Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: FUNDAMENTALS OF ACADEMIC COMMUNICATION

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Designed to prepare students who need more time and practice in reading and writing to meet the more advanced communication demands of an FWIS, this course will provide an introduction to the expectations of academic readers as well as practice with the rhetorical and linguistic structures common to academic writing. Students will also review grammatical points relevant to the course material and assignments and learn to self-edit their own work. This course does not fulfill the Composition Requirement. Permission is required to register. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: WOMEN DIRECTING WOMEN: FRENCH WOMEN DIRECTORS, 1970-PRESENT

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores strategies for portraying female experience in contemporary French and francophone films. We will examine a variety of representations of the body, family, race, and otherness and different concepts of spectatorship while developing skills to write and speak compellingly about film. This class will be taught in English.

Long Title: READING AND WRITING CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course we will read and write about children's literature. Students will begin with the oral tradition of fairy tales and proceed to picture books and junior novels. Students will analyze children’s literature as a genre and will create and write their own story books.

Long Title: IN THE MATRIX: ON HUMAN BONDAGE AND LIBERATION

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Using the film "The Matrix" as the point of reference, this course presents celebrated explorations of servitude and emancipation - from religious mysticism to Marxism and artistic modernism. Texts by Lao Tzu, Farid ud-Din Attar, Plato, Freud, Marx, Baudelaire, J.S. Mill, Proust, de Beauvior, Malcolm X, Marcuse, Baudrillard.

Long Title: RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE AND TOLERANCE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Course focuses on interactions among medieval Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Topics include polemics, legal regulations of religious minorities, treatment of heretics, holy war (jihad and crusades), and inquisition. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in History.

Long Title: GREEK MYTH IN WORDS: HESIOD AND THE HOMERIC HYMNS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Presents texts fundamental to understanding Greek myth through the regular practice of reading, writing, and oral communication. Emphasizing textual interpretation and writing as process and practice, this course clarifies the purpose and conventions of the academic argumentative essay. Frequent brief writing assignments. Peer review plays an integral role. No exams.

Long Title: MARRIAGE, INC.

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course looks at literary and cultural representations of marriage in the Anglo-American tradition: from Renaissance marriage bed poetry, to marriage plot novels and films, to present-day debates about the status of marriage as an institution. We will also explore cross-cultural and historical conceptions of marriage. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in English.

Long Title: CULTURES OF ALCOHOL

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines the various ways that alcoholic drinks have become a feature of different global and local communities, and how they affect the world around us. We will consider the role that alcohol plays in cultural traditions including politics, literature, art, music, religion, sports, business, and even college education.

Long Title: GRAPHIC NOVELS AND THE ART OF COMMUNICATION

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: From their inception, graphic novels have always showed a deep connection to the historical events, anxieties, and struggles that surrounded their creation. In this course, we will examine graphic novels from a variety of perspectives, including the historical, the political, the social, and the literary.

Long Title: SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE READING MIND

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This writing-intensive course will explore the effects of social media use and particularly how it may influence us as readers. We'll investigate claims that social media reduces our attention span and analytical abilities, while also examining poems, short stories, and essays on the subjects of technology, reading, and attention.

Long Title: THE BIRTH OF THE GODS AND THE ORIGINS OF JUSTICE: HESIOD'S THEOGONY AND WORKS AND DAYS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Participants draft short papers weekly. Writing and class discussion are based on Hesiod's Theogony (creation myth) and Works and Days (early Greek wisdom literature). Each participant also leads one class discussion of secondary literature. No exams or quizzes. Final paper is a revised and extended version of a previous draft. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in Classical Studies.

Long Title: SHAKESPEARE, ART AND THE HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The focus of this course is the history of modern European philosophy in humanistic context. The course covers the period from Shakespeare to Picasso, with major philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche in between. Although philosophy plays the leading role in this course, literature, art, history, religion and history of science and mathematics have significant roles as well. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in Philosophy.

Long Title: BORGES, CORTAZAR, AND LATIN AMERICAN FANTASTIC FICTION

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Explore the precursors, poetics, and practice of fantastic fiction in two cosmopolitan Argentine masters. Appreciate how each combined local and transnational perspective creates startlingly unique works and worlds, bridging Europe and the Americas, modern and postmodern cultures, and bringing Latin American fiction to the forefront of world literature. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in Hispanic Studies.

