First-Year Seminar Descriptions for Spring Term 2024

First-Year Seminars offer every Dartmouth first-year student an opportunity to participate in a course structured around independent research, small group discussion, and intensive writing. Below you will find a list of the courses being offered next term.

Afr & AfrAmerican Studies

AAAS-07.07-01 Picturing African American

Hour: 10A Instructor: Michael Chaney

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Picturing African American History
Description: This first-year writing seminar explores the nature of iconography and the ethics of historical illustration while introducing students to events, movements, figures, and ways of knowing significant to African American history. How are histories made visible and what does race have to do with that process in a US context? How are African American histories, in particular, visualized and how have academic experts responded to these visuals? What arguments or debates do such visuals raise regarding history, race, and representation? Students in this seminar will study poems, autobiographical narratives, and other writings by African American authors having to do with historical events alongside visual depictions of those events, from the Middle Passage to the Civil Rights Era. Through lecture, discussion, in-class observation activities, and critical reading and writing, students will learn to think analytically about the racial implications of the visual histories they encounter, questioning whether and how such texts represent Black American people. Students will write four papers, three of medium length (5 pages) and a longer final paper (8-10 pages) based upon independent research.

No required textbooks available

Art History

ARTH-07.02-01 Paris in the 19th Century

Hour: 10 Instructor: Kristin O'Rourke

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Paris in the 19th Century
Description: This writing course will examine the city of Paris as the cultural capital of the nineteenth century, looking at artists and art production in the mid-late nineteenth century. We will investigate changes in the city and how that impacted the art movements that made up the new category of “modern” art: Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. We will begin with a discussion of traditional forms of artmaking in the 19th century and contrast this with avant-garde art production in the works of Manet and the Impressionists, among others. We will look at Paris through the eyes of Parisians at the time, as well as through the gaze of filmmakers in our own time. We will investigate factors of contemporary life that affected subject matters, style, technique, and meaning in art works, in particular the invention of photography, urban planning and the modernization of the city of Paris, and the political and social situation in France and Europe. While exploring the impact of these factors on painting, photography, sculpture, architecture, posters, and film, the course will look at alternative art practices and exhibitions that challenged the status quo and that became the basis of modern art. We will investigate what makes Paris in the 19th century “modern” and explore characteristics of modernism that continue to resonate today.

Textbook(s)Required:

No textbook required.

Biology

BIOL-07.02-01 Biology:Politicized Topics

Hour: 9L Instructor: Brittny Calsbeek

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Fact or Fiction? Politicized Topics in Biology
Description: This course will explore the fact and fiction underlying politically hot topics that have biology at their core. The majority of the course will be focused on written and oral debates on topics including: climate change, genetic engineering, vaccine safety, and antibiotic resistance.

Textbook(s)Required:

No Textbook required

Chemistry

CHEM-07.05-01 Sci Communication & Context

Hour: 9L Instructor: Wendy Epps

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Great Failures in Science Communication and the Social Context that Shaped Them
Description: While scientific discoveries have shaped our modern world, many of the greatest discoveries fell flat in their time. The acceptance of scientific discoveries by the establishment (and general public) is highly influenced by social context, and the interplay between science and society makes for intriguing studies of science history. We will examine case studies (from Galileo’s findings to current-day medical breakthroughs) from the perspectives of the scientist, the establishment, and the general public, including both the initial communication failures and the subsequent successes that accompanied these breakthroughs. We will analyze both primary and secondary written sources, and our course design will build toward a written analysis of a current-day failure in science communication. Assignments include one short review paper and one final paper/presentation. The writing process will be iterative, and feedback will be provided via peer review and professor input. In-class writing exercises will help students hone their science-writing and peer-editing skills.

Textbook(s)Required:

None

Classical Studies

CLST-07.13-01 Athens to the Americas

Hour: 11 Instructor: Florencia Foxley

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Athens to the Americas: Tragedy Crossing the Atlantic
Description: We will explore the life and legacy of the ancient plays about Medea in the plays and films of Latin America. We will investigate why a genre originally performed to celebrate a god in a small city in a small corner of the Aegean has made such an impact throughout thousands of years of re- performance, re-interpretation, and renovation. We will read Euripides and Seneca (in translations) as well as adaptations and re-imaginings from throughout history with special attention to the works produced across Latin America in the 20th and 21st centuries. As a First-Year Seminar, we will dedicate time to honing our skills of observation, interrogation, argumentation, editing, and research through a variety of writing assignments.

