ARB 183 Special Topic: Arabic Language, culture, and the lived reality of the Lehigh Valley’s large and diverse Arabic-speaking community are at the core of this high-beginner Arabic course. With culture at the core, weekly visits with native speakers, regular excursions into the Middle Eastern neighborhoods here, and a community-based service project, students will learn about the gifts that Arabic-speaking immigrants brings as well as their interests and needs within the broader community. Working with a local calligrapher, students will learn to read and create the calligraphy that is one of Arabic’s great gifts to global language and art.
BIO 180 Special Topic: Ecology in the Lehigh Valley Come explore ecology in the Lehigh Valley and beyond! Learn about the functioning of nature in your own academic backyard with an introduction to the various interactions among local organisms and their environments. We will observe the species diversity, challenges, adaptations, and interconnections of local aquatic and terrestrial species and ecosystems. Examination of the basic principles and processes of science will be discussed, and students will then conduct some of their own studies, collecting and analyzing data. A major emphasis of the course is to directly interact with aspects of the ecosystems (hands-on, experiential learning), so large numbers of continuous hours will be spent outside in whatever weather we have, and students will be transported via college vans to off-campus locations. There is an extra course fee. Intended for non-science majors. Any students who have taken Bio 160 should speak with the instructor before taking this course to make sure it meets the student’s intentions. Course unit(s):1. Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement SC. Register by May 1 to be considered for housing.
COM: Digital Media Design Lab This course is dedicated to providing space, time, resources, and encouragement to you and your efforts in crafting a Culminating Undergraduate Experience (C.U.E.) media-centric project of your own design. Starting from the question “what do you want to do?” we create together in a playful laboratory community using human-centered, iterative design methods. Build in a project and experience-diverse, flexible, and agile environment. Sharpen skills through constant, hands-on practice. Make of you for you - for your curricular curiosity, your professional future, and your personal passion.
COM 286 Special Topic: Mediamaking for Masses Mediamaking tools are more accessible now than ever before. But in this fast-paced, content-driven world, mediamaking ethics, theories, and methods are frequently found missing. This course is devoted to introducing non-experts and non-majors to the multi-modal practice and principles of mediamaking. Students will experience introductory elements of web design, graphic arts, audio production, and video production in an exploratory setting.
COM 386 Special Topics: American Identity and the Sitcom Sitcoms (a portmanteau of situational comedies) aren't just entertainment. While we turn to this decades old pastime, examining sitcoms gives us insight on how identities in the US have been defined, and how the sitcom has been used to create (sometimes falsely) cohesive narratives about what it means to be “American.” Looking at sitcoms in their historical and contemporary contexts also teaches us about the everyday. Why did post-war sitcoms focus on the domestic? Why did Norman Lear create All in the Family after various civil and social rights movements of the late 60s? How can critically examining the plethora of sitcom content today tell us more about our cultural values and beliefs from both dominant and marginalized perspectives? And lastly how does looking at industrial influences change our understanding and perspective on the why and how Americans’ stories are being told? These are just some of the questions we address in this course to understand the cultural narrative of what it means to be American. In this course, you will be critical, cultural analysts looking at sitcoms as a source of information of who we have defined ourselves as Americans to be.
COM 387 DIY Mediamaking GearUsing readily available materials and tools, build a cache of affordable alternatives to expensive production gear. Follow along and craft stabilization, audio, optical, lighting, and grip equipment. Leverage thrift, discount, and dollar stores and use everyday objects in filmmaking. BONUS: Learn how to research thoroughly and dive safely into the used market to score gear for less.
EDU 212 Inclusive Education for Emergent Bilingual StudentsThe purpose of this course is to prepare preservice teachers to create equitable learning environments for emergent bilingual students (often referred to as English learners) in preK-12 school settings. In doing so, the course content is approached from a transformative paradigm, where we engage in analysis of school systems, program, and instructional approaches for emergent bilinguals and critique the ways in which schools and teachers maintain linguistic hierarchies. In doing so the course draws from the research on instructional design and assessment, applied linguistics and second language acquisition, sociology of language, and anthropology of (language) education. Topics covered include linguistic racism, language ideologies, culturally sustaining pedagogy, translanguaging pedagogy, co-teaching and sheltered instruction, and integrated language and content instruction. Students will be expected to develop theoretical knowledge as well as demonstrate practical skills through analyzing, planning, and delivering lessons. Twenty hours of fieldwork in a K-12 school are required. This course, in conjunction with GEO-102, World Geography, satisfies the IL requirement.
