This is a graded introduction to the Communication major, designed to welcome first year students into the major and inform them of opportunities for their advancement in the department and beyond. The course introduces students to the five subject areas offered in the major and provides a brief overview of the field of communication as well as the major issues and topics that motivate the inquiries conducted in courses and in research.

This is a graded introduction to the Communication major, designed to welcome first year students into the major and inform them of opportunities for their advancement in the department and beyond. The course introduces students to the five subject areas offered in the major and provides a brief overview of the field of communication as well as the major issues and topics that motivate the inquiries conducted in courses and in research.

The culture and legislature of the United States shape discourses that produce the rights, recognitions, relations, im/mobilities, in/visibility, and mis/understandings of LGBTQIA persons and groups. In the context of history and from various social positions, these changes are read and enacted in multiple ways.

This course looks at the ways race, racial identities, and interracial relations are formed through and by communication practices in present-day U.S. America. Though focusing on U.S. America in the current historical moment, the course takes into account the ways history as well as the transnational flows of people and capital inform and define conversations about race and racial identities. Race will be discussed as intersectional, taking into account the ways race is understood and performed in relation to gender, sexuality, class, and nation.

What is Ethnography? What is Performance (auto) Ethnography? How can we think about Performing Ethnography? This performance-based seminar will focus on the implications of decolonizing emancipatory epistemologies for critical, interpretive inquiry. Drawing heavily in the works of Dwight Conquergood, Norman Denzin, and D. Soyini Madison, we give a rest to traditional forms of qualitative inquiry as we disrupt the notion of "business as usual" in the academic space. We will examine the interpenetrating relationships among performance, ethnography, and culture.

Not available at this time

This course will examine the relationship between commercialized systems of representation and the way that gender and sexuality are thought of and organized in the culture. In particular, we will look at how commercial imagery impacts upon gender identity and the process of gender socialization. Central to this discussion will be the related issues of sexuality and sexual representation (and the key role played by advertising).

An exploration of the counter-cultural movements of the 1960s and 70s and later, hosted by someone who was there and lived to tell the tale. Through the medium of documentary and fiction films, we will delve into the musical, sexual, artistic, political and spiritual upheavals that rocked America and Europe back then and that continue to reverberate today. This course satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Comm majors.

This course examines humor as a significant form of creative expression in social and political life. In recent decades, scholars of all persuasions from the humanities, social sciences, and even hard sciences have examined this subject through a critical lens, leading to the development of an interdisciplinary field known as humor studies. This course provides an introduction to that burgeoning field.

Exploration of the types of writing associated with the discipline of communication. Development and improvement of the student's writing, research, and critical thinking skills. Fulfills Junior Year Writing requirement.