GC2Y courses are available to sophomores at Georgia College. Students who fail to complete a GC2Y course as a sophomore will only be permitted to register for GC2Y sections in future semesters after sophomores have had an opportunity to register.
Transfer students who have not yet fulfilled their Area B2 requirement may register for GC2Y courses at their earliest possible opportunity.
Each GC2Y class includes a “fourth hour”, which may consist of an additional course meeting time each week, several longer course meetings scattered throughout the semester, or even a weekend activity. Each day the class will meet is listed on the semester course schedule. Students should review each of these days carefully when planning their course schedules, as these additional meeting times are considered regular class sessions.
The following sections have been approved to fulfill the GC2Y requirement. Not all of these sections or topics will be offered each semester; students should consult the schedule of classes for offerings, section times, and instructors. Students are strongly encouraged to register for their GC2Y course at their first available registration opportunity to have the greatest selection of course sections.
Approved GC2Y Courses
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: The AIDS Pandemic
Long Title: The AIDS Pandemic
Sponsoring Department: Kinesiology
Approved Instructors: Butler
HIV/AIDS is widely considered the “Bubonic Plague” of the modern era. The purpose of this course is to assess the AIDS pandemic from public health, epidemiological, social, political and historical perspectives. Students will assess the impact of the pandemic upon the United States and selected countries within Africa, South America, Europe and Asia. The influence of globalization, sex negativity and political systems will be addressed as factors that impact the epidemiological trends globally. Additional factors such as gender roles, population demographics (e.g., rural areas) and prevention techniques will be addressed.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Arts & Literacy
Long Title: Arts & Literacy: Global Journeys with Afterschool
Sponsoring Department: Teacher Education
Approved Instructors: Bradley
Arts and Literacy is an exciting multidisciplinary course for students with or without previous experience with the arts, who are interested in working with students in our community. Students will utilize critical literacy and the performance cycle to plan, teach, and reflect upon a series of arts and literacy sessions for children in a local afterschool program. Working in groups, students will learn and teach about cultures across South America utilizing the tools of traditional and modern arts representative of these cultures. A writing workshop will be a central component of the course, culminating in an anthology. In addition, a final program with the children will showcase the impact of students’ work beyond the classroom with Passport to the Arts.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Big Data and Tech
Long Title: Big Data and Technology Transforming Life and Work
Sponsoring Department: Information Systems and Computer Science
Approved Instructors: Godin
The fruits of the information society are easy to see, with a cellphone in every pocket, a computer in every backpack, and Big Data technology systems in back offices everywhere. 50 years after computers entered mainstream society, the data has begun to accumulate to the point where something new and special is taking place. The sciences like astronomy and genomics, which first experienced the explosion in the 2000s, coined the term ‘Big Data.’ The concept is now migrating to all areas of human endeavor. In this course we will study how big data can become the raw material for individuals, businesses and governments. It is a vital economic input that can be used to create a new form of economic value. In fact with the right mindset, big data and its technologies can be cleverly reused to become a fountain of innovation and services. The data can reveal secrets to those with the humility, the willingness, and the tools to listen.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Bodies & Borders
Long Title: Bodies, Borders, and Boundaries
Sponsoring Department: Government & Sociology
Approved Instructors: Grant, Thompson
This course is an intro global stratification course from a sociological perspective. It considers questions of migration (forced and voluntary) in the context of global social and political inequity. In this course, we will consider questions of who gets what and why, including freedom to move, necessity to move, and access to rights and citizenship.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Captivity/Freedom
Long Title: Captivity and Freedom
Sponsoring Department: English
Approved Instructors: Simon
This course takes up issues of captivity and freedom in a global context. We begin with a number of theoretical readings to set up the big ideas of the class and consider notions of freedom and unfreedom from various disciplines. We will read literary representations of the transatlantic slave trade, the middle passage, slave narratives, and abolition. We will encounter perspectives from Africa, the Caribbean, Great Britain, Egypt, North America, and Europe. We will spend the last part of the semester thinking about modern forms of captivity, from sexual slavery, to the prison-industrial complex, to Guantanamo Bay.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Crossroads
Long Title: Crossroads: Connections & Separations in the 20th Century World
Sponsoring Department: Government and Sociology
Approved Instructors: Daria
