First-Year Seminars are designed to stimulate intellectual curiosity, introduce academic expectations and engage you without regard for future major or minor choices. The seminar topics vary each year, as do the professors who teach them, so the classroom discussions are always fresh and interesting.
Each Seminar is constructed around a different interest, like flight, peace or rock and roll music, and Seminar classes are small - usually only 14 or 15 students - allowing faculty and students to participate in discussions and debates in a small, intimate group. Discussions and assignments are designed to hone writing, speaking, critical thinking and other academic skills that you will draw upon during the rest of their HWS career.
The Seminar instructor will most-likely also be your first-year academic adviser, providing further support as you begin to explore the HWS curriculum. And many Seminars also have an upper-class peer mentor attached to the class who works collaboratively with the instructor and students to support teaching and learning.
In many cases, your roommate and floor-mates will be students from your Seminar so that interesting conversations don't stop when you leave the classroom. The living environment provides a built-in academic and social support net as you make the transition to college life.
Below, you'll find a list of the First Year Seminars being offered during the fall 2009 semester. This year's Seminars cover a wide-range of topics and disciplines, and we're sure you'll find several that interest you. After you've looked over the list and identified the courses that you find appealing, log in to the Orientation Web site and complete the Course Preference Form no later than May 22.
Please note: This page does not contain the most up-to-date version of the courses being offered in the fall. As courses fill up with students, they will be removed from the Academic Direction form, but they may still appear on this page.
FSEM 008 Epidemics and The Promise of Biotechnology
Associate Professor Sigrid Carle '84
Scientists warn that we are long overdue for a worldwide epidemic that will prove more deadly than the influenza epidemic of 1918 and the current AIDS epidemic. The influenza epidemic of 1918 killed between 20 and 40 million people; half the American casualties during World War I were from the flu, not combat. Most viciously, the 1918 flu killed fast; there are many accounts of people dying within 24 hours of getting sick. By comparison, the recent outbreak of SARS was far more deadly. The 1918 flu had a mortality rate of 2.5 percent, while the mortality from SARS was between 7 and 20 percent. Certainly the persistent cases of bird flu in several Asian countries have doctors and scientists bracing for another deadly epidemic. But other scientists believe that we now have tools to combat epidemics and that it is likely that we would be able to contain another global outbreak. Biotechnology provides scientists with a tremendous tool to combat diseases. But will biotechnology be enough to fight epidemics? This course explores the scientific, social, historical and moral issues surrounding control of epidemics. Typical readings include Plague Time by Paul Ewald; Flu by Gina Kolata; The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat by Eric Lax '66, and selected articles from Discover, The New York Times, and Scientific American.
This seminar is part of a Linked-Course Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course BIO 167-04, Intro Topics: Biology of Exotic Species, with Professor Brown. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in biology, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 028 The Moral Animal
Professor Emeritus Jim Crenner
Right and wrong are universal concepts found in all human cultures. But are they innate to human nature - part of our genetic make-up, as some scientists suggest? Or - as some social scientists suggest - do they have be taught to and learned by each individual anew? Are they - as religions suggest - mandated by some higher authority? Or are they - as philosophy suggests - products of human inquiry? Do we make moral choices with a free will, or are they determined by genes and personal history, or fated by chance and other external forces? In this course, we will sample some of the most powerful and interesting attempts to deal with these questions at a variety of times and places. We will read selected religious, philosophical, and scientific texts that probe the issues. Additionally, we will examine a variety of literary texts - memoirs, stories, and plays - that dramatically depict human beings caught up in the process of living life, which is to say, confronting complex and difficult moral choices - choices often vexed beyond the personal by social factors of race, class, and gender. We will analyze the characters' decisions, motives, and actions, and we will ask what we would have done in their place). Typical readings include Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, Robert Wright's The Moral Animal, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Other Stories, the anthology of philosophical writings called The Study of Human Nature, the play Dutchman by LeRoi Jones (a.k.a. Amiri Baraka), and Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House.
