Courses

This course will be of interest to students interested not just in the phenomenon of true crime but also in literature, philosophy, religion, legal studies, as well as the histories of race and gender in America. Students will be expected to participate in active discussion of the course materials, write two short close reading papers, and complete a final multimedia project about a contemporary true crime case. 

Americans were… Continue Reading – The Invention of True Crime in Early America

What’s makes a portrait? What does it mean to capture a subject for others to see? How have the introduction of new technologies historically changed what we understand a portrait to be? This course examines these questions by looking at the practice of portraiture in diIerent media, including literature, painting, and photography. Moving across these forms, students will consider what it means to generate a likeness… Continue Reading – Freeze Frame: A Multimedia Investigation into Portraiture

In this course, we will examine essays, novels, and films associated with existentialism, a tradition of thought and practice that underscores themes such as anguish, death, freedom, absurdity, and human meaning in a world where belief in god(s) has been challenged and/or rejected. In the process, we will explore a series of questions and concerns. What are the general features of human existence? How does human existence differ from the… Continue Reading – Existence, Anguish, and Religion

This honors seminar is built around the theme of queerness and religion. While the typical perception is that the relationship between the two is fraught, the reality is, of course, much more complicated, and that is what this course will address. I want to circle around what it means to be “queer” when the very notion of queerness problematizes the notion of fixed identities. This would include sexual, gender, and… Continue Reading – Queer Religiosities

This is a class that uses narrative activism to advance awareness of populations affected by disfigurement--including burn survivors, victims of violences, and people with congenital differences--particularly in terms of their lived experience. We will begin with the concept of “Facial Justice” to explore internalized ableism and beauty standards in a neoliberal age. We will study screen and media representation of… Continue Reading – Disfigurement: Understanding Visible Difference

Writers will read play and musical texts by contemporary LGBTQ+ playwrights, as well as foundational framing texts in queer studies, dramaturgy, and playwriting. Following a scholarly analytic essay assignment exploring LGBTQ+ characterization in assigned readings, the class prioritizes creative application of strategies we've analyzed in the pursuit of original playwriting. How can we create compelling… Continue Reading – Writing Queer Drama

The seminar will examine the works of Alison Bechdel—her comic strips and her three graphic memoirs. The seminar will begin by learning how to read graphic materials, the better to appreciate and analyze Bechdel’s work. The facet of Bechdel’s graphic memoirs that we will focus on will be the literary, psychoanalytic and spiritual works that she engages on her life’s journey. In this way, we will explore “what’s on Alison… Continue Reading – Alison Bechdel—Comic Strips and Memoirs

“A landmark report from the United Nations’ [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, its Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 oC, dated October 8, 2018,] paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought,” Coral Davenport writes, in the December 7, 2018 edition of The New York Times, according to which “avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at… Continue Reading – The Climate Crisis in Philosophy and Popular Culture

Changemaking in Cross-Cultural Communities for climate change is designed to equip students with the practical tools to research and address pressing global challenges, specifically within the realm of climate change, through an explicitly cross-cultural lens. Students will learn how to conduct in-depth, culturally aware research, design interventions that respect and reflect cultural diversity, and work collaboratively across cultural… Continue Reading – Changemaking for the Climate

Changemaking in Cross-Cultural Communities for healthcare is designed to equip students with the practical tools to research and address pressing global challenges, specifically within the realm of healthcare, through an explicitly cross-cultural lens. Students will learn how to conduct in-depth, culturally aware research, design interventions that respect and reflect cultural diversity, and work collaboratively across cultural boundaries to… Continue Reading – Changemaking for Healthcare

“Film and Revolution” is an interdisciplinary course that introduces students to theories of political revolution, studies of aesthetics and ideology, and the relationship between filmmaking and social movements. The topic is intrinsically interdisciplinary because it exposes students to a range of critical methodologies, which must be placed in dialogue with one another to achieve the dynamism the subject demands. It also… Continue Reading – Film and Revolution

This seminar considers the reception of Greek mythology over the ages, from classical antiquity to the present day, using the ancient practice and concept of “mythography,” literally “myth writing,” as a lens to study how Greek myths have entered the literary and artistic repertoire, whether collected and preserved in anthologies and compilations or creatively “rewritten” by poets and prose writers (or reimagined by visual artists).

