Seminars

Seminar Descriptions

• HON 115HA — Queer Theatre
  • Beth Glover
  • TR 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
  • 3 credits

  From Mae West to Aziza Barnes, this course will explore the historical, aesthetic, and political aspects of queer theatre and performance. We will explore this through the following set of interrelated questions: Is queer theatre and performance inherently political? When did queer theatre and performance become mainstream? Or is it?

  In addition to queer plays, films, performance art, and television shows will also be examined to answer these questions. We will consider the stereotypical and groundbreaking portrayals of queer people, themes of homophobia, self-hatred, acceptance, AIDS, and familial interaction, all within the heteronormative society.

  GE Category: Humanities (Matriculation before Fall 2021)

  CC Category: Individual Expression (Matriculation beginning Fall 2021)

• HON 124HA — America Through Foreign Eyes
  • Dr. Connie Shemo
  • TR 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
  • 3 credits

  For many people in the United States, the events of September 11, 2001 demonstrated a dramatically different attitude toward their country than they had previously perceived. From a sense of the United States as a benevolent world leader, many Americans were abruptly confronted with the depth of anger and frustration that many around the world felt toward the U.S. Yet, the U.S. was never a purely beloved force for freedom and democracy. Currently, many people around the globe approach the U.S. with a mixture of frustration, anger, and admiration, rather than simple hatred. The complexity of these views of the U.S. has deep historical roots.

  In this course students will explore the historical and current foreign perceptions of the U.S. from the early republic to the 21st century. Questions to be explored include: What has “America” represented for people around the globe? How have perceptions of the United States changed as the country has grown more powerful? What has remained consistent? How can the writings of foreign observers help us better understand the United States?  Why have American women consistently been a source of fascination for foreign observers of the United States (a theme that we can see from Tocqueville to Al-Qaeda)? Why have American race relations been a central theme of foreign observations?

  The title of the course self-consciously uses the term “America,” which theoretically could encompass all of North, Central and South America, to refer specifically to the United States. As Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies argue in their book Why Do People Hate America?, “that everyone understands the word ‘America’ to refer to the USA is a testimony to power founded on a wealth of resources, economic strength and its application to an idea of nationhood that is unique.”  Furthermore, the practice of referring to the United States as “America” predated the country’s current standing as a major global power.

  Assignments will include short weekly papers focused on how the readings help the student understand the U.S. Students will also make a presentation that analyzes contemporary view of the U.S. based on foreign radio broadcasts and newspaper articles. The final exam will be a take-home essay.

  GE Category: U.S. Civilization (Matriculation before Fall 2021)

  CC Category: U.S. Identities (Matriculation beginning Fall 2021)

• HON 166HA — Cross Cultural Encounters in Literature & Film
  • Dr. Erin Mitchell
  • MWF 11 – 11:50 a.m.
  • 3 credits

  During this course, we will encounter others in literature and film. Such encounters can include: clashes; conflict; wars; famine; language and cultural differences; stories; schooling; family and kinship connections or struggles between them; gatherings at celebrations; religion; food; violations of practices; medicinal work; slavery; markets; governing bodies. Many films and fictional books could include such cultural clashes and/or hospitality, and here are some examples. The course could include the film version of Black Robe, in which a Jesuit priest encounters both helpful and warlike Native Americans as he travels up the St. Lawrence river.

  The course might also assign the novel, Heart of Darkness, in which Marlow ventures up the Belgian Congo to meet and assess Kurtz’s crimes. White Teeth, a novel, shows characters trying to get along in the diverse city of London. The Visitor, a film during which a white, discontented professor moves into his apartment and discovers, and lets stay, two “aliens” (a couple having no citizenship of the U.S.), and tries, unsuccessfully, to find the eventually “detained” man within the labyrinth of New York City detention centers.   

