Making Powerful Arguments
GENS 176: Making Powerful Arguments teaches students to write and speak persuasively, with the support of rigorous, research-based evidence. You get to choose a course that interests you, and participate in thought-provoking debates guided by our expert faculty.
About registration: Students will register for their spring seminar before registering for the rest of their spring courses. On Wednesday, October 16, students will be emailed a survey asking for their top 5 ranked choices. The survey will remain open for one week before the registrar starts placing students in sections on Friday, October 25.
Queer Imaginaries
M Acuff
Section A: M, W 1–2:20 p.m.
The course Queer Imaginaries examines representations of queerness that have emerged in the last 20+ years in and across various artistic and literary genres. From the photographic to the novelistic, the philosophical to the poetic, we will examine films, graphic novels, YouTube videos and many written texts in which queerness signifies and is negotiated. This course positions queerness as a project with a specific intellectual genealogy, centering resistance to normative ways of being. We will look at how the range of aesthetic and rhetorical moves leverage and mobilize distinct possibilities and meanings, i.e. make arguments and proffer evidence for ongoing queer proliferation. The first part of the semester will expose you to a wide range of forms and texts, some canonical, others born at the cultural edges, all viable ways of constructing knowledge within a vibrant liberal arts tradition. The second half of the semester will explore your own formal and creative experiments in service of building dialogs with the larger queer multiverse of texts, treatises and ideas.
Content warning: no discussion of queer life could possibly do justice to its subject without some depiction of the violence (literal, legislative and otherwise) historically and contemporarily inflicted upon queer bodies; we will do our best to manage the sometimes stressful effects of taking in traumatic experiences rendered in literary fashion.
Monsters and Monstrosity
Aarón Aguilar-Ramírez
Section B: M, W, F 9–9:50 a.m.
The study of monsters, what they are and what they mean, dates back thousands of years. Asa Mittman proposes that a monster is just that which “should not be but is,” something that challenges the sense of normal or quotidian. The Latin word “monstere,” itself derived from “monstrare” and “monere,” also suggests that monstrous figures arise to show, warn, or foretell against an array of potential ills or evils. In this class, we will examine popular monsters or ideas of monstrosity, and reflect collectively on the myriad forces – economic, social, ethnoracial, historical, ecological—monsters represent, challenge, subvert, or forewarn. We will advance powerful arguments about how monstrous figures stress or reinforce a society’s norms and values, its views of self in relation to the “other,” and its perceptions of significant historical events. Our exploration of monstrous figures will take us around the globe, across the cultural geographies of England, Japan, South Korea, Nigeria, the United States, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. We will analyze diverse media forms, including short stories, novels, films, television, graphic novels, newspapers, television newscasts, video essays, and academic articles.
Note: Some of the texts we will read in this class contain elements of horror or adjacent genres, and contain strong depictions of violence, including sexual violence. We will engage these subjects responsibly, but I encourage you to contact me (aguilaa2@whitman.edu) with any questions about whether the class is the right fit for you.
Science and Science Fiction
Andrés Aragoneses
Section C: T, Th 1–2:20 p.m.
You are constantly bombarded by information from fiction, movies, and the news. But how much of it is real, and how much is fake? In this course, you will develop critical thinking tools to analyze the information you encounter daily, especially in the context of science. You’ll learn to distinguish between fact and fiction, and justify your conclusions with solid reasoning. Throughout the course, you will sharpen your ability to evaluate text and video content through a scientific lens, questioning the plausibility of the information presented to you. We will focus on understanding basic scientific principles and applying them to assess the accuracy of science in fiction, movies, and news media. The course includes writing op-eds on science topics, creating an educational YouTube video analyzing a movie clip, and participating in a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate based on a fictional film. These activities will provide practical experience in communicating scientific ideas and engaging in critical discourse.
Not Just About Us: Humans and More
Sally Bormann
Section D: T, Th 10–11:20 a.m.
