First-Year Cornerstone Seminars

This course will focus mainly on philosophical questions about the self and death: What am "I"? Do we have souls or are we just physical bodies? Does "person" necessarily mean "human"? What makes someone the same person over time? What happens after death? If death is the end, is that a bad thing? Is suicide ever rational or morally acceptable? Fulfills the Cornerstone Philosophy Requirement.

This course explores some of the questions that are raised by recognizing that we are not just minds— we are embodied creatures. How should we organize society to provide for our bodily needs? Should we worry about the death of our bodies? Are our minds and our bodies really different? 

 (Open to Moreau Honors Scholars only)

This course explores some of the questions that are raised by recognizing that we are not just minds— we are embodied creatures. How should we organize society to provide for our bodily needs? Should we worry about the death of our bodies? Are our minds and our bodies really different? Only open to First-Year Students that have not completed the Philosophy Cornerstone requirement.

What is true happiness? Is morality real, or is it just a made up thing? Everything we experience is put together by our brains --- how, then, can we be sure any of it is really true? Are we secretly biased? Does God exist? Should all protests be non-violent or is violence sometimes allowable? 

An examination of how philosophers have historically treated questions pertaining to the relationship between mind and body, the concept of the self, the human condition, and the limits of what we can know about such things. What makes these problems philosophical in nature? Could they be resolved by science instead?

Why do we enjoy sitcoms where the characters suffer social and romantic disasters: are we just cruel or is there some other explanation? Is morality something real or is power the only reality and morality just an illusion? What kind of compassion is the best kind? Why are flowers beautiful? What's the hidden meaning of the marriage ceremony? 

Philosophy is often taught as a theoretical discipline about abstract ideas and arguments. This course will emphasize how the ideas and insights of different philosophers May be applied to our daily lives and potentially change the way we live, helping us lead wiser, better and more authentic lives.

An introductory examination of the history and nature of Western philosophical thought from the ancient Greeks to the present.

The dilemmas facing all governments: On what principles should the political order be based? What is the nature of the just state? What determines citizenship, political authority, and power? What is the good life and how is it related to the political order and the satisfaction of justice?

Saints and sinners, much like victors and vanquished in war, are often determined by those who triumph in Church conflicts. This course will address several Church controversies throughout the 2000 years of its history, review the issues and debates that arose through the reading of primary and secondary sources, and who in the end were considered victors, saints, and the vanquished, sinners, in Church history.

This class investigates the diverse religions of the ancient Mediterranean world (ca. 600 BCE-400CE), including Greek and Roman religions, formative Judaism, and the earliest Christianity.  The course explores the history and development of these traditions by examining topics related to issues of ritual, myth, sacred space, gender, and concepts of divinity within each group.  Particular focus is placed on the ways in which these groups influenced one of the sources.  Students will begin to understand the practices, beliefs, and experiences of the Greco-Roman world and the communities that produced them. 

Stories in scriptures and the experiences of pilgrims remind us that religious life does not always take place indoors. Much of human religious experience occurs outside, in nature. We will explore this dimension of human religiosity through examination of Christian, Islamic, and Buddhist pilgrimages to such places as Lourdes, Mecca, and northern India, as well as the broader themes of nature symbolism and nature mysticism.

This course will use the concept of deviance as the lens through which we will study the three major monotheistic traditions of the world - Islam, Judaism and Christianity. What are the major tenets and beliefs of each? What do they share and where are the conflicts? What does each consider normative and why? When does a belief or practice cross the line in deviance? Ultimately, are they all simply deviants of one another? In our investigation, we will also look to some lesser known religious traditions as foils, such as Scientology, Raelianism, the Nation of Islam, Jews for Jesus, Mormonism, and Christian Science.

(Open to Moreau Honors Scholars only)

This course will use the concept of deviance as the lens through which we will study the three major monotheistic traditions of the world - Islam, Judaism and Christianity. What are the major tenets and beliefs of each? What do they share and where are the conflicts? What does each consider normative and why? When does a belief or practice cross the line in deviance? Ultimately, are they all simply deviants of one another? In our investigation, we will also look to some lesser known religious traditions as foils, such as Scientology, Raelianism, the Nation of Islam, Jews for Jesus, Mormonism, and Christian Science.

For the ancient Greeks pharmakon meant both cure and poison depending on the context. Religion functions in the same way: it can heal us but can also poison us. We will explore the ambiguity and the power-both healing and destructive-of religious traditions.

The course begins with the premise that all religions are at their best when they are “betwixt and between,” living in the threshold, open to new and unexpected horizons. After a close reading of the Book of Exodus, which will provide the opportunity to identify various themes associated with ritual passage, we will concentrate primarily on the study of the three chief monotheistic religions of Semitic origin: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The course will end with a brief exploration of Hinduism and Buddhism. Through 3/9/2020 Page 2 of 2 comparative analysis of these religions, we will strive to determine similarities and differences in particular approaches to God, worship, institution, and moral conduct.

