OER Archive

The below Open Educational Resources (OERs) were created by participants in the 2020 Redesigning Modernities Workshop, and may be used by instructors at Penn State or beyond to develop courses and curricula. Each OER is a “module” that can be inserted into a larger course. 

Open.Ed@PSU: Open Educational Resources Hosted by the College of EMS graciously houses Redesigning Modernities’ OERs at present. Each link to an OER directs to its location within Open.Ed@PSU: Open Educational Resources Hosted by the College of EMS. 

Roger Casement, the International Rubber Trade, and Human Rights (1901-1916)

Suitable for introductory or survey courses in the humanities, this module focuses on the last fifteen years of the life of the diplomat and human rights advocate Roger Casement (1864-1916), which included his investigation of abusive practices on the rubber plantations of the Congo Free State and in the Putumayo District of the Amazon, as well as involvement with the Irish independence struggle. Because of the connection to the international rubber trade, the final years of Casement’s life illuminate the connections between colonialism, extraction, labor exploitation, and questions of human rights. The public revelation of Casement’s homosexuality in his conviction for treason by the British enables conversation about the history of gay rights in relation to these topics.

Link to OER

“I Can’t Breathe”: International Responses to the BLM Movement

This module is intended for students interested in having a global perspective on the impact of George Floyd’s death and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Students will survey BLM in the U.S. context and its international iterations around the globe by addressing the complexity of race in relation to social justice, political oppression, and the role of the media and technology. Through the assigned materials, students will grasp the ways in which racism manifests across cultural contexts and local histories, with particular attention to the regions of Central Europe (Germany and France), East Asia (China, South Korea, and Japan) and Latin America and the Caribbean (Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic).

Link to OER

Modernity Unmoored: Ships as Material and Metaphor

Reading Black Lives Matter

This module, intended for use in introductory humanities courses, will be an interdisciplinary, comparative analysis of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Students will compare/contrast popular narratives about BLM with stated goals of movement participants. They will also consider the place of BLM in larger historical narratives. Students will be encouraged to move beyond initial assumptions, and instead ask the questions that humanist scholars ask of such texts and events. In the process, students will:

• gain a more scholarly understanding of the goals, methods, organizational and social philosophy, complexity, and identity of BLM;
• understand the place of BLM alongside other civil rights movements in the post-Civil War era; and
• better understand the complex relationship between social movements and public opinion.

Link to OER

Sugar and Servitude: The Taste of Color

This module provides resources for teaching about the artistic practice of Kara E. Walker and its interrogation of whiteness and race. Materials also support teaching an overview of the history of the production, consumption, and meanings of sugar, particularly as that history has contributed to the Transatlantic slave trade and continues to depend upon coercive labor practices in the U.S. and globally. Included is a list of artworks produced by Walker that touch specifically on sugar and links to videos of the artist describing aspects of her practice; academic and literary texts that can inform students’ ability to read Walker’s complex visual texts; discussion questions and classroom activities to further their engagement with the material; and ideas for culminating projects.

Link to OER  

Christopher Columbus: Commemoration and Controversy

This module enables students to reflect critically and in an historically informed way on how Christopher Columbus has come to signify both belonging and exclusion in the United States. The two-week module explores four discrete themes: colonization, focusing on the four voyages and their immediate consequences; the mythical female figure of Columbia in the U.S.; the creation and circulation of Columbus as an Italian American icon; and the recent protests and debates concerning statues and other commemorative images and rituals. The material includes essays by historians and folklorists, journalistic coverage, Columbus’ own writings, sample protest petitions, and examples from popular culture. These resources offer perspectives on the protest movements of 2020 that brought to fore fundamental questions about America itself.

Link to OER

Artistic Responses to the Zong Massacre (1781)

Suitable for introductory or humanities survey courses, this module offers teaching resources for a unit on the 1781 Zong massacre. It focuses on artistic responses to the massacre and on how the massacre is a representative event of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The module includes artworks and texts that could be used in the classroom, discussion questions and activities, and a culminating writing prompt. This module invites students to reflect on the gaps in the colonial archive and to think about the role of art and literature in shaping understandings of historical events. It also provides students with an opportunity to recognize how the dehumanizing logic of slavery shaped modernity and how black artists challenge its legacy through their work.

Link to OER

Asylum Narratives

Over three units entitled “Asylum Stories, Three Beginnings,” “Stories of Law,” and “Detention/Narratives,” it introduces basic concepts and questions relating to the study of political asylum and refugees as they are posed at the intersection of literature, art and law. The module uses Viet Thanh Nguyen’s collection The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives as the central class text in addition to documentaries, art, media representations, and documents from history, law and psychology. It also introduces, especially relevant to our Pennsylvania location, Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, a sanctuary program for persecuted writers.

“Asylum Narratives” is conceived as a week-long module for a General Education humanities class, ideally of about 25 students or fewer to allow for open and trusting debate.

Link to OER

Lapis Lazuli 

Lapis Lazuli is a bright blue semiprecious stone, first known only in remote mountains in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and more recently in Brazil. This module explores lapis lazuli’s use first in the production of high status objects in the Ancient world (Ancient Near East, Rome, etc.) and then its use as an expensive blue paint pigment. Since the process for extracting ultramarine blue pigment from lapis lazuli is so long and labor intensive, true ultramarine is still one of the most expensive pigments in the world. You will be able to read about and watch videos detailing the ultramarine extraction process, as well as the production and use of some alternatives to ultramarine blue.

Gold

In this two-part module, developed by Heather McCune Bruhn and Sarah J. Townsend, we will explore gold. First we’ll look at gold as a substance and examine how it is obtained from the earth (along with some of the dangers and consequences involved). Next we’ll examine what makes gold so important: its allure and symbolism in Prehistory, as well as in the Ancient and Medieval world. Then we’ll look at the importance of Africa as a source of gold throughout the centuries before exploring some ways of working gold. Part II of this module examines the extraction of gold in the Amazonian region of South America, focusing on its impact on the environment, indigenous people, and the miners themselves.

Modernism’s monsters 

The modern era is full of fears. The more we know about our world, the more frightening it can be, and the 1950s were a time in which the threat of nuclear war, fears of communist takeovers, and new advances in science were all combining to make the modern world a very frightening place. This fear was reflected in art and in popular culture, particularly in inexpensive B-movie science fiction films. This module explores some of that fear, and the artistic and popular works inspired by it. Watch out for the giant ants!

Ochre

Ochre, which is essentially rust (iron oxide), is humankind’s first pigment, and one of the most plentiful sources of color on earth. Ranging from red to orange, yellow, brown and even violet depending on trace minerals and moisture levels, it is extremely stable and fairly non-reactive. It can be prepared very easily (colored rocks and soil can be crushed, washed, and mixed with a binder to make paint), and was first used by humankind around 100,000 years ago. It is still in use today. This module introduces ochre pigment and explores its use in three case studies: Blombos Cave in South Africa, in Italian Renaissance frescoes, and in environmental cleanup.