Courses in this cluster explore the various ways of seeing and ways of being in cultures that rely on surveillance and suspicion, the relationships between performance events and the social, and the role of spectacle in shaping our understanding of the world around us.

Associated Course Pairings:

Course Descriptions

CC101: Shakespeare, Power, and Contemporary Identities

Instructor: Genevieve Love
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Analysis & Interpretation of Meaning
CRN# 18261
Block: 1

This course provides a college entry-level experience with three Shakespeare plays and their adaptation/ appropriation into now. How does Shakespeare intersect with contemporary experiences of race, gender, and disability? In this course, we explore how Twelfth Night, Richard III, and Othello, and contemporary encounters with these plays, confront power, inequity, and resistance. As scholar Kim F. Hall writes, “To study Shakespeare is to study power.” We will address not only the operations of power within the plays themselves, but also the powerful forces that have made Shakespeare an authority on “universal” human experience. This course will equip you to consider the idea of “Shakespeare” as multiple, contested, and evolving. This course will meet you where you are. We’ll read Shakespeare (slowly, and with support), watch films and clips from theatrical productions, and read contemporary rewritings of Shakespeare. You’ll have the opportunity to engage with Shakespeare in both creative and analytical ways.

Out of Class Obligations: 60-minute afternoon sessions most days in the first two weeks of the block.

CC120: Being an Audience

Instructor: Jordan Lord
CRN# 18304
Block: 4

This course offers a variety of approaches for thinking about how to write about film and media, by starting with the (often underappreciated) role an audience plays in making a film. During this course, we will not only watch films but learn about different ways in which audiences have given meaning to films, including instances where just being in a film’s audience is a kind of activism and where audiences have reimagined films and their afterlives that contest the intentions of their so-called creators. We will especially consider this in terms of how queer, Black, brown, and disabled audiences disidentify with representations of their identities and use (mis-)representations for their own ends. As we consider these relationships between film and audience, students will attune to their own ways of being an audience by practicing different styles of writing on film and media, including personal essay, film criticism, formal analysis, and research-based writing. Ultimately, students will use these assignments to reflect on how these different styles of writing, rooted in active audienceship, are foundational for both disciplinary writing in film and media studies (and filmmaking), as well as many other disciplines, including literary, cultural, and visual studies.

First Friday we will have a field trip from 11-2 pm.

CC102: Film Manifestos/Filmmaking

Instructor: Dylan Nelson
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Creative Process
CRN# 18284
Block: 1

This course meets the requirements for the Creative Process designation by asking you to investigate and clarify, for yourselves, “Why me? Why this work? Why now?” Serious consideration of the artistic possibility and power of the manifesto will ground attention to your own experiences and creative ideas, helping you codify vague senses of “taste,” preference, and personal values into an aesthetic and ideological framework that explicitly guides your filmmaking processes and reflections.

1st Tuesday - Screening 1-3:30 pm. 2nd Week - Afternoon Technical Workshops & Structured Filming/ Editing M, T, W till 3:30 pm. 3rd Week - Th, F class meets in 2 sessions, morning + afternoon, ONE of which students must attend. Possible afternoon/evening field trip TBD.

CC120: Being Your Own Boss

Instructor: Dwanna McKay
CRN# 18322
Block: 2

Over the past four decades, significant global economic restructuring has resulted in the dramatic rise in self-employment for marginalized groups in the US. Policymakers praise entrepreneurship as capitalism’s engine of economic growth, innovation, and job creation. Economists and scholars argue business ownership benefits historically marginalized groups by increasing employment and earnings for individuals. On the other hand, critics contend the vast majority of self-employed people of color experience little potential for improving economic well-being because of restricted access to human, social, and financial capital. In this course, we will discuss, research, and write about whether self-employment is a solution for economic insecurity as well as a ticket for upward social mobility. We will explore sociological and economic texts and practice effective writing for an interdisciplinary studies.

CC106: Surveillance Society

Instructor: Cayce Hughes
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Societies and Human Behavior
CRN# 18276
Block: 1

In today’s “surveillance society,” we have become accustomed to trading personal information— wittingly or not—for goods, services, and simply to participate in everyday life. With the rise of big data, state and market institutions routinely collect and analyze data to monitor our purchasing patterns, social networks, and physical movements. However, some people are more insulated from scrutiny than others, and exposure to surveillance of various kinds depends on social status and the matrix of identities each of us hold. In this course, we will examine surveillance through a sociological lens, focusing on how surveillance can generate and reproduce social inequalities. We will cover various formal institutions that surveil particular populations, including the criminal justice, welfare, and child protective systems, and explore contexts where everyday surveillance occurs, including school and workplaces, on social media, and in public spaces. We will also discuss the possibilities for resisting surveillance through formal and informal means. Throughout the course we will consider how being surveilled—and surveilling others—shapes our understanding of ourselves and reflects on the power relations that structure society.

CC120: Robot Ethics

Instructor: Blake Jackson
CRN# 18316
Block: 2

This course will explore ethical issues arising in robotics and human-robot interaction through philosophical examination, behavioral and psychological analysis, research ethics education, and the integration of social and ethical concerns in scientific experimentation and algorithm design. Students will perform multifaceted analyses of case studies on social robots, lethal autonomous weapon systems, autonomous cars, racialized and gendered robots, and robots serving vulnerable populations. Students will also investigate broader issues like the economic impacts of increasing automation, the role of technology in shaping human morality, and the influence of the legal landscape on proliferation of robotic technologies.