Are You Your Data? Machine Learning and Ethics
Thomas, Matt

ICSM 10500 - 49
CRN: 22015
ICSM: Are You Your Data
MWF 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Machine learning has become present in many aspects of our lives - both digital and in the real-world. Despite this, machine learning remains a black box to most people. In this course, we’ll discuss what machine learning is, how it is being used in the world, the ethical implications of these uses, and you’ll be able to build your own machine learning models to see these ideas in action.

Biochemistry of Bread
Ellis, Jamie

ICSM 10500 - 28
CRN: 22007
ICSM: Biochemistry of Bread
TR 8:00 AM - 9:15 PM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Bread is a simple staple with a significant role in daily life as well as secular and religious traditions from western Asia through Europe. In moving from a chalky and bland grain to the flavorful variety of foods, we are making a phenomenal leap in transformations requiring water, heat, and physical manipulation. This course will explore the biological molecules and chemical transformations behind methods that are hundreds of generations old. We will explore kitchen techniques and put family recipes through the scientific method. Readings will combine textbook excerpts as well as news articles. Though not a cooking class, in-class exercises and homework will include many hands-on and a few edible experiences.

Collage, Drawing and Mixed Media
Drix, Pamela

ICSM 10500 - 1
CRN: 22784
ICSM: Collage,Drawing,Digital
MW 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

How does art transform experience and inspire emotional responses? In this course we will come to understand the many ways that art-making can be transformative. Students will explore ways of making from analog to digital, including drawing, collage and digital montage. Students will draw from observation, draw as a way to respond to real world experience and as a way to slow down and appreciate what we so often take for granted. Using collage techniques, students will create new hybrid entities and surreal images by combining bits and pieces of found objects. The digital project will utilize Photoshop to manipulate photographed images, and the final project will combine all three processes. In addition, students will research how contemporary artists use these methods, and present their research to the group. Get ready to experience the power of creative making.

Contemporary European Cinema: National and Transnational Perspectives
Utterson, Andrew

ICSM 10500 - 4
CRN: 22180
ICSM: Cont. European Cinema
MW 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM, W 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

This course will explore contemporary European films and filmmakers, with a particular emphasis on national and transnational perspectives, with a view to considering but also complicating notions of nationhood and national cinemas. It will explore questions of cultural identity and the political and other systems that define today’s Europe, a collective union (geographical, political, economic, etc.) of diverse nations. Films and filmmakers will be considered in national, transnational, and other contexts, mapping the cultural and other boundaries of an evolving Europe and related conceptions of European, Europeanness, and in turn European cinema.

Corruption and BILLIONS
Shevory, Thomas

ICSM 10500 - 7
CRN: 22787
ICSM: Corruption and BILLIONS
TR 1:10 PM - 2:25 PM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

ICSM 10500 - 35
CRN: 22325
ICSM: Corruption and BILLIONS
TR 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

The course will be organized around the television series BILLIONS which tracks that conflict between New York’s Second District U.S. Attorney’s office and a Wall Street firm suspected of insider trading. Course materials will investigate the intersections of law and politics, Wall Street regulation, and broader issues of economic policy.

Cultural Collaboration
McCartney, Johnine

ICSM 10500 - 9
CRN: 21556
ICSM: Cultural Collaboration
TR 1:10 PM - 2:25 PM, W 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

ICSM 10500 - 10
CRN: 21557
ICSM: Cultural Collaboration
TR 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM, W 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

This introductory course explores the development of, and influence of culture on our individual values and lifestyles, and more broadly how culture impacts social collaboration. We engage culture through the notion of two perspectives: how it has shaped who we are as people and how cultural intelligence can facilitate collaboration. The course will present a global cultures framework, and include a brief exploration of the influence of digital media on globalization and sub-cultures in the 21st Century.

