Once upon a time the Internet was called the Information Superhighway. Writers of note predicted the Internet would topple most major social institutions, and my favorite web site was The Center for the Easily Amused.
This class uses healing traditions as the lens with which to examine culture. During the semester students will have the opportunity to meet healers from around the world. In a typical semester presenters include a Traditional Chinese Medical practitioner, an Ayurvedic physician (from India), a shaman from Peru, an exorcist, a native American Healer an allopathic physician, new age healers, a Christian Scientist and others. This course cannot be used to fulfill the requirements for the biology major. Also offered as REL 412 and GS 412.
This 100-level course is designed to explore the complex and often contradictory relationship between media, culture and society. Like the professor and textbook authors, we will cultivate sociological perspectives to analyze and explain how various forms of media-from traditional to digital-can spread their influence across society. On what terms is media content produced and consumed, and what “effects” are likely to follow?
In this 200-level sociology course, we ask: what does it mean to live in a networked world, where our offline lives are increasingly and irrevocably tied to digital spaces? The popularity of phrases like “in real life” represent a common view of the physical world as something wholly distinct from and superior to the digital realm. Still, the digital realm has proven to have very real consequences, which increasingly structure individuals’ opportunities and experiences in everyday life.
Ecology reminds us that our activities are embedded within natural systems. What is the significance of this fact for politics? This course examines how various actors, such as citizens, consumers, social movements, scientific experts and governmental agencies, conceptualize the relationship between humanity and the natural world. We evaluate the merits and shortcomings of a variety of approaches to environmental politics, including survivalism, sustainable development, deep ecology, ecofeminism and the environmental justice movement.
This is the first course in a sequence that examines the structures, techniques, history and theory of film. Questions of history and theory are treated only in passing; the prime focus is on learning to identify, analyze and articulate what we see when we watch a film. The course studies the terminology used to describe film techniques and applies this terminology to the films viewed. The goal is to pass from close analysis of film technique and film construction to interpretation.