Courses

Southern Disasters: The Literary and Cultural Worlds of the American South

American Studies 211. Department of American Studies. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Fall 2024.

How do we come to understand the American South—its landscapes, cultures, and histories—through both real and imagined moments of disaster? This course employs the framework of critical disaster studies to examine how Southern stories, histories, and cultural creations construct and reveal the social, political, and environmental contexts of a complex and ever-changing region. Through literary and cultural representations, we will explore how certain social and environmental disasters become linked to the South as well as how people in the region navigate, resist, survive, anticipate, adapt, and prepare for increasing disasters. What historic, economic, racial, and cultural contexts are at work in how we represent (or limit), notice (or ignore), and understand (or discount) certain disasters and the places and people they affect? What processes, narratives, and beliefs emerge when disasters strike, and how are our imaginations, stories, and cultures shaped by our experiences of disaster? What can Southern literature and expressive culture offer us as we grow our understanding of and develop more just approaches toward the preparation, mitigation, survival, response, and prevention of disasters across and beyond the American South?

Major projects include an annotated bibliography and a creative presentation.

Environmental Storytelling in Appalachia and the American South

Folklore/English 487. Department of American Studies. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Spring 2023 and Spring 2024.

How do we tell stories about and with our environments? This course examines various forms of environmental storytelling through folklore, literature, media, and activism to explore the intersections and tensions of culture, identity, and environment across Appalachia and the American South. We will explore how folklore, narrative, and environment are theorized and applied through the documentation and analysis of local, environmental expressive culture. How do activists, writers, artists, folklorists, documentarians, and journalists tell environmental stories to envision just futures? Where do we find environmental stories, and what research methods and theories help us situate, learn from, and advocate for stories within and across our places? How do we work collaboratively to address environmental crises, and what role does storytelling hold in the work of environmental justice?

Major projects include an individual research assignment and a collaborative public magazine. View the 2023 digital magazine by clicking here. View the 2024 digital magazine by clicking here.

Research with the American South: Southern Futures

Interdisciplinary Studies 197. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Spring 2024.

How can the intersection of formal academic research and community-oriented practice help us reimagine the American South, create positive change, and work toward equity, justice, and possibility in our places? This seminar is designed to introduce Southern Futures Fellows to research and creative discovery with the American South through an interdisciplinary focus on the arts and humanities. Through guest lectures, site visits, and practice-based assignments, students will learn about and identify ideas and sites of artistic practice and storytelling across the American South in order to develop a research project proposal. We will explore ideas related to justice, race, class, resilience, direct action, and community-driven work through interdisciplinary methods (like collaborative ethnography, archival research, artistic production, and literary analysis) and humanistic concepts (like tradition, culture, artistic practice, and narrative storytelling).

Major project includes a summer research project proposal with annotated bibliography.

Science Fiction and Fantasy: Mapping the Legend

English 3372. Department of English. The Ohio State University. Summer 2020 (online).

Legends: what are they, and what do they do? Where do they come from, and where might they travel? Why do we tell stories about legends, and what might those stories reveal about ourselves and our beliefs, relationships, and places? Are legends monsters, or do they work to uncover monsters for us? In this course, we will explore stories about legendary beings, their characteristics and connections, and the diverse cultures, histories, and people legends tell us about. We will critically approach how legends travel through stories and storytellers as well as how we travel with and through those legends and stories too, and then we will create our own legend travel stories using ArcGIS StoryMaps. What journeys can legends take us on, and how might those journeys help us imagine other worlds, futures, or possibilities through speculative fiction, or the literature of change and what-ifs?

Major project includes an ArcGIS StoryMaps collection. View the collection by clicking here.

Science fiction and Fantasy: The Good Life

English 3372. Department of English. The Ohio State University. Spring 2020.

