Liberal Arts

Curriculum & Courses

Learning Outcomes

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Critical and Analytical Thinking: Students will be able to analyze, evaluate, and construct arguments, engaging with ideas, evidence, and artifacts.
    4. Effective Communication Skills: Students will be able to speak and write effectively, communicating with precision, clarity, and rhetorical force.

    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.
    2. Students will demonstrate understanding of the methods used in the humanities, such as argumentation and interpretation.
    3. 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.
    4. Students will evaluate claims and the evidence and/or reasons given in support of these claims, as found in primary and secondary sources.
    5. 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).

    1. Students will increase their knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the natural world, science, and mathematics.
    2. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the nature of science and/or mathematics as a knowledge making process. 
    3. Students will develop and evaluate claims that involve a scientific or mathematical component.
    4. Students will display curiosity about nature, natural science, and/or mathematics.
    5. Students will confidently attempt reasoning tasks that involve a scientific or mathematical component.
    6. Students will demonstrate appreciation for the role of science and/or mathematics both in everyday life and in contemporary issues.

  • 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.

    1. Students will formulate inquiries emerging from readings of texts.
    2. Students will establish research methods.
    3. Students will analyze and synthesize multiple texts and cite evidence. 
    4. Students will construct a complex claim and an argument.
    5. Students will practice the writerly process (i.e. revision, reflection, and peer review).

    1. Students will question and explore how human behavior, societal arrangements, and cultural practices vary across time and space.
    2. Students will demonstrate understanding of the investigative methods used in the social sciences. 
    3. Students will evaluate and develop claims based on primary and secondary sources. 
    4. Students will communicate clearly in written and oral forms.
    5. Students will write citations and bibliographies in accordance with one or more social science disciplines.

Courses

Title Catalog Instructor Schedule

Description

Consider the ordinary and extraordinary, the word and world, this color, this art, this way of seeing and being. Writing topics are various in this writing course, but learning objectives are the same: for students to discover the complexity of their thinking through exploration and inquiry and to broaden their expressive and analytical skills. Readings will include writings by essayists, naturalists, and artists. Students maintain a writer¿s notebook, prepare short compositions, and write and revise several essays.

Class Number

1330

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 1427

Description

Reading Art is a seminar that orients students to college studies and emphasizes students' advancement of college-level critical reading and thinking skills. Students learn how to read and analyze artworks using the formal vocabulary of art and design, as well as how to read about art in art history textbooks, scholarly journals, and other sources. Students improve their ability to process, retain, and apply information by using active learning strategies and graphic organizers, including a schematic note-taking system. In addition to weekly readings and exercises, students complete an in-depth synthesis project on an artwork of their choosing. Regular museum visits complement class work.

Class Number

1014

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 816

Description

This writing course emphasizes close reading of texts, critical thinking, and the analysis of problems and concepts arising in works about travel experiences through the writing of essays. We will use the writing process as a means to achieving insight, and students will be asked to employ brainstorming, freewriting, drafting, outlining, re-writing, revising, and editing. Throughout the term, students will be asked to reflect on their development as they establish their own writing process that will enable them to develop new understandings and clearly communicate them in essays for this course and beyond. Writer Pico Iyer says, ¿We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves.¿ New places are alluring. New places are disruptive. In this course, we¿ll read accounts of those who ventured to distant lands and discovered new territories within themselves. We will read the likes of Langston Hughes, Bernard Cooper, Jamaica Kincaid, Flannery O¿Connor, George Orwell, Susan Sontag, and others, as we see what these writers found when they lost themselves abroad. Students will join the well-traveled, too, as they write about a not-usual place, even if it¿s right here in Chicago. In addition to short writing assignments and in-class journals, students should expect to write and revise 4 essays totaling 15-20 pages of formal prose.

