2026-2027 Course Descriptions

• Constructing the Self

  Who are you, really? What makes you unique? What do you and all other humans have in common? How do you learn and form judgments? What makes you peaceful or violent, conservative or liberal, competitive or collaborative, truthful or deceitful? What is the nature of friendship, love, and loyalty? How does technology affect your sense of Self? This section of the FYI will address these and many other questions by bringing together biology, neuroscience, ethics, history, psychology, philosophy, religious studies, the latest findings in genetics and epigenetics, to explore the complexities of the Self. Students will watch movies and talks, as well as read about consciousness and free will.

• Dangerous Liasons

  In this course, we will look closely at several of the troubling, if fascinating, creations that present what have been called “dangerous liaisons.” Some of the world’s most striking and provocative explorations of such themes come from writers, directors, and artists in France and other French-speaking cultures, whose work we will examine through their English translation. From the highly celebrated scandalous novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses to the still-shocking short stories of the strip-tease-artist-turned-writer Colette, and including some amazing often-censored stage-plays, these works ask questions of power, appearance, gender, control, and agency that call for our attention.

  In our discussions, we will examine notions of what is dangerous and what composes a liaison as we seek to understand what these artists tell us about desires that mark and make particular relationships. What might make the dangerous sexy and/or attractive, for example? Are all dangerous liaisons necessarily sexual or romantic ones? Our readings and viewings, including a close look at the award-winning Québécois film Mommy, should guide us to expanded notions of such categories and impulses.

• Dealing with the Nazis

  Nazism was and remains one of the most important events in recent human history. Who joined or sympathized with the Nazis? Who rejected them? Who suffered at their hands? After the war, how have the victims, bystanders, perpetrators, as well as the descendants of these respective groups, dealt with the legacy of Nazism? You will hear from all of these people in this class through their essays, diaries, books and testimonies.

• Dreaming

  Many cultures, including our own, have wondered about the nature of dreams and their significance. Key questions that arise are: What is dreaming? Do dreams have a purpose? Do dreams have meaning? How has dreaming been understood historically and cross-culturally? Studies in Cognitive Science have emphasized the importance of dreaming, and of sleep more generally, for mental health and wellbeing. But do dreams have a function beyond that? This class examines a variety of classic views on ‘dreams’, considers dreams in historical and cross-cultural perspectives, and reflects on how the modern scientific study of dreaming relates to the study of dreams from psychological, philosophical, anthropological, and religious perspectives.

• Who Goes There? Encounters with and in Nature

  We will consider and explore the intersections of human cultures and the natural environment, with an emphasis on the social and cultural dynamics of the environment and environmental action. We will consider the concept of “nature” as we consider the concept of human culture.

  Some questions we will explore: What questions arise when we consider who has access to outdoor natural spaces, and who might not have the same access? How does the language we use when writing about nature affect what we do in, for, and to nature? Do literature and art change our minds about social issues; or, do they just express what we already think? What are the ethical questions that we pose and wrestle with as we interact with and within our environment?

  We’ll put these questions into play while we think about the place of literature and art in community and environmental activism, and while we think about the ethical connections between race, class, and gender when it comes to thinking about our interactions with nature. We’ll explore our own local spaces and consider global perspectives, as well, as we explore art and literature about nature.

• Free Will

  We tend to have a powerful and immediate conception of ourselves as free agents. We think we determine the course of our lives. Even mundane everyday actions like getting out of bed in the morning strike us as performed out of our own free will. Our sense of free will is not a trivial phenomenon, but is at the heart of our practices of holding people morally responsible for their actions. And yet, there are also convincing reasons to think that we are moving pieces in a physical system where everything is fully determined by physical laws. Our thoughts and actions are not exceptions to this deterministic order. If so, is our sense of free will simply an illusion, and is nobody actually morally responsible for what they do? In this course, we will explore the rich, millennia-old philosophical debate on this question. We will use the debate as a springboard to intensively practice our reading and writing skills.

