This course examines media practices in the context of Black Lives Matter, police violence, and criminal justice reform. What are the ethics of mass broadcasting videos of police murders? Who is seen as an "expert" on policing and mass incarceration? This course nests contemporary questions in historical and institutional context, beginning with nineteenth-century racial criminalization and the norms of profit-based mass media. This course is interdisciplinary, drawing on scholarship from history, media studies, social psychology, and the politics of racism, crime, and punishment.

For the first time, more humans today live in cities than in villages worldwide. This course explores urban life and the social and cultural dimensions of global migration to cities through the craft of narrative nonfiction. Students will read works from all over the world, and in languages other than English, that combine reportage, social science, history and memoir. They will explore the structures of texts; learn to do interviews, use archives and write field notes; and produce long-form narratives. The seminar will include opportunities for reporting from the field, particularly in immigrant and refugee neighborhoods in nearby cities.

The recent Winter Olympics were set against the backdrop of China's genocidal repression of Uyghur Muslims. The U.S. Women's National Soccer Team sued its governing body for equal pay. Colin Kaepernick took a knee and millions around the world followed. This course will examine human rights, social justice, urban development, gender and income inequality, mental health and other topics through sports. Students will learn a variety of journalism techniques--from news gathering and feature-writing to investigative reporting--to craft compelling and impactful stories that reveal how sports spill over the sidelines to shape and reflect our world.

In this seminar students will learn the sophisticated reporting, research and writing techniques that investigative reporters use to root out corruption in public and private institutions. While learning to produce compelling news pieces, students will discover how these tools can be used to advantage in other fields and in everyday life. In addition to exploring new models of journalism (crowdsourcing, social networking, etc.), they will meet with some of the nation's most successful investigative journalists.

This seminar will focus on refugee crises and human rights issues at a time of extreme turmoil, as the world reckons with geopolitical and social upheavals and new war in Europe. The course will combine fundamentals of journalism and narrative reporting with historical studies and data and analysis of immigration policy and the prosecution of crimes against humanity. Students will investigate the impact of migration and universal jurisdiction while producing original reporting in various journalistic forms, including news, profiles and features. A fall-break trip to Berlin, Germany, will give students the opportunity to report from the field.

Students in this course will learn the craft of writing and producing stories that use sound, images and other elements in a sophisticated way while maintaining the highest standards of journalistic ethics. They will study the mechanics of multi-platform journalism and develop skills in critical thinking and story planning that are necessary for working in various media. They will analyze radio documentaries, podcasts and other storytelling techniques with some of the best journalists, producers and writers in the industry. Ultimately students will record interviews, edit audio and make podcasts, radio packages and stories for social media.

This course will teach STEM & non-STEM majors how to write about research in STEM fields with clarity and a bit of flair. Goal will be to learn to convey technical topics to non-experts in a compelling, enjoyable way while staying true to the underlying facts, context and concepts. We'll do this through readings, class discussion, encounters with professional writers and journalists of all sorts, across several different media. Most important of all, students will practice what they learn in frequent writing assignments that will be critiqued extensively by an experienced science journalist.