FYS Course Descriptions

"This course will engage students to articulate and examine their core values and beliefs about what would make their lives happy and fulfilling and what would create a more flourishing society as well. It also aims to help students develop healthy writing habits and a basic understanding of several ancient philosophies of life from Ancient Greece, China, and India.

This course examines Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) not as proof of extraterrestrial life, but as a political and national security problem. We ask: How do governments respond to phenomena they cannot easily explain? What happens when scientific uncertainty collides with secrecy, military risk, and public accountability? How should democratic institutions communicate about anomalous threats without inducing panic, misinformation, or distrust?

Art has served as a pivotal and powerful element of politics for centuries, across time, space, ideas, and media. Whether we look at the socio-political battles that raged in Renaissance Florence, as families and rival governmental factions fought a propaganda war using the stage of the city itself – its streets, homes, and civic buildings, at the socio-cultural and artistic encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples of the Americas (and contemporary explorations of these encounters), or at the socio-cultural and political battles of contemporary America, in which artists and activists create works whose messages are seen on the streets and in institutions of power (governmental, artistic, academic), art has long been political action – meant to sway, provoke, and mold public opinion, to express, argue, and create individual and institutional identities. This course focuses on a series of fascinating examples in art and architecture from the late medieval and Early Modern era to today, in which art is persuasion, propaganda, narrative, counter-narrative, activist act, protest, counter-protest, revolution, and more, enacted on individual and civic bodies and the body politic alike. No prior knowledge is assumed, and all are welcome!

Note: No prior dance experience required

In this community based First Year Seminar, we will turn to the expressive language of the body to address social justice issues and activate meaningful conversations. The arts have served as a generative medium for healing and activism. How can the performing arts, in particular dance and theater with their emphasis on the body, action, and meaning, serve as a practice of freedom both individually and collectively? How do we nurture collaboration and set the stage to imagine and co-create a more just and equitable world?

"This course will provide a general overview and perspective on the emergence of digital communications. It will teach specific digital communications skills that are applicable in the work environment. Also, the course will help you think critically about recent digital communications trends.

This class gives you a solid understanding of what a brand is, how branding works, and why disruptive branding techniques from 1916-present have made, and continue to make, so many businesses so successful. Some (but not all) of the business categories we’ll cover include financial services, technology, personal care, insurance, fitness, publishing, candy, automobiles, and food/beverages. By covering such remarkably different categories, you’ll gain a holistic understanding of how disruptive branding works across diverse businesses and audiences. You’ll also learn how disruptive branding helps businesses attain, maintain, and even reclaim market dominance within the categories they occupy—essential knowledge for everyone interested in our advertising ecosystem and how it turns data into stories that boost bottom lines. 

Paris is one of the most idealized and romanticized cities in the world. Even for those who have never visited, Paris easily conjures recognizable images and reliable stereotypes, from the Eiffel Tower to the Arch of Triumph, and from famous fashion houses to the typical Parisian cafe. In this course, we will challenge this first clichéd version of Paris by contrasting it with another version: Paris and France as a space of political unrest, social conflict, and troubling history. Through literary texts, film, newspaper articles, historical documentation, and essays, we will explore the long trajectory of the double life of Paris.

Paris is one of the most idealized and romanticized cities in the world. Even for those who have never visited, Paris easily conjures recognizable images and reliable stereotypes, from the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, accordion players in the Metro, and famous fashion houses to the typical Parisian café.

In this section of The Double Life of Paris, we will challenge these dominant images by centering African presence in Paris, exploring the city as a space shaped by migration, colonial histories, and diasporic creativity. We will examine how Africans and people of African descent have lived, created, resisted, and reimagined life in Paris across time, from the colonial era to the present.

Through literary texts, film, music, essays, and historical documentation, we will encounter Paris as a site of both cultural collision and profound artistic innovation. Our course will pay particular attention to the experiences of African students, intellectuals, artists, and everyday citizens whose voices and visions offer new ways to understand the city’s complex identity.

This is a course about the double life of Paris, centered on the African lives and legacies that have shaped its rhythm, its culture… and its claim to liberté, égalité, fraternité.

