CONN

From Harry Potter to Magic the Gathering to astrology -- magic, witchcraft, and the supernatural are involved in our social, economic, and political histories, and influence how we think about gender, race, religion and spirituality. In this course we will investigate supernatural beliefs in history, popular culture, sociology and psychology in the US and internationally. We will analyze what beliefs and practices about magic and the supernatural reflect about the cultures that produce them, and why they persist in the modern world.

This first year Connections class connects students to each other in an exploration of arts and activism and how to balance life as students and scholars interested in justice and social change. It connects students to campus programs about arts and justice, and it connects students to the community by introducing them to the work of the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS) and its work with incarcerated women.

How do we visualize the everyday? How does creativity contribute to our well being and sense of community and support academic and extracurricular commitments? We will look at the ways that print artists make their everyday lives and culture visible. Through student art projects, reading, reflective writing, and discussion, we will give attention to our own environments, roles, and activities. Reflecting upon our commonplace habits, and experimenting with some new ones, we will consider how pausing, attention, and creativity allow us to engage as students and humans.

Economics is everywhere! Although, often we may find it hard to see. In this class, we will explore how economic concepts, present around us, manifest themselves in interesting ways in popular culture that we love. From box-office smashing movies to chart-topping songs to award winning television shows and artwork, all can serve as important avenues to help us learn and apply economic concepts that are central to our lives.

This course explores a range of issues from the science of well-being. What does it mean to become happier? Does cultivating happiness serve as a meaningful refuge from stressful life situations or is it merely the latest capitalist fad holding individuals responsible for their own well-being, regardless of our varied circumstances and contexts?

This course focuses on building community in a variety of settings. Students study community building in a variety of contexts through academic and popular press articles, podcasts, videos and by building community on campus. In small teams, students help build community with a campus club. Questions examined include: Why do people behave in certain ways? What helps and what detracts from building meaningful community? In what ways can community enhance our lives? Students read, listen, watch, observe, interact, question, write, converse, and experiment.

This Connections seminar provides an introductory and multidisciplinary examination of critical societal and global relations through the prism of soccer, which is often also referred to as 'the beautiful game.' As a sport, soccer has and continues to captivate the lives and imagination of billions globally. Since the invention of modern soccer, it has grown to become universal and ubiquitous across cultures and societies.

This course engages students in conversation about ethics in everyday life, and the values and reasoning behind different ways of approaching them. Throughout the semester, students research and discuss case studies in small groups. The instructor-assigned cases may come from personal contexts (such as friendship and family), social contexts (such as speech and representation), technological contexts (such as social media and generative artificial intelligence), or professional contexts (such as medicine or business).

We are able to learn when we create space to explore and notice. But our "hustle culture" and our built environments tell us that we should spend all our time with our noses to the grindstone, where we can't explore or notice much. Research also tells us that spending time in green spaces can improve cognitive function.

Fun is a vital, yet underexamined, part of community building. This course introduces students to a variety approaches to thinking about the relationship between community and fun. Students will encounter different definitions and ways of understanding fun. They will learn about fun in cross-cultural contexts. They will think about different barriers to fun. They will reflect on what fun means to them. Then, students will design a campus-wide activity that aims to bring fun to as many community members as possible.