Dilemmas of the Future
Duncan, Craig

ICSM 10500 - 16
CRN: 21709
ICSM: Dilemmas of the Future
TR 1:10 PM - 2:25 PM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Technology advances at a dizzying pace. In doing so, it creates new opportunities and benefits, but it also creates new dilemmas. Possible advances on the horizon include super intelligent machines, conscious robots, designer babies, nanoweapons, new surveillance techniques, and “deepfake” technology. This course will examine some of the ethical challenges that these forms of technology will likely create for us (both in the near and distant future) in terms of safety, social trust, privacy, fairness and equality, and human relationships. Our goals will be to envision a future in which technology enhances the quality of our lives rather than threatens it, and also to explore what steps we can prudently take here and now in an effort to bring about this future.

Disaster, Dystopia, and the End of the World
Richardson, Michael

ICSM 10500 - 42
CRN: 21563
ICSM: Disasters and Dystopias
MWF 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Warnings about, and representations of, the apocalypse or the downfall of civiliation have persisted throughout modern history. These have been particularly prevalent since the advent of the 20th century. This course will focus on literary and visual representations of the future and near future, in which modern civilization is on the brink of collapse, either due to external forces (alien invasion, catalcysmic events) or global societal factors (nuclear annihilation, ecological disasters, totalitarian governments). We will examine these representations in light of: how they function as allegories for social, political, and economic crises that mark the historical context in which they appear; how they articulate general notions of human identity and consciousness; and how they deal with various forces that shape our existence in the 20th and 21st centuries, such as technology, violence, the environment, and anxiety towards death and disease.

Fairy Tales: The Hero's Journey
Machan, Katharyn Howd

ICSM 10500 - 13
CRN: 21558
ICSM: Fairy Tales
MWF 9:00 AM - 9:50 AM, W 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

ICSM 10500 - 14
CRN: 21559
ICSM: Fairy Tales
MWF 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Fairy tales are the maps of our psyches, the mirrors of our longings and fears. In them we find the questions and answers we need to continue the shaping of our own lives, through darkness and light, shadow and brilliant image. Our oldest fairy tales, from the oral culture, have been polished to the bone; they gleam with an intensity of truth free of specific history. Newer tales, too, their authors known and celebrated, reach to the place of magic and dream, and give us guides in delight and knowledge. This course will focus on the study of classic and contemporary fairy tales, with an emphasis on themes of self-discovery and transition/transformation. Readings will be drawn from the tales themselves, essays about them, and contemporary re-workings of them in fiction and poetry.

Feasts, Famines, and Food Taboos: Cultural and Environmental Perspectives on Foodways
Turkon, Paula

ICSM 10500 - 41
CRN: 22017
ICSM: Food: Feast/Famine/Taboo
MWF 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

ICSM 10500 - 43
CRN: 22016
ICSM: Food: Feast/Famine/Taboo
MWF 9:00 AM - 9:50 AM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Though food is a biological necessity for human survival, what, how, where, when, and who consumes it is inextricably linked to cultural traditions and environmental factors. This seminar explores the variability of food consumption behavior using both anthropological and environmental lenses in order to understand how foodways can be both reflections of social and environmental contexts, as well as tools used to manipulate them. Students will examine foodways from a variety of past and present cultures, and consider the meaning of their own consumption habits.

Fight the Power: Black (Super)Heroes and Meta-Humans In Film & On TV
Horsley, Nicole

ICSM 10500 - 34
CRN: 22182
ICSM: Black (Super)Heroes
MWF 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

“Why can we imagine the ending of the world, yet not the ending of colonialism?” --An ancestor. “Dear colonizer, your future is over” --An ancestor. What does it mean to be considered by the nation-state as less than human? As an ontological zero? Who has the power and privilege to be human? And who gets to be a superhero? When will Black subjects transcend concepts of nothingness? Fight the Power: Black (Super)Heroes and Meta-Humans In Film & On TV centers tropes of racialized heroes, super and meta-humans. This course is a mediation on afro-futurism and racial formations to interrogate how race, specifically the constructions of blackness inform non-white characterizations of superheroes and meta-humans. We will consider the laboring Black body foregrounded in the agency of pain and constant injury of anti-blackness. The creation of non-white superheroes and meta-humans as both embodiment and (dis)placement of past, present, and future legacies of race and racism. Films such as Cleopatra Jones (1973), Dolemite (1975), Black Panther (2018), to the most recent Netflix series: Black Lightning (2018), Luke Cage (2016) based on past comic characters demonstrate African diaspora cultural productions that disrupt our essential ideas of race, gender, and, ultimately, the human. These subjects defend and protect Black dystopian communities and futures. Engaging in imaginative practices of world-making, which acknowledges the violent imposition of colonialism, racism, gender and social inequalities.

