinds of citizens are viewers encouraged to become through this genre? How are social differences represented within these programs? What impact do these shows have on our society, if any?

Instructor(s): Kristin Landau

Description:

What was your childhood like? Do you have fond memories of summer vacation at the beach, or time spent fighting with siblings and banished to your room? Maybe there are some times you’d prefer to forget. Are you still a child, or is that age gone for good? This course is dedicated to studying childhood as lived experience—shaped by race, class, gender, environment, and more—and as a cultural category from the present and into the deep past.

We will explore a range of themes from an anthropological perspective, including play and toys, sleep and wellness, learning, parenting strategies, children’s spaces/places, funerary practices, and skeletal analysis from different cultures around the world. In the process, you’ll have opportunity to reflect on your own childhoods, form a supportive community in learning how to adult, and lay the foundations for what you wish to accomplish during this “college” life stage.

Instructor(s): Charly Yarnoff

Description:

We live in a time when hostility toward immigrants has made many Americans forget that, as Barack Obama said, “We are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too." This hostility has obscured the complex reality of the lives of immigrants. In this course, we will study fiction and poetry by immigrants and their children in order to understand that complex reality.

We will explore such questions as: How do social attitudes and institutions impact the lives of immigrants as they seek to pursue the "American Dream"? What happens to the relationships between parents and children through the process of acculturation into American society? How do differences in national origin connect with other differences, particularly gender, race, ethnicity, and class?

Instructor(s): Amy Stanley

Description:

If I say the word "samurai," you probably get an image of a fierce warrior communing with his sword. That tends to be our contemporary image, reinforced by Hollywood movies, video games, and manga. But the samurai have appeared in all kinds of guises, from the gentle, teary-eyed flute-player to the bored, bloated bureaucrat to the savage, xenophobic zealot. This course is about how the history of the samurai has been written and represented in Japan and the United States. We will start with the first attempts to record the history of Japanese warfare and end with movies, prestige tv, and manga.

This is a class about samurai, but in the broadest sense, our academic objective is to explain how and why the representation of history has changed over time and space.

Instructor(s): Abigail Barefoot

Description:

This course broadly provides a cultural analysis of true crime and pop culture. In particular, we’ll uncover why true crime stories seem to go viral (and why certain folks enjoy devouring these narratives). We will think intersectionally, analyzing how race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and citizenship shape concepts of “victimhood” and “criminality,” as well as make certain true crime narratives more “popular” than others.

Finally, we will develop a robust theoretical toolkit, combining an interdisciplinary range of perspectives from feminist anti-violence studies, critical criminology, literary criticism, and creative non-fiction journalism.

Instructor(s): Lisa Del Torto

Description: This seminar will explore language as part of our social experience. We will examine the spoken and written language we use and observe in a variety of everyday situations, considering such questions as: Why do we call some language varieties "dialects" and others "languages?" Why do some people think you have an accent while others think you don't? Has your own language changed since you came to Northwestern? What patterns govern the conversations we have, and how do we create social relationships, communities, and identities in those conversations? Why do some people mix multiple languages when they speak and write? Is it, like, ok for me to, like, use like so much? What about um or ain't or ya know? Students will formulate and consider their own questions about language and social life in papers and presentations.

Instructor(s): Shira Schwartz

Description:

Overview of class Learning Spaces, Learned Bodies This is a College Seminar on the relationship between the body, space, and learning. While education and college are often presented as primarily intellectual activities, we will pay attention to the spatial and bodily dynamics that shape how we create, share and access knowledge. Using a range of creative assignments and multi-modal interdisciplinary sources, we will approach the body and space as places where learning happens, and therefore as categories through which we can analyze how learning happens, including in our very own classroom and on campus. Students will learn to ask how the body shapes and is shaped by its learning environment through categories like gender/sex and sexuality, race/ethnicity and religion, ability and access, and how fields like architecture, design, technology and media influence the enterprise of learning.