• Friends, Foes, or Frenemies? The Human Relationship with Technology

  What is the ideal relationship between humans and modern technology? Who decided that people need to always be “reachable?” What the heck’s the difference between “regular” AI and “generative” AI? When did technology become synonymous with the human experience? Where do people learn how to interact without technology? Why does technology matter? How does humanity embrace technological advancements and still maintain a moral code? Through our readings, observational studies, personal reflections, debates, and creative exercises, we will dive deeply into these complex questions, as we seek to better understand how and why technology has fundamentally altered the human experience.

• Humans & Nonhumans

  Since the mid-twentieth century, developments in a range of science and engineering disciplines including genetics and biochemistry, biotechnology and bioinformatics, computer science and engineering, and artificial intelligence have emerged significantly to challenge traditional conceptions and philosophies of humanism. How have shifting ideas pertaining to consciousness, intelligence, sentience, self-awareness, emotionality, affect, and related categories and phenomena issuing from work in these fields dramatically expanded conventional understandings of what we might informally refer to as the margins or limits of “human nature”? This will be a major open-ended question structuring this course.

  In a broader historical context, from the dawn of the technoscientific revolutions of the Romantic period, writers and intellectuals have sought to explore and represent through cultural, philosophical, theoretical, and other forms and methodologies the ways in which developments in modern sciences and technologies have begun to upend anthropocentric accounts of the ostensible uniqueness of “human nature.” In this course you will grapple with these and other related issues both in class discussion and in your writing (and revising) of course papers. More specifically, we will focus our attention on the challenges posed to traditional conceptions of humanism by developments in biotechnology, on the one hand, and artificial intelligence, on the other, and we will do so by contextualizing postwar technoscientific developments within the longer historical arc dating to the scientific and industrial revolutions of the turn of the nineteenth century.

• Humor, Laughter, and Literature at Wit's End

  German philosopher Helmuth Plessner argues that man's inherently comic nature is the result of his doubled nature; he is entwined in the world, subject to social order, and yet "eccentric" to it, forever seeking freedom and clashing with social norms. In this course we will read selections of twentieth-century literature, theatre, and humor essays in the light of psychoanalytical, physiological, and philosophical observations about humor and laughter. We will ask what special insights might emerge from reading comic portrayals of colliding horizons, identity crises, social disorder, and, of course, people at their wit's end. Literary authors read and comedians watched may include Kurt Vonnegut, Allie Brosh, Zora Neale Hurston, Trevor Noah, and Hannah Gadsby.

• Living with Fire: Volcanoes, Decisions, and Disasters

  What would you do if a volcano near your hometown began to stir? How much evidence would you need before ordering an evacuation and what if you were wrong?

  This first-year seminar explores volcanoes, not just as natural phenomena, but as high-stakes human crises. Through case studies (e.g., Vesuvius, St. Helens, Kilauea) and hands-on simulations, we will investigate how eruptions are monitored, why they are so difficult to predict, and how we make life-and-death decisions under uncertainty. The course will culminate in a series of interactive crisis simulations, as you’ll work in teams as scientists, emergency managers, and government officials, analyzing realistic data as a volcanic crisis unfolds. You’ll debate, make decisions, and defend them just like real-world experts and communicate your findings to community members at risk. By the end of the course, you will not only understand how volcanoes work, but also how science operates in the real world, where data are incomplete, risks are uneven, and decisions carry real consequences.

• Media F.A.R.C.E.

  The mainstream mass media have been a farce when it comes to informing people about important issues. A Gallup’s study shows that “Americans' Trust in Media Remains at Historical Low”. People who rely on the mainstream mass media, as the only source of information, are at a disadvantage when it comes to important issues that affect their lives, rights, health, and pocketbooks, while they are kept busy with trivial issues. In this course, the students learn how to become critical thinkers who can intelligently analyze the effects of ownership, advertisement, advertisers, logical fallacies, and other tricks of the mass media trade. They will become better informed citizens that won’t be easily bamboozled by the mainstream mass media sound bites.

• Medievalism and Modern Media

  In every media form, the medieval pervades. Our modern fascination with the Middle Ages is peculiar given that this period feels so distant from our contemporary values, morals, and ethics. Yet video games like The Witcher and TV shows like Game of Thrones show us that medieval stories have remained a popular source for creative expression even in the 21st century. Examining various media forms—anime, music videos, and movies—this class will consider how and why the Middle Ages are continually reproduced and transformed. Together, we’ll examine how and why artistic representations of this period remain relevant to our individual and collective experiences of the world.

