Draws on an archive of American religion and culture to study gender and religion with an intersectional eye toward historical and contemporary dynamics of power. Introduces students to feminist, womanist, transgender, and queer scholarship in study of religion.
An advanced capstone seminar for seniors preparing for their comprehensive exams.
Rhetoric
Study of the principles, precepts, and strategies of informative, persuasive, and ceremonial speaking. Emphasis is placed on assessing the rhetorical situation and researching, composing, practicing, and delivering a speech. Ethical, political, and social questions raised by speaking in public are considered. Students deliver speeches, practice effective listening, and serve as speech critics and interlocutors.
Topical survey of the major questions and controversies in rhetorical theory, criticism, and practice, including rhetorical situations, classical canons of rhetoric, the role of rhetoric in civic life, and the relationship of rhetoric to power, politics, law, education, and ethics. Students consider the rights and responsibilities of speakers and critics. Accordingly, readings include selections from a wide array of rhetorical theorists and critics as well as a diverse and open canon of orators and speakers.
In this survey of the expectations for successful speaking across several disciplines, students will explore the techniques, strategies, and precepts peer and professional tutors may employ to help student speakers and listeners attain their goals. Participants will examine samples of student speaking and listening, discuss possible responses, and develop model interactions between and among tutors and students.
This course surveys the key topics, questions, issues, and controversies surrounding the rhetoric of mass and social media. Students explore not only how this rhetoric helps us inform, persuade, and move others to action, but also how—and whether—they are informed, persuaded, and moved to act themselves. Topics surveyed may include rhetorical framing, message bias, propaganda, the rhetorical propagation and circulation of misinformation, freedom of expression, protest, and visual rhetoric.
The seminar is designed to prepare and guide senior Rhetoric majors in the preparation of their senior theses. Weekly class meetings will be devoted to various topics related to their projects, including theoretical and practical problems of research, interpretation, analysis, scholarly writing and speaking, and the forms and standards of documentation and citation. Students will prepare and submit regular written and spoken assignments and read and critique each other’s work. They will deliver a final oral presentation of their completed project.
Study of the discursive and non-discursive aspects of protest in the period 1948-1973. Focus on the forms and functions of rhetorics and counter-rhetorics in U.S. controversies over communism, civil rights, free speech, war, students’ rights, women’s rights, farm workers’ rights, Native American rights, gay rights, the environment, and poverty.
Russian
An introduction to the fundamentals of the language and culture with emphasis on communicative proficiency, clarity of pronunciation and basic skills in reading, writing, and conversation. Use of language laboratory required. Four hours of class each week, plus an additional conversation meeting with a native speaker.
Continued study of grammar and review of basic grammatical structures; readings in Russian with emphasis on acquisition of vocabulary and continued development of conversational and writing skills. Four hours of class each week, plus an additional conversation meeting with a native speaker.
This class is a survey of Eastern European cinema from the 1960s until the present day. We will look at films and directors from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Russia, and the former Yugoslavia. Despite state control, the filmmakers of Communist Europe were often more bold, honest, and provocative than their profit-driven Hollywood counterparts. By drawing on political and cultural discourses, the course will offer pointed analyses of the most significant East European films that touch upon issues of ethnicity, gender, cultural identity, and censorship. Films screened with English subtitles.
A study of the emergence and development of the Russian literary tradition in the nineteenth century, with special attention to the intersection of Russian history and literature. Novels, novellas and short stories by Pushkin, Karamzin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Durova, Leskov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chekhov and others feature as the center of the course. The course is taught in English.
A study of 20th- and 21st-century Russian prose and media, including podcasts, television, and written news, emphasizing advanced linguistic and cultural proficiency. Authors studied may include (but are not limited to) Evgenii Grishkovets, Alisa Ganieva, and some excerpts from Tatiana Tolstaya and Viktor Pelevin.
Southern Appalachian Studies
This course examines the complex systems and values influencing land-use decision-making in both rural and urban settings throughout the U.S. and abroad. Students learn how government agencies and local citizens often conflict in their attitudes and values regarding the costs and benefits of growth and development. Particular attention is paid to forest conversion issues on the South Cumberland Plateau. Students attend local planning sessions and meetings with local officials.
An examination of the events, people, movements, and themes of the region's past, from earliest known human habitation to the present. The course explores contrasting ways of life expressed by native and European peoples; implications of incorporating the area into the United States; the agricultural, industrial, and transportation revolutions of the nineteenth century; popular culture within and about Appalachia; contemporary issues of regional development and preservation; and ways the unique environment of these mountains has shaped and frustrated notions of regional identity.
Spanish
Part I of a year-long intensive, introductory course with emphasis on the fundamentals of grammar (both written and spoken) and extensive practice in listening comprehension and reading. Four class hours per week.
Part II of a year-long intensive, introductory course with emphasis on the fundamentals of grammar (both written and spoken) and extensive practice in listening comprehension and reading. Four class hours per week.
Part II of a year-long intensive, introductory course with emphasis on the fundamentals of grammar (both written and spoken) and extensive practice in listening comprehension and reading. Four class hours per week.
Part II of a year-long intensive, introductory course with emphasis on the fundamentals of grammar (both written and spoken) and extensive practice in listening comprehension and reading. Four class hours per week.
Part II of a year-long intensive, introductory course with emphasis on the fundamentals of grammar (both written and spoken) and extensive practice in listening comprehension and reading. Four class hours per week.