Hooligans, teenagers, and adolescents: for decades, youth have been othered, scrutinized, fetishized, and feared. Questions of control, freedom, and exploration are central to thinking about the experiences of youth, both historically and in the present. Seminars in this learning community will explore the on-going battle over the ways young people read, watch, listen, play, learn, make, and live together.
Signature events include partnering with area organizations, bringing in speakers, visiting local museums, and a film series.
Fall 2020 classes include:
Best of Times/Worst of Times: College Student Stress and Success
Best of Times/Worst of Times: College Student Stress and Success
Faculty member teaching this course: Gina Cross
Some people see their college days as the best time of their lives, but there are recent reports of a mental health crisis on college campuses. Why do some students thrive and others don't? This course will cover both the academic stressors and success strategies of college students. We will also explore college student mental health through brain science, psychology, and personality testing.
The Play is the Thing
The Play is the Thing
Faculty member teaching this course: Tim Braun
The course will explore the psychology, sociology, history, philosophy and idea of “play”, what is “play”, and what is “play” for. Via academic research and writing, students will construct games, attend a sporting event, attend a play at Moody Theater, construct graphic novels, a short iPhone film, attend art and film festivals, and the building of an independent project designed between each student and the professor in exploring the concepts of rules and laws in our society using multi-model learning.
Pop Culture Pedagogies: The Politics of Pleasure & Play
Pop Culture Pedagogies: The Politics of Pleasure & Play
Faculty member teaching this course: Liz Johnson
Join us for a semester of reading the word and the world as we examine ways people teach and learn with pop culture texts across learning spaces. We will begin with personal inquiries into childhoods growing up with pop culture and move out to explore pop culture in formal and informal learning spaces across the university, local schools, and the city at large. Grab your phone and be ready to snap, tag, and tweet to make our mobile classroom.
Young, Dumb, and Broke? Exploring Representations of and Research on Youth
Young, Dumb, and Broke? Exploring Representations of and Research on Youth
Faculty member teaching this course: Jennifer Jefferson
The youth are self-obsessed! The youth are apathetic! The youth are activists!
Ever wondered how these ideas have come to be? Curious to learn more about the different ways that youth are framed? In this course, we'll immerse ourselves in the worlds of representations of and research on youth. We'll work together to better understand how representations and research shapes, or doesn't, perceptions of young people, and what role young people have had in shaping those perceptions. Our explorations will extend beyond our classroom as we tap into both St. Edward's University and Austin resources as we venture out to go on Transit Adventures, to screen films, and to attend an array of local events with the goal of exploring the interdisciplinary world of youth studies.