Class Number

1312

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 517

Description

In this writing-intensive course, we will explore the line between originality and plagiarism in a variety of fields including art, media, technology, music, business, entertainment, and medicine. In what contexts is copying an art? A science? A crime? How much should we be allowed to borrow from the work of artists and writers who have come before us? Do we owe them anything when we do? What are the economic, social, and political implications of copying? Readings will cover a range of subtopics such as genetic cloning, music sampling, artistic forgery, cultural appropriation, film adaptations, drug patents, fan fiction, body modification, and fair use. We will also analyze the work of artists and writers whose work speaks to some of these issues, including Kenneth Goldsmith, Fred Wilson, Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, DJ Dangermouse, and Jen Bervin. Writing assignments ? totaling 15-20 pages over the course of the semester ? will emphasize analysis, argument, research, revision, and other academic writing skills.

Class Number

1348

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 501

Description

In our class we will read contemporary poetry from authors responding to historic and current political injustices. We¿ll also read about the political events themselves to gain an understanding of the authors¿ creative works. The poems and poetry collections are written by individuals but they shed light on the political impacts that affect the collective of humanity. Readings often include works by Layli Long Soldier, Ilya Kaminsky, Rajiv Mohabir, and Don Mee Choi. In our FYS I class, we will develop our critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. This is a studio writing class in which we will focus on writing as a process. We will freewrite, formulate conceptual questions for the readings, write responses, and compose and revise 15-20 pages in multidraft essays. Students will direct the topic of the final essay based on their individual inquiry into a historic or current political event. 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

1331

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 818

Description

Writers can have the power to create space for communities that are marginalized in society, but this work is never easy. In this class, we will examine the works of writers who have attempted this and analyze the success and cost of such attempts. Our readings will include works by: Esme Weijun Wang, Rupi Kahur, Ryka Aoki, Patsy Mink, and others. We will also utilize SAIC¿s amazing resources like the Service Bureau, the Art Institute, the writing center, the diversity department, and Title IX office. In this class, students will exercise their voices and embrace the writing process. They will think of writing beyond what happens on the page.Towards this end, each class begins with mindfulness and connection activities. Students will be required to write weekly reflections, multiple drafts of an essay, and do a class presentation. Students in FYS I should expect to write 15 to 20 pages of formal, revisable writing. Attendance is extremely important and heavily weighted.

Class Number

1350

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 1427

Description

As an art form, humor is often considered menial and unrefined. In reality, the psychology of humor ¿ exactly what it is that makes something funny ¿ is complicated and requires careful mastery. This course will examine how writers and artists have historically used humor to reach audiences deeply, emotionally, and politically. Through works by Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, Calvin Trillin, Jade Chang, Percival Everett and others, we will get to the heart of what makes something funny, and how humor has changed over time. Students will build on foundational academics habits with weekly short writings. To complete the course, students must write 3 papers (one analytical, one argumentative, and one creative.

Prerequisites

Must complete AAP: Academic Foundations Seminar (AAP1001) and Foundations Writing Workshop (AAP 1011)

Class Number

1346

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 919

Description

This writing course emphasizes close reading of texts, critical thinking, and the analysis of problems and concepts arising in works about near-death experiences through the writing of essays. We will use the writing process as a means to achieving insight, and students will be asked to employ brainstorming, freewriting, drafting, outlining, re-writing, revising, and editing. Throughout the term, students will be asked to reflect on their development as they establish their own writing process that will enable them to develop new understandings and clearly communicate them in essays for this course and beyond. Some of us have had a near-death experience in which our survival felt in doubt. Almost all of us have had nearness-to-death experiences in which we glimpse the passing of some other person or creature and must contend with death?s significance. In this course, we?ll study short works that explore what nearness to mortality reveals to us. We?ll read Virginia Woolf, Tim O?Brien, Annie Dillard, Lu Hsun, Tobias Woolf, Wole Soyinka, and Nancy Mairs, among others, as we examine how death?s presence has impacted these writers in unanticipated ways. Students should expect to write and revise 3 major essays in addition to short writing assignments, totaling 15-20 pages of formal prose.

