Summer on campus isn’t just sunsets at Memorial Union Terrace and campfires at Picnic Point. Each year, the College of Letters & Science offers a range of unique, engaging summer courses that give students the opportunity to explore new interests and learn from expert instructors. Here’s a look at some of this summer’s most unique offerings.
Vampires
This summer students are sinking their teeth (or fangs) into the evolution of vampires across cultures, time periods and media. While Folklore 327: Vampires may seem like an excuse to revisit Twilight or “The Vampire Diaries,” this popular four-week course extends beyond modern favorites to trace vampire folklore back to its earliest roots.
Among the instructors leading the course is Finn Shepherd (MA’23), a PhD candidate in the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+, whose own interests in pop culture share similar nostalgia. Despite his research focusing on internet memes on German and Dutch subreddits, he grew up reading Twilight and considers the show “What We Do in the Shadows” a personal favorite.
“I’ve learned about vampires through different forms,” Shepherd says. “But now it’s great to be on the other side to actually teach people about them.”
The course content takes students on a journey starting with the folklore origins of vampires in Transylvania before moving into Victorian classics such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Students also analyze vampires on screen, including the 1922 Nosferatu and Tod Browning’s 1931 film adaptation of Dracula, before eventually diving into modern vampire depictions.
“So, of course, we’re talking about Twilight,” Shepherd says.
Along the way, students may be introduced to vampire stories that challenge familiar assumptions, including that most vampires are male. One text Shepherd is particularly excited to cover is Octavia Butler’s Fledgling, a newer reimagining of the vampire that combines traditional vampire characteristics with more human qualities.
“It’s a very interesting text, because we’re examining it through the frame of Black girlhood and Black women and how they’re oversexualized,” Shepherd explains.
Beyond simply introducing students to a variety of vampire stories, Shepherd hopes the course leaves students with a new perspective on the media they consume and a better understanding of how folklore continues to influence current discussions on race, gender, sexuality and power.
“I hope that students have more of that critical view of vampiric media,” he says. “And they’re able to connect what they learned in the class and say, ‘Oh, I’m watching this new vampire film, and I can see these qualities of the folkloric vampire.’”
The History of Palace Culture
When most people think of palaces, they likely picture princesses, fairytales or even “Game of Thrones.” But History 229: The History of Palace Culture encourages students to take a comparative, global approach to examining palaces in the pre-modern world — while still making room for “Game of Thrones” along the way.
Instructor Tiffany Van Winkoop, a PhD student in the Department of History whose research looks at gender performances of non-men in the urban center of Constantinople, says that this course stems from both her own academic interests and longtime fascination with palaces themselves.
“I love palaces. If I am in Europe, I’m hitting a palace,” Van Winkoop says. “This is really an outlet for me to explore that in an academic way.”
This history course looks at palace culture through weekly case studies covering nearly every continent, from ancient Mesopotamia and Imperial China to the Aztecs and Byzantium. “Except Antarctica, because penguins haven’t built us palaces yet,” Van Winkoop jokes.
Each week focuses on different key themes, such as politics, religion, art and gender, allowing students to compare how palaces function across cultures and civilizations. Van Winkoop wants students to investigate what palaces actually represent.
“Why is it that castles, palaces, fortresses are so ubiquitous across the pre-modern world?” she asks. Throughout this course, students are invited to question who had access to these spaces and how they shaped, and continue to shape, power structures and society.
Van Winkoop emphasizes that “even though we’re looking at isolated palaces, none of the people are in isolation.” So, rather than concentrating on rulers and elites, the curriculum examines the workers, religious figures and everyday people who move through these palaces.
In designing this course, Van Winkoop sought to prioritize an engaging and creative online format. For instance, after reading about Constantine VII and his palace culture, students will draw out the scene themselves, visualizing everything from the mechanical birds to the emperor’s dramatic throne. In another assignment, they will consider the Red Keep from “Game of Thrones” to think about how fictional palaces draw on historical palace traditions and continue to resonate with modern audiences.
While many of these palaces were built thousands of years ago, Van Winkoop notes the importance of re-examining the narratives surrounding them to find new meaning.
“It’s funny to think that even something that happened one thousand years ago, we can have new knowledge and ideas about,” she says. “History is always a growing field; none of this is static.”
Summer Blockbusters
School’s out, it’s hot, and there’s no better escape than a dark, air-conditioned movie theater. From Jaws to Barbie, the students taking Communication Arts 313: Summer Blockbusters are exploring the iconic films that have defined our summers for generations.
Samantha Janes (MA’22) is a communication arts PhD student whose research is rooted in classical Hollywood — think the low-budget pictures of the ’30s and ’40s. She is thrilled to be teaching the course this summer.
“I’m excited to pivot and look at the high-budget movies,” says Janes. “This class is a really fun way to flex my skills on this era of contemporary Hollywood.”
Over the course of four weeks, students will analyze roughly 16 films that trace the rise of the summer blockbuster. The syllabus moves from the emergence of the genre in the 1970s, through the defining directors and spectacles of the ’80s and ’90s, and finally to the global blockbusters that dominate film culture today.
According to Janes, summer blockbusters are far more than entertainment.
“They’re a very big part of modern film culture,” she says.
As the backbone of much of the film industry, these big-budget films reflect historical, stylistic and technological shifts over time. By studying blockbusters, students can grasp how Hollywood has evolved and why certain movies resonate with audiences.
Yet the moviegoing experience today looks very different from what it did when Jaws first hit theaters. In the age of endless at-home entertainment, is there still room for the summer blockbuster?
Janes states that while streaming has “created a bigger platform for more films to come out, it also changed the playing field for what is considered big budget anymore.” Examining this shift encourages students to consider how the blockbuster continues to evolve alongside new viewing habits and technologies.
Despite the rise of streaming, Janes believes that “the summer blockbuster is alive and well,” emphasizing that “we are seeing a rise in movie-going again.” Just look at “Barbenheimer” — the simultaneous release of Barbie and Oppenheimer in July 2023 drew millions of moviegoers back to theaters.
While her students will complete this course with a stronger understanding of blockbuster history and the evolution of the film industry, Janes also hopes they simply enjoy the experience.
“I really want them to understand how much their thoughts and ideas about these films matter,” she says. “Popular media is influencing everything around them.”