No required textbooks available

Comparative Literature

COLT-07.21-01 More-Than-Human Narratives

Hour: 11 Instructor: Matteo Gilebbi

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: More-Than-Human Narratives: Posthumanism, Ecocriticism, Animal Studies
Description: What does it mean to be human? Are “humankind” and “human nature” social constructs? In what ways do we view human cultures as separated from nature? Are other living beings, such as plants and non-human animals, capable of producing “cultures”? In this course we will tackle these questions through an exploration of texts (short stories, poetry, essays, scientific papers, films, and artworks) that question a traditional interpretation of the human condition: anthropocentrism, which is the belief that Homo sapiens is the most important and dominant species on the planet, and that all other species and natural phenomena should be viewed in relation to humans. We will then use writing to explore and question the assumption that the human experience of the world is more significant than that of other living beings (human ontological privilege), that humans have developed unique attributes which set them apart from and above all other forms of life (evolutionary exceptionalism), and that humanity possesses exclusive attributes, such as advanced intellectual abilities, consciousness, and moral agency (cognitive superiority). In particular, we will use writing to engage with Posthumanism, a philosophical position that challenges hierarchical views of existence and Western anthropocentric normativity. To better explore non-hierarchical understandings of the human condition in relation to natural environments—which feminist theorist and activist Donna Haraway calls “unified natureculture”—we will also engage with two other interdisciplinary approaches that are at the core of the environmental humanities: material ecocriticism and animal studies. From a literary point of view, material ecocriticism will allow us to examine the ways in which humans interact with and shape the environment (e.g. how a film might narrate the reaction of a community to a toxic waste spill), while animal studies will illuminate the ways in which animals are active subjects that interact with and are affected by human activities (e.g. how war photographers make connections between the aftermath of a battle and the slaughter of animals). Put simply, in this course students will use writing to engage with more-than-human narratives that suggest alternative ways of seeing the world and the position of humans in it, promoting alternative narratives, logics, ethics, and ontologies and forwarding a more hybrid—and more humble—narrative of the human condition.

No required textbooks available

Engineering Sciences

ENGS-07.02-01 Climate Change

Hour: 10 Instructor: Klaus Keller

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Climate Change
Description: Climate change has occurred naturally and frequently over the course of many time scales in the past. America today is engaged in a discussion of current climate change and its cause, ranging from calls for immediate action to denial. This course explores the published scientific literature on the nature and cause of climate change, potential impacts on us, and the implications for our nation's energy issues. Through readings, class discussion, and individual research, we will explore this complex problem; student writing will synthesize results from the literature to clarify the factual basis for their own understanding. Reading will include a number of published papers and selections from textbooks. Students will be required to actively participate in class by leading class discussions and actively engaging in small group activities. In addition, students will develop an annotated bibliography, write a research paper based on the research completed for the annotated bibliography, as well as write and present a pitch where they argue for a specific action relevant to the topic of their research paper.

Textbook(s)Required:

Introduction to Modern Climate Change, Andrew Dessler, 2021, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-793872 Optional: A Global Warming Primer, J. Bennett, Published by Big Kid Science, Boulder, CO, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-937548-78-0. Amazon: $8.49

English

ENGL-07.02-01 Toni Morrison

Hour: 2A Instructor: Shalene Moodie

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Toni Morrison
Description: This course is an in-depth study of Toni Morrison’s major fictional works. We will examine Morrison’s earliest and arguably most foundational and influential novels. We will also read critical responses to Morrison’s works. Required texts will include: Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved, A Mercy, Conversations with Toni Morrison, and selected essays. Central to our exploration will be an analysis of Morrison’s observation that “the past affects the present.” Therefore, we will explore the social and historical factors that contribute to Morrison’s artistic constructions. Some of the issues we will examine include, alternative constructions of female community and genealogy, and representations of race, class, nationhood, and identity. To this end, and in order to hone students’ research and writing abilities, students will complete several short writing assignments and two research essays.

Textbook(s)Required:

TBA

ENGL-07.60-01 The Art of the Essay

Hour: 3B Instructor: Alexander Chee

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: The Art of the Essay
Description: The personal essay is a literary form we turn to in order to both express and experience a diverse and imaginative sense of everything from our past, present, and future, our politics, our aesthetics, our sciences and ourselves. While fiction and poetry acknowledge the personal record as among the sources they draw upon, the personal essay makes this more explicit, directing the reader’s attention to the use of memory, archives, interviews and research. For the personal essay, the writer is treating themselves the way they might treat any other subject they’d write about, sometimes even researching their own background the way a stranger might. Students will learn to treat themselves as an instrument for the recording of experiences, and to look for material in everything from their email draft archives and text messages to old social media posts, papers written for high school or middle school, family photos, family archives. We will look at the records we keep deliberately and the ones we make accidentally as we ask ourselves how well we know ourselves and how we can create ourselves as a character on the page.

Textbook(s)Required:

All texts will be provided by instructor

ENGL-07.62-01 War & Col in Asian Am Lit

Hour: 3A Instructor: Jodi Kim

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: War and Colonialism in Asian American Literature
Description: This first-year writing seminar offers an intensive examination and critical analysis of war and colonialism in contemporary Asian American literature. While this literature has often been read and interpreted as a form of immigrant narrative, we will take a step back and ask instead: Why have Asians been compelled to migrate to the United States in the first place? What displacements and ongoing histories of violence have US colonialism, imperialism, and wars in Asia wrought? How have Asian American writers given complex narrative form to this? How can we situate Asian American literature within multiple frameworks, traversing beyond the domesticating contours of US so-called “ethnic” or “minority” literature, to global Anglophone literatures of anti-colonialism? How does a focus on war and colonialism in Asian American literature yield analytic insights about decolonial politics and aesthetics, global articulations and movements against white supremacy, and critical imaginaries of alternative world-makings? Related topics and analytics to be explored also include settler colonialism, militarism, Orientalism, transnational and transracial adoption, transnational decolonial feminism, queer of color critique, critical race and ethnic studies, and Indigenous studies. We will engage with a constellation of materials, reading literary texts (novels, short stories, and drama) alongside scholarly articles, visual art (including a visit to the Hood Museum), and films. As this is a first-year writing course, classroom activities will not only include contextual mini-lectures, discussion, group presentations, and student-led discussion facilitation, but also place a great emphasis on short writing sessions in response to a prompt as well as peer review of writing. Likewise, course assignments will reflect this focus on writing, and accordingly include short critical reading responses, an essay, and a final research paper that is a revision and extension of the essay.

