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| Academic Information: Seminar Descriptions |
After reading the descriptions below, please return to the Advising Questionnaire to list which seminars interest you the most. For an explanation of the ESP general education codes at the end of each description, please refer to the Education through Skills and Perspectives link. Please note that the meeting time for all seminars is Tuesday and Thursday from 10:30-12:00.
Photography Speaks (4 credits)
In this seminar, you will make and look at photographs that examine cultural and personal identity. Using a Holga plastic lens film camera, as well as the digital lab, you will complete projects based on dreams and memories, family history, and your own place in the world as a Hollins University student. Along the way, you will learn how to use a traditional darkroom and relevant features of Adobe Photoshop. Through visual presentations and articles, you will study a range of work (photographs) that deal with social concerns such as child labor and the environment; the important role of photography in establishing African American identity in the early 20th c.; and that also considers personal identity and gender in contemporary photography. (no previous experience necessary). Lab fee required. (CRE, DIV, o, r)
Instructor: Professor Sulkin
Student Success Leader: Meg Umberger
Contribution of Science to Global Issues (4 credits)
In today's world, over one billion people live in poverty, are plagued with disease, and live without enough food or clean water. Environmentally, things are not promising; there is global warming, pollution levels are higher than ever, the polar ice caps are melting and disappearing at an ever faster rate, the overall global temperature is rising, and natural disasters are becoming rampant. Politically, more countries than ever are in turmoil because of greed, corruption, power, and ignorance. As a result, many people are dying. Against this backdrop, human innovative and technological advances in the past 50 years far outpace advances made in the past two thousand years. Even though such technological advances have enabled countries to be economically connected, allowing for unparalleled economic, business, and political growth, so many problems still exist in today's world. In this course, we will explore how science can either be part of the problem or contribute to solving global issues. Selected seminar topics will focus on compelling questions related to the contribution of science to these global, economic, environmental, business, and political issues. (GLO, o, r)
Instructors: Professors Ametepe and Derringer
Student Success Leader: Karla Brown
Women of Discovery (4 credits)
In January 2005 in Cambridge, MA, Harvard president Lawrence Summers said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women than men succeed in science and math careers. Contrary to his remarks, many women at Hollins excel in science and mathematics. In this course, we shall investigate successful women mathematicians', scientists', and physicians' styles of leadership in research, education, academic administration, business, and government. We shall learn about women who have been leaders in the past (e.g. Sister Kenny, Virginia Apgar, Rachel Carson, Barbara McClintock) and hear from women who are currently leaders in their fields. Students will read about theories of leadership and learn about the diversity of experiences among, and skills shared by, women math, science and medical leaders. They will develop a web site about women scientists and mathematicians that includes alumnae histories and a catalog of alumnae who will serve as mentors to current undergraduates. Students will use problems that have been studied by well-known scientists and mathematicians in short projects that give them experience with some “thinking tools,” such as observing, abstracting, recognizing patterns, imaging, analogizing, and modeling. (o, r)
Instructors: Professors Boatman and Diefenderfer
Student Success Leader: Caroline Walz
Junk Food Media (4 credits)
Turn on TV, read papers and magazines, check out popular websites, and you will find an abundance of stories about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Anna Nicole-Smith and the rest of today's popular stars. Why is media obsessed with these stars, and what is the consequence of such wall-to-wall coverage? We will address the issues of pop-culture and the position and creation of celebrity within pop-culture. We will look at the historical developments of the concept of celebrity, the celebritisation of current politics, various media texts and their meanings, the role of media in the production of celebrity, and the response of the audience in interpreting these texts. We will address these questions as we interpret and critique modern popular culture, drawing on Cultural Studies theory. (MOD, o, r)
Instructor: Professor Bratic
Student Success Leader: Tiffany Brown
Art and Performance as a Way to Inhabit the World: PLACE & the Unmade Project (4 credits)
