Are you looking for a challenging yet fun course for next semester? Are you interested in satisfying the Gen Ed Second Semester Composition requirement?
Below are the Expo 1213/1223 courses currently being offered. Please contact each instructor directly for questions about the course material or topic.
Lecturer: Catherine Mintler
Section 003: T/R 12:00-1:15 pm Bizzell Library 0102
Section 004: T/R: 3:00-4:15 pm Bizzell Library 0102
This course will follow the evolution of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, beginning with its inception through its nearly century-long afterlife as one of the great American novels.
Beginning prior to its publication on April 25, 1925 and ending with its entry into the public domain on January 1, 2021, our course will start by interrogating myths, i.e. about the American Dream and Gatsby himself, created by the novel’s unreliable narrator, by Fitzgerald as its author, and by nearly a century of critics, readers, teachers, students, and filmmakers. We will inquire whether and to what extent the novel’s popularity and resiliency are connected to the myths it perpetuates as we simultaneously attempt to demythologize them. Our journey will include road stops to consider where the novel’s story intersects with gender norms, social class conditions, race and race relations, and aesthetics, and their connections to dandyism, imposture, money, and organized crime, all of which remain important in varying yet similar ways to American society then and now. We will end by examining how these myths have influenced early forms of Gatsby fandom, and how they might continue to do so in our digital age.
In what way is The Great Gatsby a 20th-century novelization of an archetypal myth? Is Gatsby a mythic hero or is he, perhaps, a cypher? Why do we believe the same myths that created Gatsby, or that Gatsby and the novel’s unreliable narrator create about him? In what ways might the fandom and memeification of The Great Gatsby in the public domain perpetuate its and American society’s myths? In what ways might the novel’s entry into the public domain encourage and enable us to better understand the consequences of American myth?
Lecturer: Timothy Bradford
Section 012 MWF 10:30-11:20 Bizzell Library 0104
Section 013 MWF 12:30-1:20 Bizzell Library 0104
Welcome to the Anthropocene, a relatively new term for this geological epoch marked by significant human impact on the Earth beginning, depending on your perspective, anywhere from 15,000 years ago to 1945. Regardless of its start, it’s clear the current human population of 8 billion, projected to be 9 billion by 2037, is profoundly changing our environment. For example, a football field’s worth of forest is lost every second around the clock, approximately twenty-four species go extinct per day, and atmospheric carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, is over 400 parts per million, the highest level in 800,000 years. How did we get here, what does this mean, and where are we headed? And what can be done to lessen our impact and achieve a balanced, just sustainability? Using The Fragile Earth anthology and selected excerpts from other readings and digital media in this field to guide us, this course will ask the above and related questions that we will attempt to answer while developing analytical reading, thinking, researching, and writing skills.
Lecturer: Eric Bosse
Section 015: MWF 9:00 - 10:15 am Hybrid: Tuesday in person; Thursday remote
This justice-themed course focuses on both general notions of speaking truth to power (What is truth? Whose truth? What is power? Who has it? etc.) and on specific, often uncomfortable truths about unjust systems and institutional power structures. In particular, the course explores issues relating to human and civil rights, social identities, and interacting systems of oppression (known as “intersectionality”), the roles of allies social movements, hierarchies, democracy, capitalism, the climate crisis, and actions of protest and dissent. And we will encounter the work and writings of scholars, civil rights leaders, and social justice activists.
While reading about and discussing those big topics, we will also focus on writing within an academic context. You will write four major projects of varying lengths, from brief analyses to an extended, researched essay, on topics of your choosing. For each project, you will receive feedback from peers and from me. Wherever you may be on your journey as a writer, we will meet you there with the goal of helping you to develop new and old skills and to reach, inform, and impact readers.
Lecturer: Rachel Warner
Section 018 MW 3:00-4:15pm BL 102
Section 019 MW 4:30-5:45pm BL 102
This course focuses on significant works of LGBTQIA+ literature and culture from the turn of the 20th century to postwar period. Despite often being called an “outsider” or marginal modernism, queer modernism reveals the significance of same-sex desire, cross-gender identification, and other queer modes of being to canonical high modernist letters and patterns of representation.
This semester, we will pursue this line of inquiry through close critical analysis of poetry, short stories, the novel, film and musical recordings.Across these primary sources, we will ask, among other questions, how and why modernist American culture came to enjoy such a privileged relationship to queer artistic expression.