• Music & Politics

  This course explores the multiple points of contact between music & politics in modern American music (from ragtime to hip hop). Themes include (1) the conception of sound as power; (2) the role of music in social movements, (3) dilemmas involving artistic authenticity vs. commercial imperatives, (4) cultural appropriation, (5) issues of identity, home, & freedom, (6) misogyny in rock & hip hop, and (7) genre transitions.

• Nostalgia

  The word “nostalgia” is a modern word created from ancient Greek that means a painful longing for home or for the past. In this course we explore nostalgia in all its many forms: from simple homesickness to the strange desire to return to a place or time that never truly existed, or that you never experienced yourself. We learn about the psychology of nostalgia, read literature that wrestles with this theme, and examine objects and monuments around us. Along the way, we will explore answers to these questions: Why do we have such intense yearnings for distant places and times? Do these emotions harm us, or can they be useful in shaping our lives? How does nostalgia shape our sense of self and belonging? How does nostalgia influence politics and interpretations of history? How does studying the past help us understand ourselves?

• On Spaces, Places, and Travel

  This course will explore the concept of travel (broadly conceived) in literature, film, and culture. We will ask how space and place affect experiences and what is the effect of travel on a person. We will consider general themes of belonging, home, space/place, and memory. The course will take us through various forms of media from epic poems to postcards to cinema and TV. We will start our wide-ranging journey with Homer’s Odyssey and study abroad with the cast of L’Auberge Espagnole (2002), among others.

• On the Power of Stories: Resilience, Resistance, and Transformation

  This section of the First-Year Inquiry seminar broadly examines the values of the humanities and arts. Facing financial constraints, many colleges and universities target language, literature, music, and art programs and departments for budgetary cuts. This class is conducted with this background in mind. More specifically, we will read novels, memoirs, and stories that celebrate the resilience of the human spirit, bear witness to the atrocities and injustice committed by a government or regime, and demonstrate the healing power of literature. In short, we will read stories of reliance, resistance, and transformation.

• Pursuing Happiness

  What brings you happiness? How do we create meaning, value, and joy in our lives? Are we all free to shape our own destiny—to pursue our own happiness—or are there limits to such freedom? What is the role of education in the pursuit of a meaningful, purpose-driven life? In this seminar, we’ll explore these questions through a combination of reading, classroom discussion, and writing. We’ll share our writing and writing practices, and we’ll provide feedback for our peers. If you’re a writer, or if you just want to learn something about writing, this course is for you!

• Reason & Passion in the Ancient World

  This course is concerned with the archetypal categories of reason and passion. Several texts crucial to the classical tradition will be analyzed, and for each one, we will try to assess how they contributed to the constitution of arguments that are still relevant to the modern discussion of the topic. What follows is a partial list of the many issues that will be targeted:

  • Reason and emotions are opposite or conciliable categories?
  • The creation of orderly systems can be seen as a product of cold reason or is it rather a balanced regimentation of emotions?
  • Are passions detrimental or beneficial for the individual? And for the collectivity?
  • Is beauty something that can be created and fully experienced by reason, or does it per-tain and involve solely our emotions?
  • What do atomic theories have to do with fear and emotions?
  • What is madness? Regular discussions will develop from the problems presented by the texts at hand.

  Participation and attendance in class are therefore of paramount importance. Participation will be assessed based on reading assignments (with quizzes), in-class discussions, and in-class presentations. The student will be responsible for writing 4 papers concerned with a range of themes targeted in class. For each paper, the student will be provided with extensive feedback.

• Religious Violence

  In the year 1096, more than 100,000 people walked from their homes in Europe to Jerusalem to kill a group of people they had never met and barely heard of. This journey is commonly known as the beginning of “the Crusades.” Ever since, crusading was and is not limited to the Middle East. In 1320, a group of Christian shepherds brutally murdered Jewish people living in towns of Southern France, a series of religious violence known as the Shepherd’s Crusade. In the year 2019, a man shot hundreds of worshipers attending Friday prayers, killing 51, at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Among the multiple references scrawled on his gun was “1189 Acre,” a battle between Muslim and Christian forces setting the stage for the third Crusade.