This course examines the geographical movement of people, through diaspora or by migration, across country borders and/or from one area within a country to another. We will explore why people move, the primary impact of migration and diaspora on the people who move and on those who live in the host countries, the implications for the cross-border movement of people for citizenship and political rights. Finally, we will consider possible approaches for addressing the conflicts and challenges posed by migration and diaspora.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Cuba Global Soc
Long Title: Cuba in a Global Society
Sponsoring Department: History & Geography
Approved Instructors: Opperman
This course offers students a comprehensive overview of Cuban history, politics, and culture, as well as a deeper understanding of Cuba's continued adaptation within global society. Focusing on Cuban relations with Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States, we will analyze literary works, historical essays, speeches, newspaper articles, interviews, films, and photographs in order to place Cuba's history within the current post-Cold War global environment. Using a chronological framework, students will also evaluate a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of Cuba's society and have the opportunity to develop their own original research and writing projects that incorporate one or more of these methods.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Cul Nature Empire
Long Title: Culture, Nature, and Empire
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Causey
Through reading primary texts (both theoretical and literary) mainly by African, Caribbean, and Indian authors, this course will explore the necessary relation between postcolonial and eco-critical approaches (i.e., the ways in which peoples, environments, and animals are radically interdependent). We will look at the ways in which various colonial and especially neo-colonial environmental practices and policies adversely and disproportionally affect historically colonized peoples and regions (Global South), ecosystems, and nonhuman animals. The course will also consider issues of distributive justice in unequal access to and control over vital resources by these historically and culturally disadvantaged groups (both human and nonhuman) around the world.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Cultural Violence
Long Title: Cultural Violence: Roots, Correlates and Consequences
Sponsoring Department: Government & Sociology
Approved Instructors: Cook, Doude
This course will introduce students to the topic of violence, including historical, contemporary, and culturally-diverse perspectives and debates about various violence-related topics. This course will review diverse theoretical perspectives (including, but not limited to social, economics, political, criminological, anthropological, psychological, etc.) about the epistemology of violence as well as various solutions to violence. Finally, the course will explore the social and cultural dimensions and implications of violence.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Cultures & Ed
Long Title: Globalization, Cultures, and Education
Sponsoring Department: Foundations & Secondary Education
Approved Instructors: Kang, Mehranian
“Globalization, Cultures, & Education” provides students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are necessary for responsible citizenship in an increasingly interdependent and complex global world. The section aims at helping students develop a perspective that moves past the concepts of “us” and “them”, to delve into what gives the world its cultural richness, the continuities and interruptions that make cultures similar and unlike at the same time, whether inside the United States or beyond its borders. The section also offers substantive knowledge pertaining to the impact brought upon education by such major dimensions of globalization as global interconnectedness and interdependence; sustainability; diverse cultural values, practices and perspectives; cultural identity and pluralism; equality of educational opportunity; and a particular pedagogical domain of comparative education, which focuses on comparing educational systems, practices and learning styles across the globe.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Death & Dying
Long Title: The History of Death & Dying
Sponsoring Department: History & Geography
Approved Instructors: Ikemoto
Death is the one constant of human existence. However, the way humans understand, experience, and respond to death changes from time to time and from place to place. This course examines the history of death and dying from the earliest archeological evidence of human burial to contemporary experiences of death around the world.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Democracies/Leaders
Long Title: Reacting to the Past: Democracies, Leaders, and their Theories
Sponsoring Department: History & Geography
Approved Instructors: Risch
How has the state become an everyday part of our lives? How has it come to promote the general welfare, police our daily behavior, or wage war as we see in our own day? In what way did states deal with such problems differently from our own time? This course will address ways in which states around the world have taken on new functions over time, borrowing from other nations, cultures, and civilizations in the process. It will focus on either states in the modern world (post-1500) or the pre-modern world (pre-1500) to address these questions. Students will create a more informed perspective on what a state does and how its functions have changed over time, as well as master the skills of effective written and oral communication.