Long Title: MASS CULTURE JAPAN

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group II

Credit Hours: 3

Description: For social scientists studying Japan, mass culture has become an object of increasing interest. In this course we will examine selections from a growing body of work on Japanese hip-hop, manga/anime, graffiti, cosplay, etc., juxtaposing it with theoretical readings on the nature of publics, crowds, and imagine circulation in general.

Long Title: LITERARY PROVOCATIONS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In section 001 of this course, we will examine representative works of drama, poetry and fiction, ranging from ancient Greece to modern times. Students will write - four essays - about some of these important works. They will also keep journals in which they will write for ten minutes about every reading assignment. Section 002 of this course is designed to introduce first-year students from a wide variety of academic backgrounds to the major literary genres of fiction, poetry, and drama. Students will learn and practice the skills of close reading, interpretation, and literary analysis through discussion and critical writing about literature and language. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in English.

Long Title: THE LANGUAGE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A look at photography through the writing of critics, historians, philosophers, theorists, and photographers. Students will engage picture-making through reading, writing, discussions, presentations, and making digital photographs. Activities will include field trips for viewing exhibitions and taking photographs. Assignments will include written papers, oral presentations, and digital photographs. Phone cameras are acceptable. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in Visual and Dramatic Arts.

Long Title: AMERICAN JOURNEYS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The narratives of travelers in the US are a window into history. Drawing on authors like Crevecoeur, Tocqueville, Trollope, and Kerouac, the class will discuss and write about themes such as Indian life and territorial expansion, democracy, slavery, civil war, western settlement, and 20th-cent. social movements. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in History.

Long Title: ROUSSEAU: MAVERICK GENIUS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Rousseau "fathered" many key movements of the modern Western world, from Romanticism to Socialism. He employed a variety of forms, from formal treatises to sentimental novels. Engaging Rousseau's creative expressions in their cultural context, students will develop their interpretive and expository writing skills.

Long Title: MUSIC, MYTH AND MADNESS: STUDIES IN MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A study of biographical narratives about musicians, including Bach, Bob Dylan, Thelonius Monk, Mozart, and Schumann. Considers the nature of creativity and inspiration. Examines the extent to which biography borrows from mythology and literary fiction. Material includes memoirs, letters, novels and films.

Long Title: AMERICAN CITIES, AMERICAN NOVELS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: When cities make all of us strangers, the novel becomes an important new ways of defining ourselves and our individuality. And because cities differ, they lend themselves to very different experiences, as we will see in the novels we will read that are set in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in English.

Long Title: NEUROFICTIONS: NEUROSCIENCE IN JOURNALISM AND LITERATURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The course will examine the impact that the genres of neuroscience research, science journalism, and literary fiction have on one another and on popular conceptions of the brain. Readings will include recent novels and various types of science writing, and assignments will analyze the translation of ideas across disciplinary boundaries. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in English.

Long Title: THE BODY AGAINST ITSELF: AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE AND DIAGNOSIS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Autoimmune diseases are chronic, incurable illnesses in which the immune defenses of the body destroy its own tissues. This course explores the medical and social ramifications of these illnesses and introduces students to clinical diagnosis through the assessment, presentation, and interpretation of specific diagnostic data.

Long Title: LEADERS AND LEADERSHIP: WHAT WE KNOW, WHAT WE BELIEVE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group II

Credit Hours: 3

Description: For over a hundred years social scientists have studied leaders and leadership. The popular press and media pundits continue to expound on the topic with conflicting views. Students will explore what they believe and what science informs us about leaders and leadership and share their analyses through discussions, writing, and oral presentations.

Long Title: FRONTLINE BIOLOGY: EXPLORING AND COMPOSING STORIES OF DISCOVERY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Students will direct topics of exploration in the biosciences. The course will be divided into three themed topics selected by popular vote of enrolled students. The course will focus on formulating questions for scientific investigation, finding and evaluation sources, reading selected lay and technical articles, and writing for distinct audiences and purposes.

