Engaged Scholarship Expos Courses, New in Fall 2019
Engaged Scholarship Expos courses give first-year students an exciting chance to connect the “theory and practice” of academic research and writing. Supported by Harvard's Mindich Program in Engaged Scholarship (MPES), these courses "challenge students and faculty to integrate scholarship with community perspectives, knowledge, and expertise to have impact within and beyond the academy" (MPES). In Engaged Scholarship Expos courses, students go outside the classroom into neighborhoods and organizations to see real-world issues up close. By the end of the semester, students will have used writing and speaking as crucial tools for developing evidence-based arguments about those issues--and for communicating their thinking with audiences well beyond the classroom.
Engaged Scholarship Expos courses welcome students who are passionate and intellectually curious about the course topics, willing to interrogate their assumptions continually throughout the semester, and committed to rewarding work outside of class.
NARRATING IMMIGRATION
(Engaged Scholarship Course)
(New course in Fall 2019)
Expos 231, 232
Margaret Rennix
MW 10:30, MW 12
Note: This Expos course requires participation in some activities outside of normal class hours.
Immigration has become a divisive topic in the U.S., as thousands of people fleeing violence and poverty in Central America arrive at the southern border each year. While conversations about immigration tend to focus on its economic, cultural, and political implications, the lived experiences of immigrants can get lost in the shuffle. Who are the people coming to the U.S. border? What has motivated their journeys? Once they arrive, what happens to them? Which of their experiences make it into the national conversation around immigration, and which are ignored? In this course, students will try to answer these questions, combining both standard academic inquiry with exploratory community engagement. Course participants will have the opportunity to meet with and pose questions to lawyers from the Harvard Law School Immigration Clinic, as well as representatives from the Dilley Pro Bono Project, who provide legal services to asylum seekers at the U.S. family detention center in Dilley, Texas. They will also exit the gates of Harvard to attend immigration court proceedings, visit local immigrant neighborhoods, and talk with activists about their hopes and frustrations regarding immigration reform. These experiences will then inform students’ academic writing, which will culminate in a research paper that seeks to bring national attention to some of the overlooked realities of the immigration system course participants have encountered.
In Unit 1, we will start by looking at concepts of nationhood and community, asking students to critique arguments for and against open borders, focusing on the libertarian, utilitarian argument made in favor of them by economist Bryan Caplan. In Unit 2, we will turn to the self-articulated experiences of immigrants to the United States, putting narratives of asylum seekers in conversation with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s definition of persecution in The Matter of A-B-. Finally, in Unit 3 students will write a research paper in which they synthesize their learning throughout the semester, contributing directly to the national conversation surrounding immigration, with the goal of submitting their work for potential publication. They will write this paper in conjunction with creating a capstone project: a two-minute, self-reflective video produced for the class’s community partners.
DEMOCRACY IN ACTION
(Engaged Scholarship Course)
(New course in Fall 2019)
Expos 209, 210
Matthew Cole
TTh 12, TTh 1:30
Fall 2019 Syllabus: Democracy in Action
Note: This Expos course requires participation in some activities outside of normal class hours.
Winston Churchill famously quipped that “democracy is the worst form of government except for all of those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” These days, it sometimes seems like democracy is just the worst. This year, Pew Research Center reported that 58% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way their democracy is working, and that around the world more citizens are dissatisfied with their democracies than are satisfied. The complaints tend to be the same: politicians are corrupt and out of touch, government is unresponsive, and elections fail to offer meaningful choices. Amidst a climate of cynicism and disillusionment, this course invites students to consider the proposal that the cure for what ails democracy is more democracy: a stronger, deeper form of democracy that gives the word’s original meaning – rule by the people – a new lease on life. Throughout the semester, we will explore the theory and practice of “participatory democracy,” a vision of political life that emphasizes active citizenship, public deliberation, and direct self-government. Advocates of participatory democracy insist that we can save our democracies, but that in order to do so we’ll have to reinvent them by finding new ways to engage and empower citizens.
In our first unit, we will examine participatory democracy as an ideal. Our sources will include John Dewey, the great American philosopher of democracy, as well as some of the idea’s most influential contemporary proponents (one of whom will be joining us in the classroom for a special session). In our second unit, we will consider how this ideal can be brought to life through innovative forms of governance that delegate power to the people. The City of Cambridge’s sixth annual Participatory Budgeting (PB) process will provide students with an opportunity to observe and, yes, participate in a real-world case study, and even to provide feedback on the process to the city. In our third unit, students will look to the future of participatory democracy by conducting independent research into challenges, best practices, and further innovations – and they’ll have the opportunity to present their findings at our culminating democracy forum.
