-Civil Rights & Popular Culture
Students will examine the power of popular culture in shaping a number of social movements in the United States and abroad. They will study the history of the development of various forms of popular culture and the sociological concepts related to popular culture’s ability to shape attitudes and behaviors. Particular attention will be paid to the myriad ways in which popular culture has influenced social attitudes related to race, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion. The class will explore how social justice movements have harnessed the power of popular culture and how popular culture has also been used to divide communities and deepen stereotypes.
From Woody Guthrie to Kendrick Lamar and the Harlem Renaissance to Black Lives Matter, this class draws connections between past and present in an environment that encourages open-minded discussion and reflection. Readings will run the gamut from personal essays by acclaimed cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib to college-level sociology texts by John Fiske’s Understanding Popular Culture and T.V. Reed’s The Art of Protest. Students will also frequently apply new sociological concepts to the media they consume on their own time in a number of written analyses. Learn to see the popular culture surrounding us in an entirely new light.
-Contemporary World History: Middle East
Studying recent history gives us an incredible chance to learn about how recent events have shaped our world. Through in-depth case studies of individual countries, geopolitical role-playing activities, and projects focusing on current events and culture, this class will turn students into regional experts ready to analyze political, social, and economic change from Istanbul to Tokyo. This year, the first semester examines the modern Middle East, covering topics on revolutions, conflicts, diplomacy, refugees, music, and movies. The second semester shifts to modern East Asia, studying the rise, characteristics, and seismic changes of major players, including China, Japan, North Korea, and South Korea.
-Contemporary World History: Latin America and the Caribbean
This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding patterns of cultural and economic development in the Spanish, French, and Portuguese-speaking countries that are loosely grouped together as modern-day Latin America. Beginning in 1888 with the abolishment of slavery in Brazil, students compare how newly independent countries across the region forged different visions of postcolonial identity and attempted to invent singular national narratives despite the geographic, economic, racial, and linguistic diversity within their individual borders.
The first semester focuses on foreign relations between Latin American countries and concludes with the civil armed conflicts and mass human rights abuses during the U.S. and Soviet proxy wars during the 1970s and 1980s. In the second semester, the focus is on culture and the arts in post-Cold War Latin America and the Latin American immigration experience through film, music, and television. What does it mean to be the first Indigenous president of Bolivia? How does a country as poor as Cuba manage a literacy rate higher than the United States? What constitutes responsible tourism in the Caribbean in the pandemic era? Students use a central textbook for the course and the opportunity for country-specific and theme-specific research projects and presentations.
-Global Cultural History: Food and Culture Honors
Prerequisites mentioned above and recommendation from current humanities teacher. Grades 11&12.
This course explores the relationships between food and culture across space and time. The class begins with theory, including Roland Barthes, Sidney Mintz, and Caroline Bynum. It then moves to examinations of the cultural meanings of food and ends with student analyses of food cultures with which they engage. Topics include the politics of food, the relationship of food to oppression, gender and wealth, fear of food and fears associated with food, the economics and characteristics of restaurants, and literature focused on food. Students read broadly in food literature, paying special attention to popular food writing, historical examinations of food, and the place of food in novels, poetry, and film. Assessments include quizzes, tests, discussions, a research paper, and project-based essays and presentations.
-Global Cultural History: Sports
This class examines the many ways sports and culture intersect, both in the present and the past. Students engage with a variety of topics such as the history of sports in the U.S. (including at the high school and collegiate levels), how different sports have shaped and been shaped by popular culture and reflect cultural values, the growth and role of international sporting events such as the Olympics and World Cup, sports as entertainment, and the economics of sports and the fitness industry. Students read widely in primary and secondary sources, write a research paper, and apply concepts from history, sociology, communication studies, and anthropology to athletic training, competition, celebrity, and economic systems.
-U.S. Government and Politics
Students study individual rights in the United States Constitution and other related laws. They deal with the direct and indirect effects the government has on their everyday lives, what rights they possess as an American citizen, and what responsibilities each citizen has to their government on the local, state, and national levels. Students examine the basic ideals of our global economy and what effects these ideals have not just on our government, but also on their everyday lives. Other relevant topics are elections/voter registration process, U.S. foreign policy and social issues that concern young adults, the principles and foundations of American government, the Constitution and its creation, the three branches of American government and their functions, the American political process and party politics, state and local politics, economic systems, and basic principles of government as a global system. A textbook and reading packets from monographs related to the U.S. government are used.
-U.S. Government and Politics Honors
Prerequisites mentioned above and department recommendation. Grades 11 & 12.
In the United States, how is it that a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” marginalizes its own people in its quest to achieve “a more perfect union?” What factors in a liberal democracy allow or even incentivize one group to act to limit the political voice of another? If, as Lincoln said, the United States is the “last best hope of earth,” what role do we, as American citizens and residents, have in protecting the health of our republic? Through lectures, discussions, guest speakers, and document analyses, this course recognizes that faith in civic competence, the belief that an individual can influence government policies, lies at the core of the American experiment.
Students will develop a comprehensive understanding of federalism, civil rights, and liberties, linking institutions (media/political parties/interest groups) and the structures of the U.S. government. In the process, they will examine democratic challenges, including Native American geographic and cultural removal, the African American civil rights movement, Japanese American incarceration in the Second World War, LGBTQ pride, and Latinx immigration, as well as international case studies, including the Nazi’s Wannsee Conference.
