Archaeology has always captured public imagination. Today, ideas about ancient past circulate widely online, where pseudoarchaeological theories can reach ever-larger audiences. TikTok and YouTube have become major platforms for shaping how ancient history is represented, distorted, and re-invented. Study looks at how ancient Near East--from Egypt to Iran--appears in this information landscape. Examination of popular online narratives about ancient civilizations, lost knowledge, and nature of archaeological truth claims. Using examples drawn from online content creators and podcasters alongside scholarly readings, exploration of how pseudoarchaeology works and why certain stories about past spread so easily. Students reflect on how to engage with online sphere as viewers, sharers, and creators. Students consider their collective role in shaping how ancient past circulates today.

Lara Fabian is an assistant professor and the director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and a core faculty member of the Archaeology IDP. Her research focuses on pre-Islamic Iran, and particularly the empires of the Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sasanians. She is a field archaeologist with an excavation project in the South Caucasus, and is also interested in the history of the discipline of archaeology in its various global permutations, and the ways in which we in the present are constantly reinventing the past.

Class inspired by power of words to unite and divide, as well as to conquer and liberate. Exploration of interrelationship of language, identity, and power in post-communist European countries. Study inspired by power of words to unite and divide, as well as to conquer and liberate. Department language instructors join class periodically. Study based primarily on discussion of assigned readings and multimedia materials. Class meets March 31, April 14, 28, May 12, 26.

Roman Koropeckyj is Professor of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures at UCLA. He received his B.A. at Columbia University and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is the author of two award-winning books on Poland's national poet Adam Mickiewicz as well as a number of articles on Polish, Ukrainian, and Little Russian literatures.

In 1926 Henry Ford famously declared that technological advancement would liberate humanity from drudgery and tedious labor, creating time for leisure, art, and play. Similar dreams were promised by global communications, automation, Internet, and now artificial intelligence (AI). As research and news reports already expose, liberation of human potential comes at expense of exploitative labor and extraction of natural resources. AI has also shifted knowledge and creative industry, homogenized culture, shifted language and writing practices, and changed human thinking. Time usually dedicated to tedious work (searching for answers, thinking about questions, struggling through writing or creative prompt) are moments in which creativity and entrepreneurship happens. Study confronts contradiction of AI liberation and human creativity by using classroom as space for reimaginination of how to learn, think, and be creative in post-AI world. Class meets April 7, 21, May 5, 19, June 2.

Cindy Anh Nguyen is Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles with appointments in Information Studies, Digital Humanities Program, and Asian Languages & Culture. Her transdisciplinary research examines the historical and socio-technical production of knowledge in Southeast Asia through libraries (Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam, UC Press 2026), encyclopedia, visual media, and language through feminist and critical approaches. She is also a public scholar and community artist. See her work cindyanguyen.com

Study promotes learning and preservation of Cantonese language through Cantonese opera The Ballad of Mulan and popular songs. It reveals impact of Cantonese culture on Chinese poetry, American history, and literature. Students learn Cantonese by studying this opera; watching performances of Cantonese opera excerpts (Purple Hairpin Pickup from Purple Hairpin Saga and Fragrant Sacrifice from The Flower Princess); and reading Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior (1976 National Book Critics Circle Award winner), which resounds to Cantonese cadence and idioms. Cantonese Opera is a UNESCO Immaterial Heritage of Humanity. Work to preserve Cantonese language has engaged nonprofit community partners such as Asian Pacific Community Fund, Save Cantonese Organization, Perfect Harmony Cultural Exchange Association, Chinese New Life Women's Club, Southern California Cantonese Association, and Lion's Club. May include guest speakers who discuss their efforts to be innovative and entrepreneurial in ensuring its survival. Class meets April 10, 24, May 8, 22, June 5.

King-Kok Cheung is UCLA Research Professor of English, Professor Emeritus of English and Asian American Studies, and Special Advisor of the US-China Education Trust. She is author of Articulate Silences and Chinese American Literature without Borders (both monographs have been published in Chinese), An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature, Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography, and co-editor of The Heath Anthology of American Literature, and the 2023 recipient of the Association of Asian American Studies Lifetime Career Achievement Award.

Learning and practice go in tandem to link environmental, literary, and cultural studies. Tai chi--which originates from Taoist and Buddhist traditions--addresses need for catholic inclusion: to practice care for people of all colors, gender, class, nationalities, ages, sexual orientations, and disabilities. In one sense, it illustrates yin-yang principle of this unique art: more mindful one is of oneself, more one redounds to welfare of one's community. Tai chi practice, according to both scientific studies and common observations, offers mental and physical health benefits to those who cannot afford gym membership, expensive coaching, sports equipment, medications, time, or home or open space. Environmental principles for learning tai chi, qigong, or other martial arts are natural or regulated breathing and commitment to clean air and green space for all. Immediate goal is for students to experience firsthand the healthful effects of Tai chi, and to learn uncanny connection between literary and martial arts; this practice may also foster sense of community. Class meets April 10, 24, May 8, 22, June 5.