Lecturer: Mandi McRay
Section 007 MWF 12:30-1:20pm BL 102
While “laughter is the best medicine” remains a common cliché, it’s undeniable that people across cultures enjoy humor. Comedy can entertain, but what other work might it be used to accomplish in different rhetorical contexts? What does the choice to utilize comedy offer us as speakers, writers, and thinkers? How might understanding humor allow us to be not only better critical thinkers but also more discerning, thoughtful, and effective communicators? In this course, we will explore how communicators use comedy to inform, critique cultural patterns and current events, and raise awareness about issues affecting marginalized populations.
Lecturer: Ashton Foley-Schramm
Section 015 MWF 10:30-11:20pm BL 102
“It is a truth universally acknowledged” that Pride and Prejudice is a story that has withstood the test of time. Whether you’re familiar with the original 1813 novel; the 2005 movie starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen; the 2016 movie, book, and graphic novel series Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with Lily James and Sam Riley; or even the 2018 Hallmark movie Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe with Lacey Chabert and Brendan Penny; it is quite likely that you have at least heard of the story of proud Mr. Darcy and prejudicial Elizabeth Bennet (or, proud Elizabeth and prejudicial Darcy).
In this course, we will use the story of Pride and Prejudice alongside its modern interpretations to discuss how the way a text is written impacts the messages it sends to readers. We will explore the social and cultural messages undergirding P&P by looking beyond the romantic plots of the story to issues like class prejudice, social and gender expectations, and family identity.
Questions we will consider include: Why has this one literary text evolved into so many re-tellings and re-visions across a wide variety of media and platforms? What messages do these re-readings and re- visions of this “classic novel” send? How do such issues present in various reinterpretations of the same story? What can we learn about the cultural ideologies of the time periods in which each adaptation is produced? Which perspectives of the original novel are prized, and which are omitted in various retellings?
Lecturer: V. Nicholas LoLordo
Section 001: T/R 1:30-2:45 pm Bizzell Library 0102
Section 002: T/R 4:30-5:45 pm Bizzell Library 0102
In this course, we’ll move from classical bards to beat poets, from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to the Instagram poets of today, from orality to print and back again. Considering the relationships between page and stage, speech and music, poem and oratory, and tracing a history of poetry’s connection to the human voice and body, we’ll explore the past to inform our thinking about the present. We will begin with the Romantic moment, where questions about the relationship between orality and print & its impact on “modern” poetry first took center stage. Our first unit will address the concept of “lyric poetry” and its relationship to sound and rhythm. Our second unit will introduce the relationship of the poet and politics: how are embodied performances political, & how do they come to embody, or challenge, the values of particular communities? This semester we will focus on Black performance traditions, and on questions of witnessing; we will consider both Anglophone Caribbean performers (“dub poetry”) and American Black artists (slam / hip-hop influenced work). Finally, we will explore questions of technologically mediated performance in the wake of the pandemic. In a world increasingly dominated by digital, social media: is poetry dying, or more vigorous than ever–and why should this matter? Your writing in the course, from short responses to full-scale academic essays, will engage with historical and ongoing conversations that stem from the questions posed by the history of poetry as a performed artform. Throughout the course, you will read each other’s work, revise both individually and collectively, and develop a research project of your own.
Lecturer: Nick LoLordo
Section 009 - MW 3:00-4:15pm, Bizzell Library, Room 102 (in person)
Section 010 - MW 4:30-5:45pm, Bizzell Library, Room 102 (in person)
Mythologizing a “Lost Generation” after WW I, mining data to build the collective identity constructs of today, for more than a century the American media has imagined history in generational terms. Your cynical, flannel-clad Gen X professor will guide our tour of cultural forms from fiction to pop music, movies to memes, considering how they represent collective struggles over power, wealth and opportunity. What might the lens of generational analysis show us about the true nature of an increasingly unequal society—& what might it obscure?
Lecturer: Eric Bosse
Section 015 - MWF 10:30-11:20am, synchronous online
This course focuses on intersectional identity, representation in higher education, and contemporary justice issues through the work and writings of civil rights leaders and social justice activists. In particular, students will explore issues related to human rights, overlapping social identities and systems of oppression (intersectionality), the deconstruction of "toxic masculinity," the roles of allies in social movements, and the implications of protest and dissent for stakeholders within institutions and systems. Through a sequence of writing assignments, students will be challenged to move beyond initial thoughts toward more fully developed arguments, and to examine the power of taking a stance and making a stand for justice.