Students will learn to re-examine their most basic assumptions about learning in a variety of expected and unexpected settings, like libraries and maker spaces, rabbinic bathrooms and football fields, science labs and ancient Greek life, in order to prepare for a range of learning experiences that they may encounter at Northwestern, and beyond. The course will guide students to be more attuned to the social and material dynamics that may otherwise go unrecognized in these experiences, teaching critical skills that will prepare them to be more conscious learners. It will appeal to students with a wide-range of academic interests across the humanities, arts and sciences, and to anyone interested in asking big questions about learning through different time periods and fields of study

Teaching Method: Seminar Field trips, Readings, Discussion 

Instructor(s): Morgan Geigner

Description:

We will investigate how media, academics, policy, and popular culture in US society have defined and codified race. Examples of materials include newspaper articles, podcasts, song lyrics, maps, personal essays, TV, and film. In studying how we define race, we will also consider the intersections of citizenship and immigration, gender and sexuality, and more.

This seminar helps students transition into college-level inquiry and into being conscientious and ethical members of a diverse learning community. Students will demonstrate their new knowledge about racial formation in the United States through drafting and revising journal entries, analytical papers, and creative assignments.

Instructor(s): Domenic de Socio

Description:

This course offers a study of Berlin, Germany's world-famous role as a major center of contemporary dance music (techno, house, disco) and nightclub culture. Beginning in the 1990s with the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Berlin, the city quickly became home to cutting-edge DJs, party planners, club owners, and dancers, including notorious clubs like Tresor and Berghain. Coming together, they pioneered new ways to express oneself and connect with one another through music and dance. This course examines many aspects of this culture, from the unique genres of music and how DJs create music to the technology of sound, the experience of dancing and of clubs as spaces, and the politics of belonging, representation, and identity on the dance floor, in particular its complicated exchanges with Black communities and music in Chicago and Detroit, the birthplaces of this music.

We also will consider the social, cultural, and political implications of nightlife and dance music as a site of community-building, friendship, and love within contemporary Western society, especially for queer communities. As a College Seminar, the course will introduce you to college life and the essential, but mostly unwritten, rules, expectations, resources, and habits for you to succeed as a student. This "hidden curriculum" will include topics such as time management, emotional health, academic integrity and the mechanics of citation, and how to seek help. Our assignments will include a variety of small, weekly writing assignments and short summative, comparative, and analytic essays to begin your familiarization with college writing. There will also be an experiential component to the course involving events with DJs in which you will talk about practical topics such as the work of DJing and making music and the politics and logistics of dance.

Instructor(s): Kathleen Carmichael

Description:

Ever since Pentheus' fatal decision to spy on the revels of Dionysus, audiences have had a guilty fascination with the spectacle of addiction—a fascination which crosses not only centuries but disciplines, captivating scientists, policymakers, philosophers, artists, and laypeople alike. This class will trace the evolution of literary representations of addiction across several centuries, from classical depictions of god-induced madness, through the Gothic narratives such as Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, temperance classics such as Ten Nights in a Barroom (whose impact has often been compared to that of Uncle Tom's Cabin), to the twentieth- and twenty-first century comedies and confessionals that make the bestseller lists today. Through these readings and related critical texts, we will examine the ways that such literature provides a staging ground for public controversy and emerging theories about the artistic, cultural, ethical, and scientific significance and ramifications of addiction.

Course readings/viewing will include works of fiction, journalism, and writings from the natural and social sciences as well as popular films. We will also consider practical topics such as how University library resources and experts can help students locate and evaluate key sources and develop authoritative arguments.

Instructor(s): Eli Kean

Description:

Can love be a force for social transformation? What would a queer or feminist ethic of care look like? In this college seminar, we will enact the concepts of love and care as a way of thinking, being, and relating to others. We will draw from queer, trans, feminist, disabled, neurodivergent, and anti-racist approaches to explore the potential of love, critical hope, and solidarity in our everyday lives.

