Office of Admissions 950 Main Street Worcester, MA 01610 ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI ) ( FYI YOUR AT CLARK FALL 2023 (FYI)
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First-Year Intensive (FYI) courses
build the intellectual and social foundations you need to thrive at Clark and beyond.
n Typically limited to 16 to 20 students per section.
What is it?
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n Develop close relationships with a professor and group of your peers who share your interests.
n Your FYI professor typically serves as your academic advisor until you declare a major, and will serve as a key resource alongside your peer mentor and first-year success advisor.
n You can choose from more than 30 different courses, which change from year to year.
Be on the lookout for the different types of FYI courses specifically designed for first-year students:
n FYI Seminar: A small, seminar-style class that explores a topic in-depth, led by one faculty member.
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No matter which FYI you take, you’ll learn in a supportive, welcoming, and intellectually rich environment.
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n FYI Lab: A special first-year lab or discussion section of a foundational course for a major.
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You may choose a course in a topic you already have a passion for, or you might prefer a course that will introduce you to an entirely new subject.
How to choose?
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n When you meet with your first-year Success Advisor, you will discuss your FYI choices and your overall fall schedule.
n You may register for only one FYI.
n Given the small class size, many courses fill up quickly. You should have several backups in mind — and register early — to have the best chance of securing your first choice.
n All FYIs will count toward your Program of Liberal Studies requirements. Your FYI course does not need to be in your intended major, but rather is a course to help you make connections with your classmates and faculty and become acclimated to the academic life on campus.
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Note: Courses are subject to change! You’ll receive instructions on how to review the online course grid for the most up-to-date list of First-Year Intensive courses.
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ARTH 125 | ART IN THE AGE OF MICHELANGELO
This course focuses on the art of the 1500s in Italy, an era comprising the High Renaissance and Mannerism, perhaps the single most influential period in Western art after classical times. Students investigate painting, sculpture and architecture in the major Italian cultural centers of Florence, Rome, Milan, Parma, Mantua, and Venice. You’ll consider questions of style, influence, patronage, art theory and scholarly and religious developments, and study the work of Michelangelo, including the recently restored Sistine Chapel frescoes, the Medici Tombs, the David, and the Pietà. Students also consider the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Correggio, Giorgione, and Titian, and their relationship to Michelangelo and his legacy, and examine the rise of papal Rome and the building of St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican palaces. Field trips are taken to area museums. This course fulfills the Aesthetic Perspective.
Professor John Garton.
BIOL 120 | QUANTITATIVE METHODS FOR THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
The field of biology has been revolutionized with advances in technology and the advent of big data. Ranging from genomic datasets that include DNA sequences with billions of base pairs, to ecological datasets that include terabytes of information on climate change, species diversity and conservation
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efforts, large datasets have become commonplace in the biological sciences. Due to this explosion in the acquisition of high-quality data, biologists are now expected to expand their toolbox to include applying new computational algorithms, mathematical models, and statistics. This course will expose students to the basic tools of computational biology while exploring important topics in modern biology such as biodiversity, climate change, or health and human disease. Each iteration of the course will use a specific dataset to investigate one or more of these areas of biology. This course fulfills the Scientific Perspective.
Professor Jacqueline Dresch.
CHEM 030: KITCHEN CHEMISTRY (LAB)
Basic chemical principles can be applied to cooking. Considered to be the original, most widespread form of chemical research, cooking illustrates chemical and biological changes that occur in food. This course will explore properties in regards to food preparation, consumption, and nutrition with hands-on experiments and interactive learning. This course fulfills the Scientific Perspective. Professor Don Spratt.
CHEM 101 | INTRODUCTORY CHEMISTRY I (LAB)
This course is designed to meet the needs of science majors with an interest in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, or environmental science, and students with
an interest in the health professions. It will introduce students to fundamental chemical concepts dealing with the structure, bonding, and reactivity of molecules. Major topics include thermochemistry, ideal gas theory, chemical periodicity, and bonding and geometry of molecules. The laboratory sections introduce students to the techniques of chemical experimentation and the methods of chemical analysis needed for chemistry and other sciences. Knowledge of high-school algebra is necessary; high-school chemistry and physics are helpful, but not required. Must register for one laboratory section. This course fulfills the Scientific Perspective. Professors Noel Lazo and Luis Smith.
