Seminars listed under ASC 1137 have letter grades; those listed under ASC 1138 are graded satisfactory/unsatisfactory.

Seminars meet for the full semester unless otherwise noted.

Letter Graded A-E

The Second Sex in the Third Reich: Women in Nazi Germany

Professor Birgitte Søland

Most research on Nazi Germany and World War II focuses on men and male experiences. In contrast, this course focuses on the lives and experiences of German women during the Nazi Era (1933-1945). Based on historical evidence we will seek to find answers to a variety of questions: How did the Nazi Party understand women? What roles were women supposed to play in Nazi Germany? Why did some women support the Nazis? How did Nazi policies impact the lives of women from different backgrounds, including Jewish women? How did World War II impact German women? And, finally, did gender play a role in the Holocaust? If so, how?

The Dirty Politics of Education

Professor Vladimir Kogan

Education is arguably the most vital of all public services. Every year, the American government spends nearly $1 trillion on K-12 education, and the quality of schools affects our economic competitiveness, public safety, and democracy. But education controversies also have other profound (if underappreciated) impacts on politics. For example, Abraham Lincoln would not have been elected president were not for high-profile battles over private school vouchers. (The front runner for the 1860 Republican ticket was William Seward, but his nomination was vetoed by the anti-immigrant wing of the then-new Republican Party due to his prior support for sending public dollars to private Catholic schools while serving as governor of New York. This handed the nomination to Lincoln.)

Education stirs up our political passions precisely because it primarily affects children, because public schools are meant to represent and reflect our values as a society, and curriculum may present an attractive tool to mold the perspectives and future preferences of young people. Unfortunately, that means that classrooms often become the venue for hashing out our most contentious and divisive political conflicts--often at the expense of students. Schools exist to educate children--but only adults get to vote in elections through which our schools are governed. In this course, we'll see how this political dynamic impacts almost every aspect of our education system, often for the worse.

All students will receive a complimentary copy of Prof. Kogan's new book, No Adult Left Behind: How Politics Hijacks Education Policy and Hurts Kids (Cambridge University Press), upon the completion of the course.

Racism, Social Justice, and Higher Education in HBCUs and PWIs

Professor Judson Jeffries and Professor Joy McCorriston

“Why Are You Here?”

“What will you take from your college experience?”

“Does the university fit the social order, or does it construct one?”

This course will feature prominently the history of universities and colleges in cultural contexts. Together in faculty-led discussions, we will learn about the ways in which higher education both promotes and undermines democracy in the US.Building on a foundational understanding of the value of an education, we will explore the future of higher education and its merits in its global context. Not only will we discuss those US universities considered the most prestigious such as
Harvard, Yale, University of Chicago, but we will also study Historically Black Colleges and Universities, e.g., HowardUniversity, Fisk University, Tuskegee University.

Life Hacks through (Psy) Pod Casts

Professor Lisa Cravens-Brown

Psychology research has so much to offer us all, but reading research can be difficult and feel like a chore. New college students already have enough difficult reading to work through, but there are still valuable things that psychology has to offer the entering freshman. Enter podcasts! Employing this useful popular media resource, we will explore a few of the important life lessons psychology has to offer new students. I have curated a list of research-based popular media sources through which we will explore a number of "life hacks" and their implications for students' lives as scholars and in their personal lives.

Music and Social Justice

Dr. Shaun Russell 

In modern history, popular music has traditionally been a form of entertainment, often enjoyed and appreciated passively without requiring serious engagement on the part of the listener. Yet during periods of social upheaval and unrest, some songs have put their finger on the pulse of large-scale societal issues, elevating the passive listening experience to a call to action, with listeners being urged to help right certain wrongs. In this course, we will be exploring a wide range of songs that have engaged with many of the issues our country (among others) has grappled with over the past century or so, including, but not limited to: civil rights, race relations, war, famine, poverty, immigration, sexuality, and inequality. While I will choose many songs for discussion according to weekly themes, each student will also bring in one song and present on how it is meaningful in its intended context. Note that no pre-existing musical knowledge is necessary for this course—only a general awareness of popular music, and an appreciation for how music can help
to aid social change.

