Core Course: News as a Moral Battleground

This course is open to all students, but is required for students enrolled in the JAM minor. This course must be taken for a letter grade to count towards the minor.

JAM 371, PUBPOL 371, ETHICS 259, DOCST 371, RIGHTS 371, POLSCI 375, CINE 371

News as a Moral Battleground

Ethical inquiry into journalism and its effect on public discourse. Issues include accuracy, transparency, conflicts of interest and fairness. Topics include coverage of national security, government secrecy, plagiarism/fabrication, and trade-offs of anonymous sourcing. Codes: EI, R, W, SS.

Fall 2024

Journalism & Media Practicum Course Cluster

The following courses are open to all undergraduates, but students enrolled in the JAM minor must take at least one for a letter grade.

JAM 367S-01, PUBPOL 367S-01

News Writing and Reporting

Seminar on reporting and writing news and feature stories. Students required to produce news stories based on original reporting and writing, including interviews, use of the Internet and electronic databases, public records, and written publications. Written assignments critiqued in class; final project Codes: R, W, SS.

Fall 2024

  • TBD
JAM 365S-01, PUBPOL 365S, VMS 305S, DOCST 367S, CINE 366S

Video Journalism

Theories and concepts of television broadcasting; writing and editing for electronic media; issues of production. Students will produce a Web portfolio. Codes: ALP, SS.

Fall 2024

JAM 366S, DOCST 356S, PUBPOL 366S

Long-form Journalism

This hands-on course will introduce you to the world of longform journalism. We’ll read and analyze some of the best writing of the past 30 years, and you’ll learn advanced interviewing skills, document research, writing, revising, and editing. We’ll talk with contemporary journalists. And you’ll spend the semester producing a high-quality longform story, with guidance from me and your peers. You’ll read and write a lot, but none of it will be academic; this class is about writing that stokes imagination, outrage, catharsis, empathy, and delight. Codes: W, SS

Fall 2024

JAM Capstone Course

This course will be taught in the fall and spring semesters and is open only to students enrolled in the JAM minor, for whom it is required. This course must be taken for a letter grade to count towards the minor.

JAM 410-01

Journalism & Media Capstone Course

Capstone course for the Journalism & Media minor. Course to be taken after the student completes an internship with a media organization. Designed to integrate student's practical experience with the more conceptual and theoretical knowledge gleaned from the classroom. Students discuss what they have learned, present examples of the work they have accomplished culminating in a research paper. Course requirements include writing a major research paper that synthesizes ideas and concepts learned in coursework with the internship's practical experience and a class presentation about the student's internship. Codes: R, SS.

Fall 2024

Elective Courses Fall 2024

These courses are open to all undergraduates. JAM students must take at least 3. If you find a course you think should be included in this list, please contact Kim Krzywy at kkrzywy@duke.edu.

JAM 363, DOCST 369

Podcasting in a Changing Media Landscape: The art, craft and ethics of an emerging medium

Podcasting has exploded in recent years, with hundreds of thousands of shows in production and more than a fifth of Americans listening to podcasts at least weekly. This course will provide a hands-on introduction to the craft of podcasting, combined with critical reflection on various podcast forms. Students will consider the role of podcasts in the changing media equation, including the role of podcasts in local news. They will gain practice with the basics of podcast creation and will apply these lessons by creating podcast episodes focusing on the people, places and issues of Durham, N.C. Codes: EI, R, ALP

Fall 2024

JAM 375, PUBPOL 343

Data and Investigative Journalism

Teaches the tools and techniques used by investigative journalists interested in acquiring and analyzing data to examine public policy and scrutinize systems of power. Students should have basic familiarity with journalism concepts, but no specific technical or mathematical skills required. Codes: STS, SS

Fall 2024

JAM 390S-10, PUBPOL 290S-10

The Public Sphere and Democratic Process (Duke Immerse)

This course will explore normative notions of the “public sphere” and how it should factor into the democratic process. In exploring both historical and contemporary versions of the public sphere, this course will also explore related concepts such as “public deliberation” and “public opinion,” how they have been conceptualized, defined, and measured over time; and how they affect – and are affected by – public policymaking. Finally, this course will spend a substantial amount of time exploring the dynamics of the contemporary digital public sphere, how it has evolved, how it is structured, and its implications for civil discourse and the democratic process. This course is open only to students enrolled in the Duke Immerse Program: Media and Civil Discourse. Codes EI, R.

