(Offered as ENGL 298 and STAT 201) This interdisciplinary Intensive Writing course investigates the role of writing in public discourse about STEM research, focusing on the way that the general public understands–or misunderstands–science and data. It teaches students to communicate technical information to a variety of audiences beyond academia. As such, this course will involve a community-engaged learning project related to science and communication. Assigned texts will include a range of sources (books, articles, podcasts, videos) from writing studies and a STEM discipline.

(Offered as ENGL 280 and FAMS 210) An introduction to cinema studies through consideration of key critical terms, together with a selection of films from different cultural contexts for illustration and discussion. Special emphasis placed on prominent genres, movements, and tendencies within contemporary film culture, and the concepts that animate critical debates on contemporary cinema. The keywords for discussion may include, among others: montage, realism, ideology, the gaze, streaming, digitization, truth, and access.

In this workshop-based course, students will continue to learn and hone the basic elements of writing for the stage: voice, craft, and process.  Playwriting work will be augmented by a focus on studying full-length plays and perspectives from global playwrights to expose students to a variety of forms, genres, structures, and narratives. A central goal of this course will be understanding the wide possibilities of creating a theatrical work from outside of a Western Naturalism perspective.

This course, an introduction to media studies, examines the relationship between contemporary media forms and the environment with an emphasis on media’s role in the ongoing global environmental crisis. We will analyze the environmental aspects of a range of media objects including science-fiction films, documentary photographs, reality TV shows, video games, and others. But we will also explore the environmental impact of broader media technologies like video streaming platforms and fiber-optic cable networks.

(Offered as EDST 352, AMST 352 and SOCI 352) This course serves as the foundational course for the Educational Studies major. Public education has been a fundamental social good in the United States for hundreds of years. It has also been an object of significant disagreement. What should be the goals of education? Who should have access to education and who should control that education? These questions raise even more basic questions. What sorts of things are valuable for human beings? How does a just society distribute the goods that it produces?

(Offered as EDST 352, AMST 352 and SOCI 352) This course serves as the foundational course for the Educational Studies major. Public education has been a fundamental social good in the United States for hundreds of years. It has also been an object of significant disagreement. What should be the goals of education? Who should have access to education and who should control that education? These questions raise even more basic questions. What sorts of things are valuable for human beings? How does a just society distribute the goods that it produces?

(Offered as ENGL 120 and EDST 120) This course considers from many perspectives what it means to read and write and learn and teach both for ourselves and for others. As part of the work, in addition to the usual class hours, students will serve as weekly tutors and classroom assistants in adult basic education centers in nearby towns. This course consciously engages with the obstacles to and the power of education through course readings, through self-reflexive writing about our own varied educational experiences, and through weekly work in the community.

Education is one of the most promising ways to fight inequality, yet inequality in educational attainment is rising in the United States. This course focuses on understanding inequality in education in the U.S., and whether and how education reform can reduce it. The course begins with a brief overview of the historical and current relationship between educational attainment and inequality in the U.S. We then study the empirical economics literature examining whether prominent education policies and reforms reduce inequality in educational attainment.

The United States is in an unprecedented period of rising inequality. This course begins by examining the history of inequality in the U.S. since the start of the twentieth century. It then uses cutting-edge and detailed national data to document and explore the current state of inequality and intergenerational mobility in the U.S. We consider inequality by various metrics, such as race, gender, and geography, and in various outcomes, such as income, wealth, health, educational attainment, and incarceration.

(Offered as COLQ 234 and LJST 334, Research Seminar) The United States, almost alone among constitutional democracies, retains death as a criminal punishment. It does so in the face of growing international pressure for abolition and of evidence that the system for deciding who lives and who dies is fraught with error. This seminar is designed to expose students to America's death penalty as a researchable subject.