Spring 2023 Course Descriptions
HC101H - The Pencil
Professor: Daniel Rosenberg
4.00 credits
CRN 35738: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:20am @ GSH 130
If you pay attention to such things, you’ll have noticed that the pencil has been having a comeback. Read more
HC221H - The Pop Voice
Professor: Drew Nobile
4.00 credits
CRN 32919: Monday & Wednesday, 10:00-11:20am @ CH 103
In pop songs, the sound of the singer’s voice carries at least as much meaning as the words it sings. Read more
HC221H - Popular Music and Representation
Professor: Jesús Ramos-Kittrell
4.00 credits
CRN 32920: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:20pm @ LIB 366
This course focuses on popular music as an arena of socio-cultural and political debate where representation is at stake. Read more
HC221H - Gender and Identity in Comedy
Professor: Corinne Bayerl
4.00 credits
CRN 32921: Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00-1:20pm @ CHA 201
CRN 35740: Tuesday & Thursday, 8:30-9:50am @ CHA 201
In this seminar, we will explore the comic potential of gender, sexuality, and troubled or mistaken identity in theatrical plays and films. Which comical representations of these issues transcend time and space? Which ones differ according to cultural context? Read more
HC221H - Writing the Journey
Professor: Elizabeth Bohls
4.00 credits
CRN 32923: Monday & Wednesday, 12:00-1:20pm @ CHA 201
Travel can be transformative, jolting the traveler out of her comfortable world-view—or it can serve to reaffirm that complacent perspective. It can be difficult and dangerous, true to its roots in the concept of "travail" (labor, toil, hardship, suffering)—or convenient, even luxurious. Read more
HC231H - Climate Landscapes
Professor: Leslie McLees
4.00 credits
CRN 32925: Monday & Wednesday, 10:00-11:20am @ CHA 202
This course will provide a spatial understanding of how climate change occurs both from a scientific perspective and a cultural perspective. Read more
HC231H - Global Wellbeing
Professor: David Meek
4.00 credits
CRN 32926: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:20am @ GER 248
This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to human wellbeing. We will take a thematic approach to analyzing the factors that impact wellbeing, focusing on health, education, and the environment. The course begins with an introduction, during which we will explore basic perspectives on wellbeing and whether or not something called “wellbeing” is a human universal. Read more
HC231H - Food Sovereignty
Professor: David Meek
4.00 credits
CRN 32927: Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00-1:20pm @ VIL 101
Do you produce the food you eat? Probably not, as few in the United States are self-sufficient producers of food today. Until relatively recently, this was not the case. Read more
HC231H - Consumerism and the Environment
Professor: Galen Martin
4.00 credits
CRN 32929: Tuesday & Thursday, 2:00-3:20pm @ CHA 202
This course explores the environmental and social impacts of affluent consumers in the current world economic system. We will attempt to articulate specific relationships, identify areas of environmental and social concern, and explore possible mechanisms for effectively addressing these issues. Read more
HC231H - Civil Rights in Higher Education
Professor: Jessica Price
4.00 credits
CRN 32930: Monday & Wednesday, 4:30-5:50pm @ CHA 202
Through a series of readings, guided discussions, and student-generated analysis of caselaw, this course examines the evolving standards of civil rights in higher education. Students will explore the existence and basis for enforcement of core civil rights that are challenged in lawsuits involving institutions of higher education, such as due process, privacy, discrimination, and free speech. Read more
HC231H - Saints and Society
Professor: Lisa Wolverton
4.00 credits
CRN 32931: Tuesday & Thursday, 8:30-9:50am @ CHA 202
Saints have served the Christian community—as heroes, teachers, role models, conduits for supernatural power, and thus healing, solace, and protection—since ancient times. In this class we concentrate on the first millennium and a half of Christian history, on Mediterranean and western European societies, and most especially on the social processes through which saints were made and imbued with meaning in everyday life. Read more
HC231H - Islam and Muslims in the US
Professor: Yalda Asmatey
4.00 credits
CRN 32928: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:20am @ CON 360
In this course, we will critically study the intersectionality of the production of Muslim otherness and we will find that as a construct, it is not unique once compared to the experiences of other racial, ethnic or religious communities throughout the U.S. and Europe. Read more
