Arts & Humanities (AHUM)

AHUM 1000 (3) Topics in Arts and Humanities

Explores a topic in the arts and humanities that exceeds the boundaries of a single department or program. This introductory course encourages experimentation and introduces students to interdisciplinary approaches that characterize innovative research.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 12.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.

AHUM 1240 (3) Planetarity

Focuses on post-WWII American writing and thought about the planet and humanity. We explore how postwar efforts to transform the terrestrial environmental and conquer outer space raise questions about humanity, technology, and nature. We also study how earth and space serve novelists, artists, and film-makers as environments to confront large-scale questions about culture, identity, and power.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: ENGL 1240

AHUM 1825 (3-4) Inclusive Interdisciplinary Data Science for All

Team-taught module-based course merges data science and the humanities without requiring prior experience in either one. Students will synthesize qualitative and quantitative approaches to urgent research questions and practice putting data to work in the world. They will learn to use data analysis, statistics, and basic programming skills to answer questions of human importance, while applying the central humanities skills of source critique, attention to human motives, contextualization, and argument.

Additional Information: Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities
Arts Sci Gen Ed: Quantitative Reasoning Math

AHUM 1880 (3) The Zombie in History and Popular Culture

Discusses the emergence of the zombie figure in the Caribbean and its evolution from colonial Haiti to present-day popular culture having passed through Hollywood. Through movies and literary, historical, and scientific documents, students will study critically how this mass-media icon came to represent deep-rooted anxieties about the modern world.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: FREN 1880

AHUM 2000 (3) Topics in Arts and Humanities

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 12.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.

AHUM 2006 (3) American Comics and Graphic Novels: An Ambivalent Art

Immerse yourself in comics. Spanning all media platforms, comics are a global force in the twenty-first century culture. This course is an introduction to comics history and a headlong dive into comics today. It covers superheroes, movies, novels, as well as making comics. It proposes that comics help us understand ourselves in the world today. Formerly offered as a special topics course.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: ENGL 2006

AHUM 2030 (3) The Ancient Roots of Modern Medicine

Students learn the meaning and use of the Greek and Latin roots in modern medical terminology; they gain an appreciation of ancient Roman and Greek medicine history and culture in their relation to the modern practice of Western medicine and the sciences; they become familiar with common ancient bioethical principles that govern the ancient practice of medicine and the sciences and learn to appreciate how these principles inform and influence modern medicine and the sciences.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: CLAS 2030 and LING 2030
Additional Information: Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities
Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Social Sciences

AHUM 2036 (3) Introduction to Media Studies in the Humanities

Serves as an introduction to media studies specifically from a humanities perspective. Studies both histories and theories of media from the 20th and 21st centuries. Touches on methodologies for undertaking media studies (including distant ready and media archaeology). Objects of study may include such topics as film, radio, social media platforms and games, as well as digital art and literature.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: ENGL 2036 and AHUM 2036
Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours.

AHUM 2311 (3) Energy Cultures: Oil, Coal, and Atoms in Modern Literature and Film

Explores the concept of energy and its influence in world culture from the 19th century to the present, paying particular attention to how writers and filmmakers from the United States, Russia, and elsewhere have responded to the accelerating production and consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Taught in English.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: REES 2311 and HUMN 2311
Additional Information: Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities

AHUM 2800 (3) Brazil: Past and Present

Discusses contemporary Brazil through the lenses of its literary, as well as socio-political movements. Students acquire a broader perspective of the country's current dynamics based on the formation of its national identity from 1500 to today. History serves as background to analyze literature and arts and critically understand Brazilian culture. Taught in English. Does not count toward Portuguese minor or Spanish and Portuguese major.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: PORT 2800

AHUM 3000 (3) Topics in Arts and Humanities

Explores a topic in the arts and humanities that exceeds the boundaries of a single department or program. This upper-division course encourages experimentation and introduces students to the interdisciplinary approaches that characterize innovative research.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 12.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.

