First Year Seminar Course Descriptions
This is a list of all First Year Seminar course descriptions
Course availability can be different each semester. Refer to Br. LUWIS for the complete list of offerings.
Here is a PDF of the Spring 2019 FYS Course Offerings
Course Title | Description | Offered | Dates | Instructor | CRN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960s Literature: Revolutions and Reactions | This course focuses on the literature of the 1960s, a controversial period in American history that has prompted widely varying responses during the subsequent five decades. Students will study literary works that illustrate cultural and political issues that divided Americans during the decade, as well as non-fiction readings about the intense ideological debates that defined the 1960s. Many of these same debates still rage today. Perspectives on the 1960s to be explored will include various liberal and conservative views from the time (New Left, counterculture, Black Nationalist, Rockefeller Republican, Goldwater Conservative) and of the present (liberal, progressive, conservative, libertarian, evangelical). | Spring 2019 | TR - 9:30-10:40 | James Jesson | 21067 |
| America's Sports Films: Fair or Foul | This course will use films that reflect the issue of fair or foul in American sports and in America, period. Have sports been fair to genders, classes, and races? Are leagues, franchises, owners, and coaches fair to players? Are they becoming more fair or more foul? The films will look at sports from the Negro League of the 1930s, to women’s baseball in the 1940s, to baseball in the 1940s, to racism in college football and basketball in the 1960s, to the Cold War on the ice, to class distinctions in the 1970s, and to the emphasis on money in contemporary sports. | Spring 2019 | W - 1:55-5:30 pm | Gerard Molyneaux | 21080 |
| Apocalypse: Literature Takes on THE END | This course will examine how authors from across the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries present the question of what happens to our society, our future, and our very humanity when the world comes to an end. Through a variety of texts (including novels, graphic novels, poetry, and films), we will discuss how these authors use the scenario of everything we know vanishing in an instant to reveal ideas about what it means to be human, and we’ll attempt to answer a question all of these authors are addressing: With the world coming to an end, does ANYTHING matter anymore—and will it ever be possible to start over? | ||||
| Art and Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art Market | What does it matter if art is stolen or destroyed, or if a beloved Rembrandt painting is discovered to be not by Rembrandt? This course explores various topics related to art crime, including the historical and contemporary conditions that allow for art theft and forgery in the modern era, the wide ranging and diverse effect of those crimes in the art world and beyond, and the detrimental impact of art theft and destruction on cultural heritage around the globe. | ||||
| Art of the Street: Monuments, Murals, and Graffiti | What is the impact of art located in the street, in other words, art in the public sphere? What is its value? Its purpose? This course will explore various forms of art that are located in public spaces: monuments, murals, graffiti, and street art. These artworks engage the public in different ways and raise questions about the significance of art. Throughout the semester, students will investigate the role of art in the street as a form of self-expression, social practice, political activism, identity building, and community engagement. We will examine diverse historical and contemporary perspectives integral to public art discourse. For example, we will use the Mexican Muralist movement and Mural Arts in Philadelphia as case studies to analyze muralism as a tool of social and political change and a means to unite communities. | Spring 2019 | MWF - 12:50-1:40 PM | Mey-Yen Moriuchi | 21063 |
| Art, Fashion, and Identity | Does fashion matter? Is wearing a particular outfit or a particular hairstyle just about aesthetics and style? Or can it be a political act? Can you “read” fashion to understand diverse cultures and identities? This class explores the way that both elite and everyday people from the Renaissance to today have used clothes and hairstyles to express their identities or make a statement. It also looks at the way in which fashion and the history of art are intimately intertwined. | Spring 2019 | TR - 9:30-10:40 am | Catherine Holochwost | 21068 |
| Beginnings and Endings: The Circles of Life | Leaving high school and starting college. Letting go of the familiar and moving into the unknown. Closing one door and opening another. Life is full of initiations and terminations; navigating them is often challenging, sometimes joyful, at other times painful, and almost always bittersweet. This course investigates significant beginnings and endings that people experience during their lifetime including going to school and graduating, making and losing friends, starting and ending a job or career, building relationships and managing breakups, and the grand beginning-ending: Birth and Death. The course will draw from multiple perspectives, both contemporary and historic, including literature, philosophy, science, sociology, psychology, religion, and social work in an exploration of inevitable life transitions that form the circles of life. | ||||
