Power is often imagined as the capacity of an individual to influence the behaviors and choices of others. Power can be understood as a social evil or a form of injustice, such as when a group uses power as a tool for marginalization or oppression. Power can also be seen as a force for social good when it advances just causes or empowers individuals and groups toward positive ends. Courses in this cluster examine the dynamics of power: how it is gained and used, how it flows through communities and cultures, as well as the ways in which power influences our choices and identities.

Associated Course Pairings:

Course Descriptions

CC100: Construction of Social Problems

Instructor: Gail Murphy-Geiss
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Societies & Human Behavior
CRN# 12513
Block: 1

This course will investigate how social conditions come to be defined as social problems, specifically examining the roles of advocates, policy makers, experts, the media, and the public. Why do some social problems receive so much attention, while others are ignored? What are the impacts of defining social problems in a particular way? Drawing on case studies of contemporary issues, including racism, wealth inequality, health care access, the criminal justice system, and climate change, the uneven consequences of social problems will be exposed; some groups are disproportionately disadvantaged while others disproportionately benefit.

CC120: Writing for Social Justice

Instructor: Kathy Giuffre
CRN# 12534
Block: 2

This class will use the scholarly social movements literature as well as social justice
writings from a variety of perspectives (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, scholarly, and general-audience) to look at the ways in which writers have addressed social justice issues with the goal of making change in the world. Students will then produce their own writing to address the social problems that they studied in the Block 1 CC100: Constructing Social Problems with the goal of effectively communicating their analysis of those problems and proposals for possible amelioration of those problems to a broader audience.

CC100: Surveillance Society

Instructor: Cayce Hughes
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Societies & Human Behavior
CRN# 12510
Block: 1

In today’s “surveillance society,” we have become accustomed to trading personal information—wittingly or not—for goods, services, and simply to participate in everyday life. With the rise of big data, state and market institutions routinely collect and analyze data to monitor our purchasing patterns, social networks, and physical movements. However, some people are more insulated from scrutiny than others, and exposure to surveillance depends in part on social status. In this course, we will examine surveillance through a sociological lens, focusing on how surveillance can generate and reproduce social inequalities. We will cover various formal institutions that monitor populations, including the criminal justice system, welfare system, and health care system, as well as examine the informal ways we are surveilled (and surveil others) in everyday life, including here at Colorado College.

CC120: Writing for Social Justice

Instructor: Wade Roberts
CRN# 12544
Block: 2

This course examines the role of social science research in exposing social inequalities and informing social change efforts. We will explore both qualitative and quantitative forms of research and how insights can be communicated effectively to different audiences, from policymakers to community partners. Students will conduct their own research as part of the class, learning how data analysis and writing can work together to further the cause of social justice.

CC100: Language, Power and White Supremacy

Instructor: Christina Leza
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Societies & Human Behavior
CRN# 12511
Block: 1

This course addresses the role of language in shaping and maintaining unequal relationships of power in societies, with an emphasis on the ongoing impacts of colonialism and white supremacy. Drawing from multiple disciplines including linguistics, anthropology, Indigenous studies, race and ethnic studies, and cognitive studies, the course introduces students to various epistemological and methodological approaches to
the study of power in society. While introducing students to disciplinary-specific ways of producing knowledge, the course will also critically explore the relationship between Western scientific paradigms and colonialism. Comparing Indigenous and decolonizing approaches to knowledge production with Western scientific and philosophical traditions, the course allows students to critically think across and toward the expansion of disciplinary paradigms.

CC120: The Foundations of Radical Nonviolence

Instructor: Evan Weissman
CRN# 12550
Block: 2

The Foundations of Radical Nonviolence examines the theory and practice of radical nonviolence. The course has a cultural and systemic lens, covering a broad range of disciplines including philosophy, religion, art, history, and science, as well as modern day practitioners in order to examine nonviolence as a powerful social force. Students will meet many guests who are practitioners and activists, exploring war and its effects on
humans and the planet, strategic nonviolent conflict, prison abolition, civil disobedience, forgiveness, restorative justice, and nonviolent history. This course usually includes one week spent in Baca with nonviolence experts that range from anti-war Nobel Peace Prize nominees to Civil Rights leaders, Movement for Black Lives leaders, Immigrant Rights and Prison Abolitionist activists. Creativity and independent research are highly encouraged in this course, and there is a heavy focus on connecting theory and practice.

CC100: Knowledge, Identity, Power

Instructor: Heidi Lewis
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Analysis & Interpretation of Meaning
CRN# 12495
Block: 1

Knowledge, Power, Identity investigates the dynamics and consequences of power, how power is mediated through identities and the relationship of these issues to representation and production of knowledge. In addition, we also examine the theories and methodologies constitutive of Feminist and Gender Studies,
and interdisciplinary field that examines the historical, contemporary, and always changing relationships between power and markers of identity, such as gender, sexuality, race, class, nation, dis/ability, and citizenship. Informed by the legacies of the civil rights, student, labor, LGBTQ, and women's movements, this course encourages reflection on student participation in institutions of power and privilege, as well as their role in affecting change.

