Professor: Barbara Mossberg
4 credits
The theory is that everything we see has a story. And a back story. Or two.
This is a course of scholarly sleuthing, feats and feasts of surprise and discovery of our best and least known and most beloved stories that inform our lives. We will see ancient themes and the impact of popular culture in stories across media in formats of literature, speeches, films, plays and musicals, art, music, video games, board games, jokes, sayings, toys, holidays, recipes, streets, parks, even amusement park rides. Stories across disciplines, informing laws, theories, equations, political movements, inventions. What do these stories mean, and where do they come from? We will be detectives on cold and hot trails tracing a story through history, biographies, journalism, archives of journals and letters, and other sources. How did the story (finally) get to us?
Often the story behind the story is as interesting or even more so, as we find out the history that led to the creations defining our world—theory, theorem, law, music, literature, game, toy, park, language, custom, fashion, food, movement, policy—or the natural world! Whether you are interested in geology, architecture, film, creative writing, memoir, law, custom, folklore, music, instruments, design, musicals, you will have the opportunity to pursue their origins.
We begin fanning out in teams to research representative backstories, choosing among iconic and improbable laws, theorems, bestsellers, movements, inventions, and texts. Knowing what was behind artistic, political, or scientific developments can deepen our understanding of movements and creativity itself, education, global politics, laws, and news, in what, why, and how something is created that is meaningful to us. Examples you could investigate: E=mc2, Peter Rabbit, Walden, Wuthering Heights, Les Misérables, Evita, Figuring Out, Wicked, Call Her Daddy, Minecraft, The Sims 4, Seven, The Color Purple, The House on Mango Street, Little House on the Prairie, Beauty and the Beast, The Seen and the Unseen, The Divine Comedy, Barbie, Star Wars, Crème Brulee, The Constitution, The Museum of Poverty, Blade Runner(s), Winnie the Pooh, The Great Gatsby, The Little Prince, Moby Dick, Nolan’s Odyssey, Super Mario Odyssey, Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” James Joyce’s Ulysses, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Everett’s James, & Juliet, The C&O Canal, Yosemite National Park, The Underground Railroad, MLK Blvd., The Voyage of the Beagle, Jersey #8, Log of the Sea of Cortez, Stuff you missed in history class Q, the golden album sent to the stars—and your own story!
With new investigative skills, you will research a story and present to our class “the story of a story” Research a movement, invention, conception, artistic achievement, speech, scientific discovery, etc., important to your major or field, as a “story” with a backstory. Join a focused research forensics team that results in an annotated bibliography and smoking research paper—maybe thesis—and/or screenplay! Interview people you already “know” and learn their story for the first time. Interview or investigate objects and characters that captivate you in the news across fields, disciplines, realms, history. Write your own backstory to your story.
This course gives you practical research experience, feeding the curiosity that animates human intelligence. It will call upon your inner sleuth. You will learn how to “read” anything you see that you engage as a “text” and its “story”—the meaning beyond its surface appearance. We will take examples from our natural and built worlds and wonder where these came from, how they came to be. Our world will open up to mystery and wonder!
We will be a storied class!