Fantasy Worldbuilding in Television

Professor David Brewer

This course will investigate how fantastic worldbuilding operates in television series, using the first two seasons of Game of Thrones as a case study. The issues we?ll consider will include: how the audiovisual resources of television can be used to create a world other than our own; how the pace and segmentation of a serial shapes viewers? growing knowledge of and engagement with that world; how a television series based upon an earlier series of novels can work for viewers both with and without the prior knowledge that would come from having read those novels; and how the inclusion of kinds of content that would be unable to be broadcast or shown on basic cable contributes to viewers? sense of the world being created. In so doing, we'll have two overarching goals: understanding how worldbuilding works in fantasy (i.e., when a story can't take the existing world as a given) and how it works in television, which has resources different from those available to a novelist or comics creator, but which also unfolds on a different time scale than film or video games. With all of these questions and goals, we will be continually toggling between the perspectives of ordinary viewers and those of professional scholars of worldbuilding in narrative.

Leadership and Power: Lessons from Kafka

Professor Christa Johnson 

Whether it is a coach or a president, a band director or a CEO, much of our lives are shaped by leaders. Sometimes that leadership brings us together and pushes us to be better. Sometimes that leadership creates a toxic environment of power struggle and manipulation. How do we make sure that we put the former kind of leader in charge and not the latter? Is there a particular model of leadership more likely to lead to one result or the other? How can we make sure we become effective and ethical leaders ourselves? This is a course in the study of Leadership. While we will discuss leaders, both good and bad, past and present, many of the lessons we will learn about leadership will be gleaned from fiction. In particular, we will explore models of leadership and power through the short stories of Franz Kafka.

Don't worry, you do not need any familiarity with Kafka's work! We will explore these stories and lessons together. As we will see, Kafka often will provide us with cautionary tales of leadership, many of which have come to pass since his writings. In applying these lessons, we will become better able to assess leadership with a critical eye and develop into ethical leaders ourselves.

What Happens in Small Groups?

Professor David Melamed

This course focuses on the Group Processes tradition within sociology. This tradition explains individual reactions to group processes and collective outcomes. We will discuss theories of human behavior and explanations for emergent outcomes in small groups, including theories and research on status, power, collective action, emotions, and justice evaluations. Applications of these theories will focus on traditional sociological dimensions of stratification, including race, gender and class (e.g., how do status theories explain gender stratification, for example). Because we will focus on small groups, many of the ideas will be illustrated with small classroom exercises. By the end of the course, you will have a mechanistic understanding of many processes that occur in small group settings, such as organizational committees or other work groups. Additionally, the skills you learn will allow you to be more critical consumers of social science research.

Theory of Science and Learning

Professor Damien Wilburn and Professor Matthew Wu

Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, underpins how humans make new insights about our world, making it central to both science and education. Theory of Science and Learning offers ten classroom discussions (D1 – D10) that will facilitate an appreciation of the theory of knowledge, logical reasoning that led to paradigm shifts, different type of scientific research strategies, constructivism, the conceptual change model, metacognition, and the nature of knowledge in the era of AI. The course includes opportunities for students to develop oral and written communication skills that advance academic success through and beyond their degree program.

Ancient Egypt Goes to Hollywood

Dr. Sarah Shellinger

This seminar explores how film and television have imagined “Ancient Egypt” from early Hollywood epics to contemporary streaming series. Students will read articles and watch clips from movies and TV shows in class in order to analyze how these representations construct ideas about race, gender, power, archaeology, and “civilization,” and how they reflect the cultural anxieties and fantasies of the societies that produced them. No prior knowledge of ancient Egypt or film studies is required.

THE VAMPIRE: Bodies, Belonging, and Identity

Professor Kym McDaniel

This First-Year Seminar explores the vampire as a cultural symbol across film and literature. How do vampire stories reflect ideas about the body, disease, power, and identity? Students will be introduced to introductory disability studies terminology then reflect how vampire stories reflect cultural anxieties about bodies that are different, dependent, or deviate outside socially constructed definitions of “normal”. You do not need to like or watch horror films or gothic fiction to enroll in this seminar! Only a curiosity and willingness to watch, read, and consider why society created the vampire story. No prior knowledge of (or experience with) vampires required!