From Cortaca to Fenway: Understanding Sports Fans
Farrell, Annemarie

ICSM 10500 - 29
CRN: 22559
ICSM: Understanding Sport Fans
MWF 3:00 PM - 3:50 PM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

ICSM 10500 - 32
CRN: 22010
ICSM: Understanding Sport Fans
MWF 2:00 PM - 2:50 PM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

This course will delve into social, psychological, historical, economic and cultural perspectives of the creation, manifestation and impact of our loyalty to sport teams and athletes. Are we really born Red Sox fans? Why do Duke basketball fans despise UNC? Why are we in such a bad mood Monday morning after our team fumbles away another game? Are sport fans lazy? Are sport fans dangerous? Are fantasy sports ruining our interpersonal relationships? The focus of this class will explore the role that spectator sports serve in our lives, our communities, our economies, and in the formation of our identity, both individual and collective. Particular emphasis will be placed on comparative analyses of sport fans in America and throughout the world.

Global Pop Art
Wilson, Paul

ICSM 10500 - 39
CRN: 22008
ICSM: Global Pop Art
MWF 1:00 PM - 1:50 PM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

In 1987 the artist Barbara Kruger printed shopping bags emblazoned with the statement “I Shop Therefore I Am.” Her ironic reformulation of Rene Descartes’ famous 1637 philosophical declaration “I think therefore I am” neatly sums up the way we are encouraged to express our identities through what we buy. Beginning with the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, this course will explore how artworks reflect, critique, and shape consumer cultures in different parts of the world.

Hamilton!
Johnson, Timothy

ICSM 10500 - 11
CRN: 21707
ICSM: Hamilton!
MWF 3:00 PM - 3:50 PM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

This course closely examines Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical. We will study musical, historical, political, social, cultural, and economic aspects of the musical. Through an in-depth song-by-song analysis, the course examines the music and its lyrics musically, in broader contexts, and from a variety of perspectives.

History, Family, Self, and Memory
Ablard, Jonathan

ICSM 10500 - 52
CRN: 23338
ICSM: History and Family
TR 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM, W 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

This course will guide students towards an understanding of the relationship of history to their own communities, families and to themselves as individuals. In the first half of the semester, we will read exemplary texts by writers from around the world who have grappled with placing themselves, their families and communities into a wider historical context. At the same time, we will train the students to conduct historical research using Ancestry websites, newspapers, as well as historical scholarship. The final project will be a text that connects self, family or community to a wider historical narrative. Students may elect to present their final projects in many different formats, including plays, films, traditional papers, autobiographical narratives, websites, etc.

Implicit Religion: World-Building, Fandom, and Virtual Reality
Wagner, Rachel

ICSM 10500 - 20
CRN: 22794
ICSM: Implicit Religion
MWF 1:00 PM - 1:50 PM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

This course is an introduction to what scholars call “implicit religion,” that is, things that work like religion while not being explicitly affiliated with traditional religious practice. Religion is often defined according to its identity-forming, community-shaping, values-molding, and world-building qualities. This course looks especially at the world-building component of implicit religion, considering elements of popular culture that construct “worlds” in which people invest their energy and devotion. We will look at a host of interrelated modes of cultural analysis, ranging from the consideration of material culture (things like props, ritual objects, costumes, and theme parks) to more ephemeral modes of world building (digital worlds, screened fandoms, virtual reality, and storytelling). Scholars have long been engaged in the consideration of how religious traditions conceptualize place beyond our own world; implicit religion suggests that even presumably secular modes of devotion manifest elements of quasi-religious practice, offering for fans the promise of a sense of belonging and purpose.

