Core I: Histories of the Present: Truth
The search for truth is often taken to be one of the goals of academic inquiry, as well as a touchstone for making political and social decisions. Yet despite it being something many of us seek, we do not all agree on what is true. This course examines some methods that are seen as offering access to universal truth, while also proposing additional ways of knowing that challenge such claims. Who decides what is true and false? What do we do when dominant powers insist on a version of truth that we do not believe? Is there such a thing as truth, and, if not, what does it mean for something to be a lie? In addressing these questions, we consider how institutions, socially constructed categories such as race and gender, and other cultural frameworks influence ways of evaluating truth.
Core III: Histories of the Present
Core III courses are small seminars designed to foster innovation and collaboration among students and faculty. The seminars involve considerable student participation and afford the opportunity to do more individualized, self-directed scholarship in association with a single faculty member working in the area of expertise from an interdisciplinary perspective. The work of the seminars culminates in a self-designed project exploring a particular topic through the lens of “histories of the present.” Exceptional student work will be disseminated to the wider College community. Depending on instructor and subject matter, the Core III seminars involve research, internships with fieldwork, exhibits, performances, conferences, and multimedia projects. Consult the Scripps Portal for Core III offerings for the current semester. Core III course offerings vary each year and may include:
“America” in recent music & literature
Animal Rights and Speciesism
Antiracist and Transnational Feminist Coalitions
Art, Ecology, and Fieldwork
Bad Writing
Bodies in Motion: Representation and Simulation
Building Los Angeles
Capitalism/Anti-Capitalism
Caribbean Women’s Literature
Challenges from the global south - “America”
Collective Songwriting: Theory and Knowledge Production
Creating and Recreating Genji
Democracy in Theory and Practice
Dream Factories: cinema in theory and in practice
Education and Inequality
Embodying Illness
Essay, Film, and Theory
Fame & Happiness: French Women as Case Study
Forced Displacement, Migration, and Resettlement
Foreign Language and Culture Teaching Clinic
Futuring
History and Memory
Home/Politics/Activism 19thC US
Landscapes of Plunder
Making Radical Sense of Power
Mobilizing Art
Narratives of Memory: Spain and Latin American
Neuroethics
Photography and the Archive
Postcolonial Anxieties: Unpacking Europe/Unyoking Africa
Prescriptions and Debates on What Contributes to Health
Radical Cartographies
Realism and Anti-Realism
Representing LA: rock ‘n’ roll
Resilience and Resistance: Women of Color in the United States
Snapshots, Portraits, Instagram
The Detective in the City
The Life Story
The Meaning(?) of Life
The Mechanical Eye: Photography from Science to Art
The Twentieth-Century Music Schism
United: Women’s Work and Collective Action
VIR/GYN GODDESS: The Virgin and the Femme Fatale
Walls, Borders, Fences
What is Happiness?
Women, Girls, and Mathematical Superstitions
Women’s Rights: Does it Matter?