HUMAN EPOCH: LIFE ON THE COAST
HONR 314
Spring 2023
Living on the coast has profoundly affected humanity: nearly half the world’s population lives within 200 km of a seashore. Conversely, humans have a huge impact on maritime environments, having altered 85% of all coastlines from their natural state. This course explores the complex relationships between people, the sea, and coastal environments. In this course, you will explore human-coastal interactions from the perspectives of anthropology, history, environmental and climate studies, and political science to contextualize past maritime culture and better understand precarious coastal futures. A typical day in this class will emphasize discussion and peer education through team-based projects. A major project of this course asks you to communicate grand challenges in the study of human-coastal interaction to a public audience. As a result of taking this course, you will recognize and evaluate important questions about our relationship to maritime environments, understand the perspectives of different peoples and why the coast is significant to them, and draw connections between course materials and your own experience.
Spring 2023
Living on the coast has profoundly affected humanity: nearly half the world’s population lives within 200 km of a seashore. Conversely, humans have a huge impact on maritime environments, having altered 85% of all coastlines from their natural state. This course explores the complex relationships between people, the sea, and coastal environments. In this course, you will explore human-coastal interactions from the perspectives of anthropology, history, environmental and climate studies, and political science to contextualize past maritime culture and better understand precarious coastal futures. A typical day in this class will emphasize discussion and peer education through team-based projects. A major project of this course asks you to communicate grand challenges in the study of human-coastal interaction to a public audience. As a result of taking this course, you will recognize and evaluate important questions about our relationship to maritime environments, understand the perspectives of different peoples and why the coast is significant to them, and draw connections between course materials and your own experience.
REPLICANTS/TECHNOBODIES
HONR 399/313
Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
From ancient mythology to Blade Runner 2049, the creation of artificial bodies has captured the human imagination. This course asks: how do the materials we use to re-create the human body affect the way that we construct our humanity? We will examine the different materials people have used to replicate the body throughout history. The course is organized thematically by materials such as wood, wax, silicone, and digital media. This course emphasizes hands-on learning; we will cast wax masks,
sculpt clay figurines, and create automata, among other experiential activities. The types of replicants we will study in this course range from voodoo dolls to Real Dolls, death masks to Deep Fakes, and statues to cyborgs. For the final project, you will choose a case study of a replicant to write about in an exploratory paper.
Formerly titled Replicants, this course is now offered under the Science, Technology, and Society core umbrella as Technobodies.
Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
From ancient mythology to Blade Runner 2049, the creation of artificial bodies has captured the human imagination. This course asks: how do the materials we use to re-create the human body affect the way that we construct our humanity? We will examine the different materials people have used to replicate the body throughout history. The course is organized thematically by materials such as wood, wax, silicone, and digital media. This course emphasizes hands-on learning; we will cast wax masks,
sculpt clay figurines, and create automata, among other experiential activities. The types of replicants we will study in this course range from voodoo dolls to Real Dolls, death masks to Deep Fakes, and statues to cyborgs. For the final project, you will choose a case study of a replicant to write about in an exploratory paper.
Formerly titled Replicants, this course is now offered under the Science, Technology, and Society core umbrella as Technobodies.
WORLD-BUILDING
HONR 399
Fall 2021
In World-Building, you will work with a small team to design an imaginary world using the perspectives of multiple scholarly disciplines to build every detail. From geology, you will shape continents. From cartography, you will map the environment. From mythology, you will inscribe the earliest legends of the people who settle the landscape. From anthropology, you will form cultures, and from political science, civilizations. From science and technology studies, you will develop technological systems. For the final project, you will develop a roleplaying game and guide your classmates as they explore your world’s challenges, cultural norms, and ways of life.
This course is founded on the principle of decentering, a strategy in which you embody another’s perspective, and in so doing, throw into contrast the social, cultural, and environmental forces that shape your own understanding of the world. While this course is about building imaginary worlds, it is also about challenging the assumptions of your lived experience in this world to better understand and empathize with its inhabitants.
You can expect to gain from this course skills in teamwork and collaboration, interdisciplinary and innovative thinking, and connecting, synthesizing, and transforming knowledge. Class days will alternate between small group discussion and creative groupwork assignments.
Fall 2021
In World-Building, you will work with a small team to design an imaginary world using the perspectives of multiple scholarly disciplines to build every detail. From geology, you will shape continents. From cartography, you will map the environment. From mythology, you will inscribe the earliest legends of the people who settle the landscape. From anthropology, you will form cultures, and from political science, civilizations. From science and technology studies, you will develop technological systems. For the final project, you will develop a roleplaying game and guide your classmates as they explore your world’s challenges, cultural norms, and ways of life.
