08/22/2017
Exciting class to look forward to!
Culture, Society, and Protest
English 4303
"Given the contemporary cultural/political zeitgeist, English 4303, Culture, Society and Protest, is a timely examination of how meaning in our world is contested and fashioned. In this class, we will read, view, and listen to a variety of media through which we will attempt to make sense our places in society. Interdisciplinary in spirit and nature, this class will offer students the opportunity to explore pertinent areas relevant to their own interests. We will also explore some of the most contentious topics in America: Unvanishing the Indian, this land is her land, capitalism and its discontents, and little books, big wars, and the word is our are more than trendy phrases. Respectively, they refer to Native Americans, women, poverty, race, and LGBT rights. In examining these and other topics, students will read fiction, reportage, and criticism, and we will also utilize America’s great tradition of popular music. We’ll put Marvin Gaye’s 1971 masterpiece What’s Going On, for example, into dialogue with arguments about inequality and poverty. We’ll wonder why inequality, unfairness, exclusion and so on exist to the extent that they do, and we’ll look for answers in culture, in society, and in politics. We will, of course, read poetry and film too, but we will demand of those genres more than aesthetic pleasure. This is an interactive seminar and student input is encouraged. Given the tenor of the times, you may owe it to yourself to take this course."
Ian Peddie, Ph.D.
Department of Languages and Literature
Sul Ross State University
Alpine, Texas 79832
432.837.8154