AHUM 3036 (3) Artist Books in Theory and Practice

This course will introduce students to an exciting but neglected body of work: artist books. Beginning in the twentieth century, artist books joined the ranks of developed art forms, appearing in every major artistic movement. The first half of the course will introduce students to the wide diversity of styles and materials artist books employ. The second half will be a workshop, in which students will create their own unique books based on research projects.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: ENGL 3036
Additional Information: Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities

AHUM 3046 (3) Literature and Architecture

This course explores the role of storytelling in literature and architecture. It is part seminar and part studio/workshop. Stories invite readers to dwell in them. Buildings tell stories. Stories and buildings are hence sequential arts. Students study examples of narrative architecture from different periods and cultures and analyze literary and philosophical works that explore the connection between buildings and stories. Students also create literary adaptations of works of architecture and translate literary texts into three-dimensional structures.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: ENGL 3046
Additional Information: Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities

AHUM 3106 (3) Introduction to Literary Study with Data Science

Introduces students to the use of data science methods in literary criticism. This course explores how computers and data science methods can provide insight into literature while also developing the necessary coding skills to perform such analysis. Students will learn both to perform and to think critically about computationally-based literary scholarship.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: ENGL 3106

AHUM 3400 (3) Race and Epistemic Justice

This course will study the visual construction of race in the United States from the slavery era to the digital age. Through analyses of diverse media (photography, cinema, television, and digital platforms), we will interrogate testimony, witnessing, and visual self-creation as long-standing forms of political agency in the United States. Finally, we will test the hypothesis that epistemic justice ¿ equal treatment of one another as knowers and documenters ¿ is an inseparable component of racial justice.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: WRTG 3400

AHUM 3681 (3) Refugees in German Culture

Introduces the diversity of refugee migration in German culture through artistic and cultural "texts," including those created by or in collaboration with refugees (film, comic journalism, literature, blogs, hashtag campaigns, music, etc). These texts are discussed in relationship to theories of racism, precarity, and biopolitics together and contextualized by work from other disciplines. This interdisciplinary course is methodologically informed by the theory and practice of cultural studies. Taught in English.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: GRMN 3681, JWST 3681 and IAFS 3681

AHUM 4000 (3) Topics in Arts and Humanities

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 12.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.
Requisites: Restricted to students with 57-180 credits (Juniors or Seniors).

AHUM 4301 (3) Gender, Race and Immigration in Germany and Europe

Introduces students to debates surrounding migration and race in contemporary Germany with comparisons to other European contexts. Emphasis on reading texts in context using tools of cultural studies, integrating analyses of gender, race, nation, and sexuality. Texts may include film, literature, television, social media, news media, political posters, etc. Topics include: race and racisms, Black and women of color feminisms, Roma feminisms, Muslim feminisms, notions of integration and citizenship, and more. Taught in English.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: WGST 4301 and GRMN 4301 and GRMN 5301

AHUM 4419 (3) The Arts of Colonial Mexico and Peru

Examines important works, artists, and themes that comprise the artistic production of colonial Mexico and Peru. Focuses on the intermingling, convergence, and conflict of European, Amerindian, Creole, mestizo, and African groups, which established the foundation of Latin America's cultural pluralism.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: ARTH 4419
Recommended: Prerequisites ARTH 1500, ARTH 1600, ARTH 3729.

AHUM 4700 (3) Encountering Animals: Contemporary Discourse and the Dialog of Species

Explores the Western tradition of thinking about animals as well as recent challenges to our beliefs in human exceptionality and radical animal difference. Themes include the ¿animal machine,¿ nature-culture dualism, animal representations in today¿s culture, philosophy and science, interspecies relations, post-humanism. Taught in English.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: FREN 4700

AHUM 5000 (3) Topics in Arts and Humanities

Explores a topic in the arts and humanities that exceeds the boundaries of a single department or program. This graduate course encourages experimentation and introduces students to the interdisciplinary approaches that characterize innovative research.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 12.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.