King-Kok Cheung 张敬珏is UCLA Research Professor of English 2024-, UCLA Professor Emeritus of English and Asian American Studies, and Special Advisor of the US-China Education Trust (USCET). Born and raised in Hong Kong, she received her PhD in English from UC Berkeley. She is author of Articulate Silences and Asian American Literature without Borders. Master Yun Zhao is a cofounder of the Yi Shui Training Center of Martial Arts:https://www.facebook.com/YiShuiCMA/.

Study of centrality of animal to articulation of human, and resultant silencing of numerous nonhuman species signified by former term. Whether as pet or pest, object dissected in lab or food carved at table, symbol or referent, nonhuman animal looms large though often silent, but still shaping what it means to be human. In living amid, researching, collaborating with, consuming, and above all thinking through nonhuman animal, humans construct who or what they are and how they differ from those deemed to be other than themselves. Exploration of human-animal interactions or intersections across diverse cultures, periods, and disciplines. Students read literary and legal excerpts, and some of latest scientific research on human-animal dichotomy/dualism: research that invites rethinking property status of nonhuman animals.

Arvind Thomas is a medievalist who works on the intersection of law and literature in Latin, German, and English literature. Arvind teaches courses on medieval literature, and increasingly on food studies. Arvind has also been working on critical animal studies and its relevance to questions of human and non-human rights and environmentalism.

In public debates about prisons, rarely does one have access to voices of prisoners themselves on how incarceration impacts their education, let alone on matters of law and justice. Consideration of extent to which incarcerated view their time behind bars as time for education, reflection, and even literary production that engages with world outside. Study looks at how literature that some of them produce behind bars can help people think through, or rethink, concrete limits of law and abstract ideals of justice; and education itself, and its role in reformation and rehabilitation of those incarcerated. Students are motivated to reflect on prisons as spaces for discussion and dissent about topics including surveillance, due process, race, gender, culture, and human and animal rights. Study covers writings of prisoners ranging from uncontroversial heroes to controversial inmates. Potentially includes work and talk by John Rodriguez, formerly incarcerated and recently graduated UCLA student.

Medievalist interested in the rich linguistic (and cultural) diversity of the so-called "middle ages," Arvind Thomas works with texts written in Middle English, Latin, and German. On a related note, he has been teaching in the areas of critical animal studies and food studies. His second-book manuscript has just been greenlit for a contract with Cambridge University Press. His first book is entitled "Piers Plowman and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages" (University of Toronto Press, Winter 2019)

Introduction to expanding field of space humanities, area that examines how ideas about space shape culture, identity, ethics, and public imagination. Exploration of how scientific advances, technological ambition, and commercial space ventures shape stories that societies tell about future, from planetary exploration to possibility of life beyond Earth. Study draws from anthropology, arts, history, media studies, and philosophy. Study offers tools to analyze how images, narratives, and policies guide understanding of space. Investigation into how space exploration expresses human hopes, uncertainties, and inequalities. Examiation of how space exploration reshapes concepts of governance, responsibility, and belonging. Through discussion, case studies, and creative inquiry, class encourages thoughtful engagement and students' imagination of more inclusive and ethical space future. Class meets April 8, 22, May 6, 20, June 3.

Felipe Cervera is Director of the Centre for Performance Studies and Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at UCLA. His book project, Celestial Acts: Performance and Planetary Politics, is an ethnography of space artists working within the commercial space industry. Forthcoming work includes 'Theatre, Ecology, Outer Space' for The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Ecology (Carl Lavery, ed.).He facilitates the Planetary Performance Lab at UCLA and serves on the Committee for the Cultural Utilisation of Outer Space (ITTACUS) of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF)

Focus on career of one of popular music's major innovators, from his glam persona Ziggy Stardust through his late-career masterpiece Blackstar. In between, Bowie experimented with plastic soul, gender-defying fashion, avant-garde music styles during his Berlin Trilogy collaborations with Brian Eno, and various fusions of Black American music and European trends. Examination of his use of film and video as serious tools for extension of his vision. Examination of some major Bowie influences including T. Rex; and regular collaborators such as Carlos Alomar and Robert Fripp. Study also looks Bowie's unique way of covering others' songs throughout his career.

Brian Kim Stefans is a poet, digital artist and theorist. He is a Professor in the English Department.