Schedule Title: GC2Y 2000: Glob Persp: Disability Tanzania
Long Title: Disability and Culture in Tanzania
Sponsoring Department: Teacher Education
Approved Instructors: Decoulette
Impairments are real; that is, physical and mental differences are real and exist in all cultures. But what "counts" as disability? The answer to this question depends on where you look and to whom you ask. In this course, we will investigate the intersection of disability and culture. What are the cultural factors, like poverty and unsanitary living conditions, that actually increase rates of disability? How do people use biomedical and religious explanations to make sense of atypical bodies and behaviors? Indeed, what "counts" as disability in one cultural context does not necessarily "count" as disability in another. This course is designed for students to examine disability in cross-cultural contexts, specifically in Tanzania. This course is experiential in nature and is held in cooperation with Sebastian Kolowa Memorial University and various local schools and community centers serving individuals with disabilities in Lushoto and Arusha, Tanzania.
Schedule Title: GC2Y 2000: Glob Persp: Diversity in Ed
Long Title: Diversity in Education: Belize Study Abroad
Sponsoring Department: Early Childhood Education
Approved Instructors: Muschell
This course provide the opportunity for students to experience the culture and educational system in Belize, Central America. While in San Ignacio, students explore the local culture while becoming actively engaged with a diverse student population through teaching opportunities and collaboration with teachers in a local Belizean school. This experience enhances the student’s sense of understanding of culturally relevant teaching, student diversity, and the governmental and economic influences on education.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Equity & Justice
Long Title: Equity & Justice: Crossing Perspectives
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion, & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Winchester, Wang
This course aims to cultivate a critical comprehension of important ethical and political issues from a global perspective. Students will develop their capacity for ethical and critical reasoning as well as basic skills in writing, presentation and academic debates.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Eth & What We Eat
Long Title: Ethics and What We Eat
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Causey
This course will introduce the student to the issues and problems (ethical, social, economic, and environmental) of our current global food system. We will analyze the root causes of world hunger and what should be done about it. We examine social issues such as distributive justice and fair trading practices, as well as scientific issues such as genetic modification and the Green Revolution. For the fourth hour requirement students will have the opportunity to get involved in related service projects and possibly visit a fair trade coffee roaster and sustainable farm.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Ethics Anthropocene
Long Title: Ethics in the Anthropocene
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Causey
Many scientists and thinkers are suggesting that we have entered a new geological era, the anthropocene, which is defined by human activity. If they are correct, this is the first time in the history of the planet that a single species is leaving such a large global geological footprint. By recognizing this fact, humanity is at the same time presented with a unique opportunity to choose the fate of not only human civilization, but in large part the future biodiversity and viability of life as we know it on the planet. We are in a period of both crisis and opportunity where we must think and choose wisely. Philosophy, as the love of wisdom, and the humanities in general are crucial conversation partners for the sciences at this juncture. Informed by the scientific data, we must make ethical choices about not only our own future, but the future of life on this planet. This course is about how we make those choices.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Global Connections
Long Title: Global Connections
Sponsoring Department: History & Geography
Approved Instructors: Oetter, Rochelo, Sumpter
Students will analyze both spatial and temporal (historical) connections between different places and people in the world by focusing on different types of connections: 1) the international trade and production of commodities (cars, textiles, cell phones, processed foods), 2) the spread of cultural ideas (political ideas, religion, music), 3) the migration of people (students, internal and international refugees, documented and undocumented immigration), and 4) the spread of disease (HIV/AIDS, H1N1, cholera; vectored and non-vectored disease).
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Global Horror
Long Title: Global Horror
Sponsoring Department: English
Approved Instructors: Blazer
This GC2Y section will interpret horror films from around the globe using psychoanalytic, gender studies, cultural studies, and ecocritical approaches. We will not only analyze film as an artistic medium but also compare diverse film traditions in general and cultural understandings of horror in particular. What horrifies people in general? What do specific cultures find terrifying? How are cultural anxieties and fears expressed through and on its horror films? How do cultures' different gender roles affect the portrayal of men and women in horror films? Why do we desire to be scared or repulsed? We will view a variety of horror films in a variety of subgenres (found footage, giallo, monster, occult, psychological, science fiction, supernatural, and vampire) from a variety of countries (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States).
