RCAH 111: Writing Transcultural Contexts
Section 001 (Eric Aronoff)
Telling Stories: Composing Knowledge in Transcultural Contexts
In this section of RCAH 111, we will focus on the connection between culture and “storytelling,” broadly conceived. That is, we will examine the ways in which culture shapes the ways we perceive the world around us, and how we organize those perceptions into oral and written narratives – be they what we conventionally would call “stories” like personal narratives, myths or novels, or other genres like scientific, academic or philosophical writing, each with their own generic rules for the “stories” they tell. Drawing primarily on essays, short stories, novels and graphic novels, we will be particularly interested in what happens when different “cultures,” or ways of knowing and writing, collide, clash or mix, in a process we will call “transculturation.” In what ways, we will ask, does “culture” provide us with narratives, patterns, genres – what we might call “stories” -- through which we “shape” our experience into something meaningful? In what ways do we deploy, bend, mix these “stories”? In what ways are cultural “ways of knowing” embodied in (or constituted by, or complicated through) different genres of writing? What do each of these ways of knowing/writing/storytelling reveal or enable us to see, and what might they leave out? Readings may include Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Art Spiegelman’s Maus, among others.
Section 002 (David Sheridan)
Transculturation in Michigan
Discussions of "transculturation" often focus on interactions between cultural groups that are distant from us in time and space — interactions between groups that existed long ago and/or far away. This class explores the way transculturation happens right here in Michigan. We'll examine stories set in Detroit, Benton Harbor, the Upper Peninsula, and other Michigan locales. These stories will help launch conversations about the challenges that emerge when diverse cultural groups come into contact. As a class, we will write about/against/in-response-to these narratives, producing a wide range of compositions, from analytical essays to multimedia projects.
Section 003 (Tama Hamilton-Wray)
Romancing the Motherland
In this course, we will explore the concept of diaspora, specifically as it applies to people of African descent, but also as it applies to other diasporas, i.e. Chinese, Irish, Indian, Jewish, etc. We explore how diasporas are formed and transform. In addition, through various genres of writing we will look at how diaspora is perceived, lived, and researched. Students engage in drafting, revising, and editing compositions derived from historical, social, and cultural texts to develop skills in narration, persuasion, analysis, and documentation.
Section 004 (Anita Skeen)
On the Street Where You Live: Place, People, and Possibility
We are all, in some way, shaped and influenced by the neighborhood or community in which we live. That community might be as small as a kindergarten classroom or as large as Appalachia. It might be comprised of people of different ethnicities, religions, and/or incomes or it may be very homogeneous. These” regions” all have characteristics which encourage people to define, and often stereotype, the residents in certain ways. Each community, and every individual in that community, has a story to tell. Often the focus of those stories is what happens to us, as individuals and as a community, when different “cultures” or ways of knowing puzzle us, frighten us, encroach upon us, or enlighten and enrich us. In this class, through reading poetry, fiction, memoir and essays, we will reflect upon, discuss, and write about how we as individuals come to understand who we are, what communities we are connected to, and how those communities and their interactions influence us.
Section 005 (Austin Jackson)
Race, Rhetoric, and the Arts of Resistance
We will explore the role of language and culture within popular struggles for racial, social, and economic justice. Our task this semester is three-fold: we will 1) explore the intersecting rhetoric of race, class, and gender in society; 2) examine the ways in which writing has been used as a tool of resistance, protest, and social transformation; and 3) experiment with various modes of argumentation (composing academic essays, dialogic journal writing, individual and group presentations, poetry, and visual art), writing in various genres or styles for multiple audiences and differing rhetorical situations.
Section 006 (Katie Wittenauer)
The Writing of Food: Identity, Culture, and Conversation
Throughout this course, we will explore the dialogues surrounding food-centric issues on local, national, and international levels and examine our own understanding of the relationships between food, identity, and culture. Through examining the diverse perspectives in a wide range of genres, including documentary film, non-fiction, food blogs, cookbooks, and advertisements, and by reflecting on and analyzing these conversations through composing in academic, professional and public genres for a range of audiences, we will work toward participating in and understanding the impact of the food-centric writing, activities and conversations that surround us.
