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 Dirty Politics of Education
Professor Vladimir Kogan
ARTSSCI 1137.01
Mondays, 12:00 p.m. to 12:55 p.m.
Class #25531
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.
Music and Social Justice
Dr. Shaun Russell
ARTSSCI 1137.02
Mondays, 11:30 a.m. to 12:25 p.m.
Class #28737
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
ARTSSCI 1137.03
Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:50 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. (7-Week Session 2)
Class #37768
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.
College in Popular Culture
Professor Amrutha Kunapulli
ARTSSCI 1137.04
Thursdays, 12:50 p.m. to 2:40 p.m. (7-week session 1)
Class #37764
In this course, we will watch moving image texts (movies, shorts, television/streaming series) that explore
the college experience from a number of perspectives. We will study how cinema and other moving
image media forms have been used to represent their zeitgeist and learn the various ways media studies
approaches the study of these texts. At the same time, through the diverse array of texts, the class
discussions will explore the college experience from various cultures, and put them in conversation with
the current experience of you and your peers. This is a discussion-based class and will introduce you to
the seminar style classroom expectations and course structure.
Leadership and Power: Lessons from Kafka
Professor Christa Johnson
ARTSSCI 1137.05
Wednesdays, 10:20 a.m. to 11:15 p.m.
Class #27511
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
ARTSSCI 1137.06
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:10 a.m. to 10:05 a.m. (7-week Session 2)
Class# 37832
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.
Music Everywhere! Thinking About Ethnomusicology
Professor Abigail Lindo
ARTSSCI 1137.07
Mondays, 3:00 p.m. to 3:55 p.m.
Class #26064
How do we understand music as an aspect of culture? How do you understand your own musical listening and participation? This course will introduce students to ethnomusicology, the study of music as a social reality in cultural contexts. Throughout the course, we will learn about the field of ethnomusicology, the study of musical cultures in other countries, and how these explorations tie into other areas of research (folklore, politics, gender, geography, linguistics, power, etc.). Music's meanings, cultural functions, and the comparative nature of the research will be central to our discussions, which will also contextualize the field of musicology and sound studies. Two small creative assignments will allow students to act as ethnographers, researchers who study people to understand their cultural beliefs and customs. We will explore case studies, existing ethnographic studies and media, to understand the musicality of individuals and cultures globally.
Life Hacks through (Psy) Pod Casts
Professor Lisa Cravens-Brown
ARTSSCI 1137.08
Wednesdays, 9:10 a.m. to 10:05 a.m.
Class #27635
Life Hacks through (Psy) Pod Casts
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.
"Headless Body in Topless Bar": Researching Tabloid Journalism
Professor Gerry Greenberg
ARTSSCI 1137.09
Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 12:25 p.m.
Class #26055
How do you view the tabloids? Guilty pleasure? Car wreck journalism? Slander and defamation? Why do National Enquirer stories end up in the New York Times? If it's trash, why do so many people care? This course will address these issues and more. Academically, the tabloids have a place in folklore, anthropology, history, and law as well as journalism. We will examine the phenomenon of tabloid journalism as it appears in print and electronic media, and demonstrate the use of research tools for discovering information on the subject. Readings will investigate the tabs from several academic and popular perspectives. Students will search for, examine and discuss tabloid journalism's place in popular culture.
A Study of Sin: Moral Psychology
Dr. Steven Bengal
ARTSSCI 1137.10
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.
Analyzing Fear: Survival Instincts and Protective Strategies
Lynette Martin
ARTSSCI 1137.13
Mondays, 10:20 a.m. to 12:10 p.m. (7-week Session 1)
Class #37877
Far too many people are walking around in a constant state of vigilance, their intuition misinformed about what really poses danger. There are certainly plenty of reasons to be fearful of others from time to time. The question is, when are those times? How do we identify and evaluate intuitive signals to allow us to respond effectively in these environments and situations, and in so doing, keep ourselves safe? How may cultural and social factors affect the responses that are available to us? This class will explore the survival signals and strategies that can help protect us from threats of violence.
Hi, Who Are You? An Exploration in Autoethnography
Professor Leticia Wiggins
ARTSSCI 1137.14
Mondays, 12:40 p.m. to 1:35 p.m.
Class #26777
There are so many factors that make a person, right? The places we’re born, the interests we hold, the many lenses in which we see the world (to name just a few). This course explores the artifacts, experiences, and things that make us US. By using the tools of autoethnography, intersectionality, and oral history we will position ourselves in the world. We will challenge ourselves to start documenting our own histories. Each of us will be challenged to ask questions of our friends, family, caregivers, and folks we grew up around to get a sense of our own journey to belonging. The result will be a final project that will express and celebrate our journeys to “today” with the hopes that we can think about what we may want to pursue tomorrow.
Graded S/U
Financing Your Future
Professor Doug Alsdorf
ARTSSCI 1138.01
Wednesday, 10:20 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.
Class # 37414
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.
COSPLAY: Exploring Costume and Play
Professor Rebecca Turk
ARTSSCI 1138.02
Thursdays, 9:10 a.m. to 10:05 a.m.
Class #37761
"Fans expect to be able to play with and adapt content and arguably, in the digital era, being a fan is demonstrated by the extent to which one adapts and generates adapted/adaptive content."
