Fall 2022 Seminars
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Social Science Core Equivalent Seminars |
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- Exploring Memory
Instructor: Professor Sarah Farmer
Enroll in: Humanities H80
Why does it matter that we have a past? How do we remember? Questions about human memory are central to scholarly inquiry across the humanities, sciences and social sciences. This class explores questions historians, writers, psychologists, sociologists, legal experts, and neuroscientists ask in their efforts to understand the role of memory in defining our experience as humans. Students will learn about the range of approaches, sources, and methods developed by those who study memory. For example, we will consider ways we remember the past as individuals and as members of groups. Both writers of autobiography and scientists who study the biological bases of memory think of memory as the property of individuals. On the other hand, historians and sociologists often approach memory as a social phenomenon—something elaborated in groups (such as the family, the state, clubs, religious communities). You will write regular short assignments in preparation for in-class discussion of common readings as well as participate in devising a group presentation to the class. The focus of this class is lively in-person discussion. We will have occasional guest lectures from distinguished UCI faculty who study the workings of memory.
Credit: GE Category IV, may substitute for one quarter of Social Science Core
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- Ethics, Technology and Design
Instructor: Professor Katie Salen Tekinbas
Enroll in: Informatics H81
This course explores social and cultural issues arising from the design of digital technology. Today a handful of people and a handful of technology companies shape how a billion people think, feel, work, and play everyday with the choices they make about the design and engineering of their products. What does an ethics of humane, ethical, and inclusive design look like in the connected age? What principles of human-centered design can ensure that technology works for society, including vulnerable populations and those most in need? This seminar seeks to provide students with a critical framework for understanding how and why biases of many kinds are built into the digital tools we use daily and what we can do about it. No previous knowledge of ethics or design is required. This seminar is primarily student-led and organized around a set of thematic modules including biased geographies, big data and privacy, predictive policing, the algorithmic rights of children, and foundations in ethics, technology and design.
Credit: GE Category III, may substitute for one quarter of Social Science Core.
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- Race Sport Media
Instructor: Professor Victoria Johnson
Enroll in: Film & Media Studies H80
This course examines the intersection of race, sports, and media in everyday U.S. popular culture (film, TV, advertising, social media, gaming) and political culture. We will analyze historic and contemporary debates at this intersection, with particular focus on African American representation and U.S. ideology regarding race, gender and sexuality, nation, celebrity and capital in the “mass” and streaming media eras. Attention to current debates (e.g., the “politics” of sports celebrity and activism; the concept of “colorblindness” and the “post-racial” in sports; the semiotics of race in sports’ commodification and marketing; raced and gendered discourses in sports and “fitness activism”; and broader debates regarding race, gender, self-expression, sexuality, and violence in sports will be contextualized and studied through scholarly theories of race and media representation and analyses that encourage us to think about U.S. media as sites of struggle over what constitutes citizenship, local and national identity, and what it has meant to “be American” in post-World War II U.S. culture. That is, we will investigate the ways in which debates or controversies at the intersection of “race/sport/media” have most often been struggles over what it means to be a “representative” American citizen. Required coursework includes weekly readings, screenings and discussions with short assigned essays (applying concepts from the readings to screenings) and a longer research paper or research “playlist” option and final presentation.
Credit: GE Category IV and VII, may substitute for one quarter of Social Science Core.
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Science Core Equivalent Seminars |
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- What is Space
Instructor: Professor JB Manchak
Enroll in: Logic & Philosophy of Science H81
What is Space? In this course, we explore this question from a variety of angles: historical, philosophical, scientific, and personal. We begin with the logical paradoxes of Zeno and the queer properties of infinity. We consider a philosophical debate between Newton and Leibniz concerning the question of whether space is “absolute” or “relational” is nature. We then look at Einstein’s theory of general relativity and the senses in which concepts such as “space” and “time” do not exist. We learn about a new four-dimensional object called “spacetime” and some bizarre possibilities associated with it such as “time travel” and “singularities” of various types. We then explore what we can and cannot know concerning the shape of space (the universe). We close with a section on the Zen Budhhist conception of “inner space” and work to cultivate it by meditating together during each class period.
Credit: GE Category II, may substitute for one quarter of Science Core
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- Drugs and Society
Instructor: Professor Sam Schriner
Enroll in: Pharmaceutical Sciences H80
The majority of individuals in modern society will use drugs at some point. Most drugs have legitimate medical uses, while some are used recreationally, and drugs from both groups can be abused. This course will introduce some basic physiology, including the brain reward circuit, needed to appreciate drug action. However, it will mostly focus on recreational drugs and where they come from, how they work, how and why people abuse them, the costs of drug abuse on society, which drugs are commonly abused, and how drug abuse can be prevented or treated. Overall, the course will consider the importance of recreational drugs in relation to medicine, public health, science, law, politics, humanities, philosophy, religious beliefs, economics, sports, and innovation. While this course is intended for non-science majors, it would be helpful that students have had biology and chemistry in high school. Grading in the course is composed of three midterms and one final. These may be multiple choice, short answer, and/or essay format. In addition, each student will give two oral presentations on drug-related topics of their choice. Finally, the class will work together to create, administer, and analyze a drug use survey given to the UCI community.
Credit: GE Category II, may substitute for one quarter of Science Core
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