Course Sequence

Winter 2025

CAT 2CE: Me Across Media: Narratives of Self-Discovery and Self-Construction

Liz Popko

Assistant Teaching Professor, CAT

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 9:00-10:50 a.m.

What does it mean to be oneself? Do you find yourself? Create yourself? Is there only one self you can be? In this class we will explore different conceptions of the Self through narrative media (fiction, film, poetry, among others) and consider the ways that technology enables or shapes how we experience ourselves, and arguably each other. From the fragmented self of postmodernism to the no-self of Buddhism, and everything in between, what narratives speak to us and resonate with "who we are"? How does the Self—in whatever construction—fit into a larger community of Selves? How do other Selves impact or intersect with a singular Self? In this small, seminar-style course we will examine how the Self and subjectivity are characterized across media and make arguments about the role of art and technology in self-definition, self-expression, belonging, and meaning-making more generally.

As part of this course, you will be required to participate in a number of experiential opportunities related to media technology and storytelling. These experiences may include conducting interviews with campus communities, participating in creative writing workshops, attending local events, and volunteering. You'll use our class content to develop deeper understandings of these experiences and a greater appreciation for the intersections of technology, art, and identity.

Spring 2025

CAT 3CE: Environmental Futures: Community-Engaged Learning

Phoebe Bronstein

Associate Teaching Professor, CAT

Monday/Wednesday 10:00-11:50 a.m.

Three-hour weekly volunteer shifts to be coordinated around student schedules

This small, seminar-style CAT 3CE course will examine how popular culture—magazine/newspaper articles, literature, film, and television—has and continues to imagine the environment, with particular attention to the climate crisis. From contemporary films like Okja and Weathering with You to Hollywood's The Day After Tomorrow, we will examine how mass media promotes, questions, and reinforces environmental politics.

Paired with our course content, this course will foreground community engagement by having students volunteer with local elementary schools in partnership with the Sage Garden Project. Through discussion and reflection on both the course content and your volunteer experiences, we will ask how these stories we tell help shape and propel environmental change. For instance, how can these future worlds help us understand and engage with our past, current, and future relationship to the environment? How do these films shape our own relationship with the planet? How do these visions sooth or exacerbate anxieties about topics like global warming? Potential topics we will cover include (but are not limited to) the climate crisis; capitalism and the environment; race, gender, and the environment; technology and the environment; and the politics of food.

CAT 3CE fulfills the university Jane Teranes Climate Change Education Requirement.

Future Quarter

CAT 90 or CAT 124

CAT 90 is a one-unit reflection seminar designed for students who engage in summer experiential learning activities. Its purpose is encouraging growth through facilitated reflection and analysis of students' experiential learning activities. Through guided prompts, discussions, and written reflections students will investigate their own perspectives, assumptions, and values and evaluate how these things informed their experience. Towards the end of the course, students will be asked to engage in reflection for action, a practice focused on improving student success by applying their cultivated knowledge to future career and academic decisions.

CAT 124 is Sixth College's own high-impact experiential learning course that gives students the opportunity to learn through community engagement, critical analysis, and small group discussion. The courses bring together an interdisciplinary faculty to expound on themes of culture, art, and technology, examining different topics each quarter and over the summer, through distinct experiential learning opportunities.

CAT 90 and CAT 124 fulfill the experiential learning requirement for Sixth College's general education requirements.