Liberal Arts

Curriculum & Courses

Learning Outcomes

  • LA_SLG1) Ways of Knowing Students: Students will demonstrate awareness and appreciation of multiple ways of knowing, as reflected in the fields of study and areas of expertise within the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

    LA_SLG2) Cultural Breadth and Global Awareness: Students will demonstrate familiarity with a range of cultural, social, and intellectual traditions in the context of a changing, globalized world.

    LA_SLG3) Critical and Analytical Thinking: Students will be able to analyze, evaluate, and construct arguments, engaging with ideas, evidence, and artifacts.

    LA_SLG4) Effective Communication Skills: Students will be able to speak and write effectively, communicating with precision, clarity, and rhetorical force.

  • HUM_SLG 1) Students will study and question how crucial ideas about human and non-human nature, knowledge, experience, and value have been developed, supported, and/or expressed in major areas of the humanities, such as philosophy, religion, literature (including poetry and the dramatic arts), and music in various cultures and time periods.

    HUM_SLO1.1) Students will demonstrate understanding of the methods used in the humanities, such as argumentation and interpretation.

    HUM_SLO1.2) Students will demonstrate understanding of the crucial ideas in the humanities as they have been explored in different cultures and times, and/or in connection to issues that currently affect individuals and societies across the globe.

    HUM_SLO1.3) Students will evaluate claims and the evidence and/or reasons given in support of these claims, as found in primary and secondary sources.

    HUM_SLO1.4) Students will construct their own claims and defend them in written and/or oral forms, and using proper methods of documentation (e.g. citation and bibliography).

  • SCI_SLG1) Students will increase their knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the natural world, science, and mathematics.

    SCI_SLO1.1) Students will demonstrate knowledge of the nature of science and/or mathematics as a knowledge making process. 

    SCI_SLO1.2) Students will develop and evaluate claims that involve a scientific or mathematical component.

    SCI_SLO1.3) Students will display curiosity about nature, natural science, and/or mathematics.

    SCI_SLO1.4) Students will confidently attempt reasoning tasks that involve a scientific or mathematical component.

    SCI_SLO1.5) Students will demonstrate appreciation for the role of science and/or mathematics both in everyday life and in contemporary issues.

  • FYS_SLG1) Students will learn to embrace the writing process and establish writerly habits, while developing guided critical reading, thinking, and writing skills necessary for their success in upper-level course work. Students will learn to collaborate and to take their work, and the work of their peers seriously, thereby establishing best practices of critique.

    FYS_SLO1.1) Students will formulate inquiries emerging from readings of texts.

    FYS_SLO1.2) Students will establish research methods.

    FYS_SLO1.3) Students will analyze and synthesize multiple texts and cite evidence. 

    FYS_SLO1.4) Students will construct a complex claim and an argument.

    FYS_SLO1.5) Students will practice the writerly process (i.e. revision, reflection, and peer review).

  • SOSCI_SLG 1) Students will question and explore how human behavior, societal arrangements, and cultural practices vary across time and space.

    SOSCI_SLO1.1) Students will demonstrate understanding of the investigative methods used in the social sciences. 

    SOSCI_SLO1.2) Students will evaluate and develop claims based on primary and secondary sources. 

    SOSCI_SLO1.3) Students will communicate clearly in written and oral forms.

    SOSCI_SLO1.4) Students will write citations and bibliographies in accordance with one or more social science disciplines.

Courses

Title Catalog Instructor Schedule

Description

An attempt, a venture, an experiment, a weighing - the essayist discovers new insight into the common, the peculiar, the sacred, the profane - drawing lines between the trivial and profound, the essayist tries: while difficult to define, this genre instructs, entertains, questions and refines. Students of this course will examine this genre of literature and will practice it, too: being introduced to a wide range of authors, writing on topics familiar and foreign, from the personal to the argumentative, from the art historical to the humorous, students will practice this craft by critically analyzing the work of others and writing different types of essays in a workshop environment that emphasizes the writing process, from generating ideas, to oral presentations, to drafting and peer review, to re-seeing and revising. FYS I develops college-level writing skills, prepares one for FYS II and upper-level Liberal Arts courses, and allows one to improve expressing their ideas in writing.

