Past First-Year Seminars

FYSEM-UA 701
Adventures in Interviewing: Oral History Theory and Practice
Fall 2021
Instructor: Miriam Nyhan Grey
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Oral history is a very important tool for a historian. It is compelling in its ability to bring forward the voices of those who were frequently excluded from more typical sources and it often leads to new interpretations of history. As a method it presents both challenges and rewards, as the sources are not confined to the library or an archive. In the process of interviewing, the historian is confronted by sources that speak, think, remember, forget and recount—human beings. This course will explore theories of memory, how memory is constructed and forgotten, and how historians contend with this type of source. Preparing for and conducting an oral history interview will be a significant portion of the work for this course. The goal is to uncover the richness of oral history in complicating our explanations of the past.

MIRIAM NYHAN GREY is Associate Director of New York University's Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies, where she is also Director of Graduate Studies for the Master of Arts in Irish and Irish-American Studies. With an interest in the intersections of migration, race, and ethnicity, she focuses primarily on migrant experiences in comparative frameworks. Oral history is a central methodology in her research, and she has served as a collaborator for the Archives of Irish America’s Oral History Collection since 2008. She has been on the faculty at NYU since 2009, teaching an array of classes on Irish history and migration, oral history, and comparative migration.




FYSEM-UA 743
Archaeology of Ireland--Land of Saints and Scholars
Fall 2021
Instructor: Pam J. Crabtree
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Archaeology uses material culture, including artifacts and structures, in order to understand the daily lives of people in the past. Large-scale excavations carried out in the later twentieth and twenty-first centuries have shed new light on Irish history, from the island’s initial settlement at the end of the Ice Age through the nineteenth century. This course will explore how archaeology can be used to reconstruct Irish history. Particular emphasis will be placed on the Irish “Dreamtime,” the Iron Age and early medieval periods (ca. 600 BCE to 1100 CE). We will also examine the role that the Irish monastic tradition played in perpetuating and passing on to posterity many of the classic texts of Western civilization.

PAM J. CRABTREE is an archaeologist and Professor in NYU’s Department of Anthropology, where she also serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies. She is a field archaeologist who has worked on historic and prehistoric sites in Europe, the Near East, and eastern North America, and she is particularly interested in how archaeological data can be used to illustrate the daily lives of people who lived in the past. Her area of expertise is zooarchaeology, the study of animal bones as a way of reconstructing ancient hunting practices, animal husbandry patterns, and diets. Crabtree is currently the co-director of the excavations at Dún Ailinne, an Irish Iron Age site located in County Kildare. She teaches courses on prehistoric and medieval archaeology, archaeological methods, and agricultural origins.




FYSEM-UA 900.013
Asia’s Megacities
Fall 2021
Instructor: Gaurav Garg
Thursday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change

In the past century, Asia has urbanized more rapidly than any other region in the world. In 2020, as many as 17 out of the world’s 30 megacities (in terms of population) were in Asia—almost all of them in East and South Asia. Most of Asia’s megacities have long and deep roots in the pre-colonial or colonial era. It is therefore natural to ask what global, regional, national and local forces have combined over time— through history—to produce the Asian megacity of the twentieth-century? What explains their resilience, growth and diversity? Further, how have Asia’s cities, governments and its people coped with this unprecedented concentration of people and capital? And what is so Asian about the largest and most dynamic cities of the world’s largest continent? It is only by exploring such questions can we truly begin to understand how Asia’s megacities have become what they are today and how they are shaping the new Asian century.

This seminar will engage with these questions though a focus on some of the following themes— colonialism, migration, segregation, slums, infrastructure, industrialization, labor and politics, de-industrialization, neoliberalism, gentrification and globalization. Readings will center mainly (but not exclusively) on select Asian megacities— Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Manila, New Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Bangalore, Dhaka, Karachi, Lahore and some paradigmatic ones such as Singapore and Dubai. Students will learn how to appreciate the diversity of Asia’s megacities, the historical forces that produced them and at the same time find that if we scratch beneath the surface, there lies a “deep order” that connects such cities—capitalism.

GAURAV C. GARG is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, History Department, NYU. He is a historian of modern South Asia and is an urbanist. The core of his intellectual and research agenda lies in thinking how historical research and historical case-studies, especially from the global South, can be situated at the heart of a fresh and truly global social theory. After defending his dissertation in summer 2021, he will work on his book manuscript which will examine the roles and responses of locally entrenched economic elites and global development agencies in the making of what in the 1960s and 1970s was considered to be the “world’s worst city”, Calcutta. When he is free, he loves to think and talk about mountains and mountaineers.



FYSEM-UA 822
Bioethics: Life and Death
Fall 2021
Instructor: Jeanne Proust
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required Writing the Essay: Science and Society: Spring 2022 Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Health and Society

Note: if you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this paired seminar and EXPOS-UA 1 course.

This course applies the ethical insights of philosophy to issues about life, death, bioethics, and medicine in an introductory way. Technological advances in health care made it possible to sustain biological life beyond the moment when the patient would have died without such intervention. As patients, their families, physicians and clergy were drawn into the end of life decision-making process, it became clear that more philosophical work needed to be done to provide guidance in these situations. The objective of this course is to expand students’ knowledge of issues related to death, dying and life in applied ethics. It examines various questions regarding the ethical, legal, and social implications of advances in biotechnology and biomedicine, and aims at providing a foundation in historical, philosophical, and socio-scientific

approaches and frameworks to address bioethical challenges. Students will learn to read philosophy articles critically, as well as discovering how different philosophers have approached ethical issues and applied them to prominent debates in bioethics. The course will examine the major ethical theories on what is morally right and wrong, and the meaning of fundamental moral concepts. Focus, however, is upon ethical problems associated with the practice of medicine and biomedical research. Topics will include topics like abortion, issues about the rights of the unborn, euthanasia and Physician-assisted Suicide, Genetic Testing, Genetic Therapy and Discrimination, Infertility and In Vitro Fertilization, Surrogate Parenting, and Cloning.