| Big Bad Wolves, Trolls, and Wicked Stepmothers: The History and Psychology Behind Nursery Rhymes and Fairytales | Over the centuries, children have been told fairy tales and sung nursery rhymes even though they do not know the history that originated the stories. Socially, fairy tales serve a variety of functions including developing imagination, building emotional resiliency, crossing cultural boundaries, creating a common language, crossing cultural boundaries, and teaching social mores as well as addressing the skills of critical thinking and problem solving. This course will focus on the evolution of children’s tales to contemporary times placing emphasis on the history and psychology that gives rise to this fiction. | Spring 2019 | MW - 1:55-3:10 pm | Victoria Ketz | 21076 |
| Black Philadelphia | Black people make up 44.2% of Philadelphia’s total population, as of 2016 according to the US Census Bureau, making the community even with whites as the two largest population groups in the city. Despite this fact, the political, religious, and intellectual story of Philadelphia is usually told from the perspective of the various white settler-colonial stories of the Founding Fathers and the white immigrant struggles of the Italians and Irish. This course seeks to prepare Freshman for their academic career through a serious and focused study of the Black tradition in Philadelphia. To study and explore Black Philadelphia we will employ diverse methods from sociology, religious studies, political theory, history, and literature in addition to some field trips to historic sites and guest speakers. While we focus on understanding the ways in which various methods allow us to understand one part of an object of study, we will come to see how employing these methods together allow for a richer understanding of the city we inhabit, that we shape and that shapes us. | Spring 2019 | MW - 1:55-3:10 pm | Anthony Paul Smith | 21077 & 21078 |
| Catholicism in Philadelphia--Then and Now | Students will explore the rich and diverse story of Catholicism in William Penn’s “holy experiment,” Philadelphia, from both a historical and contemporary perspective. Using the central themes of the course—race, ethnicity, gender, devotional life, movements for justice, and the role of the parish—students will engage Catholicism from the perspective of historical and contemporary immigrants, African Americans, women, and the LGBT community particularly in light of issues that shaped the Catholic experience in Philadelphia such as religious liberty, social mobility, and the common good. In order to observe how Catholicism is lived in the city, students will participate in three guided site visits. No prior knowledge is required; students from other faith traditions, or of none at all, are welcome. | Spring 2019 | TR 11:00-12:15 pm | Maureen O'Connell, Margaret McGuiness | 21072 & 21073 |
| Comparative Genocide | This course examines and compares genocides through works in philosophy, political theory and ideology and uses documentary films, period footage and propaganda, to help students understand their nature and scope. It seeks answers to the intellectual origins, social determination, and distinctive characteristics of the mass extermination, dislocation, or cultural destruction of peoples and groups and the ideas behind popular support or tolerance for their perpetration. Although the course focuses on twentieth-century examples in Turkey, Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and Tibet, it draws lessons from these events about present forms of totalitarianism, racialism and the demonization of political and religious groups in the name of national and civilizational cohesion and integrity. Students learn how recognize signs of these ideological currents in contemporary society and describe them from philosophical and political perspectives. | ||||
| Diverse Perspectives of Poverty: An Interprofessional Exploration of the Social Determinants of Health | This course explores multiple perspectives of poverty as they exist in the United States. Students will examine how the face of poverty and its effect on health has changed throughout time. The relationship between the social determinants of health and poverty will be discussed. Students will take part in a poverty simulation to reinforce course concepts. | ||||
| Diverse Representations in Film and Television | The characters we love on television and in film often reflect our own experiences. Historically, members of minority or marginalized groups have seldom seen their experience reflected on screen; too often, screen representations include stereotypical portrayals (when portrayals are included at all). Using current literature on media and diversity (as well as visual source materials), this course will look at diverse representations through history and in the present day, engage with the discourse around gender, race, class, religion, disability, and sexual orientation in media, and examine what it means to have one’s identity represented in popular culture. | Spring 2019 | MWF - 12:50-1:40 | Mark Lashley | 21065 |
| Dungeons, Dragons, and Demons: Was Medieval Europe Really a "Dark Age"? | This course examines diverse perspectives on the Middle Ages, the period of European history from the fall of Rome (ca. 500 CE) to the Renaissance (ca. 1500 CE). It will survey the origin and development of several traditional, negative depictions of the era as an age of violence, warfare, destruction, death, and backwardness—a thousand years of miserable history wherein nothing of any significance occurred. But it will also consider more recent, positive interpretations derived from the interdisciplinary perspectives of political, social, and economic progress, innovative intellectual and cultural developments, as well as scientific and technological advances. | Spring 2019 | TR - 11:00-12:15 pm | George B Stow | 21070 |
| Education in America: From Schoolhouse and Museum to Disneyland and TV | This course examines formal and informal dimensions of education in American culture. It explores the diverse history of basic education (K-12) and higher education from the colonial period to the present. It also examines the form and function of museums (Franklin Institute; Philadelphia Museum of Art); civic and youth organizations (Boy Scouts; Girl Scouts; Playground Movement); cultural theme parks (Disneyland), and print and electronic media (selected magazines and TV programs). | ||||
