History, Culture, and The Arts

The Question of God

Edmund Newborn

Mon., Wed., 6:00P-7:15P

The past several decades have seen a statistical decline in the number of people who claim to believe in God or who choose to participate in a religion. This course will explore the underlying philosophical causes for this shift as well as looking at how people of faith can possibly answer the challenges of modern atheism.

Learn More

Every Species is a Masterpiece

Gretchen Scharnagl

Tues., Thurs., 3:00PM - 4:15PM

This class considers how we look at ourselves, and how we look at animals, plants, and fungi, and how this influences how we think of all. What are our varying relationships? We will discover how ancient, ubiquitous, and complicated - the truths, abstractions, and symbology - of our fellow earth dwellers can be.

Learn More

The Conservative Tradition

Ruben Garrote

Tues., Thurs., 12:30P-1:45P

This course will involve readings in Conservative political philosophy, but politics is not all that Conservatism encompasses.

Learn More

Keep Your Money

Amy Desouvre

Wednesday, 9:30A-12:00P

This course will take an academic multidisciplinary approach to learning how to shop in an economic way. We will examine the basic elements of shopping history, the role that advertising and marketing play in social media as well as print, how to keep a minimalistic mind rather than becoming an over consumer, and finally the impact of internet, technology, and mobile apps and how to use them to your advantage.

Learn More

Myth and Ritual in Film, Part 1

Adam Gorelick

Online

This course applies theoretical discussions of myth and ritual to the contemporary medium of film.

Learn More

Adult Topics on Narrative Medicine

Amilcar Castellano-Sanchez

Mon., 1:00P– 3:30P

This course aims to bring forth the unbreakable -- yet not well-valued and sparsely characterized -- connection between the worlds of text (narrative, poetry, short stories, memoirs, interviews, and film adaptations) to the worlds of medical ailments and medical practice.

Learn More

Black Nightmares: Deconstructing Symbolism and Race in Horror Stories

Trina Sanders

Online

This course will explore the themes of racism meets horror stories. This course will use the dark fantasy horror television series “Lovecraft Country” to uncover blackness, queerness, fantasy, and the struggle against racism and imperialism.

Learn More

You Crit Like a Girl: The Unique Role of Women in Gaming, Entertainment, and Media

Connie Viamonte

Tues., 1:00P- 2:15P (HYBRID)

This course will investigate gender through the lens of modern media and entertainment.

Learn More

Music and Artificial Intelligence: Intersections of Creativity, Technology, and Society

Ernesto Fernandez

Online

This interdisciplinary course introduces students to the fascinating intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and music. Through an exploration of AI’s impact on music creation, performance, and consumption, students will investigate how technology shapes creative processes and the music industry. The course will focus on how AI operates in various musical contexts, allowing students (musicians and non- musicians alike) to engage with AI-driven tools and reflect on the ethical and social implications of AI in the arts. No prior music experience is required, and students will explore both the technical and cultural aspects of AI and music through hands-on projects and discussions.

Learn More

Music for the Soul: Rhythm, Resistance, and Revolution in American History

Trina Sanders

Online

This course will take you on a journey through the soundtrack of Black America, showing how music has always been more than art, rather the voice of power, pain, resistance, and revolution. From the fields of the South to the streets of Harlem, from Nina Simone to Kendrick Lamar, we’ll explore how Black music has shaped American identity and sparked social change.

Learn More

History of Colonial Latin America as Experienced Through the Arts

Javier Mendoza

Tues., Thurs., 9:30A-10:45A

This course is a survey of the history of Latin America from 1500-1800 through music written and performed in Latin America, visual art created in Latin America, and Literature/Poetry. Serious classical and liturgical music is covered along with known folk traditions. History is taught through the music, visual art, literature, and social construction.

Learn More

Thou Shalt Not Steal: Wage Theft & Moral Philosophy

Jeanette Smith

Thurs. 1:00P - 2:15P (Hybrid)

For many low-wage or part-time workers, wage theft is an inevitable aspect of their working lives. Wage theft includes not being paid for overtime, being paid less than the minimum wage, or not being paid at all.

Learn More

Creative Non-Fiction: Personal Essays

Elizabeth Hanly

Tues., 2:00P-3:15P (Online Live)

This is a course in storytelling, in writing and reading creative nonfiction.

Learn More

Humans in the Age of Bots

Francis Hill

Wednesdays 2-3:15PM (Hybrid)

Humans in the Age of Bots is a digital humanities course intersecting literature, philosophy, and technology to explore questions of the human experience in context within the increasing ubiquity of Generative AI. Using Frankenstein and Co-Intelligence as anchor texts, students will explore the themes of ¿what does it mean to be human¿ and ¿what does human progress look like¿ as well as collaborate with AI to code an interactive system from scratch that explores and provides commentary on these questions.

