Students engage in classroom discussion
   

    First Year Seminar

    Washington College’s First-Year Seminar program introduces new college students to critical inquiry, college writing, and research and other academic skills vital for collegiate success. FY seminars explore a wide range of topics, but all share three essential elements:

    • the passion of a dedicated instructor
    • a small-seminar format where students learn from each other
    • a sustained focus on the ‘habits of critical inquiry’ at the heart of liberal education

    Fall 2023 FYS Offerings:

    Who succeeds in college? What does success in college even mean? There are many individual and community factors which influence a students' experience and achievements in college, and it is a heavily researched topic related to many other fields of study. In this first year seminar, students will explore college success, college retention, learning, motivation, and other concepts related to college success through research and practical exercises. Students will develop reading, communication, research, writing, and editing/revision skills through multiple research assignments, presentations, and discussions.

    This course studies great questions in the fields of philosophy, politics, and economics. Questions include the meaning of life, the existence of God and free will, the meaning of justice and the rule of law, and justifications for and criticisms of a free market economy. Enrolled Presidential Fellows students are encouraged but not required to participate in the Great Questions Presidential Track. The course is not limited to Presidential Fellows and is open to all interested students. Special guests will enrich the educational experience.

    Gamblers, Trickers, Actors, and Sinners: Seeing the World Through the Theatrical "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, scene 7 Can watching Hamlet influence an audience to murder their parents? Does dancing inevitably lead to sexual intimacy? Will watching Harry Potter lead children to practice witchcraft? Does celebrating Christmas with presents and singing make a mockery of the religious basis of the day? Was the Declaration of Independence meant to be a performed script? Writers, philosophers, and scholars throughout history have crafted strong arguments both for the seduction and dangers of entertainments like theatre, dancing, gambling, and holiday celebrations, as well as for the inherent importance of the theatricality of life. This seminar invites students to explore the world through the lenses of theatricality and anti-theatricality using a variety of readings, lively class discussion, written response, and an original research paper and presentation, as we consider the importance of performance and play in our everyday lives.

    Upon the two-hundredth anniversary of the author's death, the Jane Austen brand has never been stronger: her novels and the literary tourism, fan fiction, film adaptations, and associated merch they inspire, together generate some hundreds of millions of dollars annually. How did Austen help create the modern novel? And what factors contribute to her novels' enduring popularity and adaptability? This course will combine an intensive study of selected Austen's novels (Pride & Prejudice, Emma) with a critical approach to the popular adaptations (Clueless, Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, Bridget Jones's Diary, Pride) that hook many of her new fans.

    What is language without borders? We often think of languages like English, Spanish, or Mandarin as stable, with consistent rules we can learn. At the same time, we know that languages are alive, and changing all the time. This puts you at a crossroads. Are you learning language the way you download a file, or are you changing language even as you learn it? You may be multilingual, or think you speak only English, but what if the borders between languages weren't as easy to see as we think they are? Together, we will read about and listen to people using African American English, indigenous languages, Spanglish, Engrish, and even the invented language Esperanto. In these spaces where languages are growing and mixing, what was once impossible becomes possible. New meaning is created and complex problems can be solved. At the end of our semester, you won't speak a new language fluently, but you will learn how to utilize all parts of your identity and your story to communicate effectively wherever you go, even in places where everyone is "just" speaking English. Language is a global resource, and those who "do language" well can persuade others and enact social change

    Want to create a Tasty-style video from a historic recipe? Would you like to read-aloud a historic speech from a time before recorded audio existed? Or perhaps you want to tell the story of a famous adventurer complete with historic depictions of their battlefield deaths? Dive into Washington College's Archives, rare books, and digital archives from the college and public archives to explore primary sources and use them as seeds to create your own short videos, or other creative endeavor. No experience required, only curiosity and determination. Students will learn how to delve deeper through library and archival materials, beyond what a cursory researcher might look for and use. Students will learn tools and frameworks for identification, analysis, and connection to the work of archival materials.