Textbook(s)Required:

David Henry Hwang. M. Butterfly. ISBN: \u200E 978-0452272590. List price: $12.99 Jessica Hagedorn, Dogeaters (1991 edition) Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats (1999 edition) Heinz Insu Fenkl, Memories of My Ghost Brother (2020 edition) Aimee Phan, We Should Never Meet (2005 edition) Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2021 edition) Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2008 edition)

Environmental Studies

ENVS-07.15-01 Future of Food

Hour: 11 Instructor: Sarah Smith

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Future of Food
Description: Modern agriculture causes extensive environmental damage and is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. These environmental changes – depleted soil, extreme temperature and precipitation patterns, and increased pressure from crop pests – are in turn putting a strain on the ability of this modern agricultural system to provide nutritious food for our growing world population. While there is no one solution to this massive problem, there are many proposed technological innovations, ecologically based solutions, and consumer choices that can help mitigate some of the problems we have with our current system. In this course, we will explore these solutions as we try to envision what the Future of Food might look like. Students will read current opinion and research from the popular press and scientific literature. Assignments include a selfreflection, a journalistic piece on the results of an agriculture-related scientific study, a research paper delving deeper into a potential solution to the problems with our agricultural system, an oral presentation, and a final essay synthesizing our course material into a vision for the future of food. We will spend ample course time discussing all aspects of writing, including revising student writing and finding and evaluating source material.

Textbook(s)Required:

No textbook required.

ENVS-07.17-01 Nature-based Solutions

Hour: 10A Instructor: Morgan Peach

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Nature-Based Solutions
Description: Nature-based solutions (NbS) utilize ecosystem processes to help humans adapt to global change, conserve biodiversity, mitigate climate change, and promote sustainability. Viewing NbS through an interdisciplinary lens and from interrelated social, ecological, and technological perspectives, we will ask: (1) What ethics and theory support NbS? (2) What is key to NbS adoption today? (3) How can NbS contribute to just, resilient trajectory for society? In each of the three course units we will engage with diverse environmental literature, including philosophy, creative nonfiction, and scientific articles. The course will position you to propose plausible, equitable NbS for a specific place. The intent of this seminar is to develop your knowledge and skills as a student of the liberal arts. We will work to become more informed as global citizens who can assimilate knowledge, reflect, connect, synthesize, innovate, and communicate understanding in multiple modes. We will exercise our liberal arts skills in an iterative learning process. This will involve routine reading, writing, design thinking, and discussion. I will give short lectures as necessary. Throughout this process, we will imagine and explore solutions-oriented environmental actions that can result in just, sustainable futures.

Textbook(s)Required:

No textbook required.

ENVS-07.17-02 Nature-based Solutions

Hour: 2A Instructor: Morgan Peach

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Textbook(s)Required:

No textbook required.

Film Studies

FILM-07.21-01 Zombie Media

Hour: 3B Instructor: John Bell

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Zombie Media
Description: This course develops research and writing techniques enabling students to craft essays for the public sphere. As our starting point, we will examine what it means to live in a media culture suffused with noise that claims to be signal and develop well-supported theses investigating the implications of online digital media. More than a decade ago, the New York Times declared that “the Web means the end of forgetting.” The headline mirrors a common belief that the information era has made media immortal so music, videos, and games put online will always be perfectly stored and instantly findable. If media has been made immortal, though, it is only in the same way a zombie is immortal: falling to pieces and haphazardly lurching forward forever with no sense of direction, unthinkingly causing arbitrary damage to everything around it. Through a scaffolded series of writing experiments we will look at the claim that the internet never forgets and explore how and when it does; learn how and why societies form collective memories around media artifacts; and discuss the ways the weight of over a century of recorded media culture can be both oppressive and liberating to today’s creators. Our classroom discussions will bring together threads of ideas from many different disciplines that students will be expected to merge into persuasive writing targeting specific audiences. This course will provide the flexibility for students to pursue topics of their own interest while building on a scaffolding helping students understand the nature of researching, describing, and writing for public audiences.

No required textbooks available

FILM-07.22-01 Mediating Migration

Hour: 3A Instructor: Roopika Risam

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Mediating Migration
Description: Many of us have strong views about immigration shaped by the media we consume, but how informed are our opinions? By reading and writing about migration in this course, you will have the opportunity to examine, develop, and refine your perspectives. During the term, you will undertake research on a topic related to migration that interests you and experiment with writing about migration and immigration for non-academic audiences. Our emphasis will be on examining evidence, understanding the usefulness of different kinds of data, and crafting compelling arguments by testing ideas through your writing process. Reading and viewing in this course will include multiple kinds of media: data visualizations, academic articles, oral histories, and more. In class, you will gain experience as both a writer and editor, to focus on your composing practices and giving meaningful feedback to your colleagues. Your writing will become the basis of class discussions as we workshop your drafts and build a community of writers together. Workshopped writing assignments include a blog post, academic minute, annotated bibliography, and an essay. If you are ready to write often, share your writing with your classmates, communicate your ideas with multiple audiences, and think about how people move around the world, this is the course for you.

