Past Course Texts and Themes:
Women’s
Voices, Women’s Lives
Poetry:
Fire on Her Tongue edited by Kelli Russell Agodon & Annette
Spaulding-Convy
Short
stories: In the Country by Mia Alvar
Play:
Cost of Living by Martyna Majok
Novel: What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
How Does the Internet Affect us?
Influenced:
the Impact of Social Media on Our Perception by Brian Boxer Wachler, MD
Meganets:
How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner
Realities
by David B. Auerbach
The
Cyber Effect
by Mary Aiken, PhD
Navigating the Pandemic
Shutdown:
How Covid Shook the World's Economy by Adam Tooze
Preventable:
The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed
the U.S. Coronavirus Response by Andy Slavitt
A
Pandemic in Residence: Essays from a Detroit Hospital by Selina Mahmood
The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid by Lawrence Wright
And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again edited by Ilan Stavans
Challenge & Adversity
Poetry:
The 100 Best African American Poems edited by Nikki Giovanni
Short
stories: The Decameron Project: 29 New Stories from the Pandemic by The
New York Times
Play:
Sweat by Lynn Nottage
Novel: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
The U.S.: Where Have We Been and Where are We Going?
A
Colony in a Nation
by Chris Hayes
A People’s History of American Empire by Howard Zinn
The Coddling of the American Mind by
Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
Pop Culture: Analyzing What Shapes Us and Society
Pop
Culture Freaks
by Dustin Kidd
The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
The Tipping Point by Malcolm
Gladwell
Displacement
Short Stories: Blasphemy: New and
Selected Stories by Sherman Alexie
Novel: The Namesake by Jhumpa
Lahiri
Poetry:
American Diaspora: Poetry of Displacement edited by Virgil Suarez and Ryan G. Van Cleave
Play: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia
on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition by Tony Kushner
Environment and Sustainability
Green is the New Red: An Insider's Account
of a Social Movement Under Siege by Will Potter
The Sustainability Generation: The Politics
of Change and Why Personal Accountability is Essential NOW! by
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert
Will
the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt: Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate
Change
by Naomi Klein, Amitav Ghosh, et al.
Activism (non-fiction)
I
Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism
from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle by T.V. Reed
Writing to Change the World by
Mary
Pipher
The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the
Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs
Activism through Literature
Poetry:
African-American Poetry: an Anthology 1773-1927 edited by Joan R.
Sherman
Plays:
Inside/Outside: Six
Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora
editors
Novel: Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Novel (graphic): V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
Short Stories: Great Short Stories by American Women edited by Candace Ward
Mastering the Mind (also Challenges, Failures and Perseverance)
Unstoppable: 45 Powerful Stories of Perseverance and Triumph from
People Just Like You by Cynthia Kersey
Drive: the Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H.
Pink
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers
Will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do
in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity,
and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough
Listening to the Music Inside Us
This is Your Brain on
Music: The Science of Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin
All Shook Up: How Rock ‘n’ Rock Changed America by Glenn C. Altshuler
The Death and Life of the Music Industry in the Digital Age by Jim Rogers
Analysing Popular Music: Image, Sound and Text by David Machin
Music and Culture by Anna Tomasino
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
Ripped by Greg Kot
Altered Realties: The Impact and Controversies of Illegal Drugs
Dealing Death and Drugs:
The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico by Beto O’Rourke and Susie Byrd
Drug Lord: The Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin by Terrence E. Poppa
Drugs: Should we Legalize, Decriminalize, or Deregulate? ed. Jeffrey A. Schaler, PhD
Healthcare, Disease and Wellness
Key Debates in
Healthcare by Gary Taylor and
Helen Hawley
The Spirit Catches You
and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
28: Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen
Mountain Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure
the World by Tracy Kidder
Sizwe’s Test: A Young Man’s Journey through Africa’s AIDS Epidemic by
Jonny Steinberg
We Kiss the Rain by Futhi Ntshingila
Outward and Inward Journeys
Book: A Woman in Jerusalem by A. B. Yehoshua
Short
Stories: The Literary Traveler: An Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction editor Larry Dark
Short Stories: The Best Women’s Travel Writing ed. Lavinia Spalding
Poetry: American Diaspora: Poetry of
Displacement by Virgil Suarez and Ryan G. Van Cleave
Play: Valparaiso: A Play
by Don DeLillo
Play: The Overwhelming by J.T. Rogers
The Individual Struggle Against Societal Pressures
Play (Norway): A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
Book (Afghanistan) : A
Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Poetry (United States): Unsettling
America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry eds. Maria Mazziotti Gillan and
Jennifer Gillan
Short stories (Russia/New York): There Are Jews in My House by Lara Vapnyar
Impact of the Changing Media
YouTube: Digital Media and Society
Series by Jean Burgess & Joshua Green
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
by Neil Postman
Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet by Sherry Turkle
Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy by Alex S.
Jones
Exploring Memoir: Overcoming Adversity and Journeying to
Selfhood
Philippines – The Oracles: My Filipino Grandparents in America by Pati Navalta Poblete
Vietnam – The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars by Andrew X.