What does it mean for humans to radically replace themselves, rather than taking center stage? Does it open up possibilities for human agency and change? For agency of a “more than human” world? Humans have frequently turned to fables and allegories to speak to and about power, a topic in our first unit. It is dangerous to talk about limiting the king’s power but not to tell a story about putting a bell on a cat so prey can escape. Unit two includes how humans have looked outside their everyday experience to the supernatural and the super powered. In the Chinese text Journey to the West, a human-like divine is transformed into Pigsy but super-powered Monkey King glories in his eternal monkey nature. In unit three we will consider the concept of a “more-than-human world” in which plants and animals are subjects with agency and engage in communities of their own, as well as in community with humans. Robin Wall Kimmerer describes a world in which being mentored by plants and belonging to a nation under trees is part of a way forward to biodiversity and ecological hope for the planet.
Language, Community, Ecology
Matthew Bost
Section E: M, W, F 10–10:50 a.m.
Language and symbolic communication have often been held up as a central feature of human identity, a source of community, connection, and ethical relation. In this course, we will explore this assumption by considering the place of language in a more-than-human world that urgently demands greater responsibility and connection between humans and other creatures. We will engage the similarities and divergences between human communication and that of other types of animals, discuss the biological emergence of self and consciousness, and explore the ways that different cultures have considered the relationship between language, community, and human being. We will also consider how these questions might shape contemporary practices of dwelling in the world, relating to others, and responding to global climate crisis. Course texts will include work by Octavia Butler, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Peter Godfrey-Smith. Assignments will include several pieces of short writing, regular class discussion, and a final research project.
Other Places, Other Gazes
Chetna Chopra
Section F: M, W 1–2:20 p.m.
This course will study how different people experience places differently. The main question it will ask is the following: What dynamics shape divergent registrations of the same place? Foregrounding this question, we will examine various depictions of places, including intimate spaces such as the home in Alfonso Cuarón’s film Roma, nationally and culturally defined spaces in E. M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India, and an “alien” planet in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Primarily exploring the role of race in these works, the class will also address linked issues of class and gender as it examines the disparities among such experiences in texts from a wide geographical and cultural range.
Incarceration
Mitch Clearfield
Section G: T, Th 2:30–3:50 p.m.
The American prison system has some obvious flaws that are easy to criticize. But it is much more difficult to come to a deeper understanding of how the system functions, why it is the way it is, and to determine what a better alternative would look like. In this class, we will work toward that kind of deeper understanding, of both the theory and practice of incarceration. We will examine different potential purposes of imprisonment, including deterrence, rehabilitation, and retribution (just deserts). We will learn from first-person experiences of people who are incarcerated and their families, and from a century of prison newspapers from the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. We will visit two nearby prisons, to see the facilities for ourselves and to hear the perspectives of the staff who work there. We will look at the after-effects of imprisonment, and the challenges faced by those trying to reenter society. And we will consider potential reforms and replacements to the current system, drawing on comparisons with the practices of other countries, ideas from restorative or transformative justice, and forms of prison abolitionism.
Feminist Technologies
Janet Davis
Section H: M, W, F 9–9:50 a.m.
New technologies are often assumed to be synonymous with progress. But increasingly, new technologies are critiqued as reinforcing or even amplifying structures of power and privilege: sexism, racism, classism, and ableism. Is it possible for new technologies to support justice, equity, inclusion, and liberation? Is there such a thing as a feminist technology?
In this course, we'll consider technologies of the past and present, from baby slings and dishwashers to social media and artificial intelligence. We'll explore critiques of technology's negative impacts stemming from existing societal biases, as well as visions and evidence for how technology can improve the lives of women and girls. We'll consider perspectives of anthropologists, historians, sociologists, philosophers, novelists, and activists, as well as perspectives of the technologists themselves. As background, we'll establish working definitions of feminism and technology, drawing from the inherently interdisciplinary disciplines of gender studies and technology studies. In particular, we will be informed by intersectional feminism, acknowledging that gender is only one dimension of power and privilege, interacting with race, class, (dis)ability, sexuality, and other identities.
Beyond our common readings, you will research in depth a technology of your choice and analyze it from a feminist perspective.
Rebelliously De-Classical: (Un)Silencing ‘Antiquity’
Sarah Davies
Section I: M, W 2:30–3:50 p.m.
A Horse Course, of Course
Nancy Day
Section J: T, Th 11:30 a.m. to 12:50 p.m.