No required textbooks available

French

FREN-07.06-01 Paris in Lit and Film

Hour: 2 Instructor: Emily Kane

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Reimagining the Myth: Paris in Literature and Film
Description: In the Western imagination, the idea of the city of Paris is almost always linked to romance. While couples dream of future Parisian honeymoons or vacations, in reality, living and becoming in the “city of love” are a good deal more complicated than the romanticized version with which we are so familiar. What does it mean to live in Paris, to have a “Parisian” identity? In what ways might history (the trauma of World War II, for example, or the French wars of decolonization) play a role in the construction of these identities? What roles do gender, culture, immigration, and economic status play in incubating these identities in this particular, almost mythically idealized place? Through analyses of texts by writers and directors who have lived in, loved, and sometimes even hated Paris, we will discuss the ways in which the spaces of the city participate to a certain extent in the formation of the people who exist in them, and the relationships among those people, who are shaped by memories linked to these spaces in a multiplicity of ways. How can we begin to reconceive the myth of what Paris is in our collective imagination to better understand the reality of the lived experiences of people in the city and its surrounding suburbs? Ernest Hemingway, in A Moveable Feast, writes: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” A moveable feast, certainly; but an extremely complex one. Works may include writings by Gary, Modiano, Colette and Baudelaire, and films directed by Varda, Doucouré and Truffaut.

No required textbooks available

Geography

GEOG-07.20-01 Into the Wild

Hour: 12 Instructor: Coleen Fox

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Into the Wild
Description: The US Wilderness Act of 1964 states that wilderness exists “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor and does not remain.” This straightforward definition belies the ambiguity and controversy surrounding both the idea of wilderness and its expression on the landscape. In this class, we will draw on personal narratives, art, scientific research, literature, and policy documents to explore the historical context and contemporary debates concerning wilderness in the US and around the world. We will investigate the idea of wilderness at a variety of scales, from the personal to the global. At the personal scale, we will focus on the transformative nature of journeys into the wilderness. At the national and global scales, we will analyze the science, discourse, and politics of wilderness protection.

No required textbooks available

GEOG-07.21-01 Debates in Ecosocialism

Hour: 9L Instructor: David Eisenhauer

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Debates in Ecosocialism
Description: A specter is haunting the planet—the specter of ecosocialism. The crisis of climate change is a result of centuries of racialized economic exploitation of people and the planet. Social movements across the globe are demanding radical and transformative change in the face of rising growing inequality, rapid ecological degradation, and dwindling time to prevent catastrophic climate change. Ultimately, either the root causes of this crisis must be abolished or the crisis will likely overwhelm the global liberal order. Yet, while the old is dying, the new cannot be born. Ecosocialism provides the tools, visions, and knowledge to transition to a world that is truly just and sustainable. In this we will critically explore the extent to which the previous paragraph is true. Ecosocialism is both an analytical framework for understanding and a political agenda for transforming the world. The objective of the course is to understand why ecosocialism has emerged as a framework and engage with ongoing debates about its purpose, utility, and scope. In particular, the course will delve into debates regarding why ecosocialism is necessary, how political movements can pursue radical change, how and why social difference matters, and how an ecosocialist economy should conceptualize its relationship to growth and technology. We will engage with these debates through in-depth discussions, exploratory writing exercises, close readings, and a term research-paper. Students will submit one brief critical engagement paper, three brief essays, and a term-paper that expands upon those assignments. Additionally, students will engage in collaborative writing exercises.

Textbook(s)Required:

How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andres Malm and Slow Down by Kohei Saito

Government

GOVT-07.14-01 Does Democracy Work?

Hour: 9L Instructor: Jennifer Jerit

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Does Democracy Work?
Description: Ordinary people are a crucial part of a democracy—in terms of their beliefs and attitudes as well as the political actions they do or do not take. Indeed, some scholars go so far as to describe voters as the starting point of a democracy. But are citizens up to the task? This first-year seminar investigates the topic of voter competence, which refers to the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that support a functioning political system. We will consider what is required of citizens in a modern democracy and discuss the standards by which we evaluate how well people fulfill their democratic duties. Course readings focus on public opinion and political behavior in the American context. As part of the first-year writing program, this course involves analytical writing and small group discussions. Students will write and revise two 3-page papers with significant class time devoted to writing challenges and giving/receiving feedback in peer groups. The seminar also involves a final six-page paper.

Textbook(s)Required:

No textbook is required for this course

History

HIST-07.34-01 Histories of Crime

Hour: 10 Instructor: David Petruccelli

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Writing Histories of Crime
Description: Crime exerts a powerful fascination on the popular imagination, and historians are not immune to its allure. The reasons for this are manifold, ranging from the lurid and sensational to the particular capacity of crime and punishment to reveal unspoken assumptions and unquestioned ideologies. This writing seminar will examine the different ways that historians, theorists, and others have written about crime and criminals. Through the study of crime, it will present students with different approaches to historical writing, including cultural history, social history, microhistory, and theory. Drawing on exemplary works from within and outside the field of history, the course will also focus on what it means to write well in a variety of forms. Students will gain practical experience writing in several different formats, culminating in a research paper.

