course promotion

The College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences is excited to announce some of our new courses for Summer and Fall 2021. New classes will be added daily! Check back often. If you have questions about courses, please contact our college at cahs@uah.edu or speak with your Academic Advisor. 

SUMMER 2021

ART, ART HISTORY & DESIGN

ARS 395: Vector 3D Modeling

Chris Taylor cbt0011@uah.edu

Students enrolled in this class will learn Rhinoceros 3D, a software program used in Industrial Design, Architecture, Sculpture, and Transportation Design. Students will begin the class using tutorial-based lessons and progress to designing their own objects as they respond to thought-provoking prompts meant to push the concepts behind their designs. Rhinoceros 3D is a CAD software with a multitude of complex 3D modeling tools, which allow you to create unimaginable shapes with great precision and detail, whether from a drawing, a sketch, or even a 3D scan. The software is compatible with most design, drafting, CAM, prototyping, rendering, and illustration programs.

ENGLISH

EH 440/540: Special Topics James Joyce

Dr. Eric Smith eds0001@uah.edu

This course will survey the major works of James Joyce, who is widely considered the most significant writer in English during the 20th century. We will read his short story collection The Dead, his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and his opus Ulysses.

HISTORY

HY 498/598: American Religious History

Dr. Glenda Mitchell gbm0004@uah.edu

This course will expose students to the diverse religious landscape of the United States by exploring religious themes and movements from the period before European contact to the present. Students will examine the expansion of religious life in the nation and seek to understand how particular ideas underpinning American society have informed and reshaped religious expression. How has the religious landscape in the United States evolved over time? In particular, how have trends in politics, science, technology, gender relations, and immigration contributed to the growing diversity of religion in America?

PSYCHOLOGY

PY 102: Applications of Psychology 

Dr. Nathan Tenhundfeld nlt0006@uah.edu

This course is designed to equip PY majors and minors with tools that students can apply to upper-level courses, information to allow students to interpret psychological research, and descriptions of applied areas of psychology to expand the students’ career views of the discipline. The students should be able to apply APA format, understand how to interpret theoretical models, data charts and tables, and interpret inferential statistics to compile a short research report. The students should be able to distinguish different subfields in psychology and the related degrees needed for career success in these subfields.

PY 201: Lifespan Development

Dr. Jodi Price jodi.price@uah.edu

Is a shy child destined to be a shy adult? What makes for a good romantic partner? Does having great parents influence the likelihood of you being a good parent? At what age are people the happiest? Learn how we develop from conception through death and knock out one of your social science requirements, all in five weeks! Sample Course Syllabus. 

SOCIOLOGY

SOC 369: Environmental Sociology

Dr. Kyle Knight kyle.knight@uah.edu

Examines the ways in which society and the natural environment interact and shape each other. This course engages with the major debates in the field of environmental sociology in order to better understand the challenges and options humans face as we navigate global environmental crises. Sample Course Syllabus.

FALL 2021

COMMUNICATION ARTS

CM 440/540: Public Relations Campaigns

Dr. Candice Lanius cll0020@uah.edu 

Public Relations Campaigns is a research-intensive course that exposes students to real-world problems in public relations. Working as members in PR teams, students will follow the Research, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation (RPIE) process for designing strategic communication plans for various clients in different contexts included medical, military, education, and non-profit organizations. In addition to these core aspects, CM 540 students will learn the case study method of analysis, preparing a journal article, and presenting their work to the class.

ENGLISH

EH 422/522: Studies in the Novel: Caribbean Fiction

Dr. Eric Smith eds0001@uah.edu

This course will survey a broad range of Anglophone literary production from the diverse national cultures of the Caribbean archipelago. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which the creative possibilities (and limitations) of the novel form help trace the contours of the emergent postcolonial Caribbean nation-state (engaging and reformulating cultural effects like creolization, calypso, mas’, and metissage) from its anti-colonial roots to the diremptions or dislocations of contemporary globalization. 

EH 440/540: An Exploration in Social Justice

Dr. Beth Boswell brb0035@uah.edu

In this multi-genre special topics course, we’ll explore what the term “social justice” means and how its many issues are expressed in the creative texts of our time. The course is divided into thematic units of social concern (the global refugee crisis, BIPOC rights, LGBTQ+ rights, gender discrimination, sexual assault, criminal reform, education reform, political/institutional oppression, and the mechanism of activism) and features texts in poetry, film/television, short and long fiction, graphic novels/comics, music, social media, and the visual/performing arts. It should be noted that, while this course contains *mostly* fictional readings, the subject matter of those readings is based on very real social injustices done to very real human beings, animals, and eco systems. The material we read may (WILL) often be emotionally difficult in the content it depicts, and that difficulty should be carefully considered when registering for the class.