The good life: what is it, and why do we want it? What does it look like, and what will we do to get it? Who holds the power to actually reach the good life, and who gets left out, run over, ignored, pushed to the side, or even worse in the pursuit of it? What does the good life look like from different perspectives, and how do we imagine it in future worlds? Is there a good life after environmental crisis, for example? Do all types of identities and groups have equal access to the good life? What do we cover up or conceal to claim we have reached the good life even if we haven’t? Is the good life even possible, and if it is, is it possible for everyone? What happens if we don’t think we deserve the good life, and how are our actions and choices shaped by what we think the good life is? Are there other ways of imaging what the good life might be, and do traditional ways of viewing the world block us from imagining a different perspective of it? Affect theorist Lauren Berlant tells us that the good life is a fantasy of something you think might bring you happiness, and she urges us to ask, “Are there other concepts of the good life that would be more satisfying than the ones that you have been trained to pay attention to?”. In this class, we will explore these questions through speculative fiction, or the literature of change and what-ifs.

Major project includes individual and/or collaborative “Dispatches from the Future.” Students were asked to imagine and address a future hindrance to “the good life”.

The U.S. Folk Experience

English 2367.05 (second-year writing, folklore). Department of English. The Ohio State University. Autumn 2018.

In this three-hour, second-level writing course for which English 1110 is a prerequisite, you will continue to develop and refine the skills in analysis, research, and composition that you practiced in English 1110. This course emphasizes persuasive and researched writing, revision, and composing in various forms and media. In addition, you will build upon and improve your mastery of academic writing with and from sources; refine your ability to synthesize information; create arguments about a variety of discursive, visual, and/or cultural artifacts; and become more proficient with and sophisticated in your research strategies and employment of the conventions of standard academic discourses. As our section of 2367 focuses on the U.S. Folk Experience, we will explore the academic field of folklore studies and how folklorists approach writing and researching across different genres, performances, experiences, and representations. Generally, folklore holds aspects of the traditional and the dynamic, takes place in small groups, and is a form of artistic communication. In this section, we will specifically explore folk narratives and stories and the three general categories within folklore: verbal (songs, folktales, jokes), material (food, quilts, chairs), and customary belief and practice (legends, dances, rituals). As we move throughout the semester, we will examine, critique, and employ various modes of thought, research methods, and fieldwork practices.

Major project includes a folklore ethnographic portfolio consisting of an interview, transcript, and analytical research paper.

Representations of Horror and Ghostlore (in Appalachia)

English 1110.02 (first-year writing, literature). Department of English. The Ohio State University. Autumn 2016.

Within our topic of Representations of Horror and Ghostlore (in Appalachia), we will closely explore the experiences, traditions, and expressions of horror, especially within the Appalachian region. As we move throughout the semester, we will examine, critique, and employ various modes of thought and research. We will ask and explore why the horror genre is so prevalent in and about the Appalachian region, and we will examine how horror exists across different modes of communication. What might these horror stories and ghostlore be suggesting about the places, occupations, and people they describe? How might real-life horrors—like racism, sexism, poverty, environmental destruction, historical discrimination, and the prescription drug epidemic—also be affecting and influencing the popularity of the horror genre within the region?

Major project includes an analytical research paper.

Representations of Home and the Places We Belong

English 1110.01 (first-year writing). Department of English. The Ohio State University. Autumn 2015 and Spring 2016.

As we begin new phases and transition to new places in our lives, a sense of nostalgia usually accompanies our thoughts and memories about home. Even writers like Wendell Berry explore this deep connection we creatures often feel toward our places: “Hope then to belong to your place by your own knowledge/ of what it is that no other place is, and by/ your caring for it as you care for no other place.” Often, our homes are even represented visually and textually by others through attempts to communicate the land, lives, and community identities of place. Yet how can places influence our identities and choices, and do representations of our homes truly and justly represent us? Just as Berry urges us to notice the connection to the places we belong, this class will explore the theme of home. How do we speak about and represent home? How do others create portrayals of our places? How can we think—and then write—analytically about the places we are connected to even as we journey away from them and connect to new homes throughout our lives?