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Global LGBTQ Pride
Long Title: Global LGBTQ+ Pride Across Six Continents
Sponsoring Department: Management, Marketing, & Logistics
Approved Instructors: Ginder, Miller, Schwartz
We will study Pride (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, 2 Spirit, plus) across countries in six continents with a focus on history and political activism, cultural differences, acceptance and opposition, travel issues, legislative updates, and future challenges. Consideration will be given not only to understanding Pride in various countries, but also to examining similarities and differences and the long term implications of those from a global cultural perspective.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: HIV Gender Sex
Long Title: HIV, Gender and Sexuality in South Asia
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Manian
This course will provide an overview of issues relating to sexuality and sexual relations in societies and cultures of South Asia. Students will read about the diverse ways in which Hindu, Arabic, Persian and Muslim cultural perspectives influenced attitudes regarding sexuality, and the manner in which British colonialism continues to shape attitudes in contemporary India. Students will also study the economic and social roots of contemporary gender relations through readings pertaining to sex-work, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and human rights
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Hist of Glob Hlth
Long Title: History of Global Health
Sponsoring Department: History & Geography
Approved Instructors: Opperman
Global public health is a rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, novelists, and political scientists have recently begun to incorporate the study of public health into their own disciplinary research. The results offer these specialists new ways to evaluate global society and cultural communities. The goal for this course is for students to gain historical perspective on the changing nature of health over time and across many regions, including the Americans, Europe, Asia and Africa. Using a chronological framework, students will also evaluate a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to the theme of global public health and have the opportunity to develop their own original research and writing projects that incorporate one or more of these methods.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Hist of Religions
Long Title: History of Religions
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Henry
This course is an in-depth exploration of religion as an intellectual category for analysis across cultures, regions, and time. In this class, students will learn to compare and contrast the basic elements of a religious text through careful readings and higher criticism.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Human Revolutions
Long Title: Human Revolutions
Sponsoring Department: History & Geography
Approved Instructors: MacKinnon, Ikemoto, Risch, Opperman, Auerbach
This course takes a global approach to understanding shared cultural experiences related to revolutionary human achievements. It considers twelve major revolutions across time and region in comparative perspective beginning with the earliest human settlement of the regions of the earth through the period of our post-industrial globalized consumer culture. This course will enable students to research, analyze, compare and contrast significant human innovations through multiple intellectual perspectives including historical analyses of social, cultural, political, economics, ethnic, and technological revolutions wrought by people around the world.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Infectious Diseases
Long Title: Global Problems in Infectious Diseases
Sponsoring Department: Biology & Environmental Sciences
Approved Instructors: Karen
Throughout history, the human population has been negatively affected by numerous infectious diseases. Infectious diseases are not uniformly distributed across the globe, and our ability to fight these diseases varies geographically due to a variety of reasons (water quality, education, level of healthcare, etc.). In this course we will explore the science of infectious diseases and how they affect people in different geographical areas. Students will complete two independent assignments which require students to research specific infectious diseases and develop strategies to improve global health as it relates to these diseases.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Knowledge Democracy
Long Title: Knowledge Democracy: Introduction to Community-based Research Across the Globe
Sponsoring Department: Government & Sociology
Approved Instructors: Godwin
This course is an introduction to community-based research in higher education institutions across the globe. It focuses on the politics of knowledge and will be of particular interest to students who aspire to non-profit/social justice work and to students interested in teaching, public health, philosophy, and the social construction of knowledge. Community engagement is a world-wide movement in higher education, and we will explore the discourse of this movement and assess various models of university-community research/knowledge partnerships.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Love, Friendship
Long Title: Love, Pleasure, Friendship, and the Good Life
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Winchester
Using philosophical texts, works of literature and films we will explore how several cultures have understood the good life and the role that pleasure, friendship and love have played in the good life.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Mental Prisons
Long Title: Group Minds and Mental Prisons: Global Perspectives on Obedience
Sponsoring Department: English
Approved Instructors: Knox
