LBS 700. Prophecy and Protest: The Prophetic Voice in American Public Discourse. (3 h)

This course addresses how prophecy is a communicative act, and how prophetic speech has influenced American public discourse. Prophetic speech forms from the Hebrew Bible, traced through to American prophetic traditions such as those of the Quakers, Puritans, & Native Americans, and the use of American dissent rhetoric will be discussed. Readings will include primary texts from the Bible and American public discourse as well as important critical discussions of prophetism as a social and rhetorical phenomenon.

LBS 702. Black Light: The Novels of Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor. (3 h)

LBS 703. The Artists: American Silent Cinema. (3 h)

LBS 704. Globalization in Contemporary World Literature. (3 h)

This course explores globalism in contemporary poetry, narrative fiction, and films from the Caribbean, South Asia, South Africa, and multi-ethnic Britain. Students will focus on how literature reflects social processes associated with globalization, become familiar with recent postcolnial literature in English, and be introduced to debates over globalizaiton. Students will also acquire skills in literary interpretation.

LBS 705. Black Religion and Radical Thought: An Intellectual and Cultural History. (3 h)

This course charts an intellectual history from antebellum America through the Civil Rights Movement. We assess several classic and contemporary texts on radical black political thought en route to an investigation of the connections between black religious thinking and political activism. We also study the complex religious voices within the American freedom struggle—whether traditional African, Muslim, or Judaeo-Christian. We will trace religion’s role in the various forms and phases of the resistance through the nearly 400 years of the African American pilgrimage to secure social transformation.

LBS 706. Reading Illness Narratives. (3 h)

This Course will examine fiction, memoirs, poems, plays, films, medical journal articles, and feminist theory that represent the experience of living with (and sometimes dying of) a serious illness. From their perspectives as a psychosocial oncologist and a literary and gender studies scholar, the professors will seek to illuminate how contemporary writers depict life-threatening illness, what people living with chronic disease choose to document, and what literary and visual techniques they use. We will also consider what these artists teach others about living close to death and how gender affects the themes and strategies of illnes narratives. Emphasis will be placed on how the quality and skill of empathy appears in assigned texts and how it impacts patients, caregivers, readers, and viewers.

LBS 707. Ideas&Pract Contem Pol Protest. (3 h)

The notion that contemporary political protests lack coherent ideas and visions has become sufficiently commonplace as to warrant critical investigation. Focusing on several recent cases from both the national and international scene, our seminar will explore the following questions: What are intellectual origins of and political visions being articulated by those individuals and groups active in recent waves of protest activity? What old and new understandings of some of the central concepts of politics—such as identity, power, sovereignty, territory, government, the state, democracy, the public sphere, movement, protest, and representation—emerge from these actions and our analysis of them? .

LBS 708. Bodies, Commodities, and Global Environments. (3 h)

This course investigates human practices that bring health, commodities, and environments together on multiple spatial scales from the personal to the global. By exploring both historical and contemporaneous case studies, students will analyze how people understand and engage the natural world through specific cultural practices. The course looks into bot material connections between bodies, commodities, and environments, and conceptualizations of human relationships with non-human nature. It examines biology, capitalism, mass media, environmental knowledge, and changes to the physical world. Students will evaluate commonly deployed concepts, develop a new lexicon of spatial connections, and make meaningful comparisons between locales and cultures that span the globe.

LBS 709. Bollywood: Culture and Identity in Modern India. (3 h)

LBS 710. Herman Melville and His World. (3 h)

This course is an introduction to certain classics of world literature and to American culture in the nineteenth century. We will study the literary, biographical, historical, and societal contexts out of which Melville's important works grew, including the texts that inspired "Moby Dick," such as Homer's Odyssey, selections from the Bible, Plato's dialogues, Shakespeare, Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Emerson's essays. We will also consider the major events in Melville's life; nineteenth-century debates about American identity; and the features of the U.S. literary marketplace.

LBS 711. Social Media and You: The Benefits and Burdens. (3 h)

The course will describe the development of Computer Mediated Communication from its early days, tracing the important points of inflection, and then focus on the way in which the current systems and devices allows for interactions through digital media using narbs, pointing towards the theoretical underpinning of the idea of narbs and its application.

LBS 712. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq Wars and US Foreign Policy. (3 h)

This course broadly addresses the phenomena of US involvement in two wars - the Afghan War (2001-) and the Iraq Ware (2003-2011), approaching this topic from a historical and policy perspective. Owing to the on-going nature of the conflicts readings and emphasis may change as the term progresses. Readings will be drawn from books, policy reports, government documents, and journalistic sources.

LBS 713. Race, Myth, and the American Imagination. (3 h)

This course is an examination race, myth, and the American imagination. Students will interrogate how race has functioned in mythical ways, across space and time, in American history. From the ante-bellum period to the present, biblical narratives, literary texts, popular entertainment, including, journalism, television, and cinema, have shaped racial thinking in the United States. Such thinking has been internal and external to the American experience. Students will attend to the local and global import of racialized mythology. Because racial mythology is gendered, specific attention will be given to racialized myths about African- American women and men. Such a focus illuminates how racial mythology has been applied to the moral character of African- American communities. At the end of this course, students will have a heightened appreciation for the study of myth and its relation to race and the American imagination.

