Creative Communities

Summer 2024 CCCX 200 – Creative Communities Courses

• COLL 299: Topics in Creativity and Social Justice

  This interdisciplinary rotating topics course explores creative practice across the breadth of disciplines offered at Columbia College Chicago and the myriad ways in which artists engage with issues of power, privilege, and justice through their work. Students will research and discuss social justice issues and artists’ creative interventions, as well as how these events are shared and communicated with others. Through this engagement with artistic cultures, communities, and histories, students will respond by creating their own new creative work, analysis, and commentary.

  Section 01: LGBTQ+ Social Health Equality
  Taught by: Derick D. Jones, Jr. (Science and Mathematics)
  May 28-June 29, 2024 (UA 1st 5 Week Session)
  Wednesdays, Fridays, 11:00 am-3:30 pm, 618, #LL01

  Sophomore Standing or Above (SO)

  In this course, we will delve into the dynamic interplay between social and healthcare practices in the 21st century, specifically focusing on their impact on marginalized creatives, with an emphasis on the Chicago community. Through interdisciplinary exploration, we will analyze the intersection of science, gender, and art in shaping societal narratives, and critically examine the effects of illicit pharmaceuticals on marginalized groups, including queer, womxn, and BIPOC communities. Exploring historical contexts, students will gain insight into pharmaceutical integration and the broader implications of the 'war on drugs.' During Pride Month we will engage in community immersion activities, documenting overlooked experiences and histories within the LGBTQ+ community. The course will culminate in a collaborative project to develop an educational website advocating for healthcare equality and social justice. 

  Any student who demonstrates financial need through a completed 2023-24 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) will be reviewed for scholarship eligibility, and may be awarded up to full tuition for this 3 credit hour course. 

  This class will fulfill CCCX or ELAS Core credit as needed. 

  Please see the Social Justice and Creativity Institute page for more information.

• CCCX 217: Environmental Justice

  Section 01: Culture of Climate Change
  Taught by: Michelle Yates (Humanities, History and Social Sciences)
  May 28-June 29, 2024 (UA 1st 5 Week Session)
  WEB Asynchronous

  In this class we will learn about climate change and the ways in which writers, artists, filmmakers, activists, journalists, and scholars respond to this issue, arguably the most important and challenging issue facing human societies and global species. Through assignments that introduce its causes and impacts, we will explore the intersectional environmental, social, economic, and cultural dimensions of climate change. We will identify how humans and their activities have exerted powerful forces on the planet, giving rise to what scholars debate as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Students will critically analyze relevant source material, including readings, data, media, and art and design objects and experiences. We will consider the disproportional impacts of increasingly eroding environmental conditions on poor and marginalized communities in the United States and globally as well as how these communities advocate for environmental and climate justice. Students will draw on their own interests and skills to investigate and articulate their understandings of climate change and its impacts, and to envision possible outcomes.

Fall 2024 CCCX 200 - Creative Communities Courses

• CCCX 211: Chicago Performs

  Section 01: Theatre Through Our Lens
  Taught by: Albert “Bill” Williams (Theatre)
  Wednesdays 12:30-3:20 pm, 618, #LL01

  Section 02: Theatre Through Our Lens
  Taught by: Albert “Bill” Williams (Theatre)
  Fridays 12:30-3:20 pm, 618, #LL01

  This course will introduce students to the diverse and ever-changing topography of the Chicago theatre community, including the role of theatre-making at Columbia College Chicago. Texts will include excerpts from critical works on performance practice, mission statements of representative theatre companies, scenes from plays drawn from the respective seasons of Chicago theatre companies we will visit, and scenes from the Mainstage season at Columbia College Chicago. From this course, students will be able to articulate many of the creative practices of and pressing issues facing theatrical production in Chicago (and the national theatre community) writ large. Moreover, by engaging with the Columbia community and Chicago theatre companies and practitioners, students will be provided opportunities to generate their own theatrical content and formulate their own theatrical aesthetic in ways that may contribute to theatre-making and critique in Chicago and beyond. Students will develop a final project that will demonstrate their ability to create and/or foster interdisciplinary, socially engaged theatrical work.