HC231H - Religion and US Capitalism
Professor: James Breen
4.00 credits
CRN 36932: Monday & Wednesday, 12:00-1:20pm @ LAWR 230
The long history of religion and capitalism in the United States is more complex than you might believe. While some religious people and institutions have supported the growth of U.S. capitalism in various important ways since the eighteenth century, other Americans have drawn upon religious ideas to critique capitalism and offer radically different ways of living and working. Read more
HC241H - Music to Your Ears: The Science of Song
Professor: Rebecca Altman
4.00 credits
CRN 32932: Monday & Wednesday, 10:00-11:20am @ CHA 301
CRN 32935: Monday & Wednesday, 2:00-3:20pm @ CHA 201
Music is a universal language. Understanding how music exists isn’t necessary to enjoy it; however, such understanding can bring an even deeper appreciation to one of the most ubiquitous aspects of daily human life. Read more
HC241H - AI for Good
Professor: Stephen Fickas
4.00 credits
CRN 32933: Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00-1:20pm @ PSC 042
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been getting bad press, and rightfully so. It’s being used to promote profits over people or to assert power over marginalized groups. Read more
HC241H - Knowing and Saving our Relatives: Primate Ecology and Conservation
Professor: Larry Ulibarri
4.00 credits
CRN 32934: Monday & Wednesday, 12:00-1:20pm @ CHA 202
Primates are our closest relatives, and many are on the edge of extinction. Conserving primates and their habitats requires an understanding of their ecology. Read more
HC241H - Pick Your Poison
Professor: Lindsay Hinkle
4.00 credits
CRN 32938: Tuesday & Thursday, 8:30-9:50am @ CHA 301
When you imagine a person preparing a poison, does an image of the Evil Queen from the film Snow White, disguised as an old witch, dunking an apple in a cauldron filled with green liquid come to mind? Or do you picture a well-meaning pharmacist, wearing a lab coat, adding raspberry flavoring to a medicinal elixir to make it more appetizing to ingest? Read more
HC241H - Unusual Oceanographic Events
Professor: Lisa Munger
4.00 credits
CRN 35741: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:20am @ CHA 301
In order to understand what is unusual, one must first understand what is “usual”. This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of oceanography and data analysis via exploration of online data sets, readings from scientific literature, short programming assignments, and other activities. Read more
HC277H - Thesis Orientation S23 - Shoop
Professor: Casey Shoop
2.00 credits
CRN 32939: Tuesday, 4:00-5:50pm @ CON 201
CRN 32943: Wednesday, 12:00-1:50pm @ GSH 132
Thesis Orientation is two-credit class (graded pass/no pass) that introduces CHC students to the thesis process. The CHC thesis is the culmination of work in a major—a natural outgrowth from and expression of the ideas, problems, and approaches taught in that particular discipline or field of study. Read more
HC277H - Thesis Orientation - Asmatey
Professor: Yalda Asmatey
2.00 credits
CRN 32941: Thursdays, 12:00-1:50pm @ UNIV 102
CRN 32945: Tuesdays, 12:00-1:50pm @ CON 201
Thesis Orientation is two-credit class (graded pass/no pass) that introduces CHC students to the thesis process. The CHC thesis is the culmination of work in a major—a natural outgrowth from and expression of the ideas, problems, and approaches taught in that particular discipline or field of study. Read more
HC301H - Taste of Power: Food and Colonialism
Professor: Hannah Cutting-Jones
4.00 credits
CRN 32946: Monday & Wednesday, 12:00-1:20pm @ LIB 322
In this course students will develop basic research, writing, and presentation skills in the discipline of history. We will spend the first part of class narrowing down individual research topics and discussing recent scholarship that models the various questions historians ask of this topic and the different methods they use to answer them. Read more
HC301H - Backyard Soundscapes
Professor: Lisa Munger
4.00 credits
CRN 32947: Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00-1:20pm @ CHA 202
Sound is an essential component of natural habitats, and it is critical to the survival of many organisms. This course will introduce you to the emerging field of acoustic ecology (“eco-acoustics”). Read more
HC301H - Loot and Forgeries
Professor: Roxann Prazniak
4.00 credits
CRN 32948: Wednesday & Friday, 2:00-3:20 @ LIB 322
Modern museums are keepers of public history and culture. We visit museums from grade school on and as we travel to learn about diverse societies and distant times. Opportunities to view fascinating artifacts and beautiful works of art are invaluable to our education and understanding of our place in the world. Read more
