ANT102– Humankind Evolving: Introduction to humanity’s biological heritage. Topics include introductory evolutionary theory, population genetics, primate biology and behavior, and the primate fossil record. Principal emphasis upon the fossil evidence for human evolution, with particular focus on biological adaptations and the emergence of culture.
PSY101– General Psychology: Survey of the current psychology of learning, perception, motivation, intelligence, thinking, and social and abnormal behaviors, with emphasis on the application of scientific methods to psychological investigation and on the biological bases of behavior and experience. Students may be required to participate in experiments or in alternative research experiences.
THE245– Acting I: Study and application of the psycho-physical and emotional bases of performance. Emphasis on relaxation of the actor’s body, ensemble improvisation, freeing the natural voice, acting on impulse. The training will culminate in realistic scene work.
WRI101– Building Stories: Architecture is not a passive structure we occupy; rather, it shapes our minds and imaginations, influencing what we do and how we do it. In this course, we’ll explore physical and virtual spaces, ranging from homes, prisons, and hospitals, to blogs, websites, and digital archives. We’ll also approach writing as a form of architecture, breaking out of the predictable 5-paragraph essay blueprint into order reimagine essays as more enticing dwelling spaces for your readers to inhabit. The course itself will inhabit the digital realm: the course hub will be a website; you will learn to write for web publication; and you will design a WordPress site on your own Davidson Domain to showcase your work throughout your career at Davidson. No previous technological training needed, but creativity, critical thinking, and a collaborative spirit are required.
ANT208– Early Cities & States: Archaeology of prehistoric and early historic complex societies. Early chiefdoms and states of South America, Egypt, and Asia. Anthropological theories of state formation, including the roles of ecology, ideology, technology, warfare, and economic organization.
ENG204– Introduction to Writing Fiction: Practice in the writing of short fiction with some reading of contemporary fiction writers in English.
FRE226– Geographies of Desire: Desire is a passion that has driven men and women to build and destroy empire, and has thus been a topic and subject in French literature since medieval times. This course examines the various forms of desire, and maps the spaces and places in which it is expressed, from France to the confines of the colonial Empire and more recently the Francophone world.
THE362– Theatre for Social Justice: Course investigates the potential for theatre and performance to be catalysts for social change. Focusing on Community-Based Theatre, the course explores ways in which performance has participated in struggles against oppression and has been integral to community-building. Course combines case studies from various historical and geographical contexts with practical activities used by Community-Based Theatre practitioners.
ENG290– World Literatures
THE355– Directing I: Fundamentals of directing for the stage, focusing on text analysis, blocking principles, the director-actor relationship, the director-designer conceptual process and scene work.
FRE364– Paris Noir: This course examines the lives and works of artists and intellectuals from Africa, the African Diaspora and the US in Paris (1920-1960).
HHV120– Clincial Ethics: This course will introduce students to the history, evolution and current topics relevant in clinical ethics. Students will navigate ethical principles from a theoretical perspective, such as autonomy (self-determination), beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. At the same time they will discuss these principles in practical applications through case analysis and they will examine the tension between theory and practice. The course seeks to create awareness of the health care setting as an enterprise with different stakeholders and tensions, and to develop methods and analytical reasoning skills to discuss value-based conflicts in the health care setting.
LIT432– Theory and Practice of Literary Translation
REL282– Tibetan Religions
FRE366/AFR266– Africa Shoots Back
ENG307– Forms of Fiction
RUS292– Queer Russia: This course focuses on gender and sexuality in exploring an alternative cultural history of Russia, which highlights its queer legacy from the nineteenth century to the present. We will examine poetry, fiction, art, memoirs, plays, films, performances, and discursive texts that showcase uniquely Russian conceptions of marriage, gender relations, gender expression, and sexual identity. Attention will be paid to the ways in which Russian and Western narratives of queerness align and diverge.
SPA260– Conversation and Composition: Writing-intensive course in Spanish. Training and practice to develop fluency, accuracy, and expressiveness in oral and written communication. Requires conversation session with an Assistant Teacher once a week. Strongly recommended for students planning to study abroad.
ANT381– Traditional Asian Medical Systems: Although biomedicine is the most popular medical system in the world due to globalization, modernization, and Western cultural and political hegemony, aspects of Asian medical systems will continue to influence and gain popularity in developed nations. This course explores the various medical systems in the Asian continent and the health and illness etiology, and diagnostic and treatment methodologies within each system and within the context of other social institutions and history.
THE242– Women’s Work: 21st Century Female Playwrights: This course provides a close look at work created for the stage by women since 2000. The analysis of plays written and produced in the 21st century will be set in the context of feminist and queer theory which has offered insights into the cultural function of “women’s work.”
ENG391 Literary Criticism
FRE395– Les classiques littéraries du XXe siècle
SPA322– Don Quijote de la Mancha
ENG494-Disability in Literature & Art: The literary tradition in English is rife with representation of disability. These representations are sometimes used metaphorically, as representations of extreme innocence or evil. Likewise, they might reduce the experience of the disability to a conquerable challenge, or to a fate worse than death. Disability studies asks us to reframe our understanding of disability history, question socially defined categories of normalcy and ability, and understand and learn about the presence of “disability culture” and its widely diverse members are also using literature to tell their own stories in a vibrant new artistic tradition. Literature is and has been obsessed with the disabled body, both as metaphor and actual subject — an extension of the degree to which disability has loomed in the larger societal imagination in one way or another across centuries.
ENG483– Black Literary Theory
ENG404– Writing the Sexy Novella
During the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters on my transcript also appear courses designated for the Honors thesis within the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies to mark the timeline during which I was researching, writing, editing, and presenting my thesis research.