EH 454/554: New Media Writing & Rhetoric

Dr. Joseph W. Robertshaw jwr0015@uah.edu

This course offers students the opportunity to apply rhetorical principles across a variety of media and includes an examination of communication strategies used widely in academic and industry settings. This special topic focus will look at these media vehicles through the lens of Multimodality. View a short video on the course HERE. 

EH 655: Telling Tales: Medieval and Modern

Dr. Joseph Taylor wjt0003@uah.edu 

In his work, the 14th c poet Geoffrey Chaucer confronted the problems and politics of translation. How does one translate Latin classics into a low-style language like English? Can one render the authoritative word of God in the Holy Scripture into a doggerel-like peasant vernacular? This course will examine Chaucer’s works with a focus on the theoretic practice of—and political stakes for– translation in both medieval and modern contexts. The English translation of the Bible was one of the first banned books in English! But Chaucer’s attention to the fragility of language in transmission informs the modern plight of refugees, who must also recount their own stories not for entertainment but for their very lives. This course, thus, will put the modern story collections—known as Refugee Tales (real refugee accounts put into short story form by British novelists and modeled on explicitly on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) in conversation with Chaucer’s linguistic theories and with modern philosophic and political readings on translation, theories of political sovereignty and political theology, and critical literature in the field of refugee and forced migration studies. Readings will include The Canterbury Tales, The Legend of Good Women, and Chaucer’s Dream Visions, readings from Refugee Tales Vol. I and II, Patience Agabi’s Canterbury Tales redux titled Telling Tales, and theoretic readings by Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault, and Matthew Gibney among others.

FILM & MEDIA ARTS

FMA 460: Studio Broadcast Production

Dr. Joey Watson jaw0087@uah.edu

This course provides students with an opportunity for learning pre-production, production, and post-production of television and live event programs using field shooting and multi-camera production techniques of a TV studio. Class activities include the operation of cameras, control panels, lights, and audio in directing and producing non-dramatic programs such as sports, journalism/news, demonstrations, video gaming, commercials, and interviews. Sample Course Syllabus.

FMA 340: Foley Sound for Multi-Media

Johnna Doty johnna.doty@uah.edu 

This course offers students an exploration of Foley Sound, including digital hardware and software for studio recording. There will be a particular emphasis on Foley recording techniques, the creative use of the digital audio workstation (DAW), and an introduction to the history, theory, and methods of the art and craft of Foley. Sample Course Syllabus.

POLITICAL SCIENCE

PSC 334: American Political Thought

Dr. John Pottenger pottenj@uah.edu

In-depth study of theorists, concepts and forces that have shaped American political values from the founding of the republic to the present. Major themes include the relationship between liberty and equality, rights and democracy, and industrialization and the public good. Prerequisite: PSC 101.

PSYCHOLOGY

PY 420/520: Human-Machine Team Design

Dr. Nathan Tenhundfeld nlt0006@uah.edu

This class will be an in-depth evaluation of the elements of design necessary for safe, efficient, and satisfying human-machine interactions. We will be doing targeting readings from journals, and in-class discussions in order to better understand elements of design which impact workload, trust, SA, reliance, and more. We will be covering topics ranging from robotics to self-driving vehicles, to standard computers. By the end of the semester, students will be able to critically evaluate current designs, as well as understand best design practices and recommendations which are supported by the scientific literature.

SOCIOLOGY

SOC 350: Money & Power

Dr. Christina Steidl crs0033@uah.edu

This course examines how access to money and power shape life outcomes. The course begins by examining historical and current patterns of economic inequality in the U.S. and the factors that influence these changes, including labor markets, globalization, education systems, immigration, and changing social welfare policies. Along the way, we explore who has the power to make decisions and shape access, opportunities for social mobility, the roles of gender and race, and the implications for public policy.

SOC 384: Drugs & Society 

Dr. Robert Thomson rat0019@uah.edu

Drugs take many forms, and they are used for a wide variety of purposes. Drugs can treat, heal, or prevent disease, cause illness and death, enhance or diminish emotional well-being, make painful symptoms more bearable, altar one’s state of mind, impair judgment, cause addiction, influence relationships (for better or for worse), wake you up in the morning, help you sleep at night (or keep you up all night), and quite often, drugs can impact finances – of individuals, of corporations, and of communities. In this course, we will seek to understand drug use from sociological and criminological perspectives. We will examine the prevalence of drug use, the impact of drug use on individuals and society, and society’s response to drugs. We will analyze social control of drug use, including both the criminalization and decriminalization of certain drugs, attempts at prohibition, and medical responses to drug use. In addition, we will address social patterns of drug law enforcement, including inequalities in arrests, convictions, and sentencing along racial and social class lines.

THEATRE

TH 155: Survey of Musical Theatre

Karen Baker kjb0016@uah.edu

This class will enrich the student's experience of and knowledge of musical theatre. By understanding musicals as products of specific cultural values and historical contexts, the student will become more sensitive to their meanings and how to interpret and perform them.