The fall 2018 semester is right around the corner. For students still searching for an interesting course to fill out their fall schedule, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has some great choices. 

UA Little Rock courses offer students the chance to learn about political themes in classic horror films and literature, real estate development and property management, as well as how teachers can meet the social and emotional needs of gifted and talented children.

Check out the following guide for courses that explore interesting and unique topics:

ANTH 2316-01 and 2316-02: Cultural Anthropology

12:15-1:30 p.m. Monday and Wednesday or 10:50 a.m.-12:05 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday

This course examines the concept of culture, cultural processes, and anthropological theories. Topics include marriage, economics, gender, ethnicity, and socialization. Students will gain a better understanding of the hows and whys of cultures, which they can apply in their everyday lives. This is a great course for anyone planning to work with a variety of people, including those majoring in business, criminal justice, education, finance, political science, or international relations.

ENG 4350: The Politics of Horror

12-15-1:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday by Kris McAbee

Inspired by the 2017 breakout hit “Get Out,” this seminar interrogates the features of cinematic and literary horror to ask how this genre is particularly suited to political commentary. We will cover a range of films including “Get Out,” as well as “The Blob” (1958), “The Night of the Living Dead” (1968), and “The Shining” (1980), alongside literature like Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” (1605), Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto” (1765), Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” (1871), Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), and Jackson’s “The Lottery” (1948).

The class offers an exceptional opportunity to analyze texts in different media across several historical periods to encourage students to think about cultural production in reference to the frightening stakes of legal, economic, racial, and gender politics. This course is the Fall 2018 Cooper Honors Seminar but is open to all students.

ENGL 4100: Horror on Film

6-8:40 p.m. Wednesday by Kris McAbee

Offered in conjunction with The Politics of Horror, this one-credit course will feature screenings of all the horror films discussed in The Politics of Horror course. The course is open to all students, even if they are not enrolled in The Politics of Horror.

ENGL 4370 and ENGL 5370: Seminar on Toni Morrison

4:30-5:45 p.m. Monday and Wednesday by Laura Barrio Vilar

This seminar provides students with a unique opportunity to study key works by Nobel- and Pulitzer-Prize winner Toni Morrison. Infused with a womanist approach, Morrison’s writings cover a wide range of topics from race and gender relations, family, socio-economic, and cultural survival to slavery, war, and infanticide. Students will consider not only Morrison’s major works of fiction, but also her ideas about literature, language, and her goals as a writer. This course counts toward both the minor in Race and Ethnicity and the minor in Gender Studies.

FINC 4397: Real Estate Development and Property Management

6-8:40 p.m. Thursday by Elizabeth Small

This seminar has interdisciplinary characteristics combining the real estate process with an entrepreneurial approach and a corporate umbrella approach. The course analyzes an eight-stage model of real estate development using examples in the local community as well as national cases.

Students learn the value of city planners, legislators, regulators, contractors, lawyers, and lenders throughout the development process. Site visits and conversations with developers, lenders, and contractors are all a part of the educational environment. Learning from the experiences of those in ownership, property management, construction, and consultant rolls is a crucial part of the class experience. Students end the semester by presenting a development project of their own creation.

GATE 7363: Affective Needs of the Gifted

Online course by Bronwyn MacFarlane

This graduate course is a study in the social and emotional needs of gifted children. Emphasis is placed on responding to affective needs of gifted students and development of social skills through lesson planning, teacher training, and parent awareness.

GEOG 4300: Spaces of Violence

Online course by David Baylis

In this class, students will approach violence from a social geographic perspective.

This course will address the following topics: gendered, sexualized, and racialized violence; serial killers as urban gentrifiers in the Revanchist City; memorializing and erasing landscapes of violence; imagined geographies of violence; crime mapping and its applications and errors; violence, violent spaces, and popular culture; and the role of place in the production of moral panics.

HIST 3326: Islam and the Modern Middle East

12-12:50 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday by Katrina Yeaw

What are the root causes of the Arab Spring? What are the origins of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? What role does Islam play in Middle Eastern politics? This course focuses on these and other issues fundamental to understanding the modern Middle East from the 19th century to the Arab Spring demonstrations in 2011.