JEANNE PROUST earned her PhD at the Sorbonne and studied philosophy and the arts in Bordeaux and Berlin as well as Paris. She has taught courses in philosophy (specifically critical thinking and ethics), as well as art history, visual arts, and French literature, at NYU, Pace University, the City University of New York, Miami Dade College, and Marymount Manhattan College. She brings philosophy to the world outside academia by giving numerous talks about interdisciplinary subjects related to moral questions for ThinkOlio, an association that organizes lectures in public spaces throughout New York City. She co-wrote The Feeling of Injustice in Popular Songs with Professor Charles Ramond of Université Paris 8.



FYSEM-UA 900.014
Classical Music in the Shadow of Covid and George Floyd
Fall 2021
Instructor: Michael Beckerman
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Identity and Society

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Forty-five years ago, when I first taught classical music courses in the university, the whole thing seemed pretty unproblematic. In our Music Humanities course at Columbia University we mostly offered a historical survey of great works from the Middle Ages to John Cage (which we called “from chants to chance”), and sharing with our students the history, context and content of “masterworks” seemed like the proper way to approach the subject. Fast forward to 2020. Covid shut down virtually all the classical music venues in the country, while the murders of George Floyd and others reignited discussions and debates about structural racism, inequality and decolonization. This course outlines the history of the idea of classical music, and explores what the events of the last year mean for it--as taught, performed and engaged with. The course will draw heavily on our recently published volume Classical Music: Contemporary Perspectives and Challenges (Open Book Publishers 2021) and will feature many guests, some of whom are contributors to the volume. Pending health recommendations from the CDC, the State of New York, and NYU, we will also study the subject in a first-hand manner by attending performances at key venues in the city.

MICHAEL BECKERMAN is Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Music, Collegiate Professor of Music, and Chair of the Department of Music at NYU. A composer, pianist, and scholar, he writes on such subjects as nationalism, film music, music and war, opera, and popular song. He lectures regularly throughout North America and Europe, writes for the New York Times, and during the corona crisis has curated a series of online musical postings for DAHA (the Dvořák American Heritage Society) titled “From DAHA with Love."




FYSEM-UA 379
Doctor’s Dilemma: Being Both Correct and Right
Fall 2021
Instructor: Michael E. Makover
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required Writing the Essay: Science and Society: Spring 2022 Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Health and Society

Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Note: if you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this paired seminar and EXPOS-UA 1 course.

Dr. Saul Farber, former Dean of the NYU School of Medicine, frequently cautioned that just because an action or conclusion was correct did not mean that it was right. Ethics, laws, and religious and cultural beliefs intersect in every medical encounter and healthcare issue, affecting patients’ options and care. The challenging issues to be studied and debated in this seminar include the following: Should doctors help terminal patients die to relieve intractable suffering? Should doctors participate in executions or in the interrogation of terrorists? Do we want to know so much about our genetic makeup that we are faced with terribly difficult consequences of that knowledge? Is “alternative medicine” a reasonable alternative? What makes a good doctor good? Who should pay for your healthcare? The course aims to teach students how to address such questions by learning to think like doctors and scientists, to apply logic tempered by human values and experience, to analyze information critically, and to present ideas effectively and honestly.

MICHAEL E. MAKOVER is Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine and Attending Physician at the NYU Medical Center. He is also the Chief Medical Officer for a major union. An internist and rheumatologist, he is the author of Mismanaged Care, as well as articles on healthcare quality, ethics, and economics, and is currently writing another book entitled 120 Years Young. He was an aide to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and a spokesman for the American Cancer Society and the New York Heart Association.




FYSEM-UA 900.011
The Economy of the Ancient World: Money, Markets, and Labor
Fall 2021
Instructor: Rhyne King
Wednesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Thousands of years before economics became a field of academic study, ancient peoples were exchanging goods at markets, investing in businesses, and training workers. In this course, we will study the economic history of the ancient world in three separate time periods: the time of the earliest states in Egypt and Mesopotamia; the interconnected worlds of democratic Athens and the powerful Persian Empire; and the contemporaneous superstates of Rome and Han China. Through ancient written sources and archaeology, we will discuss how the economies of the ancient world operated on the ground. We will also consider how contemporary economic theories, including Marxist and institutional, can or cannot explain the development of economic systems in ancient civilizations. In this course, students will learn to think critically about primary sources, gain the skills to apply theoretical models to evidence, and develop an appreciation for the diversity of cultures across the Afro-Eurasian world.

RHYNE KING is a Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. He researches the impact of ancient imperialism on ordinary people and the ways ordinary people resisted imperialism. Rhyne specializes in the social, political, and economic history of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (559-330 BCE). He received his PhD from the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago and his BA in Classics from Duke University.




FYSEM-UA 900.012
Empires and Scriptural Traditions in the First Millennium
Fall 2021
Instructor: Valentina Grasso
Tuesday and Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Islam did not emerge from the crossroads of the ancient world as an alien intrusion but was rather the result of the intertwining of first millennium cultures. By incorporating Islam, this course will focus on the interactions between empires and Scriptural traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) within the historical frame of the first millennium. The first lectures will investigate the socio-political history of Rome and Iran and their cultural milieux and will be followed by lectures dedicated to the Syriac world, pre-Islamic Arabia, Early Islam and the Caliphate, the Silk Road (touching on Manichaeism and Buddhism) and the shaping of the Medieval ‘Social Network’. The course will highlight the formation and exegesis of scriptural canons as well as the role of philosophy and law in the formation of communal identities by applying a historical perspective to religious material and by reading the rhetoric of otherness in a critical way.

VALENTINA A. GRASSO is a Visiting Assistant Professor at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge where she completed her doctoral dissertation on the history of pre-Islamic late antique Arabia. Her current research explores the interactions between Arabia and Ethiopia during Late Antiquity in a project titled "Red Sea Empires: Arabia and Aksūm before Islam”. The project aims to contribute to the study of geographical areas still largely underrepresented in gatherings on late antique history such as Black African history, by constructing a coherent historical narrative out of fragmentary evidence through the integration of literary and archaeological material. In a similar fashion, her teaching seeks to support the voices of historically underrepresented communities and to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the late antique world outside of a Eurocentric framework.