RCAH 192: Proseminar
Section 001 (Scot Yoder)
Private Faith and Public Life
In the U.S. we seem to have a tenuous relationship with religion. On the one hand, officially the U.S. is a “secular” nation with no state religion and a constitution that guarantees the separation of church and state. On the other hand, in many ways we are a deeply religious nation. Surveys consistently suggest that a majority of citizens believe in God and religious institutions play important roles at the local and national level. We try to manage this tension by distinguishing between the public and private spheres of life, relegating religion to the latter, but this solution has been only partially successful as debates about matters such as the teaching intelligent design in public schools, public support for faith-based social services, and same-sex marriage demonstrate. The goal of this course is to explore the intersection of religious belief and public life. We will explore the following sorts of questions: What does it mean to have a “secular” society? How do our religious beliefs shape how we respond to public issues? How should they? Does religious faith improve or harm our public lives? How can we talk respectfully and constructively about religion?
Sections 002 (Lisa Biggs)
Introduction to Performance Theory and Analysis
This course introduces students to the art of interpreting and analyzing dramatic texts and live theatrical performances. Opportunities to read published plays and attend a variety of local events – theatre, dance concerts, museum exhibitions, performance art, protests and sport -- will expose them to a host of performance styles. In-class discussions, “no acting,” on-your-feet theatre workshops, and written assignments will strengthen students’ writing and critical thinking skills as they practice reflecting upon the relationship between artistic work and the performance of everyday life. By the end of the course, they will be better able to articulate how the human performance of stories documented in written texts, on stage, and in other cultural spaces shape our social reality.
RCAH 202: The Presence of the Past
Section 001 (Patti Rogers)
Empire and the Legacy of Rome
RCAH 202 asks us to explore a concept: the presence of the past. In other words, how does contemporary society interpret, experience and/or understand the past (mythical or real)? And, in turn, how does this interpretation or understanding of the "past" influence contemporary politics, society or culture? Our section of RCAH 202 will examine this concept through the lens of empires. A first and obvious step requires us to define both "empire" and "the past," which may not be as simple (or simplistic) as it seems. Throughout world history, empires--as a political unit or form of governance--have proven to be far more enduring than democracies or republics. It is worth asking: "why"? The legacy of Rome (and its empire) is central to our analysis of the influence of the past.
Section 002 (Donna Kaplowitz)
What Difference Can a Revolution Make? The Impact of the Cuban Revolution, Past and Present
RCAH 202 asks us to understand the presence of the past. In this class we will explore how political revolutions are perceived what the ride ranging impact of revolution means over time and across borders. This class will use the Cuban Revolution as a case study to learn about the historical meaning and impact of revolutions.
In 1959, 90 miles south of Florida, Fidel Castro and a small band of revolutionaries overthrew Cuba’s US-backed government of Fulgencio Batista. In this section of 202, we will examine how this historic event, now over half a century old, has continued to impact life on the island, and around the world to this day.
This class will examine the political-historical roots of the Cuban revolution. We will study how the Cuban revolution profoundly impacted life on the island and around the world. We will answer questions like: How has the Cuban revolution influenced US domestic policy, foreign policy and world politics? Why is the Cuban revolution still able to influence US and world politics? How did revolution in this tiny Caribbean nation send political tidal waves through Latin America, Africa and Asia? What do human rights mean in a post-Soviet communist country? We’ll examine poetry, print media, music, film and more and understand how the Cuban revolution’s historic commitment to the arts continues to shape today’s art movement in Cuba and the world. We’ll also explore Cuba’s commitment to educational equity; the revolution’s attempt to address racial inequality; the evolution of the role of religion in public life on the island; how the revolution has responded to sexism and heterosexism over time; the role of civic engagement in life on the island, and much more! Be prepared to listen Cuba’s latest pop music - Buena Fe, eat moros y cristianos, watch Cuban film, and challenge Cuban and US foreign policy!
