Dietrich College Spring Course Preview: Humanities Edition

Spring registration is right around the corner. The Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences has prepared a list of some of the exciting humanities courses available next semester.

For a full list of spring 2024 courses, visit the Undergraduate Catalog.

Department of English

76-392: Special Topics in Literature and Culture: Immigrant Fictions, 9 units
TR 9:30–10:50 | Marian Aguiar
Contemporary writers offer vibrant portrayals of questions around identity and belonging that accompany migration and immigration to the United States. This contemporary literature course combines fiction, poetry, drama and scholarly non-fiction readings to examine the experiences of the transnational movement of people to the United States.

76-418: Rhetoric and the Body, 9 units
TR 9:30–10:50 | Stephanie Larson
Students will explore the role of rhetoric in of the body. Students will conduct their own research on a topic related to rhetorical studies of the body that also aligns with their professional and academic goals.

Department of History

79-110 Introduction to the Medieval Mediterranean World, 9 units
MW 9:30–10:50 | Alexandra Garnhart-Bushakra
The transformations of the premodern West with the Mediterranean Sea are the focal point of this course, whose routes not only serviced pilgrims, warriors and tricksters alike, but its diverse peoples and cultures located across three interconnected continents (Africa, Europe and Asia).

79-212: Jim Crow America, 9 units
TR 12:30–1:50 | Ezelle Sanford
Fulfills a General Education requirement: Contextual Thinking
Students will be introduced to the Jim Crow period of history, from the 1890s to the 1950s, when Black freedoms were limited by the policies and practices of racial segregation in the Jim Crow system of American apartheid. Students will critically examine Black life from the halls of federal power to the everyday practices of racial subjugation and resistance.

Department of Modern Languages

82-215 Arab Culture Through Dialogues, Film, and Literature: Minorities in the Middle East and North Africa, 9 units
MW 12:30–1:50 | Nevine Abraham
Fulfills a General Education requirement: Contextual Thinking
This course aims to enrich students’ understanding of the diversity of Arab countries and the impact of colonialism, Pan-Arabism, socio-economy and cultural norms on minorities’ status through readings, films/documentaries, music and data collected via surveys and virtual sessions with students in Arab countries.

82-237 Interdisciplinary Exploration: Chinese Mythology and Animation Creation, 9 units
MW 2:00–3:20 | Gang Liu & Johannes DeYoung
This interdisciplinary course invites students to traverse the enthralling world of ancient Chinese mythology, synthesizing the realms of animated storytelling and digital humanities. It intertwines traditional research in humanities, including literature, history, religion and anthropology, with avant-garde techniques of animation production and visual storytelling.

Department of Philosophy

80-234: Race, Gender, and Justice, 9-units
TR 3:30–4:50 | Danielle Wenner
Fulfills a General Education requirement: Justice and Injustice
Race and gender, along with their interfaces and interactions with such other social identities as sexuality, (dis)ability and class, structure our experience of almost every aspect of our social and political reality. This course explores these identities, drawing on tools and perspectives from epistemology, ethics and especially social and political philosophy.

80-306: Decision Theory, 9-units
TR 11:00–12:20 | Kevin Zollman
Fulfills a General Education requirement: Logic/Mathematical Reasoning
Core course for new minor: Rationality, Uncertainty, and Choice: Formal Methods
This course is an introduction to formal models of choice and decision-making. It will examine choice under certainty, expand to take into account uncertainty and explore empirical challenges to models.