Textbook(s)Required:

No required textbooks.

HIST-07.39-01 Early American Feminism

Hour: 2 Instructor: Leslie Butler

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Early American Feminism: History, Theory, Legacy
Description: What exactly is feminism? When and why did it emerge? This seminar will examine the early history of feminism in the United States, investigating the foundational ideas that animated it, the striking context in which it emerged, and the complicated legacy it has entailed. Nearly all themes, concepts, tensions, and dilemmas associated with American feminism surfaced in the nineteenth century. Over the course of the term, we will consider the place of women in republican, liberal, and democratic thought; assess the multiple ways feminism intersected with struggles over slavery and white supremacy; and reflect on the promise and perils of mobilizations on behalf of the singular category “woman.”

Textbook(s)Required:

1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists (New York, 2014), ISBN: 110191176X. 2. Kathryn Kish Sklar, Women\u2019s Rights Emerges Within the Antislavery Movement, 1830-1870: A Short History with Documents (New York, 2010), ISBN: 1319113125.

HIST-07.40-01 Caribbean Pirates

Hour: 2 Instructor: Ernesto Mercado-Montero

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Caribbean Pirates and Buccaneers in Atlantic History
Description: This course introduces students to the history of piracy and sea marauding in the colonial Caribbean. This seminar uses a transnational lens to explore the rise and fall of piracy and maritime violence. Through their writing, students will examine the role of piracy in European exploration, how piracy galvanized colonial settlements, and the significance of privateering and sea marauding for imperial competition in the Americas.

Textbook(s)Required:

No required textbooks.

Middle Eastern Studies

MES-07.06-01 Middle Eastern Dilemmas

Hour: 2A Instructor: Ezzedine Fishere

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: America’s Middle Eastern Dilemmas: Missionaries, Interests and Power
Description: The Gaza war and, before it, the Russian invasion of Ukraine heightened the challenges facing America’s leadership in many ways, among them its hegemonic control of global energy markets. Together with the emergence of China as a global (hostile?) power, it renewed the debate about the place of the Middle East in American strategy. After a decade of partial disengagement, culminating in a full withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the American president flew to Saudi Arabia and recommitted the United States to the security of its oil producing allies. Democracy advocates accused the administration of sacrificing American values at the altar of oil and “special interest.” The administration – and its supporters – scoffed at the criticism, asking rhetorically if there was an alternative. A similar dynamic plays itself out in US handling of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its relations with Tunisia, Egypt, and Turkey, as well as its attitude vis-à-vis Iran. This course teaches students how to read various types of “texts” that form Middle East scholarship. This includes primary sources in addition to the traditional secondary sources, whether peer-reviewed texts or “policy reports.” Students will also watch and review films about American role in the Middle East.

No required textbooks available

Music

MUS-07.07-01 Animal Musics

Hour: 3A Instructor: Rowland Moseley

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Animal Musics
Description: Sonic performances by non-human animals, including many species of bird and whale, have excited humans in various artistic and scientific pursuits for millennia. Singers, instrumentalists, and composers have engaged in animal mimicry; philosophers and scientists have perched on the human/animal boundary to ponder what “music” and “musical culture” are; researchers and technologists have toiled to capture specimens of animal sound that humans can hear and study. Meanwhile, human music already presupposes animal sound: our pleasure in music depends upon sensory and cognitive capacities that we evolved to survive in teeming ecosystems, parsing our acoustic environment and attending to its rhythms. This first-year seminar takes selected topics in animal “musics” and humanity’s interest in them for the purpose of learning how professional non-fiction authors, journalists, and academic humanities scholars engage U.S. audiences in new ideas and new research about music through their writing. During the course, students develop three pieces of written work: first, a program-book essay about a musical composition and its use of animal sound; second, a magazine feature about the current science of animal sound in which the writer engages directly with one species; and third, the script for a lecture to be given at an organization such as the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, which we will visit. Class meetings comprise activities that target specific writing and research skills, student-led discussion of assigned reading and listening, and experiential learning of working with sound media.

Textbook(s)Required:

Hollis Taylor, Is Birdsong Music?: Outback Encounters with an Australian Songbird (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017). Cost: $44 including shipping from iupress.org

Portuguese

PORT-07.01-01 Coloring Brazil

Hour: 11 Instructor: Carlos Cortez Minchillo

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Coloring Brazil: Representations and Self-Representations of Afro-Brazilian descendants
Description: This course introduces students to the history and culture of the afro-diaspora in Brazil while considering their place in contemporary society. Through a cross-disciplinary approach, we discuss fictional and non-fictional representations and self-representations of colored Brazilians. Students will engage with critical analysis of textual and cinematic materials that at once represent and question stereotypes, social marginalization, economic inequality, and all sorts of bias impairing the living conditions and personal development of non-white Brazilians. We will also examine how Blacks and Browns have been resisting violence and oppression, fighting stigmatization, and making their political voice heard in the public sphere. In this spirit, the course explores epistemologies produced by non-white Brazilian scholars, like Lelia González, Djamila Ribeiro, Sueli Carneiro and Abdias Nascimento. Materials from different periods prompt students to think about questions such as the following: How Brazilian fictional representations/self-representation of Browns and Blacks changed through time? What are the discourses used to justify social inequalities and racial discrimination in Brazil? Do Brazilian and non-Brazilian scholars have different visions about race relations in Brazil? How critical theories, contextual information and historical knowledge shape our understanding of fictional works? How social activism and the black movement in Brazil intertwine with artistic practices and fictional representations? Historically, what has been the weight of Afro-Brazilian authorship? What roles it has played in different periods? How race intersects with other axes of oppression such as gender and class?