   

• CCCX 213: Listening to the City

  Section 01: Listening to the City
  Taught by: Rami Gabriel (Humanities, History, and Social Sciences)
  Thursdays 3:30-6:20 pm, 618, #LL02

  This course explores communities connected through sound.  Such communities form through networks both local and virtual, coalescing around shared interests in particular genres and venues, roles and expertise, economies and missions.  Through reading, deep listening, discussion, and construction of sonic artifacts, students will engage with foundational theories of auditory culture while they encounter the city through sound. 

• CCCX 214: Social Objects

  Section 01: Tabletop Games and Communities
  Taught by: Brendan Riley (English and Creative Writing)
  Mondays 9:00-11:50 am, 618, #LL01

  “I’ve got two stone. Who has some sheep to spare?” “Will you take St. James place for Marvin Gardens?” “My dexterity check succeeds. I stab the orc in the eye.” “I call.” Human beings have been playing games for a very, very long time. From the ancient games of SENET and UR to party games like Cards Against Humanity, we gather around tables to have fun with our friends, and to meet new ones. In this course, you will explore the vibrant world of tabletop games and game communities. You will: play games from a variety of genres and types, read and apply critical theory to explore how games work and how they’re designed, interact with game communities (both in Chicago and around the world), and begin designing your own game.

• CCCX 215: People, Power, and Narrative

  Section 01: The 1619 Project Chicago
  Taught by: Jeanne Petrolle (English and Creative Writing)
  Mondays 12:30-3:20 pm, 618, #LL01

  Using the 1619 Project as a storytelling model, students will study the Native American communities that occupied the Chicagoland area in 1619, and then develop their own origin stories for the city of Chicago.  

  Section 02: Unsung Heroines
  Taught by: Gabriela Díaz de Sabatés (Humanities, History and Social Sciences)
  Tuesdays 3:30-6:20pm, 618, #LL01

  In this course students will learn about the wide range of women’s life stories in the Chicago metropolitan area and beyond, establishing connections between the local and the global. Women’s life stories are of importance because they invent, reform, and refashion personal and collective identity. By taking this course, students will learn about the narrative nature of life experiences by exploring the process of knowing about, listening, and telling of life stories. This class uses an intersectional approach, which takes into consideration markers of identity such as gender, sexual identity, class, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, etc. Throughout the class, students will be exposed to communities of interest, practice and/or purpose that Chicago women inhabit, create, and participate in, while exploring the relationships among their stories embedded within creative ecosystems, discussing issues of advocacy and the advancement for gender equity and social change. It is important to note that, in this class, the term “woman" is not understood as a concept based on essentialist and narrow notions rooted in biology, but rather as one that is inclusive of all persons who identify as women, in the broadest sense.

  Section 03: Latino Voices
  Taught by: Elio Leturio (Communications)
  Tuesdays 3:30-6:20 pm, 618, #LL02

  Section 04: Latino Voices
  Taught by: Elio Leturio (Communications)
  Wednesdays 3:30-6:20 pm, 618, #LL01

  In this course, students will learn about the wide range of life stories of Latino communities in the city. Hispanics and Latinos make up the largest minority group in the United States and their stories are of great importance because they have been part of the American landscape for centuries. Nevertheless, these stories continue being overlooked or told by others who lack the understanding of this multiethnic community whose roots come from many Latin American countries in North, Central and South America. By taking this course, students will learn about the narrative nature of Hispanic/Latino life experiences by inquiring, learning, and explaining their histories (identifying similarities and differences) thus avoiding perpetuating stereotypes. Throughout the course, students will explore diverse communities in which Latinos across Chicago live, create, and participate. Students will also engage in discussing issues of immigration, advocacy, language, religion, culture, ethnic background, class, and the advancement for racial equity and social change. As collaborative work is an essential component of this class, students will work in groups to discuss practices and content and to develop their final group presentations. 

• CCCX 217: Environmental Justice

  Section 01: The People Vs. Plastic: Reduce & Re(f)use
  Taught by: Sebastian Huydts (Music) 
  Tuesdays 12:30-3:20pm, 33, #302

  Plastic once seemed the answer to address countless daily material challenges in human life. Our class will investigate our current over-dependence on plastic, the effects of its indiscriminate use on a global scale, and how plastic has now permeated all ecosystems of the planet, including the Chicagoland Metropolitan Area. How are petroleum-based plastics and climate change related? (How) Do Chicagoland’s current civic, business leaders, and NGOs promote sustainable alternatives and how do these efforts compare to peer cities? (How) is the area improving? Students will explore the origins of the plastics industry, and how local, state, and federal policies, regulations, and practices came to favor single-use plastic. They will investigate the massive environmental degradation caused by plastics and how this affects people across social strata in often inequitable ways. Through multiple readings, documentaries, demonstrations, class discussions, small research projects, and guest presentations, students will reimagine the responsible use of plastics. Examples from cities worldwide will be studied to identify successful approaches, including recycling, reusing, and researching alternatives that might be applicable to Chicago. In final group projects, students create small-scale interventions that raise awareness to promote behavioral change in consumers and manufacturers alike, focusing on sustainable solutions. 