Pham
Pakistan – In the Name of Honor by Mukhtar Mai
Honduras – Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario
Memoir: Journeys Through War
Night by Elie
Weisel
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
by Malala Yousafzai
Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War
and Other Battles by Anthony Swofford
Breaking News: A Stunning and Memorable Account of Reporting from Some of
the Most Dangerous Place in the World by Martin Fletcher
Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the
Pacific by Robert Leckie
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (graphic novel) by Marjane Satrapi
Banned Books: Meanings Behind Censorship
Opposing Viewpoints Series - Censorship (paperback edition) by Andrea C. Nakaya
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence by Marion Dane Bauer (editor)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Crossing Countries, Crossing Cultures
Poetry:
Dominican Republic – The
Other Side: El Otro Lado by Julia Alvarez
Spain – The Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca eds Lorca and Allen
Mexico – Mexican Poetry: An
Anthology complied
by Octavio Paz, trans. Samuel Beckett
Latin America -- These
Are Not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women
eds. Marjorie Agosin
El Salvador -- The Country Between Us poetry by Carolyn
Forche
Novels:
Africa -- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Cuba -- Dreaming in
Cuban by Cristina Garcia
India – The White Tiger: A Novel by
Aravind Adiga
Africa -- Season of Migration to the
North by Tayeb Salih
Philippines -- The Umbrella Country by
Bino Realuyo
Short Stories:
Russia -- Best Russian Short Stories ed. Thomas Seltzer
Middle East – Arab Women Writers: An Anthology of Short
Stories by Dalya Cohen-Mor
India -- Diamond Dust: Stories by
Anita Desai
Plays:
Russia – Chekhov: The Essential Plays by
Anton Chekhov, trans. Michael Henry Heim
Britain -- Cloud 9
play by Caryl Churchill
China -- The Other
Shore plays by Gao Xingjian
South Africa -- Master Harold and the Boys by Athol Fugard
Living in the U.S.A:
American Values and Ideologies
America
Street: A Multicultural Anthology of Stories ed. Anne Mazer
Generation Me by Jean M. Twenge Ph.D.
Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge by
Kalle Lasn
The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words by Deborah
Tannen
American Values: Opposing Viewpoints ed. Mary E. Williams
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
I'll Be Short by Robert B. Reich
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
Hate Crimes by Jack Levin & Jack McDevitt
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public
Discourse in the Age of Show Business by
Neil Postman
Writing as a Form of Protest
The Crucible by
Arthur Miller
Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Storm from the East by Milton Viorst
1984 by George Orwell
Madness and Genius
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey
Diaspora: Those Forced from Their Homelands
Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora by
Andrew Lam
The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks by Randall Robinson
Genocide of the Mind: New Native American Writing ed. MariJo Moore
Our Feet Walk the Sky: Women of the Southern Diaspora eds.
Women of S. Asian Decent Collective
Science Fiction
Brave
New World by
Aldous Huxley
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Poetry: Cyborgia by Susan Slaviero
Short Stories: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Play: Elegy by Nick Payne
Play: Constellations by Nick Payne
Novel: Kindred by Octavia Butler
The African-American Experience (ASTEP)
The
Rap on Gangsta Rap: Who Run It? Gangsta Rap and Visions of Violence by Bakari Kitwana
The Envy of the World: On Being a Black Man in America by Ellis Cose
The Black Woman: An Anthology edited by Toni Cade Bambara
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member by Sanyika Shakur aka
Monster Kody Scott
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas by Frederick Douglas
The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker
Makes Me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall
The Debt by Randall Robinson
What
is Cool?: Understanding Black Manhood in America by Marlene Kim Connor
Flat-Footed Truths: Telling Black Women's Lives by Patricia Bell-Scott
Black Boy by Richard Wright
The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
The Latino Experience
(Puente)
House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca
Hombres y Machos by Alfredo Mirande
Strangers Among Us by Robert Suro
Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia
The Red Camp by Debra Diaz
Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez
De Colores Means All of Us by Elizabeth Martinez
The Latino/a Condition eds. Delgado and Stefancic
Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez
Growing Up Chicano/a by Tiffany Ana Lopez
Macho! by Victor Villasenor
Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Savages by Joe Kane
Marginalized Peoples – Living on the Margins
Mexican Migrant Workers: The Red
Camp by Debra Diaz
Asian Americans: Asian
Americans: Oral Histories of First to Fourth Generation Americans by Joann Faung Jean Lee
Economics for Women: Glass
Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women's Work, Women's Poverty by Albelda and Tilly
Homeless Women: Tell Them
Who I Am by Elliot Liebow
Gays and Lesbians: Homophobia:
How We All Pay the Price by Warren J.
Blumenfeld
The Disabled: The Body Silent: The
Different World of the Disabled by
Robert F. Murphy
Black gangs: Makes me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall
African-Americans (poetry): African-American Poetry: an Anthology 1773-1927
edited by Joan R. Sherman
Transgendered (short story-memoir): Sexual Metamorphosis: an Anthology
of Transsexual Memoirs edited by Jonathan Ames
Muslims in the U.S. (novel): If I Should Speak by Umm Zakiyyah
Asian Americans (plays): Asian American Plays for a New Generation
edited by Lee, Eitel, and Shiomi
Revolutionaries
The Essential Gandhi by
Mahatma Gandhi
Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King Jr.
Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train by Howard Zinn
A Triumph of Spirit by Cesar Chavez
A Call to Conscience by Martin Luther King Jr.
Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto "Che" Guevara
Search for Self and Identity
Man’s Search for Meaning by
Viktor E. Frankl
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Growing Up Asian American ed. Maria Hong
Half and Half:
Writers on Growing up Biracial & Bicultural ed. Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn
Black Looks: Race and Representation by bell hooks
Honky by Dalton Conley
Two Americas
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
Growing Up Asian American ed. Maria Hong
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangs by Gini Sikes
Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D.
Houston
Exploring California
Toward the Setting Sun by Mary Barmeyer O'Brien
California Time by Ernest J. Finney
Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites? by Mia Tuan
Five Fires by David Wyatt
Macho! by Victor Villasenor