The Red Dragon Seminar (RDS) is a first-year course and cornerstone of Oneonta's General Education Program, "Dragon Academy." This first-year course introduces students to three core competencies: Global Literacy, Critical Thinking and Reasoning, and Information Literacy.
Each RDS is offered in a small-class setting and offers students the opportunity to work with a faculty member and peers to explore a particular topic in depth and gain an introduction to three core competencies—Global Literacy, Critical Thinking and Reasoning, and Information Literacy—that will help ensure success at the university. Dragon Seminars cover a wide variety of topics and disciplines and all are discussion-based courses that engage students in investigation of relevant problems, topics or themes through an interdisciplinary lens.
Fall 2024
As Greta Thunberg says: “The world has a fever.” This Red Dragon Seminar will examine the causes, impacts and future of Earth’s changing climate. We will look at how climate scientists know that climate is changing, hazards and disasters that are attributed to climate change, what is currently being done to address the climate crisis, and what will need to be done to avert the worst climate impacts. We will dispel persistent myths about the causes of climate change and identify areas where we have justifiable hope for change.
This course explores the intersection of environmental problems and human, political, and cultural factors. Covering both global north and south, students will study the science of environmental issues such as pollution, waste, and climate change, and examine the social and political dimensions of environmental injustice. Through discussion, case studies, and hands-on projects, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of the root causes and consequences of environmental injustice and develop solutions for a more just and sustainable future.
Students dive into Colombia, virtually, and concentrate in a chosen SDG. Internet research, movies, and readings are required. Evaluation consists of a final research proposal to conduct field work in Colombia. Students design a research travel plan to study one SDG issue in a selected region or cities of Colombia. The curriculum includes COIL (Collaborative Online International/ Intercultural Learning) with universities and people in Colombia (Granada, Meta; Cali, Valle; Manizales, Caldas; Cartagena, Bolivar, San Andres Islands). It promotes Spanish/English Bilingual competencies but does not require Spanish proficiency. (Sustainability Focus)
Reproductive politics operate at multiple levels and are critical to our individual lives and national and transnational governance. Reproduction is central to narratives of nationalism, family, love and marriage, and social policies. This course examines these multivalent connections and explores issues that include reproductive health – birthing, sterilization, abortion; racialization – colonialism, slavery, immigration; eugenics; reproductive governance – population control, mortality, surrogacy; integrated reproduction – gender and sexual equality, housing, health care, and economic justice. Interdisciplinary course readings, including academic books and articles, newspaper and news magazine articles, and films, allow students to trace the issues that comprise reproductive politics from local to global.
"Blue Earth" investigates the planet from an oceanic perspective. Oceans are flows of energy, water, and life. Our lives, our planet are the way they are because of these flows. Through the interdisciplinary study of global oceans and their flows, students will acquire a fundamentally different perspective on themselves and their world.
A study of interactions between economic principles and sports, and of economic institutions which organize sports. In some examples, economics is applied to gain insight for sports, and in others, choices in sports are used to observe insights for economics. Review of the voluminous data available from sporting contests. Readings and film selected from football, cricket, baseball, and rugby. Students will apply economic principles to sport choices in verbal and written discussion, compare and contrast organization of sport, including between the Global North and South.
The Seminar will center on three cases of mis/disinformation: the QAnon conspiracy theory, propaganda and public relations initiatives favoring government deregulations in favor of the “free market”, and anti-vaccination/vaccine hesitancy. Classroom discussions and homework assignments will require students to analyze and reflect on specific case studies taken as examples from the public sphere. The seminar will examine the claims themselves and the social, cultural, and political conditions underlying these claims and their rapid dissemination. These claims will be analyzed for their validity through reflection on scientific data -or the lack thereof. Students will be challenged to establish the validity and reliability of the sources of these claims.
This seminar examines U.S. history of cannabis prohibition and the social and economic impacts of these policies. Explores public opinion and interest group advocacy for cannabis legalization and commercial sale and engages students as analysts and participants in policy debates. Considers how legalization is changing personal liberties, group interactions in civil society, and state and local politics across the United States. Includes a policy project to analyze opportunities and challenges for state and local governments as they implement cannabis laws. Global dimensions and equity issues of cannabis production and distribution will be introduced.
This seminar studies how thematic globalization issues create diverse family experiences and outcomes. The interdependency of global south and north will be used to interrogate the conditions of diverse family functions as captured in culture, economics, and sustainability.
