Courses

Fridays, 1:45 pm-4:44 pm

This is a Penn Global Seminars Abroad, semester-long class with travel abroad after. It focuses on the interrelationship of music, arts, community-building, land, politics, and history. Places covered in coursework and travel vary by semester, and students have to apply for the class through Penn Global. The class is limited in student participation to no more than 20 students.

Students must apply through Penn Global and submit a permission request to enroll in the course. Questions should be directed to Dr. Carol Muller: camuller@sas.upenn.edu

Wednesdays, 1:45 pm-4:44 pm

Crafting an Ethnography of Vulnerability What if we could practice a radical ethnography of vulnerability because we believe that truly democratized, ethical engagement requires the unconditional vulnerability of the ethnographer: the relinquishing of all academic, professional, and project power bullying through a humble transparency and personal permeability that immediately triggers trust by de-enshrining the intellectual, by bravely including the emotional and spiritual life of the empathic ethnographer.

Mondays, 12:00 pm – 2:59 pm

This course proposes an examination of race with a two-pronged approach: one that broadly links the study of race in the United States with a multi-disciplinary approach and also simultaneously situates specific conversations within the immediate location of Philadelphia, home to the University.

Tuesdays, 1:45 pm-4:44 pm

This course considers various theoretical approaches to justice and health, motivated by the idea that a moral framework is needed to address the ethical challenges posed by inequalities in access, quality, financial burdens, and resource priorities, as well as rising health care costs.

Thursdays, 5:15 pm-8:14 pm

Working to remove the myths about fundamental and translational research, this course focuses on informing students beyond the public perception of biology and biological research. Striving to develop students’ scientific communication skills, personal identity in science, and the intersection between research and community, we will engage students through collaboration with the Philadelphia community in addition to lecture and discussion based learning.

Registration limited to students in the First Exposure to Research in the Biological Sciences (FERBS) program. Contact Dr. Pohlschroder for permission to enroll.

Tuesdays, 3:30 pm-6:29 pm 

This course uses a biological foundation to explore general issues at the interface of biology and society. We will use both historical and contemporary reading materials, with an emphasis on the primary scientific literature, to inform discussions on often controversial issues in biology as well as the social responsibility of scientists to respond to these issues. The course will cover how science has shaped social and political opinions on such topics as race, ethnicity, and gender, as well as how society and politics are influenced by and impact science. This course will provide a background and context in which to consider, anticipate, and respond to biology’s present and future ethical and social implications.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:45 pm-3:14 pm

Rhetoric and the Community is a class designed to improve the quality of students’ speaking abilities. Through debates, impromptu speeches and various other types of oral reports, students develop their skills as speakers. The emphasis here is on practical advice, constant positive criticism and an active exploration of the art of oratory. We will emphasize the role of effective oral communication in contributing to a higher level of engagement and discourse in the community. This class will particularly help those planning careers in advocacy, public service, teaching and other areas where confident, thoughtful, and articulate communication are important.

Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:45 pm-3:15 pm

This course is an exploration of dialogue across difference through three lenses: theoretical, practical, and representational. Rather than prescribe a particular model of what dialogue should look like and accomplish, the course exposes students to a diverse range of ideas and narratives related to dialogue. By the end of the course, you’ll have begun to develop and practice your own working theory and model of dialogue that is relevant to your values and goals and meaningful to the kinds of work you are most invested in doing.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:00 pm-1:29 pm

If we were to fashion new laws for speech from scratch in our media-saturated, fake news world, would they be different laws from those we have? The rootedness of free speech in our civic DNA springs from enduring philosophical arguments over what truth and knowledge are, what human nature is like, and what we think society owes to and requires from its members. We explore foundational debates at the core of the First Amendment, the evolving interpretation of the amendment by the Supreme Court, its determined historical challengers, and struggles over its applicability to contemporary controversies. We address strong claims that unfettered speech is central to democratic societies and strong claims that society can be made more democratic by removing discriminatory speech from social media and public discourse more generally. Every society limits speech in significant ways. What are these limits in the United States, why are these the limits, and are they the ones we want? This reading and discussion seminar meets for lively, informed dialogue and debate.

