Explore Colloquium Course Offerings

What does it mean for white people to “show up” against racism and white supremacy, particularly as they benefit from the same unjust power arrangements they wish to end? Because white participation is needed if we are to craft a racially just society, the identity, role and impact of white people is worth understanding. In this course, we will consider what emerges when white people participate in antiracist social movements and the organizing work led by communities of color. We will explore questions such as: Why are allies, accomplices and co-conspirators needed in everyday interactions and in movements for racial justice? What role does identity play in shaping whether and how white people participate in dismantling racism and white supremacy? What are behaviors and actions that demonstrate effective allyship and move beyond symbolic/performative commitments? What are the problems with and limits of allyship? What are the implications of allyship on and for people of color? What do alternative frameworks of solidarity, coalition, and conspiracy offer for building antiracist futures?

This colloquium explores the diverse meanings of the terms in the course title by looking at their expressions in everyday practices from historical, linguistic, philosophical, anthropological, and folkloric perspectives. Participants will examine the fantasies and facts related to Chinese culture and people, learn to analyze various narratives in context and from certain disciplinary theories and methods, and while relating them to their own experiences regarding Chinese and Chinese/Asian American foodways, films and media, and oral narratives. For example, through the stories about fortune cookies and chop suey we learn about Chinese life-view of health and happiness; through films based on traditional tales like Mulan and Nezha we compare text and context, and through animations like Kung Fu Panda and games like Genshin and Black Myth: Wukong we scrutinize the meaning of globalization.

This course explores the multiple ways the clothes we wear tell stories about our life's journey and are embedded with meaning and memory. How do our clothes communicate identity, offer protection, and celebrate the past? How do we read or interpret the performance of ourselves and others by the garments we inhabit? How have the rapid changes in fashion and technology since the 16th century altered our physical bodies and rewritten the narrative of our clothing choices? Through the reading of historical and contemporary fiction and non-fiction, personal narrative, and essays, we will explore and make sense of the meaning and memories created by the clothes hanging on our bodies and in our closets. Our goal will be to focus on how scholarly based inquiry can help us to answer our questions, and how this inquiry can inform current discussions about cultural memory. Projects may include oral history, material culture curation, short essays, and the manipulation of garments.

In the early 9th century, remains believed to be those of the apostle Saint James were discovered in Compostela, Galicia where a cathedral honoring Santiago became the destination of catholic pilgrims or religious travelers from all over Europe who followed various routes across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. In this colloquium we will explore the concept of pilgrimage itself, a spiritual journey involving not only individual religious experience but also complex religious, linguistic, cultural and social interchanges. We will examine in particular the interplay between change and continuity, as millions of diverse travelers wearing the traditional shell of the Jacobean pilgrim have followed the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James over the past 1200 years and have impacted both the route and pilgrimage culture surrounding it. Key questions to address include: what role did the Camino play in the medieval struggle between Muslims and Christians for dominance in the Iberian Peninsula? In what ways has the route and the infrastructure it necessitated shaped patterns of growth along it? To what extent has the Camino helped inform the construction of a Spanish national/ist identity? Finally, how have foreign pilgrims on the route contributed to Spain"s multicultural society, and in turn, how have their experiences been represented in literature, film and art up to today?

Join our immersive Documentary Photography Studio to delve into the art of creating impactful documentary photography. This hands-on course focuses on traditional black and white photography processes, guiding students through the entire workflow—from exposure to darkroom printing. Participants will acquire essential skills in film development, printing techniques, and tonal mastery while crafting a series of meticulously composed photographs. We will analyze the roles of documentary and mockumentary through iconic films such as Agnes Varda's The Gleaners & I and Rob Reiner's This is Spinal Tap, as well as the powerful works of photographers like Dawoud Bey and Zanele Muholi. Additionally, we will engage with critical texts from thinkers like Foucault and Tolokonnikova to deepen our understanding of narrative and truth in visual media. This course offers a unique opportunity to develop your voice as a photographer, celebrate diverse stories, and enhance your technical skills in a vibrant and supportive studio environment.

Icons and media celebrities, advertising and news images, and a myriad of visual messages that we encounter in our daily life all try to shape the way we think, feel, and respond to the reality around us. They are designed to influence our beliefs and values, our sense of identity, our consumer preferences, as well as our social commitments and affiliations. In our intellectual journey we will learn to critically understand such artifacts of visual culture; visual literacy is the aim of this colloquium. We will consider approaches to visual expression and focus on the web presence of art, performative events, and architecture in Berlin, Vienna, and Shanghai as well as the representation of these metropoles in film, literature, and music. The colloquium will include a viewing of works at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art.

