Courses

Many people enjoy anime for entertainment, but did you know that Anime is an excellent educational resource for learning about the Japanese lifestyle, cultural products, customs, and perspectives? In this course, you can broaden your knowledge of Japanese society and culture, including the educational system, business culture, family values, food culture, communication styles, history, geography, and mythology depicted in Anime. In the first half of the semester, students engage in cross-cultural analysis, group discussion, and reflection to expand their knowledge of Japanese culture. In the second half of the semester, students work with groups to analyze assigned Anime using their understanding of Japanese culture. At the end of the semester, students synthesize what they have learned and create an anime review video to showcase their favorite anime to viewers.

Do you like watching movies? Do you like Korean culture? Here's a class that can satisfy both of these things for you. This is the course to learn Korean culture through watching Korean movies because they can be a great tool to understand a country’s culture and their people’s lives including their outfits, language, food, architecture, social issues, politics, and so on. When you watch a film about food, you will have a chance to cook and eat Korean food at the Demo Kitchen, and when you watch a Korean historical movie, you will be able to try on Korean traditional clothes. You will also learn the culture analysis of the film, along with watching the film, analyze the film based on the Korean cultural components in in-class group discussions, and conduct a group project and present their findings in class.

Reforesting Ideas departs from the consideration of plants as compelling living beings to open-up philosophical explorations. We will tackle the work of contemporary thinkers who are trying to foreground the importance of plants in the sustenance of our planet. In an age of rapid environmental degradation and the loss of natural environments, the readings, materials, and explorations of this class seek to reframe long standing understandings of plants as passive and silent beings. Together, we will try to reimagine our entanglements with the vegetal world and the cultural approach to our green co-habitants. The class will integrate contemporary theoretical readings on Plant Studies with digital resources from various libraries and collections, rare and unique materials from the UTSA Library special collections, and other primary and secondary literary and visual sources to engage in interactive vegetal explorations.

Fairy tales, as myths, and dreams have their own universal, symbolic language, different from our everyday expression, something that the German psychoanalist, Erich Fromm, called The Forgotten Language.” Most of the time, they are based on ancestral religious beliefs, myths, and legends. They have their own symbolic patterns that need to be desciphered and interpreted. Through the reading and analysis of traditional Russianmagical tales” (volshebnye skazki) we will analyze the ancient ideas they contain in order to understand and unravel their deep meaning, and be able to interpret these and other tales from diverse traditions. Students will learn to interpret tales and dreams, and will reach out to their family and community in order to gather fairy tales from their own cultures, and collectively create a “UTSA archive of local fairy tales.”

Have you ever thought how many situations in real life have to do with language? From chatting with friends to writing legal documents, from learning to say our first word as babies to improving voice recognition technology for a tech company, from diagnosing a patient during a visit to the doctor’s to examining linguistic evidence while solving crime, the list is endless... A lot of what people do in their private and professional lives has to do with language! Addressing language-related problems/issues in the real world is a complex and dynamic task that requires not only knowledge about what language is and how it works, but also the use of interdisciplinary knowledge and resources. This course will introduce students to the study of language and will explore language problems that arise in different areas of society, including professional and institutional settings where students currently participate or will take part in one day through the exercise of their profession. The course consists of a project where students will be able to explore a language-related problem of their interest, investigate what the latest research says in relation to that problem, and come up with possible ways of addressing it.

In today’s argument culture, rife with partisan sound bites, how do we make our own voices heard? How can we move beyond “us-versus-them” language and build real common ground? This persuasive writing course invites you to research social and environmental issues (think climate change, environmental injustice, zoonotic disease, and others) through a rhetorical lens. It asks you to take a position on the issues you care about, and to consider how your audience’s values and beliefs—as well as your own—shape your stance. Perhaps most importantly, it calls you to consider how the best arguments involve both persuasion and truth-seeking. You will compose both written and oral arguments in the course, including an op-ed/commentary, a TED talk-style video presentation, and two researched academic essays. Prerequisite: WRC 1013.