Fall 2024

JAM 390S-20, PUBPOL 290S-20

Uncivil Discourse: The Media’s Role in America’s Arguments with Itself (Duke Immerse)

The American Experiment is just that—an experiment. Throughout its 247-year history as a nation, that experiment has seen stretches of stability as well as long seasons of profound discord (such as the Civil War). Our current era is clearly an example of the latter. The national government often appears to be in disarray. Religious institutions have ceded their moral authority. So has the news media, which is the focus of this course. The lack of trust in the news media has had a direct impact on how we talk about the issues that roil us most — healthcare, race, income inequality, international conflicts, and education, among many others. Those are among the issues we will examine in this course as we seek to answer questions such as: Should the news media drive our national conversations, or should it simply reflect them? Should journalists be advocates or simply truth-tellers? How has technology impacted how our news is delivered, and by extension, impacted civil discourse? And are there any solutions to be found? This course is open only to students enrolled in the Duke Immerse Program: Media and Civil Discourse. Codes: EI, W, CZ

Fall 2024

JAM 390S-30, PUBPOL 290S-30, EDUC 290S-30

Free Speech on the College Campus: Embracing the 1st Amendment and Civil Discourse (Duke Immerse)

Many college students, faculty and staff have expressed their concern and actual outrage at the fact that their schools have invited/allowed controversial speakers to visit their campuses. Needless to say, hearing offensive, rude and sometimes hateful speech can be challenging–especially when you are a college student, trying to focus on academic work and co-curricular activities. Meanwhile, many colleges and universities have justified these visits, pointing to how these opportunities contribute to a landscape of a free exchange of ideas while preparing students for the “real world” to come after college. Other schools have committed to creating safe spaces on their campuses where faculty, students, and staff can expect to be protected from microaggressions, receive trigger warnings, and not have to be subjected to “inflammatory” speakers. In this course, students will review the history and philosophy of the free speech component of the 1st Amendment and examine the way in which the US Supreme Court has ruled over the years in free speech cases. Students will then have the opportunity to fully consider the various approaches campuses have recently taken to dealing with free speech issues, including controversial speakers. The overarching principle of civil discourse will be modeled and practiced in this class, with the expectation of engagement being one of respect, trust, humanity and active listening. This course is open only to students enrolled in the Duke Immerse Program: Media and Civil Discourse. Codes: EI, R, W, CZ

Fall 2024

JAM 390S-40, PUBPOL 290S-40, DOCST 390S-40

The Art of Profile Writing

By exploring one of the most popular and useful formats in journalism—the profile—students in this course will learn to report, write, workshop, and revise a profile of their own. Readings will be newspaper (New York Times, Washington Post) and magazine (New Yorker, Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, Vanity Fair, WIRED) profiles of actors, artists, athletes, scientists, lawyers, activists, politicians, and a wide array of “ordinary” people who found themselves in extraordinary situations. Class discussions will focus on interviewing techniques, the ethics of the writer/subject relationship, narrative structure, and how best to unravel the mysteries of human motivation. No reporting experience required, but a willingness to talk to strangers is always a plus.

Fall 2024

JAM 390S.50, PUBPOL 290S-50

Environmental Journalism

This course will take a multifaceted and eclectic approach to writing about science and the natural world. We will read fast-paced, long-form adventure stories (think Jon Krakauer and Sebastian Junger), deeply reported personal essays (Annie Dillard, Rebecca Solnit, Rick Bass), award-winning investigations from outlets like ProPublica, and policy-centered narratives on climate change from The New York Times and The Washington Post. These writers will transport us to the top of Mount Everest and the bottom of the Mariana Trench, then to the savannas of East Africa and the jungles of the Amazon basin. We’ll even ponder the Earth from space and debate the efforts to revive the wooly mammoth before assembling our own carefully researched final features. Reporting responsibly on the “bad news” of our changing planet will certainly have its place in our discussions, but our aim is to celebrate nature more than mourn it. Codes: EI, R, W

