Author: ekalbro3

GEOG 468/568 /  Geography of Food Systems / Professor Leslie McLees

This class explores different ways of understanding how food systems have developed and how they both reflect and impact our society. In this class, we will explore some of the roots of what constitutes healthy eating, the role of race in the production and consumption of food, and how policy, the economy, and even religion impact the availability of certain types of food today.

GEOG 410/510 / Landscapes of Climate Change / Professor Leslie McLees

This course will provide a spatial understanding of how climate change occurs both from a scientific perspective and a cultural perspective. After an overview in climate change science, we will survey regions of the world to combine science with cultural approaches that impact how people interact with and understand their local landscapes. This class is meant to provide a grounded sense of the complexity of how climate change is understood around the world. This approach highlights how science and culture evolve and interact to produce both distinctive landscapes and diverse, creative adaptations to the changing planet.

GEOG 410/510 / Geography of the Anthropocene: Global Change / Professor Scott Warren

In this course we explore the relationship between nature and culture, and the many ways that humans have modified the earth. Many scientists, writers and other observers have asserted that humankind has “come to rival nature” in our ability to shape the earth and its systems (e.g., human-caused climate change). These observers argue that this ability to change nature and shape natural systems to our liking has ushered in a new era of geological history called the “Anthropocene.” We will interrogate this claim, reflect on its significance and theoretical underpinnings, and develop a better understanding of the drivers and consequences of global environmental change.

CAS 407/507 / Reconciliation after Intra-Community Violence / Professor Katie Dwyer  

All too often, communities are split by conflict and violence. In this class, we will engage with theories of reconciliation and case-studies of societies that have worked toward healing, even in the aftermath of terrible and long-lasting conflicts. Some principles of forgiveness or co-existence are specific to cultural groups and situations. Others might be more individual, and even perhaps universal. For students who have taken past classes on intercultural communication, conflict resolution, and social movements, this class is an excellent next step. If this is your first time engaging with complex issues of culture and conflict, I hope you will find you already know much more than you might have otherwise thought.

PS 405/605/ Democracy and Power in Contemporary American Politics / Gerry Berk

This class examines the ongoing debate about the health and future of American democracy. Some argue that the problem is that politicians violate norms that are necessary to keep the system healthy. Others argue that there are deeper causes of the threats to democracy. The US has seen a massive rise in economic inequality, in which powerful corporations have come to dominate the political process. Racial hierarchy remains a persistent problem, which keeps the US from becoming a fully inclusive democracy. While vigorous social movements have emerged in the past decade to address these issues, the challenges to American democracy persist.

MATH 107 / University Math III / Professor Craig Tingey 

The main goal of this course is to see many branches of mathematics and areas where real world problems can be solved by using mathematics. Prerequisite: Math 095 and/or Math 105, 106, or other college-level math. On your application please note if you have taken one of these or other college-level math classes.

CHN 410/510 / A Reading and Discussion of the Great Imaginative Buddhist Novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji) / Professor Stephen Durrant

Few novels in world history have been more beloved and have contributed more to popular culture than the sixteenth century Chinese novel Journey to the West, or the shorter version we will read The Monkey & The Monk (497 pp). The inspiration was an actual journey from China to India in the sixth century by the great Buddhist scholar-monk Xuanzang (596?-664 CE) to obtain Buddhist scriptures, which he could then translate and share with the Chinese world of his time. His trip across the deserts and mountains of Central Asia inspired stories, some highly fantastic. Despite the novel’s fantasy and playfulness, it is often read as a serious Buddhist allegory of the journey toward enlightenment and has been classified as one of the four masterworks of Ming dynasty (1368-1644) fiction. Reading and discussing this novel, I promise, will be quite a trip!

GEOG 410 / Geography of the Mexican-American Borderland / Scott Warren 

This regional geography course explores the environment, history, culture, politics, and economy of the United States and Mexico borderland. The borderland is a contact zone where cultures come together and break apart, where multibillion dollar industries exist alongside intense poverty, and where crises and problems (both real and imagined) seem to never end. As a geography course, we are especially interested in the relationship between people and place in the borderland, and how people’s lives are impacted by the international line. In this class we will put the problems of the border into a larger context and move toward a deeper understanding of this important region.

MATH 106 / University Math / Craig Tingey 

Topics include mathematics of finance, applied geometry, exponential growth and decay, and a nontechnical introduction to the concepts of calculus. The goal of the course is to begin to think and reason mathematically in many different areas which is why formulas and memorization are not emphasized.    

PPPM 410 / End-of-Life Care in the United States

We will discuss issues around end-of-life care, including what it means to die in the U.S. and problems with our current healthcare system and ways to improve it. This includes discussions of health policy, medical ethics, different philosophies toward death, as well as end-of-life care for incarcerated individuals. This issue has become more urgent in the U.S. for both the general and incarcerated populations; by 2030, 20% of the U.S. population will be elderly (aged 65+) and exceed the number of children for the first time in the history of the U.S. It is well recognized that the current system is not working and is incredibly costly.

PSY 410 / Psychological Perspectives on Self and Identity / Inga Schowengerd

The psychological constructs of identity and self will be utilized to survey the varying ways in which the experience and nature of “one’s own sense of self” is examined and elucidated across the major sub-fields of psychology, including: developmental; personality, social, cognitive, abnormal, counseling, organizational, occupational, humanistic, existential, and transpersonal psychology. Particular consideration will be given to the significance of such cultural and contextual factors as race, ethnicity and gender.

PSY 510 / Evolutionary Psychology: Theories, Findings, and Future Possibilities / Holly Arrow

This course investigates how the tools of evolutionary theory have been applied to develop and test ideas about human behavior and the many forces (cognition, culture, development, emotion, social influence) that shape this behavior. We will examine the intellectual history of evolutionary psychology, including the insights, assumptions, and blind spots that have guided the development of theories, the choice of questions, and the collection and interpretation of data. We will also speculate about new questions / ideas / hypotheses that could be explored using the concepts and methods developed by evolutionary psychology and associated fields.