Thursdays, 3:30 pm-6:29 pm

America’s criminal justice system, which affects every community in the United States, is often criticized for being biased, overly punitive, ineffective at reducing crime, and resistant to change. This course will review the various components of the criminal justice system, identify the structural challenges to the widespread implementation of reforms or improvements to the system, and provide students with a conceptual framework for dialogue and structural/cultural change that can improve the legitimacy and effectiveness of our criminal justice agencies and enhance the delivery of justice for all.

Wednesdays, 8:45 am-11:44 am

The goal of this course is to help students develop concepts, tools, dispositions, and skills that will help them engage productively in the ongoing experiment of American democracy. This nation’s founders created a governmental structure that sets up an ongoing and expansive conversation about how to manage the tensions and tradeoffs between competing values and notions of the public good. These tensions can never be fully resolved or eliminated; they are intrinsic to the American experiment. Every generation must struggle to find its own balance, in no small part because in every era people who previously had been unjustly excluded from the conversation find a way to be heard. That inevitably introduces new values and changes how enduring ones get interpreted. The challenge of each generation is to develop that capacity to its fullest.

Thursdays, 3:30 pm-6:29 pm

This course will introduce the student to the many ways in which mindfulness is currently being implemented to support the health and success of students of all ages.  Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), in particular, which utilizes secularized practices from Asian and South Asian traditions for the remediation of various health concerns, has revolutionized behavioral medicine, and the scientific evaluation of MBSR has shed new light on the bio-mechanical pathways linking mind and body.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30 pm-4:59 pm

Is there any historical basis for thinking that religion and good citizenship can coincide? The American political project was designed, according to many of its original activists as well as contemporary theorists across the political spectrum, both to establish a safe haven for free religious practice *and* to protect the public from religious violence. That second concern may have been waning as the 21st century ushered in what was famously described as “A Secular Age”, but in the following decade some sociologists observed a new surge in Global Religion.

Wednesdays, 5:15 pm-8:14 pm

Mondays and Wednesdays, 3:30 pm-4:59 pm

In this course, we will explore altruism as a process and investigate its affective, cognitive, behavioral, social, and ecological components. We will investigate questions such as, what are the causes, conditions, and impediments of altruism? Can altruism be developed within individuals, and if so how? What would an altruistic society look like, and how might it be achieved? As an academically based community service (ABCS) course, students will be paired with and serve at local organization. By the end of the semester, the class will have cooperated with members of the partner organizations to identify and develop feasible projects to improve well-being in the communities they serve.

Fridays, 12 pm-2:59 pm

This course will consider key texts in Black political thought from across the Atlantic. Topics will include slavery, racial capitalism, colonialism, Black Feminism, black internationalism, farming and food politics, and abolition.

Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:15 am-11:44 am

This course seeks to understand contemporary political divisions in the United States. Guiding our analysis will be scholarship from the discipline of political science, with particular attention given to political culture, American political development and federalism while incorporating scholarship from several other disciplines. As we study political culture at the national level, we will unpack our own individual attitudes towards politics. There will be an emphasis throughout the course on personal wellness during dialogue with assignments ranging from written reflections on experiences to textual analysis to their combination.

Enrollment in this course is restricted. Request Permission to register.

Tuesdays, 1:45 pm-4:44 pm

The early 1950s may have been the nadir for modern American conservatism. Conservative hero Robert Taft had lost the Republican nomination for President to a more moderate candidate for the third time, many in the Republican Party had moved to accept some of the most popular New Deal programs, and a moderate, internationalist consensus had taken hold in the country. Yet, from these ashes, conservatism rose to become a potent political force — maybe the driving force — in the United States over the last half century. This seminar explores the contours of that rise, beginning with infrastructure laid and coalitions forged in the 1950s and early 1960s. We will see how conservatives built upon this infrastructure to overcome Barry Goldwater’s crushing 1964 defeat to elect one of their own, Ronald Reagan, president in 1980. Reagan’s presidency transformed the public philosophy and helped shape subsequent American political development.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:45 pm-3:14 pm

This course introduces students to fundamental moral questions about countries and individuals’ membership in them. Do people owe more to their compatriots than to foreigners?  Is it desirable – or at least permissible – for countries to have and promote a national identity?  What different forms can patriotism take, and in which (if any) of these forms is it a virtue?  Should we all be “citizens of the world”?  These questions will be explored primarily through readings in contemporary moral and political philosophy.

