WCore Research Emphasis Courses

WCore Requirements

ART	215	Drawing Lines in the Sand	4 Credits
This hybrid studio-seminar course examines art about landscape, space, and environments, while challenging students to build on these ideas in their own creative work. Students will research artworks and writings that explore topics such as landscape, “wild” and urban space, public and private spaces, land(scapes) and power, using this context to inform their creative works that address these same topics. This course simultaneously introduces students to fundamental drawing techniques, with a special focus on drawings and images made using landscape, nature, and hybridized modes of visual communication. No previous experience with drawing is required. (WCore: WCFAH, RE)
COMM	101	Disinformation in the USA	4 Credits
Disinformation is the intentional spread of false, inaccurate, distracting, and/or distorted information for the purpose of gaining power. In this class, we'll explore the history of disinformation-from early propaganda to more recent manipulation of facts-to examine how we as consumers can better identify and fight media exploitation. Emphasis will be on evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing primary and secondary sources to promote healthier media landscapes through information literacy. (WCore: RE)
FILM	110	Making Sense of Movies	4 Credits
This course examines the formal elements of film and its history, from the earliest experiments in motion photography through the present. Students will learn the terminology and concepts of film analysis (mise-en-scene, montage, cinematography, etc.) in the context of film’s evolution across the twentieth century. Films may include profanity, violence, and/or sexually explicit images. (WCore: WCFAH, RE)
FILM	210	(Un)American Cinema	4 Credits
This course seeks to understand American film history in light of one decisive set of events: the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings on communism in the film industry and the resulting industry blacklist. These events extended from 1947 until the late 1950s, which is obviously a small portion of American cinema history. We will situate them in relation to a broader historical context. For instance, the blacklist is incomprehensible without some sense of how the Hollywood studio system operated and the threat it was under in the late forties. And if the economic conditions in Hollywood played a decisive role in the blacklist, they continue to determine the political and aesthetic character of American movies to this day. We will treat the blacklist as a particularly vivid convergence of the factors that have shaped American cinema from the beginning, including the circumstances of international capitalism (and communism), the political beliefs and artistic aspirations of particular filmmakers, and the struggle between nativism and cosmopolitanism in American culture as a whole and in American cinema in particular. (WCore: WCFAH, RE)
HIST	124	Film and Memory	4 Credits
This course analyzes the intersection between film culture and the past by placing memory at the center of analysis. In other words, it explores how different genres of film, from war dramas to science fiction, shape the way communities remember the past and imagine the future. We will explore the representation of diverse societies and people groups in a variety of global films, focusing especially on the film industries of post-1945 Germany(s), the Soviet Union/ Russia, Japan, and China/ Hong Kong. This course will consider how visions of the future reflect historical realities (new ideas about science, nuclear war, space exploration). We will examine how different actors-production companies, directors, studios, and the state-attempt to craft national narratives and contribute to community identity through different genres. (WCore: WCSBS, RE)
HIST	214	Vietnam and America	4 Credits
This course explores the tangled history of America's involvement in Vietnam, the war's impacts on the people of both nations, and the war's global legacy. We will emphasize the reasons, meanings, and outcomes of the war for a range of participants: Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, northern and southern; U.S. civilians, policy makers, and soldiers, pro- and anti- war; and participants, observers, and protesters around the world. This course fulfills the WCore Research Emphasis. You will learn and practice history-specific research, discussion, and writing skills in a variety of assignments, including weekly reflective journals and crafting short "vignettes" and a longer research paper based on primary and secondary sources that you find, evaluate, analyze, and communicate to your classmates. (WCore: WCSBS, RE)
LMW	205	Goddesses, Heroes, and Others	4 Credits
From ancient scriptures to contemporary comics, these literary characters-goddesses, heroes, and “others” (figures marginalized by the dominant group)-rule. This course investigates and supports your investigations of these character types. It poses basic questions asked by many literary critics: where do these characters come from and how are they adapted by so many cultures and literary genres? To answer these questions, we’ll delve into current theory and historical research. We’ll do our part to keep goddesses, heroes, and others alive! (WCore: WCFAH, RE)