Our classroom will be a space to understand love’s powerful potential in education, interpersonal relationships, social change, and more. Together we will develop strategies to help us care for ourselves (emotionally, physically, and mentally) and build meaningful connections with others, which will create a strong foundation for thriving as a college student and beyond.

Instructor(s): Ricardo Court

Description: Together we will explore the making of the first great political scientist of the modern age starting with a close reading of his secret diplomatic communications, his villainous guidebook The Prince, his licentious play The Mandrake, ending with his resigned (and some say cynical) later histories. So much of our exploration of the inner workings of states and regimes begins with Machiavelli, who raised ire and admiration, no less for his willingness to say out loud what others whispered, than for the temerity to show what makes power work.

Instructor(s): Santiago Canez

Description:

Mathematics is everywhere, even on the big and small screens. Film and television have sought to incorporate mathematics and the doers of mathematics into their storylines much over the last few decades, in films such as Good Will Hunting, A Beautiful Mind, and Hidden Figures, and television shows such as Numbers and The Big Bang Theory. Were these attempts successful? Did the mathematics introduced make sense in context and add to the experience? For that matter, what were the underlying mathematical concepts mentioned in the first place?

This seminar will explore the use of mathematics in film and television. We will learn something about the math involved, touching on areas such as graph theory, game theory, topology, and dynamics, and evaluate how mathematics is portrayed in media in general. Only minimal background in mathematics (at the level of pre-calculus) will be expected.

Instructor(s): Ben Gorvine

Description:

While those going into the field of mental health typically think about it as a "helping profession", there is much more than meets the eye when it comes to the psychological, economic, and political forces that have defined the development of the field.

The course will focus on the contemporary framework for defining mental illness - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (now in its 5th edition) - with a particular focus on some of the problems that have emerged from the disease-based framework utilized in the manual, and the assumptions that it makes about disorders and typical development.

We will explore the role of state mental hospitals in the U.S. in the early to mid-20th century, and we will examine the political forces that drove the de-institutionalization movement of the 1970s and 1980s, with additional consideration of the contemporary implications of the closing of state hospitals. Finally, the course will focus on the evolution of psychotherapy in the modern marketplace, and some of the challenges posed by the demands of the health insurance industry and academic research. The aggressive way in which the DSM has been marketed internationally and the implications of culture for diagnosis will also be discussed.

Along the way, we will explore critiques of the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurance industry, and modern psychiatry. Some of these themes will also be explored through analysis of popular films and other media. Students will be evaluated on the basis of class attendance and participation, co-leading a class discussion with peers, and writing assignments including short reaction papers and a longer research paper.

Instructor(s): Katharine Breen

Description:

The English word monster is derived from Latin words meaning ‘to demonstrate’ and ‘to warn.’ Seen from this perspective, dragons, witches, vampires, zombies, and werewolves serve as giant warning signs, cautioning against entering spaces that are, nonetheless, persistently alluring. (As you have no doubt noticed, signs such as “No Swimming,” “No Ice Skating,” “No Loud Music” tend to prohibit activities that many people find enjoyable.) In this course, we will examine different kinds of monsters and the dangers they represent in works of literature, film, and art. How do these monsters threaten, and how do they help to produce, the civilizing categories of self, family, and nation? How do they animate and help to enforce taboos relating to gender, sexuality, race, and religion?

While we will read a core group of theoretical texts together, students will also have considerable latitude to research and analyze monsters of their choosing. Teaching Method(s): Discussion Evaluation Method(s): Papers, presentations, participation Texts include: The Monster Theory Reader, ed. Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020), ISBN 978-1-5179-0525-5 (optional) Texts will be available at: All required texts, images, and videos will be available on Canvas.