FSEM 038 Class, Gender, and Mozart
Professor Patricia Myers
Have you ever thought about the two main categories of drama symbolized by the frowning and smiling masks of tragedy and comedy and wondered why the characters in tragedies like Hamlet or in dramatic series like Dallas are peopled by those with wealth and power, while casts in TV sitcoms are filled with characters from less advantaged walks of life? These class distinctions emerged at least three millennia ago, and they continue to inform our thinking and perception of drama and social relationships, whether in current TV programming or in types of opera. Certainly Mozart, when he composed Italian texted operas for a Viennese audience in the 1780s, kept ideas about gender and class in mind as he wrote opera seria for an aristocratic audience and opera buffa for the middle class. He knew that opera buffa would appeal to middle class envy of the privileges accorded the aristocracy in the legal system at the time, for it depended for its effect on a reversal of the customary power and moral differences thought inherent in class and gender identity. Nowhere is this reversal of value more effectively used than in the three comic operas composed by Mozart on librettos written by Da Ponte. Reading the plots and musical scores of these works provides us great insight into Viennese attitudes about what was considered proper behavior for men and women from the landed aristocracy, middle class, and lowly artisans and servants, and many of the same ideas and values continue to reverberate through society today. Since we will be studying both the words being sung and the music used to set these words, the seminar requires basic reading skills in musical notation of the sort anyone of you who has played in an instrumental ensemble, or sung in a chorus, or who has taken private lessons will have acquired in high school. Typical readings include Da Ponte’s libretti and Mozart’s musical scores for The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni; Steptoe's Mozart's Da Ponte Operas; and articles on the Enlightenment.
FSEM 039 From Feminism to Funk: The Culture & Politics of the 70s
Associate Professor Melanie Conroy-Goldman
In many ways, contemporary events seem to echo the climate of the 1970s. In that decade, too, rising gas prices, an unpopular war, and an economic crisis all dominated headlines. This course considers what might be the relationship between the 70s and the 00s. Can we really learn lessons can we learn from past events? Is it possible that the origins of present trouble lie thirty years in the past? Drawing on contextual readings by a range of historians, students examine writing and cultural objects to consider answers to these and other questions. Texts include novels, essays, political speeches, photographs, music, visual art and film. Typical readings include Schulman, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics; Frum, How We Got Here: the 70s and others. This course focuses intensively on essay writing, and students should expect to spend significant effort on improving their expository skills.
FSEM 040 Fields of Play: Improvisation in Life & Art
Professor Cynthia Williams
Quick! Make a hat out of a rubber band, an old sock, and a map of the northeast! Add on to an unfinished sentence and take it in a new direction. Move across the room staying connected to someone else’s earlobe…sing a nonsense song…draw your autobiography…Sound strange? We use improvisation everyday when we talk with friends, react without thinking to something new, or walk our own pathway to dinner. Artists use improvisation deliberately, to create new melodies, discover unique movements, or create spontaneity on stage. Scientists use improvisation to test new theories, or to go beyond known limits. Business managers use improvisation to encourage creative thinking, solve problems, or to design products. The ability to improvise is innately human, but many of us find it intimidating. We don't like to be "on the spot," we worry about looking foolish, we like to feel in control, and the unscripted possibilities of "anything goes" seem more terrifying than liberating.
Fields of Play: Improvisation in Life and Art is a course for students who want to challenge themselves, and to free their minds and bodies from the same-old, same-old routines. Improvisation is a practice; a discipline that takes many forms but has one pre-requisite: the courage to let go of preconceived plans and trust that your words/actions/expressions are absolutely right for the moment. Each class will involve your participation in improvisatory exercises; each class will demand your total participation as thinking, breathing, moving, emoting selves. Improvisation reveals who you really are. Join us as we improvise, play, dance, sing, act, and live. In addition to the doing of improvisation, we'll study its theoretical underpinnings and investigate how improvisational techniques and theories are applied to the arts, education, politics, and sciences. It's fun, stimulating, and rewarding. Typical readings include Nachmanovitch, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art; Lowe, Improv, Inc. Albright, Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader.
FSEM 042 Face to Face: Interrogating Race in the U.S. and South Africa
Assistant Professor Thelma Pinto, Assistant Professor James McCorkle, Professor George Joseph
This course examines the parallel structures of segregation in the U.S. and apartheid in South Africa. The basic premise is that through the lens of another culture and history, we can come to examine our own. The causes and effects of segregation and apartheid on race relations are the central focus. How race affects gender, class, and social spaces is explored throughout the readings. Taught from the perspectives of professors from South Africa and the United States, the course provides unique insights into the histories of these two countries. Typical readings include archival films and recordings of the speeches of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr.; films and texts such as Desmond Tutu and John Hope Franklin, Journey to Peace; writings such as Coetzee, Disgrace; Higginbotham, Shades of Freedom; Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God;R. Jacobs, The Slave Book; H. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; Magona, Mother to Mother; Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Rubel; The Coming Free; Thompson, A History of South Africa; selections from Bell Hooks, Gwendolyn Brooks, and James Baldwin.
FSEM 045 Reflecting Science
Professor Donald Spector
Science does not exist in a vacuum; it is central to our culture and our society. This seminar will explore the role science plays in our world, and give you a new perspective on its impact and significance. We will first examine how scientists view themselves and their work, through memoirs and popular accounts. Then we will look at the intersection of science and the arts, considering how writers and painters incorporate scientific ideas in their work. Finally, we will consider the public role of science, examining its relevance to political and moral questions associated with terrorism and nuclear power. Typical readings include J. Watson, The Double Helix; A. Lightman, Einstein's Dreams; S. McGrayne, Nobel Prize Women in Science; Copenhagen, M. Frayn; L. Wechsler, "The Looking Glass" (from The New Yorker); R. Preston, "The Bioweaponeers" (from The New Yorker).
