Courses

Courses for the holistic student.

SNF Paideia designated courses, designed and taught by faculty from all of Penn’s twelve Schools, aim to examine the theory and practice of dialogue across differences and to apply a dialogue lens to issues of citizenship, community service, or individual and community wellness. Open to all Penn undergraduates, SNF Paideia designated courses are noted on student transcripts. In addition, the Program identifies and recommends other courses offered at Penn that focus on wellness, service, citizenship, and dialogue. Read more about Paideia designated and recommended courses below.

Penn students on the lawn

Fall 2024

ARTH 3965 / CIMS 3965

The Art of Art Collecting

Instructor(s)

  • Peter Decherney

Semester

Fall 2024

This course is taught regularly and takes up different case studies of collectors and collecting. In Fall 2024, we will undertake a semester-long study of the Neumann family of collectors.

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BIOL 1850-301

Research in Biological Sciences and Its Social Impact

Instructor(s)

  • Mecky Pohlschroder

Semester

Fall 2024

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.

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COML 0522

Testimony: Life-writing as Dialogue

Instructor(s)

  • Sarah Ropp

Semester

Fall 2024

This hybrid literature/creative writing course centers on the genre of testimony as a form of life-writing and self-making that is fundamentally dialogic; that is, dependent on what Dori Laub calls “a listening other” to be fully realized.

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COMM 3280-301

Drawing the Blue Line: Police and Power in American Popular Culture

Instructor(s)

  • Murali Balaji

Semester

Fall 2024

The police are one of the most heavily imagined institutions in American popular culture. From Cagney and Lacey to Colors, Law & Order, The Wire and The Watchmen, evolving depictions of law enforcement help us to understand larger socio-cultural shifts that have occurred from the post-1968 riots to the dawn of the Black Lives Matter movement in the mid-2010s and police abolition in the early 2020s.

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EDUC 2551-001

Mindfulness and Human Development

Instructor(s)

  • Elizabeth Mackenzie

Semester

Fall 2024

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.

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ENGL 0755 / ANTH 1755

Listening in Troubled Times

Instructor(s)

  • Aaron Levy

Semester

Fall 2024

“Listening enables us to give democratic shape to our being together in the world,” according to the political philosopher Susan Bickford. In this course, we will explore histories and theories of listening and the power of listening as a means to connect with other times and spaces.

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ENGL 0765 - 301

Podcasting

Instructor(s)

  • Chris Mustazza

Semester

Fall 2024

Podcasting has become one of the most popular ways of disseminating the voice, supplanting radio. It has even been a primary driver of the growth of music streaming services like Spotify. This creative-critical seminar situates the podcast historically, analyzes current instantiations of the genre, and teaches hands-on skills to create your own podcasts. The course also frames podcasts as a form of asynchronous dialogue that can be critically engaged with and utilized as a mechanism to comment on societal issues.

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FNAR 3160 / ENGL 3652-401 / GSWS 0860-401 / FNAR 5064-401

Is This Really Happening? Performance and Contemporary Political Horizons

Instructor(s)

  • Sharon Hayes
  • Brooke O'Harra

Semester

Fall 2024

This class addresses the meeting points inside of and between a range of resistant performance practices with a focus on artists using performance to address political and social encounters in the contemporary moment.

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HIST 1178

America in the 1960s

Instructor(s)

  • William Sturkey

Semester

Fall 2024

The Sixties are mythologized in American memory. From social movements to hippies, the Sixties are often portrayed as a decade of unfettered idealism, chaos, and revolution. The Sixties were indeed a dramatic era of conflict and change, but the experiences of Americans who lived during the Sixties were also remarkably diverse and complex in ways that transcend stereotypes of the decade.

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HIST 2208-301

Communicating Science and Knowledge from Socrates to Today

Instructor(s)

TBD

Semester

Fall 2024

From Socrates in the fourth century BCE to Galileo in the seventeenth, the dialogue—a form of writing that stages a conversation or debate between two or more speakers—was one of the most popular genres for disseminating observations and opinions about the world, particularly when they were new or controversial. Although scientists no longer use written dialogues to share their research today, discussion, disagreement, and debate remain important tools for advancing scientific knowledge, at least in theory if not always in practice.

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LALS 3020 / PSCI 2420

Diplomacy in the Americas: The Penn Model OAS Program

Instructor(s)

  • Catherine Bartch

Semester

Fall 2024

“Diplomacy in the Americas” an academically based community service course in which students work with Philadelphia and Norristown public school students to explore solutions to critical problems facing the Americas.

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NURS 3200

Designing to Care: Improving Health and Wellness

Instructor(s)

  • Sara F. Jacoby
  • Mikael Avery

Semester

Fall 2024

Designing to Care is informed by ideas and skills from across the disciplines of design, nursing, and health research. As an interdisciplinary and project-based course, it actively examines the connection between the design of healthcare, how we communicate health strategies, and the impact of both on individual, institutional, and community wellbeing.

 

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PHIL 2991

Science Communication in Democracy

Instructor(s)

  • Vanessa Schipani

Semester

Fall 2024

This course examines the role of science and science communication in democracy through diverse readings, the examination of case studies and discussions with invited journalists, scientists and philosophers. First-year students and those without a background in philosophy are most welcome.

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PHIL 4480, PHIL 6480

Oppression: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Instructor(s)

  • Sukaina Hirji

Semester

Fall 2024

What is oppression? Does it define a subjective experience or a structural condition? Should we understand it in terms of a restriction on freedom? Or equality? Or our ability to fully express our agency? And how can it be resisted?

