Civil Bonds

Instructor: Kristjana Maddux

How do ordinary citizens power democracy? At the age of 18, every American citizen is endowed with the right to vote, but what if democracy demands more than voting? With democratic processes seemingly in peril all around us, what can and should ordinary citizens do to safeguard democracy? Looking beyond the basic right to vote, this class will instead explore the complex ecosystem of citizenship practices necessary for collective self-governance. Turning to both philosophy and history, the course material addresses the power and peril of such civic habits as mutual aid, economic participation, tolerance, attention, organizing, protest, and more. We consider what resources these habits require, what virtues they inspire, and what happens when they conflict with each other. Students in this course will acquire the tools to develop and act on their own answer to the pressing question of what it will take to save democracy.

GenEd: SCIS/DSHU

Offered in: Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025

Required/Optional: Required

Instructor: Yupeng Jiao

How were human communities sustained before the rise of capitalism, individualism, and secularism? Where can we look to imagine a world in which modern science, polity, and ethics are not the defining system of civil social? Through an exploration of stories from late medieval Europe, China, Southeast Asia, and other regional communities, with a particular focus on the East, this course aims at de-orientalizing the narratives of the Western world by recovering the collective practices of the global past and present. Interrogating the idea that human history has been a linear process of industrialization and secularization, this course encourages students to reflect on the limits and problems of modernization, and learn from cultures whose practices were displaced or silenced by colonial knowledge production. Students will be empowered to consider, and even envision, alternative versions of modernity and the future of our world.

GenEd: DSHS

Offered in: Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025

Required/Optional: Optional

Instructor: Jonathan Dinman

Viruses that are lethal to human life have been on earth for centuries. Why are they surging now? And how can we respond to the recent breakneck spread of Coronavirus? This class begins its journey with Homo sapiens, our ancestor that dispersed out of Africa and carried infectious diseases across the planet. Human expansion into new ecosystems also provided opportunities for us to acquire new pathogens. While all of human history is marked by diseases caused by human migration, the Industrial Revolution greatly accelerated human mobility while planting the seeds of the human impact on climate change. Today, the increasingly rapid movement of people and goods, combined with a warming planet and the large-scale disruption of major ecosystems has witnessed an unprecedented spread of infectious diseases. Students will explore how these trends impact our lives and collectively challenge themselves to do what must be done to save our planet and ourselves.

GenEd: TBA

Offered in: Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025

Required/Optional: Optional