CMLT 160: WAYFARING? WAYFINDING? WANDERING IN FRENCH-SPEAKING SOCIETIES
Seeking, fleeing. What motivates our movements, from daily displacements to continent crossings? Wandering, wondering. How are these travels experienced, mentally and physically? How are these travels told, represented in literature and film? Encountering, examining, questing, questioning. What is society’s view of wandering, and of the wanderer? Free-spirited rebel, the embodiment of liberty? Or vagrant, outcast, for whom society has no place? In this course, we will investigate the act of wandering — its forms and functions, its representation in the 20th and 21st-century francophone literature, film, and social sciences. We will examine writing and thinking
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with regards to movement, as mental and physical act; we will consider francophone texts of wandering and the ways in which some texts, themselves, wander from convention. All readings and discussions in English. This course fulfills the Verbal Expression requirement. Professor Allison Fong.
CRW 100: “BURN AWAY ALL PERIPHERALS”: INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING
This course will introduce you to the craft of creative writing—its practice, techniques, and terminology. We will “read as writers” to unpack how published poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction function at the level of characterization, voice, dialogue, setting, and conflict (for prose) as well as sound, rhythm, line break, and image (for poetry). Classes will be taught in seminar fashion and will include a combination of short lectures, writing exercises, class discussion, and workshops. You will also learn how to submit your work to literary journals. The final consists of a portfolio of your revised creative work. This course counts towards the Creative Writing Minor. This course fulfills the Diversity and Inclusion requirement and Aesthetic Perspective. Professors Jessica Bane-Robert and Phil Lemos.
CSCI 103: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIETAL COMPUTING
This course teaches the principles of computer science and the effects of digital technology on society. Although digital technology may feel like a force of nature, ultimately
it is people who decide how technology is developed, and how it is deployed. We are responsible for maximizing technology’s benefits, while minimizing its downsides. However, it is impossible to meaningfully discuss technology without understanding how it works. You’ll learn introductory computer programming and other relevant computing skills. No prior experience with computer programming is expected. Upon completion, you will have a solid understanding of how computer programs are created and how information is stored digitally. You will also have developed opinions about digital privacy, technological bias, and other matters of critical importance to society. This course fulfills the Diversity and Inclusion and Formal Analysis requirements. Professor Peter Story.
CSCI 120: INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING (LAB)
Introduction to Computing develops computational problem-solving skills through programming, and exposes students to a variety of other topics in computer science and its applications. The focus of the course is to learn fundamental computational concepts (information, algorithms, abstraction, and programming) that are central to computer science, and that also happen to be instrumental for the computational investigation of science. Design, analysis, and testing of problem-solving techniques are applied to a variety of domains across the sciences and liberal arts. This is the first course for computer science majors and anyone seeking a rigorous
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introduction. No prior knowledge of programming is required, but good analytical skills are helpful. This course fulfills the Scientific Perspective. Professor Catalin Veghes.
CSCI 124: HONORS INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING (LAB)
This is an accelerated introduction to computing and its broad applications. The course teaches fundamental principles in computing and prepares students for solving real-world problems through effective computation. Students will learn programming in Java and a systematic problem-solving process of problem formulation, algorithm design, code development and testing. Strong analytical skills, prior programming experiences, and good work ethic are important for students’ success in the course. This course fulfills the Scientific Perspective. Professor John Magee.
ECON 010: ECONOMICS AND THE WORLD ECONOMY (LAB)
This course provides an introduction to international economic interactions and the macroeconomic analysis of economies, developing basic economic concepts including market analysis, trade, and demand and supply in the macroeconomy. Comparisons across countries provide a deeper understanding of business cycles, unemployment, monetary policy, economic growth, currencies, and fiscal policy. These economic concepts
provide tools to analyze current issues such as economic stability, debt crises, and policies towards trade. This course fulfills the Global Perspective. Professors Jon Denton-Schneider and Magda Tsaneva.
EDUC 005: OUR FUTURE, OUR LEARNING: IDENTITY, CONNECTEDNESS, AND WAYS OF KNOWING
How can we shape our educational experiences to more fully engage the future? In contemporary times, we are facing multiple crises (social injustices, viruses, ecological degradation, democratic upheaval). Yet, it is also a time of innovation, creativity, and global connectedness. In this FYI course, we will work as a community of inquiry to investigate the question: What does it mean to educate ourselves toward planetary wellbeing? The course takes an interdisciplinary approach and draws from the learning sciences, wisdom traditions, futurology, and our own lived experiences. As we work together to advance our understanding, we will also frame the trajectory of our own university education. This course fulfills the Verbal Expression requirement. Professor Katerine Bielaczyc.