Prerequisites

Must complete AAP: Academic Foundations Seminar (AAP1001) and Foundations Writing Workshop (AAP 1011)

Class Number

1328

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 206

Description

In this writing intensive course, we will develop the skills of argument-driven writing as we examine film noir and the question of genre. What does it mean to look at a series of disparate cinematic texts as examples of the same textual category? Is ¿film noir¿ best defined by a pattern of visual motifs? Can the genre be better characterized by the repetition of various story structures, themes, and character archetypes? Or is ¿film noir¿ (and perhaps ¿genre¿ itself) a categorizing term which has outlived its usefulness as a way of understanding individual film texts? Students will explore these questions through an examination of three key films: The Big Sleep (1946), The Reckless Moment (1949), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), and The Deep End (2001). Readings will include critical works by Raymond Borde, Étienne Cahumeton, Janey Place, Megan Abbott, and Joan Copjec. These materials will inform multiple argument-driven essays students will draft and revise over the course of the semester. In composing these essays, students will study thesis formation, rhetorical modes, and ways to incorporate sources into evidence-based arguments.

Prerequisites

Must complete AAP: Academic Foundations Seminar (AAP1001) and Foundations Writing Workshop (AAP 1011)

Class Number

1347

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 818

Description

This course will chronologically survey American poetry from its earliest periods to recent times. Students will be introduced to a wide spectrum of the finest poetry ever to be written, including (among others) poems from Phyllis Wheatley, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, e.e. cummings, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amit Majmudar, Terrance Hayes, Sherman Alexie, Garrett Hongo, and Natalie Diaz. Individual interpretations will be emphasized and slow-and-close reading will be emphasized, both in class and in formal writing assignments. In addition, students will be introduced to methods of literary study, appropriate terminology, and (art) historical contexts to help orient scholarship¿including how poets across time and space operate and innovate within literary conventions. Students will also write about poetry in both personal responses and formal analyses and will practice the process of writing, including prewriting, drafting, peer reviewing, and revising. FYSe 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.

Prerequisites

Must complete AAP: Academic Foundations Seminar (AAP1001) and Foundations Writing Workshop (AAP 1011)

Class Number

1329

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 816

Description

This writing-intensive course will explore representations of dolls, robots, androids, puppets, artificial intelligence, and other humanoid forms in literature and film. What can childhood characters like Pinocchio and Barbie teach us about becoming human? Why are there so many horror stories involving evil dolls? What do science fiction stories featuring robots and androids reveal about our increasingly automated, technological society? Should we embrace (or maybe even love) AI avatars, or resist them? Via close reading and critical inquiry, we will not only unpack the range of emotions ¿ from humor to sympathy to terror ¿ that humanoids evoke, but moreover connect these fictions to real issues in our own world. Stories and films may include Frankenstein, Blade Runner, The Stepford Wives, Her, and M3GAN. Writing assignments ¿ totaling 15-20 pages over the course of the semester ¿ will emphasize description, analysis, argument, revision, and other academic writing skills.

Prerequisites

Must complete AAP: Academic Foundations Seminar (AAP1001) and Foundations Writing Workshop (AAP 1011)

Class Number

2489

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 919

Description

FYS (EIS) are theme-based writing courses designed for first-year international students who have successfully completed their English for International Students Fluency course, with an emphasis on teaching Academic English skills to English Language Learners. Students will improve their Academic English skills by learning to embrace the writing process and establish writerly habits, while developing guided critical reading, thinking, and writing skills necessary for their success in future course work at SAIC. FYS (EIS) sections offer different topics. For example, students may investigate modern and contemporary art movements or analyze popular visual culture or media. While faculty have autonomy in determining course theme, the theme is an accessory to the writing; the balance in these classes is weighed toward explicit writing instruction and workshopping of student writing, not content. This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds. Students investigate the class topic through close readings and class discussions. They explore and develop their ideas by writing short responses and longer multi-draft papers which may include analytical, argumentative, expository, and/or evaluative essays. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, argumentation, and skills in thesis/claim and idea development are explored. Students should expect to write 15-20 pages of formal, revisable writing across the course of the semester. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. In-class writing and short homework exercises may be included. Through peer review and workshops, students learn to collaborate and to take their work, and the work of their peers seriously, thereby establishing best practices of critique. Classes are capped at 12 students and individual meetings to discuss each student's papers should be expected.

