Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

Instructor(s): Ty Blakeney

Description: Although heterosexuality is often thought of as a natural phenomenon, historians of sexuality have demonstrated that modern heterosexual identity is a recent invention which postdates the invention of its opposite, homosexuality. In this course, we will think about the ways that heterosexuality has been socially constructed since its invention, drawing on a range of literary texts, films, and objects from popular culture across the last century. We will address questions like: how does the construction of heterosexuality interact with the oppression of women? How does the definition of heterosexuality depend on queer others? How does the history of heterosexuality relate to the history of whiteness and racism? After reflecting on the history of heterosexuality, students will be asked at the course’s conclusion to present and analyze an artifact of heterosexuality from their own experience.

Instructor(s): Jesse Yeh

Description:

Law is everywhere in our daily lives, even when it’s invisible to many of us. What does it mean for a person when their most salient identity is that they are against the law, outside the law, or illegible under the law? How does it structure how they live their lives? Who gets to tell their stories?

In this course, we examine personal and social scientific writings of three groups: over-policed Black Americans, undocumented immigrants, and transgender children. Through these writings, we will explore the relationships between law and stigma, surveillance, and recognition. The primary objective for this first-year seminar is to develop your ability to produce evidence-supported and effectively-organized academic writing. The main components of this course will be writing assignments and essays.

Instructor(s): Elisabeth Elliott

Description:

Is Kashubian (Cassubian; kaszëbsczi jãzëk; or in Polish język kaszubski) a dialect of Polish or a separate West Slavic language closely related to Polish? In Ukraine are Russian-speaking Ukrainians Ukrainians? Are German-speaking Turks in Germany Germans? Are Sorbian-speaking Germans in Germany Germans? Are Czech and Slovak the same or different languages? In Estonia if you only speak Russian can you be Estonian? This course explores the deep connections among language, identity, and power in a region shaped by shifting borders, political upheavals, linguistic diversity, and cultural and dialectal continua. We’ll examine how language is used as a tool of identity and nation marking and building, resistance, and exclusion to the point of often denying identity. Topics to be examined include: language myths, language vs. dialect, language policies, language planning, language and identity, language rights.

As the final paper for this course, students will work on any geopolitical area in the world and examine the sociolinguistic issues particular to that region or linguistic variety. Some previous papers, for example, have looked at: the role of Japanese in Korea; Koreans in Japan and language discrimination issues; the languages of South Africa; the status of African-American English (or African-American Vernacular English, or Black English) in the US and the controversy surrounding it in the 1990s in the Oakland, CA school district; US language change and the Internet and social media; Celtic in Ireland; the successful revival of a dead language, e.g., Hebrew, as the official language of Israel; the successful revival of a dying language, e.g., Native American/Amerindian languages, Hawai’ian, etc.; language rights in the EU; American Indian/Amerindian languages; bilingualism in the US or Canada; ASL (American Sign Language); Kurdish language discrimination in Turkey; and other topics.

Instructor(s): Meaghan Fritz

Description:

Get hungry! This course explores the art of composition through writing, reading, and talking about food. From reflecting on personal food memories to crafting arguments about how and why we eat what we do, this course will hone your writing skills in areas crucial to college level writing.

Class Materials:
They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, 4th edition, 978-0393631678
Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer, 978-0316069885

Instructor(s): Staff

Description:

Growing up is hard to do—whether surrounded by the turbulence and poverty of post-war Naples, the violence of war-torn Vietnam, the devastation of the Islamic Revolution in Tehran, or the more genteel decline of an American auto town in the 1970’s. This course will explore coming-of-age stories and some of the challenges presented both by difficult and complicated relationships, and by the social and political forces that shape the worlds in which the protagonists are raised. What role do friendships and family play in creating identity, and how might betrayal be a part of growing up? How are the stakes different and higher for some, and how do gender, race, and class play a role in narrowing a person’s choices?

We’ll begin by considering the novel and tv series, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, looking in particular at the female friendship at its center; then we’ll examine some of the ways that coming of age is represented in film, looking at Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, Sophia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides, and Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird; we’ll think about the way that graphic memoirs can capture both the personal and the historical, considering Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do; and finally, we’ll consider how films like Miyazaki’s Spirited Away and Jordan Peele’s Get Out might make us think differently about what it means to come of age and help us consider the question: How do we push against the life stories that have been chosen for us?