XCOR 3020, Engaging Global Issues (3 hours) challenges students to explore particular social, cultural, economic, or political issues of global significance, and reinforce critical thinking, as well as oral and written communication skills. Students learn to integrate diverse perspectives with a breadth and depth of knowledge, while also utilizing different, methodologies to find solutions to complex problems. Students choose from a variety of unique seminar topics developed by faculty and organized around different "big ideas."

In Cyberpunk, the Post-Global & the Post-Human we will explore the multimodal genre of cyberpunk as a means of asking how humanist thought might need to adapt in the face of rapidly evolving technological and biological advances and crises. The global significance of cyberpunk narratives lies in their ability to explore the anxieties, aspirations, and ethical dilemmas created by an increasingly tech-driven world, while often set in megacities and superstates where traditional national boundaries have been erased, paralleling the posthuman project to erase the boundaries that separate the human from the non-human. Through this class, we will consider how fictional, cinematic, and musical examples of cyberpunk challenge the belief of the human as the center of moral consideration and allow us to consider a society free of human-imposed limitations. The class will incorporate a variety of digital humanities tools to enhance our studies and explorations.