Cultural Architecture of Human Consciousness

Dr. Eric Johnson

To what degree are your inner thoughts truly your own? How do diverse cultural practices provide different toolkits for problem-solving? In this seminar, we will challenge the traditional view of the brain as an isolated processor and will instead investigate the influential Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s radical proposition that human consciousness is intrinsically mediated by the tools, symbols, and social interactions of our specific cultural history. We will start by challenging the distinction between the individual and society. We will explore how language isn't just a means to express thoughts, but a psychological tool that actually restructures them. From the foundational Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) to the complex systems of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), we will examine how learning is an inherently collaborative endeavor, as opposed to the individual one that it is often perceived to be. By the end of this seminar, you will be capable of identifying the hidden cultural architecture that drives every human thought and action.

A Study of Sin: Moral Psychology

Dr. Steven Bengal

A runaway trolley is steaming towards five incapacitated people on the tracks, but with the flip of a switch, you can divert it off of this track! However, it will be diverted into a second track, where another person lays incapacitated. Modern moral conundrums, like the trolley problem, are the center of a debate about what people SHOULD do: is it morally correct to pull the switch, or not? But how people SHOULD make moral decisions, and how they actually DO, are often quite different. This class is an exploration of contemporary moral psychology: the science of how people come to their moral decisions. It will consist of reading and discussion on psychology research into guilt, moral dumbfounding, taboo, emotion, psychopathy and more. Of what makes a saint, and a sinner, and everything between.

Baseball Economics

Dr. Ryan Ruddy

The popular conception of economists is that we use models to describe monetary transactions. While monetary transactions are still the bread and butter of economics, many economists have applied economics to unique fields including dating, crime, and even baseball. Why baseball? The industry has a clear structure. On field decisions are made under a known set of rules. Baseball players are employees whose productivity data has been published for every game played in over 100 years. Their salaries are publicly available and negotiations are often public. We will discuss topics from why more batters get hit by pitches in the National league to the beginnings of the Moneyball revolution.

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Graded S/U

Feminist Fairy Tales

Professor Jennifer Higginbotham

Before Disney transformed fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White into feel-good movies, they had a darker past as oral stories passed down through generations, a past that contemporary feminist writers like Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, and Kelly Link have tapped into to reimagine gender in today’s world. In this class, we’ll explore why stories that seemingly reinforce patriarchal values have proven such a popular and valuable resource for women writers and artists.

Financing Your Future

Professor Doug Alsdorf 

After you graduate and enter the working world, you will have many financial questions. How much are my taxes? Is an advanced degree a good idea? Am I investing enough money? What are the risks of investing? Should I pay off my student loans early? Should I buy a home or rent? And so on. While all of these questions are practical, they are real life tests of your thinking skills. Learning how to thoughtfully address problems is a hallmark of a college education. Because your personal finance has a measurable balance, e.g., the amount of money in your account, you can assess the decisions that you will make.

The School to Prison Pipeline 

Professor Mary Thomas 

The surveillance of youth and the policing of their behaviors pervades the US education system so systematically that the phrase “school to prison pipeline” reflects its ubiquity. This course examines the causes and practices of the pipeline.  We will consider how the pipeline is gendered, sexualized, and racialized, and how it affects young children and teens alike. We will also pay attention to the racial disproportionality of the pipeline, the ways that youth sexuality has been criminalized (especially for girls and gender non-conforming youth), the relationship between bullying and violence and the pipeline, and alternatives to incarceration and criminalization for youth behavioral issues.  While the US has seen a drop in the number of youth incarcerated in recent years, the course considers whom this drop prioritizes and the challenges in undoing the prison nation’s impact on gender non-conforming girls, youth of color, and LGBTQ youth. Finally, we will explore the concept of abolition and alternatives to punitive approaches.

The Linguistics of the Lord of the Rings

Dr. Julia Papke

This course will be a weekly discussion group focused on the linguistic aspects of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Each week we will read a chapter of the book, and then we’ll talk about issues of linguistic interest in the chapter. We will highlight linguistic structures and principles reflected in Tolkien’s created languages: Elvish (or more properly, Quenya and Sindarin), Orkish and the Black Speech, and Dwarvish. We will also discuss Tolkien’s use of English and Old English in the text and the complex etymologies of names.