Prerequisites

Must complete English Fluency I (EIS 1021)

Class Number

1353

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 818

Description

FYS (EIS) are theme-based writing courses designed for first-year international students who have successfully completed their English for International Students Fluency course, with an emphasis on teaching Academic English skills to English Language Learners. Students will improve their Academic English skills by learning to embrace the writing process and establish writerly habits, while developing guided critical reading, thinking, and writing skills necessary for their success in future course work at SAIC. FYS (EIS) sections offer different topics. For example, students may investigate modern and contemporary art movements or analyze popular visual culture or media. While faculty have autonomy in determining course theme, the theme is an accessory to the writing; the balance in these classes is weighed toward explicit writing instruction and workshopping of student writing, not content. This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds. Students investigate the class topic through close readings and class discussions. They explore and develop their ideas by writing short responses and longer multi-draft papers which may include analytical, argumentative, expository, and/or evaluative essays. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, argumentation, and skills in thesis/claim and idea development are explored. Students should expect to write 15-20 pages of formal, revisable writing across the course of the semester. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. In-class writing and short homework exercises may be included. Through peer review and workshops, students learn to collaborate and to take their work, and the work of their peers seriously, thereby establishing best practices of critique. Classes are capped at 12 students and individual meetings to discuss each student's papers should be expected.

Prerequisites

Must complete English Fluency I (EIS 1021)

Class Number

1354

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 818

Description

FYS (EIS) are theme-based writing courses designed for first-year international students who have successfully completed their English for International Students Fluency course, with an emphasis on teaching Academic English skills to English Language Learners. Students will improve their Academic English skills by learning to embrace the writing process and establish writerly habits, while developing guided critical reading, thinking, and writing skills necessary for their success in future course work at SAIC. FYS (EIS) sections offer different topics. For example, students may investigate modern and contemporary art movements or analyze popular visual culture or media. While faculty have autonomy in determining course theme, the theme is an accessory to the writing; the balance in these classes is weighed toward explicit writing instruction and workshopping of student writing, not content. This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds. Students investigate the class topic through close readings and class discussions. They explore and develop their ideas by writing short responses and longer multi-draft papers which may include analytical, argumentative, expository, and/or evaluative essays. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, argumentation, and skills in thesis/claim and idea development are explored. Students should expect to write 15-20 pages of formal, revisable writing across the course of the semester. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. In-class writing and short homework exercises may be included. Through peer review and workshops, students learn to collaborate and to take their work, and the work of their peers seriously, thereby establishing best practices of critique. Classes are capped at 12 students and individual meetings to discuss each student's papers should be expected.

Prerequisites

Must complete English Fluency I (EIS 1021)

Class Number

1355

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 112

Description

FYS (EIS) are theme-based writing courses designed for first-year international students who have successfully completed their English for International Students Fluency course, with an emphasis on teaching Academic English skills to English Language Learners. Students will improve their Academic English skills by learning to embrace the writing process and establish writerly habits, while developing guided critical reading, thinking, and writing skills necessary for their success in future course work at SAIC. FYS (EIS) sections offer different topics. For example, students may investigate modern and contemporary art movements or analyze popular visual culture or media. While faculty have autonomy in determining course theme, the theme is an accessory to the writing; the balance in these classes is weighed toward explicit writing instruction and workshopping of student writing, not content. This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds. Students investigate the class topic through close readings and class discussions. They explore and develop their ideas by writing short responses and longer multi-draft papers which may include analytical, argumentative, expository, and/or evaluative essays. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, argumentation, and skills in thesis/claim and idea development are explored. Students should expect to write 15-20 pages of formal, revisable writing across the course of the semester. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. In-class writing and short homework exercises may be included. Through peer review and workshops, students learn to collaborate and to take their work, and the work of their peers seriously, thereby establishing best practices of critique. Classes are capped at 12 students and individual meetings to discuss each student's papers should be expected.