HC301H - Environmental, Climate, and Energy Justice in Latine/x Communities
Professor: Catalina de Onís
4.00 credits
CRN 32949: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:20am @ CHA 202
Our world is profoundly shaped by precarity, intersectional injustices, and policies and practices that threaten life on Earth. With such high stakes for struggling for a more livable, just, and equitable present and future, in Environmental, Climate, and Energy Justice in Latine/x Communities our primary goal is to research and respond to possibilities for co-existences that foreground the experiences of Latine/x/a/o people. Read more
HC301H - "Build My Gallows High": Written and Cinematic Noir
Professor: Ulrick Casimir
4.00 credits
CRN 32950: Tuesday & Thursday, 2:00-3:20pm @ CHA 201
Mystery editor Otto Penzler once described noir as something that is “virtually impossible to define, but everyone thinks they know it when they see it.” Situated at a crossroads of visual and print media—sped along by the consequences of one war, and solidified by observations made as another war ended—noir is a signifier that seems meant to avoid being pinned down. We do know that noir is generally grounded in big themes: class, gender, race, corruption, alienation, subjectivity, and free will, to name a few. Read more
HC421H - Medical Humanities
Professor: Katy Brundan
4.00 credits
CRN 32958: Tuesday & Thursday, 2:00-3:50pm @ CHA 301
In this course, students study the techniques of narrative medicine in order to gain a broader approach to thinking critically about medical access and the concepts of health and illness. Narrative medicine was initially designed to aid healthcare workers in their job, to be mindful of patients as social, emotional beings, and to relieve stress. Read more
HC421H - Louis Armstrong: The Sound of A Century
Professor: Brian McWhorter
4.00 credits
CRN 32959: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:50am @ CHA 201
Louis Armstrong is one of the most beloved musicians of all time. Beyond the gravel in his voice, the swing of his trumpet playing, the sales of his records, the adoration of his fans, and the humor in his writings, exists an artist that was arguably known more for one quality that he seemed to embody better than anybody else – joy. Read more
HC421H - Inside-Out Prison Exchange: Ethics and Literature
Professor: Steven Shankman
4.00 credits
CRN 35745: Tuesdays, 4:00-10:00pm @ CHA 101/OSP
We will read Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad, the recently (2019) translated “prequel” to Life and Fate, and Is it Righteous to Be?, a series of interviews with the 20th-century’s greatest philosopher of ethics, Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995). Read more
HC444H/431H - Inside-Out Prison Exchange: Autobiography as Political Agency
Professor: Anita Chari
4.00 credits
CRN 35749: Thursday, 4:00-10:00pm @ CHA 101/OSCI
This class explores the autobiography as a form of both personal and political expression. We begin by complicating, questioning and demystifying the divide between the personal and political by linking personal stories and histories with narratives of broader social structures, such as capitalism, patriarchy, slavery, and colonialism. Read more
HC431H - Reality Television
Professor: Bish Sen
4.00 credits
CRN 35746: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:50am @ GSH 131
This course will look at reality television in order to examine the critical role it plays in contemporary culture. In the first section of the course we will begin with an overview of the history of reality television and look at some classic shows that preceded and anticipated reality television. Read more
HC431H - Labor Radicalism in the Pacific Northwest
Professor: James Breen
4.00 credits
CRN 35747: Monday & Wednesday, 2:00-3:50pm @ GSH 132
According to The American Prospect, the United States experienced just seven major strikes in the private sector in 2017—a far cry from the almost three hundred major strikes per year throughout the 1970s. But American labor militancy has since exploded in both the private and public sectors. Read more
HC434H/HC431H - Modern China and the Art of Hung Liu (1948-2021)
Professor: Roxann Prazniak
4.00 credits
CRN 32961: Wednesday & Friday, 12:00-1:20pm @ LIB 101
The People’s Republic of China looms large in our geopolitical awareness, yet modern China’s history remains largely unknown to many. I am writing this course description in November 2022 and by the start of class in April 2023 the world will have changed several times around at multiple levels. Read more
HC434H/431H - Race and Biotechnology
