Courses taught
Click on the name of a course to see its description.
[expand title=”WGSS 298: Teaching and Learning in Carceral Spaces (Spring 2023/Laura Ciolkowski)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton
[/expand]
[expand title=”Math 100: Basic Math Skills for the Modern World (Winter 2022-2023/Annie Raymond)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton
Course description: We will cover the following topics: sets, applications of Venn diagrams, introduction to probability, basic concepts of probability, conditional probability, independent events, Bayes’ theorem, the multiplication principle, permutations, combinations, probability applications of counting principle, binomial probability, probability distributions; expected value, frequency distributions; measures of central tendency, measures of variation, the normal distribution, normal approximation to the binomial distribution, slopes and equations of lines, linear functions and applications, the least squares line, solution of linear systems by the echelon method, solution of linear systems by the Gauss-Jordan method, addition and subtraction of matrices, multiplication of matrices, matrix inverses, graphing linear inequalities, solving linear programming problems graphically, applications of linear programming, the simplex method, graph theory.
[/expand]
[expand title=”WGSS 192C: Monster Culture: Literature, Art, History (Fall 2022/Laura Ciolkowski (co-taught with Anthony Tuck from Hampshire College))” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Hampshire County Jail and the Franklin County Jail
[/expand]
[expand title=”WGSS 395J: Imagining Justice (Fall 2022/Laura Ciolkowski)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Western Massachusetts Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee
This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the critical, aspirational, artistic, and creative forms that Justice takes in literature and the humanities more broadly. What sorts of ethical, social, and political questions are animated by writers and thinkers who seek to imagine and build a different world? What are the tangled roots of inequality and the legacies of sexual, racial, economic, and ecological injustice? How do writers, poets, artists, and freedom dreamers,
as Robin D.G. Kelley so memorably called them, labor to expose injustice and re-invent our universe? Ursula Le Guin has written, We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable.
Taking Le Guin’s focus on the radical imagination as a starting point, this course explores the relationship between literature, the arts, and a wide range of social justice projects. Topics will include: Afrofuturism; utopian and dystopian fiction; art, politics and social justice; bioethics and literature; antebellum slave narratives and fictions of restorative and transformative justice; mass incarceration and prison literature; diaspora studies and literary and artistic representations of movement, forced migration and displacement.
[/expand]
[expand title=”WGSS 192: Monstrosity and Modern Culture (Spring 2022/Laura Ciolkowski)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Western Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center
[/expand]
[expand title=”WGSS 195: Gender-Society-Culture (Spring 2022/Laura Ciolkowski)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Western Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center
[/expand]
[expand title=”WGSS 395J: Imagining Justice (Fall 2021/Laura Ciolkowski)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Western Massachusetts Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee
This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the critical, aspirational, artistic, and creative forms that Justice takes in literature and the humanities more broadly. What sorts of ethical, social, and political questions are animated by writers and thinkers who seek to imagine and build a different world? What are the tangled roots of inequality and the legacies of sexual, racial, economic, and ecological injustice? How do writers, poets, artists, and freedom dreamers,
as Robin D.G. Kelley so memorably called them, labor to expose injustice and re-invent our universe? Ursula Le Guin has written, We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable.
Taking Le Guin’s focus on the radical imagination as a starting point, this course explores the relationship between literature, the arts, and a wide range of social justice projects. Topics will include: Afrofuturism; utopian and dystopian fiction; art, politics and social justice; bioethics and literature; antebellum slave narratives and fictions of restorative and transformative justice; mass incarceration and prison literature; diaspora studies and literary and artistic representations of movement, forced migration and displacement.
[/expand]
[expand title=”WGSS 201: Gender and Difference: Critical Analyses (Spring 2021/Laura Ciolkowski)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Western Massachusetts Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee
An introduction to the vibrant field of women, gender, and sexuality studies, this course familiarizes students with the basic concepts in the field and draws connections to the world in which we live. An interdisciplinary field grounded in commitment to both intellectual rigor and individual and social transformation, WGSS asks fundamental questions about the conceptual and material conditions of our lives. What are gender
, sexuality
, race
, and class
? How are gender categories, in particular, constructed differently across social groups, nations, and historical periods? What are the connections between gender and socio-political categories such as race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, (dis)ability and others? How do power structures such as sexism, racism, heterosexism, and classism and others intersect? How can an understanding of gender and power enable us to act as agents of individual and social change? Emphasizing inquiry in transnational feminisms, critical race feminisms, and sexuality studies, this course examines gender within a broad nexus of identity categories, social positions, and power structures. Areas of focus may include queer and trans studies; feminist literatures and cultures; feminist science studies; reproductive politics; gender, labor and feminist economics, environmental and climate justice; the politics of desire, and others. Readings include a range of queer, feminist and women thinkers from around the world, reflecting diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives in the field.