Love, Grievance, and Dream: Traditional Chinese Stories in Historical Contexts
Lin, Zoe Shan

ICSM 10500 - 19
CRN: 22793
ICSM: Chinese Stories
MWF 3:00 PM - 3:50 PM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

The course will introduce students to basic themes of traditional Chinese stories from the First Century to the late eighteenth century. We will read and analyze selections of stories about men and women of various social status and occupational groups. Through lectures and class discussions, students will not only get to understand aspects of Chinese culture and values from the stories but also practice interpreting stories in their historical contexts and using stories as primary sources for make historical arguments.

Love, Science, and Magic in the Middle Ages
Abbiati, Silvia

ICSM 10500 - 6
CRN: 22786
ICSM: Love, Science, and Magic
TR 10:50 AM - 12:05 PM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

ICSM 10500 - 48
CRN: 21712
ICSM: Love, Science, and Magic
TR 9:25 AM - 10:40 AM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Medieval writers attempted to define love by drawing on knowledge from all spheres, including science and magic. In this course we will read works that reflect medieval views on such topics as love, desire, cosmology, astronomy, and the relationship between medicine and magic, including the magical properties of crystals. We will also look at some modern comedic portrayals of the middle ages, and compare them to what we have learned in class.

Park Communication: Interpreting and Navigating our Nation's Natural and Cultural Resources
Kissiloff, Ari

ICSM 10500 - 46
CRN: 21566
ICSM: Park Communication
MWF 10:00 AM - 10:50 AM, W 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

The National Park Service encompasses 419 units across all 50 states and several US territories. They include recreational parks, museums, historical sites, protected lands; and celebrate the cultural, historical, and natural resources and their connections to U.S. history. Common to all of these are systematic signage, maps, graphic information systems, standards of video, and other multimedia presentations, as well as systems for interpretation of the resources either in the field or in a visitor center or other structures. This course will explore the history, present and future of communication & interpretation in the parks.

Phenomenology of Art
Patrone, Tatiana

ICSM 10500 - 33
CRN: 21711
ICSM: Phenomenology of Art
MWF 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

In what way do we experience works of art? What does it mean to perceive something as beautiful? Are our judgments of art-works based on taste alone, or do they have cognitive content? This course will acquaint you with some of the central concepts and issues in aesthetics – the branch of philosophy dedicated to the notion of the ‘beautiful’. We will put special emphasis on aesthetic experience from our first-person point of view: our aim will be to describe and analyze our experiences and use what we learn from this in our arguments concerning the nature, the features, and the value of various works of art.

The Right Brain Revolution
Cremata, Radio

ICSM 10500 - 40
CRN: 21568
ICSM: Right Brain Revolution
TR 9:25 AM - 10:40 AM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

This course explores current trends and emerging research in aesthetics, sociology, economics and neuroscience as it relates to the marketability and success of 21st century citizens in a new economy driven by creativity and innovation. Students will explore cognitive possibilities that help shape perspective regarding their future in the workplace. The era of left brain directed thinking that once dominated schooling and the workplace in the agricultural, industrial and information ages is becoming obsolete. The future needs right brainers with new skills/talents for a conceptual age centered on ingenuity, creativity and empathy. With a focus on right brain thinking, this course is designed to help students discover more about themselves and their creative potential.

The Science of Fiction: Evolution, Cognitive Science, and Stories
Wang, Jack

ICSM 10500 - 50
CRN: 23167
ICSM: The Science of Fiction
TR 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

ICSM 10500 - 51
CRN: 23169
ICSM: The Science of Fiction
TR 5:25 PM - 6:40 PM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Why are human beings the “storytelling animal”? How are we evolutionarily adapted to producing and consuming stories? What can brain science tell us about our passion for narrative, and what do narratives tell us about how the brain works? Through an exploration of neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and other fields, especially as they apply to literature, television, and film, this course will explore fundamental questions about why we love stories.