  At the heart of this course is the question of a crusade’s paradox: How can people commit violence in imitation of Christ’s suffering (taking the cross) and in hope for forgiveness of human sin? What motivates someone to engage in violent acts under the pretext of crusading? What is the role of religious belief in the activation of violence? How do economic, political, and legal contexts weigh in a group’s participation in violence? What do Christian, Jewish, and Muslim relationships look like on the local level? Analyzing a variety of sources including movies, objects, literature, speeches, treaties, documents, account books, and letters, this class will study the shapes of violence at the core of crusades in the past and present.

• The Cost of Modernity

  What has been the cost of modernity? This FYI seminar looks critically at some of the major transformations in human history that have shaped the world in which we find ourselves today. For much of this history, we have celebrated progress; technological improvements, urban life, greater individualism, accelerated speed of transactions and mobility, and triumphs over nature have all dazzled us. But what is the downside to material and technological progress?

  We will read, reflect, and discuss the multiple ways in which progress has come at a cost. Topics will range widely to explore the social, environmental, political, and cultural history of the last 250 years, including: the repercussions of the fossil economy, the impact of urbanization on human lives, the problems with agribusiness, the unintended consequences of large-scale planning, and the environmental toll of consumer culture.

• The Rules of Madness

  You often feel sad—do you suffer from depression? You are obsessed with not eating too much—are you anorexic? You cannot concentrate—do you have ADHD? In the last two centuries, moral flaws, existential difficulties, and idiosyncratic traits have regularly been reinterpreted as psychiatric diseases. But are these diseases real, and in what sense of “real”? Have they been discovered or invented? Do they describe us or do they shape us? And how do we draw the line between the normal and the pathological? History shows that this line has been constantly redrawn under the influence of broad cultural changes, business decisions, or personal interests. After a very brief survey of the history of psychiatry followed by a look at some big issues related to psychiatry, this course will focus on a select number of mental disorders and debate the proposition that they are historically constructed.

• The Social Life of Literature

  We often imagine reading as an activity that happens silently, in the privacy of our own heads. Yet the practice of reading is deeply ingrained in the social world around us, from social media and casual conversations to how we conceive of education and the impact of technology on politics. From New York Times bestsellers to BookTok, from Nobel Prize winners to Reese's Book Club, literary texts are both shaped by and shape how we understand society.

  This class explores the ways in which readers discover, engage with, and discuss books in the twenty-first century. It asks how is the practice of reading is shaped by technology: how do Amazon recommendations or social media posts shape who, what, and how people read? What does it mean to listen to an audiobook instead of reading a text? It also asks how the multiple communities in which we read shape the experience of literature whether that is collectively through book clubs or the college classroom, online spaces for the publication of fanfiction, and individually for pleasure or information influence the choices of how, when, and where we read. Finally, we will explore how contemporary literary institutions such as libraries, bookstores, and author events influence readers' choices about how literature is consumed and investigate literature's relationship to the marketplace.

• Unmasking Gender In(Equality)

  Can snow-clearing and car airbag design be sexist? Why do women always wait in line longer for the restroom? Should trans athletes be allowed to participate on gendered teams? How can we explain disparities in access to abortion and sex education? What’s up with all the talk about toxic masculinity and the ‘alpha male’ in online spaces? Are gender pay gaps and other workplace issues still a real problem? What do the witch trials have to do with gender-based violence today? Why are men diagnosed with heart disease at higher rates than women, but much less likely to be diagnosed with depression? What explains the increase in LGBTQ+ identification (around 1 in 4) among Gen Z and Gen Alpha?

  In this course, we will examine these and other current issues related to gender and sexuality to unpack two central questions – How has gender and sexual (in)equality changed in recent years, and how does it impact us all? Students will be asked to reflect on issues that might impact them and consider diverse perspectives from academic and popular media sources, ultimately forming their own answers to the existence of (in)equality and how it might be addressed.

• Unnatural Acts

  We will explore the complex and elusive zone between nature and artifice. Our routes of access will be texts on a diverse set of themes: art, time, photography, history, and the human body. We will consider what it means to demarcate the boundary between "nature" and "art," and look at the ramifications of both respecting and defying it.