Mondays, 10:15 am-1:14 pm

Beginning roughly a decade ago, parties of the liberal center-left and center-right began to be challenged electorally in liberal democracies around the world. In most cases, this challenge has come from the populist right. In “The Global Rise of the Populist Right,” we will examine this trend in detail, combining collective reading on the phenomenon with individual student projects that delve into detail on the career of the populist right in a specific country (options include the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and India).

Mondays, 1:45 pm-4:44 pm 

This intensive, discussion-based seminar will equip you with useful insight and critical analysis about Positive Psychology by emphasizing scientific literacy. The workload for this seminar requires intensive reading. To excel in this seminar, students must be willing to enthusiastically read, dissect, and critique ideas within Positive Psychology. This requires students to articulate various ideas in verbal and written form.

Mondays, 7:00 pm-9:59 pm

The phrase “failure to communicate” became iconic in American English from the 1967 film “Cool Hand Luke,” in which Paul Newman played a convict who refuses to listen or follow orders. The film raised questions about the multiple ways we understand “failure to communicate” and its consequences. Is it sometimes a decision to resist a presumption, a premise, an interpretation, an argument, a directive from authority? Is it at other times simply a mechanical failure? This course examines “failure to communicate” in multiple cultural areas, among them literature, romance, politics, show business, law, science, war, psychology, philosophy, business, religion, humor and education.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:00 pm-1:29 pm 

This seminar primarily focuses on heterosexual friendship between men and women, and the methodological issues of investigating such relationships. The scope for sexuality and romance in heterosexual opposite-sex friendship will be explored, as well as the possibility that men and women perceive opposite-sex friendship differently from each other. The ramifications of sex, romance, and incongruent perspectives in these relationships will be discussed, as will intimacy, competition, homosexual friendship, and same-sex friendship.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:00 pm-1:29 pm

The course consists of weekly 90-minute lectures on Positive Psychology: The topics include Well-Being as a Life Goal, Good Character, Learned Helplessness, Optimism, Coaching, Therapy and Prevention, Positive Education, the Positive Corporation, Agency, and Artificial Intelligence. In addition, there will be weekly recitation sessions and exercises for students to measure and to increase their personal well-being.

Class Format: TUESDAYS: 90-minute lectures on Positive Psychology. THURSDAYS: Students meet in small groups (“recitation sessions”) to complete exercises that measure and increase their personal well-being.

Instructors: Martin Seligman, Frank Jackson

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:15 pm-6:44 pm

Restorative Justice (RJ) is a new term to describe ancient ways of dealing with harm and being in community which centers our relationships and obligations to one another, as opposed to punishment and retribution. Increasingly popular as a response to a plethora of urban issues, from mass incarceration to gun violence to education inequality, RJ is also sometimes misunderstood or applied without fidelity.

This course explores the theory, history, and practice of RJ in the urban environment. The course intersperses practical communication and facilitation skills, visits from local practitioners and advocates, and in-depth discussion of texts and media. Through readings, discussions, activities, and projects we will develop a solid theoretical basis from which to understand RJ and its implementation, including a focus on holistic engagement with self, other, and community.

Thursdays, 12:00 pm-2:59 pm.

Art, dialogue theory and cultural differences come together in this experiential course. Students will explore and learn about all three of these components. They will experience true dialogue and learn about it. They will engage in interpersonal encounters with art, the key driver of cultural content for this course. Art will provide a neutral platform for perceiving cultural differences through careful exploration, verbal description, and an exchange of insights into ways artists express concerns, biases, and world views. Students will engage in dialogues to inquire into these and other personal and cultural differences, thereby participating in intercultural communication.