Can We Talk?

Catalog description

One of the most rewarding and challenging parts of human life is communicating across differences, including gender, race, nationality, religion and politics, and power inequities. Such conversations require a desire to learn from difference in both face-to-face and social media settings. Additionally, accomplishing goals in professional settings, such as offering constructive feedback to a team member, require thoughtful communication skills. This course investigates dialogue, discussion, and disagreement in contested communicative contexts involving goals ranging from personal, such as resolving relational disputes, to professional, such as asking for a promotion or raise, to public, such as discussing heated political issues. From this course, students will acquire both conceptual and practical communication skills to assist them in contexts of daily living through a series of questions: When should we take a firm stand on a position and when should we remain silent? How do social media technologies inflame disagreement over differences? How can we take concerns of self and other into account when we disagree?