Professor: Arafaat Valiani
4.00 credits
CRN 35748: Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:20am @ COL 45
Aside from the role of a flawed scientific team, bioscience is unbiased and based on truth, right? If that is true, would you agree that biotechnology should be equal in the way people produce and access medical knowledge, treatment and technology? Read more
HC441H - Bread 101
Professor: Karen Guillemin & Judith Eisen
4.00 credits
CRN 32963: Monday & Wednesday, 12:00-1:20pm @ GER 246
Bread is a complex product that looks nothing like the original seed of grain from which it originates. Through a myriad of physical, chemical, and biological processes, a mixture of a few simple ingredients is transformed into edible, highly nourishing, staple food that is crucial for sustenance in many cultures. Read more
HC441H - The Mystique of Marine Mammals in History, Science and Culture
Professor: Lisa Munger
4.00 credits
CRN 32964: Monday & Wednesday, 12:00-1:50pm @ CHA 301
Marine mammals (whales, dolphins, seals, and others) occupy a special place in the human psyche. Throughout history, we have hunted, feared, and revered our sea-dwelling mammalian relatives. Read more
HC441H - Water: A Deep Dive
Professor: Lindsay Hinkle
4.00 credits
CRN 32965: Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00-1:50pm @ CHA 301
In this course, we will take an in-depth look at the Flint Water Crisis by exploring the chemistry and decisions that ultimately led to this tragedy. Read more
HC441H - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Chasing Planets
Professor: Carol Paty
4.00 credits
CRN 35781: Fridays, 9:00-11:50am @ CHA 101
For centuries humans have looked to the stars. Some were searching for patterns, some for meaning, and others for direction both literally and figuratively. With the advent of modern observing technology and advances in our understanding of the physics driving the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars, and planets, the questions motivating us to look to the heavens have undergone a transformation. Read more
HC441H - Neuroethics
Professor: Nicole Dudukovic
4.00 credits
CRN 32967: Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00-1:20pm @ ANS 192
Over the past few decades, technological advances in human neuroscience research have progressed our understanding of the human brain. At the same time, these advances have highlighted the potential implications and applications of neuroscience research for society and have raised many ethical questions. Read more
HC444H/421H - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Translating Environmental Justice
Professor: Catalina de Onís
4.00 credits
CRN 35750: Fridays, 9:00am-11:50am @ CHA 102
The Translating Environmental Justice seminar centers this social movement and the discourses and stories that shape this crucial struggle for more livable, just relationships on our shared planet. Drawing on their interests in relation to this topic, class members will work individually and collaboratively as translators to make their arguments, reflections, and stories accessible for audiences beyond the university. Read more
HC444H/421H - Black Literature, Science, and Reproductive Justice
Professor: Angela Rovak
4.00 credits
CRN 35753: Monday & Wednesday, 2:00-3:50pm @ CHA 301
Science and literature often seem at odds, one operating objectively while the other subjectively. Together we will push back on this assumption and see how Black authors respond to and create scientific theory steeped in Black history, culture, and experience. With a focus on reproductive science and medicine, we will consider how literature participates in and creates scientific discourse in different texts and genres, from poetry, novels, short stories, drama, and film. Read more
HC444H/421H - How the West Was Spun: Myth and History in the American West
Professor: Casey Shoop
4.00 credits
CRN 36987: Tuesday & Thursday, 7:00-8:20pm @ LIB 322
The mythic representation of the American West occupies an enduring place in American popular culture. For all its apparent familiarity, however, “the Western” remains an incredibly complex form that contains powerful and deep-seated assumptions about American national character and history, masculinity, race, class and gender. Read more
HC444H/421H - Black American TV
Professor: Dayna Chatman
4.00 credits
CRN 36975: Tuesday & Thursday, 2:00-3:50pm @ GSH 132
This seminar course interrogates the social, cultural, political, and industry conditions that contextualize Black Americans’ presence in U.S. television both on-screen and behind the scenes from the 1950s to the present. Read more
HC444H/431H - (Ir)Relevance of Law
Professor: Alison Gash
4.00 credits
