Change the Narrative

Instructor: Chinyere Osuji

How does culture construct our knowledge of the world and ourselves? Using Korean dramas, aka Kdramas, as a case study, this course will explore how various media negotiate blackness for global audiences. As a viral, billion-dollar art form, Kdramas provide an ideal window through which to explore recent trends in our global culture, including colorism, “Black as cool,” travel as consumption, and immigration. They illuminate the politics of culture. We will examine how moral panics and social dilemmas are presented in the fictitious world of “Kdramaland,” and how they inform our understandings of South Korean society, our own societies, and the world. Drawing on social science research by Koreans and non-Koreans alike, students will debate the ways the culture of the Korean wave reflects, reproduces, and challenges social inequities of marginalized and minoritized groups, as well as how those groups respond, to illuminate the larger global forces at work in intercultural exchange.

GenEd: TBA

Offered in: Fall 2025, Spring 2026, Fall 2026, Spring 2027

Required/Optional: Required

Instructor: Max Barnewitz

In 2023, Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir, Gender Queer, was the most challenged book in the U.S. Often restricted due to spurious claims about corrupting children, comics have a long history of upsetting the status quo with their unique use of words and pictures. Artists from historically marginalized communities continue to shape this medium. This class examines comics, from glossy horror comics to grungy punk zines, that reject the conventional and subvert suppression. Learning experientially through DMV resources like the D.C. Punk and Indie Fanzine Archive and local comics fests, students will generate their own comics and investigate censorship and resistance.

GenEd: TBA

Offered in: Fall 2025, Spring 2026, Fall 2026, Spring 2027

Required/Optional: Optional

Instructor: DeNeen Brown

Social justice journalists are “watchdogs” of strong democracies that work in pursuit of truth by holding the powerful accountable. These news stories often impact local, national and international communities that are crying out for justice. This class, which is taught by an award-winning journalist who has covered social justice issues for more than 35 years, will introduce students to how journalists work to uncover issues of injustice, including systemic racism, discrimination, gender bias, environmental racism, war and regional conflict that impacts African and indigenous people in the Diaspora. Students will study how reporters cover injustice and protest movements, and the ethical practices used to cover race and social justice issues. Through research and readings, students will gain deeper analytical skills, collaboration skills and critical-thinking skills by researching, reporting, and creating written, audio and visual story-telling projects covering social justice issues.

GenEd: TBA

Offered in: Fall 2026, Spring 2027

Required/Optional: Optional

Instructor: Katie Coogan / Margaret Walker

Climate change, poverty, natural disasters, racism… Luckily for humanity, no topic is too intense for the artworld to tackle. When artists direct their energies not simply at rendering problems but also toward working with communities, the arts have the power to heal, unite, and transform. This class invites students to think about how art, particularly public visual arts like murals and street art, can help us collectively discuss and even solve our most pressing issues. Students will collaborate with local artists, contemporary and diverse art collections at UMD, other local galleries, and recent community-based art projects to understand the real-world impact the arts can have on social transformation. The main engagement of this course will be to co-design and implement a community-based art project together with the community it will impact. Students will emerge from this collaborative practice empowered to use the arts to connect communities and make lasting social change.

GenEd: TBA

Offered in: Spring 2026, Spring 2027

Required/Optional: Optional