In this course, we will analyze global manifestations of what psychologist Stanley Milgram called “the perils of obedience” ranging from classical Greek drama to contemporary narratives of womanhood in the Middle East, and from African accounts of colonialism to infamous psychological experiments at American universities. We will consider the various forms that “authority” takes and the ways in which – historically, geographically, and psychologically – it advertises itself as absolute and irresistible. We will also ask: is resistance truly futile? Which resources have individuals and groups drawn upon to articulate and enact defiance to hegemonic power? In what ways is the group-thinking perpetuated by old and new cultural/social networks both a blessing and a curse – both a means of common strength and a uniformizing enforcer of uninterrogated assumptions? Part of our research together as a class will entail studying the history of Central State Hospital in Milledgeville – once the largest mental institution in the world – and the “disobedient,” “abnormal” individuals who once walked its halls.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Muslims in France
Long Title: Muslims in France
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Manian
This course will trace the historic, socio-economics, and political issues surrounding the migration of people from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia into France from the colonial era to the present, and the more recent migration of people from the Middle East and South Asia. We will study social integration, geographic segregation and work-place discrimination faced by Muslims living in France. We will analyze the political culture of France, including the concept of laicite, looking at contemporary issues such as the banning of the hijab/niqab/burqa/burqini, with its implications for minority and gender rights. Finally, we will analyze what these circumstances mean for the integration of Muslim communities living in France into mainstream European-French society, and explore the way forward.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Myth, Magic, & Mod
Long Title: Myth, Magic, and the Modern World
Sponsoring Department: English
Approved Instructors: Magoulick
Myths are one of the most profound genres studied by folklorists, as they teach us cultures' metaphorical insights on fundamental values and how to live. Fairy tales (a.k.a. magic tales) are highly entertaining, universal narratives that reveal the marvelous conditions of life and continue to resonate through contemporary media like film. Legends (especially urban legends) are very current stories that circulate today in higher numbers than ever in history, in both oral and technology forms, and communicate compelling messages about modern life. These three genres, along with related folklore genres such as ritual, festival, art, music, poetry, food ways, holidays, folk belief and so on will be the focus of this course that examines folklore globally and locally. Students will apply concepts, history, and methodology of studying world folklore in several written assignments and presentations, including a final project involving fieldwork collection in which students will record interviews with members of their communities, then transcribe and analyze what they've collected, and present the product publicly. In addition to discussing course concepts and examples in the discussion sessions, we may watch films, work on exams and projects or do short field trips.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: New Zealand
Long Title: New Zealand: Tragedy, Nationality & Diversity
Sponsoring Department: Government & Sociology
Approved Instructors: Edmondson
New Zealand: Tragedy, Nationality and Diversity is an interdisciplinary study abroad course, centered in Christchurch, New Zealand, that studies the history, political structure, culture, natural history and creative arts of the country. This pedagogically innovative course utilizes a variety of resources including lecture, site visits, readings, cinema and community engagement to give students an intimate knowledge of the country and its challenges, and more broadly, an appreciation for global diversity and inter-cultural learning.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Peop Pol Pandemics
Long Title: People, Politics, and Pandemics
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion, & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Newman
This course aims to challenge students to think critically about the Covid-19 pandemic by examining academic and literary texts, films, and other media. The course contains three units. The first unit examines representations of pandemics in literature and film, and will also introduce students to contemporary philosophical writings on Covid-19. In the second unit, students will be asked to think politically, and will read several pieces of political philosophy that will help them to think critically about the American political environment. In the final unit, students will begin to think about the future. We will read two literary representations of life after a pandemic, and we will also think about serious, practical issues that the pandemic has brought to light (issues of race, gender, class, and dis/ability, for example). This class asks students to think about our past, the challenges and trials of our present, and to cultivate hope for our future.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Pol, Comics, Novel
Long Title: Politics, Comics, and the Graphic Novel
Sponsoring Department: Government & Sociology
Approved Instructors: Edmondson
This course explores the political and philosophical dimensions of the contemporary medium of comics and graphic novels. Themes include the tension between political leadership and democracy, political propaganda, questions of difference and diversity, NATO and government coalitions, gun ownership rights, the justice or injustice of terrorism, vengeance, capital punishment, gender and politics, the abuse of power, and the government versus the citizen.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Power, Pol, Tolkien
Long Title: Power, Politics, and Tolkien
Sponsoring Department: Government & Sociology
Approved Instructors: Edmondson
Students in this course will study J. R. R. Tolkien’s literature in light of, but not limited to, the political and ethical themes of heroism, servant-leadership, virtue, and its dependence upon bucolic life, political community, the nature of evil, nihilism, mystery, the necessity of myth for political preservation, environmentalism, and the inescapably corrupting influence of power.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: The Real World?