    Storytelling is an essential and fundamental part of all human activity. From Homer to Harry Potter, from the Lascaux Cave Paintings to Instagram, from Mozart to Drake, storytelling is at the heart of all human communication. This course will examine storytelling through three lenses: 1) Historical: Why do we tell stories? Why has storytelling been an important part of every culture and civilization throughout history. 2) Structural: How are stories built? What are the essential pieces/elements that are a part of every effective story? 3) Performative: What are the performance techniques that make for good storytelling? Through papers, presentations, class interaction, and hands-on work, students will gain a critical understanding of the centrality of stories to our lives, and improve their own capacity to share the power of stories.

    Humanity has existed for two hundred thousand years, always under external threat by asteroids, supervolcanoes, and other natural events. In the past hundred years, humanity has developed tools that enable us to end the world. During the Cuban missile crisis, JFK famously estimated the probability of nuclear war to be as high as a 50/50 coin toss. Today we live in a world with nuclear weapons, climate change, global pandemics, and other threats. Emerging fields like synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence may present even larger risks in the near future. In this class we will discuss strategies to evaluate and mitigate these existential risks. We are in a unique moment in human history. We survived a coin toss in the last century. Will humanity continue on a bit more until our luck runs out, or will we reduce these risks and persist for many more millennia?

    This course is designed to help students explore the tremendous cultural, economic, political, and social diversity of contemporary East Asia - a region of the world that comprises forty percent of the world's population, global extremes of rich and poor, and among the very oldest and very newest forms of cultural expression. Shared exploration will include reading of fictional and political work of East Asian writers, viewing of East Asian film and art, and discussion of how "Westerners" have viewed East Asia in the past and how they have come to view East Asia today. Students also will be asked to "explore" East Asia on their own - via the internet, field trips to museums, interviews, and in writings of East Asian authors - and to make engaging, multi-media presentations to the class about what they discover.

    This course introduces students to Queer Studies. We will explore various forms of popular culture texts, such as film, television, music, and fanzines, to understand and problematize queerness in its full conception. That is, queerness, not only conceived as an identity, but also, as an artistic aesthetic, a sociopolitical movement, and as cultural product.

    The course will introduce students to the period of late 18th Century and early 19th Century English Literature known as the Romantic Period. William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats will be the writers included. 

    Should students be able to take prescription drugs like Adderall to improve their grades? Should parents be allowed to electrically stimulate their child's brain if it might improve their cognitive abilities? Is it right to modify another person's memory if it can help them recover from trauma? In this class, we will think critically about these kinds of ethical issues facing neuroscience today as well as the possible ethical quandaries neuroscience research may face in the future. Through readings, class discussions, writing assignments, presentations, and independent research projects, students will delve into ethical issues on how the brain works, how it can fail, how it can be manipulated, and how we can use information from recording brain activity.

    While early video games like Pong and Tetris are mechanically simple and practically empty of story, more recent games have developed into intricate non-linear stories with complex systems. Video games carry the burden and expectation of other media in terms of their place in society. How have movements like Gamergate, Child’s Play, and Game Jams changed the way games are made and played? How do the people who play these games engage with their stories? How do the creators of these video games use authorial narrative tools to give their players an intended experience? In this course, we will explore the narrative expression of video games through framing concepts such as of the gendered gaze, ludology, narrative voice, player agency, cheating, and death, among others.

    This course will explore the evolution of hip-hop and rap music from the 1970s to the present day. Students will develop criticalthinking and writingskills to effectively analyze, understand, and critique hip-hop as both a musical genre and cultural phenomenon. 

    This course will explore the internet as an idea and a place, utilizing emerging technologies and artificial intelligence to assist in the research and writing process. Students will conduct research to shine a light on historic and contemporary misconceptions from the iron maiden’s use in medieval torture to the McDonald’s coffee incident to the government removing gas stoves, to recognize bias, interrogate reliability, and consider the accessibility of online information.