Together with Humanities
Courses
Together with Humanities courses feature collaborative instruction and explore themes of language, community, and power across a wide range of disciplines.
Our co-taught courses and course clusters engage with a diverse group of languages and cultures, including American Sign Language, Dagbani, Dari Persian, Sanskrit, Spanish, and Zapotec.
If you are a faculty member interested in developing a course for Spring 2026 or beyond, please see our Call for Proposals!
Fall 2025
Portraits of Disability and Difference (WRPR 118) / American Sign Language I (LING 011)
Kristin Lindgren, Kaitlyn Parenti
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:30-3:55 p.m. (WRPR 118)
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 5:30-6:55 p.m. (LING 011)
This course cluster links a first-year Writing Seminar with a full credit American Sign Language (ASL) class. The Writing Seminar explores visual and literary portraits and self-portraits of bodies marked by difference as well as those with non-visible differences. How do portraits, essays, and novels by disabled and culturally Deaf creators challenge traditions of portraiture and literary representation? How does this work enlarge cultural and aesthetic views of embodiment, disability, and difference? The ASL course, in which students will be introduced to the language and cultural values of the American Deaf community, intersects with the seminar's exploration of representations of deafness and Deaf culture. Students in both courses will attend workshops and events with author Rachel Kolb and an ASL poet.
Structure of Colonial Valley Zapotec (LING 215) / Introduction to Zapotec (LING 010)
Brook Danielle Lillehaugen, Felipe H. Lopez
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:30-3:55 p.m. (LING 215)
Thursdays, 7:30-9:55 p.m. (LING 010)
This course cluster engages students in Indigenous-led public facing scholarship and language learning centered around Zapotec, a family of Indigenous languages of Oaxaca, Mexico. In LING 215, students will collaborate on the Ticha project, a digital humanities project that makes a corpus of colonial era archival manuscripts written in Zapotec accessible to a global audience. This class is paired with a full credit course that serves as an introduction to Dizhsa (San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec) language, incorporating the cultural context in both Oaxaca and the diaspora. Together, these courses encourage multifaceted engagement with Zapotec language, scholarship, and culture, supporting Indigenous-led language work in co-constructed and collaborative ways.
Inquiries into Black Study, Language Justice and Education (EDUC 208)
Alice Lesnick, Sabea K. Evans, Issah Rajaa-u
Fridays, 11:00 a.m.-1:25 p.m., plus virtual lab 1:30-2:25 p.m.
Meets in Philadelphia
Growing out of the Laɣim Tehi Tuma/”Thinking Together” program (LTT), this course considers the implications for education in realizing the significance of global Black liberation and Black Study/ies—particularly in relation to questions of the suppression and sustenance of language diversity. Through study of Dagbani, the language of the Dagomba people of Northern Ghana, students will explore themes of Pan-Africanism and the African Diaspora situated within the context of Philadelphia, the LTT program, the Dagbani language, and Dagomba cultural learning.
Caste and Power (PEAC 220)
Prea Persaud Khanna, Varun Khanna
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 11:30 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
This course presents a deep study of the caste system, an endogamous hierarchy of human beings with graded levels of purity prominent in South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora, with attention to intersecting modes of power as well as cultural vehicles of caste. In particular, the course examines the role of Sanskrit in the maintenance of caste, exploring its relationship with power structures such as race, religion, gender, and class and navigating the dilemma of studying a revered language that is directly implicated in the maintenance of caste structures. Throughout the class, students will engage with individuals and organizations that are working to end caste discrimination, such as the UC Collective for Caste Abolition, culminating in the co-creation of a library exhibit on the theme of “Moving Toward a Casteless Future.”
Spring 2025
Genocide, Exile, and Resistance: Dari Persian and Hazara Poetry from Afghanistan (RELG/COML 237)
Farid Asadullah, Guangtian Ha
Mondays & Wednesdays, 10:00-11:25am
This course combines intensive studies of the Dari Persian language with hands-on collaborative work of literary translation. As part of the language learning process, students will collate and translate contemporary Hazara Persian poems collected from Hazara poets in exile around the world, culminating in a symposium that brings the poets together to present their work and hold talks on Hazara history and Persian literature. This collaborative translation process will raise wider awareness about issues of immigration, political resistance, exile, home, and language politics in Afghanistan, the U.S., and beyond.
Human Rights: Culture, Language, and Power (ANTH 222)
Zeynep Sertbulut
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 11:30am-12:55pm
This course explores how global human rights are appropriated and translated in various contexts through lenses of “culture” and “language”. How do specific issues become recognized or fail to be recognized as human rights violations? What is the relationship between human rights and language access in social justice? Through a guest speaker series and multimodal projects, students will investigate ways that access to human rights is mediated by language, culture, and power structures in global, local, and personal networks.
Past Courses
Fall 2024
Inquiries into Black Studies, Language Justice and Education (EDUC 308)
Maurice Rippel, Sabea K. Evans, Lucia Gbaya-Kanga, and Madam Issah Rajaa-u
Growing out of the Laɣim Tehi Tuma/”Thinking Together” program (LTT), this course considers the implications for education in realizing the significance of global Black liberation and Black Study/ies—particularly in relation to questions of the suppression and sustenance of language diversity. Through study of Dagbani, the language of the Dagomba people of Northern Ghana, students will explore themes of Pan-Africanism and the African Diaspora situated within the context of Philadelphia, the LTT program, the Dagbani language, and Dagomba cultural learning.
Learning Together: Introduction to Co-Creating with Communities (SPAN 226)
Lina Martínez Hernández, Marguerite Kise
In this class, students will explore different aspects, issues, challenges, and initiatives involved in co-creating social justice projects with communities, both local and international. Through partnership with the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, students will explore themes of Ethical Engagement, Mutuality and Co-Creation, how to build relationships of trust and leadership; and the importance of building multilingual spaces in social justice and migrant justice work, among others. Throughout the semester, the course will invite different community educators and leaders, as well as visit different organizations and communities in Philadelphia. This class will be taught in Spanish and English.
Portraits of Disability and Difference (WRPR 118) / American Sign Language I (LING 011)
Kristin Lindgren, Kaitlyn Parenti
This course cluster links a first-year Writing Seminar with an American Sign Language (ASL) class. The Writing Seminar explores visual and literary portraits and self-portraits of bodies marked by difference as well as those with non-visible differences. How do portraits, essays, and novels by disabled and culturally Deaf creators challenge traditions of portraiture and literary representation? How does this work enlarge cultural and aesthetic views of embodiment, disability, and difference? The ASL course, in which students will be introduced to the language and cultural values of the American Deaf community, intersects with the seminar's exploration of representations of deafness and Deaf culture. Students in both courses will attend workshops and events with ASL poet Ian Sanborn and author Sara Nović.
Structure of Colonial Valley Zapotec (LING 215) / Introduction to Zapotec (LING 010F)
Brook Danielle Lillehaugen, George Aaron Broadwell, Felipe H. Lopez
This course cluster engages students in Indigenous-led public facing scholarship and language learning centered around Zapotec, a family of Indigenous languages of Oaxaca, Mexico. In LING 215, students will collaborate on the Ticha project, a digital humanities project that makes a corpus of colonial era archival manuscripts written in Zapotec accessible to a global audience. This class is paired with a half credit course that serves as an introduction to Dizhsa (San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec) language, incorporating the cultural context in both Oaxaca and the diaspora. Together, these courses encourage multifaceted engagement with Zapotec language, scholarship, and culture, supporting Indigenous-led language work in co-constructed and collaborative ways.