ANT 3410: Global Health – Jonathan Stillo

CRN 23878    Monday          5:30PM-8:00PM                    GL, SI                                    

This honors seminar takes a holistic, biosocial approach to global health. We will look at the biological as well as social aspects of disease and disorder paying special attention to the social, economic, political and cultural factors that both cause disease and hinder its management. This will be accomplished by focusing on, health inequalities between and within wealthy and resource-constrained settings, how health systems are funded, the globalization of pharmaceuticals and clinical trials, the role of international and local development and civil society organizations, the effects of migration (whether routine or due to conflict/disaster) and how human rights concepts and laws impact (or not) people’s health. Special attention will be paid to anti-microbial resistant infections (AMR) and neglected tropical diseases. This course is particularly appropriate for pre-health majors as well as public health, and social sciences.

 

ELR 1110: Work and Democracy - Elizabeth Faue         

CRN 25155    Tuesday 2:30PM-5:00PM                CIV                             

This course explores the role that labor and the labor movement have played in shaping democracy in the United States over the past two centuries. It covers key political achievements of the labor movement as well as contemporary challenges it faces today. Key themes include labor and citizenship, industrial democracy, the making and unmaking of the New Deal, gender, race, sexuality and labor, the labor movement as a social movement, and power and politics in the workplace. We also will explore democracy in the workplace, tracking how power has shifted in the workplace through theories like scientific management, and probe workplace structures and hierarchies and the evolution of worker’s control. 

 

ENG 3020: Writing and the Community – Ryan Flaherty 

CRN   23622  Monday/Wednesday 11:30AM - 12:45PM             ICN                                       

In this section of English 3020, students will dedicate twenty hours of time outside of class to aiding the work of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in and around Detroit. The CBOs we will be supporting this semester work on issues ranging from educational support/ tutoring, food insecurity, homelessness, and social justice. Among other topics, students will study and write about the impact of neoliberal economic policies on community needs, the communication practices of community-based organizations, ethics in community-oriented research, and research writing for social and political change purposes. As this is a writing-intensive course, students will write an extended research paper AND fulfill 20 hours of service work/ volunteering with a community-based organization.

*Eligible to be paired with HON 3000 Field Learning

 

HON 2000: Gangs & Organized Crime - James Buccellato 

CRN   22792  Tuesday/Thursday    11:30AM-12:45PM   SI, CI

CRN   22793  Tuesday/Thursday    1PM-2:15PM             SI, CI

The course examines how the cultural, economic, and political processes of globalization facilitate transnational criminal networks. Students will conduct individual and collaborative research that analyzes and evaluates the past and present transformations of gangs and organized crime groups.  Furthermore, we will investigate the global problems emerging from these networks, such as human trafficking, money laundering, crimes against nature, the drug trade, cybercrimes and public corruption.

 

HON 2000: Detroit as Simulation – Stephanie Bundy and Beth Fowler

CRN   23565  Tuesday/Thursday    10:00AM-11:15AM   SI, CI

What do videogames really teach us about the world? Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message” in reference to the growing use of new media and its impact on society. How has media provided “the message” about Detroit? This seminar investigates the simulated Detroit compared to the realistic version. From there, the students will work together to propose a new narrative on Detroit that is accessible to newer generations. Through primary research, students will sharpen their critical view of media culture and collaborate to eventually build a videogame level designed around Detroit. The course introduces game design, narrative, and marketing and is suitable for all majors. 

 

HON 2000: Detroit as Simulation – Stephanie Bundy

CRN   24649  Tuesday/Thursday    11:30AM-12:45PM   SI, CI

What do videogames really teach us about the world? Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message” in reference to the growing use of new media and its impact on society. How has media provided “the message” about Detroit? This seminar investigates the simulated Detroit compared to the realistic version. From there, the students will work together to propose a new narrative on Detroit that is accessible to newer generations. Through primary research, students will sharpen their critical view of media culture and collaborate to eventually build a videogame level designed around Detroit. The course introduces game design, narrative, and marketing and is suitable for all majors. 

 

HON 2000: Pop Goes the World: Global Freedom Movements and U.S. Popular Culture - Beth Fowler  

CRN   22791  Tuesday/Thursday 11:30AM-12:45PM      SI, CI

CRN   22790  Monday/Wednesday (Online – Synchronous) 10AM-11:15PM      SI, CI

This seminar class will teach students to examine how American popular culture, especially music, was used to challenge political and social systems in the United States, Europe, Central America, Asia, and Africa between the 1940s and 1980s. Topics include popular culture within the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and Third Worldist Decolonization movements. 

