Course Descriptions

Freshman Foundations Courses

For course section numbers, meeting days, times, and locations, see WebAdvisor. For more information on a particular professor, view the Faculty page.

Description

For more information on a particular professor, view the Faculty page.

FFC 100
American Theatre in Contemporary Culture
Julie Artman
In this course students will explore how theatre reflects challenges and triumphs in contemporary American culture. We will examine, discuss, and analyze pivotal events during the twentieth century through reading selected plays that reveal America's rich theatrical history. Reviewing live performances will provide students with direct observational opportunities, and students will engage in both analytic and creative projects, individually and collaboratively. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Globalization, Citizenship, and Consumption
Gordon Babst
The course introduces students to the contemporary phenomenon of globalization through an analysis of the concept of globalization and review of processes of globalization. The course will examine globalization across a range of cultures, settings, and issue areas, with a special focus on globalization's effects on ourselves and other people as world citizens and consumers. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Exploring Texts in Context: From Athens to Paris
John Boitano
From classical Athens to fin-de-siècle Paris, cities have provided the context in which writers and artists have addressed questions fundamental to humanity. This course examines select texts and works of art central to the classical and the modern, exploring the interaction between text and context and between individual and society. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Exploring Social Issues through Film
Jay Boylan
For over a hundred years films have explored the significant issues of our time--war and peace, justice and injustice, equality and inequality, the individual and the power of the state, and many more. From the infamous, "Birth of a Nation" to "Glory," from "Nanook of the North" to "Fahrenheit 541," from "All Quiet on the Western Front" to "Dr. Strangelove" films have informed and delighted us. Through screenings, readings, written assignments and projects this class will examine these significant issues. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Lies You Learned in School: Difficult Histories and Critical Theory
Jim Brown
What have your teachers told you about history? Should history only be the story of modern dominant culture or should it be a search for the truth, including histories that contradict an “American Celebrationist” perspective? This course provides a critical analysis of important social themes (e.g., identity, conformity, and responsibility) linked to key histories (e.g., Holocaust, America in Vietnam, and Apartheid), with an emphasis on learning inquiry and participatory approaches to history. The course is based on the assumption that if citizens in a democracy are to value their rights and take responsibility for their actions, they must know not only the triumphs of history but also the failures and tragedies. As students study the historical development and the lessons of “difficult” histories, and consider post-modern and critical theory, they learn to make the essential connections between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives. This course is especially designed and recommended for those considering teaching as a career. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Modern Culture and Identities
Robert Buranello
This course focuses on notions of culture and identity in the modern world through analyses of select texts. Issues relating to history, immigration, integration, multiculturalism, and encounters with the other will be discussed in terms of how they impact on the ways in which we define ourselves. 3 credits.

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FFC 100
History of Economic Thought
Timothy Canova
This course traces the history of Western economic thought from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in 1776 to present day, including the contributions of such great thinkers as Ricardo, Marx, Veblen, Keynes, Galbraith, and Friedman. How did each understand the nature of economic life as well as social and political relationships in the production of goods and services, the distribution of wealth and income, and the utilization of land, labor and capital? Students will consider how economic thought has addressed current economic problems and policy discussions in an increasingly globalized environment. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Darwin: His Life and Influence
Fred Caporaso
This course examines the life, thoughts and impact of one of the greatest scientific thinkers of all time. Students will learn how Charles Darwin's observations grudgingly led him to a theory of evolution through natural selection, which is considered one of the major breakthroughs in scientific thought. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Citizenship and Community
Elizabeth Eastman
Membership in a community is one of the key aspects of human relationships, yet there are numerous challenges that members of a political community–citizens–can experience, including denial of fundamental human rights and external influences causing the breakdown of traditions and political order. Through the study of works from various time periods and cultures, we examine what it means to be a citizen and the citizen's obligation to the larger community. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Individualism, Collectivism, and the Good Society
Leland Estes/Brenda Farrington
Over the semester we will explore people and their various relationships with the societies and states of which they are or were members. We will look particularly at two groups of ideas that have consistently fascinated the Western mind, individualism and collectivism. Is our primary responsibility to ourselves or to the families, clans, tribes, and states of which we are inevitably a part? Are human groups to be feared for the harm they might do or embraced as our only salvation in a dangerous world and our only hope for bettering our lot? Are individual liberty and social equality compatible? In seeking answers to these questions we will travel to the very heart of the Western intellectual tradition. We will also be exploring ideas that are arguably the pivot on which the modern world has and continues to turn-an ancient bone of contention, but also a living debate. 3 credits.