This course will explore the different ways in which individual and collective identities have been represented, conveyed, and embodied by art from ancient Egypt to postmodern America, examining the role played by genres such as biography, autobiography, portraiture, and memoirs in this process. Through the attentive analysis of artworks created in various media – from literature to cinema, music, and visual arts – the class will investigate how specific narratives might have contributed to the production and reception of identities in diverse historical and cultural contexts. This course will also introduce students to early modern, modern, and contemporary theories of art in connection with current research on identity construction.

What happens when you translate literature into a film? Is the book always "better" than the movie? What happens when a story crosses borders? This course explores the complex relationship between literature and cinema through the analysis of works from different genres: memoir (Happening, France), magical realism (Like Water for Chocolate, Mexico), fantasy (Pan's Labyrinth, Mexico/Spain) and surrealism (Blow Up, Argentina/Italy/Great Britain). Our investigation will include socio-cultural context, narrative expression, use of point of view, role of the audience, etc. We will study the resources employed by each medium to deliver a particular message.
CONTENT WARNING: Graphic abortion scenes.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how people access information and complete their work. We will critically examine how these technologies affect the acquisition of new content knowledge and the development of academic skills. We will make use of generative AI while we explore its effect on the development of the student learning objectives of the college colloquium course, including the critical examination of information and/or texts, the contribution to a constructive classroom climate, and the effective formulation of ideas and arguments.

Some of the most spectacular films in history are epic movies set in ancient Greece and Rome. "Toga movies" such as "Cabiria" (1914), "Ben Hur" (1959), "Cleopatra" (1963), and "Gladiator" (2000) were not only important milestones in film history, but still dazzle their audiences with gigantic sets, huge armies of extras, impressive action scenes, gorgeous costumes, and rousing music. In this course, we will learn to watch these movies closely and analyze them from many different angles, as films with a specific language and tradition, as historical narratives, and as reflections of and comments on contemporary culture. We will meet as a class to watch the films together on Wednesday evenings; these screenings constitute a significant portion of the homework for the course.

This class takes three subjects —horses, art, and refugees— to understand the ways in which world history has been shaped by interconnection, exchange, and human contact. In the first part, we read the archaeological study Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History. This book carries us across millions of years and thousands of miles. In the second stage of our intellectual journey, we read a global history of the seventeenth century that uses paintings by Johannes Vermeer [1632-1675] to explore transcultural exchange in an era of exploration. Our final segment brings together the global and the local in a book examining the lives of present-day Somali Bantu refugees who call Lewiston Maine home. Ranging across space and time, our conversations will focus on the dynamic forces of global exchange as well as the processes of adaptation and innovation that have shaped our world.

A first-year colloquium designed to introduce students to the concept of building their own personal brand. Drawing from foundational principles in marketing and professional development, the course challenges students to explore and articulate their values, goals, and strengths as they begin their academic journey. In addition to developing a personal brand, students will hone fundamental skills including collaborative teamwork, analytical thinking, clear and concise writing, and building/delivering strong presentations. Emphasis is placed on producing college-level work, engaging in thoughtful peer feedback, and building the confidence and self-awareness necessary to navigate academic and professional environments.

The current political climate has set immigration matters at the center of public debate. Growing anti-immigrant narratives portrayed by the media and politicians attempt to threaten, dehumanize, and disempower non-citizens in the U.S. and around the globe. This course refocuses immigrant knowledge through the power of story. We study various forms of storytelling as a tool for understanding the political formation, identity and belonging, cultural and everyday immigrant experiences, including reasons for their displacement and connections in home and host countries. Through an interdisciplinary approach, students will examine storytelling methods, such as testimonios, comics, zines, creative writing, music, art, and digital media to understand the diversity of immigrant voices. Students will gain hands-on experiences in crafting and producing their own narrative projects. Along the way, students will also gain a thorough understanding of the laws and policies that govern immigration in the United States and their consequences.

Many of today’s best comedic actors have training in improv: the creation of a theatrical scene by two or more actors who work together without a script or other pre-planning. Improv is often used as a method of idea generation for sketch comedy, such as the sketches seen on Saturday Night Live or Key & Peele. But improv itself can be an end product, either in the form of live productions or television shows like Whose Line is it Anyway? In this course we will explore the art of improv and learn how actors tell a story collaboratively through a process of mutual agreement often summarized as “Yes, and…”. We will consider questions such as: What are the different schools of thought on improv performance, and how does an actor “rehearse”? Where does the funny come from in an improv show? What does cognitive science have to say about the brain on improv? How have the techniques of improv been applied outside of the theater, to such diverse areas as business, politics, and mental health? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we will all DO improv every week in two-hour-long workshops, and then put on a show at the end of the semester! No experience in improv or other theater is necessary to join this class – just a willingness to be bold, take a risk, and have fun supporting your fellow improvisers. Unlike most College Colloquium sections, this course will meet for four hours each week. We will have two hours of regular class time, and then the two-hour improv workshop. The extra fourth hour will be considered part of the work that students are expected to do outside of official class time.