Everyone desires and seeks to find a Place of belonging – a Place we can live. How do we define Place? What is the impact of Place upon our lives? Have these locations (where we currently live and have lived), shaped and informed how we see ourselves, others, and the world around us? How are ideas/notions of Place constructed? How do artists create, explore, and develop work that reveals notions of Place? Performance allows for our physical interactions. There is a physical idea, the body, involved. Is there a specific set of aesthetic tools that are used to reveal/locate Place inside/outside the body? If so, then how do we determine and/or articulate these tools? In this seminar, researching Place and the multiple ways we imagine, define and live Place will be the central focus. We will use the work of both western and non-western artists as a backdrop to our own exploration. Students will be asked to investigate (research) the creative processes of contemporary artists whose work explores elements of Place. We will collaborate to create performance work(s) that reveal paradoxical and harmonious connections (both real and imagined) in notions of Place. Through individual/
collaborative research and active making (projects), we will work to construct culminating performance(s) that may include text, movement, music and video. (CRE, f, x, r)
Instructors: Professors Burchfield and Bullock
Student Success Leader: Lauren Bakst
Incompatibles? Economics and the Environment in the Era of Globalization (4 credits)
This course will offer students an opportunity to learn fundamentals of economics and understand their interaction with environmental problems. The course will introduce students to cross-discipline learning and to the execution of tasks in a group or team environment. Finally, the course will give students an opportunity to learn the very basics of how to conduct scholarly research. Group discussions and team presentations based on assigned readings are the regular learning catalysts. Experiential learning through one or two short trips to think tanks/research centers in the Washington, D.C. area will help students sharpen their presentation and oral communication skills. (MOD, o, r)
Instructor: Professor Hernandez
Student Success Leader: Kelcy Mueller
The Nature and Culture of Water (4 credits)
An exploration of the ways water runs through American name writing. By close reading, writing, and fieldwork, we will examine and experience how authors integrate this "element" into their work, as well as the way water functions as myth, metaphor, ritual, resource, image, and form. The natural and cultural realities of our local and home watersheds will remain in focus as we consider how characters and authors reckon with the presence of water in their worlds. (AES, f, x, r)
Instructor: Professor Moeckel
Student Success Leader: Andria Tran
Women, Health, and Power (4 credits)
This course works from the premise that “knowledge is power” to the conclusion that self-knowledge leads to personal and community empowerment. Reading from feminist perspectives, we will investigate issues such as fertility, metal health, body image, and sexualities. This is a seminar for women who are interested in learning more about how the physical intersects with the emotional and intellectual, and who are open to thinking about the ways they are shaped by and can shape their communities. We’ll interpret a variety of texts -- poetry, novels, films, editorials, non-fiction -- and develop our skills as careful readers and thinkers. Students will prepare several oral presentations, participate in experiential workshops, and become part of a community of women committed to supporting and challenging each other. (AES, o, r)
Instructor: Professor Pfeiffer
Student Success Leader: Courtney Chenette
Creative Code: The Art and Science of Interactive Media (4 credits)
The field of interactive media, examples of which include computer-based art, medical imaging technologies, and hypertext poetry, is re-defining our world. In this seminar, we will work at the intersection of several emerging fields: information aesthetics, computer animation, interactivity, and hypertext literature. Throughout the course, we will consider the impact of digital culture and learn some practical tools for creating interactive media projects of our own. How is interactive media produced and how does it re-cast our understanding of the relationship between humans and technology? What does it mean to say that we live in an interactive digital culture? Students will learn how to visualize information using dynamic computer graphics, create simple interactive computer programs, and work with interactive texts and animated images (no previous experience with computer art and/or writing necessary). (i, r)
Instructor: Professor Boyle
Student Success Leader: Vicki "Noren" Bonner
Heroes: Not the TV Show (4 credits)
Who's a hero? What makes a hero? Is there a difference between a hero and a heroine? Throughout history, cultures have produced (or fabricated) heroes who become models of behavior and projections of a society's hopes and anxieties. This seminar involves the study of various heroes and heroines (both real and imagined), trying to find out why they are considered heroic and what they tell us about the cultures that revered them. We'll look at some of the earliest heroes – Joshua and Gilgamesh – and study the classic heroes like Achilles, Antigone, and Aeneas, evaluating the way their character and characteristics find a home in western culture from King Lear to Frankenstein to Mrs. Dalloway. Super powers or prior record of heroic accomplishment not required. (ANC, f, r)