Long Title: THE JAZZ AGE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Writing has had a prominent place in the jazz tradition from its inception. A wide variety of writers have looked to jazz music and musicians for inspiration and countless essays have chronicled and analyzed different styles of jazz. This course will challenge students to participate in this tradition.

Long Title: LETHAL RELIGION: WHEN FAITH HURTS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Religion's relationship to violence is complex: Is religion a force for violence or peace? Are some more violent than others? Proposals that religions cause harm and that society would be improved without them are countered by claims that religions contain violence and increase harmony. Examines violent religious discourse and actions.

Long Title: CURRENT EVENT PHYSICS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Physics is critical to our understanding of nuclear weapons, radiation, electronics, energy and global warming. Students will learn and write about the most interesting and important topics in physics with applications to current events. The material is suitable for majors from all the schools of the university. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for FWIS 126 if student has credit for PHYS 143.

Long Title: HOW POEMS WORK

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Poems start from the meaning of the words and build up through the lines and sentences--and the tension between them--through the play of the vowels and consonants, and the differences between the images and metaphors. When these relationships are understood, a conversation about what the poem means can begin.

Long Title: AMERICAN NOIR

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: From its emergence in 1930s crime novels, to the solidification of its tropes in post-WWII films, the Noir has always critiqued American exceptionalism and prosperity. This course will encourage students to look past the hard-boiled detectives to see the cultural ambiguities that lurk within the mysteries that the genre offers.

Long Title: OBJECTIVITY IN PERCEPTION

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Perception seems to provide objective knowledge, but often perception is indirect (seeing on TV) or involves interpreting (noticing a bad smell). This course examines the varieties of perception, the degree to which they might be subjective or objective, and what that means for perception as a source of knowledge.

Long Title: WRITING EVERYDAY LIFE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course is dedicated to the poetics of everyday life. It draws from the forms and colors of what surrounds us day-to-day, from landscapes, to bodies and objects. Students develop research and writing skills through creative fieldwork assignments and workshops. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in Anthropology.

Long Title: DESIGN FOR DISABILITIES: ENGINEERING DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR MINIMIZING PATIENT LIMITATIONS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Engineers in the field of rehabilitation engineering are expected to identify patient needs and find creative, effective, and low-cost solutions to meet those needs. This course will introduce students to scientific problem solving techniques while focusing on critical analysis, written communication, and oral presentation.

Long Title: THE STUFF OF THE PAST: STUDYING AMERICAN MATERIAL CULTURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Traditionally, historians have relied on written sources to construct narratives of the past. But what would happen if historians also used non-written sources? In this class you will learn how to study materials to understand past cultures by exploring thins from fine art to fried chicken.

Long Title: COLLECTING ART: PERSPECTIVES OF ARTISTS, PATRONS, AND MUSEUMS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores the interconnected roles of artists, the individuals who buy artwork, and the institutions charged with preserving and displaying it. The history of art collecting and patronage will be discussed as students explore the function of museums, the art market, and public and private collections.

Long Title: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PIXAR

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, we will be investigating films from the Pixar studio, which critics have hailed for their strong writing and powerful commentary, through a variety of writing assignments. We will pay attention both to the films' narratives and to their technical elements as we explore the meanings they create.

Long Title: POP MUSIC AND AMERICAN CULTURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Recent cultural movements encourage a more serious exploration of popular music. This course will participate by taking a critical look at what songs mean, what songs/albums/genres express, what our interest in music expresses, and how writing about music can lead us to great insights.

Long Title: REVOLUTION, WRITING, AND THE SELF

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Our core beliefs about society were shaped by revolution - American, French, Latin American. How did these revolutions change the meaning of community? And how did people argue for new rights, freedoms, and recognitions? We'll study the rhetoric of revolution, connect past to present, and write our own revolutionary declarations.

Long Title: WHODUNNIT? EXPLORING THE GOLDEN AGE OF DETECTIVE FICTION

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Golden Age detective fiction stars investigators such as Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Father Brown. This course will investigate detective fiction's suspicious popularity in the 1920s and 30s, interrogate its most likely authors, and solve the mystery of who the murderer always manages to be the least likely suspect.

