UCOR Section Descriptions

Course Description

In the run-up to the 2008 US Presidential election many issues arose, including the idea of a female vs. male US president and male vs. female political leaders. The debates which ensued showed that while we have made progress there are still issues to be addressed in the definition and creation of gender roles and identities. Cleopatra, Turia, Aspasia and Margaret Thatcher. A Pharaoh, noble Roman woman, hetaera and British Tory prime minister. These women had power and influence within their societies but a power and influence not common to all women in their eras. What dictates gender roles in society and how do societies conceive of the roles of men and women? We will explore gender roles as well as sexuality in both antiquity and the contemporary world and determine what made men and women so different, why were there male and female citizens in ancient Greece yet women could never vote? What does make a Margaret Thatcher or Cleopatra and why are some female roles acceptable but others are not (e.g. women in combat)? More broadly speaking, we will use History methodology to look at a particular global challenge: Understanding why the same gender dynamic replicates across cultures, systems, and epochs and what dictates gender identity and roles in both antique and contemporary societies.

Course Description

Why do people sometimes rise up against political or cultural institutions? How do the reasons for and goals of these revolutions change depending on the historical, political, and social contexts in which they take place? How can previous revolutions help us understand and/or problematize recent revolutions? How can a revolution be a force for social justice? This course asks you to consider these questions through the lens of literary texts that respond to and help incite political and social revolutions. You will develop insights into revolution as a global phenomenon with shared foundations but markedly different manifestations. This course emphasizes the complex ways different cultures are interconnected through their revolutionary literatures and their responses to oppressive governance and social structures.

Course Description

In the run-up to the 2008 US Presidential election many issues arose, including the idea of a female vs. male US president and male vs. female political leaders. The debates which ensued showed that while we have made progress there are still issues to be addressed in the definition and creation of gender roles and identities. Cleopatra, Turia, Aspasia and Margaret Thatcher. A Pharaoh, noble Roman woman, hetaera and British Tory prime minister. These women had power and influence within their societies but a power and influence not common to all women in their eras. What dictates gender roles in society and how do societies conceive of the roles of men and women? We will explore gender roles as well as sexuality in both antiquity and the contemporary world and determine what made men and women so different, why were there male and female citizens in ancient Greece yet women could never vote? What does make a Margaret Thatcher or Cleopatra and why are some female roles acceptable but others are not (e.g. women in combat)? More broadly speaking, we will use History methodology to look at a particular global challenge: Understanding why the same gender dynamic replicates across cultures, systems, and epochs and what dictates gender identity and roles in both antique and contemporary societies.

Course Description

How has well-being been represented (in popular and academic discourses) as a thing to be attained in the 21st century? This course will offer a more complex perspective on the lived experience of well-being particularly in an era in which humans face potential catastrophe from myriad sources: environmental, political, social, economic, etc. We will read literary narratives of homelessness (exile, dislocation, refugee-ism, a sense of being estranged or a stranger, etc.) that, simultaneously, locate a sense of connectedness, community, and hope in the midst of such upheaval.

Course Description

Why do people sometimes rise up against political or cultural institutions? How do the reasons for and goals of these revolutions change depending on the historical, political, and social contexts in which they take place? How can previous revolutions help us understand and/or problematize recent revolutions? How can a revolution be a force for social justice? This course asks you to consider these questions through the lens of literary texts that respond to and help incite political and social revolutions. You will develop insights into revolution as a global phenomenon with shared foundations but markedly different manifestations. This course emphasizes the complex ways different cultures are interconnected through their revolutionary literatures and their responses to oppressive governance and social structures.

Course Description

This course will examine U.S. military intervention in the world from 1898 to the present.

Course Description

How has well-being been represented (in popular and academic discourses) as a thing to be attained in the 21st century? This course will offer a more complex perspective on the lived experience of well-being particularly in an era in which humans face potential catastrophe from myriad sources: environmental, political, social, economic, etc. We will read literary narratives of homelessness (exile, dislocation, refugee-ism, a sense of being estranged or a stranger, etc.) that, simultaneously, locate a sense of connectedness, community, and hope in the midst of such upheaval.

Course Description

Trauma is a prevalent mode of remembering and writing history in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. What can literature of trauma teach us about the experience of bearing witness to, and giving testimonies of, trauma? As a Humanities and Global Challenges core course, we will foreground the close-textual analysis of literary texts in conversation with the historical, political, legal, and ideological contexts in which and about which they were written. Our focus on the literary representations of trauma will depend on what I consider to be the other major "text" of the course: students' work with organizations that support war veterans, refugees, and the homeless in the context of Service Learning.

Course Description

The global challenge this course explores, through dystopian literature, is how desires for social order, and the globalizing philosophies underlying those desires, result in hegemonic forms of social control achievable only through the imposition of ideologies of perfection. Dystopian literature imagines grim worlds where plurality and co-existence are sacrificed for the hegemonic establishment of social harmony. Students will engage and critique these literary landscapes to analyze and assess how global dreams can become global nightmares.

Course Description

Trauma is a prevalent mode of remembering and writing history in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. What can literature of trauma teach us about the experience of bearing witness to, and giving testimonies of, trauma? As a Humanities and Global Challenges core course, we will foreground the close-textual analysis of literary texts in conversation with the historical, political, legal, and ideological contexts in which and about which they were written. Our focus on the literary representations of trauma will depend on what I consider to be the other major "text" of the course: students' work with organizations that support war veterans, refugees, and the homeless in the context of Service Learning.