Examination of resistance filmmaking by Third Cinema, global film movement rooted in Global South 1960s national liberation struggles; and L.A. Rebellion, UCLA-based movement that transformed American cinema and higher education in 1970s and 1980s. Study identifies and interrogates socially impactful filmmaking philosophy practiced at highest levels of aesthetic innovation. Discussion situated in history and legacy inherited by filmmakers at UCLA today. Examination of Reservation Dogs television series to interrogate how it ripples from these two cinema and social action movements. Study promotes development of media and institutional literacy in building bridges across communities. These movements encouraged accountability to communities of diverse and culturally abundant Los Angeles and collective filmmaking where we learn about each other in order to feel for and include each other. Class meets April 6, 13, 20, 27, May 4.

Celine Parreñas Shimizu is Dean of Theater, Film and Television and Distinguished Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media at UCLA. An award-winning filmmaker and film scholar, her latest book is The Movies of Racial Childhoods (Duke, 2024) and her films include 80 Years Later: On Japanese American Racial Inheritance (Women Make Movies, 2022).

Consideration of Africa as site of revolutionary financial invention. While Africa may not immediately come to mind, this continent historically has spawned many innovations often taken for granted in today's modern world. Chief among these is papyrus, world's first writing paper and primary material from 3200 BCE to 10th century. Without it there would be no trace of Homer's Odyssey, Plato's Republic, or even New Testament. As first cashless economy, Ancient Egypt relied on papyrus to record transactions based on silver-and-gold bimetal monetary system. More recently, Africans invented mobile cash payments. Kenya became a financial innovator in 2007 when it launched M-Pesa, enabling users nationwide to send and receive money on personal mobile devices. As pioneer in smartphone-based payment systems, Kenya changed global financial landscape. Class designed as forum to consider place of Africa in global financial innovation. Class meets April 1, 15, 29, May 13, 27.

Throughout career, Lydon has had a sustained interest in Africa's financial history. Lydon first researched African banking systems, before publishing a book chapter on Senegal's first bank established in the mid-nineteenth century. Their first book examined the reliance on writing paper for the management of trans-Saharan caravans. Second book, which is almost finished and also will be published by Cambridge University Press, considers the role of North African paper-making traditions and their place in world history. Lydon is excited to get students interested in African economic history.

Frank Zappa's 1966 first album included harangue against social repression by so-called brain police and Mr. America, and searing critique of social processing of 1965 Watts Rebellion in Los Angeles. Long before he thought to run for president in 1991, Zappa transformed pop music forever. His greatest influence was on progressive rock--current sweeping from England to Italy in turbulent confluence of musical and social defiance. Following Zappa and others, Italian Progressive Rock turned away from cooing romance songs to intellectual and political engagement. Between Marxian uprisings and neo-Fascist calls for order--and 1970s that saw Italy almost ruptured by civil war--social warriors like Area and Banco composed anthems against oppression and incarceration, so complex as to leave no listener indifferent. As others like Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) and Museo Rosenbach stressed, any high commitment to justice also required high attunement of mind and soul. Students listen to and analyze albums of noted artists of the genre. Class meets April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29.

Professor Thomas Harrison, half Italian and half American, is a dedicated fan of rock and jazz music, both international and American. An amateur musician (bass and flute), he spent his formative years in Rome, Italy. In addition to his regular assignments in European literature and film, he has taught several Freshman Seminars on British and Italian progressive rock, including Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and rock lyrics. He may, indeed, be one of the few people still around who saw both The Beatles and Hendrix perform live

Students journey with maestro Leonard Bernstein to explore evolutionary origins of musicality. Survey of 19th and 20th-century Western music history. Students develop understanding of music processing in brain; and how it sheds light on causes of autism, other developmental disorders, and degenerative brain disease.

Patrick Whelan MD PhD is a pediatric specialist at UCLA, and also teaches at USC and Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard in biochemistry, and has PhD and MD degrees from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He is a past president of the Los Angeles Pediatric Society and helps run their summer program for high school students. His research interests pertain to vasculopathies and neuroimmune problems in children. He has been a choral conductor through the years, and since 2022 has been teaching a Harvard graduate course in music psychology.

Survey of some Broadway musical engagements with disability as theme, in representation and embodiment, and in terms of practices. Possible focus on Deaf West Theater productions of Big River and Spring Awakening, Daniel Fish's Oklahoma!, and The Music Man. Study may also look at several musicals dealing with neurodiversity directly including Next to Normal, Light in the Piazza, and Man of La Mancha.

Raymond Knapp is Distinguished Professor of Musicology, Disability Studies, and Humanities at UCLA, where he directs the Center for Musical Humanities. His books include The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity, The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity, The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical (coedited), Making Light: Haydn, Musical Camp, and the Long Shadow of German Idealism, and The Oxford Handbook of the Television Musical (coedited, forthcoming). At UCLA, he has won the Distinguished Teaching Award and delivered the Faculty Research Lecture.