Section 003 (Joanna Bosse)
African Music
As a phenomenon that is bound so deeply to the identity of people and place--one that nevertheless travels through time and space independently of the people who make it--music provides a unique sonic vantage point from which to study the presence of the past. Taking African music as our focus, this course will explore the ways that contemporary African musical practice testifies to the currents of African history and presents listeners with a set of ethical challenges that have implications for our shared future. For over the last centuries, African music has been received with much curiosity, confusion, romanticization, and misinformation among western audiences, perhaps more so than any other type of music. This history informs the way we learn about African music today, in ways that the learners themselves may not even comprehend.
This course will be highly interactive. Throughout the semester, we will listen to, write about, talk about, read about, and perform several musical genres from sub-Saharan Africa. We will also learn about important moments in African (and world) history, gain greater fluency in expressive forms, literacy in musical concepts, while developing a greater understanding of who we are as learners, creators, and citizens of the world. One need not have formal training in music to succeed in this course. Those who do have musical training will find their skills challenged in new and exciting ways.
Section 004 (Stephen Esquith)
Mythic Heroes of War
One way to grasp the presence of the past is through the dominant myths that we live by. What stories do we tell about the past and its development over time? How do these stories – whether they take the form of poetry, theater, film, novels, constitutions, or the everyday rituals of popular culture – structure and guide our lives? In what sense are these stories present to us? In what sense are they myths we live by?
The goal of the course is not to provide an exhaustive catalogue of myths, ancient or modern. Nor is it to search for a universal set of images or mythic archetypes. Our primary goal is to understand how certain myths about heroism have been carried forward, what other possible worlds they may open to us, and how they empower some people while disabling others. We will focus specifically on heroes of war. After reading and discussing a contemporary novel, The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, which is the One Book One Community selection this year about two US soldiers in the Iraq war, we turn to mythic accounts of wartime heroism. These include the Homeric heroes Achilles and Odysseus, and the main characters in Sophocles's Ajax. We will examine how these ancient heroes inform the characters in The Yellow Birds and also have been brought forward in contemporary films such as the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), the novel by Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad, and several poems by Joseph Brodsky, C.P. Cavafy, Linda Pastan, and Louise Glück. To help us understand this feature of the presence of the past, we will also read articles and features from the online edition of the New York Times about the wartime experience of soldiers and veterans and selections from Jonathan Shay's Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America. Students will write analytic essays, poems, short stories, and one act plays in preparation for their own final creative group projects.
Section 005 (Joanna Bosse)
African Music
As a phenomenon that is bound so deeply to the identity of people and place--one that nevertheless travels through time and space independently of the people who make it--music provides a unique sonic vantage point from which to study the presence of the past. Taking African music as our focus, this course will explore the ways that contemporary African musical practice testifies to the currents of African history and presents listeners with a set of ethical challenges that have implications for our shared future. For over the last centuries, African music has been received with much curiosity, confusion, romanticization, and misinformation among western audiences, perhaps more so than any other type of music. This history informs the way we learn about African music today, in ways that the learners themselves may not even comprehend.
This course will be highly interactive. Throughout the semester, we will listen to, write about, talk about, read about, and perform several musical genres from sub-Saharan Africa. We will also learn about important moments in African (and world) history, gain greater fluency in expressive forms, literacy in musical concepts, while developing a greater understanding of who we are as learners, creators, and citizens of the world. One need not have formal training in music to succeed in this course. Those who do have musical training will find their skills challenged in new and exciting ways.
RCAH 281: Career Strategies
Section 001 (Niki Rudolph)
Liberal Arts on the Job
This course will help you prepare for a career that engages the arts and humanities on a daily basis. You’ll learn about your strengths and weaknesses and how your passions can translate into careers. You’ll build your personal brand, job shadow, hear from arts and humanities graduates and professionals, and gain a better understanding about writing a resume, interviewing and articulating the RCAH degree to potential graduate schools, employers and partners. After completing this course, you will more fully understand the value and marketability of a Liberal Arts degree.
