Spring 2024 Courses

Robert M. Hensel once said, “I choose not to place “DIS,” in my ability,” a statement that may resonate with many of us, as we navigate our daily lives with a range of divergent abilities, whether that be intellectual, mental, or physical. In ENGL 111, students will write personal narratives and photograph experiences or encounters with [dis]ability and social justice, across intersections of race, gender, class, and ethnicity.   In the paired education course, students will explore ways to foster an art-centered classroom that is inclusive of those with neurodivergent abilities. Students in both courses will help design and promote a collaborative performance with HEART, an artistic community that celebrates, uplifts, and advocates for adults with special needs. 

This course will survey films made by and about Asian Americans. In exploring cinematic representations/misrepresentations and the social and political contexts out of which these works are produced, the course will encourage a deeper understanding of the Asian American culture, communities, and identities. Beginning chronologically with stereotypes of race and identity in the early 19th century, the course moves through history, toward new representations of contemporary Asian Americans. The diversity of the Asian diaspora will be emphasized by including works focusing on Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Korean Americans, Filipinx Americans, Vietnamese Americans, and Japanese Americans.

In order to be a competent communicator, we must act in ways that are effective at achieving our goals  AND appropriate for the situation. In order to be appropriate, we follow norms for behavior that often go  unspoken, but they have a huge impact on our sense of self and how we interact with others.  Unfortunately, many of those norms privilege persons in powerful positions and marginalize people of  color, along with other groups. This course will teach you to be a more competent and empathic  communicator in the areas of listening, language and nonverbal usage, and conflict management, while  giving you the tools to challenge norms that limit the voice of marginalized others.

Magic! Monsters! Hordes of the Living Dead! Why do magical and monstrous beings and  creatures pervade our popular culture? Why do we associate the monstrous with the unknown?  Where do these myths come from and what do they say about our world and society? This course will investigate various representations of monstrosity in popular culture and folklore and how these representations have changed over time: from Dracula to Twilight, from Bewitched to Siempre Bruja, from White Zombie to The Walking Dead. In particular, we will focus on spiritual and religious traditions from the Caribbean and Eastern Europe and question how these beliefs and practices have been marginalized, vilified, and exoticized by the colonial gaze.

Does the data support the claims in the media? How do we know if the claim the media is making is valid or not? In this course, students will learn how to research, find the original data that media outlets use and interpret this data. The best defense against misinformation or misuse of data in the media is knowing how to interpret data and research the original sources of information. In this course, students will use statistical interpretation of data and basic modeling to understand some of the biases that exist in the U.S. in regards to topics including race, income, healthcare, the legal system, the pandemic and other topics. Students will learn how to access the sources of data on these topics to make their own educated conclusions.

This course will deepen students understanding of the ways in which religion and race are intertwined with climate change through the lens of storytelling, with a focus on Indigenous, Black, and feminist voices. Students will be challenged to engage in big questions about meaning, values, and responsibilities in addressing pressing social and environmental issues. We will read stories from around the world, consider the art of storytelling, and write our own stories. The humanities offer an opportunity to reshape how we think about environmental problems and what counts as "the environment" itself. Students will be introduced to the realities of the climate crisis and the ways in which environmental sustainability relates to justice, politics, ethics, and religion.

Is your phone listening to your conversations? Maybe, but it probably already has all the information it needs. We routinely engage with and rely on systems that predict, recommend, and speculate based on our clicks, likes, searches, and even socially constructed personal data, but we rarely stop to think about how these systems work—or don’t. With a focus on algorithmic awareness as resistance, this seminar will address the increasing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) and social hierarchies replicated and reinforced by algorithmic bias. Students will work to recognize race, gender, and ability bias in technology and acquire the skills and strategies necessary to research AI-powered, intersectional oppression happening across the globe and, of course, on their phones and other devices.

In this learning and mentoring community, you will explore introductory concepts of cybersecurity and management information systems and how business leverage systems for competitive advantage. You will then learn how to assess and mitigate cyber risks. Join us to gain experience and training on advanced functionality in Excel to support information management and to solve structured business problems.

