English 102 Topics— Spring 2027
English 102 Topics | Spring 2027
Jump to list of English 102 Topics
Each instructor’s section of English 102 is organized around a distinctive topic; please choose one that appeals to you and your interests. Topics for sections that currently do not have an instructor listed in Banner will be updated closer to the beginning of the semester, or as sections are assigned. All English 102 sections teach archival, qualitative, and secondary source research and writing.
All English 102 sections require 2 textbooks, Rhetoric of Inquiry, 5th edition, and The Writer’s Harbrace Handbook, 6th edition. Each section may have additional required texts; please check with the Bookstore to see whether additional texts are required for your section.
English 102 Inquiry Topics
Heather Akers | Inquiry into Food
TR | 2:30-3:45 & 4:05-5:20
Our specific course theme is Inquiry into Food. This semester we will examine the issue of food and our relationship to it. Food is a subject that concerns every human on earth. It is key to our survival, and also to our sense of pleasure in life. It can bring delight and joy, and it can also bring challenges and problems. Food is a key aspect that gives identity, structure, and sustenance to a particular culture. Food is big business. It concerns the global economy. It can also be a deeply personal matter of health, ethics, and belief systems. This semester, we will use the topic of food as a springboard to develop our research and writing skills. To accomplish this goal, we will complete two major projects in which you will conduct several kinds of research: secondary source, archival, and qualitative. In the Archival Research Project (ARP), we will use both secondary and primary source research to explore the historical significance of a particular recipe, dish, brand, or other food-related issue during the past century-plus. The Qualitative Research Project (QRP) will use both secondary and qualitative research to investigate people’s experiences, opinions, behaviors, and/or beliefs about food.
Arinze Akpa | Inquiry into Hip-Hop
TR | 11:20-12:35
This course explores the art of rhetoric in hip-hop music and culture, examining how artists use language, imagery, and performance to persuade, provoke, and inspire. We will analyse how hip-hop expresses and challenges dominant cultural values, political ideologies, and social norms. Through close readings of lyrics, music videos, and live performances, we will investigate the rhetorical strategies employed by hip-hop artists to address issues such as race, gender, class, sexuality, and social justice. While the aforementioned take centre stage, this course also introduces students to AAVE as spoken and written while recognising other Englishes as they currently exist in Hip-Hop, in America and beyond.
Izzy Alexander | Inquiry into Pop Culture: Sports
TR | 2:30-3:45
American essayist Adam Gopnik writes: “A great game is a great show, and it’s also a great story” (2011). Inquiry into Pop Culture: Sports will examine how and why sport operates as a useful lens through which to analyze culture, politics, economics, business, law, marketing, communications, art, and democracy. Using archival and qualitative research methods, students will choose and explore their own research topics related to sport, and write two major projects throughout the semester. Some research questions they may ask include: How have the NFL’s marketing campaigns changed over time? What graphic design strategies have women’s teams historically utilized? How do college students talk about college sports other than football? Why do sports generate so much revenue and media attention? This course will continue to hone writing and research skills developed in English 101 or in previous writing-intensive courses through drafting, peer review, revision, and reflection.
Tika Alidu Banuha | Inquiry into Food
TR | 2:30-3:45
This section of English 102 will explore issues related to food, a topic which has always received attention due to reasons such as obesity, global hunger, food culture, and genetically-modified foods. We will use this topic to develop research and writing skills. To accomplish this goal, we will conduct three kinds of research: secondary source, archival, and qualitative. In the secondary source project, we will conduct academic research to examine current debates about food. For instance, we can explore genetically modified foods along with assessing their global importance and status. In the archival project, we will explore the historical significance of food, focusing on specific topics like the emergence of fast food chain restaurants in the US. Finally, we will conduct qualitative research by interviewing specific populations in order to investigate their experiences with and/or beliefs about a particular food-related topic. A possible example would be to interview several McDonald’s employees about their experiences serving and preparing fast food. After the data are collected, we will work on finding underlying patterns among the responses to see what the respondents (do not) have in common. The point of this course is to develop your academic research, writing, and communication skills. We’ll learn about our course topic through each other’s research and writing. You’ll be able to investigate the topic from any academic perspective that interests you (hopefully your major). You’ll learn how to conduct archival, qualitative, and secondary source research and will present what you’ve learned to academic audiences in traditional discipline-appropriate papers and a poster presentation.
Jeff Amos | Inquiry into Memoir
MWF | 10:20-11:10 & 11:30-12:20
In this section of English 102, we will examine the research and creation of personal and family history. You will be asked to interview friends and family members to understand social and historical perspectives, as well as dig into the archives (both personal and public) to find the traces of memory and family. Your writing will have you mining personal experience and research to tell stories of your family or your own history, and along the way we will read and interrogate the work of authors who have used their own experiences as the ground for deep personal or cultural introspection.
Hank Backer | Inquiry into Video Games and Popular Culture
TR | 8:10-9:25 & 9:45-11:00
This section of English 102 will explore the evolution of the gaming industry starting in the 1970s and moving forward from the arcade to the console. As we look at the evolution of the platforms and the games, we will also examine the social aspects of the gaming community and the increasing popularity of gaming over the last twenty years. You will have the opportunity to research the historical evolution of some of your favorite games or game series, examine gaming culture as it stands today, discuss representation of games and gamers in the media and in games themselves, and explore how gaming has influenced your own field of study. Like all 102 sections, we will engage in archival and qualitative research while using secondary source research to inform your qualitative and archival topics.
