Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: College Courses

Meeting: 7:00PM - 7:50PM W (24-AUG-2026 - 4-DEC-2026) 

Part of Term: Full Term - No WL Purge

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Course Type: Seminar

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Method of Instruction: Face to Face

Credit Hours: 1

 

Section Max Enrollment: 19

Section Enrolled: 11

Waitlisted: 0 (Max 99) 

Current members of the waitlist have priority for available seats.

Enrollment data as of: 26-APR-2026 9:14AM

 

 

Final Exam: No Final Exam

 

Description: Gen Z is often called the socially conscious yet chronically online generation, with observers pointing to both their propensity to protest and their tendency to post before, during, and after the event. This past year, Gen Z's protest habits were in focus, particularly during the youth-led uprisings in Nepal and Madagascar. These movements, and the anime flags that flew above them, highlight a pattern: for Gen Z, fictional revolutionaries from Luffy to Katniss represent something material. In this course, students will examine fictional resistance movements to understand how they leave a lasting cultural impact. We will explore works that transitioned onto film, inspired real-world protests, propelled uprisings, and predicted dangerous futures. In lectures, students will analyze readings, fandom posts, author interviews, and news coverage to understand how resistance stories shape the public imagination. Literary analysis will serve as a foundation for two guiding questions. First: “What are the ingredients of a resistance story, and which elements in particular, whether historical allusion or characterization, make certain stories resonate so deeply?” This will lead us toward a more elusive question that we will begin to approach, but may not fully resolve: "Why do some resistance stories escape the page while others don't?"