Your online reputation will increasingly factor into your success in getting jobs, graduate school  acceptance, and life in general. Learn how to proactively create an online image that presents the “you”  that others see. In this course, you gain foundational computing knowledge by examining issues and  events of our technological society. Correspondingly, you will use social media and publishing tools to  help build a professional digital image. Platforms will include LinkedIn, YouTube channel, podcasting, and  WordPress.

What role do we, as players, have in the meaning that is made through video games? What compels us to keep playing video games long after frustration sets in? What happens when we put down the controller? The world within games and the world outside of them are connected through the relationship that exists between player and avatar. Thus, the body of the player experiences linear time and virtual time simultaneously. Taking a player centered approach to video games, this course explores the memories that emerge from the performance of play and how these experiences converge with the multiple context — of development, of release, of play, of analysis—at work in a game.

What is fascinating to you? All data tells a story, and as world citizens, you will benefit from using data to tell your own story and to explore the world around you. In this course, students will learn how to verify data sources and to recognize misleading graphics. Students employ effective visualizations to explore trends, develop insight, and illuminate patterns. We will mine a brief history of visualization, appreciate visualization classics, and explore visualization best practices. We will critically evaluate and interpret existing visualizations and produce our own visualizations. Data visualization is an essential literacy for the 21st century student.  Learning how to present your insights clearly through data visualization is a skill that you will use throughout your life.

What is the Metaverse? Where did it come from? How does it relate to pop culture? The blurring of lines between fine art, global pop culture, and science, require a level of information/visual literacy in order to decode the visual culture that surrounds us to become active participants and creators rather than passive consumers. Students will explore the technologies behind augmented and virtual reality and learn about their history and societal effects by considering Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) works and texts (apps, images, film, television, video, advertisements, performance art: any artifacts of culture) and their significance as cultural documents. The course is designed to teach and demonstrate some of the basic tools of analysis and critical thinking used to approach contemporary texts in the ever expanding metaverse.

This learning community will be a studio art collaboration between Sculpture I and Drawing I. Its purpose is to introduce the study of 2D and 3D art production as they are created in contemporary society. The term “Contemporary” will be defined as happening right now. This means techniques, concepts, and subject matters covered in this class will be accompanied by current examples from the art world and our global culture. We will place emphasis on professional practice through lectures, gallery visits, and visiting artists. These will also function as our connections to the art world. Through critiques students will learn the empowerment of language and critical discourse as we discuss materials, skill, aspects of form, space and presentation.

Photography, History & Memories
FYSE 105 and FYSS 101
Mary Trent
Art History

This course is designed to introduce students to critical analysis of contemporary popular culture in the United States.  Students will get an overview of the insights, findings, concepts, and perspectives that are held by a wide variety of interdisciplinary popular culture scholars today.  Several prominent areas of popular culture to be studied include advertising, television, film, music, religion, and cyberculture.

The purpose of this learning community is to explore how to conduct business in the hospitality industry. Special attention will be paid on how to communicate ideas and strategies effectively throughout both the industry and the community. This class will introduce students to the hospitality environment and guide them in developing professional skills through writing business correspondences such as memos, reports, résumés and cover letters as well as creative and analytical features focusing on industry issues. Students will explore Charleston and all its offerings to understand how the tourism industry works in one of the world’s premier destinations.

Psychology of Travel
FYSE 132 and FYSS 101
Chelsea Reid-Short
Psychology
CRNs: 23069 and 23023
Course times: TR 9:25-10:40 and T 4:05-4:55

In this course, students will seek to understand how travel impacts individuals, close relationships, broader social groups, and the larger world by reviewing and applying psychological scientific research and theory. This course will examine how travel affects our mental and physical health, relationship quality, and work productivity, and we will discuss challenges that individuals of different demographic groups may face when traveling. Students will also examine how our travel may impact people who live and work at the locations to which we travel, and how our travel can impact our attitudes and behaviors toward other cultures and social groups. Finally, students will examine how travel may impact our natural environment and surrounding world, including a focus on sustainability and eco-tourism.

In this course, we will review research, theory, and practice related to Emerging Adulthood (a relatively new term that is being applied to individuals between 19 and 29 in primarily industrialized countries). The variety of factors, including social, economic, and psychological, that are related to the emergence of this new developmental period, along with its impact on society, will be discussed. Research on the various domains (i.e. school, work, love, family, and identity) of emerging adults’ lives will be examined. Finally, we will explore individual behaviors and contexts that may be associated with the successful navigation of this period.