We tend to think that religion is all about God, but why? And if God “doesn’t do religion,” who does? What do we even mean by “religion” in these questions? This course will inquire into the “building blocks” of religion and human religiousness, considering the practices of Jews, Christians and Muslims from an anthropological and historical perspective. 

This course is an introduction to the critical, academic study of religion. It will touch on both personal and broader societal issues that are involved in the contemporary study of religion. It will examine several of the most prominent modern critiques of religion, as well as the various responses to those critiques. Further, it will explore and ask students to reflect on the meaning of religion in today's culturally diverse and religiously pluralistic world. Its objectives are to acquire a basic knowledge of some of the foundational theories of religion, to acquire a working understanding of various methodologies in the critical study of religion, to reflect on one's own understanding and experience of religion, and to reflect on the role of religion in the contemporary world.

When Catholic missionaries first met the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they faced a moral and theological dilemma. What to make of these peoples and their religious thought and practice? This course studies indigenous religious cultures such as the Aztec, Ojibwe and Inca alongside three European religious orders who encountered them. Through readings, field trips, guest speakers, and artwork, we will compare indigenous traditions to Catholic traditions, thinking analytically and critically about indigenous spirituality, Catholic theology, and "religion" itself.

This course will examine the way religion has been studied as an academic discipline. We will explore both Eastern and Western religious traditions in their historical contexts and will focus primarily on how various religious concepts are understood and practiced in these major world religions. These will include the concepts of the Holy, revelation, sacred writings, good and evil, forgiveness, creation, the human condition, salvation, and ethics. In our study of religions we will explore a variety of practices in different historical contexts but common ground will be sought to illustrate how the sacred texts of each religious tradition define and illustrate how and why these groups practice the above mentioned concepts. 

The Gospels often depict Jesus telling stories. How have people been interpreting those stories over the past two millennia? How have their contexts influenced how they read these stories and how they communicated their interpretations? This class uses Jesus’ parables to explore how people read and interpret classic religious texts. The Gospels often depict Jesus telling stories. Good stories draw us into their world, evoke different reactions from different people, and impact how we live afterwards. How have people been impacted by Jesus’ stories over the past two millennia? How have they communicated this impact to others? In this class, we will examine a wide range of readings of Jesus’ parables, from people in different historical contexts, with different identities, beliefs and experiences, and who produce different types of writing in response. What do these examples tell us about the different ways reading and story-telling can function as religious practices?

(Open to all students; applies to Education licensure)

This course focuses on women who challenged the gendered hierarchies of their eras. We will examine a collection of women from the 17th to the 20th centuries who developed new modes of exercising power in American public life and overturned longstanding ideas about the weakness and subordination of women.

We explore the global phenomenon of piracy from the ancient Mediterranean to modern Somalia. We examine the daily lives of pirates and the role pirates played in global political, social, and economic transformations. We question the origins and consequences of piracy highlighting major events and personalities in the history of piracy.

An examination of how entrenched ideas about race, gender, sexuality, class, age roles and social behavior all came under direct challenge with the emergence of rock and roll and youth culture during the tumultuous decade from 1955 to 1965.

(Open to all students; applies to Education licensure)

This course examines the role of money, trade and banking in medieval and early modern European history. Topics include the Mediterranean trading networks of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, medieval entrepreneurship, the Hanseatic League, workers' revolts after the Black Death, dynastic politics in the Italian Renaissance, the international banking networks of the Medici and the Fuggers, mercenaries and war financing, religious and ethical debates about banking and credit, and the Dutch tulip craze of the seventeenth century.

The American Civil Rights Movement arose out of the centuries-long efforts of the African American community to resist and overcome the injustices of slavery, racism, and segregation. African Americans’ experiences during an immediately after World War II laid the foundation for the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s. This course explores this pivotal period in American history through the documentary record, photography, art, literature, film, and music.

(Open to all students; applies to Education licensure)

(Open to all students; applies to Education licensure)

This course examines the history of humanity from the emergence our species to the early modern era. Explores how and why humans shifted from nomadic hunting and gathering to settled agriculture societies creating cities, states, and empires. Examines the consequences of this transition for human societies and the environment.

An analysis and interpretation of the development of American politics, foreign policy, and domestic society from Reconstruction to the present. Topics include the gilded society, world power, the rise of consumer culture, the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, affluence and discontent. 

This course fosters critical thinking about sex and gender. It is an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the key questions and debates surrounding the biological, psychological and sociological determinants of gender. This course examines historical and contemporary issues including systems of gender oppression, media, education, work, parenting, health and wellness, and violence.

This one-semester survey explores major developments in art and architecture from Antiquity through the 19th Century, considering historical events and ideological shifts which contributed to the stylistic changes. Trips to Boston museums enhance class content.

This course covers the development of theatre from its primitive beginnings through the major eras and countries until the year 1700. Theatre will be studied as a social and cultural institution, mirroring the civilization in which it thrives. Topics will include theatre as education, censorship, and understanding contemporary theatre from an historical perspective. This course is the equivalent to VPT 181 History of the Theatre I for a Theatre Arts minor. Limited to 16. Non-freshman allowed with permission of instructor.