 

HON 2000: Detroit Moves: Socio-political leaders, strategies, and movements in Metro Detroit – Nicole Gerring

CRN   25656  Tuesday 5:00PM-7:30PM    SI, CI

Detroit is known globally for producing transformative leaders who have led struggles for social change. In this course, we will learn about social change using individual narratives and study the methods leaders used to advance their causes, including labor and community organizing, social relief, community and solidarity building, business ownership and entrepreneurship, and consciousness raising. We will take a deeper look at historical figures who were introduced during Honors 1000, including Walter Reuther, General Gordon Baker, Jimmy and Grace Lee Boggs, and Ruth Ellis. The class will culminate in students choosing a contemporary local activist and writing a research paper about that activist's work engaging local communities in social or political action. The goal of the course is to begin to understand how these individuals overcame structural injustice and mobilized others to inspire social, political, and economic change.

 

HON 2000: Urban Protest and Revolution in the Middle East – Matt Lacouture

CRN   25636  Monday/Wednesday   10:00AM-11:15AM             SI, CI

CRN   25637  Monday/Wednesday   2:30PM-3:45PM      SI, CI

Over the last century, hundreds of millions of people moved into cities around the world, literally constructing the world as we know it. Cities also produced new grievances (e.g., demands for jobs and housing) as well as new opportunities to channel those grievances by mobilizing mass demonstrations in public spaces to protest or even overthrow political power. In the Middle East and North Africa, over a century of urbanization and protest has unfolded in city streets and squares from Rabat to Tehran, in the shadows of futuristic skyscrapers and megadevelopments in Doha, Beirut, and Cairo, and on the frontlines of global crises such as colonialism, war, climate change, and urban poverty. Through in-class simulations and independent research projects, students will employ tools from across the social sciences and humanities to understand how mass movements have shaped, and been shaped by, urban spaces in the Middle East.

   

HON 2000: Thinking Through Technology - Aaron Martin 

CRN   23564  Tuesday/Thursday    8:30AM-9:45AM                   SI, CI

CRN   25492  Tuesday/Thursday    10:00AM-11:15AM               SI, CI

The text that will guide this course is the best-selling book of its genre, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Much of its success is owed to its style: more a travel memoir than a piece of philosophy, we’ll use it to examine various ways of approaching technology-related issues, including to what extent do new technologies add meaning to our lives as well as for whom technology tends to help and in other ways hurt. Central to this course is better understanding why it’s worth allowing ourselves the time and space to really think through the role certain technologies play in—and over—our lives, particularly as we’re located in the “Motor City”—whatever that means, or will mean, going forward.

 

HON 2000: ‘Over There’ is here – Layla Saatchi

CRN 25638    Tuesday/Thursday    1PM-2:15PM             SI, CI

This course is inspired by an article I read titled “There is no Away” where the author argues that “Everything that you throw out is being put somewhere else instead. It either goes to recycling, landfills, oceans, or streets.” In other words, common to our humanity is this planet that we all share and upon which we live. This shared reality sometimes creates conflict and sometimes creates opportunities for collaboration. Analogous to the term ‘Away’, ‘Over there’ strictly refers to any nation that isn’t the United States and is often used to refer derogatorily to a region that some Americans consider alien or ‘other’. But here’s the thing, due to war, climate change and economic opportunities made possible through globalization, folks from ‘over there’ have been immigrating to the United States for generations. In particular, the Metro Detroit region is home to the largest Arab community and the most ethnically diverse Muslim community in the United States. In this course we’ll examine how this reality creates opportunities and a challenges through the lens of the Palestinian cause and the Uncommitted National Movement that got its start in Dearborn.

 

HON 2000: What Plagues Detroit? - Tim Moran

CRN   22788  Monday/Wednesday 10AM-11:15AM                    SI, CI

CRN   22794  Tuesday/Thursday    11:30AM-12:45PM               SI, CI

A history overview of the city's development with a focus on response to epidemic disease, public services, and public health, this seminar will explore the shaping of the city as a response to biological events, resource constraints, and social and medical advances. We will consider the rise of diseases and the city's cultural and structural responses to traditional infectious disease outbreaks over time, creation of health infrastructure, and social response to disease. We will also examine factors that have affected the city through public health issues such as violence, criminalized activity, access to clean water, adjacency to pollution, and the health impact of the underground economy for things such as street drugs.  

