HU4400

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week and a lab

HU4400 Black Studies

Black Studies implements an interdisciplinary format to examine the cultural, political, and economic development of Black America. The course begins with the African Diaspora and culminates with the rise of Hip Hop culture. On one hand, the course examines a long history of white supremacy in Anglo-American thought and action that exploited black labor and delegitimized black lives. On the other hand, the course interrogates Black America's persistent fight for full citizenship and cultural autonomy—a domestic crusade that draws strength and meaning from anti-colonial struggles abroad. Students will continually ask: What defines "whiteness" and "blackness"? What functions do racial classifications serve? Overall, students locate the origins and development of the conflicts and commonalities at the heart of the Black American experience.

     HU4405

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Credits: 1
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4405 American Indian and Indigenous Studies

     HU4420

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): None
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week and a lab

HU4420 Digital Humanities

When you think about "technology" you probably don't think about the humanities, but inventions from the alphabet and the printing press to the internet browser, apps, and e-readers are all technologies that have shaped not only what and how we read but how we think. In the twenty-first century, texts and technologies are inextricably intertwined. Computational data analysis, topic modeling, GIS mapping, and data visualization give us more tools with which to explore the rich field of humanities, as we strive to understand what it means to be humans who read, write, interpret, and share texts. In Digital Humanities, students learn and apply a wide variety of computing methods and tools to the study of literature, history, art, and other subjects in the humanities and social sciences. A main feature of the course is the opportunity for students to apply these methods and tools to explore their own interests and areas of inquiry in a culminating research project. Digital Humanities lies at the intersection of the study of the humanities—literature and language, history, economics, psychology, sociology, and the arts—with the technologies, techniques, and tools of computational science.

     HU4425

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods and a lab OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4425 Data Ethics and Data Justice in the Age of AI

In its statement on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the World Economic Forum claimed that we are entering “a new chapter in human development, enabled by extraordinary technology advances” “merging the physical, digital and biological worlds in ways that create both huge promise and potential peril.” Since data-driven AI and deep learning models are at the forefront of this revolution, what ethical implications do they have for individuals and societies? How should we conduct our lives in a world of dataveillance without sacrificing human dignity, autonomy, and fair allocation of resources? Can we develop agency in creating and shaping narratives with our own data? What is data sovereignty, and how can it be achieved by impacted groups and communities? This course will use an interdisciplinary humanities lens to engage students in exploring moral dilemmas posed by Big Data in the age of AI. It will address the pressing need to connect the technical aspects of this industrial revolution to issues of social justice. Students will explore broad theoretical frameworks of ethics and apply them to real-world cases embedded in the different stages of the data-to-knowledge cycle. We will investigate a wide variety of diverse resources that may include Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction, Joy Buolamwini’s activism in the Algorithmic Justice League, Chris Wiggins and Matthew Jones’s history of data science, and international initiatives of the Alan Turing Institute; conduct independent project-based research; and collaborate on creative interpretations of data visualization. Students will gain a better understanding of how to become educated participants in the global data economy, ethically-grounded creators of future AI-based technologies, and responsible citizens in a datafying world.

     HU4425

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods and a lab OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4425 Data Ethics and Data Justice in the Age of AI

In its statement on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the World Economic Forum claimed that we are entering “a new chapter in human development, enabled by extraordinary technology advances” “merging the physical, digital and biological worlds in ways that create both huge promise and potential peril.” Since data-driven AI and deep learning models are at the forefront of this revolution, what ethical implications do they have for individuals and societies? How should we conduct our lives in a world of dataveillance without sacrificing human dignity, autonomy, and fair allocation of resources? Can we develop agency in creating and shaping narratives with our own data? What is data sovereignty, and how can it be achieved by impacted groups and communities? This course will use an interdisciplinary humanities lens to engage students in exploring moral dilemmas posed by Big Data in the age of AI. It will address the pressing need to connect the technical aspects of this industrial revolution to issues of social justice. Students will explore broad theoretical frameworks of ethics and apply them to real-world cases embedded in the different stages of the data-to-knowledge cycle. We will investigate a wide variety of diverse resources that may include Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction, Joy Buolamwini’s activism in the Algorithmic Justice League, Chris Wiggins and Matthew Jones’s history of data science, and international initiatives of the Alan Turing Institute; conduct independent project-based research; and collaborate on creative interpretations of data visualization. Students will gain a better understanding of how to become educated participants in the global data economy, ethically-grounded creators of future AI-based technologies, and responsible citizens in a datafying world.