Long Title: HAPPINESS, JUSTICE, KNOWLEDGE: A STUDY OF FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: What it is be happy, the nature of our obligations toward others, and what it is to know anything truly - these three must be among humanity's most important questions. We will study philosophy's best answers while learning how to write well and with less stress.

Long Title: THE NOVEL IN 8MM: TRANSLATING FROM THE 19TH CENTURY TO THE 20TH CENTURY SCREEN

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Literary works are frequently translated into cinematic narratives, yet these movie versions are often chastised for sacrificing content, context, or nuance. Students in this course will read the works of 19th century American authors and watch their 20th century cinematic counterparts to analyze each medium's approach to the same story.

Long Title: SUSTAINABILITY IN AMERICA

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: What do we mean by "sustainability"? What or who, are we aiming to sustain? This course examines the American literary and cultural roots of sustainability, a vexed yet popular concept across the disciplines. It engages with demographics, food scarcity, rural life, subsistence agriculture, reproduction, urban development, and population control.

Long Title: SEX AT RICE: THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE AWKWARD

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will ask students to think critically about how they have conceptualized sexuality and the ethical norms governing their sexual practices. Readings will include sociological, historical, philosophical, and religious texts. Issues to be covered: The Rice Purity Test, NOD, Theme Parties, Hooking-Up, Pornography, Objectification, Gender, and Same-Sex Relationships.

Long Title: EARTH SCIENCE IN ACTION

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Students will develop effective written and oral communication while learning about exciting Earth science problems (e.g., earthquakes, tsunami, climate, sea level). The course will introduce the science, and will train students how to organize a scientific argument, compose and edit a research paper, and give an oral presentation.

Long Title: AMERICA THROUGH FRENCH EYES

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The United States has always been a source of fascination -- both attraction and repulsion -- for the French. This course studies American culture and identity as revealed by transatlantic encounters with the French. We will study French intellectuals' observations (de Tocqueville, de Beauvoir) as well as images of America in French popular culture (comic strips, films).

Long Title: PLAYS AND PLAYING

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The word "play" is complex, even contradictory. We play roles and enact roles, which are and are not our essential selves, but they are not deceitful or inauthentic either. We will explore this theme of acting or not acting, playing or lying, in Shakespeare's Hamlet and other plays.

Long Title: JEWISH-AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This writing-intensive, freshman writing seminar will explore a range of texts, from early immigrant writing to contemporary texts. Whether representing the challenges of immigrant life, or intergenerational family struggles, or contemporary personal, political and social life, these works contest and construct meanings both for "Jewish-American" and for "America" itself. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in English.

Long Title: AMERICAN HORROR STORIES: LITERATURE, HISTORY, AND THE GOTHIC

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The U.S. is a nation haunted by history, and its ghosts take many forms. Examining novels, short stories, and films, we will employ readings of the ghostly and ghastly in American literature to excavate this gothic history and develop critical reading and writing skills.

Long Title: THE VISUAL CULTURE OF SUBURBIA

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: To develop a new fluency in American suburbia, this class will examine advertisements, television, film, and criticism that represent both the production and consumption of the fringes of American cities. Studying representations of urban and architectural forms, we will evaluate the political, social, and economic contexts that undergird suburbia.

Long Title: THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The course will explore the reasons for this expedition in 1804-1806, examine the participants' reaction to the plants, animals, geology, and Native Americans they encountered, and ponder how they survived the ordeal of going up the Missouri River and crossing the Rocky Mountains.

Long Title: LATIN AMERICAN LIVES

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The course will examine pivotal moments and topics in Latin American history as seen through the lives of some of the region's key players. Readings will include short articles, excerpts from books, and films.

Long Title: OLD MAIDS: SINGLE WOMEN IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores how single women have been written about and discussed from the nineteenth century to today. Students will explore literary, cultural, and visual representations of the single woman and discover to what extent these portrayals still trade on the same stereotypes and assumptions of the Victorian era.

Long Title: RACE AND SOCIETY IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group II

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course engages the racial dynamics of post-apartheid South Africa. Through the lens of anthropology, students will examine how race has been conceived historically in South Africa, engage the issue of apartheid, and see how race comes to bear on contemporary social and political issues.