Instructor: Professor Markert
Student Success Leader: Lianne Jackson
History Rocks! (4 credits)
From Sam Cooke to Bob Dylan and from Rage Against the Machine to Public Enemy, music has provided the soundtrack for modern American history. Whether garage, pop, indie, southern, punk, grunge, metal, cowboy, or hip-hop, music says volumes about who we are as a people. While much of American culture has fought to wall itself off from foreign influences, the music has embraced those cultures from the British invasion to Bob Marley and from Shakira to German death metal. Music about race, war, poverty, gender, and social alienation has fed the social critique and engaged generations of Americans to work for a better world. This class will use that soundtrack as historical evidence to analyze recent American history. (DIV, f, x, r)
Instructor: Professor Leedom
Student Success Leader: Brynn Hoffman
Heritage, Not Hate? The Culture, Geography and Politics of Nationalism and Heritage (4 credits)
This course examines the forces of nationalism and heritage within contemporary society, analyzing their seductive power and their ability to both unite and divide. We examine how films, novels, symbols, museums, battlefield sites, paintings, oral histories, tele-media, poetry, and schoolbooks all play a role in constructing sanitized and glorified versions of the national past. The case studies in the course examine national identity and heritage in the United States (including Southern regional identity), Serbia, Spain, Japan, Germany, France, China, Jamaica, and Great Britain. Students are encouraged to examine their own national identities critically and to reflect upon the power of heritage discourse. Finally, we examine the role of national heritage and collective memory in leadership development and selection, with a focus on leadership at the regional and national levels. Case studies of how particular world leaders have used and manipulated discourses of heritage and memory in their rise to political power will also be examined. (MOD, f, x, r)
Instructor: Professors Bohland and Barbieri
Student Success Leader: Laura Fails
Numb3rs (4 credits)
Can mathematics be used to solve criminal mysteries? Can mathematics be used to solve other real world mysteries and puzzles? How? In this course, students will investigate real-life criminal whodunits, secret codes, games, gambling and fractals and will discover how many mysteries in the world around us can best be understood through numbers. (o, r)
Instructor: Professor Hammer
Student Success Leader: Marina Stanojevic
Shakin’ Things Up: Uncommon Hispanic Women from Evita to Shakira (4 credits)
This course will look at how the female voice has shaped Latin American history, politics, business, and culture. Starting with the female leaders of the pre-Columbian era, we will take a journey through time to look at the influences of a number of uncommon voices including La Malinche, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Eva Perón, Isabel Allende, Violeta Chamorro, Rigoberta Menchú, Margarita Arias, Shakira, Laura Esquivel, and prominent business leaders in the 21st century. The goal will be to demonstrate how, in a predominantly patriarchal society, these women have broken with tradition to introduce a powerful voice that has changed Latin America. Whether the message has always been positive is debatable. We will look at the influence of these leaders, writers, and pop culture icons from a variety of perspectives by reading poetry, journals, novels, newspaper and magazine articles, and watching movies. (GLO, o, r)
Instructor: Professor Ridley
Student Success Leader: Keisha Graziadei
M3: Mystics and Mavericks Medieval (4 credits)
Who were they, these medieval women writing about their spiritual experience and wisdom, stirring up the church with their ideas? What motivated them? How did they manage in the church, in those male religious hierarchies? How did their early lives, especially their troubles, mold them for spiritual leadership? What can we learn from them, their writings, their historical contexts, and their lives? What might a Hollins woman have in common with these early spiritual leaders? We will consider Hildegaard of Bingen, Clare of Assisi, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, and a few more modern spiritual mavericks and leaders. (ANC, f, r)
Instructor: Professor Fuller
Student Success Leader: Jennifer Brennan
Theatre Improv: Who am I, Where am I, and What’s My Line Anyway? (4 credits)
Through disciplined self-reflection, in-studio ensemble exercises, formal research, and live improv performance attendance, students will identify their multiple intelligences, study and perfect improvisational concepts, and practice the craft of theatrical improvisation. By mid-term, students will perform bi-monthly at the Rat, perform at various university events, and corporately develop a plan to implement campus-wide "Whose Line Is It"-style competitive improv into Hollins’ culture. (CRE, o, r)
Instructors: Professors Zulia and Zobel
Student Success Leader: Taylor Marun
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