This course explores the cultural myths which have been foundational to the invention of basketball in America. From the myth of an “essence of the game” discovered by its Presbyterian inventor in 1891 to the NBA’s myth of “playing the […]
Walking can be the ultimate act of freedom. But walking while black, while trans, or without papers, for example, can often risk a violent loss of freedom. Historically, however, marginalized groups have used walking (i.e. the protest march) to fight […]
The nature of the human-animal relationship is complex, pervasive, and paradoxical. Over the course of human history, we have domesticated, exploited, and protected species — we love dogs, eat pigs, and despise rats. In dissecting this relationship, we will examine […]
From school uniforms to sagged pants to zoot suits to leggings and burka bans, this course explores the central question of to what degree any group or individual should dictate (either by policy or a subtler coercion) the dress of […]
This course considers why freedom is an enduring human desire and why that desire is complicated and problematic. Over the course of the semester, students examine why freedom is a problem, at once eliciting strong attachments and deep controversies. Students […]
This inquiry-based seminar examines enduring questions of argumentation and rhetoric in the history of U.S. women’s rights advocacy, with particular attention to questions of race and class. Topics include separate spheres ideology, the early suffrage and abolitionist movements, women’s initial […]
Course type: Community Based Learning. As a part of this course, students will actively serve with a nonprofit agency or school in the DC area to apply their course knowledge. This course examines the conversation on poverty in Washington, DC […]
This course will explore one enduring question: Why and how has hip-hop become equally a tool for revolution and capitalist expansion across the world? As hip-hop has attained the interest of corporate America, it has gone from being vilified by […]
The complexity of forming intimate relationships is an enduring topic of research, fascination and questioning throughout time. This course offers the unique opportunity for an intensive exploration of how the current state of navigating intimacy in emerging adults was shaped […]
This two-part course begins by exploring how we understand ‘the international’. Usually, we tend to think of the international as being defined by the line between the domestic and the foreign. However, this line is often moving, blurrier than we […]
Everyone wants to be happy, but what exactly is happiness and how is it attained? In our relativistic age, many people think that happiness is purely subjective and entirely relative to each individual. Moreover, our awareness that different cultures and […]
Grounded in a thorough examination of the various theories of society, such as social Darwinism, and designed around a comparative and multidisciplinary set of scholarly works, literary writings, and primary sources, this course explores the colonial, postcolonial, and imperial interactions […]
The course asks and attempts to answer & the question: How is critical understanding of Arab/Muslim social experiences changed when we put ideas about gender and sexuality at the forefront of the analysis? To illustrate structural forces that influence the […]
Prejudice is an attitude (usually negative) about members of another social group. The concept of prejudice has strong negative connotations such that most people do not freely admit to having such feelings and assume those who do are small-minded, evil, […]
One of the constants of forensic science is how frequently its applications become front-page news. Whether the story is sniper shootings or the tragic consequences of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, forensic science is at the forefront of the public’s […]
For many individuals, gender and sex mean the same thing. If you are born with male reproductive organs, you are a male and vice versa for females. For others, sex assignment and gender have a complex relationship. Students will be […]
How do we imagine the political structures, landscapes, challenges, and bodies of the future? This interdisciplinary course traces the visual, literary, and political implications of the way the future has been imagined through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Exciting and […]
This course examines how dominant understandings of LGBT identity came into being in the Western world at the turn of the twentieth century and alternative paradigms for sexual and gender difference that have been offered by racial minorities, transgender communities, […]
Establishing one’s identitie(s) is both real and invented. How one reads other’s projected identitie(s) in a multi-platform culture is complicated, not only by how people adorn themselves, but by our media choices. From avatars on social media (Instagram, YouTube, Tinder) […]