ENG 116: THE SECRET LIVES OF BOOKS
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, not to mention judging by its ink and paper, by its typeface and layout, even by damage or by marks left by earlier
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readers. Books tell stories with the words printed inside them, of course, but they also tell stories just by being physical objects. In this course, students will learn to become book sleuths. Readings and seminar discussions on the history and theory of the book will be enhanced by a series of hands-on workshops at Special Collections as well as off-campus field trips. While the full scope of the class extends from the earliest periods of the written word through currentday digital advances, emphasis will be given to specific historical periods (the development of moveable type, the proliferation of print in the early hand-press period, mechanization during the Industrial Revolution, changing paradigms of electronic textuality today) in order to understand the interplay of technology, culture, and society over time. This course fulfills the Historical Perspective. Professor Dianne Berg.
ENT 105: CREATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
This hands-on course explores entrepreneurship and how it applies to you and your passions. The course is designed to guide students through the innovation process with successful implementation of two innovations, based on your unique interests and passions, that help others. Entrepreneurship and innovation concepts presented in this course support personal motivations, but within the
individual’s constraints and available resources. Creative Entrepreneurship is for students interested in elevating their passions. This course fulfills the Values Perspective. Professor Teresa Quinn.
GAME 025: GAME DESIGN FUNDAMENTALS
You will be introduced to the various aspects of game design for those intending to work as part of management, production, and/or design teams. The student will begin with an analysis of gaming, with consideration of various platforms, game genres, playability, objectives, rule dynamics, and overall quality. Further, the student will learn the elements of production including game conceptualization, story development, interface, character, soundtrack, and level design. This course fulfills the Aesthetic Perspective. Professor Ilir Mborja.
GART 100: PRINCIPLES OF DRAWING FOR GAMES
Principles of Drawing for Games is an introductory studio course that teaches students the basics of drawing. This course will focus on a wide range of drawing exercises using a variety of tools. Students will work in black and white and color, drawing from still life and photographs. They will develop their own sense of composition, and discover the illusion of three dimensions by using shading and perspective. Students will develop the skills of hands-on observational
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drawing as well as create constructive concepts that deal with simple volumes in space. This course fulfills the Aesthetic Perspective. Professor Scott Niemi.
GEOG 156: GETTING TO ZERO: CLEAN ENERGY FOR A CLIMATE-SAFE FUTURE (LAB)
This course focuses on scalable solutions for carbon neutrality. The goal is to learn about, and apply, a quantitative approach to sizing up the technical potential of a range of clean-energy technologies that could support the transition to a low-carbon society. Students will explore clean-energy solutions applicable for electricity supply, heating and cooling, transportation, and more. In parallel, students will investigate climate change mitigation policies and actions being pursued in Massachusetts, in New England, in the U.S., and around the world. Students will also apply their emerging understanding of clean-energy solutions to examine what Clark University might do to achieve carbon neutrality. This course satisfies the Formal Analysis requirement by emphasizing quantitative analysis as a basis for critical reasoning about the opportunities presented by various technologies to meet the clean-energy challenge, including symbolic equations used for quantitative assessments and for modeling alternative outcomes. Professor Christopher Williams.
HIST 048: SPORTS IN 20TH CENTURY AMERICA
From “Betty Bloomer” bicycling to the esports marketplace, the meaning, importance, and influence of sports in America has undergone many transformations since the beginning of the 20th century. This course examines those transformations in terms of the sports themselves, the participants, the spectators, and the media. We will address questions such as: What exactly is a sport? What roles have sports played within American culture more broadly? What is the relationship between sports and politics? How have sports created, reinforced, and/or challenged inequalities regarding race, ethnicity, gender, ability, and health? In order to consider these questions, we will dive deeply into the history of both popular and niche sports. The course will emphasize critical analysis, especially how to interpret sources— from written texts to photographs, films, cartoons, and music—and will include several field trips. This course fulfills the Historical Perspective. Professor Melinda Marchand.