Horses have long captured the attention of humans with their power, grace, beauty, and perhaps most importantly, their utility. Scholars argue that the domestication of the horse has been essential in transforming human existence by transporting people, languages, and technologies around the world. Cave paintings of horses date back to at least 10,000 BCE and demonstrate how early humans revered this animal. Today, humans continue to incorporate horses into many aspects of society — whether as Mongolian nomads shepherding flocks of sheep or as hobby equestrians enjoying leisurely trail rides. In this course, we will consider the role of horses in shaping human cultures over time. We will draw on representations of horses in art, film, popular press, social media, and scientific articles.
In this course, students will consider controversies such as (i) Should horse slaughter be legalized? (ii) Is horse racing ethical? (iii) Should horses be considered pets, livestock, or an invasive species? We will also explore the use of wild horses for inmate rehabilitation programs and the significance of horses to indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau. A research paper and oral presentation will require students to explore ideas about the significance and role(s) of horses to people and societies throughout history and around the world.
Mutable Identities
Brian Dott
Section K: M, W, F 1–1:50 p.m.
In this class we explore a range of genres in which creators and characters push identity boundaries, seeking physical, mental, or spiritual transformation. The works we examine range from a statue on campus, to poetry, to an anime, to a musical, to documentaries, and a psychology study of neuroplasticity; from ancient texts to a modern spoken word performance. The fears, desires and hopes expressed in the texts and visual sources stimulate discussions and writings. Our exploration of various works is organized around three broad themes. The individual transformation unit includes the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, poetry by Maya Angelou, and Pablo Neruda, as well as a TED talk/performance by Pages Matam. The unit on spiritual mutability includes writings by early Buddhist nuns from India, ancient Chinese poetry, and exploration of a pilgrimage. The unit on socio-cultural identities in flux includes a manga (or graphic novel) and the film All About My Mother by Almodóvar. We end with the anime Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki to help us draw links across the three themes. At various points during the semester, students, working in small groups, make presentations guiding classmates through analysis of some of the assigned works.
Imagining Plato's Cities
Tim Doyle
Section L: M, W, F 10–10:50 a.m.
In order to relate his philosophical ideas, Plato sketches portraits of his city, its people, and of Socrates, and invites readers to think with him about a succession of mythical and imagined cities. In this course we will read selections from Plato’s dialogues and other contemporary accounts of Athens and its people, and interpret these ancient accounts alongside more modern attempts to reimagine Plato’s cities. This course is rooted in philosophical and literary examination of platonic dialogues, but also ventures into history, literature, drama, politics, and queer theory. While the focus of the class might seem relatively narrow, the historical Athens of around 400BCE and Plato’s various imagined cities are contested territories. They are claimed on behalf of conservative political thought, but also, for example, by many early activists in the struggle for LGBTQ rights. The story of the decline of Athenian democracy, and Plato’s critique of democracy, inform the foundations of modern democracies throughout the world. Both feminism and traditionalist anti-feminism find inspiration in this moment and these texts. 20th century nonviolent resistance movements across the globe, but also many forms of 20th—and now 21st—century violent political nationalism look equally to these texts and moments to find intellectual ground. So while our focus is narrow in one sense, the broad and conflicted deployment of the intellectual capital associated with Plato’s real and imagined cities will allow us to peer from strange, new angles at topics of contemporary cultural, political, and intellectual significance.
Race, Gender, Representation
Tarik Elseewi
Section M: T, Th 11:30 a.m. to 12:50 p.m.
This class will explore, analyze, question and reflect on the representation of difference in popular culture. Using examples from visual cultural media (film, television, social media); literature and music, students will explore the portrayal of difference in its many forms of expression. How does contemporary culture describe religious, racial, gendered, sexual, disabled, working class differences? What are some of the political, social, historical and economic underpinnings behind these representations? What is the relationship between political or economic power and the ensuing representation of racial or gendered minorities in mainstream media or in niche media? How does representation change when minorities gain the ability to represent themselves? This class will blend academic and popular readings to address problematic areas of representation in contemporary culture.
National Landscape in World Literature and Art
Donghui He
Section N: M, W 2:30–3:50 p.m.