Fall 2024

JAM 390S-60, PUBPOL 290S-60, ENGLISH 290S-4-60, ETHICS 390S-60

Opinion Writing

What ingredients go into the best opinion writing? What mix of hard facts and individual conviction most effectively sell a point of view, whether your focus is political or personal, whether you’re advocating a specific policy or articulating a broader philosophy? To teach the art of the form, this course uses extensive reading of newspaper columns and magazine essays present and past, conversations with current practitioners, the professor’s decade-long stint as an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and, above all, students’ production of their own op-eds/opinion essays at least once every two weeks. It also emphasizes general, cross-genre principles of nonfiction writing and journalism. Codes: EI, W, ALP Course open to JAM students only.

Fall 2024

AMES 107, ICS 144

Introduction to East Asian Cultures: Narrating East Asia through Word and Image

The study of East Asia makes sense not necessarily as a study of shared canons or of ‘civilizational origins’ or, shared ‘Asian values’: rather, modern East Asia can be productively studied in terms of shared historical, political, cultural concerns; the influx of new ideologies; the processes of ‘becoming modern’; and of course, the positioning of East Asian area studies in the academy and the larger world. In this introductory course, we will be looking at "Global East Asia" and its diasporas through all manners of storytelling, focusing on word-image narratives: Asian traditions of manga, manhwa, manhua, as well as graphic novels. Codes: CCI, ALP, CZ

Fall 2024

AMES 180FS, HISTORY 169S, CULANT 180FS, ICS 180FS

Heroes and Villains: Dissidence in the Middle East (Focus)

Considering the historical culture of disobedience in the Middle East and the significant actors as superheroes and villains depending on the time and their affiliations. Investigating how the dissident voices are constructed and performed from pre-modern esoteric practices in dervish convents, or coffee houses to print culture and social media in modern times. Discussing major themes such as protest and propaganda, censorship and self-censorship, and surveillance and counter-surveillance through films, poetry, graphic novels, and music. Codes: CCI, ALP, CZ

Fall 2024

AMES 210, LIT 251, CULANTH 209

Arab Cultures: Literature, Politics, History

Explore different facets of modern and contemporary Arab cultures; memoirs, novels, prison notebooks, films, comic books, theoretical tracts, music, psychiatric case-studies, histories, and ethnographies; consider how authors depict key historical transformations taking place in the Arab world; different angles through which political questions are tackled; the negotiation between self and other. Codes: CCI, ALP, CZ

Fall 2024

AMES 329S, RELIGION 379S, ICS 331S, CINE 258S, VMS 342S

Islamic Media

How contemporary technologies reawaken the sense of the sacred in daily life, rather than destroy it. How technologies new and old circulate the Word in its multiple incarnations, but also cultivate modes of communal identification. How Islamic media transform the social and political landscape, as well as the way we see/ feel/ and perceive the world. How religion has been intensified, diversified, and inflected by the information age. How this media constitutes the very experience of religion. Film, video, digital media, satellite television, social media, print media, audiocassettes, radio, music. Codes: CCI, ALP, CZ

Fall 2024

AMES 435S, POLSCI 435S, ISS 435S

Chinese Media & Popular Culture: Politics, Ideology and Social Change

Examines contemporary Chinese media traditional news press, radio and TV, new media such as the internet and social media, and popular culture, including cinema, popular music and fashions. Uses cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, and comparative approach. Focuses on how China views itself and constructs its global images, and how the world views China through media and popular culture. Primary objective is to understand political, ideological, and social changes since the Reform Era that began in 1978. No foreign language prerequisites are required. Codes: CC, SS

Fall 2024

ARTVIS 223, VMS 396, ISS 396

Graphic Design in Multimedia: Theory and Practice

Design history and theory. Lectures and projects focused on direct interaction with digitized elements of historically significant designs. Design elements and principles. Comparison of the language and tools of old and new media. Analysis of visual materials, discovering conceptual and stylistic connections, including Illustrator and Photoshop. Consent of instructor required. Code: ALP

Fall 2024

  • TBD
BIOLOGY 89S-02

Genetics in the News (1st-Year Seminar)