Instructor(s): Liz Trubey

Description:

Course Description: Why go to college? To become educated? To stay up all night thinking deep thoughts? To prepare for a career? To party? Is college a straight and narrow path through requirements and electives to graduation, or is the story more complicated, more open-ended? What happens when the story ends (or doesn’t end) at graduation? Does attending college even matter today? The stories we tell about the college experience shape our expectations and our experiences at a university – as do current debates about the value of a liberal arts education. Course Goals and Objectives: To get you thinking critically about why you chose Northwestern and what you hope to achieve here; to hone your close reading skills by examining contemporary texts (fiction, non-fiction essay) that tell different stories about college; to understand today’s debates about the liberal arts; to introduce you to new ideas about how to learn and thrive in college; to think critically about the transition into Weinberg College, Northwestern, and its resources; to hone your skills as a writer of college-level work. Optimistically: as we think our stories about a/the College Experience, you will begin to write the story of your own.

Texts include: Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding 9780316126670 Brown, Roedinger, and McDaniel, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning 0674729013 Graff and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say 0393631672 Students may opt for paperback, e-book, or other editions of these texts Other readings available on Canvas Texts will be available at: Norris.

Instructor(s): Doris Warriner

Description:

In this course, we explore how migration and displacement shapes individuals, communities, schools, and policy making. With a focus on the U.S. context, we consider the causes, the processes, and the implications of different types of and reasons for migration (internal and transnational; forced and voluntary). We will interrogate widely circulating assumptions about migration and displacement and think together about productive ways forward.

To understand migration and displacement from the perspective of those on the move, we read and discuss narratives that have appeared in academic scholarship, ethnographic accounts, creative nonfiction, and poetry. This course is also an introduction to being a college student.

Participants will read, interpret, and share insights; practice giving a presentation; lead discussion; become more adept at library research; and develop a research project. Everyone will learn together, in and through practice. There will also be an opportunity to experiment with being creative or making something.

Instructor(s): Doug Kiel

Description:

In 1893, Thomas Edison unveiled the kinetoscope and allowed audience members to glimpse the Hopi Snake Dance by peeking into the device's viewing window. Since the birth of the motion picture, films portraying Native Americans (often with non-Native actors in redface) have drawn upon earlier frontier mythology, art, literature, and Wild West performances. These depictions in film have embedded romanticized and stereotyped ideas about Native Americans in the imaginations of audiences throughout the United States and around the world. In this course, we will critically examine representations of Native Americans in film and TV, ranging from the origins of the motion picture industry to the works of contemporary Indigenous filmmakers who challenge earlier paradigms.

We will reflect upon revisionist narratives, Indigenous aesthetics and storytelling techniques, reflexivity, and parody. Throughout the quarter, we will view and discuss ethnographic, documentary, and narrative media.

Instructor(s): Chad Horne

Description:

To borrow a phrase from Aristotle: sex is said in many ways. The word "sex" can refer to the domain of the erotic, that is, to sexual desire and sexual activity. It can also refer to certain biological categories related to an animal's reproductive role, such as female, male, or intersex. Among humans, "sex," along with the nearby term "gender," can also refer to cultural or social categories like woman, man, or nonbinary. And there is also "sex" in the sense of sexual orientation, a set of categories describing an individual’s typical pattern of sexual attraction, such as lesbian, gay, straight, or bisexual. Needless to say, things get complicated pretty quickly.

In this seminar, we will read and discuss recent philosophical attempts to make sense of all this. The course will cover a wide range of topics, including: What is sexual desire? What (if anything) is sexual perversion? What is the best account of concepts like gender identity or sexual orientation? How (if at all) do those concepts relate to biological sex? What about the ethics and politics of sex? Is there anything wrong, morally speaking, with casual sex, or with the buying and selling of sex? Readings for this course will be drawn mostly from contemporary philosophical sources.

Instructor(s): Claudia Yau

Description: Plato’s Apology and Alcibiades focus on the themes of self-knowledge, self-care, and self-cultivation. In this class we work slowly and methodically through these texts. Some of the questions we will discuss are: What is self-knowledge and what is it good for? What makes for a good education? How can we know the limitations of our own understanding? What is the connection between self-knowledge and self-care? How can self-knowledge contribute to a good life?