What is hope? We will explore what it is and where hope comes from, including factors that help it develop and activities that can boost it.  We will also investigate how hope relates to meaningfulness, to goal setting, and to perseverance. In addition, we will study the benefits of hopefulness, with particular attention paid to health and wellness. Although we will primarily investigate hope from the perspective of psychological science, we will consider hope as it relates to philosophy and religion as well.  In addition to other writing assignments and quizzes, students will participate in community engagement activities (talks, volunteering) and write brief reports about their experiences and how they relate to information learned in the course.

Most people think of memory like a recording device that exactly captures and forever preserves our experiences. But decades of science on the malleability of memory demonstrate that it is not reliable. In fact, it is easily manipulated and even not so difficult for others to plant false memories that affect behavior long after the memories take hold. We even distort our own memories even when we are trying to be completely honest with ourselves. Usually this tendency is adaptive but it can contribute to maladaptive behaviors, such as emotional disorders, when we make it a habit to misremember our experiences in negative ways. In this course we will explore the conditions under which we are all susceptible to false memories, what a malleable memory system tells us about our identity and who we are, and why evolution gave us a memory system prone to distortion and interference. We’ll also examine ethical and social issues that come with the ability to plant memories such as demonstrations of the mental and physical health benefits of induced false memories, and questions about when professionals should use this mind technology or ban its use.

What is an animal? To begin, you may point to your cat nearby, the bird outside, or perhaps your own selfie — these are all particular animals. Yet humans take great effort in distinguishing themselves from other animals. And our politics is shaped by these distinctions. In this course, we will examine different ways that animals, both providers of material sustenance and ideological background for human societies, have been defined and excluded from politics. We will critique the (western political) theoretical grounds through which nonhuman animals are denied participation in politics. We will also attend to concrete cases, fictions, ethnographic studies, to imagine various ways that human and nonhuman animals have co-habitated, co-depended, and co-evolved across cultures and historical time.

Our planet—a small rock in space that’s covered in water, teeming with life, and enveloped in gasses, affects all aspects of our existence on Earth. However, many aspects or our existence on Earth affect our planet too in stealthy, disastrous ways that we now refer to as “stealth disasters.” Most commonly, stealth disasters occur because of severe environmental degradation and/or changes in Earth’s climate but are also the result of economically driven (poor) decision making. This course will explore the fundamental geologic processes that affect us all through the lens of disaster

Nations seem to be a self-evident reality. Nations are the core unit of political legitimacy, and the “United Nations” is the platform for humanity’s cooperative decision-making. Yet nations are neither ancient nor self-evident; they are modern constructions that compete with other forms of community and identities for legitimacy and loyalty. Even the basic question, “what is a nation,” brings no uniform answer. Nationalism can bond communities, but it is also source of violent conflict and oppression and has facilitated some of the most barbaric acts in human history. This seminar will explore the origins and development of nations and nationalism, comparing various versions of it, and consider what all of this means for us today, as Americans at a time of heightened nationalist feelings and growing awareness of racial oppression. The course will raise basic questions about identity, community, religion, ethnicity, and the human condition.

If a woman wields a gun is she strong?  If a woman is physically aggressive is she an empowered woman, or is she just acting like a man? Why have women of physical action, even “violence” been traditionally regarded as unacceptable or abnormal? Are there motives that justify such violence? Is a violent (or simply physically strong) woman more acceptable now than 30 years ago? Is such a woman more or less acceptable in America than elsewhere? Through the viewing of a variety of films, this course will explore answers to these questions by critically evaluating the way in which female action figures are constructed both visually and thematically on the screen.

This course will explore the parallel mythologies of the ancient Celts, Mayans and  Andean peoples, and Judeo-Christian Biblical texts, focusing on the images of  supernatural women. How were women viewed in these societies, and why and when  does a connection with witchcraft and/or prophecy arise when women are referred to? In Ireland during the Dark Ages, in the Inca empire in medieval Peru and Ecuador, in  the warring Mayan city-states of Central America and the Bronze Age Middle East, were  women viewed as inherently “magical”? Or was this a social construct that alternately  empowered or weakened the status of women in their respective civilizations? The course will explore the connection between gender, mythology and literature from a multicultural perspective.

