Southwestern

Engaging Minds, Transforming Lives

Communication Studies Department

Curriculum

The departmental curriculum is organized around three cognate areas that represent the distinct, yet interrelated areas of focus in the major: Rhetorical Traditions, Performing Culture, and Media & Culture.

Each of these three areas is represented by one of the three COM Core Courses (75-203, 403, and 603) as well as a group of courses that represent further interventions into the cognate areas.  Rhetorical Traditions Courses are located in the 75-200s and 75-300s (with the exception of 75-303, the general COM Special Topics course number). Performing Culture courses are located in the 75-400s and 75-500s. Media & Culture Courses are located in the 75-600s and 75-700s. Many students take an Academic Internship as one of their upper-level Communication Studies elective courses. Special Topics courses (75-303) and Independent Studies (75-95x) are also available.

Below you will find a list of our current or recent offerings.  See the course catalog for descriptions and updated information.

  • 75-001 SELECTED TOPICS
    May be repeated with change in content.
  • 75-002 SELECTED TOPICS
    May be repeated with change in content.
  • 75-003 SELECTED TOPICS
    May be repeated with change in content.
  • 75-004 SELECTED TOPICS
    May be repeated with change in content.
  • 75-133 INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES
    This course introduces theoretical and critical perspectives relevant to the study of communication. A special focus on narrative theory, social constructionism, symbolic interactionism, semiotics, performance studies, cultural studies and other qualitative/interpretive research methods enhances stu...
  • 75-153 PUBLIC SPEAKING
    Through a wide variety of speaking formats, students will become more comfortable with the inherently uncomfortable situation of speaking to persuade before a critical audience. This introductory course approaches the speech of advocacy as a means of social analysis. COM Foundation course.
  • 75-173 INTRODUCTION TO PERFORMANCE STUDIES
    See Theatre 73-173. (FAP)
  • 75-183 MEDIA AND ETHICS
    See Philosophy 18-143. (H)
  • 75-203 RHETORICAL TRADITIONS
    Rhetoric is often thought of as the purview of scheming marketers and manipulative politicians, but it is in fact a rich and contested field that constitutes one of the oldest and most-studied arts in the Western tradition. This course moves from Plato to "culture jamming" and far beyond in its surv...
  • 75-213 RHETORICAL CRITICISM
    This course critically engages diverse texts from a variety of theoretical orientations, analyzing speeches, pictures and various mass mediated representations in order to produce critiques that employ a range of perspectives including feminist, critical race, psychoanalytic, and poststructuralist t...
  • 75-233 RHETORICS OF RESISTANCE
    This course examines the ways in which rhetoric is used for social protest. It emphasizes historical and cultural contexts as it looks at how social movements use diverse rhetorical strategies to promote social justice. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-133 and 153, or consent of instructor. (...
  • 75-253 RHETORIC & DIVERSITY
    This course explores diversity as a topic and engaged practice in the U.S., including the ways diversity is politicized and engaged in relationships, the public sphere and/or the media. Core areas of exploration will include how bodies are read as texts of difference or sameness, how diversity is co...
  • 75-273 RHETORICS OF HEALTH
    This class examines the intersections of communication and health by exploring topics such as mass media representations of health issues, communication patterns in health contexts, and the construction of identity through discourses of health and illness. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-133...
  • 75-301 SELECTED TOPICS
    May be repeated with change in content.
  • 75-302 SELECTED TOPICS
    May be repeated with change in content.
  • 75-303 SELECTED TOPICS
    May be repeated with change in content.
  • 75-304 SELECTED TOPICS
    May be repeated with change in content.
  • 75-403 COMMUNICATION, CULTURE, & SOCIAL JUSTICE
    This course introduces the foundational, historical and theoretical issues for the critical study of communication as social justice, examining critical race theories, feminist theories, queer theories, and postcolonial theories in order to establish a foundation for understanding the ways differenc...
  • 75-413 PERFORMING CULTURE
    This interactive, performance-based research seminar is designed to explore the dialogical relationship between culture and performance from a communication perspective. In general, the role of human action in (re) creating reality and identity and the functions and dynamics of performance in the co...
  • 75-453 RACE, ETHNICITY, AND COMMUNICATION
    This course introduces critical race theory as it applies to the study of communication. In particular, it explores the intersection of race/ethnicity, communication and media as it relates to issues of social justice and identity in America. These explorations shed light on the historical formation...
  • 75-473 NATIONS AND COMMUNICATION
    This course offers a critical understanding of the roles communication and media have played in the constitution and dissolution of national identities. Special emphasis is placed on examining how the dynamic relationships among nations, resulting from increasing economic and technological ties, hav...
  • 75-513 ADVANCED PERFORMANCE STUDIES
    Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-153 and 173. See Theatre 73-713 and Feminist Studies 04-713. (FAP)