Instructor(s): Robert Ward

Description:

This class seeks to unpack the ways in which ordinary Americans experience race in various facets of American Life. This serves the purpose of unpacking the distinctions between race, culture, and ethnicity so that we can critique the role race plays in spaces such as the workplace, schools, military, and even our personal relationships. It also serves the purpose of assisting us in being able to discern the meaning of actions between groups along lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

This class takes a backwards glance at understanding racial perceptions and policy through a rather unlikely but well-documented event in recent US history, a hurricane. Though, not just any hurricane. The social impact of Hurricane Katrina, which occurred nearly 20 years ago, in New Orleans also had implications for the US nationwide. We will look at the impact that the media coverage of Katrina had on popular culture, education, sports, and social policy. The legacy of Katrina is inextricably bound with that of race. The class will use Katrina as a case study to understand the real consequences of one of our nation’s most divisive and destructive social ideas, some might even say an illusion…race.

Instructor(s): Justin Mann

Description:

In this first-year seminar, students will develop critical thinking and writing skill through an engagement with American superhero comics. We will use racial analytics to understand the origins and development of American pop culture icons, including the Green Lantern, Black Panther, the X-Men, and Ms. Marvel. Students will learn how race has inflected the development, style, and business of American comic heroes from their inception in the interwar period through to the present. This course will also introduce students to the ways and means of college-level learning. Students will practice research and writing skills, learn time management best practices, and cultivate strategies for success at the college level.

Readings may include: Jemisin, Far Sector 978-1779527295 Coates, Black Panther 978-1302900533 Trujillo, Blue Beetle: Graduation Day 978-1779523242 Wilson, Ms. Marvel 978-0785190219 Claremont, X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (Kindle)

Instructor(s): Karen Alter

Description: This seminar will investigate different ideas about what the rule of law is, and different realities of how the rule of law operates. Is the rule of law something that outsiders can help to create or improve? Can one create a rule of law if governments or powerful actors refuse to subordinate themselves to the rule of law? How do those actors committed to the rule of law try to balance the aspiration of a rule of law and the political reality that governments and powerful actors have a variety of ways to resist? Participants will be divided into five country groups: South Africa, India, Colombia, China and the United States. All of these countries have constitutions and supreme courts, and all face rule of law challenges. The comparison will allow us to consider the variety of challenges that exist, and the country perspective will help us to consider what, if anything, outside actors can do to support the rule of law.

Instructor(s): Sean Ebels Duggan

Description: Every aspect of inquiry can be part of discovering oneself. The goal of this class is loosely to help students discover who they are as students. We'll read some philosophy about what makes individual people the individuals they are. We'll read some other literary essays loosely connected to the topic, to varying degrees. And we'll read some poetry from W.H.Auden, sometimes out loud.

Instructor(s): Michael Wilczewski

Description:

Brothels, bathhouses, and backrooms—take a tour through the sexual underworld of Eastern Europe. In Sex and the Slavic World, we uncover the more salacious parts of history that no one dare talk about, covering the history of sexuality in Eastern Europe from the mid 19th century to the present.

We will cover such topics as fin de siècle culture and sexual decadence; the medicalization of sexuality; prostitution and sex-trafficking; sex reform and sexology; the World Wars and sexuality; gender and sexuality under state socialism, and representations of queerness in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Additionally, as a College Seminar, this course will help students develop the tools they need to help them transition to college life including creating healthy study habits, nurturing meaningful relationships, and gaining awareness of the so-called "hidden curriculum."

Instructor(s): Jeff Eden

Description: The Crossroads of the World. The Pivot of History. The Graveyard of Empires. For all its grand nicknames, Central Eurasia remains a region little studied in the West. This course endeavors to separate fact from fantasy while introducing the social, cultural, and political history of Central Eurasia from medieval times to the modern age. Special topics include the rise and rule of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane; nomadic society in the steppe; cultural encounters and diverse religious traditions; and the rise of the Russian Empire.

