Course Schedule

This course explores the ways in which humans construct and communicate our shared realty. It examines the centrality of rhetorical practices as the means by which humans engage in this process, as well as the ways in which rhetoric has been and continues to be used both to elevate or subjugate communities and individuals. 

This course explores literature, games, and things in between. Our central question is this: how do literary things that we study and game-like things that we play relate to each other, overlap, or even become one another? To answer this question, we will analyze literary writing that embraces a playful ethos, games that incorporate narrative, and other media caught in the nexus of literature and game. Our subject will take various forms, including fiction, poetry, drama, film, television, comic books, hypertext, and several types of game. Our work should illuminate a range of cultural practices and social values behind particular forms of reading, writing, and play.  

Study of the oceans including the application of geology, biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering and how they interact in different parts of the ocean environment. Strong interdisciplinary focus of ocean processes and how they are connected to our lives. Topics include how technology has advanced our understanding of the oceans, sampling seawater and sediments and mapping the seafloor, opening and closing of ocean basins, formation and erosion of beaches, life in the oceans, ocean resources, marine pollution, and the role of the oceans in global climate change.

Hands-on introductory studio course in ceramics. Ceramics will be introduced through an exploration of functional and sculptural approaches to clay. We will cover the basic clay forming techniques of hand building and wheel throwing, along with various surface, glazing, and kiln firing techniques.  Emphasis will be on the artistic process dealing with creative expression, design, aesthetics, technical skills, and concept development. 

This course includes a basic framework of political and economic historical developments in U.S. history, but it will focus more on post-1877 social, ethnic, cultural, and religious movements within a nation having ever greater interaction with the rest of the world. We will read a wide range of documents from a wide variety of people in the past, to research, analyze and discuss problems, proposed solutions, and outcomes over the past century and a half.

African history from the Paleolithic period to 1800. Development of agriculture, ancient civilizations of Africa, iron working societies, the trans-Saharan trade, the impact of Islam and Christianity, traditional African political and social arrangements, the slave trade, and the European presence in early modern Africa.

Origins, cultural achievements, and interrelationships of the various civilizations of the world to approximately 1500 C.E. Topics include the prehistoric era and the origins of human civilization; civilizations of the ancient Near East; early civilizations of Africa and the Americas; East Asian culture and civilization; Indian (South Asian) culture and civilization; Greek and Roman civilization; early civilizations of Southeast Asia; Islamic civilization; the Byzantine empire and medieval Europe.

This course examines the nature of early civilizations including the possible factors involved in both their rise and fall. The civilizations studied include Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, the Aegean Islands, Europe (Greece and Italy), Mesoamerica and the Andes region of South America. Similarities and differences in these civilizations will be considered. 

Arctic Geography from an Inuit Perspective: You will take a journey through time and space to the lands and peoples of the north (focus on Alaska, Canada, and Greenland), seeing the Arctic as more than just snow and ice! The course explores the physical, cultural, historical, political, economic, and regional geography of the Arctic. Highlights include the origins and traditions of the Arctic indigenous Inuit, Arctic flora and fauna, unique features of a frozen land, Western exploration as viewed from both cultures, the influence of whalers, church and government on the Inuit, the Klondike gold rush, Inuit land claims, life in today’s Arctic, as well as the impacts of a changing climate and changing geopolitics. 

This course introduces key theoretical arguments and concepts to the study of International Politics. The primary objective will be to discuss and explain why political phenomena occur, including conflict and cooperation, using major theoretical approaches to the study of international relations (i.e., realism, liberalism, and constructivism). During the second half of the course, we will investigate topics related to civil and international conflicts. These topics include, but are not limited to, conflict onset, duration, severity, and foreign interventions. Students will have an opportunity to explore and analyze existing data on international and civil wars. Special attention will be paid to assessing conflict trends during the post-Cold War period.

How does what is going on in history connect to art and artists? This course uses different art forms to better understand and analyze the history of a time. We also learn to better understand the art through our delving into particular historical events. No previous art courses are needed, just an open mind and willingness to see how art and cultural artifacts can both shape and be shaped by our world. This class (equivalent to AED315) is required for Art Ed majors and is a program elective for Art majors.

In this course we will examine the rise, transformation and ongoing consequences (through to the present) of a modern global market society. We will begin with the European expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and focus on how new international patterns of production and trade in commodities developed and how these patterns transformed the societies and individual consumption habits of the regions involved.  In the middle section of the course we will focus on the industrial revolution and its consequences for the further development of global networks of production and exchange. In the last section of the course, we will examine more recent (twentieth and twenty-first century) changes in patterns of global production and exchange and think about our location with these networks. This course is also intended to familiarize you with some of the most important ideas and works in various social science disciplines, including anthropology, economics, history and sociology. So, we will also pay close attention to the different disciplinary methods we encounter in the books and articles we read. 

This course deals with the way of life of the original inhabitants of Western North America.  The major focus will be on reconstructing life during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries using archaeology, historic documents, and oral tradition.  The tribal nations of the Plains, Northwest Coast, Southwest, Great Basin, Plateau, and California are studied in detail. This course also highlights the effects of European exploration and colonization and the persistence of Indigenous Western North American peoples in the modern world.

Striking a balance among ethnographic case studies, theoretical lenses, and practical implications, the course aims to help students understand what Euro-American efforts at foreign development, including contemporary globalization, look like from an African vantage. An understanding of African expectations of development and developers is especially important for students who hope to pursue practical development work in African contexts. This is an advanced theory course, best for upper-level students who are ready to read a lot and participate in rigorous in-class discussion.