NEURO	117	Yep, Brains are Cool!	4 Credits
In this course, we will explore a variety of topics important to anyone who owns and uses a brain. In particular, we will focus on brain development in late adolescence and emerging adulthood and will use our brains to understand how we research brains. The course will be framed around a central question – “How do we know that?” We will look at current research on brain development during the transition to young adulthood, examine strengths and weaknesses of methods used to conduct that research, and discuss the practical application of such knowledge to the students’ own lives. In addition, we will discuss the ways in which said research has been used to shape parenting and educational practices as well as public policy over the past decade. (WCore: WCSAM, RE)
NURS	391	Nursing Theory and Research	4 Credits
This course will prepare the RN student to explore nursing theory and the research process. This course is two-fold: One part of the course will focus on research ethics and students will earn a certificate on Protecting Human Research Participants through the National Institute of health. In the second part of this course students will identify a practice problem in their current area of employment and utilize course concepts to offer evidence-based solutions to that problem. As learned in NURS 385, students will present their research findings at their place of employment. (WCore: RE)
PHIL	202	History of Philosophy II	4 Credits
In this course, we will read, write about, and discuss ideas from some of Western philosophy's most canonical authors. This course will focus on "modern philosophy," or Western philosophy from the mid-1600s to the late-1700s. This course will concentrate on ideas related to metaphysics and epistemology, with a bit of ontology to keep things exciting. Throughout this term, you will start to notice how these ideas are at work in the philosophical texts that you have already read and concepts that you take for granted. (WCore: RE)
PSYC	105	Bust That Psych Myth	4 Credits
This course provides a foundation and hands-on experience in the scientific study of human emotion, cognition and behavior. Through this exploration, the course presents students with opportunity to interact with material in ways that help them understand the context of psychology as a behavioral science among other fields that focus on human behavior (both individual and group) culture, and society, and the context of psychology among other sciences. Other issues discussed will be myths about popular psychology, the effect those myths have on the general public, and how broader society's denial of research findings may be caused by deficits in scientific literacy. (WCore: WCSAM, RE)
THTR	275	Period Styles	3 Credits
Historic architecture, interior design styles, and fashion are essential areas of knowledge for theatre designers. Many productions are not only set in historic periods and locales, but also draw on historic inspirations. This course will introduce theatre majors to a range of historic and global period styles in architecture, decor, and fashion for application in theatre design. Students will learn basic terminology of architectural features, furniture, and fashion. Students will also learn about research methods and historical and cross cultural influences in fashion and architecture. (WCore: RE)
WCFAH	219	The Music of Two Ring Cycles	4 Credits
In this course, students will examine music composed for two of the greatest fantasy epics ever created, Richard Wagner's 4-opera Der Ring des Niebelungen and Howard Shore's soundtracks to the 3-film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Comparisons between the literary content of the cycles are inevitable, from the subject matter to parallel plot developments and even the fantasy creatures that inhabit each world, and these will be studied in the course. In addition to these correspondences, the composers of each cycle used very similar compositional devices to organize the musical content, providing continuity over 10+ hours of music while simultaneously clearly delineating characters, objects, emotional states and more abstract ideas. Students will present their own specialized research on diverse topics relating to the two cycles to their classmates. (WCore: WCFAH, RE)
WCSAM	201	Geobiology of the Universe	4 Credits
This course explores the interdisciplinary methods of space exploration and the extraordinary data that we accrue through Earth analogs, remote sensing, women/manned missions, and unmanned probes into our solar system and beyond. Using primary data from past studies and current missions, we will develop models and design experiments to ask larger questions about the Universe. Is there life beyond Earth? How does geology of a space body inform the potential for life? (WCore: WCSAM, RE)
WCSBS	131	Folklore of Many Americas	4 Credits
This class is an introduction to the study of folklore, which celebrates the art of the everyday. Folklorists study stories, songs, sayings, legends, folk beliefs, and other aspects of traditional culture. Although a lot of folklore reinforces the status quo, this course focuses on the folklore of minority groups in America and asks if and when folklore can be an act of resistance. (WCore: WCSBS, RE)