10 Courses That Have Equity-Seeking Components
UAlberta Arts Courses for Fall 2020 — Post 3 of many to come
Re-thinking your Fall course schedule?
Are you interested in courses with equity-seeking content? Would you like a career working with marginalized communities? To help you answer these questions, we have compiled a list of courses covering topics that range from health ethics to consent to contemporary feminist theory.
And… This is the third post of many more to come where we will be highlighting courses from across the entire Faculty of Arts for Fall 2020, so be sure to come back to the blog leading up to the start of classes in September.
*Please note that course content, delivery method and instructors are subject to change. Refer to the course syllabus for full and final details.
1. Women and Gender Studies 101 (WGS 101): Representation Girls and Women
Number of Sections Offered: 1
Professor/Instructor: Dorothy Woodman
Delivery Method: A combination of “anytime learning” (asynchronous delivery)
Course Time: TBA
Pre-requisite: None
Course Description: This course introduces participants to the varieties of cultural influences that influence and shape understandings of what it means to be a girl and then a woman. We will explore what those influences are and how, through them, gender becomes fixed and considered self-evident. Influences include all aspects of what we call culture, for example: social groups, media, religion, media, art, and education. As we explore these, we will have opportunities to think through the specific conditions in and through which we consider ourselves as gendered or not. This exploration will occur through critical analysis, reflective work, and creative projects occurring within communities of inquiry facilitated through online delivery of course materials, video and forum discussion platforms, and submitted assignments.
Why Take This Course: This course better prepares you for a career working with marginalized groups and working in education. It also involves writing to prepare you for a career in Communications (advertising, marketing, journalism, as a writer/editor, etc.).
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Business and Education
2. Sociology 302 (SOC 302): Topics in Sociology
Topic for Section A2: Anti-Racism and Racial Injustice (NEW TOPIC!)
Number of Sections Offered: 1 of 2 sections offered
Professor/Instructor: Randi Nixon and Katie MacDonald
Delivery Method: All sections of this course are being offered in “real-time learning” (synchronous delivery)
Course Time: T/R from 12:30–2:50 pm MDT
Pre-requisite: SOC 100 OR consent of instructor
Course Description: In this class we will examine the relationship between histories of racial injustice and ongoing racism in the present. We will discuss the relationship between systemic racism and white privilege and individual attitudes and practices, ask what accountability means in this moment, and study and develop strategies to challenge racism. Students will engage with ethical and effective anti-racist practices that are responsive to the ongoing urgency of racial injustice, including reflection on their own positioning within racist histories and institutions. Special attention will be paid to anti-black and anti-Indigenous racism in Canada, and to anti-racist practices and movements in Canada.
Why Take This Course: This course better prepares you for a career working in Teaching, Government, Law, or serving marginalized communities.
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Education and Nursing
3. Philosophy 386 (PHIL 386 A1) — Health Care Ethics
Number of Sections Offered: 1
Professor/Instructor: Dr. Jennifer Welchman
Delivery Method: A combination of “anytime learning” (asynchronous delivery) AND “real-time” (synchronous delivery)
Course Time: M/W/F from 2–2:50 pm MDT
Pre-requisite: None
Course Description: You will learn about the philosophical ethical theories, concepts, and principles used to analyze and solve ethical dilemmas in contemporary healthcare. We will begin with an introduction to the special obligations health professionals have to their clients and to society and to the ethical theories most influential in contemporary health care ethics. We will apply these to real-world disputes; e.g, how to structure professional-client relationships, conscientious objection, the allocation of scares resources, end-of-life care, medical experimentation, social justice, and public health policy. This course covers contemporary issues like the COVID-19 pandemic for example.
Why Take This Course: This course prepares you for a career working in Government, Law, with marginalized populations or medicine (nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, rehab med, public health, etc).
