The Creative Brain

Instructor

Melissa Etzler

Course Description

Inspired by the ambiguity of “breaking bad,” this course explores intersections of crime and madness. We will examine texts featuring issues of guilt, justice, abnormality, and deviance to uncover particular and universal social commentaries on moral values and community constructs. Focusing primarily on written and visual texts from the 18th century to the present, multidisciplinary fields will inform our interpretations.

This course is offered as an Honors First-Year Seminar course.

Instructor

Robert Norris

Course Description

This course will examine the power of communication. Down through human history, communication has been used by some to exercise power over others. The evolution of speech, the advent of writing, the invention of printing, the ability to broadcast, the ability to post information on the internet—all these represent more than the exchange of information and messages; they have all been used as tools of influence which some seek to appropriate, and others seek to outwit.

Instructor

Jeana Jorgensen

Course Description

Often trivialized as “just for kids,” fairy tales have a centuries-long global history as wonder tales told by and for adults striving to articulate the complexities of power relations within social life: identity, gender roles, sexuality, and more. In this class, we will engage with fairy tales from oral and literary traditions, as well as retold fairy tales in the forms of short stories, novels, and films. Our goals are to learn about the messages fairy tales convey about self and society, as well as understand how narrative structure and story appeal apply to both scholarly writing and real life. In other words, we’ll study why the fairy tale is a classic template for coming-of-age experiences as well as more sophisticated political commentaries. Disney will provide only the briefest starting point on this journey.

Instructor

Ashley Mack-Jackson

Course Description

Are you a dancer, musician, visual or multimedia artist, performer, writer, creative of any kind, or an enthusiastic lover of the arts? Explore Butler University and Indianapolis’s diverse arts scene, engage in enriching discussions with local creatives, and join with Indianapolis-based arts organizations and artists to create your own artistic projects in “From the HeARTland.” Throughout this course you will investigate your own artistic identity as it relates to your community of origin and the Butler University and Indianapolis communities, consider how art impacts and is impacted by artists’ identities and the community’s culture, reflect on the role that the arts play in creating more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and just communities, and share with and learn from your peers as you all enter together into the vibrant Butler University and Indianapolis arts communities.

This course fulfills an Indianapolis Community Requirement (ICR) credit.

Instructor

Janis Crawford

Course Description

“Speech is civilization itself.  The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates.” -Thomas Mann

Speech can be a very powerful medium of persuasion and communication. Just like producing a written paper, a speech must be concise, present a compelling argument, and use the proper tone, and format to have a lasting effect on its audience. We will examine the orations of such great American speakers as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President Ronald Reagan, Hilary Clinton, and Barbara Bush. This course will focus on the speech as a template for how to develop effective writing skills. In the course of reading and discussing the works of American orators, students will cultivate the skills necessary for critical thinking, oral communication, and effective writing. Class will involve discussion, student presentations, and writing assignments.

Instructor

Robert Stapleton

Course Description

This class drops the needle on popular music as a significant and vibrant body of literature. We will employ the tools of literary analysis and critical thinking to examine the complex ways that 20th century music reflects cultural and artistic movements. We will consider aesthetic and neurological principles of sound, theoretical framings of lyrics, and the role of storytelling in the lyrical canon. We will engage in intellectual inquiry, debate, and scholarly writing in our investigations of how songs can embody the central tenets of literature and have expanded our cultural canon and informed our collective identity.

Instructor

Alessandra Lynch

Course Description

In this course we will be reading texts from various genres (personal essay, memoir, graphic “novel,” and poetry), each focusing on some aspect of the Self—self-image, self and community, self and culture. We will discuss how self-expression manifests itself in each genre—how each genre reveals or clarifies insights about the self. Many of our writings will be personal in nature. The class will be discussion-based, but students will keep a journal, respond to a variety of writing prompts, and write essays triggered by the readings.

Instructor

Tonya Bergeson

Course Description

Is music the universal language? Is music independent of language? This class will examine the relationship between music and language from the perspective of philosophy, psychology, communication science, and neuroscience. We will explore the relevant data and theories from various perspectives such as linguistics and music cognition, and we will investigate music and language across the lifespan and in different populations, such as aphasia and amusia.

Instructor

TBA

Course Description

This course focuses on the intersection of religion with film and music. While certain films and songs directly impart religious values, others require effort to unpack the religious references they contain. This course engages with the intersection of religion, film, and music to enable students to better understand and analyze the religious themes in cinematic and musical art. Additionally, the course deals with varied religious perspectives on film and music. Why do various religious groups react differently to such artistic expressions? Students will critically examine American as well as non-American film/music.”

Instructor

Andrew Levy

Course Description

In contemporary culture, science fiction is everywhere: it is one of the most popular forms of prose and graphic fiction, film, television, and videogames. This course offers students the opportunity to see familiar stories—the space opera of Star Wars, the dystopia of Hunger Games, the superheroes of Marvel/DC, the AIs of Black Mirror—in new and deeper ways, and will provide a substantial introduction to lesser known but captivating science fiction from all over the world, as well as rising movements from traditionally under-represented communities, and significant authors from past and present such as H.G. Wells, Ursula LeGuin, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, N.K. Jemisin, Charlie Jane Anders and Liu Cixin. The course will be multi-genre, exploring literature alongside science writing and various video formats. Assignments will mix creative and critical, as well as individual and group, approaches. Taken together, you will learn how science fiction enables you to interact with ideas, language, and politics from the broader culture, explore and express psychological states, and more confidently and ambitiously imagine the future—both yours and ours.

Instructor

Bryce Berkowitz

Course Description

Have you ever wondered how the screenwriting industry works? In this course, we will evaluate TV pilots and feature scripts, but we will also learn about show bibles, treatments, film reviews, agencies, production companies, as well as how social justice and climate change intersect with screenwriting. Finally, we will attempt to find our own voices within this rich tradition of cinematic writing.

This course is offered as an Honors First-Year Seminar course.

Instructor

Tom Paradis

Course Description

Along with its roles in contemporary pop culture, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games can be interpreted through numerous disciplinary perspectives. This FYS invites you to “unpack” numerous layers of meaning embedded within Collins’ dystopian tale and her most recent prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. We will first examine this allegory as a cultural and literary phenomenon before moving into connections with our own world. While sampling a variety of academic perspectives including sociology, cultural studies, philosophy, feminism, political science, media studies, and psychology, we will highlight the human geography of Panem and especially the central Appalachian home of an unlikely heroine, Katniss Everdeen.