In this class, we will study representations of national spaces as they are depicted by modern and contemporary writers and visual artists from Asia, Europe, South and North America. We will study natural landscapes, rural landscapes and cityscapes that are considered emblematic of their country. We will also examine the artistic and cultural traditions that shape the imagery in each scene and how artists use this imagery to convey cultural, social, and political ideas. Our studies will conclude by investigating how individual artists use landscapes both to express their own imagination and to reflect upon their cultures.
Creative Influence
Rob Schlegel
Section O: T, Th 10–11:20 a.m.
Section X: T, Th 1–2:20 p.m.
Some scholars suggest that because Homer had few literary precursors he looked to the stars for inspiration and influence. More recently, poet Fred Moten cites the composer Cole Porter as a source for his poetry collection The Feel Trio. According to Greil Marcus, even the Sex Pistols did not escape the grasp of influence, as he traces the British punk band's influences back to the Knights of the Round Table. Does this suggest there are no authentically original works of art? What does “original” even mean? How do these concerns shape our ideas about creative influence, identity and inheritance? We will use the study of influence as a lens through which to read and discuss poems, music, paintings and film. In the first part of this seminar, we will identify themes and stylistic patterns between works by a variety of writers, musicians and artists. In the second half, students will be invited to create their own self-directed reading list in order to trace thematic, stylistic, and formal influences of one of their favorite texts from outside of class.
Justice and Reconciliation
Julia Ireland
Section P: T, Th 2:30–3:50 p.m.
Adopting the definition put forward by Hannah Arendt that reconciliation is “a coming to terms with the reality of the past,” this seminar examines the ways we are implicated in history in a manner that extends beyond the categories of victim, perpetrator, and bystander. It starts with the assumption that violence is a central feature of our social world, exploring through a succession of linked concepts and case studies the different ways that individuals, communities, and nations have come to terms with their violent pasts. The seminar explicitly poses the question what the expression “coming to terms with” means –– as justice, as political solidarity or shared responsibility, as repair, and as healing. Drawing from the fields of Comparative Genocide Studies, Transitional Justice, and Peace and Conflict Studies, the seminar incorporates a variety of sources and media –– including popular, archival, and legal –– emphasizing narrative and first-person (witness) accounts to forefront the human cost of violence. The course teaches analytical writing through a process-driven Final Portfolio that includes revision and reflection.
A National Mosaic: Canadian Multiculturalism
Jack Iverson
Section Q: M, W, F 11–11:50 a.m.
The melting pot and the mosaic are images that have frequently been used to characterize attitudes toward the blending of populations in, respectively, the United States and Canada. While neither notion adequately expresses the complex realities of either country, the difference between these images reflects the existence in Canada of an official multicultural policy recognizing the right of all members of Canadian society to affirm their distinctive cultural traditions. Our task in this course will be to explore this policy and its impacts in Canada, as reflected in a variety of works, ranging from philosophical essays and historical case studies, to literary texts and creative works. Has this official policy been successful in encouraging greater appreciation for and acceptance of diversity in Canada? Has it empowered marginalized populations to affirm their rights? What work remains to be done? And what alternative models have been born of the successes and failings of multiculturalism? Starting from the Ukrainian-Canadian experience and early articulations of multiculturalist policy, we will grapple with texts by Kim Thúy, Jesse Wendt, Tomson Highway, Will Kymlicka, and Neil Bissoondath, as well as a recent feature film and the hit comedy series, Kim’s Convenience. We will also consider recent events in Canada, including the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada to address the traumatic legacy of the residential school system and continued efforts by French-speaking Canadians to protect their linguistic heritage.
House and Home
Michelle Janning
Section R: T, Th 1–2:20 p.m.
