Special Topics Course Descriptions

This course studies human, ecological, and environmental histories. In collaboration with scholars representing a wide range of disciplines, including archaeologists, artists, environmental scientists, historians, and psychologists, the class creates projects focused on narratives shaped by each student’s particular disciplinary interests and experiences. This semester, the course considers Journey not as a topographic or geographic experience, but more broadly as the processes by which we extract meaning and generate purpose. Meaning and purpose define and qualify the journey of life. Thus, the subtitle for this class is “Journeys.” We will consider journey as a transit through experience rather than a traverse across points on a map. Through a wide variety of references (textual, visual, performative); visiting speakers; discussions; reflective exercises; and course assignments and presentations, the class will establish skills and understandings that enhance the journey through and beyond college life.

A short distance from our classrooms, the Trail of Tears crosses over the Domain. This course is an attempt to understand this local history within the bigger picture. The course will survey the many different trails of tears and various regional histories of “Indian Removal,” a deceptive term for the brutality of ethnic cleansing. Through immersive activities and study, students will explore dilemmas such as those faced by the Cherokee “Treaty Party.” Students will contribute to the database, “Retracing the Bell Route: An Archive of Cherokee Removal” and use the database to develop original research for the community.

A survey of environmental issues in Indigenous history, including exploration of the Domain and its 9000 years of known human presence. In broader context, course topics span from prehistoric megafauna extinction and Clovis culture; the Columbian Exchange and disease epidemics; the introduction of livestock in Native societies and rise of horse cultures; the deerskin trade in the colonial Southeast; Bison ecology and geopolitics in the nineteenth century West. The course will feature contemporary Native voices on issues ranging from land acknowledgments to environmental movements including #NoDAPL.

Described as “merciless Indian savages” in the Declaration of Independence, Indigenous people were at the center of the American Revolution, its origins, its symbolism, and its vast shockwaves. Yet our popular understandings have pushed them to the margins. This course will survey the range of responses to the conflict across Indian country. With a focus on local history, we will trace the revolutionary origins of Tennessee and Indigenous revolts such as Chickamauga independence. Students will assess Native power from the Imperial Crisis of the 1760s through the “Second American Revolution” or War of 1812, concluding with Native exclusion from equality in the early republic. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

As social orders were being redefined throughout the Atlantic World during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth centuries, there was a dual Black experience. While those of African descent participated in the military of Western powers, they also sought to overturn old systems defined by imperialism and enslavement. This course examines this duality using primary and secondary sources. First, it will review the role of those of African descent as agents of Western powers in the Age of Revolutions. Second, it will examine black liberation efforts and how state lawmakers repressed them through violence, surveillance, and the restrictions of the same “natural rights” they espoused. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

Philosophers have often argued that what makes humans special is seated squarely within the mind. This leads to the question: what makes for a mind? This class will explore two debated “marks of the mental,” consciousness and intentionality. In engaging with the theories philosophers have proposed to explain them we will cover topics such as: Is the mind separable from the body and its environment? Can the mind be explained third-personally, by appealing to behavior or to function? Do plants, animals, or computers have minds? And finally, how are these two marks of the mental related?

An introduction to empirical psychology, designed for students who do not plan to major in psychology and/or neuroscience. Key areas, approaches, and theories in psychology are illustrated. The process of scientific inquiry, including experience with a variety of research approaches and methodological issues, is integrated into the course. This course may not be used to satisfy requirements for the major or minor in Psychology. Open to only first- and second-year students. Not open for credit to students who have received credit for PSYC 100, PSYC 101, or for a 100-level psychology course taken at another university.

For more than a century, American women have driven public debate about the proposed addition of an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution. Accordingly, this course recovers, traces, and examines the long debate about the ERA via primary texts by and about American women. In doing so, we will see how the ERA debate constitutes a critical site for studying broader questions about women's rights in relation to a host of political, social, economic, and religious issues.