Welcome, undergraduate students! Below you’ll find a list of the latest course offerings at UD that engage significantly with material culture. Don’t forget to check out the amazing grant opportunities sponsored by CMCS.
Fall 2026 Courses
Uapp629 – Historic Preservation Theory and Practice
Professor Fesak
Analysis of the theory underlying historic preservation in the United States and globally, including its history and evolution over time. Examines the impact of preservation laws and public policies, and the strategies and regulations for identifying significant structures, sites, and cultural heritage worthy of preservation.
*Counts towards the graduate Certificate in Historic Preservation.
Uapp654 – Architecture of Everyday Life
Professor Morrissey
Understanding and interpreting everyday buildings and landscapes by seeing the built environment through a physical lens (material, construction, style and plan) and social lens (gender, class, race) and from the perspective of multiple disciplines.
*Counts towards the graduate Certificate in Historic Preservation.
Woms336 – Feminist Cultural Studies
Professor Stetz
Situates cultural forms created by women in historical context. Novels, poems, television, plays, rituals, film, paintings, music, electronic media, technology, sculpture, food, clothing and/or architecture reveal perspectives of women’s time, class, nation, race, and ethnicity. Relates feminism, gender and the production of culture. Topic: “Fashioning the New York Woman”
Arth175 – Hipsters in Headdresses: Native American Art in Popular Culture
Professor Horton
Princess Pocahontas, Washington Redskins, Jeep Cherokee: What makes images of Native Americans so popular yet controversial? Examines past and present representations in United States and global popular culture.
Engl385 – Animals, Animality, and Literature
Professor Yates
It is difficult really to imagine stories that do not include animals. Sometimes they are bystanders; other times they are narrators; antagonists; metaphors; objects of allegory. So, what do animals do when they appear in stories? How are they used to mark the boundaries of humanness? Taking up questions of animal writing, the genre of the speaking animal story, and thinking hard about what writing is, this course introduces you to the field of critical animal studies. In addition to reading key theoretical/philosophical texts on animal intelligence and the human, we will read a wide variety of fiction, poetry, children’s literature, philosophy, science, history, and cultural theory.
Artc301 – Care and Preservation of Cultural Property I
Professor Hagerman
This undergraduate course will introduce students to the museum environment, the concepts of preventive conservation, the ten agents of deterioration, and the management of these agents within the heritage preservation environment. It will provide students with hands-on preventive conservation and object examination projects, as well as opportunities to develop skills of observation, materials identification, written communication, oral presentation, peer reviewing and teamwork.