Our understanding of life on earth is expanding through new genetic technologies. Breakthroughs in a wide array of life science fields, ranging from medicine to conservation biology, are often featured in news articles. We will assess how accurately the science journalists are representing advances in genetic research by comparing recent news articles with the research papers on which they are based. High school biology with some exposure to genetics is recommended, but the class will start with background lectures and reading material to make sure everyone is prepared. Students will have the opportunity to find and present news articles on genetic/genomic topics that interest them, and this effort will culminate in a final project where each student will compare a news article of their choice with its source research paper. Codes: NS

Fall 2024

CHINESE 331-01

Modern Chinese Society and Culture through New Media

Different social and cultural issues that China is facing, including the coronavirus pandemic in Hubei, China's artificial-intelligence boom, globalization, etc; Content drawn from Chinese broadcast news, blogs and videos, TV shows, and documentary films; A community-engaged course or service-learning course; Engagement includes direct, project-based, or research-focused service with local/global community partners among other engaged practices; Improving language and intercultural communication skills that can be used to comprehend, analyze, and discuss real life topics and issues in modern Chinese society. Prerequisite: Chinese 232 or equivalent proficiency. Codes: CCI, FL, CZ Has service learning/community-engaged component.

Fall 2024

CINE 321S, DOCST 321S

Police, Pandemics and Assassinations: Art Video History and Practice

This class teaches aspects of conceptual video art production within a study of its history, specifically early U. S. and Canadian artist video responding to three still-resonant concerns: global pandemics, anti-Black police violence, and U. S. presidential spectacle. A Contemporary video—as cinematic form, gallery exhibition, web stream, broadcast television, social process, or used as tactical media intervention, act of witness, political prank, and legal/physical defense strategy will be considered. Classwork includes screenings, discussion, reading, writing, individual or collective video production, and extensive group critique. No technical experience needed. COdes: CCI, ALP

Fall 2024

CULANTH 89S, ICS 89S, VMS 89S, JAM 89S

Media, Technology and Politics (1st year seminar)

First year seminar. Codes: CCI, EI, SS

Fall 2024

DOCST 105S-01, CINE 331S, CULANTH 106S, HISTORY 125S, POLSCI 105S, PUBPOL 170S, VMS 106S

The Documentary Experience: A Video Approach

A documentary approach to the study of local communities through video production projects assigned by the course instructor. Working closely with these groups, students explore issues or topics of concern to the community. Students complete an edited video as their final project. Not open to students who have taken this course as Film/Video/Digital 105S. Codes: R, ALP, SS

Fall 2024

DOCST 110S-01, HISTORY 126S-01

Introduction to Oral History

Introductory oral history fieldwork seminar. Oral history theory and methodology, including debates within the discipline. Components and problems of oral history interviewing as well as different kinds of oral history writing. Codes: R, CZ

Fall 2024

DOCST 135S, JAM135S, ETHICS 135S

Introduction to Audio Documentary

Practicing the research, recording, and digital production of short audio (podcast or public radio-style) documentaries. Through listening in and out of class, exposure to various approaches from journalistic to narrative to artistic. Exploration of audio documentary as a medium for telling stories and examining issues of social and cultural significance and for advancing equity and justice. Codes: EI, R, ALP

Fall 2024

DOCST 333S, ARTHIST 335S, ARTSVIS 335S, JAM 333S

Photo Fever: Curating Photo Exhibitions

Curation of photography exhibitions and engagement with public audiences. Project-based course explores ways photo- and image-based artists, journalists, scholars, policymakers, and activists use photography to convey personal expression and shape public opinion around contemporary social and political issues. Through field trips to museums and alternative venues, students gain theoretical and practical guidance on presenting photography work to the public, in-person and virtually. Development of editorial publications, programming, and media strategies. Students curate photo exhibitions in campus and community venues. Prerequisite: at least one Art History, Visual Arts, Visual & Media Studies, Cinematic Arts, Documentary Studies, or Journalism and Media Studies course. Codes: R, ALP