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PPE 4900-301

Advanced Seminar in PPE: Cooperative Altruism

Instructor(s)

  • Jaron Cordero

Semester

Fall 2024

An advanced seminar in PPE offered by Paideia-affiliated faculty. As an advanced interdisciplinary seminar, this course is open to juniors and seniors with a declared PPE major (open to others by departmental permission). For a detailed course description visit: https://ppe.sas.upenn.edu/study/curriculum/advanced-interdisciplinary-courses

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PSCI 3600

Democracy and Disagreement

Instructor(s)

  • Ian MacMullen

Semester

Fall 2024

When and how can we justify using the power of the government to force our fellow citizens to follow rules with which they disagree?

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PSYC 0405/OIDD 2000

Grit Lab: Fostering Passion and Perseverance

Instructor(s)

  • Angela Duckworth

Semester

Fall 2024

At the heart of this course are cutting-edge scientific discoveries about passion and perseverance for long-term goals. As in any other undergraduate course, you will learn things you didn’t know before. But unlike most courses, Grit Lab requires you to apply what you’ve learned in your daily life, to reflect, and then to teach what you’ve learned to younger students.

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URBS 1400 - 301

Inequity and Empowerment: Urban Financial Literacy

Instructor(s)

  • Brian Peterson

Semester

Fall 2024

This course provides students with a rich look at the historical and contemporary factors that have shaped America’s wealth gaps. By studying the economic impacts of systemic forces such as discriminatory housing, predatory lending, and unbanking, students will develop a deep financial understanding of today’s urban communities.

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URBS 3120-301

Vulnerable Vets

Instructor(s)

  • Tyson Smith

Semester

Fall 2024

Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship in the fields of sociology, history, psychology, psychiatry, and public health, this course interrogates the identity of vulnerable veterans (veterans who are incarcerated, homeless, or struggling with suicidal ideation). The course focuses on justice-involved veterans who are at the nexus of two of the United States largest, most powerful, and well-funded institutions—the criminal justice system and the military.

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URBS 3140 / SOCI 2960

Participatory Cities

Instructor(s)

  • Marisa Denker

Semester

Fall 2024

What is a participatory city? What has that term meant in the past, what does it mean now, and what will it mean going forward? Against the backdrop of increasing inequality and inequity, and the rise in a search for solutions, what role can citizens play in co-creating more just cities and neighborhoods? How can citizens be engaged in the decision making processes about the places where we live, work, and play? And most importantly, how can we work to make sure that all kinds of voices are meaningfully included, and that historically muted voices are elevated to help pave a better path forward?

Designated as an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course.

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WRIT 0021

Rhetorics of Place

Instructor(s)

TBD

Semester

Fall 2024

The question “Where are you from?” evokes a myriad of responses which can vary along socio-political, cultural, and economic fault-lines. We conceptualize our identities through the meanings we attach to place; conversely, we conceptualize place, geographically speaking, through the lens of our identities. For example, residents who live on the north side of a city may perceive themselves as different from residents who live on the south side of a city, and vice versa. This phenomenon of differentiated identity mediated through place occurs at a variety of geographical and regional scales, from the local to the transnational.

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WRIT 0021

Why Museums?: The Politics of Preservation

Instructor(s)

TBD

Semester

Fall 2024

Museums’ foundational purpose – to represent heritage through collections, preservation, and visual presentation – are now questioned. Museums are being called upon, in the words of Decolonize Latinx, to “name anti-Black racism and begin the work of establishing new practices that resist and reject white supremacy.”

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WRIT 0021 - 302

Deliberation, Advocacy and Civic Discourse

Instructor(s)

  • Jean-Paul Cauvin

Semester

Fall 2024

How do we conceptualize and perform ourselves as political actors? How can rhetoric and philosophy work together to craft viable strategies for advocacy and novel forms of deliberation?

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WRIT 0021 - 303

Things One Should Never Discuss: Politics and Religion

Instructor(s)

  • Phillip Fackler

Semester

Fall 2024

Numerous divides dominate discussions of life in the U.S.: Polarization rooted in political parties. Deepening income inequality. Stalemates over how to address global crises like climate change, human migration, and public health. The list is long. Tensions between politics and religion can exacerbate any of these divides.

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WRIT 0021-301

Coke is It! The Rhetoric of Multinational Capital

Instructor(s)

  • Sara Byala

Semester

Fall 2024

This writing seminar investigates how the rhetoric of multinational capitalism functions on the African continent through a case study of Coca-Cola. Today, Coca-Cola is present in every African nation. By most estimates, it is the single largest employer on the continent, with a multiplier effect that means that each formal job generates roughly ten more.

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WRIT 0021-304

The Power of the Situation

Instructor(s)

  • Shaleigh Kwok

Semester

Fall 2024

A sense of belonging allows us to be more compassionate, more humane, and more tolerant of outsiders. In this critical writing seminar we will investigate ways to create belonging in our everyday lives.

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WRIT 0021-305

Understanding Emergent Strategy

Instructor(s)

  • Keahnan Washington

Semester

Fall 2024

How might our voices be heard and reach through the din of an ever-changing and increasingly complex world? This course seeks to introduce concepts and practices of critical engagement—with ourselves, with our communities, with the world—to help us learn how to amplify our voices through writing and other practices of engagement in civil discourse.

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SNF Paideia designated courses will be noted on a student’s transcript.

Preceptorial

Racism and
Anti-Racism in Contemporary America

A unique series of interdisciplinary conversations among leading scholars and practitioners drawn from a wide range of fields. Each conversation focuses on the ways in which institutional racism is deeply embedded in different parts of our economic, political, social, and cultural systems.

Racism and Anti-Racism in Contemporary America
Protestor holding up Black Lives Matter poster

Suggest a course.

We are eager to hear from faculty about classes they would like offered under the SNF Paideia Program.

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