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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
The Trial of Socrates: Reasoning and Critical Analysis
Paul Apodaca
I.F. Stone's journalistic exploration of the death of Socrates uses an interdisciplinary approach that explicates Greek classical history, language, social relations, political structures and the foundations of Western thought. The course follows this approach, giving students broad historical, cultural, and social perspectives for understanding the tenets of Socratic and Platonic reasoning. Rhetoric, logic, and reasoning allow for an examination of the arguments used in the trial of Socrates and how critical thinking can be used to analyze contemporary discourse and issues, offering students a connection between classical thought and the contemporary world. 3 credits.
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 performances will provide students with direct observational opportunities to expose the issues facing today's theatrical artists, 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, analyzes the concept of globalization, and reviews 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.
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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
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
The Modern Individual
Karen Gallagher
This course will focu on three historical moments in the life of "the modern indiviual": his "birth" in Enlightenment conceptions of autonomy and genius; the "crisis" he faced in the mid-late 19th century, culminating in the years around World War I, and what might be considered "postmodern" alternatives "beyond" the "death of the subject." We'll also consider the coding of the traditional indivdual as male and contrast his development to depictions by and about womem. We shall alternate between philosophical analyses of the modern individual, always in relation to community, and literary works.
FFC 100
A Few Steps Beyond Nature
Brian Glaser
The last fifty years have produced a wealth of new ideas about how humans relate to the natural world. Changes in the way we think about this relationship have led to the question of what we mean when we talk about nature at all. This section will delve into the works of writers who have explored this question in imaginative and sustained ways. Topics approached by the writers we'll read will include environmental justice, environmental crises, the wilderness, green ethics and, of course, "nature" itself. 3 credits.
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 a variety of written texts 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, and some important historical and theological issues. 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
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.
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FFC100
Promiscuous Reading
Kent Lehnhof
In his 1644 tract, Areopagitica, the English author of John Milton spoke passionately about "the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read." Notwithstanding Milton's enthusiasm, a number of other thinkers have expressed concern about the moral effect literature might have on its readers. This course will tackle the question head-on. Reading a wide range of authors, philosophers, and policy-makers, we will consider what kind of impact books have on our character, our behavior, and our morals. Our readings will range both in time (from classical Greece to contemporary American) and genre (from stage plays to legal decisions). 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
Philosophy through Film
Mary Litch
An underlying assumption of this course is that some films can be interpreted as an attempt to provide an answer to a classic question in philosophy. We will investigate a range of feature films running the gamut from Hollywood blockbusters such as The Matrix to art house classics such as The Seventh Seal. In addition to the films, we will read from primary sources, and explore the philosophical issues as addressed in both the films and the texts. While our main concern will be examining some classic debates in philosophy on such topics as the nature of the individual, our knowledge of the world, and our relationship to one another (both ethical and political), we will also consider the relative merits of film versus text in presenting philosophical arguments. 3 credits.
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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
Introduction to Philosophy
Tibor Machan
The objective of this course is to familiarize students with the discipline of philosophy. We will examine the several branches of this field - metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, politics, and aesthetics--as well as briefly touch on various sub-branches, such as ontology, the philosopyh of science, the philosophy of mind, value theory, political philosophy, applied ethics, etc. We will discuss some of the outstanding philosophical problems-- waht is the nature of being, what is knowledge, what is truth, is there free will, is there a God, could moral judgments ever be shown to be true, are any values absolute, is justice relative to cultures, how politically important are liberty, order, prosperity, progress, equality and why, and are there stable standards of artistic excellence.
FFC 100
Social Movements of the 60's
Barney McGrane
Through film, literature and direct commune-experimentation this course will be a fresh look, with beginner's eyes, at the 60's: that most outrageous decade, the most idealized and despised decade, that most creative and anarchic decade. We will be looking at social movements and social change on a personal, societal, and global-planetary level; examining our values in reference to change and in reference to politics, democracy and freedom—particularly whether those values come consiously out of our understanding or unconcsciously out of our conditioning; and contrasting the movements and forces at work in the 60's youth with the movements and forces at work in today's youth. 3 credits.
FFC 100
Puzzles and Paradoxes
Drew Moshier
From Zeno's paradoxes to Einstein's thought experiments, we humans have sought to understand the world via puzzles. Even the pleasure of working a crossword, or of reading a mystery novel, are familiar reflections of a fundamental human impluse to solve puzzles--and to pose new, yet more challenging ones. In this course we will meet some of the great puzzle masters of the ages: Zeno, Plato, the author of Job, Augustine, Galileo, Einstein, Canto, Godel, among others. We will pose and solve puzzles of our own, and will discover that understanding often comes by asking the next interesting question, not by having settled the last one. 3 credits.
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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.
FFC 100
An Introduction to the American Legal Tradition
Ron Steiner
The third branch of government, the judiciary, has famously been labeled "the least dangerous branch." Whether or not that is true, it is certainly the least understood branch. Many people in the United States will confess to an ignorance of the basic principles of law and the legal process, and yet the judiciary is the branch of government most likely to impact people in their daily lives. Citizens are called upon to vote on law-related ballot propositions and judicial candidates and to serve on juries, but for many their only knowledge of the law comes from cop shows and TV judges. This course will offer students a chance to develop political literacy about the principles and practices of law and the judiciary in the United States. Not just for pre-law students, this course should be of value to any student interested in how the power of law shapes American society. 3 credits.
FFC 100
Ideologies of Class
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.
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FFC 100
Pretty as a Picture: The Social Construction of Aesthetic Judgement
Stephanie Takagarawa
Culture is manifested in signs, objects, gestures, images, performances in both the natural and contructed environment, and that individual experience is culturally conditioned. In this section we draw from interdisciplinary texts in cultural anthropology, art history, philosophy, literary theory and museum studies to investigate the social construction of cultural norms across time and space. Through this course students will develop skills in critical thinking and reasoning through the recognition of various types of cultural and social construction. They will learn to identify the social, economic and political factors that contribute to our understanding of naturalized beauty, knowledge and reality. At the end of this course they will be able to be more informed, reflective and critical about the visual culture they negotiate their lives through. 3 credits.
FFC 100
From Socrates 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.
FFC 100
Issues of Gender and Identity in European Cinema
Angela Tumini
The aim of this course is to help students develop the critical ability to "read" films within their historical, prolitical, and cultural contexts and to enable them to identify relevant and recurring themes. We will focus on European cinema, and we will address issues of identity-- how a single European identity cannot be established through films' reflections of the societies they represent; the complex relationship between the gender identity of female characters and, in some cases, the repressive patriachal structure of the society they belong to; the role of motherhood; the defined ranking, behavior, and appropriate attitude of family members; and other social constructions of the self in relation to 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 whom 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 magic castles, sleeping beauties, and singing teacups. 3 credits.
FFC 100
Africa Served Hot
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.
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