RCAH 291: Arts Workshops
Section 001 (Dave Sheridan)
Advanced Media Production and Design
This workshop will explore the social and aesthetic potentials of print-, video-, and web-based media. Content is tailored to students who already have a background in one or more of these areas. Students will generate creative and socially meaningful projects in all three media formats and will explore fundamental principles of design in the process. We will also explore strategies for critiquing the work of others. This class will provide excellent preparation for anyone who wishes to work in the RCAH Language and Media Center.
Section 002 (Chris Scales)
The Music of Southern Appalachia
Appalachian communities have rich and deep musical traditions that have played a unique role in the musical, political, and social life of America. In this class, students will engage with this tradition through the first hand participation in the music, performing “old-time” string band music, ballad singing and shape-note singing, and related genres. We will also take some time to discuss some of the many social functions of the this music in American public life, including its influence on other contemporary musical genres (bluegrass, country, folk and protest music), its connection with American leftist politics in the 20th century, and its central role in the public imagination of “authentic” American identity. Some background in music is recommended (but not required).
Section 003 (Guillermo Delgado)
Possibilities with Paint
In this creative workshop, you will explore the possibilities of paint through a variety of visual mediums. You will experiment and practice painting in a variety of venues and examine the way painting interplays with context. Painting experiences will help us explore topics and genres from the traditional – portraits and landscapes – to the theoretical, such as cultural studies and social justice issues. The objective for this class is to become familiar with painting techniques and art history while also developing an individualized painting practice that will enable you to translate ideas into visual narratives. Watercolor and acrylic paints will be the primary mediums, though your artistic repertoire and exposure to different genres is a key objective. At the end of the semester, you will organize and exhibit your paintings in a group show on campus. No painting experience necessary and all skill levels are welcome. Come join the fun!
Section 004 (Carolyn Loeb and Steve Baibak)
The Worlds of Puppetry
Human surrogates or independent (and often naughty!) spirits? Puppets may be both. This class is about the multiplicity of forms, identities, and meanings that puppets embody. We’ll look at examples from many different cultures. We’ll explore the making of puppets and the stories they tell, and we’ll create our own. There will be a special emphasis on shadow puppetry with guest puppeteers and speakers.
Section 005 (Diane Newman)
Dance as Human Experience
Dance expresses through movement what words cannot convey. Through exploration of the human impulse to move, students begin with a personal journey, noticing how they move, how they like to move, how they want to move. Classroom activities further advance student learning as course structure follows a self-to-self, self-to-other, and self-to-world perspective. Relationships to the broader context of culture, history, communication, social issues and aesthetics are realized over the arc of experience. Students in this class can expect to move, to discover, to create. They will learn to recognize dance/movement as an everyday tool by which humans experience and interpret life.
RCAH 292A: Engagement Proseminar
Section 001 (Vincent Delgado)
Community Storytelling on “The Ave”
This proseminar on engagement will use hands-on learning to motivate, excite, inspire and sensitize students to deeper reflection and civic engagement activities in the college. Through discussions on the nature of civic engagement, students will engage in discovery of their own community as well as new communities across campus and mid-Michigan. Specifically, we’ll be working with communities – from youth groups to refugee groups to artist hangouts – on the eastside of Lansing to explore the critical engagement concept of place through the sharing of stories that capture the identity of the region’s backbone: Michigan Avenue.
These stories will be archived and disseminated through “The Ave”, a new project that combines narrative, democratic facilitation, wayfinding and technology to turn Greater Lansing’s Michigan/Grand River Avenue Corridor into a citizen-built celebration of local creativity and identity. The Ave seeks to transform the region’s main thoroughfare into a new form of wayfinding, storytelling and place-making using large, attractive signage, unique “Quick Response” (QR) codes, voice over internet protocol technology, mobile applications and the world wide web. This activity will provide focus for our work. But we’ll add in texts, multimedia resources and additional hands-on activities to prepare us for higher-level thinking and involvement in engagement course work and community-based activism.