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Nursing and Science
4. Sociology 376 (SOC 376): Sociology of Religion
Number of Sections Offered: 1
Professor/Instructor: Steve Kent
Delivery Method: A combination of “anytime learning” (asynchronous delivery) AND “real-time” (synchronous delivery)
Course Time: T from 6–9 pm MDT
Pre-requisite: SOC 100 — Introductory Sociology OR consent of instructor
Course Description: This course provides a sociologically grounded, intellectual understandings of numerous aspects of both functional and dysfunctional religious beliefs and practices. These aspects include conversion, messiahs, end-of-the world beliefs, prophecy, conflicts with science and the law, sex and gender, and disbelief. People will learn patterns that appear in all religious forms, from global communities to small religious sects. Examples drawn from a wide range of large and small religious faiths, without focusing on or privileging any one. This course will tackle the big questions OR connect the ordinary and the extraordinary.
Why Take This Course: This course will prepare you for a career working in Government, Law, education, or serving marginalized communities.
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Education and Science
5. English 390 (ENGL 390) — Women’s Writing: Writing by Women Pre-1900
Number of Sections Offered: 1
Professor/Instructor: Katherine Binhammer
Delivery Method: All sections of this course will have a combination of “anytime learning” (asynchronous delivery) AND “real-time” (synchronous delivery)
Course Time: T/R from 11 am — 12:20 pm MDT
Pre-requisite: 6 Credits of Junior level English
Course Description: What imagined worlds did women create before they were legal subjects? By placing contemporary feminism in a historical frame, students will discover the ways women writers have always been resisting patriarchy.
“All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she
who earned them the right to speak their minds”
- Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own”
Beginning with Aphra Behn, this course probes the enormous influence women writers had on print culture between 1660 and 1800. Though they were not the first women who wrote, Behn and her contemporaries were some the first women to earn independent livings off their writing. Women’s influence is particularly apparent in the rise of the novel and we will be reading some of the first novels that were ever written, including texts by Behn, Eliza Haywood, and Charlotte Lennox. This course will both provide a historical survey of women writers in print culture from 1660 to 1800 and explore the theoretical problems in feminist literary history that this diverse and fertile body of writing raises. We will be engaging with a wide range of genres — novels, plays, letters, poetry, polemical and periodical writing, and feminist tracts — written from a variety of perspectives — amatory and scandal writing, Bluestockings literature, Jacobin feminism, and more. We will be reading recent feminist theoretical texts alongside early women’s writing in order to ask a number of critical questions, including: Is there a woman’s literary tradition? What is the relation between gender and genre, or, body and text? How do women authorize their authorial voice? Is the history of gender analogous to, or separate from, the history of writing by women? To check out the books you will be reading this term, click here.
Why Take This Course: This course better prepares you for a career working with marginalized groups, Law, and working in Government.
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Education and Science
6. Women and Gender Studies 298 (WGS 298): Critical Issues: Consent
Number of Sections Offered: 1
Professor/Instructor: Gotell
Delivery Method: A combination of “anytime learning” (asynchronous delivery) AND “real-time” (synchronous delivery)
Course Time: T/R from 9:30–10:50 am MDT
Pre-requisite: None
Course Description: The course unpacks the concept of sexual consent. Through interdisciplinary explorations, the course interrogates the meaning of consent historically, as well as in the contemporary period of neoliberalism. It considers a number of theoretical, legal and political issues, including: unrapeable subjects; the role of sexual violence in colonization; claims about the impossibility of consent in a context of heteropatriarchy; feminist law reform focused on consent; the ongoing presumption of consent in intimate relationships; the significance of unwanted sex; the celebration of sexual agency; sexual fraud; challenges to heteronormative consent; critical disability and consent; and the limitations of consent-based prevention.
Why Take This Course: This course will prepare you for a career working in Law, Government, or serving marginalized communities.