ENG 228 Modern European DramaFor centuries, European theatre was dominated by “well-made” entertainments, mannered comedies, melodramas, and imitations of classical works, but cared little for investigating, critiquing and remaking contemporary social norms through public performance and debate. Enter Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Chekhov, Witikiewicz and others. Suddenly the theatre became a hotbed of controversy and social criticism; it wrestled with the age’s most important questions and discoveries, firing debate and altering perception. This is the advent of Realism and Naturalism, and theatre in a time of massive social and ideological upheaval. Reading Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud and other European thinkers alongside the most popular, infamous and innovative plays of the time, this class focuses on a theatrical revolution rooted in scientific discovery and intellectual advancement. Epoch-making ideas like evolution, class consciousness, the unconscious, the death of God, and much more form the backdrop to this course, which focuses on a drama of change, and the forms that these new ways of thinking and seeing inspired. This will be a fully online, asynchronous and writing intensive course. In addition to individual work, students will engage with one another through online learning tools to exchange perspectives and ideas, and to come together as a community of learners.
ENG 344 Irish Literature An exploration of representative works in Irish literature by Catholic and Protestant, nationalist and Anglo-Irish, and canonical and non-canonical writers. Selection of texts will vary from semester to semester, sometimes sampling works, sometimes concentrating in a single genre. Topics will include the impact of British colonialism, nationalism and its appropriation of Irish myth, representations of gender, and colliding definitions of "Irishness." Meets departmental Transformations approach.
FYS 138 FYS: Gothic & Horror in Our Culture We will examine this genre's various manifestations, from literature to film and television, to its place in our architecture and popular culture. This class will involve many types of activities, ranging from lecture to discussion to viewing of films to many kinds or writing exercises. Through free discussion and exploration of this material, you will take from this class a larger understanding of gothic and horror in our culture.
GEO 101/102 World Geography This course offers an introduction to the basics of physical and cultural geography, including climate, vegetation, landforms, language, economy, and religion and the study of physical and cultural geographical features of the various regions of the earth. In addition, it examines human, theoretical, and physical geographic structures of world regions while questioning thoughts and experiences with and of geographic understandings. The course intentionally integrates investigation of educational systems and geographic curriculum into geographic inquiry. This course, in conjunction with EDU-212, Thry/Prac: Tch Eng Lang Lrnrs, satisfies the IL requirement.
HST 227 Twentieth Century America to 1945 An examination of the changes in American political culture arising from the nation's transformation into an urban, industrial nation. Topics to be emphasized include the reform traditions of Progressivism and the New Deal, the rise of American internationalism, and the development of a modern American culture. The course also uses appropriate era feature films to illustrate major themes in the nation's development.
HST 229 Recent US History Since 1945 An analysis of post-World War II America focusing on the fragmentation of the national consensus on domestic and foreign policy. Topics to be emphasized include The Cold War, McCarthyism, the civil rights revolution, the counter-culture of the 1960s, the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Reagan years, and the 1990s and beyond. The course also relies on feature films as documents from the appropriate era to illustrate major themes in the nation's development.
HST 239 North American Indian Experience This discussion-based class explores the history of North American Indians from the years of early European settlement to the “closing” of the frontier of a rapidly expanding United States. The main narrative will follow Native American relationships with the English colonial world through its growth into an independent and expanding nation, but concurrent and contrasting relationships with other European powers nearby, such as the French and Spanish, will also be considered. Themes will include impressions at early contact and how these changed over time, Indians exploiting European political rivalries, cultural exchange between both sides, and patterns of Indian resistance.
HST 327 Women's America Women, whether as daughters, wives, mothers, workers, scholars, or political activists, have played pivotal roles in American history. This course, an overview of American women's history from colonial times to the present, examines the variety of women's experiences through time by analyzing the myriad roles they played in the family, society, economy, and national politics. Specifically, using gender as its primary lens of analysis, this course seeks to uncover the broader contexts of American women's experience by examining the dynamic interplay of women and men, values and culture, and discussing how structures of power linked especially to gender, but also to class and race, shaped women's lives and mediated their experiences in the private and public worlds of America.
HST 366 African-American Experience I This course examines the history of African Americans from colonial times until 1896, the year the Supreme Court sanctioned the notion of "separate but equal." Specifically, it uses the writings of African Americans and other primary sources critical to their history to examine how events (such as the rise of slavery, the push for abolition, the Civil War, the start of Jim Crow) and cultural influences (such as race, class, gender, the law, Christianity, and family life) shaped African American lives and experiences until the end of the nineteenth century
INE 281 Special Topic: LifeScience Innovations This course will explore how a scientific idea progresses from “bench to bedside”.Students will learn how many of today's scientific innovations were started in laboratories. To be successful in this industry, especially in entrepreneurship in the life sciences, you must have some degree of fluency in science. Although a background in the sciences is not required for the course, you will be encouraged to begin learning the language and fundamental concepts of drug discovery and medical device development. Students will be introduced to definitions and concepts that include the innovation process, commercialization, technology transfer, innovation management, “intrapreneurship,” regulatory issues, intellectual property, and the market forces that impact the life sciences innovation process. The course will provide an overview of the breadth and makeup of the industry, the challenges that new entrants into this industry face and their opportunities for successful new venture creation. New products based on innovations in the life sciences have long, risky, and expensive product development cycles, rely heavily on intellectual property protection to create competitive barriers, may be regulated by governmental agencies, and/or have very large product revenue expectations. These distinguishing features of the products create unique challenges and opportunities for life science entrepreneurial ventures.This course satisfies the IL requirement.
