UCOR Section Descriptions

UCOR 3400-01 The Savage Wars of Peace

Course Type:

UCOR 3400 Humanities and Global Challenges

Faculty:

McGaha, Richard

Term:

Summer

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

This course will examine U.S. military intervention in the world from 1898 to the present.

UCOR 3400-02 Memory and Violence

Course Type:

UCOR 3400 Humanities and Global Challenges

Faculty:

Veith, Jerome

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

This course explores the nature of contemporary global violence through a philosophical lens. It mobilizes the concept of historical effect, developed by the German thinker Hans-Georg Gadamer, to assess our present-day situatedness within an ongoing era of conflict, suffering, and trauma. In taking account of our historical inheritance of conflict, this assessment will involve analyzing both the overt narratives and tacit assumptions that frame our conception of violence.

UCOR 3400-03 Dystopian Literature

Course Type:

UCOR 3400 Humanities and Global Challenges

Faculty:

Aguirre, Robert

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

The global challenge this course explores, through dystopian literature, is how desires for social order, and the globalizing philosophies underlying those desires, result in hegemonic forms of social control achievable only through the imposition of ideologies of perfection. Dystopian literature imagines grim worlds where plurality and co-existence are sacrificed for the hegemonic establishment of social harmony. Students will engage and critique these literary landscapes to analyze and assess how global dreams can become global nightmares.

UCOR 3400-03 Global Contact and City Streets

Course Type:

UCOR 3400 Humanities and Global Challenges

Faculty:

Smith, Alexandra

Term:

Summer

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

This course asks students to consider the ways in which, according to Marshall Berman, the city street operates as “the primary symbol of modern life” Students will explore how various texts 1) celebrate the richness of the city street as a space of global contact and 2) use the literary street to push back against attempts to limit access to this potential.

UCOR 3400-04 Contemporary South Asia

Course Type:

UCOR 3400 Humanities and Global Challenges

Faculty:

Iyer, Nalini

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

Through a study of literary texts, this course will explore nationalism, citizenship, and belonging in South Asia post 1945. The course will focus primarily on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lankan writers.

UCOR 3400-05 Empires and Afro-Utopia

Course Type:

UCOR 3400 Humanities and Global Challenges

Faculty:

Adejumobi, Saheed

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

Empires are often associated with power, and utopia with impossible visions. What are the global challenges created by legacies of modern imperialism? How are these reflected in unequal contemporary political and economic relations? We will explore how African Diaspora intellectual history has engaged with inequality in the discourse of justice. Under the rubric of empire and utopia, we will explore how freedom and justice, and philosophical and material progress are encoded in African Diaspora narratives.

UCOR 3400-06 Well-Being and Catastrophe

Course Type:

UCOR 3400 Humanities and Global Challenges

Faculty:

Schulz, Jennifer

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

How has well-being been represented (in popular and academic discourses) as a thing to be attained in the 21st century? This course will offer a more complex perspective on the lived experience of well-being particularly in an era in which humans face potential catastrophe from myriad sources: environmental, political, social, economic, etc. We will read literary narratives of homelessness (exile, dislocation, refugee-ism, a sense of being estranged or a stranger, etc.) that, simultaneously, locate a sense of connectedness, community, and hope in the midst of such upheaval.

UCOR 3400-07 Well-Being and Catastrophe

Course Type:

UCOR 3400 Humanities and Global Challenges

Faculty:

Schulz, Jennifer

Term:

Fall

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

How has well-being been represented (in popular and academic discourses) as a thing to be attained in the 21st century? This course will offer a more complex perspective on the lived experience of well-being particularly in an era in which humans face potential catastrophe from myriad sources: environmental, political, social, economic, etc. We will read literary narratives of homelessness (exile, dislocation, refugee-ism, a sense of being estranged or a stranger, etc.) that, simultaneously, locate a sense of connectedness, community, and hope in the midst of such upheaval.

UCOR 3600-01 Sustainability and Culture

Course Type:

UCOR 3600 Social Sciences and Global Challenges

Faculty:

Efird, Robert

Term:

Summer

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

This course introduces students to the widespread challenge of achieving both environmental sustainability and social equity. We consider this challenge from a cross-cultural perspective by reading, discussing and assessing a wide variety of both international and local case studies drawn from history and the present day. In addition to reading and viewing case studies, students also engage in hands-on learning in the local community in order to better assess and address local sustainability issues.

UCOR 3600-02 Global Migration and Human Dignity

Course Type:

UCOR 3600 Social Sciences and Global Challenges

Faculty:

Spencer, Heath

Term:

Summer

Year:

2024

Module:

Module III

Course Description

This course examines migration and migration policies through the lenses of social science research and Catholic social teaching. In the present moment, many countries have adopted migration policies that are out of step with the realities of migration and the dignity of the human person. As you study these tensions and contradictions, you will devise research-based policy proposals and explore opportunities for meaningful action in both personal and political contexts.