FYSEM-UA 900.009
The Epic Tradition
Fall 2021
Instructor: Stephanie Crooks
Tuesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Literature Through the Ages

This course provides a wide-ranging introduction to the genre of epic. We will study several ancient examples of the literary form (including the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Ramayana, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid), while considering the societies for which and by which they were created. Later in the semester, we will work to identify the conceits and themes that are characteristic to these examples of epic literature, and we will track what changes - if any - the genre undergoes in subsequent epochs and cultures. To that end, we will also read excerpts from Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, and Paradise Lost, among others. Epic, we will find, deeply explores human nature – our desires and our flaws – while often posing difficult questions about national identity, imperialism, and conquest. What makes an individual a hero? How do heroes respond to the tasks that are imposed upon them? By whom are those tasks imposed, and, perhaps most important, why do tales of heroes continue to appeal to us today?

STEPHANIE CROOKS is an Adjunct Instructor in the College of Arts and Sciences with research interests in death, material culture, and landscape in Greek and Latin poetry. She has published on Vergil’s Eclogues and has an article on Catullus forthcoming in Classical Philology. She is currently preparing a manuscript on the image of the poet’s tomb in Latin elegy.




FYSEM-UA 900.001
Epics, Sagas and Cycles of the Medieval North Sea
Fall 2021
Instructor: Sarah Waidler
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Northern Europe produced a number of long-form literary pieces during the Middle Ages, such as the Old English Beowulf, the early Irish Táin Bó Cúailnge and its associated tales, the Middle Welsh Mabinogion and the Old Norse sagas. This course will explore these tales and others and question the definition of this genre (or genres) of literature, examining connections between the different types of tales and what we can know about their composition. Students will investigate the connections between these tales and earlier examples of epic literature, such as Virgil’s The Aeneid, and examine what we know regarding the transmission of earlier forms of heroic tales from Late Antiquity and the ancient world to medieval Western Europe. Major themes such as violence, heroism and the role of women in these stories will be discussed throughout the course and students will be expected to engage with both questions presented by the individual examples of these forms of literature as well as to compare across cultural and literary boundaries. The reception of these tales in both the medieval and modern worlds will be discussed in the conclusion to the course. This class will give students a grounding in critical thinking and an appreciation of different approaches to literary texts and the environments in which they were created. By engaging with some of the foremost medieval literary productions of the European Middle Ages, this course will chart a journey through some of the greatest written achievements of the cultures of the Celts, Vikings and early English and question students’ understanding of literature as well as the cultural construction and portrayal of the heroic past.

SARAH WAIDLER earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, and was an O’Donovan Postdoctoral Scholar at the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, in 2016–2018. She works on medieval Celtic literature and history and the cult of saints in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. She is particularly interested in the overlap between the literature of saints and “secular” literature. Her work also explores the intellectual environment of learning and the interplay of ideas between Ireland, Wales, and the wider medieval world.




FYSEM-UA 900.004
Experimentalism in Music, 14th c to the present: Meanings and Methods
Fall 2021
Instructor: Elizabeth Hoffman
Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

This course will survey selected historical moments of stylistic change in music and ask how these musical junctures embody artistic intervention that is often also social change—through the form of the creative practices, the sounds themselves, and the presentational manner of the musics. We’ll consider experimentalism as practiced by groups of contemporaneous composers sharing practices, and experimentalism invoked by singular iconoclasts. What motivated these conscious departures from existing traditions? How were they received, and what constituted the experimental aspects of the practices? Is ‘experimentalism’ synonymous with ‘innovation’? Does ‘experimentalism’ imply a teleology of progress? In a sense then, this course seeks to define the notion of the ‘experimental’ in art, and to consider how it has arisen and contributed to artistic culture—across a wide historical swath in Western (and selected non-Western) art and pop music canons.

After completing this course students will be able to think deeply about these questions, which will be informed by many case studies. Students will be able to form their own opinions about attributes of musical practices in the present, including hybrid genres and borrowings, and about intentions artists may harbor that shape deliberate rebellion or discovery. Students will be encouraged to think philosophically about these ideas such that they will be able to apply them to observations about other art forms, including the visual arts and dance, or mixed media.

ELIZABETH HOFFMAN teaches courses in music composition, computer music, and music theory and history in the Department of Music at NYU. She is a composer of music for traditional instruments and for instruments that she designs in computer software. She has also built experimental percussion instruments which explore unique tunings and timbres. Her compositional interests include a focus on spatialization as a means of creating signification and immersive sound worlds, and she has written a number of experimental works for high-density loudspeaker arrays which utilize over a hundred channels. Her fixed media music appears on the empreintes DIGITALes label and others. Recognition has come from the Bourges, Prix Ars, and Pierre Schaeffer competitions, the Seattle Arts Commission, ICMA, the Jerome Foundation, The MacDowell Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. A permanent algorithmic sound installation that she designed (RETU(R)NINGS) plays daily in NYU’s Bobst Library Atrium since 2019. Prof. Hoffman has been the recipient of NYU's Golden Dozen Teaching Award.





FYSEM-UA 506
Game Theory and the Humanities
Fall 2021
Instructor: Steven J. Brams
Wednesday, 4:55–7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Mathematics and Modeling in Understanding of the Physical World

Prerequisite: No mathematical background beyond high school mathematics is assumed, but a willingness to learn and apply sophisticated reasoning to analyze the interactions of players in games is essential.

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Game theory is a mathematical theory of strategy that has been applied to the analysis of conflict and cooperation in such fields as economics, political science, and biology. In this seminar, we discuss more unusual applications—to history, literature, philosophy, the Bible, theology, and law. We discuss Abraham’s decision to offer his son Isaac for sacrifice; the choices made by accused witches and their persecutors in medieval witch trials; Lady Macbeth's incitement of her husband to murder King Duncan in Shakespeare’s play; several strategic games played by presidents and their antagonists in domestic crises (e.g., the Civil War) and international crises (e.g., the Cuban missile crisis), and coping mechanisms used by characters in catch-22 games (including those in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22).