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FFC 100
Textual Encounters
Jeanne Gunner
In this section we'll read paired texts that present conflicting worldviews, including Platonic idealism and Sartrean existentialism; manifest destiny and indigenous rights; nihilism and Romanticism; and other competing ideologies in such texts as David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, Shakespeare's Tempest, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and more. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Banned Books
Lynda Hall
We will read notable texts of the western tradition that have been banned by various authorities on political, religious, sexual, or social grounds. Works of fiction, poetry, essays, and drama will be studied within the contexts that led them to be banned. We will explore some important questions about censorship: Why are books banned?  Who decides what is offensive or dangerous within a particular society?  How consistent or random is the censorship, suppression, or banning of books? Is any suppression or censorship necessary or valuable in a free society? 3 credits.

FFC 100
The Dark Side of Utopia: From Plato to the Holocaust
Marilyn Harran
Beginning with Plato's Republic, this course examines utopian ideals and specifically explores how the dystopia of Nazism arose within the Weimar Republic, transforming a democratic society into a repressive and ultimately totalitarian one in which modern art was declared degenerate, books by renowned authors were burned, and a racial ideology was developed that resulted in the imprisonment of gays, the murder of the differently-abled, and the planned "final solution" for the Jews of Europe. 3 credits.

FFC 100
The Christ of History and the Jesus of Faith
Charles Hughes
Jesus Christ has been the dominant religious and cultural figure in Western civilization for two thousand years. But who was Jesus Christ? Did some Church leaders suppress the truth about Jesus in order to consolidate their own authority or did the early Church fathers actually protect the apostolic truth about Jesus by rejecting false views about him? In this class, we will review important positions in contemporary Jesus scholarship in order to learn what the facts and the evidence are about Jesus and the development of early Christianity. 3 credits.

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FFC 100
Images and Identity: Voices and Choices
Dawn Hunter
This course examines and analyzes how identity is defined and represented in our society. Identity is explored as a social, linguistic, physiological, cultural, economic, and political phenomenon. Your identity influences the choices you make in life and, in turn, the choices you make influence your identity. A clear understanding of who you are gives rise to voice, critical consciousness, and action. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Faith in Popular Culture
Mildred Lewis
An examination of the influence of Judeo-Christian thought on contemporary culture. The course will emphasize first-hand texts, critical thinking and fearless inquiry. 3 credits.

FFC 100
War and Peace from Ancient to Contemporary
Angeliki Kanavou
This course looks at classical Greek readings and applies their concepts and theories on war, peace, conflict resolution, cooperation, and human nature to contemporary issues. The course addresses what stands out in our way of thinking across time and what we have learned from the past by looking at classical works, such as Thucydides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato, and Aristotle. Through lectures, films, discussions, and other class activities, the students will explore patterns of human interaction in war and peace during the classical times and how they play out in today’s world. 3 credits.

FFC 100
History of Political Philosophy
Tibor Machan
This course will examine the main ideas in Western political philosophy. We will combine a historical and problems approach studying the views of particular philosophers, as well as some key ideas in politics. Our exploration will center on the views of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Marx, Mill, Spencer, Strauss, contemporary Marxists, Welfare Statists and Libertarians. We will also study the concepts of liberty, order, equality, justice, welfare, rights, and community. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Self and Society: The Social Construction of Reality
Barney McGrane
Where does society end and my self begin? Within the context of the social construction of reality, this course will be an examination, on both a critical scientific and a personal, experiential level, of “self” and “society." We will make use of sociology with its focus on the primacy of social relations as well as psychology with its focus on the individual psyche, paying particular attention to the intersection of these ways of seeing human life. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Imagining Utopia
Gerri McNenny
In this course we will explore historical and contemporary constructions of ideal societies, beginning with ancient Greece and concluding with the many alternatives we now have to choose from in solving the problems that face us today. Drawing on pivotal texts in which key individuals from various cultures once imagined a better society, students will then construct their own versions of utopia. Together we'll critically examine the ways in which the arts, science, religion, political science, and economic influence our notions of what it means for a society to be just, fair, and nurturing for all. 3 credits.

