“Instructors and teaching assistants in the Faculty of Social Sciences are stepping up to provide Spring/Summer course offerings in a wide array of innovative formats that demonstrate our commitment to serve students and carry forward the Brock experience in a safe, COVID-compliant way.”

LING 4V95: Advanced Topics in Applied Linguistics
Introduction to Forensic Linguistics

Professor Rick Welland, Department of applied linguistics

What do the following questions have in common?

• How is language used in legal proceedings?
• How do the police use language during interrogations?
• How well do potentially vulnerable groups, such as people with communication disabilities, fare within the justice system?
• How much can courts rely on voice recognition and earwitness testimony?
• How is authorship determined for anonymous letters and other media?

These are some of the questions addressed within the fascinating field of Forensic Linguistics.

For the very first time, the Department of Applied Linguistics is offering LING 4V95, Advanced Topics in Applied Linguistics: Introduction to Forensic Linguistics.

Superheroes are having a moment. Superhero films have become staples of the blockbuster economy, and superhero television series continue to multiply on both cable television and streaming services.

PCUL 3V90: The Superhero in American Culture

Professor ANNA PEPPARD, Department of COMMUNICATION, POPULAR CULTURE & FILM

Characters known only to dedicated comic book fans as recently as a few years ago have become household names, and comic book publishers, such as Marvel, who were bankrupt not long ago, have become major players in the global media marketplace.

But this moment has a history. The superhero genre began with the 1938 creation of Superman and achieved nearly instant popularity thereafter; within three years of his creation, Superman was a transmedia property, appearing in comic books, newspapers, animated cartoons, and advertising, and dozens of imitators had taken root, many of which are still appearing in comics and films today. Though the superhero genre has had peaks and nadirs, it has been a staple of the popular American consciousness for the past 80 years.

This course investigates our longtime love of superheroes by exploring the conventions and cultural resonances of American superhero comics, television shows, films, and animated cartoons from 1938 to the superhero-saturated present. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between form and content within these distinct visual mediums. We will also explore the influence of political, social, and intellectual movements and interrogate representations of gender, class, race, and sexuality, among other dynamics.

“Economics is often misconstrued as the study of interest rates and stock markets, as opposed to the mode of thinking regarding the efficiency in the allocation of scarce resources, which has much broader applications than is generally recognized,” says Lester Kwong, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department.

ECON 2P34: Economics of Illicit Drugs

Professor Bob Koehn, Department of ECONOMICS

With stories about fentanyl, drug trafficking and the legalization of marijuana saturating news feeds, this course offers students from many disciplines the opportunity to gain a new perspective on illicit drugs.

“Economists have a framework to study all industries. The illicit drug market can be analyzed in terms of demand and supply. However, the illicit nature of the drugs affects both the demand and supply differently from legal markets,” explains Koehn.

The course will cover economic analysis of illicit drugs, Including effects on demand, supply, prices and other market outcomes. Market structure, drug pricing, and price discrimination in comparison to the legal drug market as well as public policy issues such as legalization, costs of addiction, enforcement and punishment will also be discussed.

Environmental Sustainability is a relatively new discipline that combines economics, social and environmental sciences. It seeks to protect the natural environment and ecological health, while maintaining or improving the quality of human life through development.

ENSU 2P01: Introduction to Environmental Sustainability

INSTRUCTOR Christine Janzen, environmental sustainability research centre

GEOG 3Q93: Vancouver Field Course

Professor Mike Ripmeester, Department of Geography and Tourism Studies

“Field courses are a well-established tradition in the discipline of Geography,” says Ripmeester. “One of our early luminaries, for example, Carl Sauer, encouraged geographers to ‘get their boots dirty.’ Today, field courses provide students with the opportunity to observe the ways in which the concepts they learn in lecture play out in actual places and have an immersive experience in which they are able to observe the complicated and complex ways in which cities function.”

But how does a field course take place when travel is out of the question?

To ensure that students have the credits they need to graduate, Ripmeester – who has not taught online before – is rolling up his sleeves to master software and devise creative substitutions to create a comparable experience, even if it is through a computer screen.

“I am hoping to preserve some of the experiential aspects of the field course,” Ripmeester says. “I have also been looking at creating Google Earth Tours, using online tours to complement lecture material, and meshing all of that with some kind of lecture delivery platform.”

The Department of Sociology offers students a unique opportunity to cultivate their intellectual curiosity and social awareness, and to develop their capacity to engage in a critical, informed and self-reflective way with the key social institutions, relationships and processes shaping the world in which they live.

SOCI 2P26: Health, Healthcare and Society

Professor Dennis soron, Department of sociology

While this course has been an online offering from the Department of Sociology for several years, the topics discussed in SOCI 2P26 – including social determinants and inequities in health, population health and social experiences of illness and health, among others – have never been so timely.

“The course is designed to provide students with a broad overview of sociological approaches to health and healthcare, with a particular focus upon issues pertinent to contemporary Canada,” says Soron, Associate Professor and Chair of the department.

“In light of the current situation, I will do what I can to foreground the most timely topics – such as epidemiology, elder care, workplace health, questions of individual vs. collective responsibility – and provide concrete tie-ins for student debate.”