Instructor(s): Keith Woodhouse

Description: This first-year seminar will consider the history of the internet from the mid-twentieth century to the present. This will not be a technical history of the computer science or actual infrastructure that constitute the internet, but rather a history of the social and political ideas contributing to a worldwide system of networked computers and protocols. In particular, the course will discuss the culture surrounding the internet - the ways that the Cold War, the counterculture, libertarianism, and environmentalism all fostered a set of beliefs that helped define Silicon Valley and continue to shape companies that call for revolution one day and place their trust in the market the next.

Instructor(s): Jessy Bell

Description:

This seminar is designed to support your transition to college by taking as its subject the university campus itself. What are college campuses, and how are they designed and built? How do campus environments shape and reflect the college experience? How do campuses relate to their surrounding towns or cities? This course explores the unique architectural and spatial environments of college campuses, with a special focus on Northwestern. We will learn how the architectural styles of different buildings reflect the university’s priorities at various points in its history and examine how students utilize campus space to either align with or challenge institutional aims. Much of this course will take us across the unique spaces of Northwestern’s campus—even within its archives—to examine campuses as a product of disparate visions of the built environment's role in producing a landscape of learning.

While the course topic centers on the campus space around us, the seminar’s goals are to set you up for success as a college student, directly addressing the shifts and often unspoken expectations that come with beginning university learning. You will participate in campus walks, uncover hidden histories embedded in the built environment, produce multimedia reflections on campus space, and learn about the incredible resources available to you as a Northwestern student. The course is intended to help you strengthen your abilities as an observant reader, persuasive writer, and critical thinker. While we discuss what sort of implicit values might be legible within the campus environment, we will also explore practical guidance on navigating college life and building a supportive community.

Instructor(s): Karrie Snyer

Description: This course examines the experiences of young people today and how the experience of being a young person varies greatly by socioeconomic status, gender, race, and ethnicity. We will also spend time looking at how life stages associated with youth (such as 'tween, teenager, and emerging adulthood) have evolved and why the road to adulthood is often longer today. We will also consider how the media shapes societal views of young people and how young people use social media. Finally, we will consider how the lives of young people today (Millennials and Gen Z) compare to earlier generations (including Baby Boomers and Generation X), and we will look at inter-generational interactions at home, in school, and in the workplace.

Instructor(s): Elizabeth Lenaghan

Description:

As you are well aware, being young has many benefits and many drawbacks. For instance, the optimism and creativity that often characterize youth can lead to positive social and societal change. At the same time, though, young people often struggle to be taken seriously, even when their actions and ideas are good ones. Through examining several historic and contemporary case studies, this course will explore both the triumphs and terrors of youth (i.e., teens-twenties). What risks are uniquely available to young people? Which ones are rewarded and which end in regret? How might these outcomes be mediated by other factors (e.g., race, gender, sexuality)? Most importantly, what can we learn from the triumphant and terrible behaviors of others?

As we explore answers to these questions through discussion, reading, and writing assignments, we'll also take advantage of your own uniquely youthful status as first-quarter, first-year students. Specifically, we'll think and learn about how both your transition to college and the years ahead present you with opportunities to both capitalize on your youth and cultivate for you and others (especially those who might disparage Gen Z) a more realistic idea of what it really means to be young these days.

Instructor(s): Anthony Chen

Description: This course explores the idea that the extreme level of political polarization and economic inequality that prevails in our own time can be traced to the conflicts and dilemmas of the "long 1970s." This fall, special attention will be devoted to the role of campus protest. In addition to exploring primary sources from the period, students will read an interdisciplinary selection of monographs, book chapters, and journal articles. Grades will be based on class discussion as well as a combination of short and long writing assignments.

Instructor(s): Luke Flores

Description:

In this seminar, we will examine recent research on learning and memory through the unique lens of college life. What do we know (or think we know) about how memories are encoded in the brain? How is college a different learning environment than high school? Together, we will review scientific studies on the impact of college life on student academic performance and correlate those findings with studies of human and animal learning in the laboratory.

