Seminars

Dr. Shawna Mefferd-Kelty
T, Th 12:30 – 1:45 p.m.
3 credits

This seminar seeks to investigate the history of African American theatre and performance from the last 30 years. We will divide our focus between Black playwrights and Black performers/practitioners. Some of the questions we will consider include: How do Black theatre and Black political thought intersect? What is the relationship between the past and present representations of African American identity? How does a study of drama reveal the historical narrative of the African American experience? And how does it contribute to an understanding of African American cultural traditions? What does theatre offer in addressing the racial issues of the past? Of our time?

The seminar will engage with all of these questions as students examine the plays through close readings, discuss social and ethical issues found in the texts and performance conditions, and pursue creative research projects. Assignments in the course include written responses to required readings, class presentations and performances, mini-podcasts, and a creative research project.

Readings and supplementary sources may include:

Plays

Essays, Articles, Book Chapters

Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal by Kate Dossett
“Krigwa, a Theatre by, for, and about Black People.” Ethel Pitts Walker
“The Ground on Which I Stand” by August Wilson (speech)

This seminar satisfies the U.S. Identities component of the Cardinal Core Curriculum and the U.S. Civilization component of the Plattsburgh General Education program.

HON 127 — The American West

Dr. Tracie Church Guzzio
M, W 2 – 3:15 p.m.
3 credits

“We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure.” – Henry David Thoreau, “Walking.”

“But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest…” (Huckleberry Finn) – Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

This course considers the American West not only as a specific location but also as a historical and cultural concept. How has the concept of the American West permeated our vision of the American self? How does the American West influence our image of the environment — its geography of “wide open spaces”? Its resources? How does the image of the American West present us with a paradoxical picture of the landscape as both an idealized, pristine wilderness and as a border between savagery and civilization? How has the “promise of the west” influence the narrative of the American Dream? How has the icon of the American frontier — its myth and reality — determine the ways we discuss American historical moments like ‘Manifest Destiny?” American progress? How have these mythic historical stories impacted such groups as immigrants and marginalized Americans — the Other (Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, Latinos, and freed African American slaves) in these narratives? How has the highly masculinized image of the American cowboy and the violence of the American West affected our understanding of gender?

We will address these questions with the vocabulary and research methods essential to critical reading, thinking, and writing. It is our objective to express what we learn through well-reasoned and well-written discourse in an analysis of American history and culture. We will be reading literary works such as On the Road, Roughing It, Ceremony, and Blood Meridian as well as historical studies including The Empire of Innocence and Gunfighter Nation; we will also look at selections from nature writers like Edward Abbey and Gretel Ehrlich and view clips from films like The Searchers and Lone Star; and finally, we will consider the ways are current political climate has its roots in myths of the west and the frontier. The course will be evaluated on a couple of short response papers and presentations and a final research paper. Using historical texts, literature, and film we will have a better understanding of the ways that the image and the narratives of the American West continue to determine the way we see ourselves, our communities, our history, and our culture.

This seminar satisfies the U.S. Identities component of the Cardinal Core Curriculum and the U.S. Civilization component of the Plattsburgh General Education program.

HON 137 — Understanding Algorithm Bias

Dr. Kevin McCullen
T, Th 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
3 credits

Algorithms mediate the world we live in. Algorithms determine the interest rates you pay, the price you pay for products, the news stories that you see, whether you get a job or not, and the treatment you receive in the hospital.

Algorithms are often seen as “pure” or “unbiased” because we think of computers as being calculating engines, incapable of opinion or emotion. Algorithms, in the form of models, make predictions that govern many of the activities in our lives. These models are built on data.

If the data is skewed, then the models are skewed. If the models are skewed, then the predictions are skewed. For example, some teacher assessment tools judge a teacher’s effectiveness by looking at test scores. In 2011, Washington D.C. fired 206 teachers because a statistical measurement indicated that they were the bottom 5% in effectiveness. In some cases, excellent teachers may have been fired because in prior years standardized tests were altered. Students exited one grade with high test scores (due to cheating) and appeared to have gotten worse in the next grade (where cheating didn’t occur). The strict measurement policy was based on skewed data, punished honest teachers and rewarded cheating.

Sometimes there are assumptions made that are based on unconscious bias. Clearing snow from streets is obviously the highest priority. However, digging into the numbers in Sweden, they discovered that women are more likely to walk or take public transit, and to “chain trips” (running errands) rather than a to-work and from-work commute. Sweden found that 69% of the injuries to pedestrians during the winter were women. Two-thirds of those had fallen on icy surfaces. The snow clearing schedules prioritized street clearing for men commuting to work over pedestrians and public transit, creating unconscious bias.