LBS 715. Rumor and Urban Legends. (3 h)

The purpose of this course is to allow students to explore and discuss academic literature on rumor, urban legends, gossip and myths. Our society prides itself on its rationalist perspective, but the reality is that people find and construct knowledge in ways that are idiosyncratic, but personally logical. These four related communication phenomena may serve constructive social functions even if those are not immediately obvious. The power of rumor and urban legends to capture the human imagination and influences the workings of society is profound and fascinating. The readings will draw on important studies in sociology, psychology, communication and folklore.

LBS 720. Special Topics: Language and Literature. (3 h)

Special Topics in Liberal Studies related to Language and Literature. Course emphasis will vary with instructor. May be repeated for credit if topic differs.

LBS 721. Special Topics: Media, Arts, and Rhetoric. (3 h)

Special Topics in Liberal Studies related to studies in media, art, and rhetoric. Course emphasis will vary with instructor. May be repeated fro credit if topic differs.

LBS 722. Special Topics: Politics and International Relations. (3 h)

Special topics in Liberal Studies related to politics and international relations. Course emphasis will vary with instructor. Course may be repeated for credit if the topic differs.

LBS 723. Special Topics: History, Societies, and Culture. (3 h)

Special topics in Liberal Studies related to studies in history, societies, and various cultures. Emphasis will vary with instructor. Course may be repeated for credit if the topic differs.

LBS 724. Special Topics: Philosophy and Religion. (3 h)

Special Topics in Liberal Studies related to studies in philosophy and religion. Emphasis will vary with instructor. Course may be repeated for credit if the topic differs.

LBS 725. Special Topics: Popular Culture. (3 h)

Special Topics in Liberal Studies related to studies in popular culture. Course emphasis will vary with instructor. Course may be repeated for credit if topic differs.

LBS 726. Special Topics: Urban Arts and Architectural Design. (3 h)

Special Topics in Liberal Studies related to urban arts and architecural design studies. Course empahsis will vary with instructor. Course may be repeated for credit if topic differs.

LBS 727. Special Topics: Science, Health, and Culture. (3 h)

Special Topics in Liberal Studies related to the sciences, health and culture. Course emphasis will vary with instructor. Course may be repeated for credit if the topic differs.

LBS 728. Special Topics: Fine Arts, Aesthetics, and Creativity. (3 h)

Special Topics in Liberal Studies related to the study of Fine Art and the areas of asethetics and creativity. Course emphasis will vary with instructor. Course may be repeated for credit if topic differs.

LBS 729. Special Topics: Psychology, Humanism, and Business. (3 h)

Special Topics in Liberal Studies related to the areas of psychology, humanism, and business. Course emphasis will vary with instructor. Course may be repeated for credit if topic differs.

LBS 786. Directed Study. (1-3 h)

Working with a faculty advisor, the student completes a special reading project in area not covered in regular courses or a special research project not related to the master's thesis. A student who wishes to enroll must submit the Directed Study Form, signed by the advisor, to the program director. May be repeated once for credit with the permission of the program director Staff.

LBS 790. Capstone Project. (3 h)

Capstone project options includes: 1) research paper describing and explaining tentative hypotheses based on quantitative and/or qualitative research; 2) creative work with accompanying interpretive text; 3) internship with non-profit or for-profit organization with on site supervision; 4) portfolio of M.A. work, including a retrospective paper on major learnings from student's course of study as well as two academic papers from M.A. courses taken.

LBS 791. Thesis Research. (3 h)

LBS 792. Thesis Research II. (3 h)

LBS 824. Commemoratives of the Middle Passage. (3 h)

This course examines the historical memory of the slave trade which forcibly removed more than 10 million Africans from their homes. The Middle Passage has been memorialized in films, novels, poetry, the plastic arts, exhibits, and historical monuments, especially the slave castles along the Western African coast. Major themes explored are the sensory and experiential expressions, cultural diversity, internal population dynamics, gendered relations of power, and sexual differences. The social reproduction of cultural mores with the removal of "saltwater" Africans to the Americas and the absorption of new sources of slaves in Africa will also be examined.

LBS 832. India Calling. (3 h)

LBS 853. State, Econ & Intl Competitive. (3 h)

The course explores a range of important case studies of national economic performance, including the strengths and weaknesses of leading examples of welfare capitalism, liberal capitalism, and capitalisms in which the state plays an active developmental role. We will examine the viability of welfare capitalism against the growing penchant for liberal capitalist solutions to contemporary problems of economic growth, international competitiveness and unemployment. We will also explore the impact of labor, capital, culture and the state, including an examination of the main theories of economic growth currently informing public policy, and the future of the American model of capitalism.