Melinda Backer | Inquiry into Videogames and Gaming Culture
TR | 9:45-11:10. 11:20-12:35, & 2:30-3:45
English 102 advances the concepts introduced in English 101 and provides students with intensive writing instruction focused on inquiry and research. Throughout the semester, we’ll focus on strategies for formulating and investigating questions, locating and evaluating information, using varied sources and research methods, developing positions on intercultural and interdisciplinary issues from diverse texts (print, digital, and multimedia), and presenting research using appropriate rhetorical conventions. This section of English 102 will explore the evolution of the gaming industry and its impact on popular culture from the 1970s to the present. As we look at the evolution of the platforms and games, we will also examine the social aspects of the gaming community and the increasing popularity of gaming over the last thirty years. You will have the opportunity to research the historical evolution of some of your favorite games or game series, examine the gaming culture as it stands today, discuss representation of games and gamers in the media and in games themselves, and explore how gaming has influenced your own field of study. Like all 102 sections, we will engage in archival, qualitative, and secondary source research to investigate our course topic, gaming and its impact on popular culture.
Brad Bannon | Inquiry into American Horror
TR | 11:20-12:35 & 2:30-3:45
Why is Edgar Allan Poe’s face among the most recognizable in American Literature? Why are television shows, documentaries, films, and film franchises like American Horror Story, Stranger Things, Lovecraft Country, Insidious, Get Out, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween so popular? What is the appeal of the American horror genre, and why is it so ubiquitous? In this section of 102, students will develop their research and writing skills while seeking to understand the socio-historical and cultural contexts of American horror as a distinct genre, as well as what continues to draw audiences to it as a form of expression in literature, film, and popular media. We will discuss classic and influential examples of the form and consider some more recent historical accounts as we trace the origins of American horror. These discussions will complement our investigation into the phenomenon of the genre as students learn how to conduct qualitative, archival, and secondary research.
Mary Barfield | Inquiry into Comedy
MWF | 12:40-1:30
Inquiry into Comedy examines the issues of humor, satire, and comedy in 20th-century American culture. Beginning with readings by Henri Bergson, Noël Carroll, and Sigmund Freud, we will develop a theoretical framework for understanding why we laugh. We will then use this framework to develop research and writing skills in the context of stand-up comedians. This course will feature two kinds of research: archival and qualitative, with secondary source research also present throughout the two major projects. In the archival project, we will explore the historical significance of American humor and comedy from the twentieth century to the present. In the qualitative research project, we will interview participants to investigate their experiences with and/or beliefs about contemporary humor.
Rachel Bryan | Inquiry into the South
MWF | 1:50-2:40
This section of English 102 will approach academic research methods using the theme “Inquiry Into the South.” Our course will explore the Southeastern United States as a region, construct, culture, and site of history. Students will develop academic research, writing, and communication skills as we learn from each other’s research and writing. In each research-based project, students can investigate the South from several academic perspectives (or within their major). Students will develop research topics using multiple methodologies to make academic arguments about southern music, foodways, politics, race, gender constructs, economics, folkways, sports, art, or other topics of interest. Throughout the semester, students will conduct archival, qualitative, and secondary source research and will present their arguments about southern culture, history, or regional identity to academic audiences in discipline-appropriate papers.
Sarah Cantrell | Inquiry into Myths and Monsters
MWF | 1:50-2:40
Monsters are often reflective of the cultures and historical moments to which they belong. Scholars who study “monster theory” (Yep, monster theory is a whole thing.) typically ask questions like: How do zombies reflect our exhaustion with routine and fears of eternal enslavement in colonial Haiti? Does the vampire represent 19th-century British fears of the Eastern European Jew, transgressive sexual desires, or fear of AIDS? How does King Kong illustrate fears of Black male virility in pre-Civil Rights America? How did early colonists use the “monster” framework to characterize Native Americans and Black Africans? What about American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, who doesn’t “look” like a monster, or Twilight’s Edward, who is handsome and sympathetic? How do 1950s movies about aliens and extraterrestrials reflect the Cold War and nuclear armament? Is Medusa a monster or a victim? What kinds of “forbidden freedoms” do monsters like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein have?
Mary Christensen | Inquiry into the Monstrous
TR | 8:10-9:25 & 9:45-11:00
Advancing concepts introduced in English 101, English 102 provides students with intensive writing instruction focused on inquiry and research. It does so by emphasizing strategies for formulating and investigating questions, locating and evaluating information, using varied sources and research methods, developing positions on intercultural and interdisciplinary issues from diverse texts (print, digital, and multimedia), and presenting research using appropriate rhetorical conventions.
This section of English 102 focuses on the topic of monstrosity. Through reading and analyzing both scholarly and creative genres, through navigating archival spaces, and conducting our own research, we will view monstrosity as social commentary. Perhaps, more importantly, we will learn to ask ourselves: Who are the monsters, really?
Elizabeth Cooley | Inquiry into Disability
MWF | 11:30-12:20, 1:50-2:40, & 3:00-3:50
In this section, we’ll research what “disability” really is; how history, scholars, and our contemporaries have viewed it; and what our assumptions are about disabled people. We’ll observe accessible designs and how they shape our everyday lives, and you’ll research and propose solutions to accessibility issues at UTK. This course will use Project-Based Learning, a method through which you will learn by solving real problems.