     HU4435

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Credits: 1
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4435 Bioethics

     HU4440

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week and a lab

HU4440 Film Studies

Filmmaker Orson Welles once said, “A film is a ribbon of dreams. The camera is much more than a recording apparatus; it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world that is not ours and that brings us to the heart of a great secret. Here magic begins.” In a culture that increasingly relies on visual information, a comprehension of how meaning grows out of the moving image is essential. This course is a historical and critical survey of the motion picture both as a developing art form and as a medium of mass communication. The course entails systematic analysis of how filmmakers use sound and image to tell stories on the screen. Students view selected films as case studies to understand the relationship between theory and practice in filmmaking. Through explorations of the historical, social, and political dimensions of filmmaking, students learn to read and write more effectively, to look at the world with a critical eye, and most importantly, to develop a critical audio-visual literacy. Students demonstrate what they have learned through analytical writing assignments. The course may also include individual or group projects, presentations, creative writing, or short exercises in filmmaking.

     HU4445

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods and a lab OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4445 Introduction to Western Thought

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, published in 1932, is a classic dystopian look at the direction of our modern world. Huxley’s novel forces us to wrestle with the implications of consumerism, mass-production, and the practical application of science, and it raises profound questions about freedom, social control, the pursuit of material appetites as the driver of society, and ultimately about how humans find meaning. The novel is also dated, reflecting the views and prejudices (and technology!) of its time. This course will use the novel as a lens through which to examine the fundamental philosophical, economic, and political ideas that have shaped the modern world: subjectivity, capitalism, and liberalism. Other sources may include Plato, the Hebrew Bible, Augustine, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx. One of the key goals of the liberal arts is to prepare students to live in a free society. An important aspect of freedom is awareness of the forces shaping the world we live in. We will consider how these fundamental ideas developed; we will emphasize finding connections between ideas; we will examine how those ideas impact our own thinking; and we will develop analytical writing skills by responding to those ideas. Fundamental to our approach in the course will be exploring how these classic sources connect to the question of meaning raised in Brave New World. The course will conclude with students working in teams to rewrite sections of Brave New World to update the novel and make it more relevant to the present day.

     HU4445

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Meeting Times: Three periods and a lab OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4445 Introduction to Western Thought

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, published in 1932, is a classic dystopian look at the direction of our modern world. Huxley’s novel forces us to wrestle with the implications of consumerism, mass-production, and the practical application of science, and it raises profound questions about freedom, social control, the pursuit of material appetites as the driver of society, and ultimately about how humans find meaning. The novel is also dated, reflecting the views and prejudices (and technology!) of its time. This course will use the novel as a lens through which to examine the fundamental philosophical, economic, and political ideas that have shaped the modern world: subjectivity, capitalism, and liberalism. Other sources may include Plato, the Hebrew Bible, Augustine, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx. One of the key goals of the liberal arts is to prepare students to live in a free society. An important aspect of freedom is awareness of the forces shaping the world we live in. We will consider how these fundamental ideas developed; we will emphasize finding connections between ideas; we will examine how those ideas impact our own thinking; and we will develop analytical writing skills by responding to those ideas. Fundamental to our approach in the course will be exploring how these classic sources connect to the question of meaning raised in Brave New World. The course will conclude with students working in teams to rewrite sections of Brave New World to update the novel and make it more relevant to the present day.

     HU4455

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week including lab, or two 100-minute even

HU4455 World War I: The Great War A Century Later

Erich Maria Remarque composed his famous novel All Quiet on the Western Front to “try and tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.” World War I, what those who lived through it called “The Great War,” destroyed not only tens of millions of human lives but also the entire European worldview of the 19th century. The war was the first in which the combatant nations fully mobilized their societies in a “total war” in which industrialism and machines dominated the conflict. The war fundamentally altered the geopolitics of the modern world, spelling the beginning of the end of European colonialism and the rise of American global power. It also drastically changed how we understand the world around us. From the metaphors we use (“over the top”; “no man’s land”) to the shape of literature and philosophy, to our understanding of the roles of nationalism, rationalism, and science, the war’s impact on global culture has been profound and continues to the present day. Beginning with a study of the war itself, this course will explore the lasting geo-political, literary, cultural, and philosophical impacts of the war on our lives today. Sources will include histories of the conflict as well as the poetry, literature, and philosophical and cultural artifacts. A century after it ended, we are still living with The Great War’s legacy.

