2012-2013 Academic Catalog

May 16, 2024

2012-2013 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

COMM 050 - Communication and Culture: Main South

Type of Course: First-Year Seminar

This seminar covers the same content as COMM 101 which is a requirement for the Communication & Culture major and minor. However, this course will be run as a hands-on, discussion-based seminar, with students doing original research and taking an active role in class discussion. All of the ideas and tools introduced in the course will be put to use in investigations of communication and culture in the Main South Neighborhood of Worcester. We will investigate local media, public art, and both formal and informal learning in the neighborhood. Seminar participants will have a chance to collaborate with neighborhood students on multi-media projects, contributing to a community-based website. The course will be interdisciplinary, drawing on psychological, anthropological, sociological, technological, aesthetic, cinematic, semiotic, and cultural studies points of view and methodologies. There will be a particular emphasis on the roles of talk, text, and image in social life and how they relate to power, access, and equity in the world. Fulfills the Values Perspective requirement.