HIST 122 | JEWISH HISTORY IN THE ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL WORLD
Beginning in antiquity, this course will proceed chronologically until the expulsion of Sephardic Jews from Spain in 1492. We will explore the foundational history, narratives, and myths that have shaped the Jewish experience, tracing how a small agricultural tribe became an ethno-religious diaspora. We will ask: What
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has made a Jew a Jew across time and space? What have been the cultural, ethnic, political, religious, and social ties that have defined Jewish identity and belonging? How has internal diversity among Jews changed and mattered over the course of history? How have Jewish relations with non-Jews shaped Jewish identity? How has gender affected Jewish lives? How have Jews defined and envisioned Jewish “groupness”? What are the objects, ritual practices, and physical spaces that have been important in Jewish life? What are the stories that are central to Jewish identity? How have these narratives been constructed and preserved and how has their meaning changed over time? While investigating these broad historical questions, we will also explore elements of the Jewish textual tradition, broadly defined, including the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), the Talmud and other rabbinic literature, Jewish mystical texts, and medieval Jewish poetry. In addition to textual sources, this course will also incorporate visual and material culture, including Jewish ritual objects, household objects, art, and clothing. This course fulfills the Historical Perspective. Professor Elizabeth Imber.
ID 106 | HEALTHY CITIES
What makes a city a healthy place to live, work, play, create? How does the health of a place shape the lives of the people there? Who is responsible for the health of a city’s residents? This course introduces students to key concepts in anthropology, sociology, and public health as they apply to urban health. Students will gain an
understanding of key challenges cities face—housing, green space, food justice, infectious disease—as they strive to be healthy and equitable places for all residents. Students will also become familiar with the wide range of people and organizations (activists, neighborhood associations, nonprofits, city officials) who work to make city life healthier. The course examines cities in the United States and around the world with a particular focus on Worcester. This course fulfills the Global Perspective. Professor Ellen Foley.
ID 125 | TALES FROM THE FAR SIDE: CONTEMPORARY DILEMMAS IN DEVELOPMENT (LAB)
Discussions of geopolitics invariably refer to the problems of Third World or ‘under’ development. What is so compelling about the idea of development? Why does it ail much of the so-called Third World? What are some of the solutions to development dilemmas: neoliberal market reforms or social justice programming, attention to women and gender equality, ethnic groups and/ or the environment? Is the development enterprise fundamentally flawed as some postcolonial scholars claim? This course introduces students to key histories, concepts, and debates in international development through critical and analytical engagements with fiction, films, and theoretical literature on the subject in order to provide a balanced view of what development is and potentially could be. This course fulfills the Global Perspective. Professor Cynthia Caron.
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MATH 105 | HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS
Students will explore major themes—calculation, number, geometry, algebra, infinity—and their historical development in civilizations ranging from the antiquity of Babylonia and Egypt through classical Greece, the Middle and Far East and then modern Europe. The course analyzes the tension between applications of mathematics and the tendency toward formalism through presentations and discussions. Emphasizes presentations and discussions. This course fulfills the Historical Perspective. Professor Ali Maalaoui.
MATH 113 | SPORTS ANALYTICS
Math 113 is an introduction to Sports Analytics, a rapidly growing discipline. The course focuses primarily on the NBA and MLB, the pro basketball and baseball leagues in the U.S. We will also include lecture topics on marathon running and women’s professional tennis, and students may pursue any sport in their final project. Our approach will be to understand recently available advanced statistics and to build simple models using R software. With this experience, we will make data-driven evaluations and predictions in lectures and in projects. A few additional topics will be presented such as player development, in-game strategy, team building, and the draft. The modeling techniques and software learned in this course are general ones and could be applied to many other fields such as medicine, politics, business, and science. This class fulfills the Formal Analysis requirement. Professor Michael Satz.
