Fantastic Fall Courses
As spring semester comes to a close, look ahead at some of the excellent CLA courses on offer during the 2024 fall semester. These courses provide engaging opportunities to learn about a variety of cultures, histories, and current issues.
![Opened book at a ninety-degree angle, blurred nature background](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/aas_3301_course_image.jpg?h=5b3035e0&itok=zXqowCMn)
How do individual American artists or writers of Asian descent depict themselves and others as part of families, communities, or nations? How do questions of other identities affect the perspectives and creative choices in these works?
This course is also offered through the English Department as ENGL 3301.
![Vector saxophone emitting musical notes against orange background](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/afro_3301_image.jpg?h=3ed6217d&itok=rODX5l_e)
Examine the many ways African and African Americans express social history through music, exploring the diversity of musical voices found within African American culture.
![Selection of rolled textiles](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/ames_3766_textiles_image.jpg?h=3ed6217d&itok=NQlKErbS)
Embark on a lecture, discussion, and project-based learning course. Explore multi-faceted Hmong identities across different countries and time periods, analyzing Artistic Textiles and Functional Textiles (clothing) in everyday Hmong life and within identity frameworks.
![Elliot Powell stands in front of a mural of Prince.](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/unsorted/images/elliot_powell-gavin-6232-870x580.jpg?h=2d235432&itok=Z7VSZK48)
Explore the local culture and national importance of the Twin Cities during the 1980s through music (especially Prince and the Replacements), debate around pornography/sex, and shifts around access to public space. Read this feature story to learn more.
![Close up of mosaic butterflies](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/unsorted/images/mosaic_butterly_chicano_feature.jpg?h=2d235432&itok=VHORfVFI)
Join in a scholarly survey and exploration of the sociocultural function of many types of folklore in Greater Mexico, learning how folklore connects to community and cultural shifts.
![Downtown Minneapolis at night, the building windows and streetlights a warm yellow](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/geog_3371w_image_-_downtown_minneapolis.jpg?h=b49841e4&itok=h3IgCOtW)
Learn about cities and suburbs as unique crossroads of cultural, social, and political processes. Navigate conflicting visions of city life, cultural diversity, and justice.
![Large cargo vessel floating on water](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/glos_3215_image.jpg?h=3ed6217d&itok=T0JzzFXY)
Global production networks link consumers and producers across the globe. How did this global economy come to be, how has it impacted workers, consumers, and ecosystems, and what are its ethical and political implications?
![A white hand scrolling through a social media app on a modern phone](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/jour_3761_image.jpg?h=3ed6217d&itok=slxCgPnk)
In almost every industry, social media has driven fundamental changes in brand and audience interactions. Gain practical skills needed to develop digital communication strategies that achieve an organization’s goals.
![A woman wearing a hijab votes behind a white voting privacy shield](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/pol_3733_image.jpg?h=3ed6217d&itok=EcLzkHKP)
Explore the intersection of gender and politics, from how public policies are “gendered” to how policies compare to feminist thinking.
![A shore of mossy rocks on the coast of a sea](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/scan_3670_image.jpg?h=3ed6217d&itok=guf4ty8T)
Interested in Indigenous cultures of the Arctic region, Scandinavian studies, and philosophy? Learn about the worldview and practice of the Sámi people (also spelled Saami and Same), whose traditional and continual homeland, Sápmi, is located in northern regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia.
![A family of several people of color exchange a group hug](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/soc_3501_image_-_family_hug.jpg?h=3ed6217d&itok=UK7e4uOa)
Families are central to our understanding of ourselves—but family also varies widely in composition across time and place. Learn how sociologists study and understand families theoretically, as social institutions, as well as sites and sources of social problems.
![A phone surrounded by dotted arrows leading to light bulbs and illustrations of small devices and tech symbols](/sites/cla.umn.edu/files/styles/teaser_image_portrait/public/writ_3577w_image_-_internet_and_technology.jpg?h=3ed6217d&itok=tXyTpHhT)
Examine the rich and complex ways people seek to inform and persuade others via the internet. Reinforce understandings of rhetorical theories and revisit spoken, written, visual, and digital communication through their incorporation on the internet.