Presents a case study of an interdisciplinary, graduate-level seminar on the topic of international and business sector differences in approaches to sustainable development. The importance of the course is that it mixed culture, business and environmental sciences in a study of sustainability. The pedagogical structure of the course was designed to enable students to learn necessary skills for interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and cross-business sector communication about environmental issues through their participation in the course. Discusses course design specifics and presents results of a student survey about the effectiveness of the course. Overall, students did find participation in the course helpful for improving their ability to communicate about environmental issues across disciplines, cultures, and industries. Students also highlighted several key cultural aspects that contribute to the different ways in which countries and businesses within them respond to environmental issues.

Comic books and graphic novels offer an excellent way to democratize the classroom and improve student learning by giving them the ability to understand social issues and social institutions in a relatable way. This article is a conversation exploring the validity of comics as tools to teach sociology. Specifically, the article does this through examining the effectiveness of comics as a way to analyze gender, the looking glass self, and the sociological imagination and exploring the use of graphic novels to replace traditional texts in the introductory sociology classroom. If one of our disciplinary goals is to change society for the better by boosting the development of sociological imaginations, looking at comics may give us the best format to do so.

This article explores how Game of Thrones can be used as a pedagogical tool to understand the social model of disability and its essential claim that it is society that disables individuals. Through analysis of main character, Tyrion Lannister, this article works to frame an understanding of disability as socially constructed identity and reveal how the concept of a ‘normal’ body is also a social construction. This article also explores the pedagogical implications of dwarfism as a stigmatized identity in Game of Thrones. Not only can this analysis be used as teaching exemplar to help further understanding of the social model of disability, it can challenge instructors to rethink the ways in which their pedagogy creates a classroom experience that alternately enables or disables.

Like other successful genre shows, Wynonna Earp features a strong female lead character. Wynonna, however, is so much more than a ‘girl with a big ass gun’. In this case study of Emily Andras, I explore how women-centred writing and Andras’s engagement with fans, transformed Wynonna Earp from an overly sexualized comic book character, to a feminist icon, layered with nuance and breaking gender norms faster than revenants can make their peace. Andras’s leadership, her inclusion of LGBTQIA representation and refusal to succumb to the ‘bury your gays’ trope, also helped amass a passionate, loyal fan base that successfully lobbied producers for a fourth season after the show faced cancellation. The success of Wynonna Earp and the ‘Fight for Wynonna’, bolsters the legitimacy of women-led genre shows, women showrunners and producers, and the largely women-identified fan base, who have long loved science fiction, but have not felt accurately represented in male-centric products. Through qualitative analysis of interviews with Andras and Wynonna Earp fans, this article shows how Andras’s voice as screenwriter, leadership as showrunner, and engagement with fans on social media, demonstrates respect for fans as active and valued media partners, rather than market to be exploited.

Near ubiquitous use of electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) during low-risk childbirth constrains both maternal agency and maternal autonomy. An analysis of interdisciplinary literature about EFM reveals that its use cannot be understood apart from broader norms and values that have significant implications for the agency and autonomy of laboring women. Overreliance on EFM use for low-risk women threatens their autonomy in several ways: by privileging the status of the fetal patient, by delegitimizing women’s embodied experience of childbirth, and by constructing EFM data as objective science despite evidence to the contrary. In birth situations defined as high-risk, however, EFM may lead to greater maternal agency by enabling women to choose vaginal over cesarean birth. Viewing doctor-patient interactions as a co-construction in the context of an understanding that sees EFM as a social as well as technological construction may improve autonomy in childbirth.