Instructors:

Anlam Filiz | Stephanie Koziej | Derek Novacek | Andrea Rissing | Anthony Sementilli

T/TH | 1:00-2:15 pm | Emerson 401 Office Hours | by appointment

Course Description

What do migrant entrepreneurship, hook-up culture, small-scale farming, schizophrenia, and (possibly) poisonous peptides all have in common? These complex issues often elicit black and white thinking. Here we will identify and investigate the complex grey areas lurking within these research areas. Co-taught by five teacher-scholars, this course samples Emory’s cutting-edge research and showcases diverse disciplines. By exploring the complexity of many different fields, we will collaboratively identify and deconstruct a range of grey areas. Where’s the line between organic and conventional food; is there an easy distinction between good sex and bad sex; what’s the difference between toxin and technology? In “Fifty Shades of Grey (Areas),” we’ll use small group work, class discussions, presentations, and multi-disciplinary readings to learn how to answer these questions. Sign up if you want to see what research is about, are unsure about your major, or want to learn about facts you can’t find in any textbook (yet).

Learning Goals

After completing this course successfully, students will be able to:

• Create an intellectually stimulating classroom and class discussion.
• Formulate cogent feedback to their peers’ questions and work.
• Acquire the analytical tools and thinking skills to engage with the world and your everyday life differently.
• Articulate their own reading of the world, through intellectual, critical, creative, explanatory and/or artistic means.
• Distinguish uses of evidence in a discipline and/or between disciplines.
• Access, identify, gather, and analyze evidence.
• Evaluate the quality of different types of evidence.
• Build arguments based on evidence and assess the arguments of others.