In today’s argument culture, rife with partisan sound bites, how do we make our own voices heard? How can we move beyond “us-versus-them” language and build real common ground? This persuasive writing course invites you to research social and environmental issues (think climate change, environmental injustice, zoonotic disease, and others) through a rhetorical lens. It asks you to take a position on the issues you care about, and to consider how your audience’s values and beliefs—as well as your own—shape your stance. Perhaps most importantly, it calls you to consider how the best arguments involve both persuasion and truth-seeking. You will compose both written and oral arguments in the course, including an op-ed/commentary, a TED talk-style video presentation, and two researched academic essays. Prerequisite: WRC 1013.

What’s real science? How do you know it when you read it? How can we identify when someone is misusing the language of science? This course focuses on the rhetoric of science and pseudoscience in the United States. Students will explore how the purveyors of pseudoscience consciously and unconsciously employ the power of rhetoric to make their pseudoscience sound scientific. During the course, students learn how research is translated to different audiences through writing.

We will explore visual arguments present in informative and argumentative documentary films, which aids research, persuasive writing, rhetorical analysis, and critical thinking skills.

The lived experience of all people is shaped by power in various forms and in different ways. Through books, articles, documentaries, music, and internet resources; this course critically examines the impact of power on American society as a whole and us as individuals. Using an array of disciplinary approaches, students will explore how formal institutions of power, such as law enforcement and the courts; and informal institutions of power, such as social and cultural norms, impact people differently. Students will conclude the course by developing an online museum exhibit that explores the history and impact of those institutions on society.

The future of medicine and dentistry requires an innovative and bold approach to dissect the ever-changing application process. This professional development course will focus on strategies to become a more competitive applicant to gain admission to medical and dental schools. The topics for this course include:

• Developing strong analytical skills
• Applying the pillars of ethics and professionalism
• Strategies for MCAT/DAT preparation
• Crafting a strong Personal Statement
• Preparing for the Medical/Dental school interview, including conducting mock interviews
• Compiling Letters of Recommendation
• Completing the Medical/Dental application and secondary video sketches
• Discussions about Medical/Dental school matching
• Discussions on Medical/Dental school educational financing
• Strategies and discussions on Medical/Dental academic success

The course will culminate in the students developing a professional portfolio, which includes a final iteration of their personal statement, letters of recommendation, headshots, video sketch, and a completed application that can be used for their eventual application. Instructor permission required: email Dr. Hernandez ( hector.hernandez@utsa.edu). This course counts as a Professional Development Experience in the Honors College curriculum.

Not sure what comes next after graduation? This course will help you to assess your strengths & create a clear vision for your career. Students develop the skills they will need to be successful in their job search, develop a career portfolio, and practice interview skills with local employers. In the second half of the course, students will hone the skills you need to influence decision-makers once you have landed a job: critical thinking, writing, communications, and resolving workplace conflicts.

Through engagement with multidisciplinary texts and authentic media, we will unpack representations of displacement, coloniality, language ideologies, and cultural identity in both the work of Puerto Rican global superstar and pop icon Bad Bunny as well as content created on various social media platforms by and about #nosabokids. Additionally, students will critically reflect upon and discuss the ways in which the topics we explore may relate, or not, to their lived experiences. The course will be taught in Spanglish and will be heavily discussion based. Students will collaborate with their instructor, classmates, families, and communities on digital and cultural projects throughout the semester.

This course is in Spanish. Este curso tiene como finalidad explorar la sabiduría o los fondos de conocimiento en la comunidad de habla Hispana. Teniendo como base una metodología de caso de estudio, los estudiantes generarán una investigación que los conecte con el contexto local y/o familiar en base a una pregunta central. ¿Cuántas veces has pensado…cuánta razón tenía mi abuelita o un adulto mayor en tu comunidad? Las posibilidades no tienen fin. Sólo es cuestión de que juntos examinemos “lo que no sabemos que no sabemos”.

In this class, we will use the work of Michel Foucault, the prolific French philosopher, historian, and social theorist, to examine the emergence of relationships of power through the experiences of prisoners, the architecture of institutions, the ways in which we think about bodies, and the experiences of doctors and patients in spaces like hospitals, sanitariums, and asylums. We will read a variety of Foucault’s writing, engage with his lectures he delivered in his own courses, and delve deeper into his methods of studying historical events and social institutions. All of this will culminate with a deep dive in the UTSA Special Collections where you will craft your own unique research project.