This course is founded on the principle of decentering, a strategy in which you embody another’s perspective, and in so doing, throw into contrast the social, cultural, and environmental forces that shape your own understanding of the world. While this course is about building imaginary worlds, it is also about challenging the assumptions of your lived experience in this world to better understand and empathize with its inhabitants.
You can expect to gain from this course skills in teamwork and collaboration, interdisciplinary and innovative thinking, and connecting, synthesizing, and transforming knowledge. Class days will alternate between small group discussion and creative groupwork assignments.
KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS
HONR 464: Scholarly Project
Spring 2024
This course aims to teach students how to analyze existing scholarly conversations by considering them as networks. By assessing knowledge as a network, you will better understand an area of inquiry, how disciplines form, and how ways of thinking emerge. As part of this research-based course, you will complete your Scholarly Project by selecting a research topic that interests you, conducting a network analysis of its scholarship, and visualizing and presenting your findings. You will gain cross-disciplinary skills such as proficiency in network analysis software (including AI tools), reviewing secondary literature, data visualization, and research presentation. Class days alternate between discussion of background readings and applying course content to real-world projects.
Spring 2024
This course aims to teach students how to analyze existing scholarly conversations by considering them as networks. By assessing knowledge as a network, you will better understand an area of inquiry, how disciplines form, and how ways of thinking emerge. As part of this research-based course, you will complete your Scholarly Project by selecting a research topic that interests you, conducting a network analysis of its scholarship, and visualizing and presenting your findings. You will gain cross-disciplinary skills such as proficiency in network analysis software (including AI tools), reviewing secondary literature, data visualization, and research presentation. Class days alternate between discussion of background readings and applying course content to real-world projects.
GEOSPACE
HONR 464: Scholarly Project
Fall 2020, Fall 2022
What is our place in the world? We often mean this question metaphorically, but our literal place in the world – the spaces we inhabit, the built environment around us, and even
the ways we think about space – influences us in profound ways. Insights from geospatial analysis are sometimes amazing: for example, the 1854 map of cholera outbreak made by Dr. John Snow in London led him to hypothesize that the disease spread through contaminated public water sources. However, spatial data can also be used to create inequalities within society, such as gerrymandering, redlining, and the colonial practice of partitioning cultural groups.
This course explores critical topics in geospatial analysis and the spatial turn, an intellectual movement that emphasizes space, place, and landscape as ways of understanding questions about our place in the world. We will learn how maps make arguments and how, sometimes, maps lie. We will discuss examples of different approaches to space, such as Foucault’s panopticon, Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Bourdieu’s Berber House, and Green’s Paper Towns. Students will try methods of geospatial analysis, from old-fashioned paper mapping to QGIS. For their final project, students will create and analyze a spatial dataset of their choosing.
Fall 2020, Fall 2022
What is our place in the world? We often mean this question metaphorically, but our literal place in the world – the spaces we inhabit, the built environment around us, and even
the ways we think about space – influences us in profound ways. Insights from geospatial analysis are sometimes amazing: for example, the 1854 map of cholera outbreak made by Dr. John Snow in London led him to hypothesize that the disease spread through contaminated public water sources. However, spatial data can also be used to create inequalities within society, such as gerrymandering, redlining, and the colonial practice of partitioning cultural groups.
This course explores critical topics in geospatial analysis and the spatial turn, an intellectual movement that emphasizes space, place, and landscape as ways of understanding questions about our place in the world. We will learn how maps make arguments and how, sometimes, maps lie. We will discuss examples of different approaches to space, such as Foucault’s panopticon, Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Bourdieu’s Berber House, and Green’s Paper Towns. Students will try methods of geospatial analysis, from old-fashioned paper mapping to QGIS. For their final project, students will create and analyze a spatial dataset of their choosing.
PREVIOUS COURSES
Purdue University, John Martinson Honors College
Honors Mentors Fall 2018-Fall 2023 Wildernesses Spring 2019-Spring 2023 Frontiers Fall 2018-Fall 2022 Pop Culture Classics Spring 2019, Fall 2019 Research Networks Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019 Contemporary Reflections on Civil Rights Fall 2018 Colby College, Department of Classics Introduction to Classical Archaeology Jan 2017, Jan 2018 |
Cornell University, Department of Classics
Teaching Assistant
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