Courses

University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon, USA

The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon’s flagship public university. Located in the beautiful Willamette Valley, the UO offers a broad spectrum of opportunities for learning in the liberal arts and professional programs in architecture, arts, business, education, journalism, law, and music and dance.

The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of 62 of the leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. Among its faculty members and alumni, the UO counts two Nobel prize recipients, 10 Pulitzer Prize winners, 19 Rhodes scholars, 42 Guggenheim fellows, and 129 Fulbright scholars.

Established in 1876, the UO today enrolls approximately 20,000 students each year, including 1,200 international students from nearly 90 countries. The UO is consistently listed in the Fiske Guide to Colleges as one of the nation’s best bargains for students.

Website: www.uoregon.edu

English Language Proficiency Requirements

Applicants to VSE courses offered at University of Oregon are required to fulfill the following English language proficiency requirements set by University of Oregon:

The University of Oregon requires evidence of English language proficiency for all students. APRU VSE students can satisfy the requirements through the following:
1. IELTS score of 7.0 or higher (score must be no more than 2 years old)
2. TOEFL score of 88 (IBT) / 575 (PBT) or higher (score must be no more than 2 years old)
3. Other methods of demonstrating English language proficiency may be accepted on a case by case basis (for example, evidence from your home university that your university’s primary language of instruction is English, or other English test scores). Please submit other methods of demonstrating English language proficiency to [email protected] for review prior to applying for the course.
4. Students studying in Australia or New Zealand are exempt from these requirements.

You should make sure that you met the above requirements before applying. For enquiries, please consult the VSE Coordinator at University of Oregon.

Course Offerings for Spring Term 2021 at University of Oregon

APPLICATION CLOSED

Students must submit an application online before:
March 8, 2021 12:00nn Hong Kong Time (UTC+8)

Home universities must submit the list of endorsed students to VSE Central Office before:
March 9, 2021 12:00nn Hong Kong Time (UTC+8)

Click on the course titles to reveal full course details:

Number of Credits	4
Offering Department	College of Arts & Sciences
Course Teacher	Prof. Lynn Stephen
Language of Instruction	English
First Day of Class	Mar 29, 2021
Last Day of Class	Jun 11, 2021
Course Component	Lecture	Discussion
Mode of Teaching	Synchronous	Synchronous
Meeting Time	Tue & Thu 1215-1345	To select one session from: Fri 0930-1030 Fri 1100-1200 Fri 1230-1330 Fri 1400-1500
Time Zone	UTC-7
Restrictions	-
Course Description	This class explores the impact and meaning that chocolate has had on cultures around the world and on the human body. Cacao and its various products have played important roles in indigenous societies, colonial and post-colonial societies in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe, and in modern industrial nations. We will use the production and consumption of cacao and chocolate through time and across cultures as a way to understand political economy and exchange, racial and ethnic difference, ritual, child and gendered labor issues, industrialization, the construction of taste and its reflection in popular culture and globalization, the role that indigenous and subsequent knowledge of the medicinal use of cocoa have had on its consumption as medicine, and the meaning of socially responsible and sustainable consumption. While centered on concepts that are central to cultural anthropology, this course also draws on linguistic anthropology, archaeology, ethno-history, biological anthropology and concepts drawn from the broadly defined social sciences and humanities.
Points to Note for Students	This course is writing intensive.
Course Outline	English