Class Number

1172

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Online

Description

All FYS 2 students will learn to embrace the writing process and establish writerly habits, while developing guided critical reading, thinking, and writing skills necessary for their success in upper-level course work. Students learn to collaborate and to take their work, and the work of their peers seriously, thereby establishing best practices of critique. This FYS 2 course will explore the interconnected meanings of race, horror, and monstrosity. In particular, we will focus on the presentations and representations of racial difference in the Americas. From Birth of a Nation (1915) to Get Out (2017), and from the transatlantic slave trade to contemporary #BlackLivesMatter movements, African-American struggles for dignity and inclusion have produced ¿philosophies born of struggle,¿ i.e. avenues of critical thought and activism with an eye toward social liberation and freedom from daily fear.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: ENGLISH 1001.

Class Number

1171

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 206

Description

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

Class Number

1461

Credits

1.5

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 1011

Description

This course draws on the analytic tools of gender and sexuality to examine the construction of power, society, and race in colonial contexts. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial theory, we will look at a broad range of case studies to explore themes in colonial history, such as ?discovery? and conquest, power and resistance, the construction of imperial and gender ideologies, the regulation of intimacy and the creation of race-based hierarchies, the disciplining, regulating, and improvement of colonial bodies, and the multiple intersections and conflicting definitions of gendered or racialized categories and identities. Readings include primary and secondary texts as well as art, images, and film. Evaluation will be based on discussion, writing assignments, and an independent presentation.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1207

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Area of Study

Gender and Sexuality

Location

Online

Description

This seminar explores the politics and practices of a countersexual society, drawing on the framework developed by trans studies scholar Paul B. Preciado. This framework challenges the heteronormative social order and reimagines the body as a space for freedom and expression. The course critically engages with traditional narratives of gender, race, and sexuality, examining the oppressive conventions that sustain them. We will investigate countersexual practices¿such as casual pleasure, pain, race play, drug use, and BDSM¿as sites of political action and resistance, reframing them as alternatives to normative structures. Our inquiry will begin with an examination of sexuality in early 20th-century sexology and feminism, extending to more recent trends in queer of color critique, Black feminism, and trans studies. Additionally, we will explore contemporary case studies in performance and body art to understand the role of the body¿s materiality in pursuing a countersexual revolution.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1337

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Area of Study

Gender and Sexuality

Location

Online

Description

There are fantastic books by Asian American writers but often they are not taught in school, or part of pop culture, or included in the literary canon. Who decides which writers and books are worthy of reading? In this discussion based course, we will critically read, think, and write about texts by contemporary Asian American authors. We will analyze multiple factors that have influenced the creation of the texts and that are explored within them, such as race, diaspora, memory, family, politics, community, and identifying oneself and one¿s artwork. The readings will be across genre: novels, poetry, non-fiction, and graphic novels. Readings often include works by Victoria Chang, Mira Jacob, Alexander Chee, Jenny Xie, Ocean Vuong, Ted Chiang, and Cathy Park Hong among others. We will freewrite, formulate conceptual questions for the readings, write responses, and compose 2 essays based on individual inquiry and analysis.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1181

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Online

Description

This course, in which we¿ll read three novels and a handful of short stories, focuses on fiction¿s ability to represent interiority. We will read these texts closely in order to understand the various techniques at fiction¿s disposal that are used to narrate consciousness and depict the experience of having a body. At the same time, we will study the ways in which these same works simultaneously situate their characters within their larger social, political, and historical contexts, in this way blending the micro with the macro¿or the internal with the external. Novels by Colson Whitehead, Han Kang, and Anuk Arudpragasam. Short stories by Virginia Woolf, Lydia Davis, and others.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1322

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Online

Description

Selected issues in music and related areas are studied. Topics vary each semester and may include (but are not limited to): musical structure and form, aural literacy, opera studies, music and words, music and the visual arts, history of recorded music, history of the oral tradition, semiotics, communications theory, and others.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1183