FSEM 046 Taking Flight
Assistant Professor Scotty Orr
In this course, we will explore the science, invention, history, and art of human flight. We will see first-hand some of the inventions and contributions of famous aviators in history, and we will learn much about flight from local experts and enthusiasts. We will build our own flying contraptions- from simple paper creations that float freely through the air, to realistic model aircraft that fly under our complete control. We will read and write about flying, and about building things that fly. We will help each other do all of this, and we will show still others the excitement of taking flight. Typical readings include Anderson and Eberhardt, Understanding Flight; Ross, Rubber Powered Model Airplanes; Langewiesche, Stick and Rudder, An Explanation of the Art of Flying; Selected works of non-fiction including biographies, memoirs and historical accounts about aviators and aviation; and various on-line and reproduced documentation and articles related to constructing and flying several types of model aircraft (and other flying objects).
This seminar is part of a Readers College Learning Community: all students in this seminar will be strongly encouraged to take an associated Readers College course with Professor Orr in spring 2010. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 057 Facets of Islam
Professor Susanne McNally
Islam is important. All Muslims are not religious or political extremists, yet the most immediately threatening challenges to Western modernity are emerging from radical Muslim groups. Furthermore, Muslim countries control most of the fuel on which our current lifestyle is based. For these reasons alone, Americans need to understand the Muslim world far better than we presently do. But the defensive dictum to "know your enemy" is only the shallowest reason for studying Islam, which is the fastest growing religion in the world today. Why is that? Students explore with critical but open minds the appeal of this religious tradition and way of life. "Facets of Islam" first constructs a basic but coherent narrative of Islam in history. Then students sample the splendors of Islamic civilization in architecture, science, gardens, and poetry. Students confront honestly some problematic and troubling issues that divide the Muslim worldview from our own. Finally, students remind themselves of the diversity of the Muslim world today in music, food, and festival. Typical readings include Robinson, Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islam World; Viorst, In the Shadow of the Prophet; Von Grunebaum, Mohammedan Festivals; Schaffer, "Southernization"; Said, Orientalism (excerpts); Huntington, Clash of Civilizations (excerpts); Allah, The Holy Koran; Mazrui, "The Resurgence of Islam and the decline of Communism"; Ibn Battuta, Travels; Al Ghazali, On the Duties of Brotherhood; Rumi, Poems; Mandel, How to Recognize Islamic Art.
FSEM 060 Alcohol in College: Myth and Reality
Professor David Craig
Alcohol abuse continues to be a serious problem on college and university campuses across the nation. Participants in this seminar will examine this problem from both natural scientific and social scientific perspectives. Readings will include public health and social science research literature on the scope of alcohol use in college and the theories proposed to explain that use. The natural science literature will be used to explore the pharmacologic effects of alcohol on the brain, related health risks and the relationship of blood alcohol concentration to risk and harm. Seminar participants will participate in ongoing research on the scope and consequences of alcohol use on this campus. Finally, educational models for abuse prevention and harm reduction will be explored and evaluated for effectiveness. Typical readings include Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine, Stephen Braun; Drug Use in America: Social, Cultural, and Political Perspectives, Peter Venturelli; U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Alcohol and Health Special Report to Congress; and selected articles on research conducted on the HWS campus.
FSEM 072 Rock Music & American Masculinities
Associate Professor and Associate Dean Chip Capraro
Elvis, Dylan, the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Hendrix, Springsteen: Truly rock stars. They were also central figures in the history of American rock music from the 1950s to the 1980s. But what kind of men were they? This seminar offers an interdisciplinary look at the life, times, and music of these men of rock through the lens of men's studies. We will read a series of rock biographies paired with other readings in the history and theory of American masculinities. In studying the soundtrack of late 20th century America, students will explore the role of gender, race, class, and sexuality in shaping men's identity and experience, in and out of rock. Typical readings include Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis; Dylan, Chronicles; Jackson, Garcia; Cross, Room Full of Mirrors; Kimmel, ed., Men's Lives; Adams and Savran, eds., The Masculinity Studies Reader; various recordings and DVD's.