MCA 116 | SEX IN THE 90S: PRE-Y2K MEDIA AND CULTURE
In the 1990s, everywhere one turned one’s head and cocked an ear sex was being pictured and it was being discussed. This was true of media’s most popular genres and forms. The “battle of the sexes,” aka men and women’s debates around sex and its significance, waged across the decades’ dozens of romantic comedies. Meanwhile “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” (Soderbergh, 1989) explored men and women’s fears around sex, intimacy, and the suffocating norms of wedded monogamy, paving the way at independent film festivals for the New Queer Cinema film movement. On TV, gay characters, once only bit parts and the butts of jokes, were coming out en masse, from Ellen Morgan, Ellen DeGeneres’ character on the sitcom “Ellen” (1994-98), to Willow Rosenberg, Buffy’s nerdy best friend on the supernatural teen series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997-2003). Mid-decade, AIDS finally became a matter of substantive national discourse. And the decade closed with a highly sensationalized presidential sex scandal taking the budding 24-hour news cycle by storm. This course delves into this historical and cultural context and studies it by way of some of its most popular and controversial media texts, including films, TV series, music videos, and video games. While students are expected to leave the class more knowledgeable about “sex in the 90s,” the subject provides a thematic stomping ground for an introduction to media and cultural studies. Students will read canonical texts in the field, including Stuart Hall’s
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“Encoding/Decoding” and Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” and scholarly works that apply key ideas from such theory to the study of 90s media and culture. This course fulfills the Verbal Expression requirement. Professor Rox Samer.
MGMT 100 | ART AND SCIENCE OF MANAGEMENT
This course is designed to encourage students to consider how business is embedded into the larger society and how managers solve problems. It will introduce students to basic management skills and the context in which they are applied. For students interested in management, entrepreneurship, finance, and marketing, this required course provides an introduction to the topics they will study in greater depth in their future course work. For students not majoring in a management-related discipline, it provides an opportunity to learn basic skills that will be helpful in their current and future activities in organizations. The course structure includes plays, readings, lecture, service learning, case analyses, role plays and experiential exercises. It involves considerable interaction between the professor and students, and among students, because the practice of management is about working with, listening to, and respecting people who have different backgrounds, experiences, and opinions. This course fulfills the Verbal Expression requirement. Professor Vasilia Vasiliou.
PHIL 100 | THE GOOD LIFE
Healthy human beings want to be happy. We want to live good lives. But what can a person do to live a good life? What makes one life good and another not so good? What makes one person happy and another not? Are there significant connections between health, well-being, social involvement, ethical endeavor, worldly achievement, felt satisfaction, and living a good life? In this seminar we will use philosophical, psychological, religious, and literary works to explore some of the ways that human beings organize their lives, set fundamental goals and standards, and try to assess these. Our seminar will examine a range of possible life aims including the search for pleasure, cultivating personal excellence, the pursuit of wealth and power, contributing to the public good, ecological attunement, spiritual fulfillment, and having no aim at all. This course fulfills the Values Perspective. Professor Wes DeMarco.
PHIL 104 | AIDS TO COVID: ETHICS AND PANDEMICS
Like HIV/AIDS, the global COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our scientific and medical system, our local and national governments, our concern for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations, and, especially, our understanding of human rights and public health ethics. This seminar will explore the
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biological, epidemiological, moral, medical, social, and political dimensions of both pandemics and ask: What did we do right? What did we do wrong? Did we learn anything from the AIDS pandemic, or have we made the same mistakes all over again? There is a pre-arrival (summer) reading assignment for this seminar: Randy Shilts’ “And the Band Played On.” It is a gripping story, full of heroes and villains, and it will get our seminar (and your semester) off to a smooth start. This course fulfills the Verbal Expression requirement and Diversity and Inclusion requirement. Professor Patrick Derr.
PHYS 120 | INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS - PART I, WITH CALCULUS (LAB)
This problem-oriented course is intended for science majors; coverage is more in-depth than PHYS 110. Topics include Newtonian mechanics and laboratory methods. The course should be taken with MATH 124 so the elements of calculus and its applications to physics can be treated at the same time. The format is a mix of lectures, associated laboratories, and discussion sections. This course fulfills the Scientific Perspective. Professor Michael Boyer.
PSCI 045 | POWER
Power is essential to politics. Power relationships run the political world, and this class is designed to interrogate those relationships and highlight the side of state
politics that is about control, coercion, and domination. Understanding how power operates can help us explain why some authoritarian regimes flourish or how individuals in a country respond to state control. In this class, we investigate a number of power relationships, looking at how the powerful justify their power, how power structures are perpetuated, and why it is so difficult for the powerless to shift the power dynamic. This course fulfills the Global Perspective. Professor Suzanne Scoggins.