  • 75-523 FEMINISM AND PERFORMANCE
    Prerequisite: Feminist Studies 04-103. See Theatre 73-723 and Feminist Studies 04-723. (FAP)
  • 75-543 DOCUMENTING THE OTHER
    This course examines communication and media practices used in the United States to document the lives, experiences and world-visions of others. Holding these practices together are differing views of "other" people who are identified as others by their sexual, gender, racial, geographical and/or cl...
  • 75-553 DOCUMENTING THE SELF AND COMMUNITY
    This course examines some of the ways in which individuals and communities in the United States document their experiences, lives and world-visions. The documenting techniques studied include literary autobiography, comic strips, graffiti, film documentary and photography. As varied as these documen...
  • 75-563 GENDER AND IDENTITY
    This course explores the role communication plays in the construction of identity and gender. Issues of identity and gender are analyzed and discussed as they are played out in interpersonal, public and mass media contexts. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-133 and 153, or consent of instructo...
  • 75-583 COMMUNICATION AND BODY POLITICS
    "Body Politics" refers to the ways in which the human body has a political history. The human body has been conceptualized, represented and interpreted differently at various times and in various places over the course of human history. There are signs and signals indicating the way in which the bod...
  • 75-603 MEDIA AND CULTURE
    This course provides an introduction to the critical cultural study of mass media, exploring media production, distribution, and consumption contexts as well as media texts to systematically examine how and why oral, manuscript, print, electric, electronic and digital media have been introduced, art...
  • 75-613 JOURNALISM
    This writing-intensive course considers the character, purposes and subject matter of documentary nonfiction narrative, with a special emphasis on the processes of writing, critiquing and revising student-produced feature articles for newspapers and magazines. COM Writing Intensive Course. Prerequis...
  • 75-633 RACE, POLITICS, AND THE MEDIA
    This class explores the complex political dynamics of race relations as constructed in the media. Rhetorical methods are used to study contemporary media coverage of race in historical and contemporary contexts. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-133 and 153, or consent of instructor. (H)
  • 75-643 MUSIC, CULTURE, IDENTITY
    This course explores the relationship between music, culture and identity, including the role of musical forms in shaping reality and identity formation. Assuming that music is inherently political in its form, content, performance and consumption, the course examines how identity is constructed th...
  • 75-653 NEW LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA
    This course provides a historical and critical perspective on the social conditions, philosophical-aesthetic positions, narrative strategies and particular national histories of New Latin American Cinema (NLAC), a form of filmmaking that originated in Latin America in the 1950s in reaction to Hollyw...
  • 75-673 FILM STUDIES
    This course introduces students to critical, analytical and theoretical approaches to the study of film. To explore the complex role that cinema has played in American mass society since the early 20th century, special emphasis is placed on the study of institutional practices at all levels of the p...
  • 75-783 VISUAL COMMUNICATION
    This course explores approaches to the production and analysis of visual media texts that have emerged in the fields of visual communication, media studies, visual culture and cultural studies. Critical attention is directed to the major products of mass media industries-especially advertisements, f...
  • 75-901 TUTORIAL
  • 75-902 TUTORIAL
  • 75-903 TUTORIAL
  • 75-904 TUTORIAL
  • 75-941 ACADEMIC INTERNSHIP
    Must be taken on a Pass/D/F basis. May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Internship credit will count towards the major.
  • 75-942 ACADEMIC INTERNSHIP
    Must be taken on a Pass/D/F basis. May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Internship credit will count towards the major.
  • 75-943 ACADEMIC INTERNSHIP
    Must be taken on a Pass/D/F basis. May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Internship credit will count towards the major.
  • 75-944 ACADEMIC INTERNSHIP
    Must be taken on a Pass/D/F basis. May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Internship credit will count towards the major.
  • 75-951 INDEPENDENT STUDY
    May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Independent Study credit will count towards the major.
  • 75-952 INDEPENDENT STUDY
    May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Independent Study credit will count towards the major.
  • 75-953 INDEPENDENT STUDY
    May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Independent Study credit will count towards the major.
  • 75-954 INDEPENDENT STUDY
    May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Independent Study credit will count towards the major.
  • 75-963 CAPSTONE RESEARCH SEMINAR
    This course requires students to integrate and extend work done throughout the Communication Studies major by producing a significant research project or creative work project within the context of a specific course topic. Offered every Fall and Spring. Topics and instructors vary. Prerequisites: Co...
  • 75-983 HONORS
    By invitation only. Satisfies the Capstone Experience for the major.