This seminar is part of a Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course AMST 100-01, History of American Culture with Professor Hess. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in America Studies, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have two Teaching Colleagues (upper-class students) who took the seminar last year and who will help to lead the seminar, and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 079 Haunting Memories: Revealing the Uncanny
Assistant Professor Eric Klaus
What do a diabolical alchemist, a mass-murdering spider, and a videotape that predicts your death have in common? They are all central elements of uncanny stories we will encounter in this seminar. The uncanny, as made famous by Sigmund Freud's article The Uncanny from 1919, is a feeling of fear and dread experienced by the reader or viewer of tales, in which past events return to disrupt seemingly stable and comfortable situations. Our tour of the uncanny will begin at the start of the 19th century and continue through the present day and will lead us through several countries, such as Germany, Russia, and the United States. Throughout the semester we will explore how uncanny tales are constructed and how various cultural and historical contexts inform these tales of angst and horror. Typical readings: include Sigmund Freud: "The Uncanny" (1919); Susan Bernstein: "It Walks: the Ambulatory Uncanny" (2003); ETA Hoffmann: The Sandman (1817); Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher (1839); Henrik Ibsen: Ghosts (1881); Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock (1958); The Shining by Stanley Kubrick (1980).
This seminar is part of a Linked-Course Learning Community: all the students in this seminar will also be in the same section of Beginning German. List this seminar as a preference only if you also plan to take Beginning German. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year Seminar, in Beginning German, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (an upper-class student) who will help to lead the seminar and who will help you make the academic and personal transition to college.
FSEM 081 Seeing Whiteness
Assistant Professor Anna Creadick
Is "whiteness" an ethnic identity? How did certain U.S. immigrant populations "become" white? What is "white privilege"? What does the phrase "white trash" imply? As American Studies scholar George Lipsitz notes, whiteness, like all racial identities, is both a "scientific and cultural fiction" and a "social fact, [with] all-too-real consequences for the distribution of wealth, prestige and opportunity." In this course, students will discover how and why scholars have come to see "whiteness" as a subject. We will delve into the interdisciplinary scholarship that has emerged around the subject of whiteness in the last two decades - from history, literary studies, media and cultural studies, and gender/sexuality studies. We will also study the way whiteness has been represented in novels, plays and memoirs, as well as through film, television and other visual or material culture texts. Typical readings include Roediger, Black on White: Black Writers on What it Means to Be White; Jacobsen, Whiteness of a Different Color; Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment In Whiteness; Newitz & Wray, White Trash: Race and Class in America; Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination; McIntosh, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."
FSEM 082 Peace?
Professor Charles Temple
Peace Studies is an emerging field of inquiry that addresses what a person should know, be able to do, and feel in order to contribute to a peaceful society. In this seminar we will provide an introduction to peace studies by focusing on four topics: 1) a cultivation of the ability to work through the ethical issues connected to peace and war; 2) the development of skills in young people that promote peace - conflict resolution, team-building, and anti-bias education; and 3) the development of global perspective on peace issues - especially with regard to the Colleges' study-abroad program, how one might go about developing a productive sense of global citizenship. Course materials will include Barash, Approaches to Pace: A Reader in Peace Studies; Beah, Long Way Gone; Mortenson and Relan, Three Cups of Tea; readings from Lee, Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture: Contemporary Challenges to Just War Theory; Lantieri, Waging Peace in Our Schools; Fisher, Getting to Yes.
This seminar is part of a Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course POL 180-02, Intro to International Relations, with Professor Yadav. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in International Relations, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 085 Knowing Bodies
Assistant Professor Michelle Iklé
How do you live in your body every day? What choices do you make that affect your body and the way you interact with the world around you? In Knowing Bodies students will gain greater awareness of themselves through the simultaneous education of mind and body, exploring relationships between body and mind and how those connections are manifest in daily life. Students learn to acknowledge their individuality while improving movement potential and communication skills--oral, written, and movement-based. Students become keen observers of movement while learning about the anatomical structure and movement potential of the human body. Through movement explorations and hands-on techniques, they improve movement facility and begin to acknowledge both conscious and unconscious behaviors. Students explore self-identity and artistic expression through the creation of art collages and movement studies while becoming more effective communicators through journal writing, discussion, oral presentations, and movement experiences. Typical readings include BodyStories by Andrea Olsen; Body and Self by Sandra Cerny Minton, Awareness through Movement by Moshe Feldenkrais.
This seminar is part of a Learning Community Pod: all students in this seminar will be working alongside other students enrolled in FSEM 194, The Psychology of Having Fun and Doing Well, to engage in a yearlong exploration of Student Wellness. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in student wellness, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 090 Money in Literature
Assistant Professor Brian Cooper
Love makes the world go round; or is it money? This course examines literature in which money, credit, and debt play critical roles. The course will trace the changing roles of money over time, as economic and social relations, including love, become increasingly influenced by money. It also explores competing economic and non-economic theories of the roles and meanings of money as a representation of value. Typical readings include The History of Money by Jack Weatherford; Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare; Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress by Daniel Defoe; Cousin Marshall by Harriet Martineau; Silas Marner by George Eliot; The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum; Bombardiers by Po Bronson.