PSCI 094 | DICTATORS AND REVOLUTIONARIES IN LATIN AMERICA
This first-year seminar studies the stereotypes of the Latin American military dictator and the leftist revolutionary that have become commonplace in contemporary culture. Whether it is the right-wing autocrat clad in Prussian-style military dress, like General Augusto Pinochet of Chile or Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, or leftist revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevarra, bearded and combat ready in military fatigues, these stereotypical images convey to us in shorthand form understandings about Latin American society. They convey or reinforce the image of a militaristic and violent society, politically passionate and ideologically polarized. They convey the image of a society where the use of force trumps the rule of law. As with all stereotypes, there is more than a grain of truth in these characterizations but also much insight
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or understanding that they prevent. In particular, such stereotyping begs the question as to why Latin America’s modern political history is rife with examples of political violence and extremism emanating from both ends of the political spectrum. This course seeks to enable students to answer this question. More broadly, it seeks to help students develop their analytical skills and theoretical understandings of reactionary and revolutionary political movements. While the regional focus will be on Latin America, the skills development will be global in its applicability, and allow students to enhance their ability to think critically about contemporary incidents of political violence and inform their actions as concerned citizens. This course fulfills the Global Perspective and the Diversity and Inclusion requirement. Professor Paul Posner.
PSYC 020| TOPICS IN MEN AND EMOTION
One of the most pervasive gender stereotypes in Western societies is the belief that men “aren’t emotional.” In this inquiry-based seminar we will look at available scientific theory and research to determine just how accurate this stereotype is. Do men actually experience and express emotions differently than women? Is this true for all emotions or just some more than others? How can an enhanced understanding of the gendered nature of men’s emotional experiences help us in promoting human wellbeing for both men and women? In addition to immersing ourselves in existing research, we will also carry out a
new research study on masculine gender socialization and emotion. Students will be responsible for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data focused on a research question that we will formulate early in the semester. This course fulfills the Values Perspective. Professor Michael Addis.
PSYC 080 | ZEN AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE
This FYI will examine contemplative practice as it is represented both within modern Western Zen traditions and the recent explosion of psychological research in cognitive neuroscience, affective science, and clinical psychology on mindfulness meditation. Emphasis will be placed on the practice of meditation, the history and origins of mindfulness practices, the scientific study of those practices, and adaptations of mindfulness practices by Western scientists for the treatment of psychological disorders and enhancement of well-being. Key questions this course will address include: 1) What is a contemplative practice and how is it practiced? 2) How does mindfulness influence psychological well-being? 3) What are the historical origins of mindfulness practices and how have such practices been adapted in the West? 4) How does Western empirical inquiry inform our understanding of mindfulness and its measurable effects? This course fulfills the Values Perspective. Professor Justin Laplante.
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PSYC 005| THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS
What is a drug? How do different drugs work in the brain to impact thought and behavior or treat illness? Why are some drugs touted as miracles whilst others are banned and stigmatized? What is the history of the discovery and use in society and medicine of these drugs? For example, why was Valium nicknamed “mother’s little helper” in the 1960s? We will examine drugs from a neural psychopharmacology perspective while also learning important skills related to research, discussion, and inquiry in the First-Year Intensive. Thus, our goals are (1) to understand the different types of drugs, how they act on the brain, and social and historical connotations associated with the drug classes, (2) to learn how to read, synthesize, and discuss original source materials, and (3) to learn to put inquiry to work to create presentations and products that convey ideas in APA format. This course fulfills the Verbal Expression requirement. Professor Alena Esposito.
SOC 080 | RELIGION IN U.S. POLITICS
From the covenant theology of the Puritans to the contemporary Religious Right, and from the abolition and Civil Rights movements to contemporary efforts to promote racial, gender, and economic equity, religion has animated political movements, attitudes, and behavior in the U.S. since before the country’s founding. Today, religion continues to inspire social movements and
frame national belonging, as well as justify racism, sexism, economic inequality, and homophobia and transphobia. This course places the relationship between religion and politics in the U.S. in sociological perspective, examining how religious belief and practice have contributed to public and political movements, attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes in the past and present. Among other themes and topics, we will address religious nationalism, racial, economic, and social justice, the civic republican tradition, and the political consequences of the ongoing decline in religious attendance and affiliation. The course also will examine questions about what draws religious people into some social movements but not others, why our political and cultural debates and divisions take the forms they do, and whether other meaning systems are replacing religion at the heart of U.S. political life. This course fulfills the Values Perspective. Professor Jack Delehanty.
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