Learn More

The Problem of Knowledge

Daniel Alvarez

Mon., Wed., Fri., 1:00P-1:50P

In this course, we seek to answer two fundamental questions: What is knowledge, and do we have it? We go through life learning from our parents, from books, and teachers “facts” or statements that are supposed to be true, that most of the time it does not occur to us to question or doubt.

Learn More

Posthumanism and Interdisciplinary Storytelling through Video Art

Ozan Atalan

Thursdays, 1:30PM-4:00PM

The course explores posthumanist philosophy and video art as a medium for interdisciplinary expression. This course encourages students to challenge anthropocentric views by creating socially responsible narratives that connect humans and nonhumans. Students from diverse fields will critically engage with posthumanist themes, learn video art production, and collaborate on a final project, gaining skills in creativity, critical thinking, and ethical storytelling. The course culminates in a collaborative video art piece suitable for exhibition, emphasizing experiential and inclusive learning.

Learn More

Why We Dance

Niurca Marquez

Mondays 2:00PM-3:15PM (HYBRID)

Why We Dance explores the historical, cultural, aesthetic, and neurological reasons why we dance. Relying heavily on the fields of dance ethnography and history, as well as the latest research in neuroscience, the course will expose students to the phenomena of organized movement. We will dive deep into the multiple theories of why humans dance and the histories of how we have done so, and the ways in which dance has been entertainment, repository of culture, and even an act of resistance. We will examine several case studies that position dance in relation to society. These will include but are certainly not limited to the Ghost Dance as resistance, Transnational Indian Dance as export commodity, Arará traditional dance in Cuba as repository of religious practice and philosophy, and Flamenco as cultural preservation and reclaiming of power.

Learn More

Graphic Voices

Gretchen Scharnagl

Tues., Thurs., 1:00PM - 2:15 PM

We will read and discuss graphic works ranging from the graphic novel, to outsider artist comics, and including coloring books, to discover the potential of this language to disseminate important stories and historic, social, psychological, artistic or scientific content.

Learn More

Innovation Nation: The Global Influence of Israeli Technology and Entrepreneurship

Andi Wolfer & Aaron Kaplowitz

Mon., 10:00A - 12:30P

Israel has built a reputation as an entrepreneurial powerhouse that exports industry-disrupting technologies all over the world. Visitors to the “Start-Up Nation” marvel at the innovations that have emerged from a country that once made the desert bloom.

Learn More

Breaking Bread: Finding Peace and Justice Through Food

Erica del Riego

Tues., 5:00PM - 6:15PM (HYBRID)

Through this course, students will reflect on their relationships with food, based on culture, family, and traditions. They will keep `food journals¿ each week, which encourage at-home cooking or the discovery of new eateries in the Miami area. Additionally, through course readings and digital materials, students will become acquainted with the intrinsic connection between humans and the natural world through food. Weekly reading/course material assignments will be assessed based on online discussion posts and in class discussions. Students will also engage in class `filed trips¿ to a local Miami farm in Homestead, a Miami kosher Jewish bakery, and two restaurants that are prominent cultural centerpieces for the Hispanic and African American communities in Miami.

Learn More

The Tao of Sports

Joseph Lichter

Mon., Wed., 12:30P–1:45P

In the “The Tao of Sports”, students analyze the unique and popular human experience called sports particularly by examining them through a lens of physical and social sciences.

Learn More

Art Medical History to the Renaissance

Amilcar Castellano Sanchez

Tues., 1:00P– 3:30P

This course encompasses the study of medical world history as it has occurred through time portrayed in different forms of art, i.e. visual, written, performed in a global perspective thus emphasizing certain areas in this review such as: anatomy, physical diagnosis, different types of illness -with a focus on infectious diseases-; a few specialties such as: obstetrics / gynecology, surgery, and psychiatry amongst others also including selected examples of preventive medicine and therapeutic approaches; all from the perspective of the vast historical registry available to us.

Learn More

Song of Life

Adam Gorelick

Tues.,Thurs., 9:30AM - 10:45AM

This is a course about poetic forms, but mostly it’s about writing poetry. Students will read, research, and attempt several poetic forms including epic, sonnet, free verse, haiku, elegy, limerick, sestina, and others. The key feature of the course will involve workshopping together original poetry and providing constructive feedback.

