Topics:

Contemporary human trafficking and forced labor persist globally and in the United States. This course offers a critical discussion of the relationships between historic and contemporary forms of enslavement and abolitionist activism. Encompassing a range of labor exploitation, including agricultural, sexual, and domestic work, the terms “modern slavery” and “abolitionism” evoke powerful histories and legacies of the Atlantic Trade in Human Captives. How do activist groups draw on images and language from US histories of slavery and abolition and toward what ends? Whose bodies are the focus for “saving,” when, where, and by whom? How do adults and children who have been subjected to forced labor systems relate to these dialogues? What are the "products" of modern slavery and who are the consumers? How are human rights and hierarchies of human value being defined/ redefined by these dialogues? Counts as an SCA Faculty Elective for these majors and minors: Africana, American, Gender & Sexuality, Metropolitan, and SCA.

Examines the relationship between the cultural and political spheres with a focus on the representation of race, sex, and gender within mass-mediated controversies and scandals. Interdisciplinary in nature, it considers a wide range of topics including reproduction, the law, sports, the presidency, the trial, pornography, secrecy, music, opinion journalism, hate speech, and the news.