How did the “cause of science,” particularly medical science, become a rationale for monstrous behavior in the United States? What are the histories of vulnerable bodies and what are medical gains made at their expense? How did race, gender, and economic status mark those susceptible to “progress?” Is this history far behind us? In this course we will use African concept of Sankofa (Ghana), the practice of going back to get what is lost in order to move toward the future. Through this journey, students will have a larger appreciation of the sacrifice of the unheard and use that awareness to govern their own understanding moving forward. Reading and Writing intensive. Prerequisite: WRC 1023.

How does social media relate to our social contract with one another and our communities, especially on college campuses? On the one hand, the plethora of digital interfaces has served to connect us, especially during the pandemic. On the other hand, social media has led to the deterioration of various social fabrics, through a weakening of interpersonal connection, wellbeing, and communication. Linguists, neuroscientists, and psychologists alike have studied the impact of social media interfaces on people in rhetorical situations. The verdict is almost unanimous that somehow we are losing parts of our communities that are inherent to intellectual development, trust building, and developing a capacity for empathy. What are the benefits of social media in terms of our social contract with each other? What are the pros and cons of its impact on our essential intellectual capacities to live in community with one another? What can we do about the challenges? In this class, together we will engage research, theory, philosophy, and rhetorical analyses to explore these questions. We will use technical writing to investigate and analyze real scenarios on the UTSA campus involving social media, its impact, and our future.

Cities have always been places of spatial inequalities, from Susa, one of the oldest world cities in modern Iran to the Greek city-state of Athens, the so-called birth place of democracy. More recently, cities all over the world are facing a rise in socio-economic segregations that often determine residents’ (in) access to water, food, housing, health care, education, employment, internet, and the use of public space. The 2020 Pandemic has shed light on the uneven distribution of urban goods and burdens, opportunities and resources that we find in most cities. Rising levels of segregation have major consequences for the social sustainability of cities and leads to unequal life opportunities depending on where in the city you live. Such segregations threat the social sustainability of our cities and communities. These are the issues we will tackle in this course. Students will design their own inclusive city to generate discussion and possibilities about reducing the inequality in cities. NOTE: this course will split time where it is in person for fieldtrips and meets synchronously online otherwise. Questions? Email Dr. Bagheri (nazgol.bagheri@utsa.edu)

Why do certain culinary smells instantly remind us of home? Why do certain cultures take pride in eating food that tastes bad? Why is Thanksgiving not really Thanksgiving without turkey? Why do so many Americans spend more time watching shows about food than actually cooking? Every aspect of food--what we eat (and don’t), how much we eat, when we eat, how often we eat, how we eat (hands, chopsticks, utensils)--offers clues about our social, political, economic, and cultural identity, and the goal of this class is to understand the many meanings of food and the act of eating in contemporary society. This course uses sociological and anthropological texts to unravel the rich cultural meaning of food in America while simultaneously immersing students in the food culture of San Antonio. Specific topics include the economics of grocery stores and restaurants, cultural perceptions of nutrition and health, foodie culture and social privilege, the rise of celebrity chefs, and sustainability. Each week, the instructors will choose a food that represents that week’s topic, so don’t forget to bring a napkin (just kidding, we will provide napkins)!

When was the last time you played in the dirt or splashed in a creek? We may have fond childhood outdoor memories, but we now spend most of our time inside. We need nature – physically, mentally, and socially – and nature needs us. Dust off those hiking boots or rugged sandals and take stock in your well-being! There is clear evidence in returning to the outdoors to understand its influence in our daily lives. When you reconnect to something greater than yourself, you experience positive emotions and a shift in world perspective. We’ll dive into the relationship between nature and our well-being and find ways to reconnect. Each of the five modules (Nature and the Brain, How Nature Impacts Well Being, Find Your Path, Everyone Outside, Stewardship) will have its own Call to Action to get outdoors for some experiential learning. Let’s explore how various surroundings impact our thoughts with a choice of dates to fulfill these needs. We’ll start with two Saturday morning 2-hour outings (Jan 28 OR Feb 4, then Feb 11 OR Feb 18), continue with a 4-hr outing (Mar 4 OR Mar 25), progress to an 8-hr Saturday trip (April 1 OR April 8) and culminate in a weekend camping trip (April 15/16 OR Apr 22/23). You are encouraged to attend all outings; you are required to attend one of each date pairings to get the most out of the course experience. Active participation and student-led confluences will provide the foundation for journal reflections and a final video that shows the student’s journey. Students might be responsible for some transportation, food, and basic gear. Come rediscover nature and learn how we can best serve each other!