This course will address the following topics: the decline of the Ottoman Empire, imperialism and colonialism, nationalism, the emergence of modern nation states, oil, political Islam, the Arab-Israeli conflict, gender identities, American intervention, and the Arab Spring.

HIST 4356 and HIST 5356: History of Race and Ethnicity

Online course by John Kirk

The course examines the history of race and ethnicity in the United States from prehistory to present with a focus on selected topics in the experience of the nation’s diverse and multicultural heritage.  The course is unique in being the only one at UA Little Rock to provide a comprehensive history of race and ethnicity in the United States and is one of two core classes for the Race and Ethnicity minor.

HIST 4393: Haitian Revolution in World History

6-8:40 p.m. Monday by Nate Marvin

This course explores the events and significance of the Haitian Revolution (1789-1804) from its beginnings to the present day. The revolution that transformed the largest and most brutal of Europe’s slave plantation colonies into the independent nation of Haiti unfolded in a series of major historical precedents. What began as a home-rule movement among white colonists became a civil rights struggle among free people of color, eventually setting the stage for the largest slave uprising in the history of the Americas.

Despite its world-historical significance, the Haitian Revolution was once marginalized in historical writing and college curricula. In this course, students will think critically about that obfuscation and other such “silencings” of history and analyze the wealth of new scholarship on the importance of the Haitian Revolution in world history. Topics will include the revolution’s effects on the demographics and culture of the early United States; politics and philosophy in France, Great Britain, and Germany; Latin American independence movements; the African slave trade; the abolition movement; and other 19th- and 20th-century struggles against racial inequality and colonialism.

INTS 2303: Intro to International Studies

12:15-1:30 p.m. Monday and Wednesday by Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm

This course provides a broad interdisciplinary introduction to globalization. The course will explore the many different facets of globalization: economic, political, cultural. Students will examine important debates about globalization such as its affects, whether it is positive or negative, whether it is a new phenomenon, and what the future may hold. In addition, the course will discuss various forms of resistance to globalization.

PHIL 3370: Existentialism

6-8:40 p.m. Wednesdays by Keith Robinson

In philosophy, literature, and film, existentialist ideas problematize our understanding of freedom and responsibility and challenge our attitudes to the meaning of life and death. Existentialist thinkers pay special attention to moods like nausea, anguish, and anxiety and the ways in which they structure our experience of daily life. This course explores this influential philosophical and literary movement through readings of selected texts as well as viewings of selected films with existentialist themes.

PHY 4399 and PHY 5399: Biophysics

3-4:15 p.m. Monday and Wednesday by Gregory Buisbiers

This is a new class at the boundary between physics and biology. This class will give students the tools they need to understand the living world from a physicist’s perspective. This class will cover topics that students will not see in any other class, such as scaling laws, fractals, and bio-tribology.

POLS 4331: International Organizations

10-10:50 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday by Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm

Many are concerned that international organizations like the United Nations and the World Trade Organization increasingly affect our lives. This course will explore the conception and modern functions of international organizations and the international and domestic political forces that impact their effectiveness to help people assess whether such concerns are overblown. In particular, the course will focus on the role of international organizations in issues of war and peace, human rights, and development. Students will conduct research on and participate in international organization models, including a United Nations Security Council simulation.

POLS 4341: International Human Rights

9-9:50 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday by Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm

This course provides a philosophical and political exploration of human rights. It will begin with an intellectual history of human rights before examining the international politics of human rights. Students will look at international law dealing with human rights, and the different ways in which human rights are promoted globally. Students will discuss the conditions under which countries are likely to comply with international human rights law and norms, as well as the circumstances under which states are willing to enforce human rights obligations.

RELS 3300: Theories of Religion

9:25-10:40 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays by Edward Hale

This course provides an overview of theories about religion, as well as methods in the study of religious traditions. It explores such questions as “What makes something religious?;” “What is the relationship of religious practices and beliefs to other areas of life?;” and “Where did religion come from?” It covers approaches to the phenomenon of religion from several disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, and history.