STEVEN J. BRAMS is Professor of Politics at NYU. He is author, co-author, or co-editor of 19 books and about 300 articles. He has applied game theory and social-choice theory to voting and elections, bargaining and fairness, international relations, and the Bible, theology, and literature. He is a former president of the Peace Science Society (1990-91) and of the Public Choice Society (2004-2006). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1986), a Guggenheim Fellow (1986-87), and was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation (1998-99).




FYSEM-UA 781
Happiness in Film
Fall 2021
Instructor: Ludovic Cortade
Friday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

This seminar investigates the representations of happiness in film, drawing on a variety of sources and disciplines including cinema studies, history, philosophy, positive psychology, ethology, and cultural studies. We will discuss the notion of “happiness” through the lens of different historical and cultural contexts, and consider how film techniques are used in those contexts to convey positive emotions. Topics include: the transformation and rebirth of heroes in myths and fairy tales in film; the building of the self away from social determinisms; “happy-endings” in classical Hollywood cinema, including comedies and musicals; the politics of happiness, race, class, and gender in world cinema; happiness and the practice of frugality; the building of common ground across communities, nations, and species.

Professor LUDOVIC CORTADE is Associate Professor in the Department of French and Associate Faculty in the Department of Cinema Studies. His books include Le Cinéma de l’immobilité. His research fields include film history and theory. Professor Cortade has previously taught at Harvard University, the University of Toronto, Brown University, the Ecole normale supérieure, and the Sorbonne. He was twice awarded Harvard’s Derek Bok Certificate of Distinction in Teaching.




FYSEM-UA 900.006
Histories of Childhood
Fall 2021
Instructor: Patricia Crain
Thursday, 8:00-10:30 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Literature Through the Ages

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

What is “childhood” and who counts as a child? Childhood as a concept has a history, which powerfully shapes historical children and sets the foundation for how we think of children today. This seminar explores that history, especially in the United States eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through readings in educational theory, social history, early children’s poetry and fiction, and children’s diaries, among other materials, with special attention to the production of race, class, gender and sexuality. How do chattel slavery and Native American genocide shape the experience of childhood for Black, Native, and white children? In addition to anonymous children’s literature, readings will include works by John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Wordsworth, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Zitkála-Šá, Louisa May Alcott, and Horatio Alger, among others. Students will research the popular poetry and fiction of gift books, magazines, and anthologies, in Fales Special Collections (pandemic permitting), will write weekly blog posts, two short essays, a personal essay, and a final research or creative project, and will present reports on weekly topics in class.

PATRICIA CRAIN teaches, researches, and writes about nineteenth-century American literature and culture, the history of print culture and literacy, the history of childhood, and the relation between words and pictures. Her most recent book, Reading Children: Literacy, Property and the Dilemmas of Childhood in Nineteenth-century America (University of Pennsylvania, 2016; Early American Literature book prize), offers a history of the relationship between children and books in Anglo-American modernity, exploring long-lived but now forgotten early children's literature, discredited yet highly influential pedagogical practices, the property lessons inherent in children's book ownership, and the emergence of childhood itself as a literary property. The Story of A: the Alphabetization of America from The New England Primer to The Scarlet Letter (Stanford, 2000; MLA first book prize) relates the history of the alphabet as a genre of image-text for children and of alphabetization as a social practice in America, from early modern reading primers to the literature of the American Renaissance.




FYSEM-UA 801
History of Italian Opera
Fall 2021
Instructor: Roberto Scarcella Perino
Monday, 8:00-10:30 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and General Chemistry I Lecture (MW 8:00-9:15 a.m.).

The course covers the evolution of opera from Monteverdi to the early 20th century. The genres analyzed in this course are favola in musica, intermezzo, opera seria, opera buffa, grand opera, dramma lirico. Operatic production styles are considered with regard to the recordings used in the course; class discussion is meant to help students develop a critical approach to opera appreciation. No specific musical training is required.

ROBERTO SCARCELLA PERINO is Composer in Residence at the NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Assistant Clinical Professor in Italian Studies at NYU, and a Scholar in Residence at the American Institute for Verdi Studies. He has written five operas: Verdi, Merli e Cucú; A Caval Donato; Blackout; Furiosus; and A Sweet Silence in Cremona.




FYSEM-UA 497
How We See
Fall 2021
Instructor: Marisa Carrasco
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

Required Writing the Essay: Science and Society: Spring 2022 Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with PhysicsI/ II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.)

Note: if you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this paired seminar and EXPOS-UA 1 course.

Do we see the world the way we do because we are the way we are or because the world is the way it is? This course looks at what we know about vision from multiple scientific perspectives: perceptual psychology tells us about the process of seeing and provides important insights into the workings of visual mechanisms; neuropsychology shows us what happens to perception when these mechanisms malfunction; and neuroscience tells us about processes at the level of cells and neural systems. At the same time, we discuss modes and techniques of scientific inquiry from these different perspectives. How do vision scientists learn? What kinds of experiments do they conduct? How has the development of new neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, for example) shaped the field?

MARISA CARRASCO is Julius Silver Professor of Psychology and Neural Science and a Collegiate Professor, as well as a former Chairperson of the Department of Psychology. Born and raised in Mexico City, she received her licentiate in Psychology from the National University of Mexico and her PhD in Psychology (with an emphasis on cognition and perception) from Princeton University. She conducts research in cognitive neuroscience, exploring the relation between the psychological and neural mechanisms involved in visual perception and attention. Her papers have been published in the leading scientific journals in the field, and she has won numerous prestigious awards and fellowships throughout her career, such as a National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, a Cattell Fellowship, an American Association of University Women Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship.




FYSEM-UA 900.008
The Idea of Human Rights
Fall 2021
Instructor: Sonali Thakkar
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

This course investigates the historical and contemporary cultural significance of human rights, and asks how human rights have been imagined and articulated across a range of texts and historical contexts. We will consider three broad, overlapping questions: First, what are some of the histories of human rights? Are human rights a uniquely postwar and contemporary phenomenon, or do they have a longer history? If so, how is this history related to pre-20th century revolutionary struggles against monarchical power as well as against colonialism, racism, and slavery? Second, what are some of the genres of human rights? How have human rights been articulated through declarations and conventions; and how have human rights violations been represented—and perhaps repaired, in part—through practices of testimony, witnessing, and narrative? Third, what are some of the central political problems or preoccupations that the postwar human rights regime has sought to manage, or out of which it has emerged? How have activists, scholars, and cultural critics of human rights understood problems of statelessness, the enduring legacies of colonialism, and the relationship between the universalism of human rights and cultural difference or particularism?

