Courses

​The below list features courses offered in Fall 2020 that contribute to the mission of the OUR VOTE teaching initiative.

If you are an instructor or attending a course you believe supports this initiative, please contact Patricia Sloane-White, pswhite@udel.edu, to be included in the OUR VOTE course offerings.

ARTH339: Art of the Vote 

We will look at the art, visual culture, and material culture of American elections past and present (television; photography; cartoons; ballots; maps; painting and sculpture, etc). For more information email: Jason Hill.

HIST316: Civic Engagement in America, (TR: 3:30-4:45)

In this course, we investigate how civic engagement has shaped American History. We will analyze the similarities and differences between the ways that citizens actively participate in contemporary American society, versus how they have done so at key junctures of the past. We begin the course by collectively defining what it means to be an engaged citizen, then work together to identify core American values and attitudes essential to encouraging an engaged citizenry.  You will apply these ideas while evaluating both past and present forms of civic engagement, as well as to propose ideas for engaging the next generation of citizens.

LEAD100: Leadership, Integrity and Change

Introduces students to the challenges of leadership. An experiential practice-based change project will give students hands-on experience in applying the skills and practices of effective leadership to create positive change.

LEAD101: Global Contexts for Leadership

Understanding a variety of issues and problems that impact quality of life of individuals and groups and demand effective leadership in global contexts.

LEAD341: Decision-Making and Leadership

The application of different decision-making tools and models for making effective decisions in a leadership context. PREREQ: LEAD100

LEAD404: Leadership in Organizations

Building the capability of organizations to develop and operationalize leadership capacity at all levels of an organization. Concepts and theories of organizational effectiveness studied relate to impacts of structure, culture, and other characteristics upon an organization's ability to unleash leadership potential. PREREQ: LEAD100

POSC324: Voting and Elections (MWF: 2:30-3:20pm)

Elections are central to modern democracy: they are the mechanism by which "we the people" choose who will represent us and make laws in our names. This may be particularly true for American democracy, since we elect more people to more positions more frequently than anywhere else in the world (the best estimate is that there are around 520,000 elected officials in the U.S., or more than one for every thousand citizens).  

In this course, we will explore how — and how well — this mechanism works in modern-day America. We will learn why voters make the decisions they do, and the strategies campaigns use to try to win their votes. We will look beyond the media's portrayal of fickle voters swinging between candidates based on attack ads and campaign gaffes. Instead, we will engage with classic academic theories of voting, and analyze quantitative evidence from the 2016 and 2018 campaigns, to understand in a more rigorous way why elections in the U.S. turn out the way they do.

POSC476: Election Law (MWF: 2:30-3:20pm)

Who has the right to vote or become a political candidate in America, and why? What does it mean to be fairly represented? Can speech be limited during a political campaign under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? What kinds of restrictions on campaign contributions and spending are permissible? What happens when elections go wrong? This course explores the legal rules that govern elections and the political process in America. Some of these legal rules are derived directly from the U.S. Constitution, others from laws passed by Congress or state legislatures. The class will focus on court decisions interpreting these rules. This will involve a deep dive into a wide range of election-related topics including voting rights and representation, freedom of speech in campaigns, redistricting and gerrymandering, the role of political parties and primaries, campaign finance law, and election administration.

UAPP110: Changing the World and Public Policy

"Going Green", the haves and have nots, relevant politics - all huge contemporary issues. Can you get a job AND make a difference? Public Policy addresses such issues and begins with you. Examines basic policy concepts/strategies used by citizens, government and other societal institutions.

UAPP225: Crafting Public Policy

Explores how the processes of public policy operate from agenda setting through formulation and legitimation, to implementation and eventual evaluation with examples drawn from several areas of policy (e.g., health, education, environment). Focus primarily on domestic public policy.

UAPP325: Public Policy Analysis

Introduction to the basic principles and concepts of policy analysis. Practice application through problem solving and critical examination of analyses conducted by prominent research groups within the field as well as through case study problem-solving.

WOMS 201– Intro to Women’s Studies

This course introduces students to the key topics, approaches, and debates in the interdisciplinary field of Women’s and Gender Studies from a global perspective, examining the ways in which sex and gender are manifested in social, economic, cultural, and political arenas around the world. Students will explore the primary core concepts of Women’s and Gender Studies including issues related to the intersections of multiple identities and statuses such as sex, gender, sexual identity, race, and class. The course will address the global development and history of feminist activism and theory through a comparative and transnational perspective, and will allow students to see the value of the discipline’s core concepts as they are utilized as analytical tools in a variety of global contexts.

WOMS 205- Women in the Arts and Humanities: Women and Popular Music 

Designed for non-music majors, this introduction to women’s popular music explores its origins in Anglo and African American traditions, and uses the lives and artistry of the major tradition bearers as an index to a variety of musical genres including but not limited to blues, jazz, country, rock and roll, opera, Broadway musicals, and contemporary popular music. The impact of sexism, racism, and class bias on the performers, the production and scholarship of women’s popular music will also be discussed. 

POSC/WOMS 317 Politics and Gender (TR 12:30-1:45pm, G.Bauer)

This class aims to introduce students to current issues around gender and politics around the world. Some of the questions we address include: Why are men overrepresented in politics? Why is the USA ranked so low in terms of women’s representation in Congress? What is a feminist foreign policy – as followed in Sweden? What are other ways of understanding gender, for example, in Nigeria, and participation in politics? Why might there be more women in elected office in an autocracy, like Rwanda, than a democracy, like the USA? Has democracy failed women? The class relies on significant student participation and interaction and includes visits from politicians and other practitioners from the field

WOMS 324: Feminism and Sexualities: Oscar Wilde, Women & Sexualities (TR 12:30-1:45pm, M. Stetz)

This course in the history of sexualities, as seen through the life and work of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), considers what Wilde meant to his contemporaries in the late 19th century and how his political legacy has been interpreted and shaped through a variety of media since his death, focusing attention on his importance not only to LGBTQ movements, but also to women’s rights movements. Texts are drawn from Wilde’s plays and fiction, along with later adaptations of these works and representations of Wilde as a figure, such as Louis Edwards’s 2003 novel Oscar Wilde Discovers America, about Wilde’s African American valet. We will also consider Wilde's importance to the world of fashion, especially in the 2019 Metropolitan Museum gala and exhibition, Camp: Notes on Fashion. 

WOMS 332: Global Identities: Race, Gender, Ethnicity (TR 6:00 to 10:00pm, P. Sloane-White)

This course crosses the globe via a real-time videoconference to understand issues of gender, race, ethnicity, social class and privilege, sexuality, and nation in two different settings:  the U.S. and in the multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious Southeast Asian country of Malaysia. It joins students at UD with students at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), in Malaysia. We engage in a global conversation: seeking to understand, debate, and clarify similarities and differences in your lives, cultures, and identities, focusing closely on the experiences of race, gender, and ethnicity. Students in both settings share the same syllabus and jointly read, discuss, debate, and analyze key theoretical, ethnographic, and popular literature on modernization, gender and sexuality, culture, race, ethnicity, religion, economy, and social life in both societies . . . and explore and learn each other’s worlds and challenges.