Learn More

Westworld

Rhona Trauvitch

Wednesday, 11:00A-12:15P(Hybrid)

This course is an interdisciplinary adventure in Westworld. Our core material is the first season of the television series created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy (2016), a tapestry of science fiction, philosophy, narratology, and machine learning. Our course’s overarching question is What is the difference between the park’s hosts (androids) and guests (humans)? Over the course of the semester we hope students will come to realize that this difference is not nearly as large, solid, or obvious as may appear. Since we are indeed comparing, the theme of the course is fungibility and to learn about this theme we will study the philosophy of analogy.

Learn More

Tolkien and Imagination

Ruben Garrote

Tues., Thurs., 11:00A-12:15P

In this course students will read and discuss Tolkien’s essays, poems, and stories, tracing the origins of his invented worlds and uncovering the great themes he wove throughout them. Students will learn how Tolkien’s work has been studied and interpreted. Finally, students will engage in interpretation of his work and of its interpretations, and they will apply their own powers invention to the creation of their own imagined world.

Learn More

Save our Parks: Environmental Law, Policy and Politics

Anthony Rionda

Mon., 6:00P-8:30P

Our National Parks are America’s Crown Jewels. They are worshipped by avid adventurers, campers, road-trippers and the former students of FIU Honor’s Everglades course. The aim of this course (Save our Parks) is to focus on how politics, policy, and law have shaped, saved, and at threatened our most beautiful natural legacy.

Learn More

Food and Culture: History, Traditions, and Health

Monica Smith

Online

In this course, students will expand their culinary horizons and learn about new and exciting dishes and beverages that they may not have otherwise encountered. We will delve into the rich culinary traditions of Italy, Thailand, India, the Middle East, Japan, China, and Mexico, examine the unique ingredients, flavors, and techniques that define each country's cuisine. We will also consider the historical, cultural and religious influences that shape food and beverage choices in these regions, as well as the role of consumables in shaping and reflecting social norms and values, politics, as well as health and well-being.

Learn More

Healthcare Law, Advocacy & Education in the Political Context

Amanda Emery

Tuesdays 3:30PM-6:00PM

It is important that future doctors, nurses, healthcare educators, and allied health professionals are aware of how government and politics can shape the trajectory of their field and healthcare practices, and their role as an advocate for their patients and their profession. This course will serve as an introduction to policy issues affecting health and health care and examines the role of government in the health care system and examine clinician's relationship and responsibility to be advocates for access, advocacy and education in their profession.

Learn More

Global Social Entrepreneurship

Barbara del Cotto Jimenez

Tues., 10:00A-12:30P

This course introduces the key skills, tools, and mental frameworks required to solve the world’s most complex and pressing challenges through social entrepreneurship, including those needed to launch, grow, and sustain a social enterprise venture.

Learn More

Searching Minimalism through Japanese Literature and Play

Masako Kubota

Online

This course will examine minimalism from Japanese literature by Kamo no Chomei and Zeami. We will learn how to create Haiku and will enjoy attending group Haikai, Haiku critique group activities in our class. Multi perspective approaches are used to view “Noh play” to understand Zeami’s artistic simplicity and explore the mountain side of Kyoto by viewing the film, and imagine “Hojyoki” written by Chomei. After we have learned about the ultimate simplicity by great Japanese artists, we will implement these ideas in our daily lives and use them for environmental sustainability.

Learn More

Death

Joaquin Pedroso

Tues., Thurs., 11:00A-12:15P

This course delves into the multidimensional concept of death, examining it from various perspectives, including philosophical, cultural, psychological, economic, and religious viewpoints. This course will not focus on understanding what death is, but rather how the idea of death (and death itself) is endured across cultures, philosophical approaches, social and individual practices. We will be diving deep into what it means to die and how to give meaning to our deaths, how to best endure death, and how to die well.

Learn More

Exploring Culture Through Music and Dance

Wendy Guess

Online

This course explores the transformative power to create, connect and master the understanding of our world through the lens of movement and music.

Learn More

Changing the Game

Jennifer Houston

Thursdays 3:30PM-4:45PM (Online LIVE)

"Changing the Game" is a course that explores the multifaceted dynamics of esports culture with a focus on promoting inclusivity and enhancing wellbeing within the community. Esports, a rapidly growing industry at the intersection of technology, entertainment, and competition, presents unique challenges and opportunities for fostering positive social interactions. This course will delve into a comprehensive analysis of esports culture across various dimensions. It will cover psychological insights into player behavior, team dynamics, and community interactions. Additionally, it will explore biological considerations concerning the impact of gaming on physical health, sleep patterns, and cognitive functions, emphasizing strategies for maintaining wellbeing. Cultural dynamics will be investigated, highlighting the diverse backgrounds of esports participants and audiences and their implications for inclusive practices and global engagement. Furthermore, economic perspectives will examine esports' economic structures, revenue models, labor practices, and their broader impact on industry stakeholders. Finally, ethical frameworks will evaluate issues like toxicity, discrimination, and fairness in competitive gaming, aiming to develop strategies for promoting ethical conduct and responsible gaming within the esports community. By the end of this course, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of the social dynamics in esports, equipped with the knowledge and skills to foster a more inclusive and healthy esports community. Through critical analysis and practical applications, they will be prepared to influence positive change in this evolving industry.