| Fostering Healthy Communities | This course will offer students the opportunity to develop an understanding of the concepts of health and health promotion from a variety of viewpoints. Health and health promotion for individuals groups and communities will be will be explored using examples from both local and international communities to illustrate critical points. Students will examine community resources designed to promote health and have an opportunity to participate in community health promotion through direct community service work. Individual health behaviors as well as social and environmental interventions for improving health will be investigated. | ||||
| From Rocky to Renoir: Art and Power in Philadelphia | What can art tell us about a city? How do major art museums -- like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Rodin Museum – reflect the history and ideals of a city? How do public artworks like the Rocky statue, Claus Oldenburg’s Clothespin, Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture, and the city murals become an integral part of Philly’s identity? Together, we will compare and explore how a city’s art collection conveys a sense of artistic, economic, and civic pride – providing a kind of “cultural capital” that can position a city among the more elite or “powerful” cities in the nation. Come explore Philadelphia’s treasures and see the city through the lens of art and history! | ||||
| Global Human Rights and Social Justice | This course will examine social issues and injustices from a global perspective. A central focus will be the struggles of individuals, families, and communities from around the world. This course will introduce the student to the concepts of social justice, human rights, social welfare and oppression, and discuss ways to promote social welfare from a human rights and social justice perspective. | Spring 2019 | TR - 9:30-10:45 am | Rosemary Barbera | 21066 |
| How to Read a Film | This seminar will introduce students to the multiple ways in which they can read a film. Its purpose is to suggest that, while film may provide entertainment when being watched, it can also be a text which can be analyzed, discussed, and written about. Student will be introduced to different perspectives, contemporary and historical, on film as they develop their skills as readers of film(s). | ||||
| In Pursuit of the "American Dream": Multilingual and Multicultural Experiences in the USA | This course will explore several topics related to your experience of multilingual and multicultural identities in the USA. We will explore this theme by first focusing on the college campus, where many of you have had your first American experiences. We will discuss diverse perspectives on the relationship between American students and international students. We then move onto language issues in the broader U.S. contexts, studying the historical and contemporary perspectives of bilingual education programs and the English-only movement. We will conclude the course with a focus on the hotly debated immigration policies and arguments surrounding them. | ||||
| Life Sciences and the Media | The course will examine both historic and modern life science research that underlies science headlines in the media. Historic case studies will be examined, such as media misrepresentation of evolutionary theory over time. Contemporary topics will be selected based on student’s interest. Students will direct their own learning to deconstruct primary scientific literature and evaluate the concordance between study results and claims made in the media. | Spring 2019 | TR 3:30-4:45 pm | David Zuzga | 21074 |
| Lit and Film Ask Who Am I? | This seminar looks at the ways in which both literature and film, historically and in contemporary contexts, have addressed the question of identity by asking and answering a very basic question “Who am I?” Literary and cinematic characters have come up with a variety of answers and ways in which to answer (and not answer) that question, and these answers (and non-answers) provide us with contrasting and shifting definitions of identity in terms of history, nationality, race, gender, ethnicity, and other factors. These contrasting and shifting definitions form the basis for this seminar | ||||
| Literacies of Change | The course is designed to address organizing, activism, and resistance literacies related to issues of social justice. This course examines the potentials and benefits that accrue from exploring histories, models, and pedagogies of change at the grassroots level. Grounded in the notion of “city as classroom”, this course will connect students with local organizers, activist, and ally groups committed to issues of social justices such as linguistic human rights, racial justice, environmental justice and sustainability, public health, educational access, and immigration reform through authentic engagement with grassroots organizations | ||||
| Love, Actually | Love is a central—if not the essential—part of human experience. This course examines the diverse (social) scientific approaches to understanding love. Specifically, we will focus on the historical, biological, psychological, interactional, and cultural factors that have been used to explain the experience of love. | Spring 2019 | MW - 3:25-4:40 pm | Marianne Dainton | 21079 |
| Monsters and the Monstrous | Monsters reveal our hidden fears and desires, they conjure specters of the past, and they even forecast the future, giving uncanny form to what societies won’t or can’t yet formulate. Tracking some of the shambling brutes that stalk the literary imagination, this course explores the haunted borderlands of humanity, offering students an introduction to literary, filmic, televisual, and new media studies. | Spring 2019 | MW - 1:55-3:10 pm | Craig Franson | 21075 |