• CCCX 218: Joyfulness and Well-Being

  Section 01: Joyfulness and Well-Being
  Taught by: Jessica Young (Dance)
  Wednesdays 9:00-11:50am, 618, #LL02

  Section 02: Joyfulness and Well-Being
  Taught by: Susan Imus (Dance)
  Wednesdays 3:30-6:20pm, 618, #LL02

  What makes you joyful? What prevents you from experiencing joyfulness? How is joyfulness related to your well-being? This course examines how experiences of joyfulness and well-being are culturally situated and how such states can be cultivated through physical, mental, social, cultural, and spiritual practices. You will draw upon your lived experiences and engage your creative interests in arts, media, and communication as a means of informing these practices. Through engagement with community resources at Columbia and the wider Chicago area as well as critical analysis of introductory readings and viewings in joy, pleasure, resilience, and the body/mind/spirit relationship, you will expand upon and strengthen your self-care and community care practices to optimize your bio-psycho-social-cultural-spiritual well-being. Some classes require mild to moderate movement.

Spring 2024 CCCX 200 - Creative Communities Courses

• CCCX 211: Chicago Performs

  Section 01: Committing Acts of Theatre
  Taught by: Steph Shaw (Theatre)
  Tuesdays 3:30pm-6:20pm, 618, #LL02

  Folks can be forgiven for thinking that Chicago theatre stops at Steppenwolf, the Goodman, or Chicago Shakespeare.  But there is a community of roughly 200 small theatres in the city, all of them facing extinction daily, and none more so than the experimental theatres (with the exception of the Neo-Futurarium, which continues to flourish.) Students in the class will become familiar with options that exist and the long history behind alternative theatre; how expectations came to be set, and then changed, and then changed again. Time will be made to examine how the Columbia College theatre department is examining alternative ways of approaching theatre (especially during the pandemic.)  The class itself will grow into a close community as it creates, presents, and responds to one another’s personal work. 

  Section 02: Theatre Through Our Lens
  Taught by: Albert "Bill" Williams (Theatre)
  Wednesdays 12:30pm-3:20 pm, 600, #101 

  This course will introduce students to the diverse and ever-changing topography of the Chicago theatre community, including the role of theatre-making at Columbia College Chicago. Texts will include excerpts from critical works on performance practice, mission statements of representative theatre companies, scenes from plays drawn from the respective seasons of Chicago theatre companies we will visit, and scenes from the Mainstage season at Columbia College Chicago. From this course, students will be able to articulate many of the creative practices of and pressing issues facing theatrical production in Chicago (and the national theatre community) writ large. Moreover, by engaging with the Columbia community and Chicago theatre companies and practitioners, students will be provided opportunities to generate their own theatrical content and formulate their own theatrical aesthetic in ways that may contribute to theatre-making and critique in Chicago and beyond. Students will develop a final project that will demonstrate their ability to create and/or foster interdisciplinary, socially engaged theatrical work.

  Section 03: Ecosystem of Chicago Comedy
  Taught by: Grace Kessler Overbeke (Theatre)
  Thursdays 12:30pm-3:20 pm, 618, #LL01

  Chicago is at the center of a vibrant comedy scene, including sketch comedy, improvisation, musical comedy, stand-up, and more. This course, offered under the umbrella of “Chicago Performs,” examines the ecosystem of Chicago comedy, ranging from highly produced theatrical comedies at institutions like Steppenwolf, to the underground comedy scene at roving locations like “The Shithole.” The class particularly foregrounds the role that Columbia College Chicago and CCC alumnae play in the larger comedy scene. Each week asks different guiding questions exploring what makes Chicago comedy distinct from that of other locations. When investigating a comic form, we will ask not only where and how it is practiced, but also what larger social roles the comic performers and creative team are playing. How much comedy is produced by individuals, and how much by cooperatives and institutions? How many comedy institutions have an educational component? Corporate partnerships? Community outreach elements? Students will learn through a variety of modes, including discussions, guest-speakers, and site-visits, as well as through digital humanities projects like mapping the Chicago comedy scene and its ‘migration patterns.’