Data can be skewed by the “streetlight problem” (looking for your lost keys under the streetlamp, because the light is better there), it can be skewed by random variation (bad luck or poor experimental design), or it can be skewed by intentional bias (data that is deliberately wrong). With respect to bias, it is often the case that data is skewed by availability. If data is only collected from one group of people, then the data is biased. There are numerous examples where medical studies focused on one group, typically Caucasian men, and the results were then applied universally.

In this seminar, we will look at how data is collected, how algorithms and models are developed, and how the results are used. Expectations are that students will engage in vigorous dialogue and debate. Writings will include case studies, a research paper, and a presentation of their results.

This seminar satisfies the Human Communities component of the Cardinal Core Curriculum and the Social Science component of the Plattsburgh General Education program.

HON 150 — Voices in Song

Dr. William Pfaff and Holly Heller-Ross
M, W 3:30 – 4:45 p.m.
3 credits

The seminar is designed to begin by providing students with an understanding of what a song is, how and why it is created, and major voices in the genre. Students will be encouraged to apply critical thinking constructs to a range of creators, emphasizing women and minorities. One of our goals as instructors is to broaden the net of the students’ understanding of recognized contributors across a number of contexts, setting students up to explore a wide-ranging world of dynamic creators far beyond standard contemporary popular culture. These concepts and independent research into a song selected by each student will also be the basis for learning fundamental information literacy/management concepts equivalent to the curriculum of the LIB190 general education course.

This seminar satisfies the Individual Expression component of the Cardinal Core Curriculum and the Arts component of the Plattsburgh General Education program.

HON 332 — Climate & Energy

Dr. Lauren Eastwood
T, Th 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
3 credits

This course will explore the topic of climate change in light of various institutions such as the global economy and fossil-fuel based energy infrastructures. Students will engage with issues associated with global inequalities, both in terms of the disproportionate use of resources and the unequal impact of a changing climate. Countries in the global north have vastly disproportionately contributed to the climate crisis, whereas countries in the global south are disproportionately shouldering the burden of the results of a changing climate. However, these broad categories also obscure inequalities that exist within countries — both in the global north and global south. The course will additionally engage with materials that develop our knowledge of social movements that have emerged in response to the urgency of the problems associated with increases in greenhouse gasses and lack of political will to create alternatives. In addition, we will be interrogating standard narratives of “growth” and “security” that inform energy policy (at regional, national, and international levels). Along with these narratives of growth, we will be discussing how it is that highly individualized solutions to the climate crisis tend to obscure the more systemic and transformative changes that are required.

Throughout the course we will engage with the following questions:

Who shoulders the burden of environmental problems?
Whose lives are most marginal and yet also most likely to be impacted by a changing climate? How can we equitably allocate our remaining “carbon budget”?
How has the climate movement leveraged climate science in order to influence policy?
What other alliances and allegiances — for example with indigenous peoples — have climate activists sought to foster in order to build a broader and more inclusive movement?
Has social media contributed to the globalization of the climate movement? Or is there a way in which “post-truth” narratives contribute to climate denial?
What are the implications of the imperative for economic growth?
Is sustainability at odds with this model, or is there such a thing as “green growth”?
What would it take to reconcile what science tells us is necessary with how we organize our societies and economies?

This seminar satisfies the Human Communities component of the Cardinal Core Curriculum and the Social Science component of the Plattsburgh General Education program.

HON 338 — Transitional Justice 21st Century

Dr. Monica Ciobanu
T, Th 3:30 – 4:45 p.m.
3 credits

In the last three decades the question of reckoning with the past has become intertwined with the main priorities and challenges faced by transitional governments. Addressing past abuses and human rights violations and ensuring that such acts will not occur in the future has direct implications for designing and consolidating democratic practices and institutions, establishing the rule of law, promoting a robust civil society, and an engaged citizenry. Economies and infrastructures weakened by internal conflicts or corruption and mismanagement of previous oppressive regimes also need to be rebuilt. Transitional justice has become the catch-all term used by both academics and policymakers to encompass both legal and non-legal mechanisms for addressing the past. The seminar will review several aspects of the vast domain of transitional justice represented by human rights and international justice concerns, including restitution (both material and non-material), amnesties, criminal trials (national, hybrid and international) truth commissions, memorialization, exclusion of former state officials from democratic politics (vetting and lustration). A wide range of case studies from various regions of the world (Africa, Asia, Easter Europe, Latin America, and North America) will be discussed. This comparative and transnational perspective will help students understand why some countries chose to prosecute and punish human rights abusers, while others have forgiven and forgotten similar crimes.