Isabela Creighton | Inquiry into Myths and Monsters
MWF | 8:00-8:50
Inquiry into Myths and Monsters examines “othering” by embarking on a passage through time – from mythological monsters to pop-culture monsters. While focusing on figures that were once human, we will be critically analyzing what makes a human a human, a topic that has received increasing attention as cultural anxieties grow in the digital space with AI integrations in our day-to-day life. We will use this topic to develop research and writing skills. The course will explore questions such as: What makes a monster? How does “othering” operate in our modern social media-driven age? What is the rhetoric behind the “us versus them” mentality? This course will feature two kinds of research: archival and qualitative, with secondary source research also present throughout the two major projects in this course. You will use skills such as drafting, peer review, and revision to improve your work throughout the semester.
Grant Currier | Inquiry into End Times
MWF | 10:20-11:10 & 11:30-12:20
Earthquakes, floods, pandemics, wars and unrest, prophecy, technology, disaster, redemption: Inquiry into End Times broadly examines issues of how cultures develop, identify, respond to, and react against ideas of an “end times.” Throughout history, numerous civilizations became increasingly polarized—Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Medieval Europe and the Levant, 20th century Europe, 21st century America. This course will explore questions such as “What singular events have been re-interpreted by the public across cultures?”, “How do end times narratives shape a nation’s sense of identity and purpose?”, and “How do imagined and/or recorded apocalypses train us to hope?” The course features secondary, archival, and qualitative research methods. You will use skills such as drafting, peer review, and revision to improve your work over the course of the semester.
Eli Dyer | Inquiry into TBA
TR | 9:45-11:00 & 12:55-2:10
Michael Emmanuel | Inquiry into Memoir
MWF | 10:20-11:10 & 12:40-1:30
This Inquiry into Memoir course will provide students the opportunity to explore writing about the self. What constitutes selfhood and how does memoir as a form and genre accommodate the careful task of revealing and disclosing history while maintaining a commitment to truth through storytelling? The point of this course is to develop your academic research, writing, and communication skills, advancing on English 101 concepts. You’ll be able to investigate the course theme from a perspective that interests and excites you. This course will encourage you to investigate history, ancestry, culture, memory, and other components that yield the “self”. The first half of this course will focus on learning archival research as a means to writing “the story of the self”. In the second half of the course, we will review how qualitative research and data-gathering can help us map stories that matter to us and our history.
Veronica Fletcher | Inquiry into Pop Culture (Y2K)
MWF | 1:50-2:40
This course will explore how nostalgia shapes our understanding of pop culture through time. From Myspace to The Jersey Shore, we will examine how modern and contemporary perceptions of pop culture in the Y2K era shift our understanding of community, digital persona, and trends. Together, we will study depictions of Y2K in both the early 2000’s and the 2020’s, investigating how the similarities and differences shape our ideas about nostalgia and identity. Students will learn to analyze how these representations influence popular culture and history. This class aims to develop critical writing and argumentative and research skills through an interdisciplinary lens.
Jessica Freeman | Inquiry into Food
TR | 9:45-11:00, 2:30-3:45. & 4:05-5:20
In English 102, you will be investigators and examine historical information, research, and culture. This semester our theme is Inquiry into Food.
I chose food because I am interested in the many ways that food approaches culture, history, and identity. Food not only provides for our physical bodies, but it nourishes, sustains, and feeds us in a multitude of other ways. Our readings will evaluate memoirs, recipes, and popular food writing. We’ll explore beliefs about what we eat, when we eat, and how behaviors surrounding food creates meaning for a culture.
In what ways is food political? In what way does food connect us to ourselves, to one another, and to place? How do our feelings about agriculture, farming, and our environment shape our connection to food?
We will formulate questions as we locate and evaluate information, and use a variety of sources and research methods to discover how food relates to us, to language, and to our communities.
Madison Fuentes | Inquiry into Pop Culture
MWF | 9:10-10:00
The main theme for this class will be Inquiry into Pop Culture. I plan teach the 102 curriculum using current topics, debates, and media from contemporary sources, with a primary anchor in exploring the genre of pop psychology, mental health, and self-help. This will allow for more opportunities to promote skill transfer for students of all fields and majors as we will be engaging the course materials with high interdisciplinarity (biology, marketing, literature, film, neuroscience, and beyond).
Catherine Garbinsky | Inquiry into Food & Culture
TR | 12:55-2:10
This section of English 102 will explore the ways in which culture influences food and food influences culture. We will examine how food and food sharing builds communities and cultures. Even when we are not eating, we are constantly surrounded by images and language that engage with food. We will examine the subject from many different angles, from depictions of food in literature, film, and television to social media trends, sustainability movements, and deeply held traditions. Food permeates our lives, impacting our health, daily habits, and our relationships with family and friends. Food can be aesthetic, interactive, and functional. It can hold memories and enrich our ties to our culture. It can be regionally specific, a fusion that reflects changing tastes and communities, it may be tied to a particular holiday or tradition, passed down for generations, and it can be a result of experimentation, pushing new boundaries. Students will learn to analyze how these representations influence culture and history. This course aims to develop critical writing, research, and communication skills through an interdisciplinary lens.