No required textbooks available

Russian

RUSS-07.07-01 Monster Trafficking

Hour: 12 Instructor: Jasmina Savic

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Monster Trafficking: Slavic Vampire Lore in Western Culture
Description: This course will explore the representation of vampires in the world of Slavic folklore, literature, film, culture, and politics. We will examine how vampires, reemerging in different historical periods, affected people’s imagination and real-life experience. Then, we will study cross-cultural understanding of these archetypes by looking at western cultural renditions of Slavic lore. In our discussions and writing assignments, we will discuss what the fascination with vampires says about primal fears, superstitions, ignorance, identity, social conflict, and sexuality. This writing focused seminar will help students learn how to think and write about this mythical figure like a scholar in culture studies. We will critically engage primary sources, apply textual-based evidence through close reading, and read scholarly works to learn how to fashion original ideas and make strong arguments, how to use an array of materials from classical literary and cinematic texts to visual art and cyber narratives in writing, etc. Over the course of the term, you will write in-class discussion comments, a close reading post, a comparative analysis paper, and a final research project.

No required textbooks available

Sociology

SOCY-07.08-01 Managing Emotions

Hour: 12 Instructor: Kathryn Lively

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Managing Your Emotions From the Outside In
Description: Drawing on insights from sociology to psychotherapy, this is an interdisciplinary course on managing one’s emotions. The purpose will be to 1) examine how social norms and cultural expectations tell us what we should feel and how to express those feelings, 2) investigate the intrapersonal and societal consequences of adhering to these norms, and 3) better understand why particular strategies related to mindfulness help us to navigate these social demands. We will work to develop a stronger appreciation of how emotion operates in both the external and internal worlds, and to what consequence. We will approach the sociological content of the course through a number of writing components. Students respond to course readings through informal writing in reading journals and short reflection papers (1-2 pages) throughout the term. Students learn about formal writing through two papers, one of which is a quasi-research paper based on your original data collection (e.g., observations, content analysis, or short interviews with friends) that will draw on sociological resources (read in class) to explore the cultural and structural constraints surrounding a particular emotion. The other is a more significant library research paper on a related topic of your choice and will require additional library research, although you may also draw on assigned readings.

Textbook(s)Required:

Theater

THEA-07.01-01 Theater for Social Change

Hour: 11 Instructor: Mara Sabinson

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Theater for Social Change
Description: This course will trace particular developments in American and Western European Theater from the First World War through the present. Artists and theater groups under consideration will be those whose work has focused on contemporary social conditions and the potential of performance to affect social change. In addition, students will experiment with developing scripts and performances based on current events. Readings will include selections from the writings of Erwin Piscator, Bertolt Brecht, The Federal Theatre Project, Harold Pinter, Augusto Boal, etc. as well as newspapers, news magazines, and other media sources. In addition to creative and critical writing, students will be assigned one major research project and a power point presentation. Emphasis will be on class participation.

Textbook(s)Required:

none

THEA-07.01-02 Theater for Social Change

Hour: 2 Instructor: Mara Sabinson

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Textbook(s)Required:

None

Women's, Gender, and Sexuality

WGSS-07.01-01 Gender in Science Fiction

Hour: 10 Instructor: Douglas Moody

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: He, She or It: Reconstructing Gender in Science Fiction
Description: In this First-Year Seminar, we will explore strange new worlds of thought and seek out new intellectual life and advanced lines of research-based inquiry to inspire your critical thinking and provide you with strategies for effective academic research and composition. The literary and cinematic genres that we are exploring fall within the realm of “speculative” or “science” fiction (and we will consider both of these terms, but SF will suffice for now) and many of the historical and theoretical perspectives we explore in this course come from the field of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Gender studies, as you will discover, has arisen out of centuries of “feminist movement,” and one cannot fully appreciate the significance of feminism and its influences on social change without considering other closely related issues of race and ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation through an “intersectional” lens. The influences of science fiction and speculative fiction in literature, film, television, and in the popular imagination have been very significant for our cultures in a post-modern world, and in this class we will consider a wide range of the social concepts, gender constructs, technological influences, and cultural theories that have been informed by feminism as we read speculative fiction stories and a variety of non-fiction texts, as well as view and examine various electronic media.

Textbook(s)Required:

There are three required texts for the class and all other materials are available through the library and the Canvas course website. The three required books are: 1) LeGuin, Ursula. The Left Hand of Darkness. Ace Books, 1987; ISBN-13: 978-0441478125; 2) Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Anchor Books, 2017; ISBN-13: 978-0525435006; 3) Wells, Martha. All Systems Red. Tor.com Book, 2017; ISBN-13: 978-0765397539

Writing Program

WRIT-07.22-01 Technology and Sport

Hour: 10A Instructor: Rachel Obbard

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Technology and Sport at the Crossroads
Description: This is a First-Year Seminar that engages students in in-depth study of this complex, interdisciplinary topic through reading, research, discussion, and composition. In this course, we will examine why some innovations in science and technology create controversy, try to answer some of the important questions about the use of technology in sport that transcend individual sports, and examine who is contributing to and shaping the public discourse about these topics. We will read and discuss scientific (peer-reviewed) papers and scholarly essays on engineering, ethics and the philosophy of sport and each student will do extensive research and writing on a specific topic. Coursework will include short informal writing pieces, an annotated bibliography, a presentation on their topic, and two major essays: a literature review paper on the applied science or engineering behind a specific sports technology, and a scholarly essay that examines the intersection of that technology with sport and society.

