Upcoming Classes

Hybrid Course: zoom/in-person

October/November 2020

University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK

Guest Scholar:  Randolph Lewis, University of Texas at Austin

Surveillance technology is now interwoven with every aspect of modern life---TSA scanners, Predator drones, ubiquitous social media, Big Data marketing, and “always listening” smart speakers are just the tip of the iceberg. Working from an interdisciplinary perspective that will bring the sociologically-based research of surveillance studies into conversation with humanities scholarship related to art, film, history, architecture, and affect, we will explore the psychology and politics underlying the institutionalization of insecurity in the US. What are the hidden costs of living in a “control society” in which surveillance is deemed essential to government and business? This is the central question in a seminar that will weigh the impact of surveillance on privacy, dignity, autonomy, creativity, and emotion in the contemporary US.

Randolph Lewis is Professor of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Most recently, he is the author of Under Surveillance: Being Watched in Modern America (2017), which has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and NPR. He is co-editor of a book series on indigenous media for the University of Nebraska Press; co-producer of the documentary film, Texas Tavola: A Taste of Sicily in the Lone Star State. He is also the founder and editor of The End of Austin, a digital humanities project that explores the shifting cultural geography of the fastest growing city in the US. In addition to tracking new trends in surveillance technology, he is currently making a documentary film about post-apocalyptic faux tribalism in the Mojave desert. 

• Enrollment through your home campus
• OSLEP provides all required reading materials at no additional cost - NO books to buy!

Important dates:

October 22, 7-9pm CST zoom meeting

October 29, 7-9pm CST zoom meeting

November 14, 10am-4pm CST in person workshop/lecture in Norman

Hybrid Course: zoom/in-person

January 2021

University of Oklahoma, Norman

Guest Scholar: Mark Griffin, Oklahoma City University

Since ancient times (beginning with the Confessions of St. Augustine) writers have used their individual life-experiences and narratives to explore and express beliefs: philosophical, political, religious and civic. This tradition re-emerged with special force in the Enlightenment period (with works like Rousseau’s Confessions) and has gathered force in the tumultuous 20th/21st Centuries.

This class will focus on a series of recent memoirs (some of them bestsellers) which play this double role: recounting interesting lives and setting forth manifestos (beliefs that are philosophical, political, religious, and citizenship-related). I have chosen them for their special relevance to the political/cultural debates that seem to engulf us all these days, and for their breadth of human experience. Among this diverse group, you will find political views that span the spectrum (left, right, center), and that span a range philosophical/religious views.

The major works we will read together are the following:

Ibrahim X. Kendi’s How to Be and Anti-Racist

David Brooks’ The Second Mountain

Rilla Askew’s Most American: Notes from a Broken Place

Dr. Mark Griffin is Professor of Spanish at Oklahoma City University, where he has taught since 1996. He co-authored the book Living on the Borders (Brazos Press, 2004), has published several articles in the areas of border studies and Latin American literature, and has co-produced the documentary Here For Good: The Latino Experience in Oklahoma (2016). In addition to his writing, he has led community-engagement projects with/in the Latino community in Oklahoma City. His research focuses on national identities, and with a major dilemma faced by immigrant minorities: how to navigate between the twin perils of cultural loss and cultural isolation. Born and raised in Mexico, his creative work has focused on the personally-experienced phenomenon of crossing borders.

• Enrollment through your home campus
• OSLEP provides all required reading materials at no additional cost - NO books to buy!
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Important dates:

January 2, 2021 -9pm CST zoom meeting

January 3, 2021 7-9pm CST zoom meeting

January 4, 2021 7-9pm CST zoom meeting

January 5, 2021 7-9pm CST zoom meeting

January 16, 9am-4pm CST in-person (Norman OU campus)

March-April  2021

University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK

Guest Scholar:  Jean Hunleth, Washington University, St. Louis, School of Medicine

Children around the world face life and death situations every day. They are part of families and communities that are confronted by serious social and political problems, from the AIDS epidemic and other disease outbreaks to extreme poverty, forced migration, structural racism, and war. Numerous global health and humanitarian interventions aim to help children, such as those targeted at orphans or children outside of family care. However, very few incorporate children’s perspectives of their own needs into their programming, leading to potentially ineffective or harmful interventions. We will address the following questions: Why should we take children seriously in global health and humanitarian work? How do children participate in families and communities in ways that impact health and wellbeing? And what research methods are appropriate for working with children in adversity? We will also address head-on the longstanding devaluation of children’s knowledge, actions, and experiences in policymaking and program development. As a class, we will develop ways to get decision makers to take children seriously.

Jean Hunleth works with children and families to identify more appropriate ways to deliver public health. She uses methods from anthropology and the visual arts and is especially fascinated by the important social and political implication of children’s fantasies and play. Jean earned her PhD in Anthropology and Master of Public Health from Northwestern University. She is the author of the award-winning book, Children as Caregivers: The Global Fight against Tuberculosis and HIV in Zambia, and numerous articles published in anthropological, public health, child welfare, and medical journals. She got her start in global health as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia, which drove her to pursue a career focused on children’s creativity and the diversity of childhood experiences.

• Enrollment through your home campus
• OSLEP provides all required reading materials at no additional cost - NO books to buy!

Important Dates:

March 22, 2021 7-9pm zoom

March 29, 2021 7-9pm zoom

April 5, 2021 7-9pm zoom

April 10, 2021 9am-4pm in-person (Norman OU campus)

Hybrid course: zoom/in person

March-April 2021

University of Oklahoma, Norman

Guest Scholar: Rick Perlstein

Why do some social movements create change and some fizzle...

RICK PERLSTEIN is the author of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan. Before that, he published Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008), a New York Times bestseller picked as one of the best nonfiction books of the year by over a dozen publications, and Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, winner of the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history. A contributing writer at The Nation, former chief national correspondent for the Village Voice, and a former online columnist for the New Republic and Rolling Stone, his journalism and essays have appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, and many other publications. Politico called him the “chronicler extraordinaire of American conservatism,” who “offers a hint of how interesting the political and intellectual dialogue might be if he could attract some mimics.” The Nation called him the “hypercaffeinated Herodotus of the American century.” Born in 1969 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he lives in Chicago. In his spare time, he performs jazz piano and vocals and practices yoga.

• Enrollment through your home campus
• OSLEP provides all required reading materials at no additional cost - NO books to buy!

Important dates:

March 2020

March 2020

April 3, 2020 9am-4pm in person (OU Norman campus)