Miracle Gardner | Inquiry into Crime & Monsters
MWF | 1:50-2:40
This course examines our fascination with true crime, monstrosity, and the people and communities society labels as dangerous, deviant, or “monstrous.” Through creative and academic readings, archival research, and qualitative research, we will explore how monsters reflect societal values and fears. We will investigate how ideas about monsters and criminals have changed over time, why certain individuals and communities are portrayed as monstrous, and how these representations shape our understanding of crime, fear, and otherness. We will use these questions to develop research and writing skills through two major projects. In our archival project, we will explore representations of crime and monsters in popular culture from the twentieth century to the present. In our qualitative project, we will interview participants about their experiences with and beliefs about crime, monsters, and popular culture. Throughout this course, we will ask: What are we really afraid of?
Greta Gessert | Inquiry into Pop Culture
TR | 12:55-2:10
Inquiry into Pop Culture examines how popular media—movies, TV, music, sports, social media content, podcasts, etc.—contribute to wider discourse about social or political issues. Through two key forms of research—qualitative and archival (each supplemented with secondary source research)—students will examine the ways that their pop culture interests are part of larger conversations in our culture. Students may explore topics like: How do college students feel about political advocacy by celebrities/influencers? Why do Taylor Swift fans believe they connect to her music? What does the evolving depiction of “The Bachelorette” in promotional posters reveal about how our culture views women? How did sports advertising change pre- and post-NIL? This course will hone writing and research skills through drafting, peer review, revision, and reflection.
Molly Granatino | Inquiry into Myths and Monsters: True Crime
TR | 8:10-9:25, 9:45-11:00, & 2:30-3:45
In this section of English 102, students will develop their research, writing, and communication skills through the topic of True Crime. Taking the cultural fascination with murder as a starting point, students will learn how to conduct archival, qualitative, and secondary source research. In this course we will ask and attempt to answer such questions as why are we drawn to these real-life monsters? Where does truth bleed into myth? What is the role of television and movies in mythologizing these figures?
Nico Houser | Inquiry into Myths and Monsters
MWF | 9:10-10:00 & 11:30-12:20
Inquiry into Myths and Monsters examines various pop cultural, social, and historical presentations of the mythical and monstrous. Throughout the semester, we will investigate notable examples of myths and monsters, particularly studying their historical depiction throughout pop-culture. We will examine figures from the Arthurian figure of Lady of the Lake to the portrayal of zombies in the Last of Us. We will start with Qualitative research, engaging with current scholarship and interviewing participants to explore their experiences, beliefs, and/or feelings addressing each student’s chosen topic. We’ll conclude the semester with Archival research, investigating historical representations of the mythic and monstrous, considering what they represent about the cultures and time periods in which they were created. For this project, students will create a digital museum exhibit, curating artifact collections and constructing an informed argument to answer a research question of their choice.
Nurul Islam | Inquiry into Food
TR | 2:30-3:45
English 102 provides students with intensive writing instruction focused on inquiry and research. It does so by emphasizing strategies for formulating and investigating questions, locating and evaluating information, using varied sources and research methods, developing positions on intercultural and interdisciplinary issues from diverse texts (print, digital, and multimedia), and presenting research using appropriate rhetorical conventions. In this course, we will study various essays and research papers on food. Students would apply rhetorical questions and appeals to these readings in class.
Emily Jalloul | Inquiry into Memoir and True Crime
TR | 2:30-3:45
Memoir comes from the French word for “memory.” In this class, we will examine how our memories make up who we are through extensive writing, reading, and research.
Chiagoziem Jideofor | Inquiry into Food
TR | 11:20-12:35
This section of English 102 will explore issues related to food, a topic which has always received attention due to increasing concerns over obesity, health and nutritional inequalities, global hunger, food diversity, culinary transition, sustainable food-related practices, and genetically modified foods. We will use this topic to develop research and writing skills. To accomplish this goal, we will conduct three kinds of research: secondary source, archival, and qualitative. In the secondary source project, we will conduct academic research to examine current debates about food. For instance, we can explore genetically modified foods along with assessing their global importance and status. In the archival project, we will explore the historical significance of food, focusing on specific topics like the emergence of fast-food chain restaurants in the US, and the need for more diverse food options (think halal, ethically sourced ingredients, intercontinental cuisines). Finally, we will conduct qualitative research by interviewing specific populations to investigate their experiences with and/or beliefs about a food-related topic. A possible example would be to interview several employees of a popular fast-food about their experiences serving and preparing fast food. After the data are collected, we will work on finding underlying patterns among the responses to see what the respondents (do not) have in common. The point of this course is to develop your academic research, writing, and communication skills. We’ll learn about our course topic through each other’s research and writing. You’ll be able to investigate the topic from any academic perspective that interests you (hopefully your major). You’ll learn how to conduct archival, qualitative, and secondary source research and will present what you’ve learned to academic audiences in traditional discipline-appropriate papers and a poster presentation.
Elizaveta Komkova | Inquiry into Happiness and Meaningful Life
MWF | 9:10-10:00
Inquiry into Happiness and Meaningful Life investigates the concepts of happiness, fulfillment, and the search for meaning through historical, philosophical, social, cultural, and other lenses. This section of English 102/132 engages students in critical reading, writing, and discussion, encouraging them to explore diverse perspectives on what constitutes a meaningful life. Students will develop research and writing skills through secondary, archival, and qualitative research projects, utilizing drafting, peer review, and revision strategies to enhance their work. By analyzing multimodal texts across various genres and cultures, students will strengthen their skills in argumentation, rhetorical analysis, and academic research. Additionally, the course emphasizes personal reflection, prompting students to connect course themes to their own experiences and aspirations.
