Courses

Our worlds are infused with communication—our personal and professional lives, our lives online and offline.  We have so many communication outlets and platforms that it is difficult to break through the clutter, to find our own positions and possibilities, to think critically about who and what influences us and why.  Yet, it has never been more important to do this kind of work, to listen to varied viewpoints, to take different perspectives, and to be empathetic to those who have differing ideas.

Faculty: Dean Banet-Weiser

This seminar will focus on American jazz in diaspora: i.e., we typically think of the African diaspora as people from Africa coming to the US either through slavery or more recently, as immigrants, refugees, political exiles, for economic opportunity and even education. In this class we will think diaspora differently: we look at the ways in which 20th century US originating jazz traveled the globe with a message of freedom through the practice of improvisation and experimentation.

This course will engage students in questions of slavery, indentured labor, migration, and repair through the conceptual frameworks of middle passages and returns. We will collectively investigate the routes and roots through which and from which people have traveled back and forth between African, Asian, and American sites in order to ask complicated questions about travel, conscription, labor, spirituality, and self-narration. How do we think about the complex trajectories that brought Africans and Asians to the Americas?  How do we excavate lesser known inter- and intra-continental circulations? In what ways is return theoretically and methodologically im/possible? How has repair been envisioned?

This course will focus on plants and their role in sustainable ecosystem stability and food security globally and in the urban setting in the city of Philadelphia. We will explore challenges faced due to environmental and land use change, and access to green spaces. We will examine the role of plants in urban food, ancestral traditions, community, health & wellbeing, also ecosystems benefits. We will discuss plant biological, genetic, breeding as well as ecological solutions for enhancing plant resilience and system resilience. Students will gain hands-on experience, engage in dialog with farm, garden and ecosystem practitioners, as well as city officials and other support systems, NGOs and small businesses. Dialog will occur both on visits to local gardens, farms, or parks with representatives and stakeholders or on campus with guest speakers and each other. Students will develop project ideas, educational materials, plans, or designs that detail possible solutions to problems identified during their investigations. Activities will intersect with to those of PlantARC.

Media institutions have long played a central role in constructing national identity, particularly in the era of nation-states. As globalization increases, media industries have also helped countries project their national identities – and nationalism – for both domestic and international audiences. With contemporary nationalist movements in the spotlight, this course examines how media institutions and cultural industries help to shape nationalism while framing in-group/out-group dynamics for audiences.

Free markets excel at producing wealth, but seem to do so at the cost of economic inequality. Is this inequality unjust? Is it a problem economics and public policy should solve? Liberal democracies have traditionally had the protection of private property as a core mandate. But they also have varying degrees of redistribution in order to fund social welfare systems. How can we reconcile these objectives which seem to conflict? Is the protection of individual rights more important than the promotion of the greatest good for all? To what extent can personal liberty and the common good be reconciled?

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.

“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.

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.

“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.

This graduate seminar explores recent work at the forefront of legal philosophyand adjacent fields, particularly moral, social, and political philosophy. 

How do racial and ethnic identities influence political behaviors, policies, and institutions? In this course, we will explore conceptual and methodological issues, focusing on how racial and ethnic groups shape and are shaped in turn by their political system. We will discuss a diverse range of groups, including African, Asian, European, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Indigenous populations around the world. We will cover topics including the meaning of race and ethnicity, the historical impact of colonialism and civil rights movements, prejudice, group participation and mobilization, political representation, public opinion, the role of the media, political parties, government institutions, and policies intended to address racial and ethnic disparities.

Faculty: Jair A. Moreira

The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of how decisions and policy are really made in Washington. Weekly travel to Washington D.C. required.

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.

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. The curriculum explores the U.S. military, the criminal justice system, race, health, violence, poverty, U.S. policy, trauma, and masculinity.

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.