Long Title: THE CULTURAL CONTEXTS OF HORROR

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will use textual, historical, and social analysis to examine why and how three classic horror archetypes (the robot, zombie, and vampire) reflect our cultural fears concerning alienation, consumerism, desire, sexuality, racism, modernity, and technology.

Long Title: THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE IN 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course considers 20th/21st century American literature on the experiences of immigrant populations. Limning this literary history from early narratives of alienation and assimilation to contemporary fiction’s negotiations of identity within a global context, we will examine not only how these texts resemble and depart from one another, but how they have shaped the broader literary tradition.

Long Title: DEMYSTIFYING BIOSCIENCE FOR THE PUBLIC

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Scientific discoveries change our world, but also generate fear and misunderstanding among the general public. Improving communication between scientists and lay public will help remove the air of mystery from laboratory research. To that end, students will learn to be scientific translators, presenting scientific information in lay terms.

Long Title: EXPLORING THE AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group II

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Course will survey the American legal system, discussing the structure of the courts and role of the judiciary in American politics. Major topics will include criminal and civil law, differentiating the states' and federal court systems, and comparing Texas's legal system to other states' courts.

Long Title: CRITICAL THINKING IN DEMOCRACY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group II

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Critical thinking runs counter to inherent tendencies toward confirmation bias in decision making. In the political realm, this conflict is often exploited by governmental leaders and media to control specific outcomes. Students in this class will learn to develop their critical thinking and analytical skills in the context of a democratic society.

Long Title: MEDICAL HUMANITIES: LITERATURE, MEDICINE, AND THE PRACTICE OF EMPATHY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course provides an introduction to the medical humanities, focusing particularly on narrative medicine and the role narrative can play in illness and the clinical encounter. Readings will include formative theoretical texts in the field, as well as medical-themed short stories by writers such as Chekhov, Hemingway, and Garcia Marquez.

Long Title: WAYS OF WALKING IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores the act of walking, in theory and in practice. Through readings, discussions, writing assignments, and group and individual walks, it examines questions about the body and its movements; the construction and navigation of space; the tradition of travel writing; and the relationship between walking and thinking.

Long Title: WRITING ABOUT THE VISUAL ARTS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The course addresses how we look, think, and write about art. How does one render in words what is without language, but calls for interpretation? How do culture and time period shape our responses? Drawing primarily from European and American artwork we will examine these and similar questions.

Long Title: WRITTEN IN STONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO PALEONTOLOGY AND COMMUNICATING THE PAST

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Paleontology is the scientific study of various traces of ancient life. Students in this class will develop effective written and oral communication while learning about exciting paleontological research. Focus will be placed on the identification of actual fossil remains, fieldtrips and the local fossil record of Texas.

Long Title: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This writing intensive course will use tools in the digital humanities to explore the rise and fall of slavery in the Atlantic world. Students will work with digital technologies to conduct research, improve their writing and present their work by constructing a collaborative website. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in History.

Long Title: CASE STUDIES OF BUILDING DESIGN PROBLEMS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: We will analyze buildings that ended up in legal battles. Problems include structural failures, design blunders and near disasters. You will write about what went wrong and why, who saved that day and who should have acted differently. You will learn to write critically and present a convincing argument.

Long Title: MODERN CHINESE INTELLECTUAL HISTORY, 19TH-21ST CENTURY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Modern Chinese social philosophy shows intellectuals conceptualizing social problems and solutions. In the Qing (1644-1911) modern forms of Confucian thought arose. Anti-imperialist Republican period (1911-49) thought about social reform and political revolution. The socialist culture of the Communist Part era 1949 to preset thinks in terms of Marxism, Maoism and cotemporary neo-liberalism. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in Asian Studies.

Long Title: PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBAL HEALTH

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Course provides overview of topics in global health, including major diseases, economic and social factors that influence health, interventions, and stakeholders. Topics are presented through the voices of global health leaders around the world, with the goal of integrating multiple perspectives. Readings includes public health literature, biography, fiction, opinion pieces and news stories. This course is eligible for credit toward the minor in Global Health Technologies.

