A selection of courses that engage directly with current and highly debated topics and issues. These classes will provide the necessary cultural and historical context for students to understand and engage in such debates, from a national and global perspective. All of them satisfy General Education Criteria in different areas.

[Selection will change every semester]

REL 134: Religion, Race, and Resistance

Instructor: Leonard McKinnis

Examination of religiously-informed responses to and rejections of racialized oppression in the history of North America, focusing on Native American, African American, and Muslim American experiences.

Lecture: 1:00-1:50 p.m. (MW) – 205 Gregory Hall

Discussion:

• 12:00-12:50 p.m. (F) – 1018 Foreign Languages Building
• 1:00-1:50 p.m. (F) – 1018 Foreign Languages Building
• 2:00-2:50 p.m. (F) – 1018 Foreign Languages Building

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2020 for:

• Cultural Studies - US Minority

Weblink:  https://courses.illinois.edu/schedule/2020/fall/REL/134

RUSS 115: Introduction to Russian Culture

Instructor: Richard Tempest

This course examines the figure (physical and political) of Russian President Vladimir Putin against the backdrop of imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet history, literature, and art while exploring his connections to American society and culture. In addition to Putin's life and times, a representative selection of relevant artistic productions is covered, from classical Russian poetry and prose to gangster movies, rock, pop, and hip-hop. Russia is treated as a national space with unique defining characteristics, yet one that constantly assimilates Western forms, using them to generate new meanings and cultural productions, which it then shares with the world. One of those productions is Putin himself. The course will also compare Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump as charismatic leaders and subjects or objects of Russian and American culture. In addition to Putin, other Russian rulers, politicians and celebrities will be discussed.

Lecture-Discussion: 3:00-3:50 p.m. (MWF) – 137 Armory

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2020 for:

• Cultural Studies – Western
• Humanities – Lit & Arts

Weblink: https://courses.illinois.edu/schedule/2020/fall/RUSS/115

SPAN 232: Spanish in the Community

Instructor: Ann Abbott

In this service-learning course, you will learn with and from local Latinx immigrants as you volunteer two hours each week with a local organization that serves our immigrant community.

Time in the classroom focuses on immigration policies, life in the “new Latino diaspora” and the headlines about immigration in the US. (Prerequisite: SPAN 141, SPAN 142, or equivalent.)

Lecture: 1:00-1:50 p.m. (MW) – 205 Gregory Hall

Discussion:

• 12:00-12:50 p.m. (MW) – G24 Foreign Languages Building
• 1:00-1:50 p.m. (TR) – 241 Armory
• 3:00-3:50 p.m. (MW) – 1126 Foreign Languages Building

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2020 for:

• Cultural Studies - US Minority

Weblink: https://courses.illinois.edu/schedule/2020/fall/SPAN/232

SPAN 248: Latin American Diaspora through Film: Beyond Braceros, Narcos, and Latin Lovers

Instructor: Eduardo Ledesma

The class will seek to expose and go beyond stereotypes about Latinx and Latin Americans typically seen on the screen (narcotraffickers, gangsters, undocumented migrants and Latin lovers) while seeking a more nuanced perspective on complex issues affecting Latin@s and Latin Americans in our globalized world. The class will focus on topics including Latinx representation and self-representation, civil rights and discrimination, immigration, identity formation, stereotypes, race relations, class and gender inequality, and other social, political and cultural issues.

Instructor: Associate Professor, Eduardo Ledesma, Ph.D.

Lecture:

• 3:00-5:20 p.m. (M) – 223 Gregory Hall
• 3:00-3:50 p.m. (W) – 223 Gregory Hall

Discussion:

• 4:00-4:50 p.m. (W) – 113 Gregory Hall
• 5:00-5:50 p.m. (W) – 113 Gregory Hall
• 6:00-6:50 p.m. (W) – 113 Gregory Hall

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2020 for:

• Cultural Studies - US Minority
• Humanities – Lit & Arts

Weblink: https://courses.illinois.edu/schedule/2020/fall/SPAN/248

CLCV 224 American Race and Ethnicity in the Classical Tradition

Instructor: Jon Solomon

Survey of American minority cultures and the reception of Greco-Roman culture in literature, film, and politics, with units of historical concentration on ancient slavery and proto-racism, Harvard's Indian College, early African-American poets, novelists, educators, and classicists, the Greco-Roman heritage of the Ku Klux Klan, and Civil Rights Movement leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Huey P. Newton, and Eldridge Cleaver. Other highlights include Derek Walcott's Caribbean/Homeric Omeros, Erin Gruwell's mixed-race Freedom Writers, and Spike Lee's Chi-Raq.

Lecture: 3:30-4:20 p.m. (TR) – THEAT Lincoln Hall

Discussion:

• 10:00-10:50 a.m. (W) – 207 Gregory Hall
• 10:00-10:50 a.m. (W) – 113 David Kinley Hall
• 11:00-11:50 a.m. (W) – 207 Gregory Hall
• 11:00-11:50 a.m. (W) – 113 David Kinley Hall
• 12:00-12:50 p.m. (W) – 207 Gregory Hall
• 12:00-12:50 p.m. (W) – 113 David Kinley Hall
• 9:00-9:50 a.m. (W) – 143 Armory
• 10:00-10:50 a.m. (W) – 320 Mumford Hall
• 11:00-11:50 a.m. (W) – 320 Mumford Hall
• 12:00-12:50 p.m. (W) – 393 Bevier Hall

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2020 for:

• Cultural Studies – Western
• Humanities – Lit & Arts

Weblink: https://courses.illinois.edu/schedule/2020/fall/CLCV/224