After taking this course, you will have a foundational understanding of the neurobiological basis of memory, learn how to read scientific literature critically, and develop strategies to improve your study habits and performance here at Northwestern University.

Instructor(s): Paola Zamperini

Description:

This seminar will focus on how women, across cultures and time, represent their lives through various media and means, from visual art to literary engagements to graphic media, from movies and photography to music and social media. Our interdisciplinary investigation of (mostly non-Western and as often as possible Asian) women's autobiographical practices, past and present, will allow us to work closely with primary sources (in English translation, if necessary), and with pertinent theoretical work in the fields of gender, sexuality, feminist theory, and queer studies.

The authors we will engage include Lady Sarashina, Artemisia Gentileschi, Li Qingzhao, Lady Hyegyong, Orgyan Chokyi, He Yin Zhen, Charlotte Salomon, Theresa H. K. Cha, Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, San Mao, Theresa H. K. Cha and Thi Buy, among others. When possible and meaningful, we will set their autobiographical practices against the grain of male representations of women's lives, and in dialogue with our own autobiographical gestures and utterances.

Learning Objectives In College seminars, students gain skills in: • setting and evaluating academic goals • communicating effectively, both orally and in writing • studying effectively • thinking critically • understanding standards of academic integrity • knowing when and how to ask for help In our time together, we will integrate the objectives above with the themes, issues, and methodologies related to women’s autobiographical practices.

More specifically, we will 1) Introduce major ideas in the study of autobiographical practices over time, from the perspective of a variety of disciplines, and in a variety of genres and media 2) Explore a variety of disciplinary methodologies to think about and study autobiographical practices, their intersections with gender, subjectivities, class, status, culture, across time and space 3)Think critically about the standpoints, methods, omissions, and possible uses of each study 4) Learn to reflect on our respective positionalities and how our intersectional identities inflect, inform, and shape our understanding of cultural practices and productions, our own as well those different from ours 5) Foster detailed, persuasive writing and conversation about these complicated topics 6) Create individual and communal spaces of dialogue and conversation around the seminar’s topics.

Teaching Method Student-centered discussion, with the occasional lecture Evaluation Method The final grade will be based on the following criteria: -Active class participation and attendance (discussion, preparation, short assignments) 25% -Assignments (writing statements, short papers, etc.) 25% -Presentation 15% -Final Project 35% Class Material (Required) All materials will be available on Canvas and on e-reserve.

Instructor(s): Richard Walker

Description: In this seminar we will survey various topics in politics, philosophy and economics. Exactly what we end up covering will depend a little on what most interests the group. The aim is to find interesting things to read, talk and write about.

Instructor(s): Ginger Pennington

Description:

In our current social and political environment, the nature of truth is often contested. Many institutions once widely regarded as objective purveyors of fact have fallen from grace in the eyes of a distrustful public. In what some refer to as a "post-truth era," public confidence in institutions is now at an all-time low, and many feel that personal beliefs, emotions, and opinions overshadow fact in popular discourse.

In this first-year seminar, "Truth, Truthiness, and Trust in Age of Deepfakes," we will consider the psychological mechanisms underlying judgments of truth, as well as socio-political factors that help shape our (dis)trust in information. Drawing from psychology and related fields (including sociology, philosophy, legal studies, and communication sciences), we will explore how emerging technologies, such as AI-generated "deepfakes," challenge traditional notions of evidence and reality.

Through readings, discussions, and written assignments, students will develop a critical understanding of how humans perceive and engage with information in the social environment. We will engage in reflective thinking about our own judgments and explore potential avenues for addressing the erosion of trust and spread of misinformation in society.