Students are required to attend one of each pairing and are encouraged to attend all dates as we will be going to different surroundings each date.

• 2-hr outing: Jan 28 or Feb 4
• 2-hr outing: Feb 11 or Feb 18
• 4-hr outing: Mar 4 or Mar 25
• 8-hr outing: Apr 1 or Apr 8
• 36-hr outing: April 15/16 or Apr 22/23

This class will transform your relationship with rivers and with the communities they nurture by introducing you to canoeing and guiding you through the making of your own wooden paddle. These skill building challenges in the classroom, the workshop and on the river will be approached as ways of situated learning about ourselves and our world. We will explore the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River from the water level perspective of our canoe seats as well as from anthropocentric and biocentric perspectives of ecosystem services and deep ecology. Required: four half day canoeing sessions, one weekend overnight river trip (Mar4-50), multiple sessions in the UTSA woodshop on Downtown campus, most classes will take place off Main Campus. Email instructor for details, if needed (eliot.howard@utsa.edu)

This course will focus on building students’ skills and capacity for coaching for individual academic performance and accomplishment. They will learn the GROW and FACTS model of coaching and will do so within the context of real world coaching. Upon successful completion of the course, students will have the opportunity to apply to work as Peer Coaches in the UTSA Honors College. This course counts as a Skill Development Experience in the Honors College curriculum.

This course will focus on building students’ skills and capacity for coaching for individual academic performance and accomplishment. They will learn the GROW and FACTS model of coaching and will do so within the context of real world coaching. Upon successful completion of the course, students will have the opportunity to apply to work as Peer Coaches in the UTSA Honors College. This course counts as a Skill Development Experience in the Honors College curriculum.

What is monkeypox? How should public health campaigns respond to the new outbreak, especially one that disproportionately impacts marginalized communities? In this course, student will learn how to design health promotion interventions, using the case study of monkeypox. Students will plan, implement, and evaluate a college-wide awareness and prevention program about monkeypox for fellow college students. Students will examine influencing factors across various socioecological levels (individual, interpersonal, organization, community, policy) and understand how to address these factors in their program. While designed for students with an interest in medicine and public health, the course is open to anyone who wants to take action and create an innovative program to help tackle this health problem.

Long before the U.S.-Mexico border was created, the lands of Texas were crossed by myriad peoples throughout the region’s deep history, seeking refuge, seeking new homelands, seeking to transform their lives for the better. There are such places all over the world, places in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, all shaped by comparable age-old migrations that have been complicated by the appearance of political boundaries that make those landscapes scenes of conflict, violence, and death. There are many borderlands where the meaning of our humanity is being challenged. Does humanity have a right to be anywhere? Is migration a universal human right? How do our understandings of migration and borders change when you view these themes from a borderlands perspective? Using history, philosophy, literature, art, and media, this seminar will explore this worldwide human legacy, examining the meanings of migration and borderlands identities, informed by our South Texas reality. Students will make multimedia proects around course topics. NOTE: there may be local fieldtrips for this class.

Have you ever wondered about the nature of consciousness? Exactly what is it? Is it something only humans possess? Or do all living beings have it? Perhaps just some? Maybe you believe your dog is just a ‘little conscious’. (After all, he knows what you’re thinking). If this is true then maybe consciousness is a sort of graded phenomenon, as on a continuum rather than all-or-none. Whatever it is and whoever has it, there remains the mystery as to how it arises. Western biology assumes that consciousness is an emergent property arising from a sufficiently evolved central nervous system. It ‘resides’ in your brain. Matter gives rise to mind. But this is not at all a foregone conclusion in much of the rest of the world which holds quite the contrary view, that consciousness is primary. That is, consciousness exists prior to the material world. In this view, consciousness is the ground state from which all matter arises. Even within Western science, such an idea was debated following the bizzare observations made from within a newly developed physics of the quantum realm. In fact, this debate persists. Such questions and ideas are explored in this course. While it will not offer up many definitive answers, it promises to be an exciting journey into this ultimate of mysteries.