FSEM 091 Saying Yes, Saying No: Drugs, Relationships, and Education
Associate Professor Kim Williams
How do schools address such controversial topics as drugs, sex and relationships? How do we learn about drugs, both legal and illegal? Sex? Relationships? How does what and how we learn about these topics influence our choices? In this course we will address these questions, broadly defining drugs to include everything from caffeine and nicotine to alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy, Ritilin, steroids, so-called smart drugs, and any other substance, legal or banned, that has psychoactive properties. Working together to complete an in-depth ethnographic research study of the role of drugs on campus, we will also examine the research of various disciplines to conduct an in-depth literature review of the role of drugs in education systems historically through the present. The ultimate goal of the course is to write a group book prospectus and to have each student submit a chapter for possible inclusion in the manuscript. Readings include: Drugs and Society by Hanson and Venturelli, 2005; Learning Limits by Williams (1998); sections of Bogdan and Biklen's (2008) Qualitative Research Methods for Education (on reserve in the library); and articles on blackboard such as Gazzaniga (2005) Smarter on Drugs? from Scientific American Mind.
This seminar is part of a Linked-Course Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course WRRH 100-03, Writers' Seminar, with Professor Polak. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in writing, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 092 Code Making and Code Breaking
Assistant Professor Stina Bridgeman
For thousands of years, people have gone to great lengths to keep secrets… and others have gone to even greater lengths to discover those secrets. This course will survey 2500 years of cryptographic technology, from relatively simple classic ciphers to the pivotal breaking of the Enigma in World War II, to sophisticated modern techniques set against a backdrop of historical drama and intrigue. Issues of security and privacy in our increasingly online world will also be considered. Interest in puzzle solving is a must; studying code making and breaking means trying it yourself! Typical Readings: The Code Book by Simon Singh; Cryptology by Albrecht Beutelspacher; "The Gold-Bug" by Poe; "The Dancing Men" by Conan Doyle; Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government, Saving Privacy in the Digital Age by Steven Levy.
FSEM 094 The History of Everything
Professor Grant Holly
Did you know that it was not until 300,000 years after the "big bang" that light occurred, or that in the year 2000, the tenth largest economic entity in the world was Microsoft (Australia was thirteenth, to put things in prospective)? David Christian's Maps of Time is an example of a recent form of historiography called "big history," because it attempts to locate human beings from the perspective of much larger contexts than the traditional historical periods. Christian's book begins nanoseconds after the "big bang," describes the development of the universe, the formation of our planet, the origins and evolution of life, including human life, and continues to trace human history through the origins of agriculture, the development of cities, states, and civilizations, the development of world religions, etc., up to globalization and the modern world, and then it peeks into future. What this course will do is to give us the opportunity to orient and seek to understand ourselves in relation to a variety of contexts from the cosmic to the global to the national and the local, contexts which, as Christian's book shows us, no matter how vast, or distant, or alien they may seem, create the patterns that play an intimate role in shaping our lives.) Typical readings include David Christian, Maps of Time, Berkley, 2004; The daily New York Times.
FSEM 095 Drawn to Nature
Professor James Ryan
The natural world is filled with incredible beauty and amazing stories of adaptation and survival. Many of these stories remain untold despite centuries of exploration, natural history, and scientific discovery. Since Aristotle, naturalists have observed nature in an attempt to describe its beauty and complexity. Among them were scientists like Charles Darwin, artists like John James Audubon and writers like Henry David Thoreau. It is often said that curiosity about the world around us is the basis for all human learning. In this course we'll use your natural curiosity to explore the natural history of the Finger Lakes region using both scientific and artistic expression. We'll examine award-winning natural history writing, chronicle the contributions great naturalists have made to our understanding of the natural world, and we'll create our own illustrated natural history journals. Along the way, you'll develop the observational skills that will allow you to better describe the natural world in prose and art. Typical readings include Naturalist's Guide to Observing Nature by Kurt Rinehart; The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007 edited by Richard Preston; Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth.