To answer these questions, we will pay particular attention to the early postwar period, which produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other crucial legal and cultural documents in an era of racial violence, genocide, and widespread statelessness. We will also consider the historical antecedents of this moment, as well as cultural artifacts that emerge from contemporary human rights activism and representation. We will examine everything from charters, declarations, conventions, petitions, and manifestos, to novels, memoirs, film, reportage, poetry, and philosophy. We will draw on the disciplinary resources of cultural history, literary criticism, and political theory, and—pandemic permitting—we will make use of some of NYC’s archival and institutional resources in the field of human rights.

SONALI THAKKAR is Assistant Professor of English at New York University. She is new to NYU, arriving here in fall 2021 after several years on the faculty at the University of Chicago. She researches and teaches in the areas of postcolonial literature and theory, critical race studies, Jewish studies, gender and sexuality studies, and human rights. Her current book project is titled The Reeducation of Race: Jewishness and Plasticity in Postcolonial Politics, and tells the story of how postwar attempts to redefine race in the aftermath of the Holocaust made ideas about Jewishness and Jewish difference central to anticolonial and postcolonial thought. Her writing has appeared in Social Text, the Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, WSQ, the Cambridge History of World Literature, and other venues. At the University of Chicago, she helped develop a new core curriculum in human rights for the College; she was also the recipient of the Neubauer Faculty Development Fellowship, for excellence in teaching.




FYSEM-UA 900.010
Illicit Drugs in the Americas
Fall 2021
Instructor: Brittany Edmoundsen
Wednesday, 8:00-10:30 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I Lecture (MW 8:00-9:15 a.m.).

This course explores the history of the drug trade, drug control, and drug cultures in the Americas from the late nineteenth century to the present. It aims not only to contextualize the drug wars of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries but also to explore alternative historical attitudes and approaches toward drugs. Thinking about the history of drugs on a hemispheric scale opens up a comparative framework, making it possible to consider how the status of a drug as licit or illicit changed over time and in different national and regional contexts. More significantly, a hemispheric scale allows us to think about political, economic, and cultural connections across national borders, tracing how illicit drugs, ideas regarding drugs (and drug control), and influence circulated throughout the Americas.

BRITTANY EDMOUNDSON is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Department of History. She specializes in the history of the United States and Latin America in the twentieth century, and her current research examines the ideologies and mechanisms of U.S. foreign intervention through a study of U.S. policies to eradicate coca leaf production in Bolivia during the late cold war period. Her broader research and teaching interests include empire and foreign relations, political economy, the history of policing and militarization, Indigenous and Native American history, environmental history, and transnational and global history. She received her PhD in History at NYU and her BA in History at Columbia University.




FYSEM-UA 503
In Search of Lost Time
Fall 2021
Instructor: Marcelle Clements
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: This intensive course requires a minimum of 350 pages of reading a week.

We read Marcel Proust (in translation) as he should be read: hedonistically—with respect and admiration but also with delectation. At about 4,000 pages, In Search of Lost Time is one of literature’s most challenging and pleasurable reads, still unparalleled in how it combines finesse and wit with raw emotion, self-examination with social history and a scathing portrait of the French beau monde at the outset of modernity. Although Proust (1871–1922) is often cited as France’s greatest novelist, many readers never move past the first fifty pages of his work, reading the same gorgeous sentences again and again. However, as its architecture cannot be appreciated until it has been read once in its entirety, we move at a brisk pace through all six volumes. When we read the final volume, we begin to understand the extraordinarily intimate and imaginative relationship Proust sustains with his reader, and, most importantly, how the vast structure of In Search of Lost Time reveals the intertwining of life and art to create literature. In-class creative writing exercises and wide-ranging class discussion are designed to assist with the reading and to articulate an expressive, personal response.

MARCELLE CLEMENTS is a novelist, essayist, and journalist. Her fourth and most recent book is a novel, Midsummer. She has written prizewinning essays and articles for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Esquire, Elle, and Rolling Stone. Since 1999, she has taught a seminar each fall on Proust's In Search of Lost Time at NYU's College of Arts and Science, where she is a Collegiate Professor. Each spring, she leads an Advanced Fiction Workshop and an Advanced Non-Fiction Workshop in the Creative Writing Department. She is a recipient of NYU's Golden Dozen Teaching Award.




FYSEM-UA 722
Italy and North America: Contact, Conflict, and Exchange
Fall 2021
Instructor: Rachel Love
Wednesday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

We consider how Italy’s diaspora has affected its conception of itself and examine five hundred years of North America as artistic inspiration, as cultural and political influence, and even as a source of existential anxiety. For example, how did European discovery of a “new” continent impact Renaissance authors like Ariosto and Tasso and destabilize the center of their known world? How did American literature like Hemingway and Steinbeck offer twentieth-century Italian writers new possibilities of literary expression and political resistance? We consider literature of immigration and travel in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Italians documented their journeys to North America (and New York City) in poetry and prose. We investigate how Fascism, war and recovery—as well as the physical presence of American soldiers on Italian soil—shifted the political and social stakes of this relationship. Finally, we explore American cultural influence throughout the increasingly globalized 20th century, as US models permeated Italian politics, film, television, music, and food, and pop singers teased teenagers who tried to “fa’ l’americano.” Throughout, we take advantage of our location in New York City to explore aspects of cultural exchange within our urban environment, including an excursion to the Italian American Museum and Little Italy.