     HU4455

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: English
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One English credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods and a lab OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4455 World War I: The Great War A Century Later

Erich Maria Remarque composed his famous novel All Quiet on the Western Front to “try and tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.” World War I, what those who lived through it called “The Great War,” destroyed not only tens of millions of human lives but also the entire European worldview of the 19th century. The war was the first in which the combatant nations fully mobilized their societies in a “total war” in which industrialism and machines dominated the conflict. The war fundamentally altered the geopolitics of the modern world, spelling the beginning of the end of European colonialism and the rise of American global power. It also drastically changed how we understand the world around us. From the metaphors we use (“over the top”; “no man’s land”) to the shape of literature and philosophy, to our understanding of the roles of nationalism, rationalism, and science, the war’s impact on global culture has been profound and continues to the present day. Beginning with a study of the war itself, this course will explore the lasting geo-political, literary, cultural, and philosophical impacts of the war on our lives today. Sources will include histories of the conflict as well as the poetry, literature, and philosophical and cultural artifacts. A century after it ended, we are still living with The Great War’s legacy.

     HU4455

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Meeting Times: Three periods and a lab OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4455 World War I: The Great War A Century Later

Erich Maria Remarque composed his famous novel All Quiet on the Western Front to “try and tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.” World War I, what those who lived through it called “The Great War,” destroyed not only tens of millions of human lives but also the entire European worldview of the 19th century. The war was the first in which the combatant nations fully mobilized their societies in a “total war” in which industrialism and machines dominated the conflict. The war fundamentally altered the geopolitics of the modern world, spelling the beginning of the end of European colonialism and the rise of American global power. It also drastically changed how we understand the world around us. From the metaphors we use (“over the top”; “no man’s land”) to the shape of literature and philosophy, to our understanding of the roles of nationalism, rationalism, and science, the war’s impact on global culture has been profound and continues to the present day. Beginning with a study of the war itself, this course will explore the lasting geo-political, literary, cultural, and philosophical impacts of the war on our lives today. Sources will include histories of the conflict as well as the poetry, literature, and philosophical and cultural artifacts. A century after it ended, we are still living with The Great War’s legacy.

     HU4460

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Credits: 1
Prerequisite(s): I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods and a lab OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4460 Topics in Humanities I

     HU4461

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): American Studies I & II
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week and a lab

HU4461 Topics in Humanities II

     HU4462

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Credits: 1
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4462 Topics in Humanities III

This course examines systems of slavery from the ancient to the modern world. It will consider the impact of slaves and slavery on the culture, economy, and political system in the Americas, Africa, and Asia as well as the similarities and differences in the origin of slavery, its formation, its memory, and the legal status of enslaved individuals across historical eras and regions. Students will read narratives written by slaves describing their own experiences, religious and political texts related to enslavement, and other primary and secondary sources to examine various forms of slavery and ways in which enslaved people resisted their condition.

     HU4470

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Credits: 1
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week OR two 100-min. evening periods

HU4470 Topics in the Study of Religion: The Pursuit of Meaning

     HU4490

School: NCSSM Morganton
Dept: Humanities
Subject: Humanities Electives
Prerequisite(s): Completion of AS4051/AS4052 American Studies I/II and OR completion of AS4051 and approval of the Dean of Humanities during Spring Administrative Adjustment. Juniors may not request this course until Spring Administrative Adjustment.
Corequisite(s): None
Graduation Requirements Met: One Humanities credit
Schedule Requirements Met: One of five courses required each semester
Meeting Times: Three periods per week and a lab

HU4490 Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

An interdisciplinary introduction to the field of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, this course explores feminist perspectives on intersecting inequalities. Topics include: work and labor; sexuality and sexual identity; gender relations; images of women and gender in literature, science and technology, religion, and art; family structures and domestic roles; and the history of feminist struggles. Course readings are drawn from the humanities and the social sciences. We will use discussion, lecture, film, reading, written texts, and popular culture to help students continue to develop their skills in reading, critical thinking, writing, presenting, and working collaboratively with their peers to answer questions such as: How do the experiences of women and other subordinated groups help us to understand gender norms, identity categories, and sexuality? How might one perform, analyze, interrogate, and challenge what has been constructed as “normal” in contemporary western culture? This class explores a multitude of feminist perspectives on the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, class, physical ability, nationality, age and other categories of identity. Students will interrogate these categories as socially-constructed while acknowledging that these constructions have real effects in subordinating groups, marking bodies and creating structural, intersectional inequalities.