UCOR Section Descriptions

Course Description

This course will be an intellectual history of the two movements that stand as the foundation of modern Western thought and culture: the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The goal will be to come to an understanding of the manner in which these two movements articulated competing and alternative visions as to the nature of individual and collective life. In this manner, we should come to better grasp the assumptions and presuppositions that still underpin contemporary thinking about political, social, cultural, ethical, and spiritual matters.

Course Description

Stories are the vocabulary necessary to "cultural literacy." We need stories to read with. Without stories, the world is uninterpretable. In this course, students will explore a story archetype that they will quickly recognize in their own lives. It is the lived story, provocatively told in great films and literature, of our approaching, pushing, and transgressing boundaries.

Course Description

This course will be an intellectual history of the two movements that stand as the foundation of modern Western thought and culture: the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The goal will be to come to an understanding of the manner in which these two movements articulated competing and alternative visions as to the nature of individual and collective life. In this manner, we should come to better grasp the assumptions and presuppositions that still underpin contemporary thinking about political, social, cultural, ethical, and spiritual matters.

Course Description

This course analyzes modern understandings of human rights in light of Global African Studies intellectual traditions and Jesuit/Catholic intellectual traditions. Introduces students to theories of social movements, African Diaspora history, and historical methodology. We chart the history of social movements before and since the Haitian Revolution, the Pan-African Congress, and the modern civil rights movement. We will analyze and critique the legacies of various methodologies and social and political theories for modern day social movements.

Course Description

What is the aftermath of empire and imperialism? Beyond describing empires as good or bad, students taking this course will learn about the aftermath of colonialism and expansion as viewed in the increasingly despotic actions of the Athenian Empire, the naked expansion of the Roman world and the increasing Romanization of willing and unwilling subjects/allies, and the aftermath of the end of the British Empire. This course asks: What are consequences of empire?

Course Description

What is the aftermath of empire and imperialism? Beyond describing empires as good or bad, students taking this course will learn about the aftermath of colonialism and expansion as viewed in the increasingly despotic actions of the Athenian Empire, the naked expansion of the Roman world and the increasing Romanization of willing and unwilling subjects/allies, and the aftermath of the end of the British Empire. This course asks: What are consequences of empire?

Course Description

Drawing on the work of U.S. writers, this course engages a range of historically divisive questions: what, for example, makes the U.S. unique and what--if anything--makes it great? Such questions animate a long history of American politics, but this course will explore the ways in which U.S. literature offers more nuanced lines of inquiry, interrogating definitions of and assumptions about national identity.

Course Description

The course studies myths and art of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman Cultures from a historical perspective. Students in this course learn about concepts and aspects of myths and their depictions in art. The course involves studying mythical topics and includes a comparison between ancient Egyptian and Graeco-roman cultures. It teaches students how to assess similarities and differences between ancient cultures and evaluate inherited legacies that have affected modern cultures and societies.

Course Description

What is the aftermath of empire and imperialism? Beyond describing empires as good or bad, students taking this course will learn about the aftermath of colonialism and expansion as viewed in the increasingly despotic actions of the Athenian Empire, the naked expansion of the Roman world and the increasing Romanization of willing and unwilling subjects/allies, and the aftermath of the end of the British Empire. This course asks: What are consequences of empire?

Course Description

This course is about the historical role of the artist in society. We look at two moments in history when the identity of artists changed to learn how historical context helps us understand works of art. We ask why Renaissance artists argued that they were intellectuals rather than artisans and why Modem artists attacked the intellectual traditions of art to demand social change and radically question the purpose of visual art. To address these issues we explore themes such as Renaissance self-portraiture, 19th century paintings of labor, symbols of the liberal arts in the Renaissance, and German Dada artists' responses to the trauma of the First World War.