CRN 35752: Tuesday & Thursday, 4:00-5:50pm @ CHA 201
What is the “rule of law?” What is the purpose of law? Who benefits from law? Struggles over legal rights—what they are, who gets them, what purpose they serve—are a defining feature of American political conflict. Legal claims catalyze movements, prompt legislative change and are rooted in constitutional protections. Read more
HC444H/431H - Queer and Transgender Media Studies
Professor: Beck Banks
4.00 credits
CRN 35751: Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00-1:50pm @ LIB 322
This course uses a historical and socio-cultural lens to analyze queer and transgender representation in film, television, and the news. Students will learn about transgender and queer audience studies, labor studies, and representation. By the course’s end, students will have a firm understanding of the shifting landscapes of queer and transgender media and the politics and activism surrounding them. Read more
HC477H - Thesis Prospectus S23 - Gash
Professor: Alison Gash
2.00 credits
CRN 32975: Thursdays, 10:00-11:50am @ FEN 117
CRN 32978: Tuesdays, 10:00-11:50am @ MCK 347
HC 477H Thesis Prospectus requires preauthorization before each term. To obtain preauthorization, you must complete an online Thesis Prospectus Application Form, which will route to your Primary Thesis Advisor for signature. You have the best chance of getting your first choice of H477H section if you submit this information by Friday of Week 6 of the term before you plan to take the course. You may submit the form and be preauthorized to register for HC 477H until the first week of the term in which you are taking 477 as long as there are seats available. More information on registering for HC 477H can be found on Canvas. Please contact Academic Thesis and Programs Manager Miriam Jordan (mjordan@uoregon.edu) with questions about registering for Thesis Prospectus. Read more
HC477H - Thesis Prospectus S23 - McWhorter
Professor: Brian McWhorter
2.00 credits
CRN 32976: Wednesdays, 10:00-11:50am @ HED 146
CRN 32977: Fridays, 10:00-11:50am @ CHA 201
HC 477H Thesis Prospectus requires preauthorization before each term. To obtain preauthorization, you must complete an online Thesis Prospectus Application Form, which will route to your Primary Thesis Advisor for signature. You have the best chance of getting your first choice of H477H section if you submit this information by Friday of Week 6 of the term before you plan to take the course. You may submit the form and be preauthorized to register for HC 477H until the first week of the term in which you are taking 477 as long as there are seats available. More information on registering for HC 477H can be found on Canvas. Please contact Academic Thesis and Programs Manager Miriam Jordan (mjordan@uoregon.edu) with questions about registering for Thesis Prospectus. Read more
HC477H - Thesis Prospectus S23 - Chari
Professor: Anita Chari
2.00 credits
CRN 32979: Tuesdays, 2:00-3:50pm @ CON 106
CRN 32982 Thursdays, 12:00-1:50pm @ GSH 132
HC 477H Thesis Prospectus requires preauthorization before each term. To obtain preauthorization, you must complete an online Thesis Prospectus Application Form, which will route to your Primary Thesis Advisor for signature. You have the best chance of getting your first choice of H477H section if you submit this information by Friday of Week 6 of the term before you plan to take the course. You may submit the form and be preauthorized to register for HC 477H until the first week of the term in which you are taking 477 as long as there are seats available. More information on registering for HC 477H can be found on Canvas. Please contact Academic Thesis and Programs Manager Miriam Jordan (mjordan@uoregon.edu) with questions about registering for Thesis Prospectus. Read more
HC477H - Thesis Prospectus S23 - Raisanen
Professor: Elizabeth Raisanen
2.00 credits
CRN 32981: Wednesday, 12:00-1:50pm @ MCK 123
CRN32984: Wednesday, 2:00-3:50pm @ MCK 122
HC 477H Thesis Prospectus requires preauthorization before each term. To obtain preauthorization, you must complete an online Thesis Prospectus Application Form, which will route to your Primary Thesis Advisor for signature. You have the best chance of getting your first choice of H477H section if you submit this information by Friday of Week 6 of the term before you plan to take the course. You may submit the form and be preauthorized to register for HC 477H until the first week of the term in which you are taking 477 as long as there are seats available. More information on registering for HC 477H can be found on Canvas. Please contact Academic Thesis and Programs Manager Miriam Jordan (mjordan@uoregon.edu) with questions about registering for Thesis Prospectus. Read more