Bre Lillie | Inquiry into Memoir
Online Asynchronous
Memoir is where memory, research, and storytelling meet, creating a rich space to explore personal and cultural narratives. In this section of English 102, we’ll focus on writing driven by memory and experience. You’ll examine memoirs (primarily nonfiction, with a few fictional examples) that reveal how emotional truth and factual accuracy often intersect. Our exploration will emphasize how history, place, and identity shape both stories and storytelling.
This course is designed to enhance your academic research, analysis, and communication skills. You’ll gather information through family archives, interviews, and traditional research methods. Along the way, you’ll practice key elements of the writing process (prewriting, reflection, and revision) while developing your ability to see writing as an ongoing process.
You’ll also present your findings in a variety of academic genres, such as archival research papers, qualitative research papers, and annotated bibliographies. These assignments will help you strengthen your research and communication skills while deepening your understanding of how personal and cultural narratives intersect.
Bronwyn Luitwieler | Inquiry into Pop Culture
MWF | 10:20-11:10 & 12:40-1:30
This course will focus on pop culture through the lens of music with the goal of making connections between composition and the writing that we encounter everyday, that makes up so much of who we are. We will discuss music as form or literary art, expression, civic engagement, culture reflection and creation, and even the psychological effects of music on individuals.
Minadora Macheret | Inquiry into Memoir
TR | 9:45-11:00 & 11:20-12:35
Inquiry into Memoir examines the issues of memory, history, and the places we inhabit as it relates to our understanding of ourselves and others. We will use the topic of memoir to develop research and writing skills, while exploring questions such as how our memories and stories shape us, how the places we occupy or inherit inform our identity, and how family history acts as a focal point between story, memory, and place. The course features secondary, archival, and qualitative research projects. You will use skills such as drafting, peer review, and revision to improve your work over the course of the semester.
Talia Marshall | Inquiry into Pop Culture
TR | 8:10-9:25
Are you already thinking about your Spotify Wrapped? Our class will be focused on music as popular culture. We will talk about everything from the Grammy’s to the IBMAs, from the Beatles to that guy from your high school who thinks he’s a rapper. Everything is fair game–Taylor Swift’s new single, the Ed Sheeran debacle, the ethics of streaming… It’s a writing class, so we will write, but we will also watch music videos, read pitchfork reviews, and share hot takes about every genre from old time to rap to pop to indie. Join us if you like to talk and write about music!
Kelvin Massey | Inquiry into the Heroic
Online Asynchronous
In this section of 102, our readings, writing assignments, and research will be related to the concept of the hero and how it has changed through time. We shall focus upon the epic hero in traditional literature as well as modern characterizations in popular culture, and we shall consider how images of the hero show continuity as well as transformation through different time periods, cultures, and media. We shall use qualitative and archival source research to explore our topic (which may also include role models, leaders, and villains) through various assignments.
Parker McCoig | Inquiry into Pop Culture: Videogames, Esports, and Gaming Culture
TR | 9:45-11:00 & 12:55-2:10
This section of English 102 will explore the evolution of the gaming industry and its impact on popular culture from the 1970s to the present. As we look at the evolution of various platforms and games, we will also examine the social aspects of the gaming community and the increasing popularity of gaming over the last thirty years. You will have the opportunity to research the historical evolution of some of your favorite games or game series, examine the gaming culture as it stands today, discuss representation of games and gamers in the media and in games themselves, and explore how gaming has influenced your own field of study. Like with all English 102 sections, we will engage in archival, qualitative, and secondary source research to investigate our course topic, gaming, and its impact on popular culture. Some potential topics that we are likely to explore: videogame development, the esports industry, and streaming.
Josh McGarry | Inquiry into Videogames and Culture
TR | 4:05-5:20
While we may not always be aware of it, games and stories about them are huge parts of our daily lives. Whether that’s the recent soccer world cup, or the many sports betting sites that flooded the airways with ads for their apps during the games. We can see it in how teachers design activities, and how your smartwatch gamifies the act of working out. Simply put, games and their impact are all around us. This class examines a small part of that by looking at the video game industry, both in terms of the art it creates, but also the numerous controversies that have surrounded it. Not only will we play a few games in class and as homework, but we’ll think about what elevates certain creatives above others. At the same time, we’ll talk about issues such as the countless layoffs over recent years, the questions that surround physical and digital media and the way their adjacency to AI has caused recent price spikes that continually threaten to make them less accessible. Students in this class will build from these explorations, with various minor projects as well as a virtual museum and qualitative research paper. They will explore either issues that surround video games or use the knowledge that we build in class to explore other topics of gamification.
Beth Meredith | Inquiry into Business Ethics (Venture LLC)
TR | 11:20-12:35, 2:30-3:45, & 4:05-5:20
This section will focus on an inquiry into business ethics: what is business ethics, what are current and past issues involving business ethics, how has business ethics changed, and how do other people feel and/or what do they think about business ethics?
Abigail Murrill | Inquiry into Pop Culture
MWF | 11:30-12:20 & 3:00-3:50
Nearly two decades after his death, Michael Jackson has once again become a major presence in popular culture, prompting new generations to encounter, celebrate, question, and reinterpret his legacy. In Inquiry into Popular Culture, we will examine how an artist becomes a cultural icon and what happens to that icon after death. This course will feature two kinds of research: archival and qualitative, with secondary source research also present throughout the two major projects in this course. In the archival project, we will explore the historical significance of music and fan culture, particularly through Jackson’s career. Finally, we will conduct qualitative research by interviewing and observing participants in order to investigate their experiences with and/or beliefs about the cultural impact of music and its lasting effects.