Number of Credits	4
Offering Department	College of Arts & Sciences
Course Teacher	Prof. Johanna Richlin
Language of Instruction	English
First Day of Class	Mar 29, 2021
Last Day of Class	Jun 11, 2021
Course Component	Lecture	Discussion
Mode of Teaching	Asynchronous	Synchronous
Meeting Time	-	To select one session from: Wed 0930-1030 Wed 1100-1200 Wed 1230-1330 Wed 1400-1500
Time Zone	UTC-7
Restrictions	Prerequisite: Intro to Cultural Anthropology. Students should have some academic background in anthropology.
Course Description	This class explores the culture and political-economy of the contemporary U.S. with a particular focus on race, class, and gender relations. Among the questions we will address are the following: How does anthropology contribute to understanding different social groups, communities, regions and social and political institution in the U.S.? How have anthropologists shed light on complex public policy issues such as poverty and economic insecurity, immigration, the changing labor force, environmental issues, and inequality? How can anthropological tools and frameworks give us a firmer grip on the complex questions facing us as a nation? How do anthropological perspectives on the contemporary U.S. help us grapple with complex and controversial social issues in ways informed by research, including research with social groups often marginalized in public policy discussions of pressing social issues? Anthropologists use a variety of theoretical frameworks and methodologies to study the contemporary U.S. In this class we read and discuss a series of ethnographies that exemplify anthropological research on complex social issues. We will supplement these ethnographies with other social scientific research in order to examine multiple pathways to knowledge and assess the kinds of insights different kinds of research offer. As part of the class, students will have the opportunity to put ethnographic methods in practice through short assignments meant to introduce you to the differences between observing and listening as everyday practices and as research methods. The ethnographies constitute the bulk of the assigned reading for the class. These ethnographies are each relatively recently published, they focus on different topics, and they exemplify different styles of doing the anthropology of the U.S.
Points to Note for Students	This course is reading and writing intensive.
Course Outline	English

Number of Credits	4
Offering Department	College of Arts & Sciences
Course Teacher	Prof. David McCormick
Language of Instruction	English
First Day of Class	Mar 29, 2021
Last Day of Class	Jun 11, 2021
Course Component	Lecture	Discussion
Mode of Teaching	Asynchronous	Synchronous
Meeting Time	-	To select one session from: Fri 0930-1030 Fri 1100-1200 Fri 1230-1330 Fri 1400-1500 Fri 1530-1630
Time Zone	UTC-7
Restrictions	-
Course Description	The goal of this course is to give you the tools you need to lead a more fulfilling and satisfying life, as evidenced by research in Neuroscience, Psychology, Philosophy, and good ole fashion wisdom. We will use the “Head, Heart, Hands” model of learning. Head refers to intellectual knowledge, Heart is emotional intelligence and development, and finally Hands is putting the principles we learn into action. In the “Head” component, we will learn the latest neuroscience research revealing how negative (e.g. stress, anxiety) and positive (e.g. empathy, compassion) emotional states are generated in the brain. We will also explore what new results in psychological science teach us about how to be happier, how to feel less stressed, and how to flourish. In addition to modern scientific studies, we will also examine ancient wisdom on the purpose and meaning of “a well-lived life”. Students meet twice per week for 80 minutes in a large class (100 students max) setting and attend one required 50-minute discussion section each week which provide opportunities to question, debate, and cover in depth many of the topics presented in lecture. In addition, weekly activities allow us to put into practice the principles that we learn in class and discuss in section.
Points to Note for Students	-
Course Outline	English

Number of Credits	4
Offering Department	College of Arts & Sciences
Course Teacher	Prof. David Meek
Language of Instruction	English
First Day of Class	Mar 29, 2021
Last Day of Class	Jun 11, 2021
Course Component	Lecture
Mode of Teaching	Asynchronous
Meeting Time	-
Time Zone	UTC-7
Restrictions	-
Course Description	This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to human wellbeing. We will take a thematic approach to analyzing the factors that impact wellbeing, focusing on health, education, and the environment. The course begins with an introduction, during which we will explore basic perspectives on wellbeing and whether or not something called “wellbeing” is a human universal. The remainder of the course is broken into three major (3-week) thematic sections. The first section focuses on health and wellbeing. Over three weeks, we will explore the relations between nutrition and wellbeing, body image and globalization, and the roles of industrial and alternative agriculture in shaping our bodies, health, and wellbeing. The second section centers around the linkages between education and wellbeing. This section begins by introducing theories from the study of comparative education, and moves on to explore the role of education in sustainable development. As part of this section, we will explore how global economic visions, such as neoliberalism, structure educational priorities. We will explore synergies between health and education by analyzing nutrition education and its linkages with wellbeing. This section will conclude with an exploration of how grassroots educational systems shape wellbeing. The third section of the course focuses on the connections between the environment and wellbeing. Through this section we will first explore the myriad contributions that a healthy environment makes to wellbeing. We will then analyze how connection with nature contributes to wellbeing. We will conclude the course with an examination of how climate change is impacting wellbeing, and how different communities are developing resilience to its impacts.
Points to Note for Students	-
Course Outline	English

