Faculty Director:

Tina Budzise-Weaver
Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts
tmweaver@tamu.edu

Seminar description:

This seminar delves into the intricate relationship between social media platforms and the construction, performance, and theatricality of identity. Students will explore how individuals and groups present themselves online, the performative nature of these presentations, and the performance and sociological theories that explain these behaviors. Through critical analysis and case studies, the seminar will examine the impact of social media on self-perception, societal norms, and cultural dynamics. Digital spaces are often utilized as a stage for identity and social theatre. Students will investigate and explore the performance of social media influencers and personalities that construct online identity.

Faculty Director:

Mark Hlavacik
Communication & Journalism
hlavacik@tamu.edu

Seminar description:

This seminar will ask students to trace the origins of America’s campus culture war by looking at its evolution from the 1950s to the 2000s. The core of the course will center on five prominent books that contributed to the public argument over what a higher education should be. Seminar participants will read the books and an accompanying academic analysis for each. Together, the seminar participants and leader will discuss each book and its context and then begin building a list of questions and connections that arise from across the readings. When the seminar is finished with its face-to-face meetings, each participant will pick one of the five books and build an online learning module addressed to other college students. This online module will include a summary of the book, a biography of its author, an explanation of its context, a bibliography, links to related resources, a list of key questions the text raises, and materials for an educational activity or project. Together, the five resulting modules will create a resource that students can use to get caught up on the ongoing, national conversation about the nature and purpose of higher education.

Faculty Director:

Glen Miller
Philosophy
glenmiller@tamu.edu

Seminar description:

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to reshape action and experience in nearly every aspect of human life. As its powers and capabilities advance, it increasingly performs tasks that require sophisticated intellectual skills – which, in many accounts, were thought to be the sole property of humans, what separates us from other animals and machines – faster and more accurately than humans. AI’s powers provoke fundamental questions about how we should think, how we should act, how we relate to others, and who we are.  One rich line of responses to these questions can be developed from the ideas (and limitations) of Aristotle, who offered a systematic approach to questions about epistemology, ethics, politics, and identity, supplemented with insights from intellectuals working later in the Western tradition. This seminar is designed to help students better understand and appreciate the human experience in a world in which artificial intelligence is always and increasingly active.

Faculty Director:

Ashley Passmore
Global Languages & Cultures
apassmore@tamu.edu

Seminar description:

This seminar introduces students to the methods, ethics, and public responsibilities of researching Jewish culture and Holocaust history through local archives, museums, and community engagement. Grounded in hands-on humanities research, the seminar emphasizes how local collections and lived community memory shape broader understandings of Jewish history, antisemitism, survival, and commemoration. The seminar’s core readings provide students with a conceptual framework for understanding how Jewish cultural identity is formed, preserved, and reimagined through archives, museums, and public memory.

Faculty Director:

Heather Thakar
Anthropology
thakar@tamu.edu

Seminar description:

In this seminar we will delve into how people and plants have shaped each other over time. Working from an archaeological lens, we will explore how plant domestication changed what we eat, how we live, and how societies developed—from early farming communities to today’s global food system. Along the way, we’ll connect the history of domesticated plants to culture, technology, and tradition, and consider what these long-term relationships can teach us about sustainability and the future of our modern food economy.