Lecturer: Eric Bosse
Section 014 - MWF 12:30-1:20pm, synchronous online
This course examines instances of individual and collective inequality, injustice, and systemic oppression through an intersectional framework by considering factors that can contribute to the marginalization of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, physical ability, etc. After developing an understanding of intersectionality, we will turn our attention to laws, policies, and practices that produce and perpetuate inequality in the US Finally, we will examine how the climate crisis in general, and climate policy in particular, compounds and complicates injustice and inequality. Along the way, we will identify examples of successful action and activism that can help lead the way to a better, safer, more just and equal world.
Lecturer: Talisha Haltiwanger Morrison
Section 005 - TR 3:00-4:15pm, Bizzell Library Room 102 (in person)
When #BlackGirlMagic began trending on social media around 2013, it was intended to celebrate and motivate Black girls and women. The phrase is a defiant centering of Black girls and women, an acknowledgement of Black girls’ labor, intellect, and achievements, which have historically been overlooked. In this course, we will explore this pop culture phenomenon, examining the historical and current positioning of Black girls in and outside of the US and exploring Black girl spirituality, magik, and mysticism. We will interrogate the concept of Black Girl Magic and examine debates about how the phrase and sentiment may reinforce notions of Black girls as uniquely able to withstand oppression and hold them to higher standards. As a class, we’ll explore various arenas in which Black girls may deploy their magic for self- and community-wide achievement.
Lecturer: Mandi McRay
Section 003 - TR 12:00-1:15pm, Bizzell Library, Room 102 (in person)
While “laughter is the best medicine” remains a common cliché, it’s undeniable that people across cultures enjoy humor. Comedy can entertain, but what other work might it be used to accomplish in different rhetorical contexts? What does the choice to utilize comedy offer us as speakers, writers, and thinkers? How might an understanding of humor allow us to be not only better critical thinkers but also more discerning, thoughtful, and effective communicators? We will explore how communicators use comedy to inform, critique cultural patterns and current events, and raise awareness about issues affecting marginalized populations.
Lecturer: Anna Treviño
Section 002 - MW 1:30-2:30pm, Bizzell Library, Room 102 (in person); Friday via WEB (remote)
“Today, a baffled lady observed the shell where
my soul dwells and announced that I’m ‘articulate’
. . . So,when my Professor comes on the block and
says, ‘Hello’ I stop him and say ‘Noooo … You’re
being inarticulate … the proper way is to say
‘what’s good.’”
—Jamila Lyiscott
This course engages notions of Standardized American English, broken English, and academic language. The course begins with Conference on College Composition and Communication’s 1974 statement affirming the students’ right to “their own patterns and varieties of language” and will move into discussions of identities, language and power.
Lecturer: Robert Scafe
Section 012 - TR 1:30-2:45pm, Bizzell Library, Room 102 (in person)
Section 013 - TR 4:30-5:45pm Bizzell Library, Room 102 (in person)
This course invites students to critically examine the long association of music with rebellion from the folk revival and rock ‘n’ roll to more contemporary styles such as hip-hop, punk, reggae and dub, country, and electronic music. How have music fandoms informed subcultural identities? What’s behind music fans’ criticism of “sell-out” artists? When is borrowing music from other cultures an expression of solidarity—and when is it theft?
Lecturer: Timothy Bradford
Section 007 - TR 9:00-10:15am, Bizzell Library, Room 102 (in person)
Paris has long attracted crowds of American writers and artists hungry for artistic freedom, inspiration, and camaraderie, as well as cheap food and lodging. Gertrude Stein, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Beach, and James Baldwin are some of the figures we will engage with through their work, and secondary sources, including maps and documentaries, will be used to explore the terrain and formulate great questions to guide our reading, research, and writing.
Lecturer: Timothy Bradford
Section 016 - TR 10:30-11:45am, Bizzell Library, Room 102 (in person)
Spirituals, work songs, blues, gospel, jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, funk, and hip-hop: African Americans have created some of the most vibrant and influential musical genres in the world. How did a relatively small group of people, who started in such difficult circumstances, use music to survive, innovate, and even thrive in a country that was, and in ways remains, indifferent if not openly hostile? And what can we learn about African American and American history and culture by examining these music forms?
