Exploring Identity in First-Year Seminars
8 November 2019 Exploring Identity in First-Year Seminars
First-year students at Hobart and William Smith are examining the complex nature of identity through the lenses of race, privilege, personal experience and national character. At HWS, the First-Year Seminar program gives new students a strong academic foundation while they explore vital subjects from new perspectives.
Who gets to define what America means?
One of our first readings in the semester asked, Who gets to define what America means? says Assistant Professor of English Alex Black, whose First-Year Seminar Performing America introduces students to various scholarly disciplines and research approaches as they explore what art says about American history and identity. Over the course of the semester well interpret and contextualizedifferent cultural works acontemporary musical playand historical oratory and poetry but we can ask of them similar questions: How does this reckon with the nations past? How does itrepresent an American form of art?
Assistant Professor of English Alex Black teaches during Performing America.
These are the questions that drew Cole Cassano 23 to Blacks seminar. I was interested in digging more into these fields of studies, Cassano says, even though they didnt explicitly connect to my academic interests. Now, a few months into college, its one of my favorite classes because of the material we read and the eye-opening discussions weve had.
From an essay on Frederick Douglass to the study of the musical Hamilton, Alexandra Venero 23 says that Performing America has challenged her to draw on more than just my experience as a performer.
Overall, my biggest takeaway from the class (and in general from all of my classes) is how much information can overlap, she says, noting the connections shes made between the seminar and her other coursework. In an essay for Blacks seminar, Vereno focused on the women in the life of Frederick Douglass and how [they] played into his work as an abolitionist and feminist. It was interesting because a lot of what I talked about in my paper, I had also been discussing in my Intro to Womens Studies class.
Associate Professor of Russian Area Studies assists students in her First-Year Seminar.
Making connections across disciplines is a defining feature of the Colleges First-Year Seminar program, says Associate Professor of Russian Area Studies Kristen Welsh, whose students are investigating transnational identity in the seminar Russians Discover America: Imaginers, Observers, Immigrants.
Jenna Hyman 23 says the course has challenged her to see the U.S. through new perspectives. In the semesters major project, students choose an American icon, explain how it is iconic, then encourage others to re-see the icon by making it strange, Welsh says. Through this process, students wrestle with the concept of ostranenie, enstrangement, the idea that we no longer really see or know things that are familiar to us, and that this automatization can be disrupted by art.
Automatization can be disrupted by art.
This is a universal lesson, Welsh says, an idea that is valuable for every student in the class, whether they end up studying physics or sociology or Russian literature.
Meanwhile, students inFace to Face: Interrogating Race,are engaged in a deep consideration of global racism, white privilege, and forms of resiliency and the power of telling ones own story, says Assistant Professor of Africana Studies James McCorkle 76.
Assistant Professor of African Studies James McCorkle 76 leads a discussion.
Examining the U.S. Civil Rights Movement alongside South African apartheid, the seminar challenges students to interrogate or question with evidence how we have come to be who we are, McCorkle says.
I have participated in many discussions and dialogues on race in America but had yet to learn about South Africas history ofrace before this course, says Molly Dutton 23.One of the most interesting aspects has been the similarities between the experiences of marginalized groups during the Jim Crow era in the U.S. and the apartheid era in South Africa.
As they practice critical thinking and communication skills, McCorkle says his students are examining issues of race, identity and public policy from individual, national and international perspectives, stretch[ing] across historical analysis as well as cultural and literary analysis.
Memoirs raise political as well as personal issues.
The personal and political, individual and international all collide in First Person Singular. The seminar, organized around memoir writing, not only exposes students to different kinds of essays but to international voices, experiences and identities. We start with Africa, move to the Middle East, then on to Latin America, and finally the United States. Many of the memoirs, therefore, raise political as well as personal issues, explains Professor of Writing and Rhetoric Cheryl Forbes.
Students in First Person Singular discuss a class assignment.
Like the rest of the other First-Year Seminars, Forbes is focused on interdisciplinary teaching and learning to foster a depth and breadth of knowledge that students can apply and communicate. In First Person Singular, Caitlin Carr 23 has found a ton of creative freedom to explore different writing stylesand I feel that my skills are improving with every sentence I generate.
Learn more about other First-Year Seminars that explore identity including Knowing Bodies taught byAssociate Professor of Dance Michelle Ikle and Monkeys, Morality & the Mind taught byAssociate Professor of Philosophy Gregory Frost-Arnold as well as dozens of others with a range of themes.