| Of Feast and Famine: The Historical Importance of Food in Our Culture | Sustenance is vital for human existence, but few ponder the many ways in which food is used in our society. This course examines will examine food as a biological need and a cultural identifier as well as the problematics surrounding this topic including sustainability and shortage. By studying historical, biological, psychological, and cultural factors, a greater understanding will be obtained about this need/privilege. | ||||
| Parents of Children, Children of Parents | This course will examine current and historical perspectives on parenting, parenting skills and children’s experiences with parents or caregivers. Students will examine diverse parenting models and skills and how typical or atypical child development can influence the interaction within a family, for both the parents and the children. The role of children in parents’ lives and the role of parents in children’s lives will be explored. It is said there is “no parenting book”, and yet there are numerous how-to books about parenting around the world and variations in parenting children across various cultures, conditions, and contexts. Students will examine these variations in this course and reflect on their own life experiences. | ||||
| Philadelphia in Print and on Screen | Students in this course will explore the diversity of Philadelphia through literature, film, and observation. Students will read texts that represent both an historical and contemporary view; students will study films and film clips that use Philadelphia as the location or background; students will actively explore areas of Philadelphia referenced in the texts and films. | Spring 2019 | MWF - 10:40-11:30 | Judith Musser | 21064 |
| Philadelphia, Trusting Penn's Process: An Interdisciplinary Study of the City and Its Peoples | We will examine the literary, cinematic, artistic, musical, and photographic history of Philadelphia and its citizens both real and imagined who have breathed life, controversy, and character into the city for the past four centuries. William Penn envisioned a “City of Brotherly Love,” where people seeking religious freedom and individual rights would find a home. And so the process of building and becoming a city infused with unique character and characters began. Through founding fathers, eminent bankers and physicians, immigrant artisans and factory workers, religious scholars and the religious faithful, beloved entertainers, artists, and athletes, Philadelphia has grown from Penn’s principles and Benjamin Franklin’s virtues to current contributors to its character in Rocky Balboa’s “going the distance.” | Spring 2019 | MWF - 9:30-10:25 am | Francis X Mckee | 21061 |
| Philadelphia's Role in Wartime | What role did Philadelphia play during the major wars in American history, from the Revolutionary War to the military conflicts of the 20th Century? What were the effects of that participation in warfare on the city and its people, both in the short and in the long term? This course will examine the rich history of the city's institutions and people in wartime, including specific battles, logistics, military leadership, and wartime participants such as women, Quakers and African-Americans. It also will consider Philadelphian's articulation of attitudes both for and against participation in war, and of its approaches to conflict, at various moments in the city's history. | ||||
| Power, Justice, and Community | “Power, Justice, and Community” introduces first-year students to diverse historical and contemporary perspectives on key questions about the relationships between state, society, and the individual: What is the nature of authority? How are communities defined in terms of inclusion, exclusion, and hierarchy? What is the common good? This interdisciplinary seminar engages key, excerpted texts in the humanities and social sciences by Plato, William Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Mary Wollstonecraft, Martin Luther King Jr., Pope Francis, and others. Students will think critically about these texts in reading, discussion, and writing to prepare them for intellectual discovery and academic success at La Salle University. | ||||
| Real and Imaginary Languages: Arabic to Zulu, Klingon to Dothraki | The history of world languages offers fascinating glimpses into a realm that distinguishes humans from all other animals. In addition, constructed languages, well known from TV and films (Dothraki—Game of Thrones; Na’vi—Avatar) have become popular and have fan bases everywhere. Languages reveal social class and political attitudes; they show the history and concerns of their speakers. Language has won and lost wars, advanced trade, and built empires. Some have been banned (Navajo; Catalan) and others die out (Cornish; Manx). We will study actual and constructed languages from historical and present-day perspectives. | ||||
| Russia: Forest and Steppe | Survey of the successes and failures of Russian and Soviet government policy to integrate more than 100 diverse nationalities, races, and ethnic groups practicing diverse religions into a political state covering more than 1/6 of the world’s land surface. Geographically, the content covers the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the post-Soviet successor states. Issues treated in historical and contemporary perspectives include the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, the role of Muslims in Russian Christian society, and the impact of the physical environment on Russia’s diverse peoples. Readings expose students to the viewpoints and experiences of Orthodox Christian Slavs, Muslim Turks, Polish Catholics, Jews. Asian Buddhists, and others. | ||||
| Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll: The Dionysian Origins of Contemporary Music | As an expression of the human urge to commune with mysterious realms though sound, sexuality, and altered states of consciousness, rock music stretches back to pagan antiquity in a tradition here termed the Dionysian. Through a discussion of the Orphic myths, Euripides’ Bacchae, and F. Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, this seminar will address the Dionysian tradition at the root of popular culture as exemplified in rock, rap, electronic dance music (EDM), and industrial music. In particular, this seminar seeks to contextualize the nexus of sex, drugs, alcohol, occult, transgressive gender roles, mass enthusiasm, and ritual exhibited in contemporary music. | ||||
| Shakespeare Today | William Shakespeare’s plays and poems are frequently invoked to address contemporary issues: quoted in political speeches, debates, and newspaper op-eds; performed on stage in contemporary settings (at times to great controversy); and reimagined in films and novels that relocate Shakespeare’s plots to global and contemporary settings. This seminar will study three to four Shakespeare plays with current cultural significance. We will examine them in their original historical and cultural setting and also in their contemporary reiterations to explore why these works have such staying power—as well as how much they change as we reimagine them for our own uses. | Spring 2019 | MWF - 10:40-11:30 am | Claire Busse | 21062 |
| Success and Failure in American Culture | How have Americans understood what it means to succeed or to fail? How have these ideas shaped American culture? In this course we will examine how Americans in different eras and from different perspectives have grappled with their hopes for success and fears of failure. We will apply an interdisciplinary perspective on how narratives of success and failure are created, maintained, questioned, and revised. | Spring 2019 | TR - 11:00-12:15 pm | Lisa Jarvinen | 21069 |
| Tarot and Alchemy: Bridges from Body to Soul | Tarot reading and alchemy are looked on as anti-scientific, but in an age when science investigated both physical and spiritual, they were noble vehicles of bridging matter and mind. Used with historical understanding, which we will study, they are powerful means of connecting intellect and intuition, science and psychology. We will study the history and practice of these arts by learning principles of alchemy, especially color symbolism, and by practicing Tarot readings. We will read Harry Potter but also see alchemy at work in Romeo and Juliet and A Tale of Two Cities. Discussions, position papers, other readings, and a visit to the American Chemical Heritage Museum. | ||||
| Tax Cuts, Immigration, and International Trade: Contemporary Policy Debates | This course will examine several contemporary economic policy issues in a seminar format (read, research, and discuss). Rather than attempting to draw specific policy conclusions or even build a policy consensus, the primary goal of the course is to help students understand the nature of the debates from their historic underpinnings to the contemporary views on the issues. A secondary goal is having students understand the trade-offs necessary to support a policy position, because no policy is free of costs. | Spring 2019 | TR - 11:00-12:15 pm | David Robison | 21071 |
| The Evolution of Human Communication | This course will engage the student in the study of the evolution of human communication which includes the biological, cognitive, sociological, and linguistic prerequisites to human communication as we now know it. The student will be read literature in the above areas and engage in discussions to compare and contrast the various theories proposed by researchers in this area of study. Students will engage in hands-on experiments related to the material being discussed. Comparisons and contrasts will be made with non-human, primate species and differences highlighted. The student will be required to develop and explain their own theory of the evolution of human communication, incorporating the biological, cognitive, sociological, and linguistic aspects discussed. Applications to communicative differences in today’s society will also be discussed, e.g., male vs. female, cultural differences, etc. | Spring 2019 | TR - 2:00-3:15 pm | James Manicelli | 21081 |
| The Health and Well-Being of Children in Philadelphia | This course will focus on the health and well-being of youth in Philadelphia, paying special attention to vulnerable populations, including those who are homeless, immigrants and refugees, low-income, in foster care, and/or involved with juvenile justice. This community-engaged learning course will involve both campus-based and community-based activities and seminars. Students will study how current and historical policies and programs have influenced children’s health in our city. | ||||
| Urban Health Field Experience | This course introduces students to some of the core components of urban life. Local urban problems and concerns along with assets and challenges of urban life will be investigated. Students will explore specific aspects of urban environments (e.g., housing, transportation, food outlets, crime) and their impact on health and implications for healthy communities. Content will include urban demography, changes in urban physical and social environments and their consequences for health. Programs and policies that influence the health of urban populations will be discussed and contemporary and historical perspectives will be considered. This course will combine academic approaches with real world experiences of urban life. Course concepts are broadly organized around four major themes: health, homelessness, community development and culture & arts. | Spring 2019 | W - 1:55-4:40 pm | Cndace Robertson-James | 21082 |
