HSS2019 A History of Food and Election Campaigns

4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsTreating voters to food and drink in exchange for their vote on Election Day has a long history. This course focuses on campaigning for public office from 1876 to the present. We look at how political meetings and campaign stops provides the opportunity for a candidate to identify with voters and thereby gain their vote. As an HSS, this course cultivates ethical structures for interrogating the world, understanding choices, and making decisions. It focuses on frameworks for critically understanding the cultural constructions of meanings and identities and the simultaneous and reciprocal construction of cultural and political context by human beings as ethical agents.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

CVA2002 African American History and Foodways (HIS)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe course covers the major periods, movements, and events that have shaped African American history and foodways. These include: the African slave trade; antebellum period; the civil war and reconstruction; World War I and the great migration; Harlem Renaissance and Garveyism; Great Depression; Spanish Civil War and World War II; Civil Rights and Black Power movements; industrialization, the growth of the prison industrial complex, and the _war on drugs_. The course will also include content on African American foodways from the African slave trade to the Black Power movement. Classes discuss the assigned reading with lively student participation. Out-of-class work includes readings, online exams, attending lectures, artistic presentations, and films, as well as independent research.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

CSP2002 African American History and Foodways (HIS)

(Formerly CVA2002)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe course covers the major periods, movements, and events that have shaped African American history and foodways. These include: the African slave trade; antebellum period; the civil war and reconstruction; World War I and the great migration; Harlem Renaissance and Garveyism; Great Depression; Spanish Civil War and World War II; Civil Rights and Black Power movements; industrialization, the growth of the prison industrial complex, and the _war on drugs_. The course will also include content on African American foodways from the African slave trade to the Black Power movement. Classes discuss the assigned reading with lively student participation. Out-of-class work includes readings, online exams, attending lectures, artistic presentations, and films, as well as independent research.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

POL4601 Africa Rising?
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis interdisciplinary course on contemporary Africa examines political, economic and social developments in the context of the now common mantra "Africa Rising." It takes a historical look at Africa's relations with global development actors and how these have impacted individual states and the entire continent. It includes a comparative analysis of Africa's partnership(s) with the different regions of the world (broadly categorized into East and West, Global South and Global North) and time spans (broadly grouped into colonial and post-colonial). It also examines processes, actors, events and partnerships within independent Africa and how they have contributed to the present state of the continent, which observers have described as rising. The course interrogates this observation. How truly is "Africa rising"? What is the cost of the rise? What does it mean for individuals, states and the entire continent? Why/how does it matter? The course focuses on these (and other important) questions, considering examples from various sectors, events, countries, bilateral and multilateral arrangements with African states and in relation to the rest of the world. It uses a variety of materials including texts, news and journal articles, as well as electronic and internet-based resources.

Prerequisites: 3 Intermediate liberal arts courses (CVA, LVA, HSS, CSP, LTA in any combination)

HSS2032 African American History and Foodways
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts: African History and Foodways will cover the major subjects, movements, and events that have shaped Africa since the 1400s. These include: African crops and animals, African political institutions and wars, gender, the spread of Islam, slavery, European colonization, and African independence movements. One learns how to publish a blog and create podcast episodes with show notes. Deliverables, regular contributions to class discussions, public speaking, research, and group work are essential course components. Cooking are a part of live classes.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

ANT4607 Anthropology and Science Fictions: Strange New Worlds
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

The goal of this seminar is to provide a broad survey of the historical and ongoing relationship between speculative science fiction and the social sciences. Through a combination of scholarly texts, films, short stories, novels, and other works, we will explore the different social movements and contexts in which the concept of "culture" materializes. Our topics will cover the emergence of anthropology from colonial travel literature, the construction of the Other in both social theory and speculative fiction, as well as the resistance and social critique that have come to define the discipline of anthropology and genre of science fiction, respectively. Students will be expected to develop and demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the entwined traditions within which both anthropology and science fiction operate, and the ongoing changes in social theory and mass culture.

Prerequisites: 3 Intermediate liberal arts courses (CVA, LVA, HSS, CSP, LTA in any combination)

CSP 2037: Anthropology and Science Fiction: Close Encounters of the Cultural Kind

4 intermediate liberal arts

This course brings together anthropology and science fiction to explore how humans think about, narrate, and contest encounters across difference. Through a combination of scholarly texts, fiction, film, and other works, we will investigate how people in different times and places have made sense of what it means to be human in moments when multiple forms of personhood are present. We will investigate why societies tell stories about encounters with the Other, consider how cross-cultural encounters transform societies and their ways of imagining and managing change, and analyze how the idea of difference has shaped anthropology and science fiction. Students will create original works that reflect on and tell new stories about cross-cultural encounters.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

ANT4605 Anthropology of Law
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

Anthropology of law is a four-credit advanced History and Society course that explores cross-cultural variation within and among legal institutions. Through the medium of ethnography, as well as original primary-source research into court proceedings and legal disputes, we consider how law becomes a mechanism for the maintenance of social order at the same time that it can contribute to social inequity. We will address central questions in the anthropology of law: How does our cultural background influence how we conceptualize justice? What are the consequences of finding oneself between competing legal systems? Our focus will be to examine critically the social and cultural dynamics behind dispute resolution, corporate law, crime, torts, religious law, and international courts, as well as dilemmas around policing and other ways people encounter "the law" in everyday life. Case studies from diverse legal environments in both industrialized and small-scale societies will help place Western law traditions in a comparative, global perspective.

Prerequisites: 3 Intermediate liberal arts courses (CVA, LVA, HSS, CSP, LTA in any combination)

CSP2005 Anthropology of Religion

(Formerly CVA2005)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsAnthropology of religion is a four-credit intermediate History and Society course. From an ethnographic and qualitative perspective, we will explore religious expression around the globe, including the major Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam but also Buddhism, Hinduism, African religions, and lesser-known faiths from small-scale, non-industrialized societies. Emphasis is placed on the analytic categories for understanding religious experiences and the prospects and challenges of cross-cultural comparison. We will adopt the techniques of anthropological inquiry to consider the social forces at work within religious life, including the political, colonial, gendered, and transnational dimensions of worship. Topics of ritual, mythology, witchcraft, magic, and science will guide our exploration of belief and spirituality beyond the formal boundaries of institutional religions. Experiential assignments, including participant observation and interviews with practitioners from unfamiliar spiritual traditions, are combined with in-depth written exercises to strengthen your intercultural and rhetorical competencies.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

HIS4616 Cambodia: Rebuilding Culture and Economy After Genocide

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

In this action-oriented seminar students will explore the historical, political, and cultural events that shape Cambodian politics, culture and economy in Cambodia and the Cambodian diaspora today. After a brief historical introduction including the 600 years of Angkor civilization, Buddhism, and French colonialism, we will study the Khmer Rouge genocide (1975-1979) and its aftermath, and the current revival of society, economy, music, film, and dance. Our texts will include histories, memoirs, films, fieldtrips (as possible during Covid-19) and interviews in Lowell, MA - the second largest Cambodian-American community in the U.S. Students may be able to include a service learning component by teaching English online to 7-9th graders in a rural Cambodian school.

Prerequisites: 3 intermediate liberal arts courses (CVA, LVA, HSS, CSP, LTA in any combination)