RACHEL E. LOVE earned her PhD from NYU in Italian Studies in May 2018. Her essays on 20th-century Italian politics and culture have appeared in the journals Popular Music, Modern Italy, and Interventions. Her current book project, Songbook for a Revolution: The Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano, Popular Culture, and the Left in 1960s Italy, analyzes the political use of folk music through the history of a leftist musical collective, the Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano (NCI). Her interdisciplinary research interests move between contemporary Italian history and literature, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and oral history. Most mornings, she can be found riding her bike across the Manhattan Bridge.




FYSEM-UA 384
Journalism of War, Revolution, Genocide, and Human Rights
Fall 2021
Instructor: Susie Linfield
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

This seminar will focus on some of the extraordinary political events that made, and changed, the political (and moral) realities of the past century, and that created the world that we now inhabit. Throughout the term we will return to certain questions, including the changing nature of violence and the emergence of disputed concepts such as "crimes against humanity" and "human rights." We'll consider the ways in which "the face of war" in the 20th century (and early 21st) has changed—and the ways in which the journalism that described those wars also changed. We will start with the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War and then study the journalism of, among other events, the Holocaust, the Iranian Revolution, the fall of Communism, the genocide in Rwanda, the war in Bosnia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 9/11, and the Arab Spring.

SUSIE LINFIELD is Associate Professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and writes about the intersection of culture and politics for a wide array of publications. Recent essays have addressed Syrian torture photographs (the New York Times), war photography (Aperture and The Nation), the Zionist Left in Israel (the Boston Review), and an anti-Vietnam War classic (Bookforum). Professor Linfield’s book The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Professor Linfield was the editor in chief of American Film, the deputy editor of the Village Voice, and the arts editor of the Washington Post; she also spent six years as a critic for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She serves on the editorial boards of Dissent and Photography and Culture, and is a member of the New York Institute of the Humanities. Professor Linfield received her B.A. from Oberlin College, where she studied American History, and her M.A. in Journalism from NYU (minor: Documentary Film). From its founding in 1995 until 2014, Professor Linfield was instrumental in building NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program, first as Associate Director and then as Director.




FYSEM-UA 772
The Journey of Journalism
Fall 2021
Instructor: Charles J. Glasser Jr.
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

This course is more than a survey of important journalism of the twentieth century. Through intensive reading and discussion, we will explore both how significant historical events affected journalism and how journalism helped shape those events. If journalism is truly “the first draft of history,” then looking at significant cultural and political moments through the eyes of contemporaneous journalism yields new insight on who we are as a nation—for better or worse. We examine such historical events and movements as the robber barons of the Gilded Age and their antagonists the Muckrakers; the early Anarchist and labor movements; the coverage of the World Wars and government censorship; the role of the press in the civil rights movement; and the golden age of investigative journalism. We will read and discuss the work of a wide range of media notables, including Ida Tarbell, Jacob Riis, H. L. Mencken, Walter Winchell, Edward R. Murrow, Sy Hirsch, Woodward and Bernstein, Tom Wolfe, Matt Taibbi, Amanda Bennett, Judith Miller, and Glenn Greenwald.

CHARLES J. GLASSER JR. is a former journalist and covered spot news and combat photojournalism in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the late 1970s and 80s. He spent several years as a copy editor at Time Inc. and then studied first amendment law at the New York University School of Law. After earning his JD he started his legal career at NBC News, and then moved on to several law firms representing Gannett, the New York Post, the Portland Press-Herald, and other regional and national newspapers and publishers. He served as the founding global media counsel of Bloomberg News for more than a dozen years and is the author of The International Libel and Privacy Handbook. In addition, he appears frequently as an expert on free speech and media law in a variety of news outlets and writes about media for Reuters, the Washington Examiner, and several not-for-profit free-speech organizations. He is also a regular contributor on media ethics for The Daily Caller.




FYSEM-UA 456
Laboratories for Democracy: Making American Cities Better
Fall 2021
Instructor: Eric Gioia
Thursday, 4:55–7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change

This course examines the intersection of ideas, politics, and action. We study best practices from around the country (and the world), evaluate their effectiveness, and determine whether and how successful programs can be replicated. The seminar asks students to not only think critically about issues of public policy, but also to think anew about the role they play in shaping it. Cities, states, and municipalities serve as what Justice Brandeis called “little laboratories for democracy”—where ideas flourish and problems get solved. From fighting crime in the streets of New York City, to banning smoking in bars and restaurants, to making the power grid more efficient, to encouraging the arts and culture in urban environments, innovations in American cities have spread across the globe. Topics for student projects are drawn from current issues and problems facing decision-makers and elected officials in America today.

ERIC GIOIA is an attorney with extensive experience in business, law, and government. He joined J.P. Morgan in January 2010 after serving for eight years on the New York City Council. Prior to serving on City Council, he practiced law at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, and served in the White House under President Bill Clinton. Professor Gioia holds a BA from New York University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center.




FYSEM-UA 210
Language and Reality in Postclassical Science and Postmodern Literature
Fall 2021
Instructor: Friedrich Ulfers
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

This seminar explores the possibility that there exists a common ground between the so-called two cultures of science and the humanities. It posits the hypothesis of a correlation between postclassical science (e.g., quantum theory) and “postmodern” literature and philosophy. Among the key notions examined are Werner Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle,” Niels Bohr’s “principle of complementarity,” and Jacques Derrida’s notion of “undecidability” in deconstructive theory. The discussion of these theories and their implications for literary works revolves around their effect on classical logic, the referential function of language, and the traditional goal of a complete explanation or description of reality. The seminar also asks whether this paradigm change leads to a form of posthumanism/transhumanism. Readings include works of Borges, Kundera, Pirsig, Pynchon, and Virginia Woolf, among others, and texts on modern scientific theories.

FRIEDRICH ULFERS is Associate Professor of German at New York University. He has received NYU’s Distinguished Teaching Medal and Great Teacher Award, and has twice won the College of Arts and Science Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2013 he was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (The Federal Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany) for his support of transatlantic cultural relations. His specific teaching and research interests are German Romanticism and 19th and 20th century German literature (with specific emphasis on Nietzsche and Kafka). He is also affiliated with the European Graduate School in Switzerland, where he offers an intensive summer seminar on Nietzsche and gives a variety of lectures; from 2006 to 2009 he was Dean of the Media and Communications Division of the School. Professor Ulfers has published extensively, with a recent focus on Nietzsche.