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Nursing and Education
7. Drama 149 (DRAMA 149): Dramatic Process 1
Number of Sections Offered: 1 of 3 sections offered
Professor/Instructor: Michele Fleiger (X01)
Delivery Method: A combination of “anytime learning” (asynchronous delivery) AND “real-time” (synchronous delivery)
Course Time: M/W from 6–8:50 pm MDT (X01)
Pre-requisite: None
Course Description: Dramatic improvisation as an introduction to the creative process as it applies to the process of acting and to dramatic form. Students will learn how to develop their ability to be creative in performance. They will develop an awareness of their own imaginative abilities, their ability to be mindful and present, and their ability to be physically and vocally expressive. They will learn how to craft narratives with attention to dramatic structure exploring various sources of inspiration. They will also develop their ability to be present as an observer or witness to the creative process of others providing constructive, perceptive critique.
Why Take This Course: It prepares you for a career working in Education, Business, or serving marginalized communities.
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Business and Education
8. Philosophy 202 (PHIL 202 A1): Indian Philosophy
Number of Sections Offered: 1
Professor/Instructor: Dr. Neil Dalal
Delivery Method: All sections of this course are being offered in “real-time learning” (synchronous delivery)
Course Time: T/R from 12:30–1:50 pm MDT
Pre-requisite: None
Course Description: This course explores the unique insights that Indian philosophies reveal about reality, consciousness, well-being, and freedom. We will focus on three major philosophical traditions from South Asia — classical Yoga, Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta — all thriving contemporary living traditions. We will critically assess and compare their philosophical world-views and methods from a historical perspective. A key theme of this course is probing the interaction of philosophical argument with an analysis of the nature of our experience. We will also consider how and why happiness and well-being, the central goals of these traditions, result from combining philosophical inquiry, meditational and contemplative modes of practice, and the cultivation of moral virtuosity.
Why Take This Course: This course prepares you for working in a career working internationally, in Government, Law, or with marginalized populations.
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Education and Engineering
9. Women and Gender Studies 332 (WGS 322): Contemporary Feminist Theory
Number of Sections Offered: 1
Professor/Instructor: Sevan Beukian
Delivery Method: A combination of “anytime learning” (asynchronous delivery) AND “real-time” (synchronous delivery)
Course Time: M/W/F from 2–2:50 pm MDT
Pre-requisite: Any 100- or 200-level WGS (or W ST) course, OR Department consent
Course Description: The course aims to provide students with a sample of readings in contemporary feminist theory, with a selection of feminist theorists or theorists writing on issues related to women and gender, from a transnational perspective. We will engage with some of the most influential thinkers who have shaped the field of feminist theory. The main themes we will focus on are as follows: nation and state, citizenship, development, transnational feminist and queer thought and activism, migration/refugee, diaspora, among others. The readings are meant to focus on theory and practice, emphasizing intersectionality, and various experiences from different geographical centers. As such, the purpose of this class is to tackle concepts and themes through a comparative perspective that brings into conversation theories from different parts of the world, in order to grasp the different feminisms and interests/perspectives on women and gender.
Why Take This Course: This course will prepare you for a career working internationally, in Law, or serving marginalized communities.
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Native Studies and Education
10. Sociology 100 (SOC 100): Introduction to Sociology
Number of Sections Offered: 1 of 5 sections offered
Professor/Instructor: Zohreh Bayatrizi
Delivery Method: A combination of “anytime learning” (asynchronous delivery) AND “real-time” (synchronous delivery)
Course Time: M/W from 9:30–10:50 am MDT
Pre-requisite: None
Course Description: This specific section of Sociology 100 is about how you become who you are. This course explores the connections between your mind, your body, and your society. What do the UFC and yoga have in common? Do criminals usually wear silk underwear? Can a child in poverty dream big? You will find out in this course. The theme is an introductory course that will open your eyes to worlds of possibility [or that will change how you see things].
Why Take This Course: This course will prepare you for a career working Internationally, in Law, or serving marginalized communities.
Other faculties/programs that would take this as an option course: Education and Native Studies