  GE Category:  World Systems (Matriculation before Fall 2021)

  CC Category:  World Cultures (Matriculation beginning Fall 2021)

• HON 310HA — Literature, Trauma & Human Rights 
  • Dr. Tracie Guzzio
  • MW 2 – 3:15 p.m.
  • 3 credits

  This course is designed to analyze and understand the genre of the “literature of witness” which is defined as works that give “testimony” to traumatic historical events. The works that we will be studying consider the global response to oppression and the expression of human rights in a contemporary society. Most of this literature arises from a traumatic personal experience of the historical event, such as the Holodomor, the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the dictatorship of Pinochet, the Haitian massacre of 1937, Bosnian genocide, the Nanking massacre, the Cambodian “killing fields,” the Rwandan Genocide, the Rohingya genocide, and American slavery, to name, unfortunately a few. Survivors and witnesses testify to their experiences in this literature as both an act of remembrance and a political call for social justice. Many of these writers resist the “history” we think we know, and give voice to those people who are no longer able to give testimony. In some cases, writers have chosen to present these events and experiences through a fictional voice or poetic persona; these choices are also important for us to analyze in the course. Students will be encouraged to think critically about this genre, its role in the context of a globalized society, and the ethics of speaking for others (and the obligations to “truth” this entails). As well, we will consider how these narratives argue for new texts to emerge in our postcolonial, post-Holocaust, postmodern world. The works covered in the course represent writers from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe and we will be examining various types of literature including novels, autobiography, poetry, drama, testimonio and narrative and documentary films. Students will reflect on these issues and the very nature of narrating historical events through class discussion, critical analysis, research, and writing.

  We will begin by examining the emergence of trauma as a psychological phenomenon and the resulting literary response. We will trace the development of “trauma literature” as it intersects with works that “bear witness” to the genocides of the twentieth century — called by some scholars as “Philomela’s Tongue.” Though most scholars situate this moment as a post-Holocaust response, we will consider how this framework affects the reading of 19th century American slave narratives as well as literature after the first Holocaust works appear. We will also examine multiple points of view of the same event (e.g. In the Time of Butterflies and The Farming of Bones), and how the same event is represented by different genres (e.g. Deogratias, Rwandan poetry, the docudrama Hotel Rwanda, the autobiography it is based on, and the documentary, Flowers of Rwanda).

  Works will include Night; Maus; Beloved; S; Say You’re One of Them;Nanking Winter;The Farming of Bones; Death of the Maiden; and selections from other works.

  The course grade will be based on class discussion and essays. Students will be asked to do presentations as well.

  GE Category: Global Issues (Matriculation before Fall 2021)

  CC Category: Humanities/Individual Expression (Matriculation beginning Fall 2021)

• HON 341HA — Modelling Dynamic Systems
  • Dr. Kevin O'Neill 
  • TR 12:30 – 1:45 p.m.
  • 3 Credits

  This course introduces you to system dynamics modeling and systems thinking applied to the analysis of global complexities.  You will learn to visualize the environmental, social, economic, physical and biological policy arenas in terms of the structures that create dynamics and regulate performance.

  Accelerating economic, technological, social and environmental change requires policy makers to adapt. Increasingly, we must learn how to manage complex systems with multiple feedback effects, long time delays, and nonlinear responses to our decisions. Yet learning in such environments is difficult precisely because we never confront many of the consequences of our most important decisions. You can probably think of a host of examples illustrating this point from the COVID pandemic to global climate change. Effective learning in such environments requires methods to develop systems thinking, to represent and assess such dynamic complexity—and tools that can be used to accelerate learning by policy makers.

  System dynamics allows us to create “micro-worlds,” manage flight simulators where space and time can be compressed, slowed, and stopped in order to assess the long-term side effects of decisions. We can also explore new strategies and develop better understandings of systems. In this class we will use role playing games, simulation models, case studies, and policy flight simulators to develop principles of policy design for the complexities we now face.

  This course will help you understand the dynamic, simultaneous, and inter-relational nature of intra and extra systems activity through causal loop making and system dynamic simulations. Students will create models that represent complex, non-linear feedback systems of personal or professional interests to them. Some of the simulations we will explore include global concerns such as population growth, epidemics, economic, environmental and social change, among other policy arenas.

  Students will keep a weekly journal and participate in a group project formulating, designing and simulating a systems project that is interesting to you and your team.  You will also complete other assignments focused on individual modeling and problem-solving homework.

  GE Category: Global Issues (Matriculation before Fall 2021)

  CC Category: Quantitative Reasoning (Matriculation beginning Fall 2021)