SSC 295: Interdisciplinary Special Topics
Course description
Note: Students are required to complete weekly service hours as part of this course.
The course may be conceived as a journey, moving from a local to a global perspective, and then back to a changed local point of view. People fleeing from suffering or looking for better economic conditions often take up a journey, and similarly communities committed to stand up for values and rights, as well as students willing to study and volunteer far from what they know, also enter into this journey. Throughout the course, globally and locally relevant issues will be explored, such as immigration, discrimination and inclusion practices, advocacy, humanitarian action, and fights against marginalization and climate change. It will also address newer dimensions such as the right to imagination and “beauty” and reflections on human rights in the context of the recent pandemic. Learning will take place through neighborhood walking, visits, documentary screenings, discussions, reflections, and the Service Learning experience itself.
Learning objectives
The course aims to firstly provide students the possibility to discuss and reflect upon relevant issues within a multidisciplinary and multi-methodological framework in their whole learning experience. This framework goes back and forth from a local to a global perspective and revolves around specific socio-political, humanitarian, environmental and social justice-related issues. It is also accompanied by both individual and collective approaches to the learning process itself.
This course does not fear to create and leave space for uncertainty as well as further open questions and curiosity. Indeed this is likely to be one of the most realistic—and welcomed—outcomes. At the same time it will provide students the chance to develop or reinforce skills such as critical thinking, flexibility and adaptation, working in group, giving feedback, and cultural sensitivity.