  Section 04: Theatre Through Our Lens
  Taught by: Albert "Bill" Williams (Theatre)
  Fridays 12:30pm-3:20 pm, 618, #LL01

  This course will introduce students to the diverse and ever-changing topography of the Chicago theatre community, including the role of theatre-making at Columbia College Chicago. Texts will include excerpts from critical works on performance practice, mission statements of representative theatre companies, scenes from plays drawn from the respective seasons of Chicago theatre companies we will visit, and scenes from the Mainstage season at Columbia College Chicago. From this course, students will be able to articulate many of the creative practices of and pressing issues facing theatrical production in Chicago (and the national theatre community) writ large. Moreover, by engaging with the Columbia community and Chicago theatre companies and practitioners, students will be provided opportunities to generate their own theatrical content and formulate their own theatrical aesthetic in ways that may contribute to theatre-making and critique in Chicago and beyond. Students will develop a final project that will demonstrate their ability to create and/or foster interdisciplinary, socially engaged theatrical work.

• CCCX 212: Fashion Ethics and Aesthetics

  Section 01
  Taught by: Lauren Downing Peters (Fashion Studies)
  Wednesdays 9:00am-11:50am, 618, #LL01

  This interdisciplinary course engages the city of Chicago as a site for investigating the ethics and aesthetics of contemporary fashion. Building on the foundational experience of the first semester Big Chicago courses (and specifically, "Chicago Fashion Tribes"), this course frames fashion as one of the most polluting and exploitative global industries as well as a creative medium through which designers can challenge inequality and further environmental and social justice initiatives. In thinking broadly about the ethics of fashion, this course takes a deep dive into tough topics such as environmental sustainability, fast fashion, sweatshop labor and style piracy, and will introduce students to local groups who are using the medium of fashion to effect meaningful change in Chicago and beyond. Through site visits, participant observation, craft-based workshops and community partnerships, students will be challenged to develop an understanding of the place they occupy in the fashion system, to devise actionable solutions to the myriad problems plaguing the industry, and to hone their creative and critical voices as future leaders in the fashion industry.

• CCCX 213: Listening to the City

  Section 01
  Taught by: Rami Gabriel (Humanities, History, and Social Sciences)
  Mondays 12:30pm-3:20pm, 618, #207

  This course explores communities connected through sound. Such communities form through networks both local and virtual, coalescing around shared interests in particular genres and venues, roles and expertise, economies and missions. Through reading, deep listening, discussion, and construction of sonic artifacts, students will engage with foundational theories of auditory culture while they encounter the city through sound.

• CCCX 214: Social Objects

  Section 01: Social Objects
  Taught by: Andrew Causey (Humanities, History, and Social Sciences)
  Thursdays 9:00am-11:50am, Hybrid, 618, #LL01

  This course encourages students to explore some of the diverse ways that human groups create and use material objects, including but not limited to: decorative art, clothing, gifts, utilitarian items, religious icons, modes of transportation, digital "things," and communication devices. Students will engage with current theories of the material world; examine case studies about the manufacture, trade, and use of objects from around the world; investigate how objects mediate relationships among individuals and community groups; and create their own "social objects."

  Section 02: Artist Letters & Mail Art
  Taught by: Ames Hawkins (English and Creative Writing)
  Fridays 12:30pm-3:20pm, 618, #LL02

  What inspires artists and poets to write letters to each other? How does letter writing inform creative practices and enhance collaboration? Each week, we will read specific artist exchanges and explore different instances of mail art. Through multiple textual examples that acknowledge multiple ways of knowing (e.g. experiences of black, brown and indigenous artists/writers; queer and trans artists/writers; people with disabilities, etc.), we will explore some of the purposes and affordances of letter writing as they have been connected with and to the creative ecologies of a wide variety of artists, writers, and poets. This course is an experiential one. Each week we will begin with a brief meditation and/or somatic exercise to help you ground and engage in weekly letter-writing activities. These activities balance internal and external connections by inviting you to write to people you do and do not know as you consider what it means to create and connect with and to creative communities in and beyond our class. Overall, the class invites you to explore how you might apply these principles in your own creative work.