Section 003 (Stephen L. Esquith)
Big Ideas for All Ages
This introduction to civic engagement in the RCAH has three components. First, we will read the work of three important historical figures who have shaped our understanding of civic engagement as an integral part of education: Jane Addams, Myles Horton, and Paulo Freire. Second, we will review the model of civic engagement that the RCAH has adopted in light of the work of these writers and activists. The RCAH model of engagement stresses the importance of critical self-reflection, practical engagement with communities other than our own, an active commitment to social justice, and passionate enjoyment and friendship-building through engagement. Finally, we will experience civic engagement through a set of short literacy programs with our community partners at the Donley Elementary School and the Edgewood Village Community Center in East Lansing. RCAH students will have the choice of working with younger students to improve their critical reasoning and reading skills or working with senior citizens in a life stories writing project.
RCAH 292B: Engagement and Reflection
Section 001 (Guillermo Delgado)
Art@Work
For this civic engagement (and civic creativity) course, you will create art and participate in experiential dialogues with clients at Peckham, Inc., a nonprofit vocational rehabilitation organization that provides job training opportunities for persons with significant disabilities and other barriers to employment. There will be opportunities to explore and engage in the creative processes with the Peckham community and other RCAH students, faculty and visiting artists in the co-creation of a 40’X200’ art installation on a concrete wall. You will help organize, participate in, and lead art-making and writing workshops for clients at Peckham, and explore critical topics such as cultural identity processes through interactive personal histories. Ample time will be reserved for creating art and reflecting in the RCAH art studio. You will work to refine community art-making skills and for creating an artistic personal map based on your civic engagement journey. No art skills necessary and all art skill levels are welcome. Come join the fun!
Section 002 (Patti Rogers)
"It's Great to Be a Girl!"
This course contains both a civic engagement component in the community and an academic component in the classroom. The class will partner with Mt. Hope School in Lansing to run an after-school program based on the initiative "It's Great to Be a Girl" (IGBG). This civic engagement activity involves working with pre-adolescent girls to help build and foster self-esteem at a critical moment in their development. Topics and activities will focus on issues such as body image, media, friendships, bullying, and career goals, among others. In the classroom, undergraduates will read and discuss scholarly articles centering on gender. Many of the materials will delve into the same issues raised by our themes and topics at Mt. Hope; issues that confront all females (girls and women) in American society. Through work with pre-adolescent girls as well as the academic readings and discussions, this class will help undergraduates understand their own experience in relation to society as demonstrated through gender roles and stereotypes.
Section 003 (Donna Kaplowitz)
Social Justice Education and Intercultural Engagement
This class explores how socially constructed differences may be used to privilege some individuals and marginalize others. Through academic exploration and direct engagement with community, we will both deepen our understanding of the nature of inequality in US society, and learn techniques to engage in constructive conversations and critical dialogues across differences. Students will learn how to enter different types of dialogue from informal conversation with friends, to more orchestrated dialogues about hot button issues, as well as facilitation skills for leading such intercultural engagement.
This engagement course is divided into two broad interdisciplinary components: The first goal of this class in academic. Prompted by a diverse body of literature, guest speakers, class activities and class discussions, students will examine specific issues around social justice. Issues discussed will include: social class; race, racism and white privilege; gender, sexism and hetero-sexism; cultural competence and bullying. Students will also explore methodologies around talking about the “isms” in a variety of settings. The second objective is experiential and reflective. Students will be carefully placed in public school classrooms, after school programs, MSU-sponsored activities or community organizations where they will spend 3 hours a week working in community, and exploring themes discussed in class. Students will learn how to participate in a successful community engagement experience while simultaneously developing a sense of self-empowerment, building relationships across differences, developing leadership skills, and deepening understanding of ourselves as change agents.
RCAH 310: Childhood and Society
Section 001 (Estrella Torrez)
Indigenous Ways of Learning
Indigenous knowledge is as varied and diverse as Indigenous peoples, however the tie that binds Indigenous thought is the commitment to community, land, and language. In this course, we will discuss the various points that marginalized communities struggle to identify and affirm knowledge on their own terms. We will specifically examine how Indigenous communities bridge their own knowledge systems with colonial methods of schooling. While primarily focused on the Americas, this course will also include discussion of Maori kōhanga reo (language nests) as a pivotal educational model for Indigenous peoples.