Textbook(s)Required:

None

WRIT-07.30-01 The Female Detective

Hour: 10 Instructor: Colleen Lannon

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: The Female Detective: Gender-Bending in the Mystery Genre
Description: Detective fiction is generally considered a conservative genre. It addresses doubt and uncertainty (Who committed the crime? Why? Will she or he strike again?) and once the crime is solved, it replaces that doubt with certainty and assurance; the status quo is reinstated. What happens, then, when the historically male sleuth is replaced by a female detective? What possibilities are opened by it? Is the status quo reinforced or challenged? This course will examine the female detective alongside her masculine counterpart, starting with the early days of Sherlock Holmes and his detective “sisters” and then proceeding through the golden age of British crime fiction and selections from American hard-boiled fiction. Finally, we will examine the new wave of female detective fiction that began in the 1980s, as well as the emergence of the sub-genre of queer/lesbian detection in the 1990s. Readings will include selections from authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Sue Grafton, and Katherine V. Forrest.

Textbook(s)Required:

Grafton, Sue. A is for Alibi. St. Martin's Griffin, 2005. ISBN: 978- 0312353810.
Forrest, Katherine V. Murder at the Nightwood Bar. Spinsters Ink, 2011. ISBN: 978-1935226673.

WRIT-07.37-01 Anthropogenesis

Hour: 10A Instructor: Christopher Drain

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Anthropogenesis
Description: In this seminar we will deal with the question of human origins (i.e., "anthropogenesis"). In staking out this investigation, we follow late philosopher Bernard Stiegler and Soviet psychologist L.S. Vygotsky in positing the following proposition: Homo sapiens is interesting only insofar as it leaves the bounds of purely biological determination. In other words, we are cultural-historical animals, and our specific development relies on the mediating role of cultural devices and cognitive scaffolds. But what exactly are these devices and scaffolds? And how do they function not only in relation to the quantitative amplification of prehuman capacities but also their qualitative transformation? In formulating answers to these questions, we will look to work from philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and cognitive science, while also considering insights from literary theory and psychoanalysis. As a writing seminar, we will critically examine the rhetorical structure of our texts and workshop analytic and argumentative compositions to learn the contours of academic prose in an interdisciplinary context. Shorter written assignments will scaffold the development of a research paper. Students should expect to draw on peer and instructor feedback throughout the term.

Textbook(s)Required:

All readings are available online.

WRIT-07.37-02 Anthropogenesis

Hour: 2A Instructor: Christopher Drain

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Textbook(s)Required:

All readings are available online.

WRIT-07.38-01 Cultures of Self-Loathing

Hour: 2 Instructor: Min Young Godley

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Cultures of Self-Loathing
Description: In an age dominated by the language of positivity, self-care, and empowerment, negative emotions such as self-loathing are taboo, or at best viewed as obstacles that individuals must overcome in order to be successful and happy. But what if self-loathing is about more than an individual deficit and, in a sense, doesn’t even reside in the “self”? What if it has something to teach us about what we value, and can therefore shed light on larger problems in our culture and society that would otherwise go unheeded? This course explores self-loathing in a number of perspectives: as “ugly feelings,” as moral perversion, as social pathology, and as internalized oppression. Then, expanding our perspective to interpersonal relations, we will examine how self-loathing also manifests in such forms as blame and resentment, playing a hidden role in politics that includes racism, sexism, body shaming, and so on. Finally, we will interpret the shifting ethical stakes that are expressed in resentment and self-loathing and appraise their value as criticism.

Textbook(s)Required:

Larsen, Nella. Passing. Penguin Classics, 2003. ISBN: \u200E978-0142437278.

WRIT-07.39-01 True Crime

Hour: 10A Instructor: Clara Lewis

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Reading and Writing True Crime
Description: The genre of true crime is wildly popular. Enjoying its sensational narratives for entertainment purposes, however, raises difficult questions. What are the implications for justice when podcasters, documentarians, and tabloids weigh in on high profile cases? How do new visual and social technologies impact the genre? What does our cultural fascination with violence reveal about our society? This seminar offers a critical introduction to the practice of reading and writing true crime. We aim to extend the boundaries of the genre by considering underrepresented harms and unconventional stories. We begin with theory from harm studies and critical criminology that contextualizes the state’s role in defining what constitutes crime. Then we embark on an extended period of self-directed research complimented by shared readings that illustrate the potential of the true crime genre to reveal social harms. Readings include, Slavoj Žižek’s Violence, Jess Walter’s Ruby Ridge, Dave Cullen’s Columbine, and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. By the end of the term, you will complete a significant independent study that culminates in either an original true crime narrative or a critique of an existing true crime story. Ahead of your final project, you’ll practice a number of real-world short forms, including pitches, proposals, and reviews. You will also experiment with ways of writing-without-writing and pre-writing designed to level-up your skills, build confidence, and cut the stress and procrastination out of your process.

