First-Year Seminar Course Descriptions

Fall 2026

FS 102 The Afterlife (Honors)

This seminar explores how cultures in different times and places have imagined what happens to human beings after death. It will also examine how beliefs about the afterlife are related to questions of power, authority, and ethics in this life. All major world religions, and some localized indigenous traditions will be covered.  CORE: First‐Year Seminar; Honors Students Only

FS‐109 Shapeshifting through Words

We learn how to become shape-changers through the study of poetry, as well as literature in general. We will become other people – even the dead of centuries past – then other animals, and plants. We do this through reading, writing and research. CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS‐111 The Examined Life

In this course we will examine our lives by writing about them, using “lenses” from various fields (literature, history, philosophy, or psychology, for instance) to see ourselves from different angles. We will write personal narratives/memoirs of our own, using what we have learned to further explore the writing process and examine our own lives.  CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS 119 Questions of Justice

What is justice? How might our individual identities inform understandings, visions, and aspirations around justice? Together we will explore questions of human dignity alongside the role of systems and institutions. Seminar questions will explore both current and historical events with legal, ethical, philosophical and religious implications that directly affect student’s daily lives. CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS 120 How the Arts Transform Us

We will use award-winning picture books to explore the benefits of art through the lens of cognition. Using hands-on experience, writing, and discussion, we explore how art can support emotional regulation, creativity, and cognitive performance, thereby benefiting health, wellness, and learning. This class will take the visual and written languages of children’s literature as our focal point, reflecting on picture books that have won awards for distinguished illustration styles or techniques. CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS 124 Native Voices Across Media

Storytelling takes many forms. They can mesh with cultural and familial practices, as well as historical documentation. We’ll ask how a variety of stories by Native American creators take shape through literature, photography, film, and other media. How do stories, and their formats, support perceptions of nature, community, family, self – and vice versa? Since broad terms like “Native” are often seen as less meaningful than specific tribal affiliation, we examine language used in these examples. CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS128: Journey Stories

We use stories to make sense of our world and to share that understanding with others. This seminar reads, examines, and listens to the stories people tell. Students will tell their own stories, attend a Moth Story Slam, and interview other people to give them an opportunity to tell their own story. We will use these stories to develop a common language and understand both the inner and outer landscapes of our lives.  CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS130: Comedy, Discomfort, and Dissent

Laughter does serious work: it can build community; it can undermine authority; it can make us uncomfortable. This course will examine how humor fosters resistance and connection, through studies of fiction, memoir, and film. Some examples come from the United States, while others emerge from one or more other societies and cultures, to set up a more global reflection on humor.  CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS 139 – Resistance and Empowerment

This seminar will explore the theme of resistance and empowerment in significant works of writing and films to better understand how words and images can be used as artistic, social, and political tools to give voice to those who are otherwise forgotten, ignored, discriminated against, or excluded.  CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS‐140 Place and Placelessness

This seminar examines conceptions and experiences of place. We live in a world of distinct, memorable, and meaning‐infused places. By exploring spaces and places which seem to resonate with meaning, we will probe how the essence of the meaning of place can be imposed and maintained (or resisted and denied?), and how we define ourselves and others through and within places.  CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS‐150 Black Voices of Democracy

African American writing and music are fundamentally American traditions that express the gaps between democratic ideals and social realities. From the time of slavery to the present, Black writers have used the prophetic power of voice-spoken, sung, and written-to move the nation towards transformation, freedom, and equality. This course explores examples from these traditions. CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS 161 Technology and Ethics in Society

This seminar investigates the interplay of technology and ethics. The impact of technological innovations on human society and the ethical challenges which have arisen because of them will also be discussed. Readings may include selections from fields such as philosophy and the social sciences as well as topics related to biotechnology and genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, surveillance and security, and the consequences of social media. (Topics will vary every semester.)  CORE: First‐Year Seminar

FS 163 Climate Crisis

In this course, we will analyze the deep roots of the climate crisis, understanding what has brought it about. We will ask, then, what it would take to change our ways of living in response to its demands. To do this, we will engage a visionary horizon – imagining radically different ways of living that might not only avert the worst of climate change, but create far more just and more satisfying societies as well.  CORE: First‐Year Seminar