This is a course about the sale, use, advertising and media portrayal of mood-altering drugs in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Although alcohol and tobacco are drugs, we will not be discussing them here. And although some of the drugs we study are not always illegal(marijuana, LSD, prescription opioids, for instance), we will focus on the role of these drugs in our culture over time. We will look at who takes these drugs, and how these drugs and their consumers are portrayed in the media and treated by the law.

The student will learn about the history of K-12 education from the early-American period until today. The student will be able to analyze the interaction of citizenship and democracy through the lens of K-12 education. The student will understand how schooling in the U.S. has been utilized for individual and collective purposes. The student will examine the historic and contemporary impact of double segregation by income and race in U.S. schools. The student will be able to analyze the changing demographics in U.S. schools and the issues of diversity, equity, and inclusivity. The student should have an enhanced understanding of the topics at the forefront of current K-12 educational policy. The student will understand the relationship between housing and educational policy. The student will become familiar with the kinds of questions asked by education scholars, policy makers and practitioners.

"This course focuses on the lives of female and male emigrants who fled Europe and the Americas during the Age of Revolutions (1770s-1830s), as well as contemporary stories of migration and resettlement. This course takes a historical approach in the study of migration, focusing on first-person narratives, letters, plays, and novels written by emigrants and exiles across the Atlantic World. It also includes a CBL component that engages undergraduates to learn about migration stories from people living in our community.

Our attention spans are shrinking. Cell phones, social media, and generative AI put a wealth of information at our fingertips but often decrease our ability to process and absorb it. Declining focus in turn challenges learning, including our ability to read attentively, think critically, and write persuasively—especially when technology promises cognitive shortcuts. This course explores some of the causes and impacts of these declines while focusing on how to return enjoyment and engagement to the reading and writing process. Taught by three literature professors in three related but distinct sections, each version of the course pairs the book Stolen Focus, by journalist Johann Hari, with close study of three novels from our respective areas of expertise. Hari’s book, based on hundreds of interviews with top researchers and industry experts, analyzes the key reasons for our attention issues and what we might do to address them. The class uses the slow and careful study of three works as a training ground to improve reading, critical thinking, and attention. The three sections share a once-a-week lab where students will complete some of the coursework (there will be snacks!).  

This seminar examines the theme and role of friendship in Early Modern European culture, especially in Renaissance Italy, and the way in which friendship informed and inspired intellectual and artistic collaboration and conviviality. Texts from both Greek and Roman antiquity and the European Renaissance on the value of friendship as a source of love, solace, inspiration and delight form the core of the readings, as will works of art that represent collaborations between artists, poets and humanists. Based in conversation, this course in turn considers how conversation between friends, both serious and comical, inspired artistic and scholarly activities.

Note: Restricted to Endeavor students only

What is friendship? Is friendship more important than justice within a community? What is philia? Agape? Eros? This course will explore various perspectives on friendship, love and desire through the lenses of philosophy, literature, cinema, and the arts. Excerpts from the philosophical works of both Eastern and Western cultural traditions will lay the foundation for inquiry into these notions. The course will start with an investigation of friendship as a personal relationship as well as an individual experience informed by particular values and principles. We will subsequently examine the role that friendship plays in building stronger and more peaceful societies and communities and explore the continuities and tensions between friendship and love. Throughout, we will examine the concepts of love and desire in literary and cinematographic texts that span different cultures, historical periods, and continents.

What happens when our creations escape our control? How can we make sense of a world where advances in technology seem to produce just as much anxiety as excitement? By focusing on foundational research skills such as search planning, information literacy, source analysis, and close reading this course will explore themes of technological progress, ethical responsibility, and personal creativity. We will read a unique, MIT edition of Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein that explores the social and ethical aspects of scientific creativity. We will also study multiple adaptations of Frankenstein and investigate current literature surrounding the development and proliferation of generative artificial intelligence in modern society. Through the process of analyzing scholarly conversations in different disciplines, we will create and refine their own research topics. The main goal is to have you leave the course better equipped with tools and skills to engage in critical conversations and research across disciplines.