The Engaged Scholarship components of the course include two in-class sessions (September 17th, October 3rd) as well as the following out-of-class components:
· In October, students will coordinate with each other to observe aspects of the PB Process in pairs or small groups. Options for observation will be provided at the beginning of Unit 2.
· In late November or early December, students will be required to volunteer one time to assist Cambridge PB with Get out the Vote (GOTV).
· Students will be expected to contribute to planning, publicizing, and of course, presenting at our capstone event (date and time to be decided democratically).
For more information about Cambridge PB, visit: https://pb.cambridgema.gov/
Additional New Courses in Fall 2019
CULTURE IN PLAY
(New course in Fall 2019)
Expos 222
Richard Martin
MW 12
Fall 2019 Syllabus: Culture in Play
Common phrases such as “I was just playing” or “it’s only a game” suggest that play is less than serious. Play is often associated with childhood and distinct from the productivity of work. Yet, even for adults, such activities often entail considerable commitments, including substantial expenditures of time and money: the average gamer spends over seven hours a week on video games; baseball player Mike Trout recently signed a $430 million contract. Likewise, play has been shown to have real-world effects: studies have suggested Barbie dolls affect body image, and that the television show Sesame Street impacts educational achievement. Thus, despite common assumptions about its frivolity, play is of social, economic, political, and symbolic import. In this course, we explore what forms of play reveal about the cultures and peoples who take part in them, analyzing how everyday practices involving toys, games, and sports might illuminate broader social phenomena. First, we take inspiration from Roland Barthes’s insight that toys are “meant to create users, not creators.” We infer the cultural significance of objects from our own childhoods using anthropological methods of “thick description,” a form of interpretation attentive to context and meaning. Next, we turn to play on Harvard’s campus. Students choose an extracurricular activity and examine it using social scientific techniques; drawing on this data, they advance arguments that apply or test theories advanced by influential scholars, such as Theodor Adorno and D.W. Winnicott. Finally, students turn to independently chosen topics, selecting issues of national significance and conducting research in order to make original contributions to scholarship. Sample topics might include gender and sports, the politics of video games, the marketing of toys, recess in schools, fandom, virtual realities, and live action role play.
GENETICS AND BIOETHICS
(New course in Fall 2019)
Expos 229, 230
Emilie Raymer
TTh 1:30, TTh 3
Fall 2019 Syllabus: Genetics and Bioethics
When researchers at the National Institutes of Health announced in June 2000 that they had successfully sequenced the human genome, President Bill Clinton asserted that “with this profound new knowledge, mankind is on the verge of gaining immense, new power to heal.” Since 2000, scientists have developed DNA-risk tests, stem-cell therapies, and precise gene-editing techniques. Yet, despite the potential benefits of these breakthroughs, some have expressed concerns about the bioethical consequences of these new technologies. Critics have voiced fears that scientists are “playing God” and have expressed apprehensions that those who can afford new gene-editing technologies may produce “designer babies” while those who cannot will continue to suffer from heritable diseases. In this course, we will explore how to balance the medical advantages of genetic technologies with their potential disadvantages. For the first essay, we will analyze “The Case Against Perfection” by Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel, who emphasizes the dangers of genetic enhancements. For the second essay, we will explore claims that new genetic techniques could create a contemporary eugenics movement. For the third and final essay, students will examine both the positive and negative consequences of a genetic technology of their choice and decide how to establish bioethical guidelines to direct its use. Possible topics could include human germline editing, pharmacogenomics, stem-cell therapy, cosmetic enhancements, cloning, or CRISPR-CaS, a new gene-editing technique. The course will culminate with a capstone project, and students will prepare a short talk about the social and biomedical ramifications of a selected genetic technology.