Instructor(s): Raymond San Diego

Description:

Education, despite being touted as a great equalizer, is a highly contested site of struggle. It is a struggle to get in, a struggle to get through, and a struggle to figure out what happens after. Throughout each of these time periods academic and journalistic coverage of the Asian American student experience argue that social, cultural, political, economic, and familial pressures converge and compound on this population leading to unfulfilling, unpleasant, and unbelievable outcomes. Following that claim, this course explores three interlinked and overlapping themes for the quarter: 1) The persistence of the model minority myth and its impact on higher education policy, 2) parent and teacher expectations of Asian American students in K-12 and university settings, and 3) Asian American student mental health and well-being.

We will study student activism and the emergence of Ethnic Studies/Asian American Studies in higher education,explore contemporary intersectional Asian American student experiences, and critically examine the politics of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” rhetoric. In what ways do Asian American students survive, negotiate, and resist external and internal pressures of success and excellence? How do Asian Americans begin to redefine success on their own terms?

Texts for this course may include erin Ninh’s Passing for Perfect; Christine Yano, Neal Akatsuka, and the Asian American Collective’s Straight A’s: Asian American College Students in Their Own Words, and Debbie Lum’s documentary Try Harder!

Instructor(s): Lina Britto

Description:

Crimes, deeds, and spoils of drug traffickers have saturated pop culture for the last decades becoming valuable raw materials for the entertainment industry. This course is designed for students to identify, trace, and analyze audiovisual productions on the so-called narcos in the Americas in order to understand: (a) the plot devices and aesthetic mechanisms with which cultural producers have commodified history as entertainment; and (b) the effects of these types of narratives and imageries in the creation of historical understandings regarding one of the most challenging problems of our times.

We accomplish these objectives by watching films, telenovelas and TV shows; reading selected works of history, sociology, anthropology, and journalism (film criticism in particular); and using the tools and technologies of digital humanities in a series of individual and collaborative projects. The ultimate goal is to produce together an open-access digital repository on drug history as entertainment in the Americas.

Instructor(s): Axel Mueller

Description: In this seminar we will examine some of the fundamental ideas and questions behind democracy and provide a reading of their "inventors". Some of the questions are: What is democracy? Is it a form of government, a value, an ideal, a political system, a form of life, a bit of all this? Is democracy always the best political solution (in wartime? general starvation?)? Why should the whole of the people decide and not the specialists in the respective questions? Are all democratically taken decisions automatically legitimate (what about minorities\' rights?)? How should all citizens in a democracy participate in politics? By direct self-government of the people or by voting representatives? Is everything democratically decidable or does the individual have unalterable rights? Is tolerance and/or free speech necessary for democracy and how far can it go?

Instructor(s): Veronica Gesmundo

Description:

Over the past 20 years, nanotechnology has been a booming area of research in chemistry, biology, physics, engineering, and medicine. Modern techniques have allowed scientists to better study small materials, and the nanotech we read about in science fiction novels can now become real products found in our world. In this seminar, we will discuss what is so special about the size range of 1-100 nm (the nanoscale) and why particles of this size have a such a unique niche in nature and technology. We will explore the properties of these materials and why quantum mechanical effects allow for this scale to be so important. Discussions of medicines, electronics, catalysts, additives, and imaging agents that include nanoparticles will allow us to explore the wide range of current directions of nanotechnology.

As we look to future applications, we will debate the implications of these materials on the environment, human health, and safety. Regulatory bodies in the United States and around the globe have discussed the ethical and social impact of nanomaterials, and we will investigate their role is assuring the nanomaterials we use leave a positive impact on the world.

Instructor(s): Sarah Hernandez-Saborit

Description:

In this seminar, we will look into the many different facets of the economics of gender. We will learn about economic decisions that individuals and households face from a unique gender perspective and ask ourselves: do women and men behave differently in economic circumstances? The topics we will cover include, among others: the status of women around the world, education, marriage, fertility, labor supply, bargaining power, and discrimination. For each topic, we will study concrete examples emanating from all over the world.

Students will learn to use a wide variety of academic resources (including empirical research articles, ethnographic descriptions, and popular press books) and write different papers, such as policy recommendations, multimodal essays, argument essays, and research papers.