Number of Credits	4
Offering Department	College of Arts & Sciences
Course Teacher	Prof. Lesley Jo Weaver
Language of Instruction	English
First Day of Class	Mar 29, 2021
Last Day of Class	Jun 11, 2021
Course Component	Lecture
Mode of Teaching	Asynchronous
Meeting Time	-
Time Zone	UTC-7
Restrictions	-
Course Description	There is no such thing as biological human race. So how did race become such a salient social category around the world? And why does it persist? Working from a historical and cultural perspective, this course first explores how race came to be a key principle of social organization in Western Europe and how it spread around the world through colonialism and extractive capitalism. After a brief review of the biology of race, the remainder of the course explores critical case studies of present-day race systems around the world, with a focus on structural racisms and current events. Global case studies rotate each term and may include the USA, India, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, and others. Student grades will be based largely on a research paper and presentation examining the origins and operations of race in a global location of their choosing.
Points to Note for Students	This course is reading and writing intensive
Course Outline	English

Number of Credits	4
Offering Department	College of Arts & Sciences
Course Teacher	Prof. Allison Madar
Language of Instruction	English
First Day of Class	Mar 29, 2021
Last Day of Class	Jun 11, 2021
Course Component	Lecture	Discussion
Mode of Teaching	Asynchronous	Synchronous
Meeting Time	-	To select one session from: Thu 1100-1200 Thu 1400-1500 Thu 0930-1030 Thu 1530-1630
Time Zone	UTC-7
Restrictions	-
Course Description	This course examines the invention of America—socially, culturally, economically, politically—in the colonial, revolutionary, and early national periods (roughly, through the 1820s). It is the first term of a three-quarter introductory survey of United States history; each term may be taken separately, and students are not obliged to take all three terms. History 201 satisfies Group Requirements as a social science course and Multicultural Requirements as an American cultures course. Using chronology as a framework, this course will focus on major themes, issues, and circumstances that continue to matter in the history of the United States—including environmental transformation; colonialism and expansionism; immigration; economic development; slavery, "race," and ethnicity; ideas and practices of freedom and equality; civil and human rights; technological innovation and transformation. As a survey it cannot be exhaustive in its coverage, nor does it emphasize the simple accumulation of facts. Instead we encourage students to expand their understanding of the past by situating facts within contexts—the "big picture"—and to develop their abilities to think and write analytically and historically. Specific attention will focus on the experiences of various Americans—famous and inconspicuous; Native, African, European; women, men, children; free and unfree; poor, middling, and rich. The course will examine their interactions with each other and their "New World," and their roles in determining the course of American social, political, and economic development. We will address as well the environmental context of early American history, examining how environments shaped life and in turn were modified ("improved" and degraded) by human action. Students in this course should not merely "consume" history but produce some of their own. We will grapple individually and collectively with a variety of "primary sources"— the evidence historians examine to reconstruct and interpret the past—and develop skills in historical detection, analysis, proper use of evidence, and writing. Confronting the sources, students should learn not only about the early American past but how history is constructed by historians.
Points to Note for Students	This course is reading and writing intensive
Course Outline	English

Number of Credits	4
Offering Department	College of Arts & Sciences
Course Teacher	Prof. Ellen Scott
Language of Instruction	English
First Day of Class	Mar 29, 2021
Last Day of Class	Jun 11, 2021
Course Component	Lecture	Discussion
Mode of Teaching	Asynchronous	Synchronous
Meeting Time	-	To select one session from: Thu 1400-1500 Thu 1530-1630 Thu 1700-1800 Fri 0930-1030 Fri 1100-1200
Time Zone	UTC-7
Restrictions	-
Course Description	Our world is structured by unequal social relations that permeate all aspects of our lives. All societies have systems of stratification which result in the unequal distribution of economic, social, and political resources. These systems of stratification are complex, pervasive, and persistent yet highly variable. Focusing primarily on the United States, we explore the structural bases of inequality by examining three intersecting stratification systems: class, race, and gender. We also examine individual and collective experiences of people differently located in these systems of stratification. Through lectures, discussions, and videos, we will think critically about social inequality, and how that's reflected in our own social worlds and our personal experiences.
Points to Note for Students	-
Course Outline	English

Course enrollment is subject to final approval from your home university and the course offering university. Please contact the APRU VSE Coordinator of your home university for credit transfer information.