The USA has about 4% of the world’s population but almost 24% of the world’s prison population. This course will examine the ways in which the US prison system provokes our personal and collective moral imaginations. What moral problems are posed by our current system of incarceration? What has punishment to do with accountability? How do rhetorics of incarceration shape our moral imaginations and limit effective responses to harms? How have systemic processes of criminalization and incapacitation affected our understanding of the humanity of those impacted by it? We will grapple with these questions by reading texts from a wide range of disciplines and look for creative ways to address and redress social harms. Course includes travel and time on Thursday evenings, students will join incarcerated scholars in class at the Dominguez State Jail as part of The Philosophy and Literature Circle program. Permission of instructor required; email Dr. Webb at mel.webb@utsa.edu. Note this course is cross-listed; only one of the courses will count toward your degree.

Global has become the keyword of our time with virtually every activity we engage in spanning across borders. We are concerned about global warming, global pandemics, global human rights, and global democracy. We consume goods that are globally produced and shipped to us through complex global supply chains. We follow global news as developments far away never had that many repercussions for our everyday lives here. And while we have developed a basic global awareness and began to conceive ourselves as global citizens, much of this remains mitigated by a world defined by nation states and the global a space to be filled meaningfully with rules, governance, and order. To come to better terms with the global, this class will explore global imaginaries and the dynamics of cross-border governance in a borderless world. The oxymoron here is chosen with a purpose: much of our global experiences remain unfinished and we are in desperate need for better solutions to govern globally. We will discuss cosmopolitan ideas, review the early excitement of a global village in the 1990s, consider recent backlash and limits, and explore how this affects and eventually changes our notions of politics, governance, and identity.

What is your responsibility as a future health professional? As the global and national needs of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continue to impact our lives, public health remains at the forefront of championing for the public’s health and well-being. This course is a survey of the profession of public health and the competencies required of health educators, including examination of philosophies, ethics and current trends. Students will explore the scope of community and public health as we cover the five major content areas of public health. Through class discussions (both virtually and in-person), students will engage with one another to examine critical issues in community and public health, such as current trends, case studies, and/or research topics related to health disparities. As a final project, students will produce a public health campaign around a public health issue/population.

How can UTSA financial aid better serve students? In this course, students will develop projects that investigate, research, and seek to improve the financial wellbeing of all students at UTSA. With a focus on the financial applications of mathematics to increase achievement and success among under-resourced students, this course empowers the students enrolled to tell us how to best-relieve financial stress with practical applications added to the financial dimension on the Student Affairs' wellbeing website. Student work in the course will help inform an updated Student Affairs' webpage and the information on it more visible and accessible to all Roadrunners. Prerequisite: MAT 1053 with a grade of "C-" or better, or an equivalent course, or satisfactory performance on a placement examination.

A twice weekly survey course that provides students with an overview of the many parallel efforts required to take a new medical technology (medtech) from initial conception to the commercial market. This course incorporates a series of expert guest lecturers including successful medtech entrepreneurs, FDA regulatory policy analysts, medical doctors representing a range of specialties, and medtech manufacturing engineers. The course also incorporates a clinical immersion experience within University Hospital’s Emergency Medicine and Clinical Engineering Departments. This is a 3 SCH course.

*This course fulfills Honors Elective and core requirements.

Texas law requires that all public colleges and universities teach a course that covers Texas’ politics and government. Yeah? So what? Can’t I just take a regular large section class and be done with it? Sure. But… what if you took a leap of faith and enrolled in this Honors section on Texas politics? For one, it might be just a bit more compelling because the class will assess the role that politics in Texas plays in shaping the course of everything in this state – including your life. As a result, this class will focus on the impact of political, demographic, and social change within Texas. The class will challenge you to think critically about the social, economic, and political challenges facing Texas today and in the future. We will explore these challenges and ponder the milieu of Texas’s politics, government, and governance through lectures and discussions, small group experiential projects and presentations, and guest speakers. Hopefully, when the course concludes, you will have encountered Texas in a new way through the lens of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, one that acknowledges our state’s systemic inequities in criminal justice, income, education, and class.