In this FYS, we explore "geek” culture through ethnographic research.  If you have ever been interested in geek culture products and activities such as D&D, Star Trek, Eurogaming, anime/manga, and cosplay, here is your chance to study that community.  You will learn about your chosen community by participating in it and by interviewing members of the culture, comparing your experiences to the existing research on the topic.  And we’ll play some games, too!

Eugenics is a pseudoscience that promoted policies to "improve" the hereditary qualities of populations by controlling human reproduction. In the early twentieth century, eugenicists claimed that criminality, poverty, alcoholism, prostitution, insanity, and various other real or imagined diseases were inherited. They argued that preventing the transmission of "defective genes" required measures such as sterilization, institutionalization, and other coercive interventions. We will explore the history of eugenics, tracing its proponents, policies, and practices, and examining its links to scientific, social, and political movements, as well as the varied reactions and resistance it inspired. Although the United States and several European countries played leading roles, the course adopts a global perspective, analyzing multiple national contexts to enable comparison and to trace the circulation of eugenic thought across borders.

In this course, we explore the challenges and benefits of growing up bilingual/multilingual in the United States, whose reputation for monolingualism and rapid generational language loss has led researchers to call it "a graveyard of languages." Questions that we will confront together include: (1) Why do schools prioritize some types of bilingualism and stigmatize others? (2) What makes many immigrant parents oppose bilingual education for their children? (3) Do bilinguals think or behave differently in each of their languages? To address these (and other) questions, we will analyze memoirs, conduct interviews, and chat with experts in bilingual language acquisition.

Human trafficking is a social justice issue that has gained prominence and attention in the media and through a variety of academic disciplines in recent year. However, human trafficking as a construct is embedded in conflicting and problematic paradigms and discourses that manipulate the concepts in political, economic and social ways that may perpetuate the underlying structures and issues causing exploitation. From humanitarian and development perspectives to law enforcement, education, policy and social science orientations, the varying discourses related to human trafficking will be explored and students well grapple with challenging questions through a writing intensive approach to inquiry.

This course examines how Europe, China, and India have justified and structured their engagement with Africa from the 15th to the 21st century. We will study Europe’s expansion into Africa in the context of maritime exploration and colonial ambitions (trade, occupation, and cooptation) tied to the New World, and compare it with the contemporary presence of China and India, shaped largely by trade, investment, and diplomatic agreements. The course will explore competing interpretations of these relationships: while many Western observers criticize Asian involvement in Africa as exploitative and intrusive, China and India often present their partnerships as mutually beneficial “win-win” ventures free from any colonial domination. Through historical and contemporary perspectives, students will analyze the ideological, political, and economic claims that have defined Africa’s relations with European and Asian powers (China & India), with particular attention to the question of what constitutes an equal partnership. 

Fairy tales are some of the most enduring and recognizable stories we share across cultures—and they’re far more complex than they first appear. In this course, we’ll discover how tales that may seem simple or childish were often written by (and for) adults with a wide range of intentions.

Over the semester, we’ll explore the history of fairy tales and ask big questions together: Why do we tell stories? What do they reveal about who we are? How and why do they change over time? We’ll read multiple versions of well-known tales alongside modern retellings, comparing how each reflects its cultural moment. Along the way, we’ll also engage with insights from scholars to deepen our understanding of how these stories work and why they still matter today.

"Between 1888 and 1911, the “Jack the Ripper” murders and a series of other crimes in the slums of London captivated London and reverberated around the world.  These were not merely acts of violence.  They were also social, cultural, and political events that reshaped how Londoners understood their city and one another.  This course examines sensationalized crimes during this time period as a window into how a modern metropolis grappled with stark social inequality, the rise of mass journalism, changing gender norms, and an influx of immigrants.

By reading newspaper coverage of murders and the slum novel A Child of the Jago alongside scholarship by historians, we will explore how murders, scandals, and trials were reported in the press and debated on the streets. In so doing, we will explore how ideas about criminality and “appropriate” punishment were intertwined with conceptions of class, gender, and nationality.  We will ask how crime both reflected and reshaped the anxieties and aspirations of the modern metropolis.

Loss is part of every human life yet makes life come apart. How we reconstitute what remains after great loss transforms memories and possibilities This course explores different experiences of loss and different approaches to all that remains for the world afterwards. We consider losses that occur through bodily damage, moral injury, environmental destruction, and the death of loved ones. In each case, we analyze how losses inspire transformed imagination of the material, social, religious, and inner worlds.