This seminar introduces students to the field of Latino/a Studies in order to better understand the place of Latinos in U.S. politics, history, and culture. Students will be asked to examine how a heterogeneous and changing Latino/a population both shapes and is shaped by life in the United States. A selection of texts from various disciplines (including literature, history, music, and film) will inform our class discussions. The course will look at constructions of “Latinidad” as they relate to questions of identity, class, race, and/or ethnicity, religion, gender and sexuality, (im)migration, language, and popular culture.

Special O.P.S. Therapy Tactics course is designed to provide students interested in pursuing a degree in occupational and physical therapy as well as teacher education, with the knowledge and skills to design and implement movement experiences to enhance children's physical, social and emotional development. Students may be able to participate in the FitCatZ Aquatic and Motor Therapy Program putting theory to practice teaching neuro-diverse children in a therapy setting.  Students interested will need to secure rides to the St. Andrews Fitness Center off campus and have travel time before and after class.

This course is designed to introduce students to research-based approaches and practices for first-year college students majoring in education and other caring disciplines and professions. Students who fully engage in this course develop and sharpen their attention skills and maintain emotional balance while creating empathetic connections and compassion with others. Students will learn mindful awareness practices and ways to bring that mindful awareness to everyday activities. They will apply theoretical and practical knowledge of mindfulness practices to help them care for themselves and build the capacity to help others. This course will provide new pedagogical techniques that support student creativity and learning new course content. When students take this course, they will become better students. Access to various contemplative tools will help them manage stress and feel more present in the classroom as they adjust to college. Students will learn how to concentrate and improve their sense of well-being while building their open awareness and learning invaluable ways to help them in decision-making. This is a course for students applying firsthand experiential knowledge of mindfulness concepts, practices, and techniques through reading, writing, presentation, and group discussion facilitation opportunities fostering diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging for all learners. Social science and neuroscience research have supported these techniques, ideas, and practices.

We know spending quality time in nature can quickly wash away the worries of the day and if done regularly, can improve our well-being. The question is, if nature is so beneficial for us, then why are we a nation of people who seem to be more uncoupled from nature than ever before? In this course, students will examine ways in which we can connect with the natural world around us, both individually and as a society. The class will explore research on the effects of nature on mental well-being, the state of modern food production, and how reconnecting with nature might just give us a fighting chance against biodiversity loss and the effects of climate change.

Professional Learners develop tools to become thoughtful, life-long learners of the world around them.  This course will focus on preparing students to recognize and respond to the opportunities around them; both through developing an individual brand and through proactive professional collateral development (business cards, resume, professional writing sample, professional headshot).  The goal will be to ensure students are projecting an appropriate, professional image to the business world; and to help the student better understand how to identify and achieve their professional aspirations. We will also hear from a variety of business and community leaders, learning more about their careers, how they develop others and themselves, and what leadership looks like in their organizations and employees.

Have you ever dreamed of undertaking an extraordinary adventure?  Are you eager to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, walk the Camino de Santiago, or climb Mount Kilimanjaro?  In this course, we will explore the transformative potential offered by travel, which might be a globe-trotting adventure or simply discovering a new place in your local area.  Transformative travel involves learning, personal growth, exploring identity, and reflecting on the journey.  It encompasses an array of experiences, such as physical challenges, immersive cultural encounters, journeys of a religious or spiritual nature, or any combination of these and other informative experiences.  The essential components of transformative travel are preparation for the journey, the trip itself, and reflection and action upon return.

The profusion of social media has escalated the concept of “fake news” and radically changed the information environment into a “post-truth” world where anyone is a publisher and sources and authorities are decentralized. Identifying what a document is, much less the credibility of the information, is muddled at best. Students will learn how information was historically accessed and used in comparison with the unique characteristics of the “new media” information environment and how one can successfully navigate this new social information sphere. Using visual literacy, media literacy, and game-based learning activities, they will learn how to identify text packaging, think critically about the information they encounter, develop skills as information consumers and employ ethical behavior as creators of information.