If a house is a space, is a home a place? Home is personal, social, emotional, economic, political, and aesthetic. It can simultaneously be a purchased or rented dwelling, a designed and engineered building, a geographic area, a state of mind, a network of people, a site for the enactment of familial protection or trauma, an emotional subject of song lyrics, and a sacred ancestral place. In this course we will journey home together, unpacking structural, rhetorical, and cultural conceptions of "home" and "house" in contemporary society. With written and visual texts from the social sciences, humanities, and engineering and design fields as our guide, we will fill our intellectual suitcase with questions surrounding residential architectural design, housing affordability, college student conceptions of home, homelessness and being unhoused, vacation homes, and social and psychological connections between family, memory, and home. We will also broaden our scope to connect house and home to global economic and political patterns related to rental housing in the sharing economy, political displacement and definitions of homeland, and historically rooted conceptions of private property that shape unequal access to real estate markets. This course features an emphasis on communicating through writing with both academic and general interest audiences.
Learning to Learn and Protect your Brain
Thomas Knight
Section S: T, Th 10–11:20 a.m.
Neuroscience and related fields have revealed useful information about the brain and how we attend, sense, learn, recall, think, decide, and act, but most of us didn’t get the owner’s manual. This course will introduce science of the human brain within the context of the liberal arts so that student owners can learn how to learn, consider if and how behavior is guided by the brain and its experience, and how liberal arts principles and neuroscience-evidence-based strategies may improve (or protect) their individual abilities. Importantly, learning more about your brain will provide insight into how other brains might function (sense, learn, think, and act) DIFFERENTLY.
In this course we will draw upon popular, secondary, and primary literature on brain function and human behavior (e.g., learning, problem-solving, and responding), and brain health across the lifespan. We will engage with questions of individual decision making, effects of harm to brain function and behavior, and equity in public health and wellbeing. Students will enhance their own metacognition regarding their brain function, improve their higher-order cognitive skills, and apply these abilities to write powerful arguments supported by evidence. Across the semester we will engage in active learning, discussion, and writing to learn about our brains, their diverse abilities, and how these amazing learning machines can be enhanced for positive change.
How They Say His Name: Adapting the “Candyman” figure from 1985-present
Chris Leise
Section T: T, Th 2:30–3:50 p.m.
In 2021, Nia DaCosta partnered with Jordan Peele to right one of modern horror cinema’s wrongs by releasing a new sequel to the classic slasher film Candyman. On its own, the ’92 Candyman delights horror fans; students who recognize the elements of fiction, legend, scholarship, and journalism which influenced the making of that text will likely find it downright astonishing. Almost thirty years later, DaCosta revived the franchise with startling urgency, updating the Candyman tale by fusing it with a tagline from the Black Lives Matter movement, “Say Their Names.” We will study the evolution of Candyman from its origins in a very short story to becoming a four-film franchise. In the process, you will write papers on questions of your own devising, focusing on how these teams of artists blend fiction and fact and to what aesthetic and political ends.
Note: Slasher films are violent and gory; furthermore, the production team of the 2021 Candyman invite discussions about anti-Black violence in the contemporary US. If you have questions about whether the content of this course is appropriate for you, please contact Professor Leise at leisecw@whitman.edu.
Public / Stories / Private / Things
Camilo Lund-Montano
Section U: M, W 2:30–3:50 p.m.
Evidence is a fundamental component of the academic endeavor. It can come in many shapes or forms: whether it is texts and testimonies from others, or our own personal accounts of lived experiences, or it can also be material objects or abstract concepts. The purpose of this course is to explore the types of evidence and how different fields of study approach them. A key question that the class will discuss throughout the semester is how these types of evidence can shape and impact both our private and public spaces. As we unpack and juxtapose these four concepts – private, public, stories, and things – we will explore the interplay between their possible combinations: how public stories are often based on private things and how private stories can lead to the creation of public things; or how we can distinguish and navigate within the dichotomies of the private and public, and the ways to identify and challenge some of the hierarchies and mystifications that often occur between stories and things. The course will be divided in four main sections based on types of evidence: text, audio, visual, and the vague and rather capacious category of “miscellaneous.” There will be a few short writing assignments in the beginning of the course, and students will work on a longer research paper throughout the second half of the semester.
Fluctuations: Mobile Values and Meanings
Gaurav Majumdar
Section V: M, W 1–2:20 p.m.