Long Title: The Real World? Documentary in the Netflix Era
Sponsoring Department: English
Approved Instructors: Pilcher
This course considers the notion of "reality" in recent documentary films and television in a global context. We will view documentaries produced and exhibited in mainstream and film festival circuits; nonfiction films produced for social justice and experimental aims; and television docuseries that have become popular via streaming platforms. We will approach these recent films and television from an interdisciplinary perspective by reading scholarship that illuminates their historical, social, aesthetic, theoretical, cultural, national and technological meanings.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Rebel Girls
Long Title: Rebel Girls: A Cross-Cultural Perspective of Women
Sponsoring Department: World Languages and Cultures
Approved Instructors: Redmond
Rebel girls, a cross-cultural perspective of women, examines extraordinary women's lives and achievements from different world regions. This course explores a variety of global issues, languages, and cultures through an interdisciplinary lens and encourages students to think critically about how these factors specifically impact women.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Reinterpret Exp Wd
Long Title: Reinterpreting Our Experiences of the World
Sponsoring Department: Foundations & Secondary Education
Approved Instructors: Kang, Mehranian
This section provides opportunities to reinterpret your personal choices of cultural artifacts that represent, or are meant to represent, the Global South into engaging works of visual arts. Global South includes Latin American, Eurasia/Middle East, and North Africa. This course incorporates visual arts, 2D design, drawing, painting, mixed media and public art.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Rel & Human Rights
Long Title: Religion and Human Rights
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Gittenger
The purpose of this course is to discuss persistent issues in human rights and social justice around the world, with particular attention to the role of culture and religion.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Religion & Media
Long Title: Religion & Media
Sponsoring Department: Philosophy, Religion & Liberal Studies
Approved Instructors: Gittenger
Religion and the media invites us to look at how religion is presented and discussed in the public sphere, and how such representations affect discourses of religion and culture in various societies. Religion and media invites us to look at electronic mediums arising out of the internet such as social media sites, electronic public forums, and computer or smartphone applications which allow us to engage or practice religion in new ways. This course will explore both ends of the spectrum as well as overlapping discussions on religion and its relationship with media in various forms. We will address questions such as: Are regional variations of religion becoming more globalized? How do media shape the ways we view religious traditions outside our own? How do new methods of communications, socialization, and organization affect religious institutions or religious practice? Are all religious traditions able to have a 'virtual' presence? What role does the media play in constituting religious identity?
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Sex and Resistance
Long Title: Seuss: Sex and Resistance
Sponsoring Department: English
Approved Instructors: Sevcik
This course considers interrelationships between sex, gender, and politics around the world as inspiration for local community engagement. In the global #MeToo era, women and gender minorities have pushed political and social boundaries resulting in greater freedom, but have also caused anxiety over the shifting status quo. Our intersectional, interdisciplinary investigation will include texts and films from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The core questions underlying our work in this course will include: What role does sex play in resistance movements around the world? When is sex a political act?
