Current and Recent Courses (The Georgia Institute of Technology)

• Communicating in the Community: Analyzing Gender and Sexual Politics through Service-Learning, Fall 2009. This first-year writing course revolves around analyzing gender and sexual politics through service-learning.  We examine the rhetoric and argumentation used in a variety of documentaries, academic articles, and media to present different views on critical issues including, gender and sexual discrimination, domestic violence, sexual assault, equality in the workplace, representations of gender and sexuality in media, HIV/AIDS activism, public policies on sex education, hate crimes around sexual orientation, and related topics.  In addition to developing their ability to critically analyze texts, students participate in a mandatory service-learning project over the course of the semester to enhance their understanding of material covered in the class, and gain insight into how civic engagement can lead to change in the community.  At the beginning of the term, students are assigned to work in small groups on multimodal projects designed to aid a variety of non-profit organizations in Atlanta including, ANIZ, The Center for Working Families, Partnership Against Domestic Violence, Positive Impact, Safe Girls Strong Girls, GoGirlGo!, and United4Safety.  Most of the assignments for this course are collaborative and directly related to the service-learning projects, for which each student completes 15-20 hours of service throughout the term.
• Independent Study.  Queering Horror Cinema.  An independent study requested by an advanced undergraduate student interested in queer theory and horror cinema.
• Cross-Cultural Influences and Postmodern Visions: Japanese Anime and Manga in a Global Context, Summer 2009. This first-year writing course focuses on the growing global popularity of Japanese anime and manga (comics).  While covering some of the critical history and aesthetic movements behind these two art forms, we also spend considerable time examining key themes that recur in manga and anime. In particular, we consider the significance of postmodernism as it relates to textual representations of apocalypse, the environment, family, cyborg bodies, existential crisis, war, gender and sexuality, adolescent rebellion, futurity, and the supernatural. Anime titles include Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, Hiyao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers, Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell, Mamoru Hosoda’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies, and Hiroyuki Kitakubo’s Blood: The Last Vampire. Manga titles include Hotaru Odagira and Satoru Kannagi’s Only the Ring Finger Knows, Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma ½ (Vol.1), and Hiroaki Samura’s Blade of the Immortal (Vol.1). All texts are English-translated versions. 
• Apocalyptic Nightmares of the Living Dead: The Cultural Politics of Zombies in Popular Media, Spring 2009.  This first-year writing course examines how apocalyptic themes in zombie films, popular fiction, and comics inform conceptualizations of futurity and survival in a terrifying time and place. In particular, we consider the ways in which nightmarish visions of zombie apocalypse intersect with past and present cultural anxieties and fears about sexual and reproductive agency, racialized and gendered Others, and technological advancements against the backdrop of decomposing social, national, and global landscapes.  While this course emphasizes important elements of historical context in each zombie narrative that we analyze, it aims to identify cultural connections across time periods that demonstrate how certain anxieties persist even if they manifest in different ways.  Primary texts include George Romero’s Dead series, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil, Peter Jackson’s Braindead (aka Dead Alive), Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, Naoyuki Tomomatsu’s Stacy, Richard Matheson’s novella I am Legend, Max Brooks’s World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, and the first volume of Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore’s comics series The Walking Dead. Students also read scholarship dealing with the horror genre, zombies in cinema, and theoretical concepts pertinent to our discussions.  Course wiki online at: http://gatechzombies.pbwiki.com
• Let’s Talk about Sex: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Sexuality, Fall 2008. This first-year composition course focuses on the different critical approaches to the study of sexuality informed by disciplines including history, science, psychology, women’s and gender studies, medical anthropology, gay and lesbian studies. We read scholarly articles from these fields and analyze the ways in which they approach and investigate sexuality from varied interdisciplinary and theoretical contexts.  In particular, we consider how epistemologies of sex have taken shape over time and in relation to cultural changes and developments in science, technology, and education.  Our scope is both interdisciplinary and transnational as we examine some of the racial, economic, gender, and class politics of sex from the past to the present.  In addition to a selection of required scholarly articles, students also view several short documentaries including The Celluloid Closet, The Education of Shelby Knox, Live Nude Girls Unite, For the Bible Tells Me So, Before Stonewall, After Stonewall, and Voices from the Front.  Throughout the semester, students expand their material knowledge about issues covered in the course by working in small groups on multimodal service-learning projects with several different non-profit organizations in Atlanta, including Project Open Hand, Positive Impact, PFLAG, Planned Parenthood, and the AIDS Quilt/Names Project.  Course wiki online at: http://gt1101.pbwiki.com/
• Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Visual Media: Contemporary Transnational Comics and Animation, Summer 2008.  An upper-division course that examines the ways in which contemporary transnational comics and animation explore ideas about gender, race, and sexuality through their respective visual media.  In particular, we consider how material circumstances and cultural differences on a global scale affect and shape artistic representation and narrative discourse about gender, race, and sexuality in sequential/graphic art and animation.  At the same time, the course investigates how and why comics and animation have become acceptable subjects of academic study and research. Several of the required graphic novels for this course include Jason Aaron’s Scalped, Jessica Abel’s La Perdida, Mat Johnson’s Incognegro, Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis, Ariel Schrag’s Potential, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and Brian K. Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man.  Animated films include Akira, Finding Nemo, Grave of the Fireflies, Paprika, and Princess Mononoke.In addition to the primary texts, students are required to read several scholarly pieces that introduce them to important theoretical discussions about visual media, as well as key concepts in feminist and queer theory, that interrogate the political, personal, and cultural meanings of visual representations of gender, race, and sexuality from the past to the present.  Course wiki online at: http://lcc3314.pbwiki.com/
• Apocalyptic Nightmares: The Cultural Politics of Zombies in Popular Media, Spring 2008.  This first-year advanced composition course focuses on zombies in popular media (film, television, and graphic novels).  The course examines some of the cultural and ideological concerns about gender, sexuality, race, and class that manifest in zombie narratives; in particular, fears about futurity, survival, kinship, reproduction, and apocalypse, all of which intersect with each other in provocative ways.  While this course emphasizes important elements of historical context in each respective zombie narrative, it also aims to analyze connections across time periods in order to consider how certain anxieties persist even if they manifest in different ways.  Texts include George A. Romero’s Dead films, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, Naoyuki Tomomatsu’s Stacy, Stephen King’s Cell, Brian Keene’s The Rising, Ross Campbell’s graphic novel The Abandoned,and several television advertisements and music videos.  Course wiki online at: http://engl1102zombies.pbwiki.com
• Media Culture and Technologies of Participation, Fall 2007.  A first-year composition course geared toward the study of consumer and fan participation in media culture, this class addresses digital discourse and the nature of online publics in order to consider how technology has affected the circulation and concatenation of media texts.  In particular, we explore the idea of “fandom” and attendant participatory fan practices (such as creating fan fiction, art, zines, blogs, fan music videos, etc.) to analyze how technology is beginning to blur the lines of textual ownership and origin in a postmodern era.  At the same time, we investigate a number of contemporary concerns about censorship, copyright law, public vs. private communication, and capitalist modes of media production and consumption.