This seminar is part of a Linked-Course Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course BIO 167-02, Intro Topics: Populations and their Environments, with Professor Cushman. List this seminar as a preference only if you also plan to take BIO 167-02, Population and their Environments. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in biology, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 096 Envisioning the Vanquished: The Aztecs in History
Assistant Professor Colby Ristow
In 1843, more than four hundred years after the conquest of Mexico, American historian William H. Prescott reconstructed a detailed account of Aztec cannibalism, expressing shock not at the mere act of cannibalism, but at the manner in which the Aztecs consumed the flesh of their victims: "prepared with art" in lavish banquets, "attended by both sexes, who … conducted themselves with all the decorum of civilized life." "Surely," he went on to write, "never were refinement and the extreme of barbarism brought so closely into contact with each other!" Prescott's fascination was by no means unusual. Since their "discovery" by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, the Aztecs' combination of the hallmarks of "civilization" with sensational aspects of "barbarism" has drawn the gaze of scholars the world over. The stark contrast has also made the Aztecs a particularly versatile political symbol: where some have seen in the Aztec Empire the promise of an authentic Indian civilization, others have seen typical Indian brutality, superstition, and despotism. In either case, the historical memory of the Aztecs has impacted the way their living indigenous ancestors have been interpreted and treated by the outside world. In this course, we will look at five centuries of histories of the conquest of Mexico to examine how people have used the Aztecs as a canvas upon which to project their own images of civilization. In so doing, we will interrogate the idea of "civilization" and the place of "Indian" and other non-Western cultures therein, and how they have both changed over time. Typical readings include Benjamin Keen, The Aztecs in Western Thought; Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain; William Hinckley Prescott, Conquest of Mexico.
This seminar is part of a Linked-Course Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course ANTH 110-01, Intro to Cultural Anthropology, with Professor Maiale. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in anthropology, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 097 Going Home
Associate Professor Richard Salter '86
What does it mean for us to go home? As we change our ideas of home change, and so too do the circumstances from which we return. By Thanksgiving break, every first year student will face directly the question of "home." Half of HWS will students face it after studying abroad. And in a time of multiple wars, it is a question that the current generation will wrestle with for the rest of its lives. We will start our exploration with the classic tale of return, The Odyssey. We will follow Homer with "re-takes" on the Odyssey by Nikos Kazantzakis (in The Odyssey: a Modern Sequel), Derek Walcott (in Omeros), and a "retelling" of the Odyssey from Penelope's perspective in The Penelopiad. The course will end with a policy discussion regarding Veterans in the USA based on Jonathan Shay's Odysseus In America, a psychoanalytic exploration of what it meant for Vietnam Veterans to return home after the war.
This seminar is part of a Linked-Course Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course ENG 218, The Once and Future King, with Professor Erussard. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in English, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 098 Dictatorships and Resistance
Assistant Professor Eun-kyung Choi
Can you imagine a whole country as a victim of injustice? In contemporary societies worldwide, dictatorships exist in different forms, even without a dictator. This course will explore the exercise of state power over the bodies of the so-called undesirable part of its population (the poor, the leftist Idealist, women, etc). We will examine the struggle against the state power of Nazism in Europe; we will study dictatorships and post-dictatorships in Latin America and how power has transferred from State to market economy. This course will take a journey through various expressions of human resistance, in music, literature, and film to study the heroic opposition to dictatorship and the beauty of valiant human spirits. Thus, this course will examine ethics, social action, social policy, social justice, and the responsibilities of citizens in contemporary society. Selected readings include Asturias,The President (El señor presidente); Puig, The Kiss of a Spider Woman (El beso de la mujer araña); Bolaño, Distant Star (Estrella distante); Patnoy, Littel School (La escuelita).
This seminar is part of a Linked-Course Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course SPAN 121, Intermediate Spanish, with Professor Farnsworth. Students interested in taking this seminar must place into SPAN 121. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in Spanish, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 099 Arts Smarts
Assistant Professor Rob Carson
Art in the twentieth century was propelled by a series of movements and manifestoes, as one "-ism" succeeded another (realism, naturalism, symbolism, surrealism, impressionism, expressionism, modernism, postmodernism, and so on). This was true not only in the fine arts, but in the liberal arts as well: in fact, there was a rich give-and-take of ideas between critical theorists (who reflected on the arts) and artists themselves (who tested these theories in practice). In this class we'll look closely at a wide range of twentieth-century artworks, from Picasso to T. S. Eliot to The Clash, stopping at all points in between. Our primary goal, however, will be to introduce you to the dozens of "-isms" that these artworks embody and that continue to provide the conceptual foundations for our work in the fine and liberal arts. We will read plays, novels, films, short stories, poems, short essays, visual art, and music, including: Beckett, Waiting for Godot; Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Un Chien Andalou, and Moulin Rouge.
This seminar is part of a Readers College Learning Community: all students in this seminar will be encouraged to take an associated Readers College course with Professor Carson in spring 2010. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class student) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 100 "As Good as the Book?" Novels into Film
Assistant Professor Nicola Minott-Ahl
Why is it that when we go to a movie based on a favorite book, we often come away disappointed? Why is it that a film based novel can often inspire us to read the novel? This course will explore these questions. Film today is in a position in our culture analogous to the position the novel once held in literary tradition. It is still; largely a medium that belongs to popular culture, yet its sense of emotional immediacy, the persuasive power of visual storytelling, and filmmakers' ability to respond to current ideas and trends of thought often means that modern film is a useful window on the age in which the film was made. There is another focus here as well; we discuss important questions about how and by whom meaning is made in both novels and films and the role of the imagination in completing the picture. We will be reading and screening The English Patient, All Quiet on the Western Front, Dangerous Liaisons and Wuthering Heights.