This course will study the shifts, transformation, and removal of values and meaning. In what conditions do people and cultures seek and produce radical change? How (and why) might they disguise it? How does such change contest or reflect previous knowledge, values, and norms? How, in turn, might it establish new norms? In what ways do we stabilize values, norms, and meanings, while they remain malleable or even in flux? This course will engage such questions through a focus on works from various disciplines and media, including literature (Ovid's Metamorphoses, William Shakespeare's Othello, and Maya Binyam's Hangman), scientific arguments (by Alexander von Humboldt and Werner Heisenberg), philosophy (Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals), political theory (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's The Communist Manifesto), gender studies (Amia Srinivasan’s The Right to Sex), history (Edward Said's Orientalism), and visual arts (the movies Cat Ballou and Monsoon Wedding). We will examine both rapid changes within a short period and major changes in a longer historical view as fluctuations. Alongside, our class will consider the role of spectacle and affect in frustrating the stability of values and meanings.
Making and Unmaking Public Health
Jason Pribilsky
Section W: T, Th 11:30 a.m. to 12:50 p.m.
Responses in the United States to the COVID-19 outbreak (from vaccine hesitation, to mask wearing debates, to questions about who constituted an “essential worker”) revealed cracks in both the country’s public health system and everyday Americans’ faith in public health itself. However, at the same time, various problems and conditions such as loneliness and gun violence were increasingly being framed in new ways as public health issues (though not without debate and suspicion). In this course, students will explore multiple ways we can understand what constitutes the “public” in public health. Bringing together social science approaches to health with humanistic explorations (from drama to novels), we’ll address a range of questions: do we have an ethical and moral commitment to the health of the communities we live in? How do we balance individual rights with the needs of ensuring an entire community’s health? How do issues of privacy, personal liberty, and ownership of biological property conflict with notions of public health? What issues and problems should and shouldn’t be understood as a public responsibility? We’ll also explore how in a world that seems woefully atomized, where we are all “bowling alone,” new forms of public accountability and visibility around issues of health are emerging through technology, activism, and citizen science.
Extractivism, Anti-Extractivism, Post-Extractivism
Andrea Sempértegui
Section Y: T, Th 10–11:20 a.m.
“Extractivism” broadly refers to the removal of great quantities of natural resources (hydrocarbons, minerals, or agricultural products) which are then exported and processed abroad. The purpose of this course is to expand this descriptive definition of extractivism by tracing the work of critical scholars and social movements on extractivism as a colonial project of accumulation, where minerals, labor, knowledge and cultures can be “extracted.” To shed light on the conceptual broadening of this term, we will draw upon different approaches coming from Latin America, a region characterized by the looting of its resources since colonial times. With these regional focus, we will answer the following questions: What are similarities and differences between the recent expansion of extractive projects and previous (colonial) extractive practices? Why do so many peasant, Indigenous and rural communities organize against extractive projects nowadays? What are the different post-extractive alternatives developed by Indigenous, environmental and feminist movements to confront the negative socio-ecological impacts of extraction? By reading a variety of texts (including academic articles, book chapters, public-facing writing and manifestos) and engaging in different writing assignments and discussion-based exercises, we will not only approach extractivism as a situated and global phenomenon, but learn how Latin American social movements and activists have contributed to the intellectual elaborations of this term.
Microphone Check, 1, 2: Music, Technology, and Narrative
Michael Simon
Section Z: M, W, F 11–11:50 a.m.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new phenomenon captured the public imagination, something experienced by no peoples in previous history: recorded music. As new technological developments allowed for the reproduction and distribution of audio recordings, the nature of music itself changed. No longer would those fortunate enough to attend a concert claim sole ownership of the musical experience, but now anyone with access to a phonograph could also experience this singular moment in time.
This course will explore the impact of technology on music and its narratives, from the development of the phonograph and wireless radios to the reappropriation of the phonograph through turntablism as a new tool for discourse. In using these technological tools in innovative ways, musicians, engineers and producers created new worlds through which to communicate their ideas and narratives. Through study of recorded works, writings, and films, we will critically examine the intersection of music, technology, and narrative, including issues surrounding appropriation. Works may include those by A Tribe Called Quest, David Byrne, Public Enemy, Jimmy Hendrix, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, Lauryn Hill, Miles Davis, Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Hanif Abdurraqib, Amanda Petrusich, and more.