PHILOSOPHICAL FILMS
(New course in Fall 2019)
Expos 235
Ben Roth
TTh 3
How should society be organized? What should individuals do when they disagree with the reigning order? Protest? Revolt? Withdraw? Our class will approach these perennial philosophical questions though a number of recent films. At the beginning of the semester, we will watch Sophie Barthes's Cold Souls, Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You, and Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, which in very different settings—affluent New York City, the gentrifying Bay area, and a frozen post-apocalyptic world—offer critiques of the stratification of wealth and opportunity between haves and have-nots. As students develop their interpretations of one of these films in their first paper, we will also learn the basic vocabulary of cinematography and editing. Then, in the middle of the semester, we will consider the stories of two individuals who, alienated from society, decide to recede from it, examining their own lives in minute detail instead. In Tom McCarthy's cult-classic novel Remainder and video artist Omer Fast's adaptation of it, a man is pathologically compelled to reenact a (possibly false) memory of a time when he felt authentic; he then begins, very strangely, to reenact moments from other people’s lives. In Charlie Kaufman's film Synecdoche, New York, a playwright self-consciously recreates his life on stage, eventually employing hundreds of actors and filling multiple impossibly large warehouses. In order to think about the nature of adaptation—from text to screen, from life to art—students will compare two of these works, with attention to the differences between them facilitating more nuanced arguments about memory, authenticity, and how we should live. Finally, at the end of the semester, we will read some short theoretical selections about the relationship between philosophy and film, attuning students to larger issues as they write a research paper about a philosophical film or filmmaker of their choice, such as Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Stalker, Claire Denis, Spike Lee, Akira Kurosawa, David Lynch, or Terrence Malick, among many other possibilities.
TRUTH CLAIMS IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD
(New course in Fall 2019)
Expos 241, 242
Julia Tejblum
TTh 12, TTh 1:30
We often describe an idea or phrase as having “the ring of truth,” but what does truth sound like? And what happens when politicians, news organizations, and advertising agencies learn to reproduce or mimic that sound? This course addresses recent claims that we are living in a “post-truth world,” and considers the fate of argument in a world in which truth is subjective, and fact divided into mainstream and alternative forms. Is it possible to draw clear lines between fact and fiction, truth and lies? And if, as Oprah Winfrey has insisted, there is value in the transformative power of “speaking your truth,” what does this mean for debate and the project of seeking a truth that exists beyond our personal experience? In our first unit, we’ll consider the methods we use to distinguish fact from fiction as we examine fictional and philosophical texts by Tim O’Brien, J.L. Austin, and others that seek to distinguish (or blur the lines) between truth and fiction. In the second unit, we’ll engage with texts from both sides of heated debates that challenge the idea of “expertise”—including climate-change and vaccination as we explore how social media platforms shape our relationship to the truth and to argument. Our final unit will take us where the quest for truth reaches its extremes: the conspiracy theory. We’ll look at the complex anatomy of conspiracy theories from the world-wide (the moon landing “hoax” and “crisis actors,” among others) to the local (Harvard-based conspiracies), and students will have an opportunity to interview peers and local members of the community as they conduct their research.
THE USES OF HORROR
(New course in Fall 2019)
Expos 248, 249
Mande Zecca
MW 12, MW 1:30
Fall 2019 Syllabus: The Uses of Horror
In a conversation with Stephen Colbert, comedian and filmmaker Jordan Peele referred to his 2017 horror film, Get Out, as a “historical biopic.” His claim that “the movie is truth” invites us to reflect on the relationship between horror and history – between fictional and filmic fantasies that terrify us, and our own lived realities. In this course, we’ll think about what happens when we encounter works of art that are disturbing, excessive, horrific, and about how horror, as a genre, has given us new ways of understanding and describing our experiences. In our first unit, we’ll read one of horror’s modern masters: Edgar Allan Poe. Paying particular attention to patterns of transgressed boundaries between self and other, life and death, sanity and madness, we’ll consider how Poe’s brand of American horror expresses anxieties about the unknown and the irrational and how it serves as a compelling allegory for psychic and social realities. In unit two, we’ll consider Henry James’s 1898 novella, The Turn of the Screw, alongside 20th-century film adaptations of his classic work of literary horror. We’ll attend to questions of genre and film form – what is illuminated and what might be lost when we move from text to screen. Finally, for our third unit, we’ll turn our full attention to horror’s most contemporary (and popular) iteration: the scary movie. Students will write a research paper about a horror film of their choice (some suggested options will include Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary’s Baby, The Babadook, and Get Out), drawing on readings in philosophy, psychology, and film theory in order to tackle some of the central questions animating this course: what makes horror cohere as a genre, how do its aesthetic qualities operate on the mind of the observer, and what kinds of social and cultural commentary might it be capable of making?