-Linda Hutcheon, _The Theory of Adaptation_, 2013
How and why do researchers study cosplay? Cosplay is neither created nor consumed in a vacuum. In this course, we will consider the influences of history, culture, identity, and technology on the creation, mediation, interpretation, and research of cosplay. Concepts of costume, play, and adaptation as they apply to the study of cosplay will be introduced. Through readings, discussions, and interactions with guest speakers, students are encouraged to uncover connections between costumes, play, and their areas of study.
The School to Prison Pipeline
Professor Mary Thomas
ARTSSCI 1138.03
Wednesdays, 12:40 p.m. to 1:35 p.m.
Class #29084
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.
Songs in My Head: From Tapping the Beat to Feeling the Blues
Professor Eugenia Costa-Giomi
ARTSSCI 1138.04
Tuesdays, 2:00 p.m. to 3:50 (7-week Session 1)
Class #28851
Does music makes us smarter, fall in love, get the chills, cheer-up, dance, drink, and think of suicide? We will discuss the scientific basis (or lack thereof) of some of these and other intriguing effects of music on our lives. By reading and criticizing research studies and the media that disseminates their findings we will gain a better perspective of what seems true and what is questionable about research on the benefits of music listening and music learning. By the end of the course you will have gained a better understanding of why music is an intrinsic component of our culture.
Keep Calm and Carry On :: Stoic Philosophy & Modern Life
Professor Jacob Risinger
ARTSSCI 1138.05
Thursdays, 9:10 a.m. to 10:05 a.m.
As the COVID pandemic swept through the world, the popularity of Stoic philosophy skyrocketed. Around the globe, readers found comfort in the teachings of the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius, who once asserted, “The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.” In this convivial seminar, we’ll explore some of the teachings of the Roman Stoics, but we’ll also pay attention to the outsized impact that Stoicism has had on modern literature, culture, and thought. How does Stoic philosophy purport to restore balance and perspective amidst the anxieties of everyday life? What role should emotion play in our individual and collective decision-making? Is it possible that a life of cool detachment might be more radical than a life of passionate engagement? And how has the figure of the Stoic been celebrated, maligned, and (mis)understood over time? Come along for the ride as we investigate a philosophy that has captivated figures ranging from George Washington and Adam Smith to J.K. Rowling and Anna Kendrick.
Mediocrity: a Critical Inquiry into Truth, Beauty and Busting the Curve
Professor Mark Rudoff
ARTSSCI 1138.07
Wednesday, 1:50 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Class #27520
One way to puzzle out an idea is to study its opposite. I propose that the opposite of "excellent" is not "bad," the opposite of excellent is mediocre. You are probably confident you can tell when something--a meal, a movie, a song--is bad. Mediocrity is more elusive, harder to pin down. And for an ambitious, creative scholar, mediocrity is our worst fear: we create a thing we believe is original, beautiful, meaningful, but we fear the harsh light of day will show it to be just ordinary. To be honest, I struggle constantly with and against mediocrity; you are going to help me figure it out. This seminar will conduct a conversation aimed to position you to critique work you encounter in your college life, and more confidently recognize when your work is excellent.
Graphic Storytelling: Writing Pictures, Drawing Words
Dr. Cathy Ryan
ARTSSCI 1138.09
Mondays, 11:30 a.m. to 12:25 p.m.
Class #29036
Graphic Storytelling: Writing Pictures, Drawing Words, is a one-credit (A-E) seminar that meets on Mondays during the term (see Schedule of Classes). Students will get hands-on experience creating, reading, and interpreting graphic stories (e.g., comics, short-form graphic fiction). Students will learn storyboarding, how to read, and ways to compose visual stories. Discussion topics include precursors to the graphic novel and Pixar's "22 Rules of Storytelling." Lessons include "Storyboarding," "Graphic Arts and Adaptation," "Social Activism and Documentary," and "Autobiography/Memoir." Short readings, video clips, and animated films will be principal course texts. New in 2023 will be lessons from Jessica Abel and Matt Madden (on making comics, manga, graphic novels, and beyond). Students will share, explore, and create original compositions. Class activities include touring the Galleries in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, presenting in a project showcase, and attending Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) on Ohio State's campus and downtown Columbus. This seminar will appeal strongly to all-level students interested in telling stories (pictures and words), English studies, digital literacy, art and visual design, and film studies.
Know Your Recreational Drugs
Professor Gopi Tejwani
ARTSSCI 1138.11
Wednesday 1:50 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Class #26778
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?
Origins of Democracy: The Game
Professor Tom Hawkins
ARTSSCI 1138.12
Monday 10:20 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.
Class #29782
Free Speech – Immigrant Rights – Navigating Polarization – Spreading Democracy – Voting Rights
Travel back in time to ancient Greece, where the foundations of democracy were laid, and join in a role-playing adventure built around replaying key debates that would determine the future of democracy. As we work through this experience together, we will have three primary aims:
-To study the earliest history of democracy in ancient Greece
-To understand the democracy as a flexible principle by studying a democratic system vastly different from the norms of the modern US.
-To become better informed citizens capable of analyzing, critiquing, and participating in political debates that are shaping our shared future.
We will work toward these goals by playing The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 BCE, a role-playing game that assumes no prior familiarity with ancient Greek history or role-playing games. We will learn everything we need along the way.
In this presidential election year, join a collaborative and interactive course, in which you will learn about the history of democracy by role playing foundational democratic debates that continue to resonate around us today.