Planetary space is marked with borders, walls, and fences created to keep outsiders out and make insiders feel safe within their nations, regions, and neighborhoods. These barriers often come equipped with checkpoints, designed to limit who may come and go. Through an exploration of movies, music, literature, graffiti, digital culture, and current events, this seminar prompts students to think about the ways that the flows of people, goods, and ideas are regulated by different forms of exclusion and separation on a global scale. Students will explore the role that imagination plays in building and challenging walls and borders, and develop an understanding of the ways that immigrants, refugees, and stateless people are immobilized. Attention will also be paid to the effects of militarized borders and barriers on the environment.
The understanding the human body is central to both the biomedical sciences and the arts. But what does it mean to understand the body, and who has expertise over the body? How have these two ways of thinking about bodies shaped our values and experiences? This course explores various historical, epistemic, cultural, and ethical issues involved in how artists, healthcare professionals, and biomedical researchers attempt to study, conceptualize, represent, and manipulate the human body, and the ways in which the shared concerns of the arts and humanities intersect with the culture, history, and practice of medicine and the biomedical sciences.
UndocuQueer: Immigration, Art and Activism introduces students to Latin American immigration history to the U.S., Queer studies, and the relationship between art and activism. The course examines activism through art created by undocumented and queer immigrants. We will also consider what specific challenges undocuqueer immigrants face and evaluate how to what extent does artivism help raise awareness about these issues. Finally, students will research and develop a project based on an organization dedicated to addressing these issues.
This Red Dragon Seminar explores the topic of walking, a seemingly mundane mobility that connects people to the social, cultural, and political environments in which they live and move. This course assumes that walking is not just a mode of transportation, but a way of engaging with the world. Students will explore walking through a range of academic fields of inquiry (e.g., art, science, contemplative studies), as well as through different critical lenses (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, class).
This seminar course investigates the impacts of floods on communities and ways to build community resilience to flood risks. Students will learn how to accumulate knowledge about floods using library searches and artificial intelligence (AI) apps, including internet searches and the new large language model chatbots, and develop skills to critically evaluate information sources and AI summaries. Social and economic ramifications, Global North and South approaches and interactions, and societal attempts to mitigate and adapt to flood risks in the face of climate change will be woven into the course through case studies, readings, group discussions and a final project.
This course will focus on how to use the pedagogy of using storytelling to create narratives for teaching about sustainability issues that focus on social, ecological, and economic justice. This seminar will frame aspects of storytelling for the purpose of developing narratives to teach broad audiences in terms of the three pillars of sustainability: social, ecological, and economic justice. The overarching goal for this course is to engage students in critical literacies where students compose and produce digital stories and exploratory video essays to begin assuaging the difficult problems our world faces.
This course will explore science fiction from around the world and in different time periods in order to grapple with questions such as how imagining the future can be a critique of the present or the past, why it seems unexpected that certain cultures or countries should produce science fiction, how superficial or profound are the intercultural elements in U.S. science fiction, is there any room for sci-fi in the world of professional science and engineering, and how to translate invented “alien” words or names.
This seminar uses geography, biology, history, art, anthropology, and archaeology to examine what it means to become and be human. We will use studies in anthropology to trace our human past from the emergence of human beings to the rise of ancient states and empires, with special attention to the emergence of art, farming, and social complexity. Emphasis is placed on archaeology as anthropology and the relevance of archaeology to modern human society and politics. By the conclusion of the course, students will experience an extensive view of world prehistory and the key debates and theories about the past.
This seminar uses geography, biology, history, art, anthropology, and archaeology to examine what it means to become and be human. We will use studies in anthropology to trace our human past from the emergence of human beings to the rise of ancient states and empires, with special attention to the emergence of art, farming, and social complexity. Emphasis is placed on archaeology as anthropology and the relevance of archaeology to modern human society and politics. By the conclusion of the course, students will experience an extensive view of world prehistory and the key debates and theories about the past.
We explore games and gaming from the ancient world to the modern. Any game is “fair game.” Game Studies (ludology) is an emerging discipline at the confluence of anthropology, psychology, sociology, mathematics, and economics. Major themes we investigate include (1) social issues and discourse arising in gaming, (2) how mathematical analysis of games may inform our perspective on the world, (3) how games may be used in education, therapy, and art. We explore and analyze the wide variety of writing and media on games including news articles, mainstream and journalistic magazines, scholarly articles, industry perspectives, and reviews.