[/expand]
[expand title=”WGSS 396: Imagining Justice (Fall 2020/Laura Ciolkowski)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Western Massachusetts Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee
This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the critical, aspirational, artistic, and creative forms that Justice takes in literature and the humanities more broadly. What sorts of ethical, social, and political questions are animated by writers and thinkers who seek to imagine and build a different world? What are the tangled roots of inequality and the legacies of sexual, racial, economic, and ecological injustice? How do writers, poets, artists, and freedom dreamers,
as Robin D.G. Kelley so memorably called them, labor to expose injustice and re-invent our universe? Ursula Le Guin has written, We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable.
Taking Le Guin’s focus on the radical imagination as a starting point, this course explores the relationship between literature, the arts, and a wide range of social justice projects. Topics will include: Afrofuturism; utopian and dystopian fiction; art, politics and social justice; bioethics and literature; antebellum slave narratives and fictions of restorative and transformative justice; mass incarceration and prison literature; diaspora studies and literary and artistic representations of movement, forced migration and displacement.
[/expand]
[expand title=”Math 197C: Introduction to Math Modeling and Coding (Spring 2020 – stopped midway because of COVID-19/Annie Raymond)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton
Course description: This course is an introduction to both mathematical modeling and to coding. Models and simulations help us make sense of the world. Physical, biological, and social systems are complex and chaotic. Through modeling and coding, we can abstract systems like these in useful ways. The main goal of the class is to learn how to translate real-world problems into quantitative terms and to implement these models in Python to simulate them computationally in order to yield interesting interpretations of these problems, suggestions of improvement and future predictions.
By the end of the course, students should be able to
- 1. Create models of different kinds of systems (e.g., populations, thermal systems, mechanical systems) using multiple kinds of appropriate abstractions (e.g., free-body diagrams, stock-and-flow diagrams), validate the predictions of your models using different approaches (e.g., estimation, physical laws, analytical solutions), and use your models to do useful work (e.g., make predictions, explain behavior, evaluate design decisions).
- 2. Use Python to implement models, run simulations, work with data, and generate visualizations, and demonstrate development of key computational skills (e.g., software development, debugging, problem decomposition, functional abstraction).
- 3. Be a critical consumer of models (e.g., by assessing a model that you encounter and evaluating whether it is appropriate and useful for a given purpose). Understand the opportunities and responsibilities involved in creating and using models.
[/expand]
[expand title=”Math 100: Basic Math Skills for the Modern World (Spring 2019/Annie Raymond and Nathaniel Whitaker)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton
Course description: We will cover the following topics: sets, applications of Venn diagrams, introduction to probability, basic concepts of probability, conditional probability, independent events, Bayes’ theorem, the multiplication principle, permutations, combinations, probability applications of counting principle, binomial probability, probability distributions; expected value, frequency distributions; measures of central tendency, measures of variation, the normal distribution, normal approximation to the binomial distribution, slopes and equations of lines, linear functions and applications, the least squares line, solution of linear systems by the echelon method, solution of linear systems by the Gauss-Jordan method, addition and subtraction of matrices, multiplication of matrices, matrix inverses, graphing linear inequalities, solving linear programming problems graphically, applications of linear programming, the simplex method, graph theory.
[/expand]
[expand title=”Journ 497J: Social Justice Journalism: Mass Incarceration (Fall 2017/Razvan Sibii)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton
This is an explanatory journalism class with an emphasis on the intractable structural issues confronting contemporary American society. Each iteration of the course will focus on one such issue (e.g., immigration, mass incarceration, gender inequality, racism in higher education), and will seek to work in collaboration with at least one NGO and one media institution. Students will report and produce a variety of journalistic stories pertaining to the chosen issue. They will also read and discuss professional and scholarly literature on subjects related to social justice/advocacy journalism (such as the question of journalistic objectivity, framing, media effects & agenda setting).
[/expand]
Other activities
Click on the name of an activity to see its description.
[expand title=”Lecture Series (Fall 2019)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton
Organized by Annie Raymond, this lecture series featured the following topics and speakers:
- Math magic by Annie Raymond
- From Segregation to Department Head With a Lot of Help Along the Way by Nathaniel Whitaker
- The Attack on Urban Neighborhoods by Jonathan Wynn
- Psychology of Peace and Violence by Quinnehtukqut McLamore
- Social relationships among different animal species by Nikki Lee
- Supreme Myths about the High Court by Paul Collins
- Memory and the brain by Rosie Cowell
- Theories of Crime by Wenona Rymond-Richmond
[/expand]
[expand title=”Math Circle (Fall 2018/Annie Raymond with Nathaniel Whitaker as a special guest)” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton
Math Circles aim to present math in a different way through puzzles and experiments. Among many others, topics explored that semester included how to split a cake (or rent!) in an envy-free way way, how to pair and marry off people so that no couple gets divorced, and how to cross rivers.
[/expand]