Harry Newburn | Inquiry into Environmentalism
TR | 12:55-2:10 & 2:30-3:45
In this English 102 course, we’ll be examining environmentalism, namely the socio-political discussion of environmental concerns. The importance and primacy of this topic within our cultural discourse does not need to be explained. Still, we will read materials from Canvas to generate class discussion and to achieve a more rounded understanding of the topic and how people are discussing it in specific ways. This unit will require you to take part in that conversation. In this course, you’ll develop research and writing skills by investigating environmental issues, past and present. You’ll formulate your own research questions about specific aspects of this broad theme, questions that you’ll then investigate through archival and qualitative research–one method per unit, each supplemented by the secondary source research skills that you learned in English 101.
Patrick Nome | Inquiry into Pop Culture and Social Media
MWF | 4:10-5:00
For this section, we will use the themes of popular culture (broadly, culture available for mass consumption) and social media as a backdrop for our research. Pop Culture is an ever-mutating maelstrom of media and genres: from printed works, through images (still and moving), via music and performance, even gaming. You encounter it and consume it every day, perhaps without thinking about it or its pervasiveness. And social media is an avenue that grants the privilege of creating, sharing, and exchanging content “across virtual communities and networks”. Given that, I want you to ask yourself, what goes into cultural production, and how has social media contributed to the promotion of such production? What forces shape the art and entertainment media we enjoy on a daily basis? And how has social media contributed in the way these cultural objects reflect, challenge, or stimulate our interests, values, and identities? This is your chance to scrutinize the relationship between popular culture and social media and how it intersects with the things that excite you.
Mary Oates | Inquiry into Myths and Monsters: Monstrosity in Pop Culture
MWF | 11:30-12:20
Inquiry into Myths and Monsters: Monstrosity in Pop-Culture examines the issues of portrayed monstrosity (and the ways it changes over time), which has received increasing attention because of recent and upcoming movie releases (such as The Odyssey, Werewulf, and Nosferatu). We will use this topic to develop research and writing skills. This course will feature two kinds of research: archival and qualitative, with secondary source research also present throughout the two major projects in this course. In the archival project, we will explore the historical significance and depiction of monstrosity in popular culture and literature. Finally, we will conduct qualitative research by surveying participants and observing media in order to investigate people’s experiences with and/or beliefs about depictions of “monstrosity” and the treatment of the Other.
Tega Oghenechovwen | Inquiry into Food
TR | 12:55-2:10
In this course, we will explore food as a subject of inquiry, examining how what we eat connects to culture, identity, health, economics, environment, and society. Through research, discussion, critical reading, and academic writing, we will investigate questions about where food comes from, how food choices are shaped, and why food matters in our everyday lives. You will learn to develop meaningful research questions, evaluate credible sources, consider multiple perspectives, and use evidence to support your ideas. By the end of the course, you will strengthen your skills in critical thinking, research, argumentation, and academic writing while developing a deeper understanding of the complex role food plays in our world.
Ernest Ohia | Inquiry into Memoir
TR | 9:45-11:00
Advancing concepts introduced in English 101, English 102 provides students with intensive writing instruction focused on inquiry and research. It does so by emphasizing strategies for formulating and investigating questions, locating and evaluating information, using varied sources and research methods, developing positions on intercultural and interdisciplinary issues from diverse texts (print, digital, and multimedia), and presenting research using appropriate rhetorical conventions.
McKayla Okoniewski | Inquiry into Storytelling
TR | 11:20-12:35
This section of ENGL 102 will be focused on storytelling. Why? Stories are memory, knowledge-sharing, and research. In this class, you will be exploring stories that matter to you through archival and qualitative research and you will learn the conventions for telling these stories to other researchers. To ground this knowledge, we will learn about a story we all have in common: the story of the land the University of Tennessee sits on. Stories are also powerful, so we will discuss how to ethically tell someone else’s story, grounding this research in respect. Finally, we will create a community of collaborative learning and growing through peer feedback, revision, and reflection. By the end of the course, students will have learned more about the land we live and learn on and will have developed their ability to tell their own stories in academic contexts.
Ucheoma Onwutuebe | Inquiry into Memoir
MWF | 12:40-1:30
Not only would this class involve the rigorous study of various forms of memoirs—from interviews, profiles and personal narratives— students would create their own memoirs using archival research and studies.
Zuleyha Ozturk | Inquiry into Food and Food Service
TR | 12:55-2:10
Advancing concepts introduced in English 101, English 102 provides students with intensive writing instruction focused on inquiry and research. It does so by emphasizing strategies for formulating and investigating questions, locating and evaluating information, using varied sources and research methods, developing positions on intercultural and interdisciplinary issues from diverse texts (print, digital, and multimedia), and presenting research using appropriate rhetorical conventions.
Our specific course theme for English 102 is Inquiry into Food and Food Service. This semester we will identify, analyze, and examine the issue of food and our relationship to settings regarding food. Our course material will include a wide variety of scholarly and creative examinations of food. Specifically, we will inquire into social, historical, and personal accounts of food and the food service industry. We will be engaging with a wide variety of texts and resources including Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, the widely watched Hulu original The Bear, Eating in Theory by Annemarie Mol and more. Food, consumption, and labor around food is a part of the universal human experience and we will attempt to bite into the complexities of this experience. We will use Inquiry into Food and Food Service as a guiding compass to develop our research and writing skills.