Maps that Shaped the World

Professor Ningchuan Xiao

Maps are everywhere in today’s world. Yet for more than two thousand years prior to the late sixteenth century, mapmakers in the West and East seemed to live in two parallel universes. At a casual glance, their works could not have been more different, reflecting divergent philosophical, religious, methodologies, and practical perspectives. How did people in these two “universes” understand their world? And how did the convergence of mapmaking practices after the Age of Discovery impact the way we, as individuals and as societies, perceive the world?

Making Matters 

Alexandra Suer

In this course, we will engage in the art of creativity, design and "making" as a way to process emotions, encapsulate memories, practice mindfulness, promote self-expression and exercise reflection. We will explore “making” through a multitude of mediums and activities involving painting, drawing, writing, collaging, photography + digital art, sculpture and mixed media. Learning how to leverage the arts as an outlet can lead to self-soothing, help you to overcome obstacles, and be the mental outlet needed to find balance during your academic career and beyond. Making Matters!

What Leads to Success in STEM Courses?

Professor Ted Clark

Students often receive advice about how to study and how to succeed in STEM courses, yet the research behind these recommendations is rarely communicated. This seminar explores what scientific research tells us about how students learn complex ideas in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Through discussion of studies from cognitive science and science education research, students will examine topics such as beliefs about knowledge, metacognition, conceptual and algorithmic learning, assessment design, and the role of course structure in shaping learning. The seminar will also consider the emerging role of artificial intelligence as a learning tool. Throughout the course, students will reflect on how insights from research may inform their own approaches to learning in STEM courses.

Origins of Democracy: The Game

Professor Tom Hawkins

Roleplay critical debates that shaped ancient Athenian democracy and continue to resonate today.
Travel back in time to ancient Greece, where the foundations of democracy were laid, and join in a role-playing adventure built around key debates that would determine the future of democracy. As we work through this experience together, we will have three primary aims:
-To become better informed citizens capable of analyzing, critiquing, and participating in political debates that are shaping our shared future. -To understand democracy as a flexible principle by studying a democratic system vastly different from the norms of the modern US. -To study the earliest history of democracy in ancient Greece
No familiarity with ancient Greek history or role-playing games necessary. We will learn everything we need along the way!

The First-Generation College Student Experience

Professor Vincent Roscigno

This seminar offers first-year students a sociological lens for understanding possibilities and challenges surrounding educational mobility, vulnerability, and resilience among first-generation college students and their implications for full institutional inclusion and opportunity. We will first focus on stratification dynamics that generally undercut the likelihood of first-generation students going to college in the first place. Secondly, we will spend time discussing what happens generally when first generation students actually make it to college, their experiences of both success and vulnerability, their academic performance and choices when it comes to college majors, their relative levels of integration on campus, and unique stressors when it comes to: sense of belonging, working jobs for pay while enrolled, student debt, and connections to peers and faculty. The relatively brief assigned readings are 1 College of Arts & Sciences Department of Sociology drawn from digestible book chapters and journal articles in the field, some of which are qualitative and some of which are quantitative.

Know Your Recreational Drugs

Professor Gopi Tejwani

Have you ever seen anyone using a drug such as marijuana, cocaine, or amphetamines? One of every three Americans has used these drugs. In addition, millions of Americans presently abuse legal drugs such as alcohol, tobacco/nicotine, and narcotics. Every day more than, 115 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids (more than 800 a week), thanks to over-prescription of painkillers and use of cheaper forms of heroin and synthetic opioids. More than 841,000 people in the USA died from a drug overdose between 1999 and 2019 according to the CDC, 70% of them due to opioid overdose. In 2020 at least 5,215 Ohioans and 93,331 people died in the USA from unintentional drug overdoses; a 29.4% increase from the previous year. Many people who become hooked on prescription opioids go on to use heroin, or worse illicit fentanyl, which is many times potent. Fentanyl overdose, which can occur almost instantaneously when the drug is taken, is the main reason for rising deaths in America. According to CDC data, fentanyl was involved in more than 60% of overdose deaths in the USA in 2020. The total economic burden in 2017 with opioid abuse alone was about 80 billion dollars alone healthcare costs, lost productivity and legal costs.

Do you know how these drugs change your physiology, mind, and behavior?