Below are the WAYS 102 Seminars that will be offered in Spring 2025.
This course examines city life in Africa since 1900ce. Africa is the world's fastest-urbanizing continent, which means the western world's tendency to focus on rural villages, safaris, or lions is missing what's really happening, from malls to traffic jams to middle class suburbs. We'll look at the evolution of cities, portrayals of urban life, and examine issues some of Africa's biggest cities (including Lagos, Johannesburg, and Cairo) have been facing.
Is tech’s rapid transformation of our world sacrificing our connection to nature? This course explores the social and cultural implications of technological advancements, and their dynamic relationship with nature. From smartphones to renewable energy, we'll examine how technology has both enhanced and challenged our connection to the environment. We'll also delve into mind-bending concepts like whether technology has a life of its own and the paradoxical relationship between tech’s responsibility for the climate crisis and its role in solving it. Join the debates on whether technology has replaced nature, if they can coexist in harmony, and what our technological future might hold.
This course introduces you to critical analysis of fandoms and how to write about them in an academic context. We will consider how fans use media to highlight racism, sexism, transphobia, and other oppressive systems. We will also examine fan practices of composition as a model for public writing.
This course will investigate some of the weird, the wild, the mysterious, the unusual, the too-good-to-be-true occurrences that, at least, some people have believed for a time. You'll develop reading, writing, and critical thinking skills as we reveal the facts behind a number of famous, infamous, and less-famous frauds and hoaxes. The topics for the course will largely come from the realms of archaeology and anthropology, but, from time to time, we will draw upon examples from other related academic disciplines.
Do women of color or women with disabilities face different hurdles than women who do not share those identities? How have women fought against multi-layered discrimination? Intersectional feminists recognize the complexity of identity and the need to address interlocking systems of privilege and oppression. This course uses readings from a variety of disciplines to explore origins, current issues, and future directions of intersectional feminist activism.
Knitting is one of the oldest fiber arts. This course looks at some history to think about how and why this ancient fiber art is still so popular. We will think about how and when knitting was gendered, how knitting functions as art and as social practice, the impact of knitting on the environment and in economic terms, and how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the popularity of knitting. You will choose one of those categories and develop a research project on it. Finally, we will learn to knit.
Why do women write science fiction? Ursula LeGuin, author of The Left Hand of Darkness, suggests that science fiction is really a thought experiment about the present, and the writers we will study tackle such relevant issues as gender identity, reproduction, and the environment.
This course will ask you to dive into one of the longest-running conservation debates in recent U.S. history: does the Endangered Species Act work? Together we will explore a range of texts on this topic, including academic writing, policy positions, and “life writing”. You’ll develop a final essay where you pick a position on the Endangered Species Act: do you support it, or oppose it, and why? How could we change it to be more effective at protecting species? You’ll leave the course with improved writing skills and a better understanding of the challenges we face to protect and conserve our country’s amazing wildlife.