Academics

Fall Term Schedule

Fall 2023

Number	Title	Instructor	Time
EHUM 103-1 Moral Problems William FitzPatrick TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM
An introduction to moral philosophy as applied to current topics. Some questions to be explored: What sorts of socioeconomic principles are morally justifiable? Does the history of racial injustice in the U.S. create a moral demand for reparations, and if so, what is the best argument for this? What is the relation, if any, between morality and religion? Do animals have moral rights? How should we understand the meaning and value of human life and death? Can abortion sometimes be justified, and if so, how? Is it okay to destroy embryos for stem cell research? Is active euthanasia ever permissible? Is capital punishment justifiable in principle? In practice? Is torture morally permissible in the fight against terrorism? How far does our moral duty to aid distant strangers extend? We will also explore related general questions: Is it always possible for a good enough end to justify bad means? Are there objective facts about right or wrong, or is morality ultimately relative to cultures or times? Are there situations in which every available action is wrong? Can we be morally assessed even for some things that are largely a matter of luck? Location Dewey Room 2162 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)
EHUM 153-1 Introduction to Sound Art Cary Adams MW 10:25AM - 1:05PM
Humans and machines, infrastructure and architecture, community, and culture: how do these relationships shape our imagination of sounds and music? Through practice-based research, we will explore the aural environments generated by the industrial and post-industrial history of cities along the Rust Belt, studying, for example, how Industrial Fordism’s merger of human and machine informed the rise of sample culture and machine-based rhythm and music. Using Detroit as our case study, we will examine how African-American arts, culture, and history, combined with the rise of the automobile industry, produced Detroit Techno as way for artists to respond to the sonic architecture of their environment. Meanwhile, we will be making our own field recordings of our local urban environments and electronically processing them into tones and beats, and then sequencing and mixing our research into sonic productions using non-screen-based hardware devices. Not open to seniors. $75 Studio Fee. Location Sage Arts Center Room 103 (MW 10:25AM - 1:05PM)
EHUM 213-1 Politics of Nature: Gender, Race, and the Environment Tatyana Bakhmetyeva T 2:00PM - 4:40PM
This course explores the relationship between the environment and social inequality, focusing specifically on issues of gender, race, and class. Using intersectional feminist analysis, we will investigate the historical roots of modern dualist constructions that juxtapose humans and the environment, men and women, creating an anthropocentric, racialized, and gendered framework that produces and maintains social inequalities and a destructive attitude toward the environment. Topics may include the following: historical ideas about nature and environment; eco-imperialism; eco-feminism; climate change and its connection to issues of race, gender, and class; justice and sustainability; poverty and natural resources; food justice; natural disasters and their context; racialized outdoors, and others. The course features multiple field trips and time outdoors. Location Lechase Room 160 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
EHUM 245-1 Race, Colonialism, and Nature (Formerly Environmental Literature) Leila Nadir MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM
In this course we will slowly, closely, intensely, and meditatively study novels by Toni Morrison, Jamaica Kincaid, Linda Hogan, and Leslie Marmon Silko. And we will also learn how to narrate and write our own environmental stories. INSTRUCTOR PERMISSION REQUIRED. NOT OPEN TO SENIORS. Location Dewey Room 4162 (MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)
EHUM 258-1 New Media and Emerging Practices: Art Environment Action Cary Adams MW 2:00PM - 4:40PM
This course explores the possibilities of art-making through digital, networked environments emphasizing emerging technologies and social practice. Our framing creative-research question for the semester will be: What does it mean to be an ecological being in the context of convergent ecological, digital, local, industrial, and global environments, and how do we make art that “interrupts” this experience? How can artists create texts, objects, and collaborative, participatory social actions that reinvigorate awareness of the ecologically and technologically interconnected world in which we live? We will find out. Not open to seniors/Permission of Instructor. $75 Studio Fee. Location Sage Arts Center Room 101 (MW 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
EHUM 268-1 Decolonizing Food (Formerly Food Media Literature) Leila Nadir MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM
This course takes a humanities approach to understanding the industrial food system–from the slave economies of sugar plantations in the colonial era to monocultures of corn, soy, and palm oil spanning the globe in our modern-industrial times. Using the interpretive lens of the Plantation, we will connect contemporary social and environmental problems like climate change, racial injustice, and economic inequality to the colonization of people, animals, plants, and the planet. This framework will help us connect movements for climate justice and Black lives today to the technoscientific industrialization of the Earth and our diets. In the process, we will study many well-known but little-understood topics, such biotech, chemical fertilizers, fast food, and GMOs, as well as critical theories that illuminate the cultural frameworks that shape our perception, including modernity/modernization, neoliberalism, post-humanism, microbiology, and popular culture. This class includes growing your own sprouts, a fermentation workshop, gardening time at local community farms, and a trip to Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen. Not open to seniors. Email Professor Leila Nadir to apply (leila.nadir@rochester.edu). Location Lechase Room 160 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)
EHUM 284-1 Civil Disobedience John Downey T 2:00PM - 4:40PM
his course will examine the varieties of thought about, and practice of, civil disobedience within social movements, with an emphasis on contemporary activism. When, why, and how do communities choose to push back against structures of violence and injustice? Throughout the semester, we will study canonical texts of modern resistance history speeches, writing, direct action protests, art and will consider the role of this form of counter-conduct within larger campaign strategies to build power from below and get free. Location Meliora Room 224 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)
EHUM 301-1 History of Nature Stewart Weaver T 2:00PM - 4:40PM
This course explores the history of the idea and condition of nature from the Enlightenment to the present. Drawing on contemporary historical scholarship as well as a range of thinkers and writers from Thoreau to Carson and beyond, we will study the many ways in which humans have thought about and treated the natural world around them and how the natural world has shaped human history in turn. We will also meet occasionally with a parallel course on "the Politics of Nature" (GSWS 213). Some background in history is recommended. Location Rush Rhees Library Room 305 (T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