Past Courses (University of Florida)

• Envisioning Fantastic Futures: Cultural Anxieties, Dreams, and Desires from the 1950s to the Present, Fall 2006. In this upper-division literature course we examined how textual visions of the future draw from the political, historical, and cultural narratives of the past and present to imagine both idealized utopias and disturbing dystopias that address contemporary problems in fantastical ways. We covered a wide range of texts including several films that highlight the shifting contours of specific trans-cultural anxieties, dreams, and desires about possible futures. While interrogating how these concerns are represented, we paid specific attention to the role of apocalypse in imagining futuristic societies and worlds while simultaneously assessing how issues of gender, sex, race, class, and family play pivotal roles in fantastic visions of the future. Texts included Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Samuel Delaney’s Trouble on Triton, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later.
• Subculture, Sex, and Subversion: Feminist/Queer Media and Women at the Margins of Popular Culture, Fall 2005. This upper-division course was cross-listed with English and Women’s Studies. Over the semester we examined how subculture, sex, and feminist/queer politics emerge and coalesce at the margins of popular culture to not only question mainstream representations of women, but to also actively resist such images, definitions, and ideals. We considered how various popular media forms (films, comics, novels, magazines, and animation) were appropriated for subcultural and subversive purposes in order to bring to the forefront women who often remain invisible, marginalized, and stigmatized in mainstream culture. Texts included Lynn Breedlove’s Godspeed, Michelle Tea and Lauren McCubbin’s Rent Girl, Jewell Gomez’s The Gilda Stories, Natsuo Kirino’s Out, Rachel P. Maines’ The Technology of Orgasm, bell hooks’s Feminism is for Everybody,Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, Satoru Kannagi and Hotaru Odagiri’s Only the Ring Finger Knows, Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames and Working Girls, Gabrielle Baur’s Venus Boyz, and Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures.
• Introduction to Film Analysis, Spring 2006. This course introduced students to the foundational terminology and analytical strategies of film studies. We covered a broad spectrum of films, from the silent era to the present, in order to examine different aesthetic styles, periods, and cinematic techniques. Several films included: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Citizen Kane (1941), Laura (1944), Gilda (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951), Brazil (1985), Tongues Untied (1990), Princess Mononoke (1997), Fight Club (1999), Dancer in the Dark (2000), Hero (2002), and Brokeback Mountain (2005).
• Writing Through Media, Spring 2005. This course explored several popular media genres and some of the different textual forms they can take, including film, comics, popular fiction, online fanzines, and websites. Students also learned how to use an HTML editor to make their own websites, and several assignments required them to integrate critical analyses of texts into online web projects. Texts included Judd Winick’s Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss, and What I Learned, V.C. Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic, Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line, James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity, Satoru Kannagi and Hotaru Odagiri’s Only the Ring Finger Knows, Wachowski Brothers’ Bound, and George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.
• Survey of English Literature from 1750-Present, Fall 2004. This course focused on the development of a literary “erotic imagination” in English literature with an emphasis on gothic conventions and issues of gender, sexuality, race, and class. Texts included Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Oscar Wilde’s Salome, E.M. Forster’s Maurice, Angela Carter’s The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, Jeannette Winterson’s The Power Book, and several short stories and poems.
• Introduction to Writing about Literature, Spring 2003. In this class students learned how to analyze and write about different forms of literature including poetry, novels, short stories, and drama. Some texts included Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, a number of short stories and poems, and the film adaptations Titus and A Company of Wolves.
• Introduction to Argumentative and Expository Writing.  I have taught this first-year composition class one to three times per year since 2002. In this class I teach students fundamental strategies for rhetorical analysis, written argumentation, and academic research.  Each time I teach the course I like to employ a different focus.  Some examples from the past include: “Gender and Sexuality in Popular Media,” “The Politics of Horror,” “Documentaries as Argument,” and “Visual Culture and Modes of Argumentation.”