LLC 281 Special Topic: Jews of the Medieval Mediterranean The goal of this class is to introduce students to the history of the Jewish communities of the Medieval Muslim Mediterranean through the life and works of one of Judaism's greatest thinkers, Moses Maimonides (1138-1204). The biography of this sage, and his migration from Córdoba to Cairo, will be used as an axis for the study of Jewish history in the Muslim Mediterranean between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Students will be introduced to the history of Jews under Islamic rule, their legal status and social lives; the history of Jews in the "Golden Age" of Muslim Spain; the Jewish communities of Egypt; and a variety of contemporary sources for the reconstruction of these histories, from Jewish documents in the Geniza (a repository of discarded writings from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo) to poetry, personal letters, and Muslim writings. The biography of Maimonides will be at the center of this class, and thus, we will be studying his life and works in their Muslim and Jewish historical contexts.
LLC 282 Special Topic: Travel and Pilgrimage Across Cultures This course surveys travel and pilgrimage from antiquity to the Age of Exploration. Travelers such as (the fictional) Odysseus and their voyages around the world have been captivating the minds of human beings since ancient times. Their records are a popular source of entertainment as well as a source of knowledge regarding faraway countries, the encounter with different cultures and civilizations—and the "Other" more broadly—and monstrous and fabulous beings. We will explore the writings of and about merchants, diplomats, pilgrims, scientists and artists across time, space, and religious tradition, with examples including Homer's Odyssey, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Marco Polo, Benjamin of Tudela, and Ibn Battuta. On some occasions, we will look into other materials, such as visual depictions of travel, maps, and archaeological evidence for travel and pilgrimage.
PSC 283 Special Topic: Political Polarization in the USAmericans and our political parties may be more divided today than at any other time since the Civil War. How did we get here? What is the best way to understand these divisions? What, if anything, can be done to bridge them? This class examines the causes and consequences of polarization in the US. We will consider the historical development of political parties and the roots of current division; we will examine how partisanship, ideology, and identity have become intertwined; will we identify the challenges polarization creates for democracy; and we will consider the role of political and social institutions in creating, perpetuating, and possibly alleviating polarization.
PHL 288 Special Topic: Philosophy of Dreams This course will examine the history and contemporary applications of dreams in the field of Western philosophy from aesthetic, ethical, and epistemological perspectives. We will begin with Plato's dream of a second, perfect world in which he constructs a two-world metaphysical system of reality; move to Aristotle's scientific treatises on dreams and prophesying by dreams; and consider St. Augustine's moral questioning about dreams in his Confessions and its development of the Platonic dream of a better life beyond, which can impact our life here and now. The course will then analyze modern philosophical literature on dreams, including excerpts from Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, and utopian and dystopian theorists who draw on the human function of dream consciousness. We will conclude with the 20th and 21st-century phenomenology of dreams in literature, philosophy, and the arts. The course will consider questions about the self that we are in dreams, moral accountability in and out of dreams and the role of aesthetic imagination in dreams regarding the construction of the mind, morality, and reality beyond ourselves.
PSY 383 Special Topic: The Psychology of Performance Students enrolled in this course will explore performance from a psychological perspective. Performances will be applied broadly to include, not just athletic performance, but also the performing arts, expressive arts (creative writing, poetry, visual arts), academics, business, and leadership. Additionally, we will delve into common elements across these domains such as motivation (short and long term), the power of mission, burnout, sleep, performance nutrition, team dynamics, personality, and “game day” strategies. The course serves as an introduction to the fundamental foundations of performance psychology theory and practice with a heavy focus on application. (Prerequisite PSY 101 or instructor permission).
SOC 224 American Ethnic DiversityThis course is designed to provide a general overview of the field of the sociology of race and ethnic relations with a particular emphasis on the historical situations and experiences of various immigrant and minority groups in American society. We will first examine the socio-political and economic history of a variety of minority and immigrant groups. A substantial amount of course material will then focus on analyzing the varying structural conditions and institutional barriers that affect the different strategies by which various minority and immigrant groups have sought entry and success in dominant society. Finally, throughout the course, discussions will be devoted to examining specific institutions and the various ways in which constructions of racial and ethnic categories and hierarchies are produced and reproduced in the U.S.
SOC 283 Special Topic: Social Problems This course examines major social problems in the society as a part of the ongoing social process, with particular reference to their economic, political and other social roots. Topics covered can include such areas as mental illness, poverty, structured inequality, various forms of addiction, war, racism and crime