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Online

Description

Standard textbooks of European music have long emphasized their commitment towards studying the Western part of the continent. When it comes to the eastern region of the mainland, no such textbook exists. The scholarly marginalization of Eastern Europe¿s cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity contributes to negligence and underappreciation of the region. The purpose of this course is to examine the history and arts at several sites in this region and to listen to its music. Through this approach, we will examine cultural identities such as Greek, Byzantine, Slavic, Eastern Orthodox, Russian, Jewish, Ottoman, and Romani. We will visit historical and contemporary sites such as Kaliningrad, Kiev, Cracow, Prague, Budapest, Istanbul, Zagreb, and Ljubljana. We will also listen to ¿classical¿ music of Romanians, Poles, Russians, and Hungarians as well as to ¿folk¿ music from Transylvania, the Balkans, and the Baltic states. The music repertoire of this course spans from medieval Polish and Hungarian manuscripts to the late 20th-century Estonian (Arvo Part) and Russian (Sofia Gubaidulina) composers.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1299

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Online

Description

Most of us consider friendship an essential element of a happy and complete human existence. However, friendship is subject to contingencies that are mainly out of our control (e.g., loss of a friend through death). This endangers our chance for happiness. So by including friendship in our concept of a complete and happy life we seem to put our happiness in jeopardy. Why then insist on cultivating friendship and giving it an important role in happiness? In this course, we explore the role of friendship in Aristotelian, Kantian and utilitarian (Mill's) accounts of morality. While all three philosophers recognize the importance of friendship and its role in human happiness, friendship figures differently in their moral theories, a difference that can be partly explained by the differences in the larger questions each of these thinkers asks.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1186

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 205

Description

Is there any role for philosophy and religion given the advancement of science? This and related questions motivate the course. We explore them by drawing on mythology, fiction, science fiction, poetry, religion, science, and philosophy. We first explore major world religions by studying their texts, doctrines, rituals, and traditions. The aim is to master core facts and dispel stereotypes. Next, we critically examine some key elements, assumptions, and implications of these religions, including religious language, the self, religious psychology, evil, artificial intelligence, and even time travel. Authors include J.J.C. Smart, David Lewis, John Hick, John Perry, Thomas Nagle, David Hume, Xenophanes, Aquinas, Richard Feynman, Ursula Le Guin, Larry Niven, Aldous Huxley, Emily Dickinson, Yasunari Kawabata, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Hermann Hesse. Assignments vary, but they might include some or many of the following: weekly (daily for Summer semester) reading responses, quizzes, papers, and exams.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1469

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 205

Description

About 9 billion years after the Big Bang, our Solar System's sun ignited from the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud. This course explores the 4.6 billion years of subsequent chemical evolution of the Solar System. Our tool of study, cosmochemistry, lies at the crossroads of chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy, and biology. As such, we can use it to help us answer some fundamental questions, including: What are the elemental and molecular building blocks of our Solar System? Under what conditions, and by which processes, did these building blocks assemble into planets, asteroids, moons, comets, meteorites, and interstellar dust? What is the Earth made of, how did it evolve over time, and why do we need to study extraterrestrial materials to understand our home planet? Where did water come from and what led to the rise of life on Earth? How can we use this knowledge to guide future space exploration?

Formerly called: The Universe (SCIENCE 3212) - students cannot receive credit for this course if they have already received credit for The Universe (SCIENCE 3212)

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1307

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 203

Description

A monolith manifests in orbit around Jupiter, emitting a signal. A beacon? A winter-bound planet¿s denizens are androgynous with powerful predictive powers. An aberration? Space travel is enabled by the ingestion of enormous quantities of a geriatric spice a messianic figure suddenly learns to manipulate. A drug trip?! Among popular genres, science fiction is the riskiest conceptually and among the trickiest to master. Because of its relative narrative freedom, science fiction has been a place for some of the wildest, most outlandish, yet frequently astute speculation on the experience of religion that can be found in all modern literature. In this course, you¿ll read some novels (by William Gibson, Frank Herbert, and Ursula K. LeGuin), short stories, (by Ted Chiang, Arthur C. Clarke, and Raccoona Sheldon), and view some films (2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, and Close Encounters), and study the work of some theorists of religion (Freud, Jung, Le¿vi-Strauss, and Eliade). Assignments vary, but they might include some or many of the following: weekly reading responses, quizzes, papers, and exams.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1300