Fall 2024

DOCST 350S, AAAS 225S, CULANTH 262S, PUBPOL 387S, RIGHTS 350S

Documenting Black Experiences

Explores how Black experiences have been documented and how crucial stories woven from real life get told. Students engage wide ranging contemporary and historical materials, including nonfiction, memoir, fiction, documentary and dramatic film, theater, poetry and music. Our aspirations are historical, but with an understanding that academic history, though irreplaceable, barely touches the range of storytelling that makes Black lives not only matter but transform the spaces in which they unfold. Our explorations are political, but in the largest sense—how Black power comes from making higher truth a tool, a weapon and a way of being. Codes: CCI, ALP, CZ

Fall 2024

HISTORY 415S, SCISOC 415S, ISS 415S

Information History (History Capstone)

Data analytics, machine learning, deepfakes, artificial intelligence, mobile apps: revolutionary as it seems, today's information landscape is the product of centuries-long global history of information in society. Seminar introduces students to information history, a field scrutinizing information in/as technology, business, labor, governance, culture, politics, and science. Students conduct original research on a topic of their choice and write a major scholarly paper. Course fulfills Capstone requirement for History majors. Also, suitable for non-majors interested in historical perspective on computing and information, as well as prospective thesis-writers exploring topics and archives. Codes: R, STS, W, CZ, SS

Fall 2024

HISTORY 550S

Life Stories: How to Write Them, What They Mean

Note: IN-PRISON INSTRUCTION. Learning alongside incarcerated populations can be a life-changing experience, and this is one of your few opportunities at Duke to do so. Course will be held onsite at a prison in Butner, 30 minutes from Duke. Students must be at least 21 years old, have state-issued ID, be able to pass a criminal background check, and attend a required training at the federal prison. Course itself examines history, writing, and imagination. How do we understand and connect imaginatively to the life experiences of the people who lived history rather than those who made it? The emphasis will be on the lives of relatively unknown figures such as farmers, merchants and housewives.

Fall 2024

I&E 253, CMAC 253, ISS 253, VMS 255

Social Marketing: From Literary Celebrities to Instagram Influencers

You’ve surely heard the platforms described as “revolutionary,” and you’ve also heard them described as “time wasters.” What you probably haven’t thought about is how similar they are to previous “revolutionary” communications technologies like novels, newspapers, and even language itself. This course explores ways in which studying the masters of previous “social” media technologies—the Shakespeares, Whitmans, and Eliots of the world—can help us understand how influencers on digital social media leverage the same platforms you use every day to market themselves, build their brands, and grow their audiences. Codes: STS, SS

Fall 2024

I&E 275

Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Intersection of Media, Entertainment and Technology

The class will jump into the middle of the change and innovation happening at the intersection of Media, Entertainment and Technology. We will look at how we make, distribute and consume Media and Entertainment. We will focus on entrepreneurs and innovative companies and creators revolutionizing Media and Entertainment, as well as thought leaders and leading companies in the space. The class will feature Cases, articles, speakers, in class discussion along with a term long project. Codes: STS, SS

Fall 2024

ISS 110, PHIL 110, COMPSCI 110, PUBPOL 110

Information Society & Culture: Bass Connections Gateway

Information, Society, and Culture across disciplines. How all aspects of information theory and practice, including computational and mathematical and those from social sciences and the humanities are transforming research, reframing intellectual questions in research and its application, and having an impact on interactions within societies, cultures, ideologies, economics, politics. Modules presented by faculty from all areas and schools, contrasting and comparative perspectives in research-driven modules focused on interdisciplinary project questions and ideas. Lecture/section activities. Course Gateway for the Bass Connections theme in Information, Society and Culture. Coles: STS, CZ

Fall 2024

ISS 112, JAM 112, CULANTH 112

The Googlization of Knowledge: Information, Ethics, and Technology

Google has altered the way we see the world and ourselves. Its biases, valuing popularity over accuracy, affect how we value information and navigate news and ideas. This course examines information from different angles within the context of social justice, open access to information, and how the Internet and Google affect our lives. Themes include knowledge as a public good, Internet policies, data and visual literacies, social media, and artificial intelligence. Hands-on work researching how technology affects the access, understanding, and reliability of information in students’ lives. Analysis, discussions, and reflection assignments with ongoing application to team-based projects. EI, R, STS, SS