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Seuss Pol Phil Poet
Long Title: Seuss: Politics, Philosophy, and Poetry
Sponsoring Department: English
Approved Instructors: Beasley
Most of us can recall early memories of Dr. Seuss's literature, climbing up next to a beloved adult and hearing about the antics of The Cat in the Hat or imagining our own Wacky Wednesday. Yet through our childhood lenses, we are not aware of the powerful messages behind the cherished tales. In this course, we will examine Seuss's influences, contemporaries, and passions, as well as a generous selection of Seuss's own work. This course is organized around key themes such as nonsense, aesthetics, autobiography, childhood, adaptation, and a series of political questions, especially concerning race and gender.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Southern Border
Long Title: The Southern Border
Sponsoring Department: History & Geography
Approved Instructors: Opperman
This course incorporates the study of the United States' historical relationship with Mexico and Central America in order to understand how these histories affect the social fabric north and south of the border. Students will examine a wide variety of
sources, including secondary texts, personal memoirs, novels, newspaper articles, films, and photographs to analyze and assess the impact that the southern border has on the economies, societies, cultures, and politics of peoples in the Americas.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: 10 Plants Chg Wld
Long Title: Ten Plants that Changed the World
Sponsoring Department: Biological and Environmental Sciences
Approved Instructors: DeVore, Ionta
Human existence is impossible without plant resources. Plants provide clothing, food, fuel, medicine, shelter and a vast array of raw materials ranging from rubber to wood. In this course we will explore ten plants that are global resources and have had a great economic and historical impact. An independent course project, on an 11th plant, will require students to demonstrate the ability to describe the complex relationships among culture, human needs and plants and to assess options for conserving and managing plant resources.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Theatre Soc Change
Long Title: Theatre as Social Change
Sponsoring Department: Theatre
Approved Instructors: All Theatre Faculty
Theatre as Social Change is an exciting multidisciplinary course for those with or without past theatre experience to utilize the power of theatre infused with sociology and community research to express the mission of social justice using archival stories and oral histories, plays of different cultures, surveys, film documentaries, self-reflection and social research skills. Theatre as Social Change will be divided into two primary segments. The first segment involves the students, through individual and group work, developing an expertise in community-based activist international theatre theory, research methodology and theatre practice. This segment involves reading, analyzing and working through group exercises and improvisation. In the second segment of Theatre as Social Change the students will work with a community group or groups to facilitate the creation of a written theatre performance piece that addresses the issue of concern to the community based group.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Tourism Comm Rhet
Long Title: Tourism as Communication and Rhetoric
Sponsoring Department: Communication
Approved Instructors: Downing
This course explores contemporary tourism in a broad context of communication and rhetoric. Tourism is a popular leisure pursuit, as well as a booming multinational industry. But tourism is also a complex medium of transnational communication that is transforming daily life and the experience of being human (culture).
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Transnatl Crime
Long Title: Transnational Crime
Sponsoring Department: Government & Sociology
Approved Instructors: Ubah
This course will explore the nature, causes, scope, dimensions, threats, challenges, strategies, and responses of transnational crime in the 21st century global community.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Underworlds
Long Title: Underworlds & Afterlives
Sponsoring Department: English
Approved Instructors: Flaherty
This course offers an interdisciplinary and multicultural exploration of the afterlife and the spaces used to represent it in art, literature, and religion. We will look at depictions of underworlds and afterlives from a variety of cultures and time periods, from ancient Greece to contemporary Japan. We will consider how interpretations of the underworld in art, literature, and film demonstrate different cultural attitudes towards death. How is the physical space of the underworld or paradise depicted, and how does it reflect the values or ideals of the culture? How do the rewards or punishments depicted in stories of the afterlife reveal our own ideas about justice (and revenge)? How do depictions of judgment after death shape ethical behavior during life? What are the connections and similarities between different cultural and historical depictions of the afterlife, and what do those connections reveal about the human response to mortality?
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Unnatural Disasters
Long Title: Unnatural Disasters
Sponsoring Department: Government & Sociology
Approved Instructors: Reinke
War. Earthquake. Hurricanes. Epidemics. Floods. Sometimes it feels like disasters characterize the contemporary period. How can we make sense of crises as isolated incidents and as embedded within complex cultural contexts? How do locals affected by disasters make sense of catastrophe? How are local understandings and needs in congruence with, or antithetical to, disaster relief efforts? This course offers students an overview of how disasters emerge from the confluence of natural and anthropogenic forces. Students interested in non-profits, emergency response, humanitarian efforts, and disaster management will find this course particularly informative and suited to their interests. Through learning and writing about disasters, we will be forced to grapple with uncertainty, nature, death, destruction, reconstruction, sadness, and hope. In reading and writing representations of disasters, we will work towards becoming more concerned and thoughtful citizens and scholars.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: War & Global Hlth
Long Title: The Impact of War on Global Health Care
Sponsoring Department: Nursing
Approved Instructors: Copeland
This course focuses on the impact and influences that military conflicts and wars have on global healthcare initiatives and progression in the last 150 years. This is an experiential learning course where students will utilize outside learning and multiple media sources to explore the topic.
Schedule Title: Glob Persp: Water and Society
Long Title: Water and Society
Sponsoring Department: Biological and Environmental Sciences
Approved Instructors: Mutiti
Students will examine issues surrounding global water use, management and needs. Students will investigate diverse responses of societies to contemporary water issues.