“In this seminar, we will examine the form of sequential art we call comic books. The course is composed of two parts: close reading of landmark graphic novels and comics, and secondly the writing of original comic scripts. Throughout the term, we will examine a wide variety of groundbreaking... (read more)

This course studies works of film and media as aesthetic objects that engage with communities identified by class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. It considers both the effects of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination on media and filmmaking practices and modes of reception that... (read more)

In recent decades environmental scientists have used ice cores, tree rings, and trace elements to establish fine-grained histories of climate and ecology stretching back several hundred thousand years. Also, scholars in geo-mythology have compared folk legends to geologic events and paleoecology... (read more)

In this course we will explore some of the many myths and legends of the medieval Celts (in this case, the Welsh and the Irish), from King Arthur to CuChulainn and beyond.  We will look at the history of the Celts, at early Celtic culture, at what is known of Celtic gods and the Druids, and at... (read more)

What does it mean for a woman to write her self in comics? Our class will explore the form of graphic memoir through works such as Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Bishakh Som’s Spellbound, in order to think through the risks and tactics of... (read more)

This course examines human bodies in comics, focusing on intersections of disability with gender, race, and sexuality. We consider the intertwined relationship between bodies and minds that disability studies scholars call the bodymind. Change is a fundamental property of bodyminds. Sometimes we... (read more)

This project-based capstone experience is an opportunity for students to bring together all the skills and knowledge they have developed while completing the Digital Humanities minor. The initial weeks of the course will provide a firm foundation in organizing research materials using... (read more)

This class explores liner notes written for vinyl records and other media formats. With a focus on the 1950s-1970s and labels like Rosetta Records, we study essays printed on LP packaging – on the cardboard sleeves that contain, transport, and protect the recorded sound of an album – doing so in... (read more)

This course studies works of film and media as aesthetic objects that engage with communities identified by class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. It considers both the effects of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination on media and filmmaking practices and modes of reception that... (read more)

In this seminar, we will examine the form of sequential art we call comic books. The course is composed of two parts: close reading of landmark graphic novels and comics, and writing of original comic scripts. Throughout the term, we will examine a wide variety of groundbreaking graphic novels,... (read more)

This course introduces students to critical thinking about the historical and economic factors influencing film, media, and cultural production in Hollywood and in response to Hollywood. Unconventional textual and contextual dynamics, understood as queer history, are the focus of the course,... (read more)

This course is the capstone for the Digital Humanities minor. In it, students will develop an original, term-length digital research project of their own design, bringing together all the skills and knowledge they have developed as they have taken other classes toward the minor. The project... (read more)

There is perhaps no image more widely recognized yet more grossly misunderstood in American popular culture than the “Indian.” Whether viewed as irredeemable savages and impediments to progress or as idealized possessors of primitive innocence and new-age spiritualism, “the Indian” stands as an... (read more)

This course participates in the ongoing reassessment of relations between aesthetic modernism and popular culture. The rise of "New Modernist studies" over the past twenty five years, with its expansive historical orientation and interest in modernism's original cultural contexts, has led to a... (read more)

This course studies works of film and media as aesthetic objects that engage with communities identified by class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. It considers both the effects of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination on media and filmmaking practices and modes of reception that... (read more)

Explores the role of folklore in people's religious lives with particular emphasis on narrative, beliefs, rituals, celebrations, otherworldly encounters, pilgrimage, and ecstatic states.

Once upon a time, the four-color world of the superhero was a comfortingly simple place.  Whether they came from distant galaxies or our home planet, the super-powered beings of the 1940s and 50s were secure in their sense of righteousness and generally saw no contradiction between truth,... (read more)

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This course studies works of film and media as representational objects that engage with communities identified by intersectional categories including sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nation, class, and ability. It considers historical and contemporary effects of prejudice, intolerance,... (read more)

This course introduces students to critical thinking about the aesthetic, historical and economic factors influencing film, media, and cultural... (read more)

This course brings together critical animal studies and environmental studies.

• The first unit asks what would it be like to be a bat or an octopus or some other species. Imagining the perspectives of other species leads... (read more)