Number	Title	Instructor	Time
Monday and Wednesday
EHUM 153-1 Introduction to Sound Art Cary Adams
Humans and machines, infrastructure and architecture, community, and culture: how do these relationships shape our imagination of sounds and music? Through practice-based research, we will explore the aural environments generated by the industrial and post-industrial history of cities along the Rust Belt, studying, for example, how Industrial Fordism’s merger of human and machine informed the rise of sample culture and machine-based rhythm and music. Using Detroit as our case study, we will examine how African-American arts, culture, and history, combined with the rise of the automobile industry, produced Detroit Techno as way for artists to respond to the sonic architecture of their environment. Meanwhile, we will be making our own field recordings of our local urban environments and electronically processing them into tones and beats, and then sequencing and mixing our research into sonic productions using non-screen-based hardware devices. Not open to seniors. $75 Studio Fee.
EHUM 245-1 Race, Colonialism, and Nature (Formerly Environmental Literature) Leila Nadir
In this course we will slowly, closely, intensely, and meditatively study novels by Toni Morrison, Jamaica Kincaid, Linda Hogan, and Leslie Marmon Silko. And we will also learn how to narrate and write our own environmental stories. INSTRUCTOR PERMISSION REQUIRED. NOT OPEN TO SENIORS.
EHUM 258-1 New Media and Emerging Practices: Art Environment Action Cary Adams
This course explores the possibilities of art-making through digital, networked environments emphasizing emerging technologies and social practice. Our framing creative-research question for the semester will be: What does it mean to be an ecological being in the context of convergent ecological, digital, local, industrial, and global environments, and how do we make art that “interrupts” this experience? How can artists create texts, objects, and collaborative, participatory social actions that reinvigorate awareness of the ecologically and technologically interconnected world in which we live? We will find out. Not open to seniors/Permission of Instructor. $75 Studio Fee.
EHUM 268-1 Decolonizing Food (Formerly Food Media Literature) Leila Nadir
This course takes a humanities approach to understanding the industrial food system–from the slave economies of sugar plantations in the colonial era to monocultures of corn, soy, and palm oil spanning the globe in our modern-industrial times. Using the interpretive lens of the Plantation, we will connect contemporary social and environmental problems like climate change, racial injustice, and economic inequality to the colonization of people, animals, plants, and the planet. This framework will help us connect movements for climate justice and Black lives today to the technoscientific industrialization of the Earth and our diets. In the process, we will study many well-known but little-understood topics, such biotech, chemical fertilizers, fast food, and GMOs, as well as critical theories that illuminate the cultural frameworks that shape our perception, including modernity/modernization, neoliberalism, post-humanism, microbiology, and popular culture. This class includes growing your own sprouts, a fermentation workshop, gardening time at local community farms, and a trip to Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen. Not open to seniors. Email Professor Leila Nadir to apply (leila.nadir@rochester.edu).
Tuesday
EHUM 213-1 Politics of Nature: Gender, Race, and the Environment Tatyana Bakhmetyeva
This course explores the relationship between the environment and social inequality, focusing specifically on issues of gender, race, and class. Using intersectional feminist analysis, we will investigate the historical roots of modern dualist constructions that juxtapose humans and the environment, men and women, creating an anthropocentric, racialized, and gendered framework that produces and maintains social inequalities and a destructive attitude toward the environment. Topics may include the following: historical ideas about nature and environment; eco-imperialism; eco-feminism; climate change and its connection to issues of race, gender, and class; justice and sustainability; poverty and natural resources; food justice; natural disasters and their context; racialized outdoors, and others. The course features multiple field trips and time outdoors.
EHUM 284-1 Civil Disobedience John Downey
his course will examine the varieties of thought about, and practice of, civil disobedience within social movements, with an emphasis on contemporary activism. When, why, and how do communities choose to push back against structures of violence and injustice? Throughout the semester, we will study canonical texts of modern resistance history speeches, writing, direct action protests, art and will consider the role of this form of counter-conduct within larger campaign strategies to build power from below and get free.
EHUM 301-1 History of Nature Stewart Weaver
This course explores the history of the idea and condition of nature from the Enlightenment to the present. Drawing on contemporary historical scholarship as well as a range of thinkers and writers from Thoreau to Carson and beyond, we will study the many ways in which humans have thought about and treated the natural world around them and how the natural world has shaped human history in turn. We will also meet occasionally with a parallel course on "the Politics of Nature" (GSWS 213). Some background in history is recommended.
Tuesday and Thursday
EHUM 103-1 Moral Problems William FitzPatrick
An introduction to moral philosophy as applied to current topics. Some questions to be explored: What sorts of socioeconomic principles are morally justifiable? Does the history of racial injustice in the U.S. create a moral demand for reparations, and if so, what is the best argument for this? What is the relation, if any, between morality and religion? Do animals have moral rights? How should we understand the meaning and value of human life and death? Can abortion sometimes be justified, and if so, how? Is it okay to destroy embryos for stem cell research? Is active euthanasia ever permissible? Is capital punishment justifiable in principle? In practice? Is torture morally permissible in the fight against terrorism? How far does our moral duty to aid distant strangers extend? We will also explore related general questions: Is it always possible for a good enough end to justify bad means? Are there objective facts about right or wrong, or is morality ultimately relative to cultures or times? Are there situations in which every available action is wrong? Can we be morally assessed even for some things that are largely a matter of luck?