CC120: Queering Latinx and Latin American Popular Cultures

Instructor: Naomi Wood
CRN# 12547
Block: 2

This course seeks to acquaint students with some of the relationships of colonial Latin America to contemporary society in the U.S and Latin America; engage a variety of artistic forms to expand our sense of the documentation of historical events and social struggles; and, explore a variety of entry points for analyzing relationships across nations that form part of the Americas. This course focuses not only on queer-identified art and artists, but also centers the notion of "queering" as a verb that can disrupt systems of oppression and contribute to decolonial practices. We will examine music, dance, film, visual arts, and critical approaches from the interdisciplinary fields of Feminist and Gender Studies and Latin American Studies.

CC100: Power, Place, and the Southwest Borderlands

Instructor: Karen Roybal
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Historical Perspectives
CRN# 12566
Block: 1

The course explores the complex place we call the Greater Southwest, including Greater Mexico, and the varied peoples who have lived, fought, traveled, written, raised families, farmed, ranched, and survived here. Using interdisciplinary epistemologies and methodologies from Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Geography, Environmental Studies, Chicanx/Latinx, Critical Indigenous, and Literary Studies, we investigate strands of
culture (indigenous and imported) that have intertwined in this region over the last thousand years. We begin by examining (pre)historical, geographic, and anthropological records and debates over whose voices get to define the region, proceed to a series of primary and secondary texts to examine physical geographic, historical, and literary traditions of the region, and assess the enduring impacts of conquests. We explore how
people have constructed and articulated sense of place over time, and discuss implications of these decisions for relationships people develop between themselves, the environment, and others. The course considers relationships between Indigenous nations, Hispano/Latinx/Chicanx populations, and Euro-American groups in the natural setting of the Southwest to better understand the conflict, cooperation, and cultural blending among these groups; the ways they understand and affect the biophysical landscape; and how land/nature has forged relationships within and between these groups.

CC120: Writing the Southwest Borderlands

Instructor: Eric Perramond
CRN# 12567
Block: 2

In this course, we will explore place-based writing about, from, and between cultures and landscapes of the Greater Southwest (including Mexico). Using interdisciplinary perspectives on texts, writing, orality, testimony, and genre, we will investigate how the multiple cultures of the region write about experience, place, power, equity, and difference. Building on CC100 Power, Place, and the Southwest Borderlands, we will explore how primary and secondary sources converge in multiple forms of narrative, story, and genre in defining the peoples and places of the region.

CC100: Art and the Museum

Instructor: Rebecca Tucker
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Analysis & Interpretation of Meaning
CRN# 12568
Block: 1

Museums have been called “managers of consciousness” – places that educate about history and beauty, but that also serve as “propaganda machines.” This course looks at the history of art as it is connected to the history of museums. Whether created for museums or not, much of the world’s cultural heritage now exists in museum spaces, giving rise to crucial questions: How do the colonial legacies of the museum impact our understanding of the art within it? What role does the museum play in the formulation of histories, art canons, and art markets? If the arts and museums in tandem define knowledge, culture, and economic power, who benefits, and who is marginalized? In what ways do artists create artworks that navigate and leverage the power of the museum, or challenge and disrupt it? Can the art world, and the museum, be de-
colonized?

Using case studies, the class will look broadly at art and museums across the globe to unravel how the creation of art and the operation of the museum work (or don’t work) together. The course will engage with interdisciplinary approaches to illuminate how art and museums generate historical, rhetorical, and visual meaning, as well as how they assert cultural and political power. We’ll discuss current hot-button issues in the art and museum worlds, including the calls for diversity in exhibitions and staffing, repatriation of
artworks, the representation of indigenous, marginalized, and colonized cultures within museum spaces, authority vs. censorship, the role of corporate giving, and the rise of the private museums and investment art collecting. Through research, projects, and field trips, the class will take advantage of the resources of the museum of the Fine Arts Center at Colorado College as well as other museums.

CC120: Natural History?: Museums, Collecting, and Display

Instructor: Amy Kohout
CRN# 12569
Block: 2

From 17th-century curiosity cabinets to A Night at the Museum, artifacts and specimens have offered their collectors, curators, and viewers access to multiple ways of understanding the natural world. In this writing seminar, we’ll explore the history of natural history, collecting, and display in a range of times and places, past and present. Using materials and approaches drawn from history, science and technology studies,
and museum studies, we’ll grapple with key questions about U.S. cultures of collecting: How have collections been deployed to produce knowledge—by whom, for whom, about whom? What is curation? How do collections—and exhibits—make arguments? Together we’ll consider dinosaur bones, bird specimens, field books, dioramas, and materials from local collections as we examine the ways exhibits tell stories and offer arguments—and craft our own.