A… Continue Reading – Mythographies: (Re)writing Greek Myths from Antiquity to the Present

The practice of slavery goes back deep into Antiquity and is still found in some regions today. Its most extensive practice took place from 1450-1850 in the Age of Mercantile Capitalism and its legacy continues down to the present day.  Colonial era slavery involved the translocation of millions of people and its enormity has been compared with the European invasion of the Americas and the European Holocaust. Its vast literature covers… Continue Reading – Historical Archaeology of Slavery

Ten years on from the so-called “transgender tipping point” that TIME magazine declared with its 2014 Laverne Cox cover issue, trans people have never been more visible than they are today. At the same time, especially for trans women of color, this onrush of visibility has coincided with a wave of vulnerability. As the editors of Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility point out, despite, or… Continue Reading – Transgender Subjects and the Paradox of Visual Representation

In a world fraught with uncertainty, how do we make the best decisions with what we know now (and what we don't)? This course examines how we make decisions under uncertainty by integrating research from psychology, cognitive science, and behavioral economics. Students will explore how people make decisions with incomplete data and how these processes differ from models of “optimal” decision-making. Key topics include risk and uncertainty,… Continue Reading – Deciding in the Dark: The Science of Uncertainty

Writing Environmental Catastrophes will be an experimental methodological and writing workshop meant to teach students the art of environmental storytelling while critically enhancing their writing and communication skills through environmental storytelling and the environmental humanities. In our writing of environmental catastrophes, we will open up the environmental humanities fascination with environmental disaster, post-humanism,… Continue Reading – Writing Environmental Catastrophes: Black and Indigenous Critical Approaches to Environmental Humanities

This interdisciplinary honors seminar, co-taught by faculty from Rutgers University and the American University in Egypt, delves into emerging instructional practices and the global digital divide, focusing on how the uneven distribution of information and communication technologies impacts education.

Through cross-cultural collaboration, students will analyze case studies and research from Egypt and the U.S., understanding the global… Continue Reading – Bridging Educational Gaps: Technology, AI, and Global Equity

In the spring of 2024, surgeons in Massachusetts and New York transplanted the kidneys of genetically mutated pigs into patients whose organs were failing. This newest leap in xenotransplant brings hope for those chained to dialysis machines. Dialysis, now ubiquitous, was once a treatment only available to a few patients whose lives were in the hands of a “God committee” tasked with deciding who received the lifesaving… Continue Reading – From Frankenstein to Unwind: Medical innovation and the intersections of medicine, science, literature, and history

This seminar aims to teach a broad range of skills whose application spans a wide variety of disciplines, in an unusual and arresting way: through various sorts of puzzles. Students will also learn some of the little-known history of puzzles and their relationship to education. The students will be presented with various conundrums and be given guidance as needed to think through how to solve the seemingly unsolvable (hence learning to think… Continue Reading – Thinking Through Puzzles

This seminar discusses the emerging field of climate intervention, focusing on the scientific, ethical, and societal implications of different strategies of climate intervention. As climate change intensifies, scientists are exploring ways to mitigate its effects, and climate intervention or geoengineering is the most discussed one. This course invites students to critically engage with these methods to understand… Continue Reading – Climate Intervention: Where Science Meets Ethic

Is freedom a cultural specific concept? Are there many freedoms? What is the cost of freedom? Why is unfreedom sometimes acceptable or even, attractive? With unfreedom on the rise once again in our 21st century, whether through algorithms, surveillance, or neo-fascism, how do we achieve freedom in our day? What kinds of freedom are possible? These are the kinds of meditations I would like to explore in an Honors seminar… Continue Reading – What is Freedom? A Cross-Cultural Investigation for our Times

This course explores two main ideas regarding evolution and religion: (1) Cognitive byproduct theories: Our minds are predisposed toward certain kinds of religious ideas. These predispositions exist due to evolutionary forces experienced by our ancestors, but the results are not necessarily adaptive. (2) Adaptationist theories: Religious phenomenon may be adaptive either for individuals, groups, societal strata, or, through processes of… Continue Reading – Evolution, Cognition, and Belief