Learn More

Banquet with the Bard

Erica del Riego

Tuesdays 6:25PM-7:40PM (HYBRID)

Shakespeare is known for his captivating language, dazzling or infuriating characters, and expert craftsmanship in storytelling. Yet, within many of his most renowned plays lies an intriguing commentary on meals, the danger of mixing food and revenge, and the importance of good company. Indeed, throughout Shakespeare’s works, food serves as more than just a basic necessity for sustenance, instead food is often used symbolically, metaphorically, or as a dramatic device to convey deeper meanings and themes. This course takes a unique look into select Shakespearean plays from the lens of food, culture, history, and Renaissance English society. Plays covered in this class will include Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, and Coriolanus.

Learn More

Beyond Entertainment: The Influential Power of Music in Society

Ernesto Fernandez

Online

Music plays an important role in our daily lives and in shaping society. It accompanies us in our daily activities and as an outlet for our feelings. This omnipresence of music raises several questions: how does music affect our lives?

Learn More

Living Forever: Lifetech and the Intersectionality of Life Expansion

Robert Hacker

Tuesday, 9:30A-12:00P

What would happen if we could live forever? Would we achieve the things we thought were impossible because time was our biggest limitation? Would humanity be improved for the better? In this course, we will discuss what it means for humans to be immortal, if it is possible, and the repercussions of immortality on humankind. We will discuss the capacities of technologies, machines and theories that may make immortality an option for humans in the future. We will discuss the impact that immortality might have on our meaning of life and a human's purpose. We will discuss our human nature, biologically, psychologically and culturally, in an attempt to determine if immortality truly is possible and what affects it will have on the way we interact with one another.

Learn More

Corporate Diplomacy: The Role of Business in Promoting Peace and Sustainable Development

David Wernick

Every Other Wed., 11:00A-1:30P (Hybrid)

This course has been designed for students who intend to make an impact and make the world a better place using their own philanthropic resources.

Learn More

Science and the City

Tolga Erbora

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00AM-12:15PM

This course looks to explore the past, present, and future of urban planning and the development of societies through scientific and mathematical approaches. Causal relationships leading to present day city-life will be explored, and probabilistic and risk analysis will be used to approach the dynamics of city politics and business decisions. Miami's storied evolution and unique character will be used as a template to carrying out this study. Students will then be prompted to incorporate their background and discipline to develop innovative visions of a plan for the future based on a certain part of Miami's broad ecosystem, integrating modeling, quantitative tools, and creativity unique to them.

Learn More

The History of History

Erika Kern

Tues., Thurs., 1:00P – 2:15P

This course will take a critical look at what is history, who writes history, for whom is history written, and why does history exist as an intellectual (and emotional) pursuit.

Learn More

The Pursuit of Perfection

Jennifer Houston

Tues., 2:00P - 4:30P

This course we will look at perfectionism through the lens of religious practices, sociocultural norms, and business expectations at both the organizational and employee level. We will discuss and discover our own definitions of perfection as we move through the different modules and topics designed to aid in the understanding of how perfectionism is experienced on a global level. We will also examine the impact that the pursuit of perfection can have on the physiological, psychological, and interpersonal wellbeing of individuals.

Learn More

Contemporary Materialities

Niurca Marquez

Wed., 2:00P– 3:15P (HYBRID)

Through a feminist perspective, students will have an opportunity to reconsider the ideas and assumptions that have prevailed about the body. The course includes topics such as the impact of disability experience, the material reality of race, the significance of sexual difference, and the complex interactions between nature and traumatic events such as Hurricane Katrina.

Learn More

Performance Under Pressure

Jason Kostrna

Every other Monday., 9:00AM-11:40AM (Hybrid - BBC)

This course aims to explore the relationship between stress and performance across disciplines. This course aims to dissect stressors inherent in these contexts, unravel the myriad stress reactions manifested both mentally and physically, and delve into effective coping mechanisms designed to improve performance and well-being. Through an interdisciplinary approach, students will gain insights into the universal nature of performance under pressure, equipping themselves with a comprehensive understanding of resilience and adaptability crucial for success in any demanding environment.

Learn More