This course explores the diversity of contemporary Irish art and artists advocating for peace, recognition, justice, and reconciliation. Featuring a broad array of art forms–from collages to street art, longstanding murals to dynamic slam poetry performances, haunting song lyrics to heart-felt peace advocacy–students in this course will learn that Irish Art Activism is as multifaceted and complex as its creators. Through the analysis of art as public discourse, students will also learn about Irish history, religion, geography, and politics. This high-impact, experiential course goes beyond analysis—students will create their own art inspired by the works we study. Additionally, they will conduct independent research on Irish art activism related to causes they are passionate about and share their discoveries with our learning community.

We will read and discuss Herman Melville’s 1851 epic American whale-hunting and sea-going novel Moby-Dick, which the famous and famously controversial British novelist D.H. Lawrence once called “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world.” It's spectacular, long, and full of songs and poems, Biblical allusions and Shakespearean references, and fine details about the nineteenth-century whaling industry that you never knew you wanted so badly to know.

…you have never heard of is the Ancient Greek romance novel Aithiopika (3rd cent. CE), by a certain Heliodorus from Syrian Emesa. The princess Chariklea, exposed at birth by the Ethiopian queen because she was ashamed her infant was born White, only learns of her identity as a young woman, which sets her on a perilous journey from Greece accompanied by her beautiful lover Theagenes to reclaim her patrimony. Not only can Aithiopika be considered the first “passing novel,” when it was translated into French in 1547 it inspired the invention of the modern European novel – a work of prose fiction. We trace its impact on Western literature through a series of firsts: Oroonoko: Or, the Royal Slave. A True History (1688) by Aphra Behn, one of the first English women novelists; Samuel Richardson’s Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), the first "realistic" novel; and Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self (1903) by Pauline Hopkins, editor of the first African American literary magazine. Along the way we ponder questions both literary and cultural about the relationship between the real world and the world of the novel. CONTENT ADVISORY: These texts describe sexualized violence.

Plato is one of the most important philosophers who has ever lived. His writings are thousands of years old, yet they still have the power to provoke and captivate. His influence is so great that some have said that Western philosophy "consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." This course will be a study of several major works by Plato, works that stand out not only as wonderful examples of philosophy but also as examples of great literature. Some of the questions we will address are: What is the nature of reality? Do we have souls, and is there life after death? What does a just society look like? Is it possible to teach virtue? And what is the nature of love?

Isaac Asimov wrote that “In science fiction, human beings are pictured as facing unusual situations, bizarre societies, unorthodox problems. The effort to imagine the human response to such things may cast light into the shadows in a new way, allowing us to see what had not been clear before.” This course will follow Asimov’s suggestion by exploring the intersection between science fiction and the science of mind, brain, and behavior. Broadly, we will explore the ways in which popular works of contemporary and classic science fiction can help us to understand human behavior and its causes. Along the way, we will examine works of science fiction that pose a important questions about human behavior. We will then discuss modern scientific approaches to answering these questions and attempt to integrate knowledge gained from science fiction’s speculative treatment of the question with a scientific approach to examining mind, brain and behavior. Most importantly, this course is intended to help you develop the skills necessary in order to become a successful student here at Willamette, and a successful problem solver across the course of your life. Toward that end, we will place special emphasis on developing the skills that will prove critical over the course of your time at WU: writing, argumentation, and critical thinking.

Russia's war on Ukraine will affect the world for generations. How did we get to this point? From the outset, twenty-first century Russia has been mired in violence, both physical and ideological. Putin's first action as Prime Minister in 1999 was to initiate the second Chechen war. He went on to use violence against the people of Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine. He has also waged war on the Russian constitution and the independent press, attacking nascent democratic institutions and individual human rights. Writers and artists across the region continue to push back. We will investigate their works, along with journalistic and historical texts, to better understand the context of these wars and their impact on ordinary citizens.

This course centers on the lives of historical figures whose actions transformed their worlds, including Jesus Christ, Martin Luther, Rosa Luxemburg, Alexandra Kollontai, and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Using biography, autobiography, film, and other materials we will examine the forces that led these individuals to act in ways that gave meaning to their lives and to the lives of others. Among the questions to be explored are: What factors transform individuals and groups from passive acceptors of their condition or the condition of others into dynamic actors who make it their mission to effect radical change? To what extent does the example of others drive a person to act? How do familial and broader social contexts shape a person's desire to mobilize others? To what extent can an individual's urge to transform the world come from within? By addressing these questions as they relate to individuals operating in very different historical circumstances, we will strive to better understand the stuff of which revolutionaries are made.