Fall 2024

ISS 240S-01, VMS 288S-01, CMAC 240S

Fundamentals of Web-Based Multimedia Communications

Multimedia information systems, including presentation media, hypermedia, graphics, animation, sound, video, and integrated authoring techniques; underlying technologies that make them possible. Practice in the design innovation, programming, and assessment of web-based digital multimedia information systems. Intended for students in non-technical disciplines. Codes: R, ALP

Fall 2024

  • TBD
ITALIAN 305S

Italy in the Age of Fake News: Media, Populism and Disinformation in global Perspective

The role of 'fake news' in shaping the information ecosystem can be hardly underestimated. While debates about fake news tends to be framed around the U.S. national context, the goal of this class is to answer the question: 'what is disinformation?' by using Italy as a case study. The strong presence of populist movements and Italy's complex media ecosystem makes it an important laboratory to understand how disinformation rises and spreads in a specific social context. While this class will focus on media and disinformation in Italy, it will also analyze how this disinformation is deeply intertwined with related discourses and practices in other countries and languages. Codes: CCI, STS, SS

Fall 2024

LIT 190S-02

Internet: Medium & Ideology

This course is an introductory media studies seminar covering various technologies in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. It is also a foray into the potential analyses of the Internet as an uncertain object of study. The Internet is an ubiquitous yet undertheorized medium that has suffused the social fabric and impacted economic, cultural, and social production in ways we have only just begun to assess. We will think together alongside a range of texts in film and media studies, art history, and the philosophy of technology to cover topics such as electricity, the photograph, telegraph, computer, smartphone, cybernetics, issues of labor, race, affect, and gender in media, digital consciousness, and the politics of / on the internet. By the end of the course, students will be able to assess how different media condition and change perceptions, cultures, economies, and subjectivities. Codes: STS, CZ

Fall 2024

LIT 317-01, CINE 204S, ISS 214S, VMS 328S-01

Media Theory

Introduction to the material and technical infrastructure that informs and constrains the production and dissemination of knowledge. Exploration of cultural impact of technical media from writing to the internet. Combines historical and theoretical discussion with hands-on experimentation with various media, including the codex book, phonography and sound registration technology, photography, cinematography, video, virtual reality, digital computation, and the internet. Code: STS

Fall 2024

LIT 320S, AAAS 247S, ICS 320S, LATAMER 320S, ISS 323S, RIGHTS 323S, VMS 323S, AMES 318

Social Movements and Social Media

Examines uses and abuses of social media by social movements. Interested in a broader historical study of mediating technologies and oppositional public sphere, course considers the uses of cameras, phones, cassette players, radio, and social media platforms, but also books, bodies, art, fashion, and automobiles as oppositional technologies. Studies political and ethical uses of technologies in social unrest. Investigates impact of technologies on social movements and social transformations in contemporary history. Student driven case studies will highlight contemporary engagement with social media by networked social movements. Codes: CCI, EI, STS, ALP, CZ

Fall 2024

POLSCI 239S

Political Communication in a Changing Media Environment

Examination of interaction between citizens, media and political actors in today's fragmented information environment. Topics include evolution of political communication and media, emergence of new communication technologies, changes in campaign communication strategy, nature of news, theories of attitude formation and change, and role of political communications in campaigns and elections. Focus on implications of changing information environment for political communication strategies and for citizen knowledge and engagement in democratic process. Codes: R, SS

Fall 2024

POLSCI 242

Campaigns and Elections

The campaign process, voting and elections in the United States, with emphasis on the varying role of media in campaigns. The nomination and election process; focus on the critical evaluation of various empirical models of voting behavior in presidential and congressional elections and the impact of election outcomes on the content and direction of public policy in various historical eras in American politics. Code: SS

Fall 2024

PUBPOL 390T-02

Information Inequality in Public Policy: Bass Connections

Phenomena such as institutional racism, political polarization and political extremism are driven in part by how people produce, share and consume information. Information inequalities are disparities related to the structure, accessibility and output of our information ecosystem, and they are wide-ranging and interconnected. This project team will conduct a comprehensive inventory and analysis of information inequalities, both domestically and internationally, with the goal of creating a descriptive framework that classifies the various information inequalities in terms of criteria such as underlying causes; social, political and economic impacts; and types of policy interventions to date. Codes: R, STS, SS