Textbook(s)Required:

Cullen, Dave Columbine . Twelve, 2010. ISBN: 978-0446546928.
Walker, Jess Ruby Ridge: The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy Weaver Family. Harper Perennial, 2002. ISBN: 006000794X.
Capote, Truman In Cold Blood. Vintage, 1994. ISBN: 0679745580.
Daly, Martin & Wilson, Margo The Truth About Cinderella Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN: 978-0300080292.

WRIT-07.42-01 The Art of Human Dialogue

Hour: 10A Instructor: Katherine Riley

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: The Art of Human Dialogue
Description: AI chatbots possess emergent and startling dialogue abilities. Dialogue is so intuitive, so powerful, and so fundamental to us as humans that this technology causes great concern. Even as its creators laud its tremendous possibilities for improving society, they also warn of its profound risks for society and humanity. This interdisciplinary writing course approaches the issue by aiming our investigatory gaze deeper into this most ancient of human abilities, interrogating it with questions such as: why is it necessary to us, how do we do it, how do we judge it, what does it mean to be bad or good, succeed or fail, what makes it ‘human’? We consider ancient dialogue, dialogue in the modern wild, and the dialogue we create in our stories and films, before returning to AI-generated dialogue with our marshaled insights and considering how it compares to its human counterpart, and what about that most excites and concerns us. We conceive of our writing as part of this conversation too. We respond to ancient dialogue with a personal essay, spontaneous dialogue with a collaborative linguistics (NLP) paper, creative dialogue with a creative dialogue project, and chatbot dialogue with a researched op-ed. Through collaboration and workshopping, we treat our writing as parts of a whole, and our class as a Writers’ Room.

Textbook(s)Required:

None

WRIT-07.44-01 Questioning Physicalism

Hour: 2A Instructor: Erkki Mackey

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Questioning Physicalism
Description: The belief that reality is fundamentally physical has dominated western thought for at least four centuries. While the success of that belief, combined with scientific reductionism, has been undeniable—in curing disease, developing technology, and dramatically improving the quality of life on Earth for humans—we have long had legitimate philosophical reasons to question its plausibility and utility as a worldview. What’s more, it has, paradoxically, motivated profound discoveries that cast doubt on its own validity and, arguably, imperiled life on Earth. We will examine some of those discoveries and philosophical concerns to try and decide if it’s time to abandon physicalism—and we’ll consider possible alternatives and contemplate their implications. In addition to numerous informal writing assignments, students can expect to write multiple drafts of three short exploratory essays and one substantial research paper, and will receive considerable feedback from both peers and the instructor on those four assignments. Readings will include Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel, The Mysterious Universe by James Jeans, Why Materialism is Baloney by Bernardo Kastrup, and The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman.

No required textbooks available

WRIT-07.45-01 The Poetics of Surrealism

Hour: 11 Instructor: John Barger

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: The Poetics of Surrealism
Description: “Surrealism,” said Salvador Dali, “is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” When we think of surrealism, perhaps we think of Dali’s melting clocks or Hitchcock’s bizarrely aggressive birds. Although the first wave of surrealism, which concentrated on painting in France after WW1, ended almost 100 years ago, surrealism as a concept in art is still going strong. Why has it survived? To begin with, it’s flexible enough that it has adapted to allow in other genres—music, paintings, photography, sculpture, film, stories—and diverse cultural groups. In our class, we will read three books of poems (by Alice Rahon, Charles Simic, and James Tate), watch two films (Inland Empire by David Lynch, and Un Chien Andalou, by Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí.), read numerous stories and scholarly essays, and look at lots of paintings and photos. Using the lens of English literature, we will specifically focus on how literary scholars write, craft arguments, and develop and test theories about poetry, film studies, aesthetics, psychology, art history, photography, Afro-Surrealism, poetry, and poetics. As part of this process, you will learn how to write and read research papers, such as those in academic journals, and how to package these ideas for public audiences. There will also be a creative component, where you try your hand at the creative forms we’re observing.

Textbook(s)Required:

Rahon, Alice Shapeshifter NYRB Poets, 2021. ISBN: 9781681375007.
Simic, Charles The World Doesn't End Ecco, 1989. ISBN: 9780156983501.
Tate, James Return to the City of White Donkeys Ecco, 2005. ISBN: 9780060750022.

WRIT-07.45-02 The Poetics of Surrealism

Hour: 12 Instructor: John Barger

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Textbook(s)Required:

WRIT-07.46-01 Photos as Research Method

Hour: 12 Instructor: Amanda Wetsel

Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: None

Description:

Course Title: Photography as Anthropological Research Method
Description: This course examines the possibilities and limitations of photographs as part of anthropologists’ research and writing. We will consider photography as a qualitative research method and analyze how photographs have been incorporated into published anthropological writing. Through our writing, we will consider how anthropologists use photographs to understand social practices and build theory. Students will experiment with interviewing with photographs, designing photo-elicitation prompts, and analyzing their findings. Assignments will progress from an analysis of an anthropological text to a research paper that uses photographs as a method of understanding a topic. In this discussion seminar, we will treat writing as a practice of thinking and a collaborative social process.

Textbook(s)Required:

All books are available online.