Long Title: WORD MAGIC

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group II

Credit Hours: 3

Description: People use language to create inner models of the world to represent their experience and guide their behavior. Students will be introduced to a sensitive interdependence of language, thought, emotion, and behavior in personal and social contexts.

Long Title: WOMEN OF THE NIGHT: COURTESANS AND PERFORMERS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This class examines the uneasy relationship between historical French actresses and courtesans and the authors and artists who imagined them. Through portrayals of real and fictional women performers in literature, painting, memoirs, and other media, we examine the culture of nineteenth-century France and discuss theories of gender, identity, and representation.

Long Title: LEGENDARY AMERICANS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Exploration of popular myths surrounding larger-than-life figures like Davy Crockett and Harriet Tubman. Specific figures vary. Though scholarly readings and analysis of cultural artifacts like songs and films, we will consider why and how such figures become iconic and explore the relations between history, biography, and memory. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in History. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for FWIS 173 if student has credit for FSEM 159/HIST 159.

Long Title: WRITING IN SPORT MANAGEMENT

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group II

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Given the economic magnitude and pervasive nature of sport in American society, the business management of sport is worthy of examination. This course will introduce these core sport management concepts to students and provide students with an overview of the structure of the spot industry and issues facing sport organizations. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in Sport Management/Kinesiology.

Long Title: ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group II

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This seminar provides a survey of leadership issues in an entrepreneurial business context, along with an understanding of fundamental business elements and economic concepts of importance to entrepreneurs and their organizations. Through discussions with leaders in the Houston community, group projects, and frequent writing and oral presentation assignments, students will experience and develop an understanding of the interplay between structure, operations, and leadership.

Long Title: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DOCUMENTARY FILM

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, we will explore how the intimate and subjective narratives of autobiographical documentary film creatively interpret broader historical, cultural, and social issues. We will view a variety of genres, including home movies, video diaries, poetic and performance pieces, and reflexive films that offer meta-commentaries on this art form. This FWIS focuses on building confidence in responding to visual media forms.

Long Title: BIZARRE BIBLICAL STORIES

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will examine some of the more bizarre stories of the Hebrew Bible, which deal with such ideas as fratricide, incest, seduction and magic. We will see how such stories have been interpreted, and been afforded meaning, throughout the ages. All texts will be read in English translation.

Long Title: READING POP CULTURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course treats mainstream pop culture, typically considered low culture or "trash," as an area of study worthy of serious inquiry. We will ready mass-marketed literature, popular TV shows, blockbuster films, and advertisements as texts, meaning we will examine their form/formulas, rhetorical devices, and social and political and content.

Long Title: AMERICAN LITERATURE IN THE ERA OF ENVIRONMENTALISM

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: What is environmental literature? This course will explore this question by examining major trends shaping how American writers have understood and written about their environments historically, and how those trends continue to influence our feelings towards the environment. Texts include Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild.

Long Title: WEIRD SCIENCE: BLOOD, BODY SNATCHING, & FRANKENSTEIN MONSTERS IN THE MEDICAL SCIENCES & LITERATURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Course texts will begin by exploring the ethics of early modern medical practices, including body snatching of the purposes of human dissection and Frankenstien-esque attempts at reviving corpses, and will move forward into questions about contemporary medical ethics and the ethical dangers imagined for our future by dystopic writers.

Long Title: THE GOLDEN AGE OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The "Golden Age" of children's literature produced many of our most famous children's classics, including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Peter Pan. This course will discuss and write about why this period produced so many influential books and how those stories still shape our ideas about writing for children.

Long Title: INTERSECTIONS IN ART AND SCIENCE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores frictions and affinities between Art and Science. It examines at how these different ways of engaging with the world have crossed paths - from World Fairs, to cinema, as well as current exhibits in Houston galleries. This course is eligible for credit toward the major in anthropology.

Long Title: FAMOUS FAKES IN EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, we will read and write about famous fakes in early Christian literature alongside undisputed texts. What makes one a fake and not another? Are ancient and modern forgeries really that different? We will examine questions of authorship and how academic information is produced, represented, and analyzed.