This course explores the intersection of AI and music-making, examining both the creative possibilities and the broader implications of AI-driven tools. What does it mean to use AI for music creation? How do these technologies shape the creative process? We will investigate a wide range of AI-powered tools, from text-prompted background music generation to advanced symbolic composition “in the style of” specific artists, as well as professional tools for audio analysis, de-noising, de-mixing, sound morphing and concatenative synthesis. Through critical listening and analysis, we will compare AI-generated music with human-created compositions—can we reliably distinguish between the two? We will also engage in hands-on projects, using AI tools to create original music from scratch. Beyond the technical aspects, we will examine the broader impact of AI in music, including ecological concerns, economic shifts, and the transformative effects on artistic professions. By the end of the course, students will have both practical experience with AI-assisted music creation and a critical framework for understanding its implications.

Like any creative medium, games combine technical and artistic processes in their design, and can be analyzed and critiqued from a variety of academic perspectives. Game designers use mathematical and computational tools to balance complex interconnected systems of abstract rules, and narrative and storytelling structures to give their designs meaning. Game critics think about games in the context of modern societies, and games succeed and fail in their relationships with player psychologies. In this course, students will design and iteratively redesign their own paper and cardstock games. We'll learn modern design principles, including mathematical tools to analyze game probabilities and game trees; best practices in graphic design; and technical rules writing. We'll work to translate between abstract systems and graphical visualizations in game components. Students will refine their designs through game critiques and workshops, iterative playtesting, and discussion of scholarly works on game design and criticism.

Inspired by the New York Times "The 1619 Project," The 1842 Project explores the beginnings of the institutions we call Willamette University and Salem, Oregon. This colloquium aims to reframe the local history by placing the consequences of colonialism and the contributions of people of color at the center of our local narrative. Foremost to the local story is understanding the nature of American capitalism to the landscapes that have been home to the Kalapuya people since time immemorial. Students will observe firsthand local biodiversity with attention to the colonial history of organisms, profiling people with significant records in climate & biodiversity actions, exploring how local conditions in the past influence us today, and speculating on what they can do to make a hopeful future.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, and large scale computing have captured the collective imaginations of millions people across a range of technical expertise. Yet each of these buzzwords is rooted in a central promise: that machines may think.

Guided by student inquiry, we will learn how to construct thinking - or the appearance thereof - from basic computation. Using the shared language of computer code, we use programming as a way to bridge the gap between thinking humans and thinking machines. With this shared experience, we will be able to reflect more thoughtfully on the implications of thinking machines on the self, culture, and society.

Cities are often seen as the opposite of nature, but they are dynamic ecosystems shaped by human and environmental interactions. This course explores the role of urban biodiversity, equitable access to urban nature, and environmental management and planning in creating more livable and resilient cities. Through collaborations with local organizations, students will engage in hands-on projects that address urban sustainability challenges, such as expanding pollinator habitats, improving food security, addressing the urban heat island effect, and advocating for green and blue infrastructure. By integrating scientific research with community perspectives, this course encourages students to think critically about how cities can become models for sustainability.

“Irish is a part of our soul; without it we are without identity, we are empty,” declared Irene Coen of the Dingle peninsula. In fact, the Irish people’s deep love of their indigenous language, Gaelige, which was nearly exterminated by the English, has fueled one of the few successful language revitalization projects in Europe. In this course we examine the nexus of Irish language, culture, and identity in Eire after the island's 1922 partition into the English-occupied state of Northern Ireland and the independent country Ireland. We dip our toes into the complexities of the Irish language, then explore the Irish people’s own understanding of their Celtic identity in the realms of sports, politics, and economics, from Druidism to Catholicism to the rise of the Celtic Tiger.

In recent years memorials and commemorative statues have become sites of conflict; some were torn down during the 2020 racial justice protests, while others became subjects of protracted court battles. Cities, states and universities regularly debate the racial and historical implications of monuments, markers, and place names. In addition, these controversies have opened up discussions about the silences in our landscape; the individuals or groups who should be memorialized but have been overlooked or ignored. This class will examine the debates over historical monuments and historical memory, as well as the increasingly polarized histories that fuel these debates. We will begin with the controversy over Civil War and Reconstruction memorials in the South and then move to more local, western iconography, including that on and near our own campus. Students will seek to answer questions such as: What have been the historical forces and local contexts that shaped decisions to memorialize some aspects of our history and neglect others? Which individuals and events should be immortalized in monuments? Are there memorials in our midst that represent individuals and values that seem problematic in the early 21st century and, if so, how should this be addressed? Who is missing from the memorial landscape and what does that reflect about our collective memory?