RCAH 330: Nature and Culture
Section 002 (Anita Skeen)
Appalachian Literature and Culture
The primary goal of this course is to introduce students to the history of the Appalachian region through looking at documentary and popular film, scholarly and personal essays, and the work of poets and fiction writers from Appalachia. As West Virginia is the only state completely in the Appalachians, we will focus our study on the literature and culture of that state and learn how it is both representative of and different from other areas of Appalachia. We will work to comprehend the richness of this region, past and present, and explore the themes of regional folklore and music, fine art and local craft, the power of religious and family tradition, and isolation and community. For students who would like to spend a little time in Appalachia (for an additional cost of approximately $300) the course will include an excursion to Water Gap Retreat in Elkins, West Virginia for a September weekend of regional history and culture.
RCAH 380: Third Year Tutorial
Section 001 (Scot Yoder)
Religion without God? -- Topics in Religious Naturalism
“Religious naturalism” is a term that emerged in the 1980s from a wide ranging conversation between theologians, scientists, and philosophers of religion. Though it is an umbrella term used to cover a range of positions, the intellectual terrain included in religious naturalism is roughly defined by two shared commitments. The first is a commitment to naturalism, to the premise that we should look to the natural world, rather than some supernatural realm to explain and give meaning to our experience. The second is the claim that this commitment to naturalism does not preclude religion, that there can be authentic religious responses to the world that do not depend on the existence of a supernatural realm. We will spend the first part of the course reading and discussing a common set of materials. Out of these discussions students will develop their own research projects.
Section 002 (Joanna Bosse)
Music, Power, and Popular Culture in the United States
This course will engage students in a critical and embodied exploration of contemporary culture, analyzing the ways that social values are encoded in popular music, with our work centered on music’s relationship to commerce, space, identity, and emotion. Students will keep listening journals, read scholarly works, interact with a range of public spaces and social contexts, perform, have lively debates about particular musical works, and undertake a self-selected independent project of their choosing. The final product of this work may take any form, including (but not limited to) a scholarly paper; a performance or other type of artistic work; a blog or other form of music criticism/journalism; video or other multi-media form; etc.
RCAH 390: Language and Culture
Section 001 (Estrella Torrez)
Heritage Languages
In this course, we will discuss the concepts of community, heritage languages, and home pedagogies through a cross-cultural perspective. Additionally, we will read texts focused on diverse communities developing heritage language revitalization projects, as ways to deflect discourses framing their communities as culturally and linguistically deficient.
Section 002 (India Plough)
Methods of Sociolinguistic Research
Methods of Sociolinguistic Research is a general survey course of sociolinguistics and sociolinguistic research methodologies. Combining lecture and seminar formats, the course introduces students to language variation, politeness, and style, and the influence of language attitudes, identities, and social networks on language. Readings of seminal studies on world languages focus on a critical examination of the relationship between sociolinguistic phenomena and research methodology as well as the extent to which verbal behavior varies across languages and cultures. In-class activities are used to explicate sociolinguistic concepts. Throughout the course, research validity is emphasized in preparation for the final project in which students conduct an empirical sociolinguistic research study. This requires students to 1) formulate a meaningful research question; 2) identify sources of data to answer the question; 3) determine a suitable method of data collection; 4) collect, analyze, and interpret the data; and 5) report results.
Section 003 (Austin Jackson)
“Black Talk:” African American Language, Literacy, and Culture
The African American community constitutes a distinct speech community, with its own organizational and sociolinguistic norms of interaction (Smitherman 1996). African American Language (AAL, also called Ebonics or Black English) is an Africanized form of English forged in the crisis of U.S. slavery, racial segregation, and the Black struggle for freedom and equality. In this course, we will explore the social, educational, and political implications of AAL in the 21st century. Our task this semester is three fold: we will 1) examine AAL semantics, syntax, phonology, and morphology, 2) identify underlying historical and socio-economic forces responsible for shaping AAL, and 3) explore the impact of AAL within Black speech communities and U.S. and global popular culture.
