The School of Arts & Humanities is again participating in JSU’s Explore Seminar program by offering two seminars that address this year’s theme of Multiculturalism and Diversity. The Explore Seminar program has an annual theme that changes each year. The purpose of the program is to provide a course delivery system that allows for an academic response to current events and trending issues, so that students may take advantage of faculty expertise, join others in critical analysis, collaborate to create solutions, and participate in academic debate about today’s problems. This semester, seminars are being taught in English and history.

In EH 195, taught by Kimberly Southwick-Thompson, students will discuss race and racism in America through their study of poetry and hip hop in order to create lasting and effective change and sustain support of anti-racist actions. The history seminar, HY 195, traces the roots of the Black Lives Matter movement, which began by three Black women in 2013. Taught by Antoinette Hudson, students will learn about slavery, emancipation, the Civil Rights movement, and the present unrest as they work to understand the origins of the BLM movement by tracing the story of Blacks in America from the early days of American slavery to the present.