FYSEM-UA 900.002
Language Policy and Linguistic Human rights in Education
Fall 2021
Instructor: Gillian Gallagher
Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

This seminar centers on the concept of linguistic human rights, in the context of educational policy and design. We'll begin with an overview of human rights theory and its intersection with language, looking at how language is implicated in both group and individual identity. Bilingual education models in the United States are then reviewed through summary articles, case studies and longitudinal, large-scale evaluative studies of outcomes, with a critical eye on the available metrics and discourse around educational 'success'. The course then shifts to language practices in and around schools through a more ethnographic approach, with detailed descriptions of specific communities and/or individuals. The last section of the seminar will focus specifically on indigenous populations in North and South America. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on the connection between a community's history, group identity, and language use practices with the goals of educational structures.

GILLIAN GALLAGHER is Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics, where she has been since 2010. As a phonologist and cognitive scientist, her research focuses on the sound systems of human languages and seeks to understand how humans extract systematic generalizations from messy data. Gallagher's interest in bilingual education and language policy has grown out of years working with speakers of Quechua, an indigenous language of Bolivia, and observing the public controversies and personal reactions to standardization and language maintenance movements.




FYSEM-UA 306
Latin America at the Start of the Twenty-First Century: Coming of Age or Continuing Chaos?
Fall 2021
Instructor: Jorge G. Castañeda
Monday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

This seminar focuses on Latin America’s longstanding problems and possible solutions to them. It takes up such topics as the absence of orderly, peaceful, and steady democratic governance following independence from colonial rule, and the consolidation of representative democracy today; the slowdown of economic growth in the last 20 years and prospects for a new economic takeoff; the phenomenon of widespread violence at a time of growing respect for human rights; and how the traditional weakness of civil society is being overcome. For each topic, there are readings dealing with its political, economic, and cultural dimensions in both past and present.

JORGE D. CASTAÑEDA is a renowned public intellectual, political scientist, and prolific writer, with an interest in Mexican and Latin American politics, comparative politics and US-Mexican and U.S.-Latin American relations. He was Foreign Minister of Mexico from 2000 to 2003. He taught at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), at Princeton University, and the University of California, Berkeley, and at NYU. Castañeda was a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1985-87) and a John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research and Writing Grant Recipient (1989-1991). He is the author of, among other books, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War; Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara; Perpetuating Power; Ex-Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants; Leftovers: Tales of the Latin American Left (with Marco Morales), and most recently America Through Foreign Eyes. He is a regular commentator for CNN and an occasional writer of Guest Essays at The New York Times.




FYSEM-UA 799
Mapping the Literary Mind of New York City
Fall 2021
Instructor: Anton Borst
Monday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change

New York City has inspired many great writers, past and present. In this course, we’ll explore some of their works, as well as the actual locations they map, to find our own inspiration as readers, writers, and inhabitants of the city. We’ll think about the layers of history and imagination that overlay the streets, parks, and neighborhoods around NYU and across Manhattan. How has the city’s contours and currents, diversity and density, shaped the way authors have experienced and imagined life? Engaged discussion, frequent writing, and field excursions will focus our critical appraisal of the city and its texts. The culminating project of the semester will ask you to plot your most meaningful engagements on a digital map, as part of a collaborative class essay. We’ll be reading a selection of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, from the 19th century to the present day.

ANTON BORST is an instructional consultant with the Teaching and Learning with Technology group at New York University, where he conducts workshops and consultations on best teaching practices, writing across the curriculum, and digital pedagogy. He received his Ph.D. in English from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and has taught literature and writing at Hunter College, Baruch College, and Pace University. His research and teaching have focused on 19th-century American literature, Romanticism, and creative nonfiction. He is co-author of The Craft of College Teaching: A Practical Guide and co-editor of Critical Reading Across the Curriculum, Volumes 1 and 2.




FYSEM-UA 810
Mechanical Minds in History and Philosophy
Fall 2021
Instructor: Joseph Lemelin
Monday and Wednesday, 8:00-9:15 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I Lecture (MW 8:00-9:15 a.m.).

The idea that mental processes are mechanical is pervasive in contemporary thinking about what minds are and how they work, serving as a guiding principle behind artificial intelligence research. How did this notion arise and what assumptions underlie it? What past debates are embedded in present conceptions of the mechanical mind? This course tracks the emergence of analogies between minds and machines in early modern philosophy and science, and explores artificial intelligence’s philosophical lineage. To this end, we will examine the work of Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, G. W. Leibniz, Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, and Alan Turing, among others, together with historical investigations of the machines that inspired their thinking.

JOSEPH LEMELIN’S work centers on the philosophical history of the distinction between the natural and the artificial. He earned a doctorate in philosophy from The New School for Social Research, writing on the emergence of the concepts of nature and artifice in Aristotle’s physics. Joseph’s current research addresses ways that contemporary technologies such as artificial intelligence transform self-understanding, and his work draws from the philosophy of technology, philosophy of mind, and critical theory. He has been the Onassis Lecturer at the New School for Social Research and Humanities and a Science Postdoctoral Researcher at NYU’s Center for Data Science. In addition, Joseph has taught philosophy and literary studies at Eugene Lang College and Parsons School of Design, and was a Mellon fellow at the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography, and Social Thought.




FYSEM-UA 545
Media and Communication in the Medieval World
Fall 2021
Instructor: Brigitte Bedos-Rezak
Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Medieval tools of communication and methods of transportation circulated news, rumors, propaganda, and revolutionary ideas; permitted contact with the supernatural; equipped governments with bureaucratic powers of local subjugation and global interaction; and enabled people to travel far away from their homes on pilgrimages, diplomatic missions, entertainment tours (jongleurs, troubadours), commercial ventures, explorations, and conquests. With a focus on Western Europe, we will consider modes and means of communication: languages, speech and writing, gestures, fashions, rituals, images, artifacts, and maps. Assessing the breadth of medieval mobility will elucidate a pre-modern world system that extended across Eurasia, including the Mongol Empire, the Middle East, and China. Weekly readings will be presented by one student and then discussed by all. A research paper will be prepared through several intermediary shorter essays, each dealing with material relevant to the paper’s topic.