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 203

Description

In this course, we will introduce the interdisciplinary study of cities, urbanization, and the environment in the social sciences. We will cover foundational and contemporary readings in sociology, from history to urban studies/planning, architecture, and anthropology. After introducing core concepts, we will explore case studies on industrialization and deindustrialization, pollution and toxic exposure, energy/electrification, urban ¿green¿ spaces, and climate change/migration. We will focus on a series of Chicago-area case studies and expand to study other ¿planetary cities¿ such as Houston, Buenos Aires, and Abu Dhabi. Readings may include foundational texts from the Chicago School of Sociology, W.E.B. Du Bois, William Cronon, and Saskia Sassen, as well as contemporary texts from Gökçe Günel, Hillary Angelo, and Javier Auyero.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1305

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 608

Description

Neuroscience is a fascinating field of study in which the mechanisms of brain function are being unraveled at an incredibly fast pace. This course will focus on the foundations of neuroscience, moving from the cellular level to understanding entire systems. We will extend our knowledge of how the brain works to further understand thoughts, beliefs, emotions, personalities, and how memories and experiences are formed. This course will also explore current methods in neuroscience research and experimental design.

Readings will be pulled from neuroscience textbooks, current research articles/reviews, and other texts from well-known neuroscientists. Building from a systematic approach to understanding the brain, we will also discuss how the experience and production of art impacts and shapes our minds.

Course work includes weekly reading and written homework assignments. The final consists of a written paper which will focus on a topic of neuroscience that the student is particularly interested in, as well as a short oral presentation of their topic to their peers. Active participation, willingness to creatively hypothesize about brain function, and an interest in the mind are required in order for us all to learn and enjoy!

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1309

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 203

Description

Why do birds migrate? When do whales sing? What does a bee's dance mean? Animals have fascinating behaviors that have both puzzled and amazed observers. This class will explore current theories behind these actions. The lecture/discussion aspects of this course will focus on theories and concepts while the lab component will focus on collecting (Virtual zoo camera) observational data on local fauna and coming up with hypothesis to explain the observed behaviors. Student-collected original data will then be discussed and new or additional theories proposed. This course includes VIRTUAL Zoo camera data observations from any zoo around the world that has zoo cameras!

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1202

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Online

Description

This course is designed to inspire the understanding of the significance of plants to human life. The beauty and diversity of nature is expressed most vividly in the flora of the Earth. Plants are essential for the survival of all living animals, and form a dynamic relationship with them in the environment. As well as a source of wonder, plants provide food, energy, medicine, and innumerable commercial products. The course will explore plant biology, the form and function of plant types, modes of growth and reproduction, and genetics and genetic engineering.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1306

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 1503

Description

This course provides an introduction to social theories on tourism and travel activities. Drawing from anthropological and ethnographic research, students will explore the significance of tourism over the 20th century, developing alongside travel and information technologies well into present day tourism behavior and the global leisure industry. Media including travel photography, travelogue, home movies, or virtual reality - all provide sociomaterial examples of the significance of the tourist gaze and imaginary not only for personal recreation, but also influencing representation of the global south, in historically distorted and problematic ways. Course readings and films challenge students to consider these theories in the contexts of the varied sites and forms of tourism practiced around the world today. Learning content allows students to survey and examine mass tourism as well as tourism that makes an effort to get 'off the beaten track' in search of authenticity and adventure. Topics covered span from heritage, eco, and sex tourism, to ¿voluntourism,¿ dark and tragic tourism, including ¿staycations¿ and ¿holistays.¿ Students apply these insights during experiential learning activities of local tourist sites, commercialism, and cultural production of leisure settings in Chicagoland. Students engage in ethnographic exercises, submit a photo essay, and plan a dream excursion, implementing ethical considerations addressed in the course via travel design, and future tourism activities.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1208

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Online

Description

Ritual treatment of the dead is both unique to humans and a human universal. This course is a global exploration of mortuary archaeology, extending from evidence through the first ritual burials (perhaps 300,000 years ago or more), through historic slave cemeteries. Using a biocultural approach, we will examine the information that archaeologists and bioarchaeologists glean from human remains, grave and cemetery architecture, and portable material culture, including ceramics, textiles, metalwork, and so on.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1209

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Online