In this course we will examine the literature of the American borderlands, that area of the southern border that Gloria Anzaldua calls the “place where the first world grates against the third and bleeds”. In considering borderland literature, we will be examining issues of identity, culture, language, migration and labor and in doing so, we will explore fundamental questions about what it means to belong to one nation or the other, and what it means to exist in the space in between. Some texts we may consider include the following: excerpts from Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza;  Arturo Isla’s The Rain God,; Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s Desert Blood;  Reyna Grande’s A Ballad of Love and Glory; Emma Perez’s Blood Memory; Forgetting the Alamo and Oscar Casares’s Where We Come From. 

In the Seminar in Cultural Anthropology, we will read, discuss, and write about a set of contemporary ethnographies. Potential themes of these books include, migration, avatars, spirit possession, lost limbs, loneliness, animals, and love. The course will provide an opportunity for you to hone your critical and analytical skills in written and oral forms. You will be required to come to class prepared to discuss and engage with the material and write, rewrite, and edit assignments in a timely, coherent, and meaningful way. 

THIS COURSE DOES NOT FULFILL GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

This class will focus on launching the first Undergraduate Research Journal at Buffalo State University. Students interested in Graphic Design will design the website and journal. Students interested in publishing and the editorial process will collect and edit student research papers and help set up a lasting editorial structure including a faculty editorial advising board. This class will meet at times that work for the students enrolled and the location will be determined. 

THIS COURSE DOES NOT FULFILL GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

All Honors students preparing to graduate should enroll in this course. During this course students will complete career-related assignments, read a social justice-focused book, and produce a project around a social justice theme, describe their applied learning experience, and provide feedback for the Honors Program and other areas on campus. 

THIS CLASS WILL MEET AT A MUTUALLY AGREED ON TIME FOR STUDENTS WHO ARE ENROLLED. There will be an online or in-class option and the class meets infrequently over the course of the semester. The instructor will contact students the first week of class to determine the first meeting time and place.

SUMMER 2024 VS COURSE

Stories of the gods, goddesses, and heroes of Greece and Rome as presented in Greek and Roman literature. Emphasis upon determining possible origins and meanings of the myths studied.

This course does NOT fulfill General Education requirements. It will count as an elective or toward an English BA or English Ed BS major (World Literature) with chair approval or toward a Religious Studies minor.

Where does romantic love "live" in the human brain? Why does it exist in the first place, and when did it first come into existence?  What impact has it had on your own life, and why? And how have songwriters, poets, and authors throughout the ages and across cultures celebrated its joys, miseries, and compulsions? An introduction to the neurological, evolutionary, psychological, personal, and literary manifestations of this biological drive. 

Introduction to some central topics in the humanities. Humans' attempts to give meaning to their lives through literary, philosophical, and creative expression. In this class we will analyze Bob Dylan’s lyrics, to identify the central themes introduced by the author, their relation to history, faith, love, family, and personal identity, making the American bard the most influential poetic voice of the second half of the 20th Century.

This course will take a thematic approach to some basic philosophical topics including the nature of knowledge, the difference between faith and belief, the existence of God, the nature of the mind, and what it means to be good. This course will expose students to basic philosophical issues and develop their ability to think critically about such issues. This will probably challenge some basic beliefs, so it is necessary to keep an open mind and to be willing to consider other beliefs.

Friendship and happiness are core concepts in many approaches to ethics, and ethicists have thought carefully about both since the time of Plato. We’ll investigate some of their ideas and arguments, and try to determine what role friendship plays in happiness (and perhaps vice versa). We’ll also explore some ethical tensions within both. (E.g. If being a good friend requires giving my friend special treatment, is that a problem for my ethical commitment to being fair to everyone?) Along the way, we’ll work to better understand the meaning of concepts such as “respect” and the difference between something being “right” and being “good.”

Collegiate mock trial! After learning about the American legal system and studying the roles witnesses and evidence play in putting together a story for a jury, you will take on the roles of attorneys and witnesses for hands-on courtroom workshops and your own end-of-semester trials. Balancing preparation with improvisation, you will cultivate your interpretive, communicative, rhetorical, and critical thinking, as well as your teamwork skills.

This course provides an introduction to human geography through examination of the spatial organization of human activity and the relationships between people and their environments. Topics include population, migration, diffusion, ecology, culture, religions, languages, ethnicities, urbanization, development, and globalization. In-class exercises, assignments and a field trip (if appropriate) are included to enhance student’s understanding of various subjects examined throughout the course. 

This course will focus an overview of the major areas of psychology. Psychology, defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes, is most commonly associated with psychological problems (e.g., psychopathology) and their treatment; however, it also covers a much wider range of behavior and cognition. In order to understand ourselves and others, we need to also understand how our brain works, how we think, how we learn, how we develop, and how we interact with others. This course will provide a cursory overview of these principles and areas of research that comprise the field of psychology. Through lectures, in-class activities and discussion, we will learn how to think critically about our "common sense" beliefs of human functioning.

Introduction to academic discourse practices and conventions, including the development of composing processes and skills that will prepare individuals for success as university students and citizens. Emphasis on critical reading and inquiry, writing for a variety of rhetorical situations, and effective academic writing and research processes.

This is an Honors-only section.

Course focusing on development of academic communication and research skills. Written and oral assignments emphasize argumentation and persuasion, advanced rhetorical strategies, analysis/synthesis, and critical thinking.

This is an Honors-only section.

First-year Honors students are enrolled in this introductory class that orients them to the Muriel A. Howard Honors Program and to their education at Buffalo State University. Students will learn about the many resources and opportunities available to them, gain valuable skills to support their academic experience, and create connections with fellow Honors students.

CRN 1956 - W 12:00-12:50pm
CRN 1957 - W 11:00-11:50am
CRN 1958 - R 3:05-3:55pm
CRN 2326 - R 4:30-5:20pm
CRN 2327 - F 11:00-11:50am
CRN 2328 - F 10:00-10:50am