Culture and Cultural Practices

In the days following 9/11, the only section of Barnes and Noble that had any traffic was the poetry section. In times of personal and communal tragedy, people turn to poetry, tapping into its healing power. This seminar will explore how a poem that begins as an individual experience morphs into an exercise in language that, at its best, expresses a collective grief altogether separate from the personal anguish with which the poet may have begun.

How does religion shape human understanding of, and participation in, ecological systems? This course examines some of the diverse ways that people have developed for interacting with animals, plants, weather, water, air, and land, and how those behaviors work in tandem with religious ways of knowing. Recognizing that current human interactions with the global ecosystem, and of the numerous ecosystems within it, are unsustainable, the class will have a substantial focus on environmental ethics.

Embark on a journey of leadership using research, examined personal experiences, and observational critiques of the world around you, to fully explore this complex construct. This seminar will explore various concepts of leadership in America today and on St. Lawrence campus through an experiential Community-Based Learning component. We will engage a variety of texts to investigate the links between leadership theory and leadership in action. As part of a significant research project, members of the class will collaborate to create a campus-wide event to benefit the community.

This course is designed to serve as a vehicle by which students may explore the idea of entering the field of education in general and the teaching profession in particular. The course examines a spectrum of current educational issues from historical, philosophical, sociological, political, and cross-cultural perspectives, with a special emphasis on diversity in American society and schools as well as global, international, and comparative education.

Food… We all eat it and it’s integral to our survival. But there is much more to food than simply sustenance. Our food choices are shaped by and reflect deeply held cultural ideas about taste, nutrition and sociability. What we eat is also determined by farmers, the media, multinational corporations, agricultural and international trade policies as well as our individual access to food. In this course, we will carefully examine contemporary American foodways to better understand how our food practices connect us with people and places, both locally and globally.

Have you ever found yourself wondering if a story is “true” or not?  Do you prefer “fiction” or “non-fiction?”  What do these terms mean, and why are they so important to us?  How does an author’s own presence within a piece of writing determine our reading of the piece, and why?  In this course we will read, write, discuss, and write about genres that explore the boundaries between “fact” and “fiction,” such as “creative non-fiction,” “literary journalism,” “documentary,” and “docudrama.” You will learn what these terms mean, a bit about their historical context

Artistic expression is always influenced by the place in which it is situated, and it shapes the place in return.  Illustration: Grunge was an outgrowth of a number of conditions that existed in Seattle in the late 1980s.  As a result of a depressed local economy a large number of abandoned warehouses were available as performance venues.   Seattle looked like it sounded.  Even the climate contributed to the development of a focused style of music-making.  In the words of a local producer, “When the weather's crap