"What is translation? How does language shape the world we live in and our relation to it? What are the goals of translation? How can it aid or impede understanding? How are translators and interpreters perceived in different contexts (literary, diplomatic, legal, etc.)? How can translation increase our appreciation for the connections between language, culture, and history? The focus of this course will be on the theory and practice of literary translation and the questions it raises, but we will also consider related phenomena such as dubbing and subtitling, ASL interpreting, and the impact of translation in non-literary contexts.

In 2015, the UN declared its top priority in the new millennium was to end poverty by 2030. While many commentators applauded the UN’s ambition, the pledge also raised questions about what poverty was, how it was measured, and whether it could truly ever be ended. We will take on these questions by exploring the history of the global war on poverty in the ideas and activism of moral crusaders, social reformers, international experts, political radicals, and ordinary people who fought to remake the world. You will work with primary sources—the reminisces of traveling specialists, agenda-setting speeches, street-level views of protest movements, the world’s first international concert—to uncover the possibilities and limits of global initiatives to end poverty, past and present.

"This seminar will focus on the spatial dimensions of the world in which we live. Students will learn various ways to analyze space and to reflect on the sensory aspects of embodied experience. How does the configuration of space influence our thinking, our behaviors, our feelings? In what ways does it convey a sense of welcome or exclusion? How do spatial policies and practices help to create (or inhibit) a sense of community? a sense of identity? What role does the practice of story-telling and myth-making play in the creation of space and place? In what ways do spaces themselves tell stories and reveal their histories? Following Katherine McKittrick’s challenge that “we are all implicated in the production of space, and how geography—in its various formations—is integral to social struggles,” we will engage with stories of lived experiences in two settler colonial spaces – South Africa and the United States – to understand the forces that shaped and continue to shape our world.

Illness and suffering, both physical and psychological, are universal human experiences that transcend time and cultural boundaries. The recent global COVID-19 pandemic has underscored our collective vulnerability and emphasized the importance of healthcare. This course explores how such experiences have manifested across different epochs in the region known today as the Middle East – from ancient Babylonia, through medieval Islamic societies, to contemporary times. It provides a comprehensive exploration of the medical traditions that have evolved, merged, conflicted, or supplanted each other in this area. Throughout the course, we will examine the theories, diagnoses, and treatments of mental and physical illnesses over various periods. We will explore ancient pharmaceutical recipes and rituals designed to banish spirits and cure ailments; medieval empirical texts that linked physical symptoms with mental and emotional states; and contemporary practices of jinn appeasement and exorcism. We will also consider the impact of imperial happy and colonial policies on Middle Eastern societies’ approaches to mental health. By engaging with a mix of primary sources (in translation) and secondary literature, we will explore the perspectives of ancient scribes, medieval philosophers and theologians, Muslim jurists, colonial physicians, modern historians of medicine, and anthropologists. The course facilitates learning through discussions, close readings, podcasts, documentary and art films, and other activities. It is structured in two parts: the first provides systematic overviews of medical practices across three historical periods, while the second focuses on evolving notions/concepts of “medicine,” “magic” and “madness.”

This course is an introduction to the numerous styles of African American music developed in the United States since 1619. Beginning with the oral traditions of African music and culminating with jazz and the music of contemporary African American composers, you will become familiar with the styles, forms, and composers of these genres. Additionally, you will attain an understanding of the social, economic, and political conditions in American history that have affected the evolution of African American music and culture.  You will be required to attend four concerts and to write a concert report about them.  

This course is about media and technology. How do we consume media? What is our relationship to technology? Are we in control of our own use of technology or are we perhaps living in a cyberpunk dystopia? How do we participate in this system through the creation of our own media, art, and interactive content? In this class, we will think critically about what it means to be a self-directed person in an age of rapidly changing technology and media formats. We will examine the work of philosophers, digital artists, and technologists to understand our relationship with new media and the implications for the future.

