kursiloi, or courses I have taught, which have shaped my thinking

  • A close-up of multiple types of lichen encrusting a tree. Stacked densely, they range in color from light greenish blue to speckled dark brown. One grows from one branch toward another.

    Representations: Presenting Realities and Realizing New Worlds in Film

    From TikToks and Instagram reels to the proliferation of longer features, we live more saturated with film than ever since the genre’s inception 130 years ago. This course explores the political, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions of film from their co-creation to their audience consumption. Students practice film politics by producing a short video for their final.

    Photo: Sara Maaria Saastamoinen

    course flyer
  • A view of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak in the late afternoon with haze from air pollution obscuring views across Victoria Harbour.

    More-Than-Human: Law and Politics Beyond the Borders of the Human

    This course grapples with texts, films, and works of art that critically engage with how humans are always enmeshed in the environment. Moving across distinct, diverse geographies from the Arctic to the Pacific, the course considers how environmental politics and more-than-human relations are practiced and represented across various cultural contexts.

    Photo: Sara Maaria Saastamoinen

    course flyer
  • A black ringed seal sticks their big brown eyes, nose with large round nostrils, and water droplet-covered whiskers and eyebrows above the blue waves of Lake Saimaa in Karjala (Finland)

    Worlds: Radical, Abundant More-than-Human Futures

    Engage in the practices of dreaming, designing, and evaluating possible futures to co-create ones that better serve your communities. We foreground futures making and kinship collectives that pursue radical, abundant presents and futures and engage more-than-human communities across multiple temporalities in the projects of futures.

    Photo: Heikki Kurkela via Suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto

    course flyer
  • Protestors walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset carrying a large flag of the United States of America with the names of victims of police violence written on its red and white stripes. Prominently written across is George Floyd's name.

    Bodies: Making American Politics

    This course considers how particular bodies constitute, construct, and complicate American politics. We will ask what mechanics undergird American politics. Who and what are sacrificed to create visions of America? Guest speakers include voting and queer rights activists, cyber security experts, and climate change mitigation specialists.

    Photo: Todd Heisler for The New York Times

    course flyer
  • Golden yellow lichen and light green-gray lichen grown on a piece of wood.

    Collective: Futures in the Making

    Dreaming and creating futures is always collective. Who do we collaborate with to make futures? Who, what, when, and where do we carry into future(s) in our collective imaginations? How can we create conditions of possibility for abundant, collective futures?

    Photo: Efraimstochter from Pixabay

    course flyer
  • Brightly colored green, blue, yellow, orange, and white ghost-net stitched together to create a panel of coral by artist Marion Gaemers with the Erub Arts Centre in the Torres Strait.

    Water: Politics of Power and Protest

    We examine pasts, presents, and futures of water and what that means for our communities and ecologies. We navigate Indigenous relationships to water and water protection, infrastructures of water management, water-related natural disasters and catastrophes, water scarcity narratives, rights to/of water, and water as sustenance for community building.

    Photo: Marion Gaemers, “Coral Panel 2”

    course flyer