Foundations in Critical Studies introduces critical thinking skills essential to college-level work in the humanities and sciences. Students develop their critical capacities through close reading and active response to cultural texts and phenomena drawn from multiple disciplines and reflecting diverse perspectives on major themes or topics in contemporary life.Humans have communicated through stories since the beginning of time. Shared stories, or what we will call collective narratives, help us understand the world around us, but they also shape that world. We will look at collective narratives in 3 units. Initially, we look at fairy tales, children’s books and popular films to examine how narratives are produced and reproduced in society. In the second unit we examine public monuments, particularly Confederate Monuments in the US, to investigate the ways that they can be used to shape understandings of history and become political. Finally, we explore the responses of artists and activists, like Kara Walker, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Act Up, Ai Weiwei, and others, who use art to challenge and rewrite those narratives.

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