Abigail Page | Inquiry into Medieval Myths and Monsters
TR | 12:55-2:10 & 4:05-5:20
English 102 advances the concepts introduced in English 101 and provides students with intensive writing instruction focused on inquiry and research. This course will specifically focus on medievalisms. The medieval world has been reinterpretated and reimagined for hundreds of years; regardless of how far away we get from the Middle Ages, it seems that popular imagination remains interested in the ways that the medieval world functioned, and how it can provide new insights into modern problems. This course will focus on how conceptualizations of the medieval have changed over the last millennium, beginning with some readings from the medieval period and moving into modern representations of the medieval.
Nick Pearl | Inquiry into Memoir
TR | 4:05-5:20
In Inquiry into Memoir, students will continue to develop their academic reading, research, and writing skills through thoughtful, evidence-based exploration of their personal histories. What do the stories we tell—and the way we tell them—reveal about culture, society, and history? Students will engage in archival and qualitative research projects to advance the foundational skills of ENGL 101 through close reading, research-based writing, and revision. This course explores how place and memory interact to shape the stories we tell about ourselves and the world.
Alexandra Persad | Inquiry into Memoir
TR | 9:45-11:00 & 12:55-2:10
This course aims to highlight the larger, cultural context of memoir and its history through active engagement with essays, excerpts, and interdisciplinary works pertaining to the genre. It will also provide a skillset to help you better understand and articulate your personal background through the exploration of different storytelling modes. Paired with extensive projects, Inquiry into Memoir will sharpen critical writing and argumentation strategies while advancing your research methodologies.
Torre Puckett | Inquiry into Myths and Monsters
TR | 4:05-5:20
Monster theorist Jeffrey Jerome Cohen famously wrote that “the monster’s body is a cultural body.” “Inquiry into Myths and Monsters” invites you to use monsters as a lens to examine a variety of cultural tensions about knowledge, fear, and difference. How do we write academically on the obscene and terrifying—even the nonexistent? How do we productively question the elusive and the overwhelming? How do we distinguish what is real and what is hearsay or hoax? With this topic as your guide, you will develop your skills in research and writing through secondary, archival, and qualitative research projects. Along the way, you will deepen your skills in areas such as drafting, peer review, revision, and self-reflection. Here there be monsters—and they have a lot to teach us.
Cora Schipa | Inquiry into Girlhood
TR | 11:20-12:35
This course will explore how girlhood is portrayed in media through time. From The Virgin Suicides (1999) to Lady Bird (2017), we will examine stories of girlhood across literature, film, music, and television that have shaped cultural understandings of identity. Students will learn to analyze how these representations influence and reflect popular culture and history. This class aims to develop critical writing, argumentative, and research skills through archival and qualitative research.
Joe Seale | Inquiry into Humor
TR | 11:20-12:35
Inquiry into Humor will investigate humor across its many forms, modes, and genres. We will discuss humor’s common messages and tropes amid its increasingly broad array of target audiences, outlets, and platforms. Because it is constantly evolving, culturally specific, and inherently interactive, humor provides exciting opportunities to critique social and political institutions and current events, while deepening our understanding of ourselves and those around us. Particular attention will be paid to defining key terms like humor, comedy, and amusement. We will also explore prominent humor theories and comedy’s therapeutic qualities for subjects like mental health, cultural differences, grief, and trauma. This course will use the topic of humor to develop academic research and writing skills as students engage in secondary, qualitative, and archival research in search of definitive answers to inherently subjective questions.
Morgan Shaffer | Inquiry into the South
TR | 9:45-11:00 & 11:20-12:35
This section of English 102 will explore the South as a region and as a construct. We will explore what has made and makes the South and Southerners what they are today through various readings, videos, and other materials, primarily focused on the South’s history, its varying cultures, the literature produced about it, and its geography.
The point of this course is to develop your academic research, writing, and communication skills. We’ll learn about our course topic not only through the assigned materials but also through each other’s research and writing throughout the semester. You’ll be able to investigate the course topic from several academic perspectives that interest you personally (and that which can possibly tie into your major). You’ll learn how to conduct effective academic forms of research and how to present what you’ve learned to academic audiences in a variety of projects.
Hannah Smith | Inquiry into Myths and Monsters: Technology at the End of the World
TR | 9:45-11:00
Inquiry into Myths and Monsters: Technology at the End of the World examines issues of technological advancement and the fears which accompany them, which have received increasing attention because of the rapid advancements of AI within the past few years. We will use this topic to develop research and writing skills. This course will feature two kinds of research: archival and qualitative, with secondary source research also present throughout the two major projects in this course. In the archival project, we will explore the historical significance of technological advancement, and the dystopian futures people have imagined technology will cause, ranging from early concepts of artificial intelligence to the invention of humanoid robots to the popularity of social media. Finally, we will conduct qualitative research by interviewing and/or surveying participants in order to investigate their experiences with and/or beliefs about technology like AI and its effect on humanity’s future.
Tyler Smith | Inquiry into Games, Design, and Narratives
TR | 8:10-9:25 & 11:20-12:35
Games are more than entertainment—they tell stories, make arguments, and shape how we engage with the world. In this course, we will examine games as texts, analyzing how mechanics, themes, and player interactions function rhetorically. How does Codenames challenge our perspectives through shared and hidden knowledge? How do the asymmetric powers of Cosmic Encounter model shifting relationships between diplomacy and competition? We’ll create virtual museum exhibits as one major project, tracing the history of a game, mechanic, or theme through primary and secondary sources. Alongside this, we’ll conduct qualitative research, participate in gaming communities, and playtest our own game designs. Using feedback from others, we’ll revise and refine our designs to better situate them within play communities. Through these projects, we’ll develop skills in research, rhetorical analysis, and composition while exploring how games can function as powerful forms of storytelling, persuasion, and cultural expression.
