Honors Courses of the Day (x3!)
PROTEST MUSIC, HISPANIC LITERATURE & VIDEO GAMES
POLITICS AND PANPIPES: LATIN AMERICAN PROTEST MUSIC (MSP 2900.01, CRN: 27717)
Professor: Nancy Morris
About: : Explore Latin American culture and history through protest music. From folk to hip-hop to rock, this form touches on a wide range of topics, from denouncing social hierarchies to protesting US intrusion in politics to environmental issues. Page22 Protest music has served as an expression of changing conditions throughout the continent, and it has had an impact beyond the musical realm. We will examine the ways protest music is woven into the tapestry of history, politics, society, and culture of the past half-century in places like Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, and Chile. In the process, we will listen to a lot of music
About the Professor: I am a Professor in Temple’s Department of Media Studies and Production. I taught at the University of Stirling, Scotland for five years, and have spent semesters teaching in Spain and in Chile during my 15 years at Temple. My research centers on collective identity and international communication, with a focus on Latin America. I have a large music collection, which I enjoy sharing.
UNVEILINGS: HISPANIC LITERATURE AT THE CROSSROADS OF GENDER & SEXUALITY (Spanish 3960.01, CRN: 26278)
Days/Times: Monday, Wednesday & Friday, 11 to 11:50 AM
Professor: Montserrat Piera
About: Do the names Florinda, la Malinche, Camila O’Gorman, Frida Kahlo, Colometa, the Mirabal sisters, Teresa de Cartagena, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Micaela Villegas (the Perricholi), Rigoberta Menchú, mean anything to you? Although these women from various Hispanic countries were highly influential in the development of Hispanic history and culture through the ages their stories and experiences are generally unknown. This course will be devoted to unveiling their stories and analyzing the reasons why they have been neglected or misconstrued. Through the prism of gender we will analyze the work of women both as authors and as subjects in the historical, literary and artistic output of Spain and Latinoamerica from the early modern period to the 20th century and we will explore the construction of gender and sexuality in the culture which supposedly invented machismo. We will discuss several films such as Camila, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Frida, Land and Liberty, Milicianas, Calle Mayor and read selections in English translations from the works of emblematic Hispanic male and female authors such as María de Zayas’ The Disenchantments of Love, Catalina de Erauso’s La monja alférez/ The Liutenant Nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Nelly Campobello, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab, Alfosina Storni, Leopoldo Alas “Clarín” The Regent’s Wife, Fernando de Rojas’ La Celestina, Emilia Pardo Bazán Thorn Lace and other stories, Federico García Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Rosario Castellanos, Merçe Rodoreda The Time of the Doves and Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies.
VIDEO GAMES, MYTHOLOGY & SOCIAL MEDIA MEMES (English 2900.01, CRN: 27730)
Days/Times: Monday, Wednesday, Friday; Noon to 12:50 PM
Professor: Jordan Shapiro
About: How have digital technologies changed the way we tell stories? The structures have changed, but many of the tropes remain the same. Today, information is no longer bound by the narrative arc that Aristotle laid out 2300 years ago in Rhetoric and Poetics. Instead, things are increasingly non-linear. Queries open, they hyperlink endlessly around a web, and then they hover permanently in the realm of networked possibilities. Still, certain themes remain constant. This course will look at the relationship between ancient and modern. We will consider the ways in which archetypal characters and patterns have historically manifest in myth, fairy tales, and art. And we will compare them to the ways that they currently manifest through social media memes, viral YouTube videos, and popular video games. We will explore the psychological and political ramifications of these recurring themes, asking questions about culture, society, and the way we define ourselves. Characters like the warrior, the hero, the entrepreneur, the trickster, and the wise sage have always resonated. But we have traditionally understood them within a linear narrative framework. This course will focus on the new ways that old stories continue to be told.
About the Professor: Jordan Shapiro is a Mosaic instructor and a Digital Learning Coordinator for the Intellectual Heritage Department. His academic background is in Jungian Archetypal Psychology and Heideggerian Phenomenology. He writes and speaks extensively about video games, education technology, pop culture, and education.