Prerequisites

Must complete English Fluency I (EIS 1021)

Class Number

1356

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 818

Description

¿Genre¿ and tradition in music are nebulous terms, yet we can¿t escape them. Examining these genre distinctions consistently reveals two things - the history and tradition that helped birth the genre ¿category,¿ and the web of influences between genres that make such distinctions unstable. Nowhere is this ¿instability¿ more apparent than in American music, a country whose relatively young socio-political history makes the notion of ¿tradition¿ especially complicated. ¿Americana¿ is an overarching term to describe a variety of American musics, in an attempt to smooth over some of the complicated relationship between genre and tradition. One thing we will explore in this course is the effectiveness of that endeavor. Complicated spaces, of course, are fertile ground for argument, and that is the primary skill we will practice in this course. We begin with short writing assignments that force students to make arguments about our texts. Our class discussion allows us to workshop these claims, and we write larger papers that demonstrate the ability to take greater risks with our theses. In this course we will focus on the core skills of reading and writing, preparing us for all our future coursework at SAIC. Students learn to make nuanced observations about the texts we study, observations which form the basis for the argumentative papers we write. This course will focus on artists representative of the various genres said to populate Americana music. Special attention, however, will be paid to those artists who trouble the genre definitions, such as the Staple Singers, Gillian Welch, and Sturgill Simpson. Assignments consist of informal, observational journals, short papers and a larger Final Paper at the end of the course.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: ENGLISH 1001.

Class Number

1315

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 205

Description

Please confirm/update desc: Unlike traditional folk fairy tales, intended primarily for children, the German Romantic Kunstmärchen (literary fairy tales) were written for an audience of adults. German Romantic philosophers, who believed in Nature as an ideal and the primacy of the individual creative imagination, saw the fairy tale as the perfect medium for the expression of these ideas. The timeless, mythical qualities of the fairy tale were seen by these thinkers as a way to bring the realm of the supernatural to earth, making the irrational and the magical part of our everyday existence. Unlike the traditional fairy tales, in which everyone lives happily ever after, the Märchen emphasizes the struggle between negative and positive forces in which death and disaster often prevail and man is caught in the tragic dichotomy between the real and the ideal. In this course we will explore these and other themes by reading the works by such authors as Novalis, L. Tieck, E.T.A Hoffman and Kafka. Students should expect to write 20-25 pages of formal, revisable writing, in addition to homework exercises and in-class writing. FYS II will build upon the foundational writing skills students began learning in FYS I, with the introduction of more rigorous argumentation and research. Eventually, writing will be more self-directed in this FYS II class.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: ENGLISH 1001.

Class Number

1333

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 1427

Description

In our creative practices we take our lives into account. You determine the format to share your story. In this course we will read different forms of autobiography: graphic novels, memoirs, essays, poetry, and journals. We will look at the various creative forms writers use to convey information about their lives, discuss why we make artwork about ourselves, and study how each form connects with readers. Though we will read about individual experiences, we will consider their impact on the collective. Readings often include works by Ocean Vuong, Trevor Noah, Diana Khoi Nguyen, EJ Koh, and Kazim Ali among others. In our FYS II course, we will develop our critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. This is a studio writing class in which we will focus on writing as a process. We will freewrite, formulate conceptual questions for the readings, write responses, and compose and revise 20-25 pages in multidraft essays. FYS II develops college-level writing skills, prepares one for upper-level Liberal Arts courses, and allows one to improve expressing their ideas in writing.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: ENGLISH 1001.

Class Number

1334

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 501

Description

Cyber Feminisms explores the intersections of feminism, technology, and digital culture through a research-driven lens. Students will critically engage with a range of topics, including the influence of digital spaces on gender identities, the consequences of algorithmic bias, and the ways marginalized communities use technology for resistance and self-expression. This course will analyze the role of the internet in shaping feminist discourse while developing digital literacies essential for academic writing in the 21st century. Students should expect to write 20 to 25 pages of formal, revisable writing (i.e. a semester-long research-based essay with multiple drafts) as well as homework exercises and in-class writing. Much in-class writing will be included, as emphasis is on development of the intellectual skills of reading and responding critically, which forms the basis of each student's career at SAIC. Furthermore, peer review of student papers, and individual meetings to discuss each student¿s writing should be expected.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: ENGLISH 1001.

Class Number

1360

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

MacLean 818

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

1335

Credits

3

Department

Liberal Arts

Location

Lakeview - 206