Stories for a Change: How Your Stories Can Change the World
Swords, Alicia

ICSM 10500 - 27
CRN: 23170
ICSM: Stories for a Change
TR 1:10 PM - 2:25 PM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Stories make us who we are. Some stories are so powerful that telling them (or not telling them) can change how people treat each other. This course asks how people use stories to change the world. To answer this question, you will analyze mainstream and alternative narratives that shape our society and learn techniques for telling your own stories in written and oral form. You will practice gathering stories through interview techniques and media analysis. You will examine and reflect on how stories shape public opinion and government policies, from the marketing of cars and toothpaste to testimonies of human rights violations.

[THIS TITLE HAS BEEN CENSORED]: Language and Hatred in a Postracial World
Adams, Derek

ICSM 10500 - 8
CRN: 22788
ICSM: Postracial World
TR 1:10 PM - 2:25 PM, W 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

This course offers a direct challenge to the popular public sentiment that we live in a post-racial society and that systematic structures of power and privilege have ceased to exist in our world. In this class, we will explore the persistent operation of systematic discrimination in the 21st century through a collection of materials – i.e. short stories, magazine covers, film, advertisements, critical essays, and websites. Our study begins from the position that certain code words and social practices have transformed overt types of discrimination into more subtle and deceiving forms of bigotry. Words like “nigger,” “bitch,” and “fag” may have fallen out of fashion, but their essence lives on in our daily interactions. We will devote a significant amount of time to assessing how our social interactions are influenced by the legacy. The nature of the material we will cover in this course is likely to cause you cognitive dissonance. This is intentional. Talking about issues of race, gender, and sexuality is rarely conducive to positive feelings. Too, the course requires your personal investment in its development, including sharing and discussing your own race, gender, and sexual orientation with your classmates. I will establish our classroom as a safe space for the respectful reception of your individual life experiences, but there will inevitably be moments when the ideas you express will challenge belief structures that your classmates invest in, and vice versa.

What is Latin America?: Questions, Perspectives, Ideas
Malagon, Camilo

ICSM 10500 - 18
CRN: 22792
ICSM: Latin America
MWF 1:00 PM - 1:50 PM, M 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Half a billion people, over 30 countries and hundreds of different languages and cultures (though only a handful “official languages” in the countries themselves), Latin America is a diverse space of identities, histories and cultures. This course will provide students with an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the region, exposing students to ways of thinking about Latin America from historical, sociological, anthropological, geographical, economic and cultural points of view. We will explore Latin America thematically, while at the same time engaging with different historical periods and sub-regions. Students will gain an introductory understanding of Latin America at the same time that they will gain some insight into the ways that different disciplines ask questions, provide perspectives and create knowledge about the region. This course will emphasize a global perspective, connecting Latin America to the world, and will look at the influence of United States and other global actors in the history of the region.

Why Your Roommate's Favorite Band Sucks: An Introduction to Musical Aesthetics
Serebryany, Vadim

ICSM 10500 - 36
CRN: 22323
ICSM: Musical Aesthetics
TR 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM, W 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

In this course, students will be introduced to a variety of writings and ideas about aesthetics, generally, and musical aesthetics in particular. After engaging with each author, students will apply the aesthetic principles to specific pieces of music, drawn from various musical canons - including commercial and “classical” music, as well as non-Western musics - with the goal of engaging with those musical “texts” more deeply and starting to develop their own thoughtful aesthetics of music.

Yoga: Making Connections
Steinschneider, Eric

ICSM 10500 - 44
CRN: 22184
ICSM: Yoga
MWF 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM, F 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

Yoga is arguably the most successful cultural export India ever produced. Millions of people around the world practice yoga in their homes or studios, or else pay to go on expensive yoga retreats in exotic locations. Yet where does yoga come from? How are the secularized postures and breathing techniques with which yoga is currently associated related to the forms of yoga found in ancient and medieval South Asia? This course examines the history and practice of yoga as it has developed over the course of roughly two thousand years, paying special attention to its transformation in contemporary western society.