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FFC 100
Ancient Religions and Modern Values
Marv Meyer
Among the most compelling of all the questions in human life are questions posed by religious texts: What is the purpose of human life? Does God, or do gods, exist? Is any one religion true, and what is truth? Is this life all there is, or is there life beyond death? This course examines classic primary religious texts in order to address fundamental questions and enduring values within the Judeo-Christian-Islamic family of religions, along with ancient Middle Eastern and Greco-Roman religions. Thus the course provides the occasion to study and evaluate religions and religious values that have shaped our lives and influenced our culture. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Socrates, Science, and the Self
Michael Pace
We typically take for granted many things about ourselves. For example, we think of ourselves as consious beings who perceive the world as it really is, and who think and act freely, choosing to do good or evil. The scientific picture of the universe and of persons can seem to conflict with common sense and religious conceptions of ourselves. In this course we will explore this alleged conflict. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Twilight of the Gods
Carmichael Peters
This course examines the history of thought on agnosticism, atheism, and skepticism by studying a comprehensive selection of writings from some of the most celebrated thinkers in the West, past and present. 3 credits.

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FFC 100
Frontiers of Modern Science
Daniele Struppa
This course engages students in the vital ideas that science attempts to address-especially "frontier" questions that emerge at the point of inquiry and challenge and move us toward discovery. It covers the instruments available to us to solve problems and reach tentative answers. We'll move from an overview of modern science to focused study of cosmological, neuroscientific/neurobiological, and mathematical frontiers as well as quantum ideas and relativity. The course will be team-taught. Open to all majors. 3 credits. 

FFC 100
Humanity Against Itself: From Ethnic Cleansing to Global Warming
Doug Sweet
Acts of genocide and environmental destruction share historical roots and developmental patterns. Students in this course will trace these parallel histories in order to understand their inter-relatedness, and in order to focus their own research and writing. The course's ultimate objective is to analyze the question of whether human social organization necessarily entails elements of self-destruction, and if so, why. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Cultural Materialism and the Labor Wars
Doug Sweet
Students in this course will explore the history of labor as a social category in U.S. culture. In particular, we'll examine how issues of labor are represented in different historical periods of our development. How do attitudes about labor help define social positions? What are the cultural stories we tell ourselves about social stratification? In what ways can learning about the history of labor in the U.S. inform students' understanding of their own, multiple cultural values? 3 credits.

FFC 100
Exploring Texts in Context: From Plato to Freud
Walter Tschacher
From classical Athens to fin-de-siècle Vienna, cities have provided the context in which writers and artists have addressed questions fundamental to humanity. This course examines select texts and works of art central to the classical, Renaissance, and modern, exploring the interaction between text and context and between individual and society. 3 credits.

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FFC 100
Beauties, Beasts, and the Construction of Western Culture
Justine Van Meter
Through the study of the origins and transformations of Western myths and fairy tales, in particular, we will explore how storytelling shapes our sense of ourselves and others. We will investigate how social values and expectations are reflected in or constructed by these tales. We will also explore who the authors of these tales were addressing and what political, historical, and social realities were influencing and guiding their writings. Inevitably, we will ask why and how the recurring motifs within the tales have endured and why and how contemporary authors have subverted or reinforced the themes and lessons of the traditional tales. Above all, we will address how these tales have influenced - and continue to influence - how we understand and define our individual and collective selves as well as those who are other to us. Be prepared: the land of Disney may be near, but our explorations will prove that there is more to these tales than majic castles, sleeping beauties, and singing teacups. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Africa and Africans
Carolyn Vieira-Martinez
This course surveys the history of western conceptualizations of "Africa" and "Africans" since 1500 and examines how these conceptualizations shaped and were shaped by historical experience. Western thought is understood in this dynamic to be neither monolithic nor hegemonic, yet significant in its influence over the consequences for contemporary communities. The construction and reconstruction of new understandings are seen as participatory processes through which Africans were able to considerably alter the shape of new Western traditions. 3 credits.

FFC 100
Quality Edcuation as a Constitutional Right
Kimberly White-Smith
This course explores the cultural and social realities of education in modern, urban, industrial, global society. There are three main course outcomes: increased understanding of the current crisis in public education for traditionally underserved students; a collection of local initiatives, programs and ideas to address the crisis; and a national campaign calling for quality education as an enforceable legal right. 3 credits.

FFC 100
The Enlightenment
John Yules
Through study of plays, novels, essays, science, paintings, architecture, music, and philosophy, we'll try to understand the spirit of the enlightenment. In particular, we'll try to immerse ourselves in a time when men and women of great intelligence brought their minds to bear upon a whole spectrum of human pursuits and concerns without concern for disciplinary boundaries. We'll read works of Montaigne, Molière, Swift, Pope, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Locke, Smith, Hume, and others. Students with appropriate preparation may elect to read some works in the original French. 3 credits.

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