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Course Descriptions

All humanities students take one of the following classes which meet weekday mornings.

 

ID # Course Title Instructor(s)
H-01 Rebel Without Applause
When stepping out of our comfort zones, how do we react? Are we liberated by the experience, or frozen in self-consciousness? By examining dynamic individuals who consciously abandon tradition and embrace the unknown, we will try to find some answers. Join us to study politicians and poets, painters and directors, social movers and scientists, and of course, ourselves as we investigate the political, social, and artistic mosaic of creativity and nonconformity. We will write surrealist journals, make cubist collages, role play, share music, and collaborate on dream imagery.		 Barry Gabay, Patrick Touart
H-02 Mediating Mosaics: Rights, Conflict & Community
Individuality, privacy, equality, and due process are integral parts of the legal framework that continually shapes our communities. Law demonstrates the coercive power of the state while establishing a forum for expression of our hopes for justice. In this course, we will explore legal issues directly affecting the lives of students, emphasizing your unique status in society. We will read and brief cases, engage in legal research, present and defend arguments, analyze media material, interact with guest speakers, and participate in field trips. Highlighting some of the themes and issues presented in the course, we will conclude by conducting a moot court.		 Ed Motley, Barry Sharpe
H-03 What’s Mightier, the Pen or the Trowel?
Unearth the past. “Till” the stories that need to be told. Find the pieces of the broken mosaic and arrange the shards of the past in order to understand our predecessors and ourselves. This course encompasses archeological techniques and creative writing skills. Whether working at the dig site or in the classroom, we will sweat physically and mentally to create the stories of the past, honing our analytical and imaginative skills. While we look for both ticks and metaphors, we will work harder than we thought we could and push ourselves toward endless possibilities. Bring boots, pens, paper, compassion, and insight, along with a desire to get up EARLY, get dirty, and work in the hot sun. We’ll provide the trowels. 		Michele Hinton, Lori Bucco
H-04 Persistence of Vision
In this course about the art and craft of making movies, we will investigate the nature of cinematic expression through encounters with great films, both classic and contemporary. We will explore and learn the crafts of camera acting, directing, editing, writing for the screen, cinematography, and production methods, and we will create several original short videos. No previous experience required, but be willing to work hard with others in a creative atmosphere.		 Rick Seyford, Péter Upor
H-05 Baby Blankets to Bond: Building Blocks of Gender
Bond. James Bond. A man’s man. A woman’s man. What does it mean to be a man or a woman? Our mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify the hidden social influences that have orchestrated our gender identities from before we were born. Through exploration of our media-dominated society, our personal pasts, and global cultures, we’ll expose subtle constructs that have maneuvered us into our places on the gender gradient. We’ll look critically at messengers such as TV, bedtime stories, parents, teachers, and peers, and learn to decode the gender signals they send us. We will read, discuss, debate, and analyze current work in the field of gender studies. This course will self-destruct on July 26, 2003.		 Allison Kopkau, Laura Higday
H-06 Driven to Create
What was going on in the minds of Van Gogh when he painted “A Starry Night” and Emily Dickinson when she wrote “The Cleaving in My Mind”? Explore with us the relationship between perception and creativity. Discover how mental illnesses and neurological disorders can radically change one’s perception of self and world but still be used to create powerful literary and artistic works. Employing case studies and firsthand accounts, we will discuss how subjective and changeable are our notions of sanity and insanity and how difficult, if not impossible, it is to distinguish between the two. Our experiences will culminate in an installation of our own writings, music, art, and video that showcases our discoveries.		 Dave McTier, Crystal Wright
H-07 This Time Last Century
One hundred years ago, Europe was having a good time. It was la belle époque, the beautiful age. Or was it? Thanks to the contributions of writers, composers, scientists, artists, philosophers, architects, and even observers, history met eccentricity. The result was an explosion of progress and prosperity, revolution and chaos. So what about now? By studying and comparing those happily reactionary times to our own, we’ll invent our own beautiful age on the University of Richmond’s campus . We may find that then and now are not that different, and revolutionize our own time with plays, salons, manifestos, art, and inventions, concluding with a museum exhibit for Governor’s School, but suitable for visitors from this time next century.		 John Countryman, Erin Devine