Long Title: REWRITING CREATION: THE APOCRYPHON OF JOHN

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course we will discover what some of the keenest interpreters of the book of Genesis had to say in the Apocryphon of John, an early Christian text which rewrites the Bible along with Plato's Timaeus. Through critical analysis we will examine the relationship between text, culture, and interpretation.

Long Title: CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This class will delve into contemporary American poetry by exploring outstanding poetry books of the previous year. Students will study American poetry in literary and historical contexts, develop ability to analyze how poems "work," develop ability to create clear, effective prose, and build framework for exploring other types of poetry.

Long Title: AFTER 9/11: LITERATURE, CULTURE, POLITICS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, we will think and write about the novels, stories, photography, and film of the last thirteen years that have made important contributions to how we imagine: citizenship (national and global), work, ethics, personal and public life, self and other, and the coming of age in the long aftermath of 9/11.

Long Title: EXPLORING THE SCIENCE AND HISTORY OF HOUSTON'S BAYOUS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This discussion- and field-based class will explore Houston's watersheds from the perspective of biogeochemistry, working to understand the roles of our bayous in our 21st century community.

Long Title: WATER AND SOCIETY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group III

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In our lifetime, the availability of clean water will become one of the most important socio-political and economic discussions to date. In this course we will use resources, including books, journals, newspaper; and film, to understand and discuss how humans and the environment impact water availability around the world.

Long Title: POST-APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE AND FILM

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Our culture is fascinated with its own destruction. From zombies to nuclear war, ecological disasters, aliens, disease and killer machines, Armageddon takes many forms. Structured around ways in which we have imagined the world ending, this course charts the cultural consciousness of apocalypse.

Long Title: YOUTH REBELLION: SIXTIES MUSIC AND THE MAKING OF A COUNTER-CULTURE

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In fundamental ways the sixties were about youth culture. Popular music, probably more than any other cultural form, served as this culture's mode of self-expression. Sixties popular music, both US and British, will be at the center of a multi-media course that also makes use of materials in television, visual art, fiction, and film.

Long Title: THE BLACK FREEDOM STRUGGLE IN AMERICA

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, students will analyze and explore African Americans' long struggle for freedom, equality, and civil rights in the United States, beginning with plantation slavery in the colonial period, continuing through the antebellum period, Jim Crow South, and civil rights movements, and concluding with race relations in America today.

Long Title: LOVE LETTERS TO CINEMA: CINEPHILIA AND GLOBAL MODERNITY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Through reading and writing assignments, students will discover the wide range of impulses that constitute cinephilia, the critical debates that have been spawned by cinephilic writings, and the myriad insights that can emerge from discussing and analyzing such instances.

Long Title: AMERICA AND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD: THE CULTURAL, HISTORICAL, AND LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE OF OZ

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Published in 1900, L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was an instant classic. In this class, we will carefully study Baum's novel along with its legacy in films and other works. Along the way, we will discuss the historical, philosophical, and social contexts that have shaped these texts.

Long Title: THE HISTORY OF THE END OF THE WORLD

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores understandings of the apocalypse in world history. Students will produce a collaborative website featuring timelines, Tumblr archives, Wikipedia historiographies, and Prezis. Reading topics range from Mayan prophecy to zombie fiction. We focus on six key writing skills - mastery of grammar, concision, argument, structure, synthesis, and rewriting.

Long Title: "LOST IN TRANSLATION" LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND BORDER CROSSINGS

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: University students have to navigate a variety of borders - intersections of languages, cultures, social worlds, and even disciplinary fields. Through critical reading of both multicultural literature and scholarly research, we will explore how such border crossings have been managed by others and consider the relevance and impact of these crossings on our own lives. This course is open to all students but is designed for students whose first language is not English.

Long Title: THE INTERNET: HISTORY, CULTURE, IDENTITY

Department: First-Year Writing Intensive

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Smartphones, Google, and Facebook are more than just tools. In this course, students will approach the Internet as a cultural phenomenon with a history, a politics, and spaces for self-expression and community creation. By discussing and writing about relevant essays, movies, and online materials, the class will learn to effectively communicate about and for the Internet.