Fall 2024

PUBPOL 390T-03

Platform Accountability: Bass Connections

Open to Bass Connections only. Project-based course in which undergraduate and graduate students work collaboratively to produce a significant public-facing research product drawing on analysis from across the social sciences. This project team will develop a platform accountability framework for how companies can demonstrate that they are behaving responsibly and for governments to measure their behavior more effectively. Team members will examine the intersections between business, law and policy to understand platform accountability and the processes for evaluating companies’ compliance to standards. Codes: R, SS

Fall 2024

ROMST 377S, CULANTH 217S, LINGUIST 377S, SOCIOL 377S, ICS 376S, ITALIAN 377S

Language & Identity: How We Construct Identities and Reproduce

Language is a central and pervasive feature of human identity through which we portray ourselves and negotiate social identities. With such practices we re/produce values, norms, social hierarchies, and the privilege these entail. Using examples from media, literature, and ethnographic data we will explore how speakers negotiate social identities through language and how ideas about it inform our understanding and interpretation of society and speakers within it. Topics include language, racism, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and ways that language and discourse construct and maintain a sense of belonging, otherness, truth, and value. Not open to students who have taken Romance Studies 207FS.Codes: R, SS

Fall 2024

RUSSIAN 399, CULANTH 399, ICS 399, ICS 399, LIT 309, PUBPOL 223

Global Russia

This course will examine the process of globalization of Russian culture and institutions as manifested in political, economic, and legal institutions; religion; education; popular and academic cultural forms, including media and artistic texts, film, theatre and television; diplomacy; reproductive rights; health care; the role of censorship; views of citizenship, patriotism, and sport. We will evaluate the ethical issues, potential shift of cultural values, and their impact on 21st century Russian institutions. CODES: CCI, EI, ALP, CZ, SS

Fall 2024

SPANISH 303

Fake News (Spanish language req)

Introduction to ideologies and political debates that shape the cultural configuration of Hispanic communities both within and outside the US Borders. The main goal is to explore and examine critically how particular discourses (within different genres and media) relate to politics, art, culture, and society. Articles, literary texts, films, web sites, etc. will serve as resources. As students engage with cultural studies, it is expected that they achieve discursive complexity and linguistic accuracy through vocabulary development, group and individual presentations, video recordings, writing projects and debates. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or equivalent. Codes: CCI, FL

Fall 2024

VMS 356S, CINE 357S, DOCST 288S

Editing for Film and Video

Theory and practice of film and video editing techniques. Exploration of traditional film cutting as well as digital non-linear editing. Exercises in narrative, documentary and experimental approaches to structuring moving image materials. Code: ALP

Fall 2024

  • TBD
VMS 565S-01, ISS 565S-01, CMA 565S

New Media, Memory, and the Visual Archive

Explores impact of new media on the nature of archives as technologies of cultural memory and knowledge production. Sustained engagement with major theorists of the archive through the optics of "media specificity" and the analytical resources of visual studies. Themes include: storage capacity of media; database as cultural form; body as archive; new media and the documentation of "everyday life;" memory, counter-memory, and the politics of the archive; archival materiality and digital ephemerality. Primary focus on visual artifacts (image, moving image) with consideration of the role of other sensory modalities in the construction of individual, institutional and collective memory. Codes: STS, ALP

Fall 2024

Writing 101-27

Writing Portrayed in Media (1st-Year Seminar)

How does popular media portray writing, reading, communication, and other literacy practices of various professions and academic disciplines? In what ways is the work of scholars across disciplines and the and research they do portrayed in television shows, music, podcasts, and other forms of entertainment and media? When and how do media portrayals of writing, reading, and communication in various fields differ from and/or compare to lived experiences among people in these professions and scholarly fields? In this class, we will explore scholarly texts and popular entertainment media to learn how people discuss the writing, reading, and communication they do in their professional fields. This course requires students to review television shows, websites, research, news coverage, podcasts, music, and scholarship that present content on academic and professional paths to better familiarize themselves with the ways writing, reading and communication transpire in their future majors or careers.

Fall 2024

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