 

HON 2000: Global Youth Cultures – Serena Wilcox

CRN   24612  Tuesday/Thursday    10AM-11:15AM                    SI, CI

CRN   24611  Tuesday/Thursday    11:30AM-12:45PM               SI, CI

CRN   24748  Wednesday                11:30AM-2:00PM                 SI, CI

This course is an introduction to the field of critical youth studies that discusses the social constructions of youth culture and identity across time, space and social historical movements. The course focuses upon key concepts and theories of youth that intersect across social positions (i.e., race, gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity) in the United States and other parts of the world. 

*Eligible to be paired with HON 3000 Field Learning

 

HON 2000: Race, Robocop, and the Ethics of Surveillance – Ashley Woodson

CRN   25653  Tuesday/Thursday 10:00AM-11:15AM                  SI, CI

CRN   25654  Tuesday/Thursday 1:00PM-2:15PM                       SI, CI

In this course, we’ll explore questions from human rights activists about policing, race, and technology. Our search for answers begins with science fiction movies about policing and technology, readings from abolition movements, and independent research. We’ll give special focus to contested definitions of safety and privacy, master narratives about crime, and how surveillance is used and understood in diverse racial communities. Our first goal is to understand the interesting ways that narratives of race and technology intersect. A second goal is to develop the vocabulary to explain how data, technology, and artificial intelligence can perpetuate racial disparities. 

 

PH 2100: Intro to Public Health – James Mallare

CRN   24511  Monday/Wednesday 11:30AM-12:45PM               NSI

These past few years have been extraordinary -- multiple infectious disease outbreaks; powerful movements for racial, social, and economic justice; global warming and climate change; war and interpersonal violence, and more.  This class investigates those significant factors -- called "social determinants" -- that contribute to some people living long healthy lives while others experience more suffering and substantially shorter lives. We will focus on the role of race, place, and social class.  Our whirlwind tour of public health includes mental health, health inequalities, risks for suicide, gun violence, and the different health challenges experienced across the life span.

 

PHI 1110: Ethical Issues in Healthcare – Layla Saatchi

CRN 24752    Tuesday/Thursday    10:00AM-11:15AM               CI, DEI

This course is a must for anyone interested in pursuing an occupation related to the health care profession - broadly construed. Here, you will have an opportunity to engage with controversial topics from choices about bringing human life into this world to choices about ending a human life and many relevant topics in between. You will learn how to take a principled approach to these controversial issues, meaning how to understand and identify the ethical principles that are believed to differentiate what is morally right from morally wrong decisions and policies. Finally, you will learn how to interrogate these principles within the context of Detroit, beginning with understanding that Hippocratic ethics is only one among many ethical approaches to health care decisions. 

 

SOC 2300: Urban explorations: social (in)justice in Detroit —Lauren Duquette-Rury

CRN   22802  Thursday       11:30AM-2:00PM                 SI, DEI                                                                           

Students in this course will explore the theme of social justice and inequality across multiple contexts and with an intersectional lens. We will investigate the historical roots of contemporary social inequalities and examine systems of privilege and oppression that perpetuate unequal access to resources, agenda-setting, and power. We will cover class and gender inequalities, educational and income gaps across social strata, the carceral state, immigration enforcement, reproductive health, and environmental justice, among other topics. The course invites students to consider how the production of inequalities is sustained and reified in different institutions. Students will grapple with course materials through low stakes writing activities, group projects, and creative acts that generate alternative avenues for deliberation, comprehension, and dialogue. The course calls on students to stretch their creative verve to become mediums of explanation and provocation grounded in empirically informed social science scholarship.

 

SW 1010--Introduction to Social Work and Social Welfare-- Shantalea Johns

CRN   22673  Monday 11:30AM-2:00PM              DEI

This course explores issues of fairness and equality in economic, political and social systems, and teaches how to apply social justice principles to major social problems in everyday life.  Students attend out-of-the-classroom events on campus and in the community to learn from social workers and social justice leaders who are engaging in work with vulnerable and at-risk populations in Detroit. 

*Eligible to be paired with HON 3000 Field Learning