Humanities & Cultural Studies

In a world full of population movements, the figure of the interpreter as a gatekeeper is getting more and more important. Working for languages is one of the best ways to recognize languages and cultures and to facilitate the communication between all the members in our communities. Humans are social beings so we need to communicate. Interpreting services should be used to respect human rights and to guarantee social integration. What is more important: what we say or how we say it? II you are interested in languages, rights and social justice, this is your class.

Location

Join this facilitated reading group to discuss some really interesting new work by women writers, particularly women writers of color, focusing on race, labor and embodiment. We'll read some short stories and novel excerpts by Nisi Shawl, Andrea Hairston, L. Timmel Duchamp, Aliette De Bodard, Ekaterina Sedia and Octavia Butler (who isn't recent, but whose work informs so much recent feminist SF). We can also read material suggested by class members and/or critical writing about feminist science fiction. We will build our discussion around how race is written, how embodiment is written, how work is written. What meaning do these stories have for us as radicals? How do these stories fit within science fiction as a whole? How do they fit within feminist science fiction?

I also suggest that the group talk about our positions as readers of these stories - where are we in terms of class, race, gender, lived experience? How do these works speak to us? How shall we speak about them? On a personal level, as a white person I'd like to talk about being an accountable reader and an accountable speaker about science fiction by women of color. What does it mean, for example, that a white person is suggesting this class? How can I organize a reading group but avoid using the work of writers of color to make myself seem cultured/knowing/fashionable? In what ways can I read respectfully and honestly, recognizing my whiteness and how I profit from white supremacy?

Meetings will focus on your interests, attendees - we'll do various kinds of small group discussion, paired discussion, brainstorming, maybe even some art, collage, etc. I'll provide some plans for each class meeting so we can start generating ideas (and I'll nudge the group a little so that we keep moving), but I won't be lecturing – I’d much rather just participate in small group work and gently facilitate the class from the sidelines.

Location

Not sure where you stand on the issue of marijuana legalization? Never really thought about it? Wondering what all the hoopla in the media is about?

This is a mini workshop of three classes with the mission of dispensing the truths and dispelling the myths about cannabis in our society.

Please note: We will not be discussing growing and cultivating techniques, or how to make edibles. Instead, we will cater this workshop to the specific needs of the group.

Our mini-workshop will go as follows:

1. First meeting:
a. Group discussion. Topics:
i. What is your current stance on marijuana legalization?
ii. What are your concerns and questions about cannabis or cannabis legalization?
b. Look at some of the false propaganda propagated by the US Government.
c. Watch Reefer Madness
d. Homework: Find one article related to a question or concern you have about cannabis.
2. Second meeting:
a. Share your homework with the rest of the class and discuss.
b. Watch What if Cannabis Cured Cancer
3. Third and final meeting:
a. Group discussion: What have you learned? How have your views changed?
b. Watch The Union: The Business of Getting High

The introduction to social preliminology class is intended to exist as a single medium that works to develop the context of social preliminology. Human civilization has perpetually been confronted with two extreme outcomes which can be broken down into the following primary categories: rise and downfall. The class will be tasked with developing a universal formula that can explain and depict this cycle using the human diversification factor. Further defined, the human diversification factor represents the unique attributes that distinguish communities, societies, nations, and civilizations from each other; both past and present. A comprehensive understanding of social preliminology is achieved by bracing ourselves with universal human behaviors and their impacts on a respective society’s environment in addition to its greater civilization at large.

The downfall of the Roman, British, and the Ottoman Empires collapsed for various reasons that are hardly uniform when observing the actual technicalities. Nonetheless, if we take a brief journey into history, we will observe that the Roman Empire collapsed as a result of a split between east and west, the British Empire fell due to its weakened position after the Second World War, and the final blow to the “sick man of Europe” (the Ottoman Empire) was delivered in the form of the First World War. In an effort to eliminate the abstractness that surrounds this subject matter, the prevalence of the societal infrastructure holds itself as an invaluable attribute that supports/sustains any human civilization. When the infrastructural variable is weakened and destabilized, adverse implications are felt in the political, economic, and social arenas of the nation-state, empire, or sovereign entity in question. As an example, the cost of World War Two economically devastated Great Britain while the infrastructural backwater of the Ottoman Empire leads to the creation of its derogatory nickname (the sick man of Europe).