1. AFST 187E (A), CRN 24686: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: A Contemporary Look at the Modern Civil Rights
“Traditional textbook accounts and thus the teaching of the modern American Civil Rights Movement often use a “heroes and holidays” approach, which can limit recognition of this complex social movement to sanitized narratives of the work of historic figures like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. This course attempts to move beyond a Black History Month type celebration of the major contributors to the freedoms and progress we now enjoy as a result of the movement.” (Course Description) This course seeks to acknowledge the importance and influence of ordinary people who worked, suffered, and sacrificed to ensure social justice and liberty for the oppressed.
2. CRM 187J (A), CRN 24441: (IS) Organized Crime and Gangs
“Transnational organized crime and their domestic partners, urban street gangs and prison gangs, represent one of the major criminal threats in the United States. This course will examine various criminology theories (from alien conspiracy to enterprise theory) designed to explain why individuals join Italian, Russian, Asian, Latin American, and Eastern European organized crime as well as street gangs ranging from MS 13 to Chinese Tongs to the Black Guerilla Family. The course will explore various Federal and State efforts (including RICO prosecutions, electronic surveillance, forensic accounting, undercover operations, and international cooperation) designed to combat such criminal behavior. Finally, the course will examine the increasing linkages between organized crime and international terrorism. The course will include guest lectures by law enforcement, prosecutors, and individuals formerly involved in these criminal enterprises as well as films portraying organized crimes and gangs. Professor Schaefer is a former Assistant United States Attorney, Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, who prosecuted Asian, Russian, and Italian organized crime and numerous California street gangs.” (Course Description)
3. DRAM 14S, CRN: 24214: Improv for Everyone (FYS)
This course includes theatre games and performance exercises that can be applied to any career field. You will learn to think on your feet, collaborate, and communicate. I, as a drama major, recommend taking a theatrical class to anyone whose schedule will allow for it. This is only open to first year students, but if you are an upperclassman and you want to take it, ask your advisor. They can usually approve it.
4. ENGL 192Q (01), CRN 24234: Gothic Fiction & Modern Childhood
For starters, while researching this article, I dropped a class I was excited about to take this one because I was EVEN MORE EXCITED ABOUT IT! “Gothic narratives are propelled by a persistent anxiety: when parents and guardians descend into cruel villainy, who will be left to look after their persecuted or abandoned children? The phenomenal popularity of gothic fiction can be attributed to the nuanced and twisted ways in which British authors have developed this premise for over 250 years: namely, that children put into peril can summon the will to resist their oppressors, and liberate themselves from houses that have become virtual prisons. As such, gothic fiction enables readers to trace the emergence of modern conceptions of childhood and young adulthood—in which children are no longer seen either as inherently sinful or as purely innocent creatures, but instead as rational and complex beings in their own right. As we trace gothic fiction to its origins in the eighteenth century, through texts such as Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, and through later nineteenth-century works, such as Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, we will consider how child-protagonists throw off the binds of gothic victimhood to redirect their own destinies. In addition, British writers produced an array of acclaimed works of gothic fiction for child and young adult readers in the late twentieth century—and we will read a selection of these works throughout the course, including: Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Roald Dahl’s Matilda, and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.” (Course Description) YA Books are quite possibly some of the best and most creative works of literature and I absolutely could not pass up the opportunity to do in depth analysis of these amazing works.
5. HIST 177G (01), CRN 24207: Global History: Sport and Society
Hey athletes! This class is about the history and societal signifigance of sports! “Sports, in all its dimensions, today consume us mightily, all week long; they have become a business of national and international scale, for better and worse. This development warrants exploration, especially given the accompanying proliferation of gambling, not to mention the upsurge in performance enhancing drugs (steroids of this and that stripe). More than a competition and species of entertainment, what purpose does the spectacle that is the National Football League, et cetera, serve? And why does someone like the golfer Tiger Woods—athlete, person, and brand in one—enthrall us to the point of farce? For an answer to this question, concerned with the commercialization of your leisure and manipulation of your agency (the “demos”), it is necessary to read not only about boxing and Muhammed Ali, or about the likes of Lance Armstrong and Pete Rose, but also to study Leni Riefenstahl, master of propaganda, and the pageant of the Olympics.” (Course Description)
6. RELI 140S (01), CRN 24444: Apocalypse Now & Then
Y2K, Haley’s Comet, Zombies, The Mayan Apocalypse, Nostradamus, Impending Comets, Armageddon… What is it about our society that keeps us looking for an apocalypse? Take this course and find out! “From video games to movies, we return again and again to envisioning the end of the world. This course will look at the history of the apocalypse, in mythology and religion, but will also analyze the particular currency of apocalyptic thinking in our present day. Our studies will take us from the popular interest in Mayan calendars and zombies, to contemporary philosophers, independent filmmakers, economists, environmentalists, novelists, poets and painters.” (Course Description)
7. RTVF 157 (01), CRN 22869: Woman Directors
“Katheryn Bigelow’s receipt of the Academy Award for Best Director (for her film Hurt Locker) was the first time in the award’s 82-year history that a woman was honored as a director. This course will examine the place of women directors in the history of film, and ask why it took so long for women to break the “glass ceiling” of American film direction, while also examining the challenges to women directors in other countries as well as those involved in independent and avant-garde production. A sample of films to be screened includes Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl, Dance; Maya Deren’s A Ritual in Transfigured Time, Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay; Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust; Chantal Ackerman’s Letter from a Filmmaker, Julie Taymor’s Frida, Trihn T. Mihn-Ha’s Reassemblage, Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan, Margarethe von Trotta’s Marianne and Juliane, Marlene Gorris’s Antonia’s Line, and Antonia Bird’s Ravenous.” (Course Description)
8. RTVF 157 (02), CRN 22869: Films of the 70’s
“Ushered in by the revolutionary late-sixties films EASY RIDER and BONNIE AND CLYDE, the last golden age of the American film was vibrant with new and emerging talents Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, Francis Ford Coppola” [HOFSTRA GRAD!] “Martin Scorsese and others, in an era when the big-budget epics had failed, and the need for more ‘personal’ films was requited. Echoing the political climate, revolutionary music and social upheaval of the times, these films resonate still with audiences looking beyond the pyrotechnics and glitz of the contemporary blockbuster formula.” (Course Description)
9. RTVF 180B (A), CRN 24646: Investigating the Sopranos
It’s literally a class about a TV show. “Few television programs have been as influential as the HBO hit series, “The Sopranos.” Cited by the Writer’s Guild of America as the best-written television show of all time, “The Sopranos” provides a rich cache for critical analysis. Students will examine this landmark television drama through screenings, readings and lecture, analyzing its complex narrative structure.” (Course Description)
10. WST 150P (01), CRN 24241: Gender & Power in Africa and the Arab World
“In this course we’ll consider a range of questions with regard to the relationship of gender and power in artistic and intellectual production from the Arab world, Africa and their diasporas. We’ll study works of cinema, literature, performance and theory that grapple with dominant notions of gender in these regions, and the ways that they’ve come to be perceived in the West. Questions under consideration include the intersections of gender and religious identity, ethnicity and geopolitical location; varying notions of” (Course Description)