This course explores the representation of technology as created by artists from ancient Athens to the 21st century. Questions we will pursue: is technology the friend or foe of humanity? Will machines enable our perfection or enhance our flaws? Should our machines be more or less like us? 

Many of the texts you will read in your college career - certainly in Religious Studies and Philosophy, perhaps in History and other disciplines - will have been translated into English. We will ask ourselves what difference that makes. As the ? in the course title indicates, we will challenge every cliché you have ever heard about translation, starting with “it loses something in the translation.” Our six short texts include English translations of: Hugo’s The Last Day of a Condemned Man, Flaubert’s Three Tales, Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter, Tolstoy’s Hadji Murad, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and Mann’s “Death in Venice.”

Our thematic focus is the representation of human bodies in the works of poets, dramatists, novelists, and film makers at various significant moments in western cultural history. As we read some famous and influential literary texts alongside less familiar works, we will become acquainted with key concepts and methodologies employed in literary studies. The course is divided into two conceptual blocks: one is devoted to representations of the monstrous body, a subject that has preoccupied writers (and filmmakers) for a very long time and produced some of the great classics of the western literary canon two of which we read this semester, Frankenstein and The Metamorphosis. The other centers on the relationship between literature and medicine, and ranges widely from Giovanni Boccaccio's fourteenth-century account of the plague in Florence to David Feldshuh's late-twentieth century play about the infamous Tuskegee experiment in 1930s rural Alabama, to poetry by practicing physicians and healthcare workers.

A portal opens to another world: what wonders will we find there? In this course, we will encounter wonderlands: the stuff of dreams—and sometimes nightmares—from the 14th to the 21st centuries. We will travel down rabbit holes, across oceans, through secret doorways, and back in time. Along the way, we will ask how these worlds come about, and what these alternate realities tell us about our own world and our own imaginations.

An introduction to the major themes and issues in African American literature, from the 18th century to the present.

This course will explore the themes and expressions of exile, migration, the loss of home, and the experience of estrangement through narrative and lyric poetry. We will study displacements of self and relations that arise because of changing perceptions of identity, threats, or new regimes. Selected poems—epic, odes, elegy, fragments, songs—will coincide with urgent questions of the body, passions, gender, background, national or global citizenship. With some review of examples from across the ancient and medieval worlds, the Renaissance and Romantic periods, (eg. Sappho, Ovid, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Dickinson) the course will focus primarily on Twentieth Century works, including Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, James Wright, Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Yusef Komunyakaa and contemporary poets, spoken word and rap artists. 

What do The Hunger Games and the Declaration of Independence have in common? Or Thoreau’s Walden and Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech? Each offers a vision of a future American society and asks us to reexamine the principles that shape it. In this course we will explore how writers from John Winthrop to Charlotte Perkins Gilman to Octavia Butler have imagined America in literature.

In this course you be will introduced to world of creative writing. We will embark on weekly writing experiments and exercises drawing from your own experiences, identities, perceptions, and unique and wild imaginations. At the same time, we will read, listen to, and watch work read by contemporary authors in all genres to be in conversation with our own writing and the world in which we live. This course will get you thinking creatively and show you ways to approach writing as a creative outlet and form of self-expression to grapple with and explore the complexities of what it means to be human in this moment. Together we will build a close classroom community through weekly collaborations, feedback, discussion, reading, and exciting writing adventures. Students will learn fundamentals of writing poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction such as mini-memoir and personal narratives.

With its roots in the Bible, ancient Greece, and medieval China and Arabia, the tale of mystery invites readers into a role of detection. We consider facts and solve cases, but also ponder mysteries that are sometimes supernatural, metaphysical, linguistic, or existential. Students in this course will consider stories such as “The Three Apples” and “The Chalk Circle,” as well as works by Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Baroness Orczy, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, Patricia Highsmith, and Paul Auster, and film adaptations including Witness for the Prosecution, The Maltese Falcon, and Memento.

(Open to Moreau Honors Scholars only.)

In this section students encounter work by contemporary authors and filmmakers from around the globe, with a particular emphasis on the Middle East and the Caribbean. We’ll study this work within the broader framework of recent debates on colonization and post-colonization, globalization, migration, and war. We’ll consider issues relating to belonging and displacement; the meaning of home; identity and resistance. We will study short stories, novels, personal essays, a graphic memoir, movies, and poetry from writers and filmmakers from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon, Martinique, Antigua, Dominica, Jamaica, Senegal, and India.

Using some of the most familiar and often taught works in each genre of poetry, this course will explore the poetic styles and forms of artistic expression that are characteristic of certain poets and periods of literature down through the ages. It will also examine the idiom of current songwriters like Lil Wayne and Taylor Swift and compare and contrast them with poets, both past and contemporary.

This course will provide an overview of the history, structure, performance, content, effects, and future of mediated communication, including issues of media ownership, regulation, and media literacy. As a first-year writing-intensive seminar, students will engage in frequent writing assignments, rigorous analysis of texts, critical thinking, and information literacy.  This course is equivalent to COM 107 Mediated Communication.