• CCCX 217: Environmental Justice

  Section 01: Pharmaceutical Culture
  Taught by: Derick D. Jones, Jr. (Science and Mathematics)
  Tuesdays 12:30pm-3:20 pm, 618, #LL01

  We will explore the importance of the pharmaceutical industry and how it has impacted the culture of various communities in Chicago. We will discuss how people respond biologically and chemically to these chemicals. We will examine how the opioid epidemic is directly related to the history of pharmaceuticals being integrated into marginalized communities as recreational goods and the systemic impact it has on prisons and the mortality from an overdose. We will explore how this has impacted communities pre- and present-day pandemic. We will investigate how the opioid epidemic has shaped our economy, law, politics, communities in Chicago, and the stereotypical narratives that ensue. As a final project, we will envision and propose measures to improve approaches in communities impacted by the opioid crisis, using prevention, restorative, or other means.

  Section 02: Culture of Climate Change
  Taught by: Michelle Yates (Humanities, History, and Social Sciences)
  Wednesdays 9:00am-11:50 am, WEB

  In this class we will learn about climate change and the ways in which writers, artists, filmmakers, activists, journalists, and scholars respond to this issue, arguably the most important and challenging issue facing human societies and global species. Through assignments that introduce its causes and impacts, we will explore the intersectional environmental, social, economic, and cultural dimensions of climate change. We will identify how humans and their activities have exerted powerful forces on the planet, giving rise to what scholars debate as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Students will critically analyze relevant source material, including readings, data, media, and art and design objects and experiences. We will consider the disproportional impacts of increasingly eroding environmental conditions on poor and marginalized communities in the United States and globally as well as how these communities advocate for environmental and climate justice. Students will draw on their own interests and skills to investigate and articulate their understandings of climate change and its impacts, and to envision possible outcomes.

  Section 03: Troubled Waters
  Taught by: David Dolak (Science and Mathematics)
  Wednesdays 12:30pm-3:20pm, 618, #LL02

  In this course students explore the importance of water resources to various communities and ecosystems in Chicago, a city that was founded because of water and whose natural waterways were altered to build a great metropolis. They examine how this process displaced the original inhabitants, altered ecosystems, displaced wildlife, and how access to water for recreation and consumption without effective and egalitarian policy-making can affect some communities unequally, create and perpetuate inequality. Students investigate the nature of water as a finite resource and how changing demographics, politics, and climate uncertainty may challenge existing narratives of water abundance, scarcity, access, and quality for various communities in and around Chicagoland. In a final project, they envision how responsible stewardship of the shoreline or the river could provide more communities with access to Chicago’s waterways and water resources.

  Section 04: Culture of Climate Change
  Taught by: Sebastian Huydts (Music)
  Thursdays 9:00am-11:50 am, 618, #LL02

  In this course students explore how the connections between nature and environmental resources, policy making, advocacy, and issues of sustainability affect urban communities and ecosystems. Diverse non-human animals and plants coexist in the urban landscape with humans, contributing to the overall well-being and joy of city dwellers. Students learn about communities interacting with and changed by natural resource protection, conservation, restoration, pollution, and environmental justice. The course investigates the activities and worldviews of those reimagining alternative interactions between humans and other life to support sustainable, equitable, resilient, and healthy cities. 

• CCCX 218: Joyfulness and Well-Being

  Section 01: Joyfulness and Well-Being
  Taught by: Susan Imus (Dance)
  Wednesdays 3:30 pm-6:20 pm, 33, #421

  Section 02: Joyfulness and Well-Being
  Taught by: Jessica Young (Dance)
  Thursdays 3:30 pm-6:20 pm, 618, #901

  What makes you joyful? What prevents you from experiencing joyfulness? How is joyfulness related to your well-being? This course examines how experiences of joyfulness and well-being are culturally situated and how such states can be cultivated through physical, mental, social, cultural, and spiritual practices. You will draw upon your lived experiences and engage your creative interests in arts, media, and communication as a means of informing these practices. Through engagement with community resources at Columbia and the wider Chicago area as well as critical analysis of introductory readings and viewings in joy, pleasure, resilience, and the body/mind/spirit relationship, you will expand upon and strengthen your self-care and community care practices to optimize your bio-psycho-social-cultural-spiritual well-being. Some classes require mild to moderate movement.