Students in this course will consider four questions in the philosophy of criminal law:

• First, what justifies legal punishment? The answers we will consider include giving wrongdoers what they deserve and deterring future crime. Our investigation will focus largely, though not exclusively, on the moral justifiability of the death penalty.
• Second, what makes someone liable to legal punishment? What must a person do to count as attempting a crime? Should those who successfully commit a murder be punished more than those who attempt to do so, but who fail due to factors outside their control?
• Third, in what respects if any is criminal law practice in the United States a contributor to and/or a product of race- and class-based injustice? If it is a contributor, is race- or class-based jury nullification moral defensible?
• Fourth, what if anything justifies requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt for a criminal conviction?’

Note: Restricted to Endeavor students only

This course examines the fundamentally political nature of food. It will introduce students to key issues in contemporary debates about food while also providing them with a solid foundation of the United States’s history of food production, labor, and policy. Contemporary topics will include environmental and climate impacts, public health and nutrition, corporate power, labor rights, and the role of policy in shaping what food gets produced and eaten, and by whom. The course also will include a unit focused specifically on local food justice movements, which emphasize the right of all people to have access to healthy, affordable food with community control over those food systems, including sovereignty over the land on which it is raised.

Examines contemporary practices of sexual education in schools, and the controversies surrounding them, in light of a longer history of sexuality as a concept, drawing on biology, sexology, political history, educational philosophy, and feminist and queer studies. Studies the emergence of “sexuality” as a scientific and political concept in the nineteenth century and examine how state-regulated institutions—especially the school and the hospital—have operationalized sexuality as a means of regulating the behavior of individuals and the “health” of populations.

What makes something “user-friendly” or accessible? How do professionals design products and environments that are intuitive to navigate? You will explore the intersection of psychology, design, and ergonomics. You will learn how psychological insights shape the design of products (e.g., phones, vehicles, websites), systems (e.g., healthcare protocol, air traffic control), and environments (e.g., workplaces). We will cover the essentials of human factors psychology and principles of human-centered design, which optimizes design with consideration of human well-being, capabilities, and limitations. We will learn how to apply these principles across domains such as technology, healthcare, transportation, architecture, and workplace environments. After this course, you will better understand the role of psychology in design and critically analyze and contribute innovatively to the creation of user-friendly, efficient, and safe products and environments.”

We tend to use a particularized language in how we talk and write about sports, athletes, and games and that language can reveal some assumptions about how we think about sport on a larger level. For instance, why do journalists mythologize athletes as “heroes” when they succeed? Why do fans offer refer to “us” or “we” when they discuss their favorite team? What would it mean for a sports broadcaster to refer to a college athlete as a “worker” or “laborer,” as opposed to a “student athlete”? This FYS focuses on how journalists, broadcasters, and even the public rhetorically frame sports in America. Some of the other themes we will consider include the prevalence of military language in discussing players and games and the frequent use of the rhetoric of “family” when discussing teams and clubs. Through a consideration of the contemporary American sporting scene, we will examine the language we employ when we talk about sports and what that language reveals about how we think about the game – culturally, socially, politically, and ideologically.

I want students to gain an understanding of the history of those with disabilities in the United States. The course will explore the rise of the disability rights movement and examines the similarities and differences between the disability rights movement and other social movements in the United States. The course will also give students the opportunity to understand disability as a marker of social identity. Students will scrutinize the ways in which the identity of disability can empower and constrain those who have disabilities.

Global connectivity may appear a hallmark of modernity, but it has a long history. Since complex societies began, humanity has never lived in ethnically, religiously, or otherwise segregated societies. People have always travelled, exchanging ideas, commodities, and DNA. In this interdisciplinary seminar, we will explore the ways in which human societies were connected between ca. 1200 and ca. 1800. We will consider how old globalization actually is, how interdependent human societies have been for centuries, and how connections and exchanges have transformed the world. Our explorations will take place under two broad themes: “Strangers in Strange Lands” and “Consuming the World.” The first will consider travelers and travel narratives by individuals who crossed oceans and cultures, not always willingly and often but not always in search of economic opportunities. The second will consider the commodities exchanged and traded in the pre-modern world. We will consider how global connections and exchanges have changed over the centuries, and how have they had, in turn, transformed the world for better and worse.