This course invites you to examine two small islands which have had oversized impacts on the world. Both islands were subject to British colonialism and imperialism and had crucial struggles for national liberation. Both islands are recognized for their national pride, rich cultures and extensive migration networks. The course will use literature, film and historical texts to look at the similarities and differences between Jamaica and Ireland. There are numerous shared themes which include – Colonization, Slavery, Discrimination, Resistance, Exploitation, Migration and National Liberation. This course will have significant (and lively!) class discussions and will improve your writing and research skills.
This course invites you to examine two small islands which have had oversized impacts on the world. Both islands were subject to British colonialism and imperialism and had crucial struggles for national liberation. Both islands are recognized for their national pride, rich cultures and extensive migration networks. The course will use literature, film and historical texts to look at the similarities and differences between Jamaica and Ireland. There are numerous shared themes which include – Colonization, Slavery, Discrimination, Resistance, Exploitation, Migration and National Liberation. This course will have significant (and lively!) class discussions and will improve your writing and research skills.
This course explores the international politics of Africa’s relationship with major powers in the contemporary era through an examination of key actors and processes. It focuses on the rationale, causes, and impact of the involvement of the US, China, and EU in African countries through the lens of neoliberalism and globalization.
This course will explore the many different genres, eras, and types of music, and how we as humans can individually and collaboratively apply them with purpose into our everyday lives though expression of the self, our cultures, our ethnicities, religion, etc. Using excerpts from the OER text Resonances: Engaging Music in its Cultural Context and other select sources, students will explore music, a universal language, and how it has been used in different cultures and societies throughout and between the Global North and Global South. The students will carry a semester-long goal of individually asking themselves “How can I individually and purposefully apply music into my everyday life?” Following the study of how music has been used in different societies, the second portion of the course will heavily focus on each student's unique relationship with music and how they plan to incorporate it into different aspects of their lives. The course has a multidisciplinary approach in which we will discuss the intersection of music and the construction of the self through cultural studies, religion, and ethnicity and how it can be used pedagogically through teaching strategies, mindfulness, and in the managing of special needs, including learning disabilities and neurodiversity.
This discussion-based, interdisciplinary class is designed to help students develop skills that will support them throughout their college studies. This course is problem-oriented and/or thematic in nature and taught in a small class-sized environment. Specific topics of each section will vary. Offered every semester.
This discussion-based, interdisciplinary class is designed to help students develop skills that will support them throughout their college studies. This course is problem-oriented and/or thematic in nature and taught in a small class-sized environment. Specific topics of each section will vary. Offered every semester.
Did you know what you eat directly influences your mood and mental health? Through this class we will explore the diet-mental health relationship—how nutrition influences the way we think, feel, behave, sense, and experience; and how, in most cases, the things we eat are interfering with our health and wellbeing. More than just eating certain foods, it’s also about the way we look at food, the choices we make, and being stalwart stewards of our microbiomes. We will also investigate how this information links to sustainability, food insecurity, and other questions of social justice within our global food systems.
Did you know what you eat directly influences your mood and mental health? Through this class we will explore the diet-mental health relationship—how nutrition influences the way we think, feel, behave, sense, and experience; and how, in most cases, the things we eat are interfering with our health and wellbeing. More than just eating certain foods, it’s also about the way we look at food, the choices we make, and being stalwart stewards of our microbiomes. We will also investigate how this information links to sustainability, food insecurity, and other questions of social justice within our global food systems.
Building on SUNY Oneonta’s mission to “grow intellectually, thrive socially, and live purposefully,” this course will additionally consider what it means to “die gracefully,” asking the “big question,” How might dialoging about death affect the way you live your life? Utilizing a Death Café model to discuss death, dying, and grief, students will answer this question, engaging with critical, creative, contemplative, and collaborative exploration via arts-based learning to embody what it means to grow, thrive, live, and someday die.
This course will combine disciplinary methods from history with methods from the environmental sciences and geography to get students thinking about the intersections between global inequality and the environmental crises of today's world. They will examine the ways in which environmental challenges are rooted in the global inequalities and resource exploitation of imperialism over the last three centuries.
This course will combine disciplinary methods from history with methods from the environmental sciences and geography to get students thinking about the intersections between global inequality and the environmental crises of today's world. They will examine the ways in which environmental challenges are rooted in the global inequalities and resource exploitation of imperialism over the last three centuries.