The Fairy Tale: Enchantment and Change
Johanna Stoberock
Section ZA: M, W, F 11–11:50 a.m.
The term “fairy tale” gets thrown around in all sorts of contexts, usually to describe something that is so perfect that most of us can hardly dream of experiencing it. But the worlds of actual fairy tales are rarely places we’d want to end up: violence is literal; the vulnerable are targeted; and gaps in logic make it difficult to understand how to navigate life safely. And yet, within the dangerous spaces of these enchanted worlds, those who are most vulnerable resist oppression, finding ways to use magic as a vehicle for social change. We will begin the semester by focusing on the work of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault in order to consider how the fantastical functions as both enforcer and disrupter of cultural norms. We will then look at contemporary and near contemporary retellings of classic tales and the ways in which adjustments in focus and style allow the tales to become containers for questions that resonate within our current time. Writers will include the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson, Kate Bernheimer, Maria Tatar, and others. Assignments will include essays, a class presentation, and a final writing portfolio.
Note: Fairy tales often ask readers to engage with narratives that hinge on violence, including sexual violence. I encourage you to contact me (stoberj@whitman.edu) should you have questions about this aspect of the tales as you consider choosing the course.
Two Truths and A Lie: Discerning Data Uses and Inferences
Wisnu Sugiarto
Section ZB: M, W, F 9–9:50 a.m.
We live in a data-driven world where information is easily accessible and spreads quickly. However, not all information is accurate, and the use of data can sometimes lead to dubious inferences. As consumers of information, it is essential for us to distinguish fact from fiction. To tackle misleading information, we must develop the skills to detect and refute it. In this section focusing on data uses and inferences, we will critically examine the characteristics of false information and flawed reasoning, their origins, and the factors contributing to their spread. We will use logical reasoning to identify inaccuracies and improve our ability to construct powerful and credible arguments. This involves understanding the data available to us, how it is collected, its limitations, and what can be credibly inferred from it.
Projecting a Self
Jenna Terry
Section ZC: T, Th 1–2:20 p.m.
What’s your project? Call it a pursuit, a mission, a vocation – what is it you’re doing, and for what purpose? What’s the relationship between your project and your identity, public and private? What might a project have to do with desire, creativity, agency, and freedom – for yourself and those around you? What if your project, or the freedom to create projects, is thwarted? What does a project reveal about the person behind it, and what does it not? Can we distinguish between appreciation for a project and approval of its creator? Should we? Drawing upon Simone de Beauvoir’s sense of “projects”, Audre Lorde’s “work”, and Langston Hughes’s “dream”, this course looks at the challenges, necessities, risks, and satisfactions of finding and pursuing projects, even through difficulty and failure. Course texts offer scholarly frameworks and applications for these ideas, as well as narrate awakening desire, constructions of identity, and projects depicted in literature and film. This class is NOT about your career plans, your work history, or those many impressive bullet points on your resume – though it’s possible those disparate experiences are held together by a project with bounds you haven’t fully explored. Rather, this course is an opportunity to consider the complex dynamics of “project”. In doing so, you’ll complete a class-culminating project that might cohere into a larger project of your own.
Content warning: course material includes reference to and depictions of factual and fictional oppression, abuse, misogyny, ableism, and racism; class discussion will directly address the function of confronting this difficult material. Please feel welcome and encouraged to contact me (terryj@whitman.edu) with questions about this material as you consider your GenS 176 choices.
James Baldwin’s America
Daniel Schultz
Section ZD: T, Th 1–2:20 p.m.
Perhaps more than any other author of the 20th century, the work of African American writer James Baldwin has probed the enduring contradictions of America’s troubled history with race and the legacies of slavery. Drawing from both his literary and non-fiction work, the course explores how Baldwin excavates, confronts, and rewrites his own story and the story of America through the lens of race and sexuality. We will consider the political dimensions of Baldwin’s autobiographical writing and study the ways Baldwin reads the racial imaginary of literature and film. Students will learn to analyze how forms of literary and visual representation produce, rank, and value racial difference. The course will also incorporate the perspectives of Baldwin’s interlocutors, in addition to exploring contemporary voices that engage enduring problems of race.