This course examines the logical foundations of Einstein’s theory of relativity and explores its implications for how we understand time, space, speed, length, gravity, and various other phenomena in physics. We will encounter wildly counterintuitive ideas such as objects contracting when they move at high speeds, twins on different spacecraft aging at different rates, and why one cannot even in principle travel faster than the speed of light. Our approach to the subject will be quantitative, deriving expressions that describe how space and time are transformed for observers moving at different speeds, and then applying those equations in new situations. Computer simulations and algebraic problem solving will play prominent roles in this course.

The focus of this course is strategy and planning. You know what they say about the best laid plans. Do strategies really work? How can we best plan for the future? What is needed for a strategy to succeed? What happens when it fails? Can strategies be adapted? This course will look at U.S. foreign policy, UR student organizations, and how students pursue their goals in college to better understand how strategy works in different situations.

This First Year Seminar is designed to help students understand the relationship between branding, customer loyalty, and business success. Yet many of us currently lack the knowledge of what a brand is (even though we’re probably loyal to at least one brand), how brands work, and why certain brand promises exist. Through textbook readings, case studies, articles, and several real-world examples, students will learn how the smartest brands use disruption to attract/keep customers and attain, maintain, and even reclaim dominance within the categories they occupy—essential knowledge for everyone interested in how our advertising ecosystem works.

Why did Peter “The Great” place a tax on bearded men? Was Rasputin really the lover of the Russian queen? How did a warrior princess become one of the first Russian saints? Find out in Tsars, Saints, and Serfs. In this class we will survey major historical, cultural, and artistic moments that influence Russia’s culture and past. We will start in the Kievan period move through the medieval period, and into the modern era with Peter “The Great,” up until the end of the Romanov Tsars. We will track the shifting seat of power from Kiev to Novgorod, to Moscow, and finally settle in newly constructed St. Petersburg. We will look at important Orthodox ikons, non-religious paintings and sculptures, and we will read literature by the great Russian authors of the 19^th century. We will come away with a better understanding of where Russian culture and history started, how the Russian Empire expanded, and why the monarchy began to crumble at the start of the 20^th century.

This seminar engages first year students in critical analysis of AI. We examine the social, environmental and economic patterns and processes leading to and resulting from rapid expansion of AI. Students create an ethical framework for an exploration of their own personal and professional use of AI. This is accomplished by weighing various costs, benefits and tradeoffs from AI use individually and as a society. We will discuss the potential for unintended consequences and collateral damage as well as differences that can contribute to social, geographic and other forms of inequity. In the second half of the term, students will complete research projects on AI uses selecting a particular application in media, education or labor to analyze in detail. Research projects will combine oral and written communication, critical thinking and information literacy.

Every American high school student learns the history of the Salem Witch Hunt. The very name of the infamous Massachusetts town conjures images of superstition, violence, scapegoating, and legal procedures run amok. But few people know the deeper, and far more interesting history of witchcraft in New England or its place in broader history of the age of European witch hunts. In this First-Year Seminar, we’ll examine the original trial records of notable pre-Salem witchcraft cases and engage in original research using rare historical documents, including a recently discovered seventeenth-century witchcraft manuscript that has never been studied by professional historians.

"Beyond taste itself, food tells us about culture, class, regionality, and access. How do we convince a picky friend to try a new restaurant, or verbally capture the taste of a favorite meal? What group can stake claim to a certain dish, and who teaches us how to make it? This class looks at four distinct hallmarks of food writing— description, criticism, instruction, and exploration—as a way of learning the goals of academic writing. Course materials will include film, short stories, podcasts, nonfiction essays and articles, cooking instruction, and direct observation of Richmond’s culinary scene.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is, for better or worse, everywhere. From the time we proposed this course to the time you read this; the ways we understand AI have already evolved. Representations of AI in various media (literature, film, games, news, comics) shape how we perceive its possibilities and challenges. What can stories about AI – both factual and speculative – reveal about human creativity, labor, and personhood? How do these portrayals engage with the social, political, and cultural contexts in which they are created? How might science fiction, in particular, serve as a tool for helping us to critically conceptualize the rapidly evolving technological advancement of artificial intelligence? In this course, we will explore these questions and others through independent and collaborative reading, research, and analysis.