FSEM 101 New Chemistry Meets Old Art
Professor Walter Bowyer
Art and science sometimes seem incompatible. In this course, we will challenge that perception. We will begin by using art projects to illustrate fundamental chemical principles. Using those principles, we then will explore prehistoric art, especially the ancient cave art found in Europe, to illustrate how science helps us understand art. Finally, we will tie the two together by asking if and how human creativity has changed with the development of technologies over the past 40,000 years. This question will require a thorough understanding of the similarities and differences between biological and cultural evolution. Typical readings include Silberberg, Principles of General Chemistry; White, Prehistoric Art; Mithen, The Prehistory of the Mind.
This seminar is part of a Linked Course Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course CHEM 110-03, Molecules that Matter, with Professor de Denus. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in Chemistry, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 102 Thinking and Creating
Professor Donna Davenport
This is a seminar about intelligence, creativity, and all the students in the class - how you think and create. While we study the theory of multiple intelligences, intelligence testing, theories of creativity, and learning in the arts, the course will explore each student’s thinking patterns, problem-solving styles, and innate capacity for creativity. This seminar was first taught in 1993 and has evolved over time, influenced by each class of first-year students. This year the seminar is designed to focus on thinking and creating in relation to American education, both higher education and K-12. Classroom experiences will be directed toward the development of non-conformist thinking and acceptance of self and others. Selected readings include Gould's Mismeasure of Man, Gardner's Intelligence Reframed, Kohl's "I won't learn from you" And Other Thoughts on Creative Maladjustment, and Stephen King's On Writing.
This seminar is part of a Readers College Learning Community: all students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in "Thinking and Creating" and in college life in general. This cohort will continue into the spring semester through a Readers College with Professor Davenport and special permission to enroll in Introduction to Philosophy with Professor King. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class student) who took the seminar in 2006 and who will help you to make the academic and personal transition to college.
FSEM 103 The Reality Effect (Not a Dark and Stormy Night)
Instructor Susan Hess
Stories infuse our lives, both the stories we tell ourselves and the stories others tell us. In this course, we will examine real stories—scientific narratives like the Big Bang, urban legends like "Kentucky Fried Rat," even identity stories like application essays—the stories that shape ourselves, our perceptions and actions. Our core question is "How do we use stories, and how do stories use us?" Course content will be varied: we may explore virtual reality tales or the biological basis for narrative, and other choices based on student interest; whatever the choices, we will become adept at analyzing and more skilled at telling real stories. Readings will include models like the 9/11 Commission Report, the Iraq War blogs of rebelcoyote, NYTimes "Lives" columns, and students' own writing, as well as theory like Le Guin's "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" and excerpts from Aristotle's Poetics. Expect much reading, writing, and revision. This is not a fiction-writing course, although fiction writers may enjoy and benefit from it; students interested in the natural sciences, anthropology and sociology, journalism and literature, education, cultural studies, law and politics, and writing will enjoy this course.
FSEM 110 Education, Justice and Happiness
Instructor King, Assistant Professor Barnes, Assistant Professor Oberbrunner, Professor Brophy, Professor Lee
Worried about injustice and misery in a society that had executed his great teacher, Socrates, for "corrupting the youth," Plato devoted one of the greatest books ever written to the question of how people can live in a way that leads to social justice and personal happiness. His concerns inspired him to investigate many topics that remain important today: education, the equality of the sexes, democracy and tyranny, psychological health, class divisions, censorship and the nature of art, and the nature of knowledge and reality. Plato's Republic remains one of the most interesting works about education, justice, and happiness. In this seminar, we read the Republic, cover to cover, along with modern works, and discuss the parallels between these important topics as they arose in ancient Athens and as they arise in the 21st century and in our own experience. Typical readings include Plato's Republic and other engaging texts about education, justice, and happiness.