We will examine language attitudes towards AAL, especially representations and misrepresentations of AAL within media and the Internet, and consider how such portrayals influence efforts to incorporate AAL within language and literacy instruction for Black children. Additionally, we will give considerable attention to three major cases of U.S. language policy: Students’ Right to Their Own Language Resolution (1974), the King Ann Arbor “Black English” federal court case (1979), and the Oakland School District “Ebonics Decision" (1996-1997). Assignments will include conducting linguistic and rhetorical analysis of AAL in literature, film, and popular culture (especially Rap music and Hip Hop culture). Beyond the classroom, we will conduct participant-observations of AAL within predominately Black churches, campus student organizations, and other local African American speech communities.
RCAH 395 Special Topic-Arts and Humanities
Section 001 (Tama Hamilton-Wray)
Cinema and Nation
Cuban filmmaker, Tomás Gutéirrez Alea, states that film is “a valuable tool for documenting, grasping, accumulating, and bearing witness to reality.” In addition, he holds that historical film “allows us to assume a certain distance when confronting present phenomena, and to connect these occurrences on all their levels.”* The general aim of this course is to explore the relationship of film and cinema to nationalism, nation building, and national identity construction. This course will specifically focus on cinemas of the developing world and cinemas of marginalized populations, some of which are state funded national cinemas, and others of which are independently funded underground cinemas. Students will explore cinema as a cultural artifact laden with political and cultural ideologies and study the role of cinema in creating, resisting and negotiating national and cultural identities.
*Alea, T.G. “History as a Weapon—Past and Future.” Polygraph 1 (1987): 53-55.
Section 002 (Vincent Delgado)
Cultures of Creativity in Action
This special topics course will deepen interdisciplinary scholarship developed between freshman RCAH and College of Engineering students during a summer 2012 study away in Detroit. Through readings, discussions, reflection, design labs and active and applied collaboration, students will work in teams to develop their own “cultures of creativity” in designing, testing and implementing technological solutions meant to address regional challenges. With assistance from the Ford Community Fund, the result will be robust, useful and something that no one has ever seen before. While we will review current organizational scholarship on the idea of interdisciplinary creativity and innovation through the process, we will also use an anthropological lens to look at how teams, including ours, work.
RCAH 492: Senior Seminar
Section 001 (Chris Scales)
Cultural and Intellectual Property: Creativity, Ethics, and the Law
In this course we will examine the legal, ethical, and cultural stakes related to current international conversations about intellectual property and cultural property and how these conversations will effect what Lawrence Lessig has called the “nature and future of creativity.” In studying these issues we will ask such basic questions as: What does it mean to “own” a creative work? What is the difference between individual ownership and cultural ownership? How is copyright law being established and how is it affecting artistic creativity? Is there an inherent value for society in a “cultural commons,” and if so, how do we balance the ownership “rights” of individuals with those of larger communities? These conversations are vital and immediate for RCAH students who are planning careers within the North American “creative economy.” As such, the most important outcome of this course will be the development of some very real and tangible possible policy recommendations, research papers, or creative works that confront these issues in meaningful and socially helpful ways.
Section 002 (Eric Aronoff)
What’s Culture? Where’s Culture? Whose Culture?
A key term in academic and popular discourse – including in the RCAH curriculum – is “culture.” But behind this deceptively simple word is a long, tangled and complex history, the study of which leads one immediately into histories of exploration, imperialism, race, class, science and the arts. This class will examine key texts in the history of the idea of culture in the West – ranging from poetry and novels, to essays on philosophy, aesthetics, and anthropology, to documentary films. We will pay particular attention to the emergence of anthropology in the modernist period, and the many permutations and problems with culture in contemporary discourses of multiculturalism, transnationalism and the global circulation of “culture(s).” We will also turn our attention to the RCAH to ask, what is “RCAH culture,” and how might we represent it?