Rob Spirko | Inquiry into Disability
MWF | 10:20-11:10, 1:50-2:40, & 3:00-3:50
The way our human world is built relies on certain assumptions about what is “normal” and what is not. The function of scholarly inquiry is to question those common-sense assumptions: What does it mean to be abled or disabled? Where do those definitions come from? Who makes them? When do you shift from one category to another? How do our assumptions make it hard for us to understand what’s really going on? How do we account for human difference, and what are the consequences of these decisions?
Once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll see how ideas about disability affect many fields of study: art, literature, education, engineering, design, business, philosophy, religion, history and more. There’s ample room within this theme for you to explore topics of interest to you in terms of your major or your social commitments.
Andrew Todd | Inquiry into Fan Culture
TR | 11:20-12:35
Inquiry into Fan Culture investigates the impact of fandoms beyond their core interest. We all have our favorite media, teams, and hobbies, but being a “fan” takes it to another level. Fandoms create communities, establish shared values, and give a sense of belonging; they also breed tribalism, gatekeeping, and toxic behaviors. This section of 102 will use this multifaceted aspect of fan culture as the basis of our research. In the historical project, you’ll use primary sources such as old advertising, merchandise, or footage to study how individual communities, trends, or social factors shaped and were shaped by their historical moment. For your qualitative projects, you’ll interview participants for the significance of current trends or issues for those participants personally. Hopefully, the semester leaves us with an idea of how supposedly “unimportant” hobbies and interests fit into bigger ideas of academic research.
Hannah Trammell | Inquiry into Indie Video Games
MWF | 11:30-12:20
As a class we will be exploring the video game industry, particularly the independent video game industry as it sits within the larger scheme of things, and in the process, we will research the cultural significance of video games, issues surrounding the games industry, and the importance of fun. Students will also have the opportunity to research into a video game topic of their choosing for the major projects, so that students will finish the class with a better understanding of not only a topic that holds personal interest but also of the research methods necessary to understand that topic and answer important questions about it.
Maggie Turbyfield | Inquiry into Myths and Monsters
MWF | 1:50-2:40
Inquiry into Myths and Monsters examines the issues of adaptation, portrayals of monstrous, and how relative myths are to this day, which has received increasing attention because of the recent release of Christoper Nolan’s The Odyssey. We will use this topic to develop research and writing skills. This course will feature two kinds of research: archival and qualitative, with secondary source research also present throughout the two major projects in this course. In the archival project, we will explore the historical significance of how and why myths and monsters are created and perpetuated. Finally, we will conduct qualitative research by interviewing participants in order to investigate their experiences with and/or beliefs about the popularity and/or relevance of monsters and myths in modern media.
Sam Turner | Inquiry into the Titanic and Its Legacy
MWF | 11:30-12:20,1:50-2:4, & 3:00-3:50
The Titanic began as an engineering puzzle, became a historical trauma, and by the end of its century had become both an archeological challenge and a case study in the modern Hollywood blockbuster. This course will allow students examine both the ship and its legacy in all of these contexts. First students will study primary sources in the form of survivor accounts and press coverage of the disaster. They will then research recent scholarship in a discipline of their choice that will provide a methodological context for discussing some aspect of the ship or its enduring cultural resonance. Finally, students will conduct a qualitative research project in order to better understand the enduring fascination, in the twenty-first century, of spectacular historical tragedies.
Melanie Werner | Inquiry into TBA
TR | 8:10-9:25 & 11:20-12:35
Connor White | Inquiry into Memoir
Online Asynchronous
In this course we will learn 102 rhetorical writing with an emphasis on memoir, aka the personal essay or autobiography. We will use archival documents and objects to use as a lens to look at our own lives while exploring the intricacies of research.
Hayley Wilson | Inquiry into Myths and Monsters
MWF | 11:30-12:20 & 12:40-1:30
Advancing concepts introduced in English 101, English 102 provides students with intensive writing instruction focused on inquiry and research. It does so by emphasizing strategies for formulating and investigating questions, locating and evaluating information, using varied sources and research methods, developing positions on intercultural and interdisciplinary issues from diverse texts (print, digital, and multimedia), and presenting research using appropriate rhetorical conventions.
Our course theme this semester is Inquiry into Myths and Monsters. Through this course theme, we will research and explore the histories, beliefs, and values that surround a variety of myths and monsters.
Using our new understanding of and research on these myths and monsters, we will create two projects that allow us to explore these topics from two distinct research methodologies: archival research methods and qualitative research methods.
Kate Wright | Inquiry into Memoir
MWF | 10:20-11:10
Inquiry into Memoir will provide students with the opportunity to develop and practice skills in various modes of research while investigating an unlikely subject—themselves! This course aims to help students gain a deeper understanding of the things (places, people, experiences, etc) that shape who they are and how they interact with and understand the world. While exploring their past, students will build necessary research skills by completing primary source and qualitative research projects. Encouraging students to engage in research-driven self-reflection will lead students to a better understanding of themselves as well as a practical understanding of how to apply research techniques to a wide variety of subjects.