This seminar is part of a Learning Community Pod: all students in this seminar will be working alongside other students in the other sections of this course to engage in a yearlong exploration of the major course themes: education, justice, happiness. Throughout the fall, the 5 seminars will meet individually, and occasionally, as one large group. During the second semester, students will join the seminar instructors and other faculty members in co-curricular or service learning activities, on campus or in the wider community, that take up the themes of education, justice, and happiness. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 123 Ancient Warfare: How Homer's Iliad Changed the World
Assistant Professor Leah Himmelhoch
Have you ever wondered why we start and end wars or fight the way we do? Is there another way? Why do we find guerilla warfare so 'repellant'? Have you ever wondered how realistically ancient combat is portrayed in modern films like Troy or 300? What would the Greeks or Romans have said about 'homosexuality' in the military? And why are 'female soldiers' so controversial to us? Have you ever wondered how to use a spear, a sword, and a shield? The "West's" first literary work is Homer's Iliad, a poem about war that made an indelible imprint on later European cultures. Every Greek and Roman author, and many later European authors, strove to emulate and respond to this one text. What does this mean for us? Is the Iliad 'only literature', or has its cultural impact been more pervasive? Why was ancient Greece's first literary act a martial one? What does it mean that our culture views the Iliad as a foundational text defining who we are as "Westerners"? To what extent does Homer's Dark Age culture shape our own? What has any of this ancient stuff got to do with our lives here and now, today? Come read the Iliad, experiment with some ancient weapons, and find out the answer to these, and many more questions. Typical readings include poetry of Tyrtaios and Sappho, the histories of Herodotos and Thucydides, Arrian's account of Alexander, Catullus' c. 64, and Vergil's Aeneid. We will also consider the archaeological evidence for ancient military technology, and view relevant modern films, both those recounting ancient battles (e.g., Troy, or 300), and those which mark the Iliad as 'ground zero' for the "Western" tradition's alleged glorification of violence (e.g., Unforgiven).
This seminar is part of a Linked-Course Learning Community: all students in this seminar will also be enrolled in the same section of a linked course EUST 101, Foundations of European Studies, with Professor Tinkler. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in European Studies, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college.
FSEM 147 Africa: Myths & Realities
Africa is in the continent Americans probably understand the least. As a result, there are many myths and misconceptions about the people and the countries of this vast continent. This course examines the reality of Africa from many viewpoints: its geography, environment, demographics, and history; its social, economic, and political structures; and its art, music, and literature. Students also examine contemporary issues in South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Rwanda and elsewhere. Central to the course is an examination of the role of development projects and foreign aid. Among the course's varied experiences are guest lectures, films, and readings. Typical reading include Gordon and Gordon (eds.), Understanding Contemporary Africa; Moss, African Development; works by Coetzee, Emecheta, El Saadawi, Fanon, Farah, Mandela and Soyinka.
FSEM 160 Chemistry and Crime
Associate Professor Christine de Denus
If you are fascinated with forensic science, this seminar is for you. We will look at case studies in forensic science and discover how unique chemical methods are used to gather criminal evidence and to what extent these techniques better our lives by helping to fight crime. Laboratory investigations of such things as developing latent fingerprints and blood detection will be performed. The importance of each process and its results will be discussed in terms of the chemistry required to comprehend the findings. Furthermore, this seminar will examine how television portrays forensic science. We will compare early television shows like "Quincy" to the fictional television shows of today that include "CSI" and "Crossing Jordan." We will also examine educational television that presents real case studies in forensic science. We will read samples from classic works of fiction by Arthur Conan Doyle and John Thorndyke as well as some of the more recent works by authors such as Patricia Cornwell. Students will be required to make connections between the readings and visual media. Factors including geographic region, class, sex, age, educational background, and culture will be examined. The connection between the science involved in solving crimes and the effects this has on society will be a major emphasis of the course. Along with a number of written assignments, students will perform some of the scientific techniques used in fighting crime today.
FSEM 194 The Psychology of Having Fun and Doing Well
Director of the Counseling Center Jeffrey Van Lone
How does the way we think and feel about things affect our success? Is everyone capable of enjoying life, getting involved, and performing well? This course will explore core concepts of positive psychology and performance enhancement. Students will have the opportunity to examine psychological factors that impact human enjoyment, involvement, and performance. Students will be asked to consider how their existing personal approaches to life, or the approaches of a selected population, promote or obstruct the experience of wellness and/or personal accomplishment. Additionally, the course will introduce students to research on such psychological interventions as arousal management, attention and concentration control, goal setting, imagery, visualization, and self-talk and how they contribute to mental toughness and behavior change. Selected readings include Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Csikszentmihalyi (2008); Authentic Happiness Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Seligman (2002), and Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology by Weinberg and Gould (2006).
This seminar is part of a Learning Community Pod: all students in this seminar will be working alongside other students enrolled in FSEM 085, Knowing Bodies, to engage in a yearlong exploration of student wellness. All the students in this seminar will live in the same residence hall, forming a community that will support its members in this First-Year seminar, in student wellness, and in college life in general. Our Learning Community will have a Teaching Colleague (upper-class students) who will help to lead the seminar and help you make academic and personal transitions to college
Some of our Seminars are also part of a Learning Community, a distinctive living and learning environment that enhances the connections between courses and extracurricular events.
Learn more about Learning Communities.