We will review several aspects of the vast domain of transitional justice represented by human rights and international justice concerns. Essentially, this topic will advance understanding of the following issues involving ways in which new democracies have come to terms with an authoritarian past:

The development and history of transitional justice
International criminal justice and transitional justice
Understand why some countries chose to prosecute and punish human rights abusers, while others have forgiven and forgotten similar crimes
Familiarize students with specific mechanisms for dealing with the authoritarian past: restitution, symbolic compensation, amnesties, truth commissions, exclusion of former state officials from democratic politics (lustration)
Familiarize students with transitional justice methods after periods or episodes of mass-violence and genocide such as peace-building operations
Discuss local restorative justice mechanisms
Discuss a wide range of case studies from several main regions of the world (Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, North America)

At the end of the semester students will have to submit a term paper focused on a transitional justice case study.

This seminar satisfies the Human Communities component of the Cardinal Core Curriculum and the Social Science component of the Plattsburgh General Education program.

HON 364 — Politics of History in a Changing World

Dr. Richard Schaefer
T, Th 9:30 – 10:45 a.m.
3 credits

History is about much more than simply what happened in the past. It is a powerful tool for how we think about ourselves as individuals and groups. It is a key component of identity and a key component in how we encounter others. How we project ourselves into the past has a lot to do with how we make decisions about the present, and how we envision the future. It is therefore also a source of debate and conflict.

This seminar looks at how history is used in very practical ways to make sense of the world and our place in it. It investigates how history is a dimension of human existence that plays an essential role in rendering cultural difference in time and space. And it looks at how history is fought over: What monuments should we keep? What history should we teach? Does history progress? What is the role of trauma in history? Is it ever good to forget the past? These and many more questions will guide us in our discussions.

This seminar satisfies the World Cultures component of the Cardinal Core Curriculum and the Other World CIV/World Sys component of the Plattsburgh General Education program.

HON 387 — Deep Ecology: The Worth of All Beings for Their Own Sake

Dr. Margarita Garcia-Notario
T, Th 2 – 3:15 p.m.
3 credits

This course is a presentation of the history, meaning and role of the Deep Ecology Movement and its founder, in the frame of the global environmental movement. I would like to make my students consider the thesis that “the way in which Humanity has tried to reach a balance with nature, is one of the most important events of the 20th Century”.

We will learn about the legendary figures of ecology: Thoreau, Muir, Leopold, and Carson. We will review the role of nature and its relationship with humans in early civilizations through their mythologies and literary works and will compare them with the initial concerns that appeared in the US for those pioneers who started showing concern on the disappearance of wilderness and would later be followed by the series of international denunciations to militarism, industrialism, and consumerism.

Participants in this seminar will be exposed to the main theoretical, social, political, and historical issues that had to do with the start of the modern environmental movement and will study the development of personal thoughts and behaviors (both American or from other nationalities) that ended up constructing one of the most insightful and controversial movements within the modern environmental discussion.

This seminar satisfies the World Cultures component of the Cardinal Core Curriculum and the Western Civ component of the Plattsburgh General Education program.

HON 399HA — Peer Mentoring

Dr. Tracie Church Guzzio
Weekly meeting times variable and TBA
3 credits

*By permission of the director only — at least sophomore status and in good standing in the Honors Program.

Students will read and respond to several essential studies on peer mentoring for first-year students. They will discuss the readings and findings with the instructor (who is also the Honors Program director). Students MUST be available to attend training sessions in the first week of classes with other peer mentors. And students MUST be able to meet regularly with their assigned first-year students. Additionally, students will be meeting weekly with the director and other mentors.

The intent of the independent study is to guide the student through their work with first-year students in the Honors Program. Analyzing the best practices and scholarship, as well investigating other Honors Program peer mentoring programs, will enable the student to most effectively facilitate the transition of the first-year students into the community and contribute to their success. Mentors’ experiences with first year students and their examination of the scholarship in the area will help develop and improve peer mentoring in the Honors Program. Students will regularly write reflection pieces on their experiences and what they have learned to aid their own growth as a mentor and in the assessment of the peer mentoring program.

Students will be graded on their reflective writing and a final project, as well as attendance at mentor meetings and individual meetings with their assigned first-year students.

Seminars

Fall Semester 2024

Seminar Descriptions