BRIGITTE M. BEDOS-REZAK is Professor of History at NYU. Trained in France at the Sorbonne and at the Ecole nationale des Chartes (Paris), her teaching and research interests cover medieval Europe, in particular its urban life and secular elites. She is particularly interested in the ways that increasingly material communicative practices shaped concepts of identity and forms of governance. Her publications include Les sceaux de villes; When Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages; “Semiotic Anthropology: The Twelfth-Century Experiment,” in European Transformations 950-1200, T. Noble and J. Van Engen, eds.; “Seals and Stars: Law, Magic, and the Economy of Rulership (France, 13th-14th Centuries),” in Seals and their Context in the Middle Ages, P. Schofield, ed.; and “The Ambiguity of Representation. Semiotic Roots of Political Consent in Capetian France,” in The Capetian Century, 1214-1314, W.C. Jordan and J. Phillips, eds.




FYSEM-UA 312
Memoirs and Diaries in Modern European Jewish History
Fall 2021
Instructor: Marion Kaplan
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Genres of Writing

This seminar uses memoirs, diaries, and letters to analyze modern Jewish history. These sources, sometimes called ego-documents, offer an abundance of detail about the political, economic, social, and religious worlds of individuals. They provide valuable, often rare, glimpses into the motivations and expectations of a minority group regarding those who control or oppress them. Moreover, these ego-documents reveal often concealed thoughts and emotions. They depict the full human being as well as her or his attitudes and behaviors within the family, friendship networks, and the religious community. These documents also allow us to delve into relations between parents and children, spouses, generations, neighbors, and friends. Finally, memoirs, diaries, and letters offer us clues as to how people thought they should write about their lives and the ways they fashioned their own images in relation (or opposition) to their societies. Our readings begin with one of the earliest memoirs we have, written by a seventeenth-century rabbi, and continue through the Holocaust and postwar generations. They include the autobiography of Glückl of Hameln, a businesswoman and widow who was born circa 1646; Pauline Wengeroff, a traditional Jewish woman in nineteenth-century Russia; and twentieth-century diaries and memoirs.

MARION KAPLAN is the Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at NYU. She is a three-time National Jewish Book Award winner for The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany; Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany; and Gender and Jewish History (with Deborah Dash Moore), as well as a finalist for Dominican Haven: The Jewish Refugee Settlement in Sosua. Her other monographs include The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany and (as editor) Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618-1945. She has edited several other books on German-Jewish and women’s history and has taught courses on German-Jewish history, European women’s history, and both German and European history, as well as European Jewish history and Jewish women’s history. Her newest book, Hitler’s Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal, 1940-45 was published in 2020.




FYSEM-UA 900.005
A Millennium Miracle: The Roman Empire
Fall 2021
Instructor: Katherine Welch
Thursday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with PhysicsI/ II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

At its greatest, the Roman Empire extended from Scotland to Syria and from the Black Sea to Morocco. Rome exercised power over this area for many, many centuries, with the result that Roman art and architecture exerted a fundamental influence on the art of later art cultures within this vast geographical sphere. The course examines the art and architecture produced in lands under Roman rule, analyzing it in terms of medium and category (building, statuary, relief, wall painting); social level of production (emperor, elite, middle and lower classes); and display context (public, private, funerary). Students consider questions of quality, as well as issues of originality in Roman art and of dialogue with authoritative Greek artistic models. Utilizing practical and theoretical methods, students learn to 'read' Roman monuments, in terms of iconography, style, and the different levels of meaning (ancient and modern) that the works of art may have carried. Finally, we shall address the following: what was the ‘secret’ of the Roman Empire’s longevity? The course will involve a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

KATHERINE E. WELCH is Associate Professor of Fine Arts at NYU Institute of Fine Arts. Her scholarly research interests lie in the ancient Mediterranean, specializing in the pagan Roman Empire, which lasted nearly one thousand years. She is an art historian with an ardor and long-standing dedication to archaeology; art history and archaeology are inextricable in Greek-Roman studies. She teaches art and archaeology of the Roman Republican and Imperial periods (particularly in Rome itself, Bay of Naples, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Southern France, Syria, and Spain), as well as Hellenistic Greek art (late 4th century BCE to late 1st century BC). As a youth, having majored in Science in university, preparing to apply to medical school, she switched to Classical literature and received a B.A. in Classics.




FYSEM-UA 564
Modern Poetry: Craft and Revolution
Fall 2021
Instructor: Matthew Rohrer
Wednesday, 8:00-10:30 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p..m.
Theme: Genres of Writing

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.), General Chemistry I Lecture (MW 8:00-9:15 a.m.), and PhysicsI/ II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

This course thrusts students headlong into the dark cobwebby interiors of the modern poem. We’ll look closely at how modern poems became modern, examining several revolutions as we think about what poems are—beginning in England in 1798, coming to Walt Whitman’s and Emily Dickinson’s America in the 1850s, stopping in Harlem in the 1920s, and ending up in today’s online world. We’ll consider how modern poems are actually put together, considering such elemental concerns as image, voice, structure, etc. And we’ll also write our own poems, sometimes with these examples as our models. Students will leave this course with a deeper understanding of the lineage of the modern poem and what makes the modern poem go. And, thanks to the generous and critical attentions of the workshop, students will come to the same understanding of their own work.

MATTHEW ROHRER is Clinical Professor in the Creative Writing Program at NYU, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate students. He is the author of nine books of poetry, was a founder of Fence Magazine and Fence Books, and has participated in residencies and performances at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and the Henry Museum (Seattle). His poems have been widely anthologized, and he has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing.




FYSEM-UA 732
Nature vs. Nurture: The Neurobiology of Individuality
Fall 2021
Instructor: Margarita Kaplow
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required Writing the Essay: Science and Society: Spring 2022 Monday and Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with PhysicsI/ II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Note: if you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this paired seminar and EXPOS-UA 1 course.

Psychologists, biologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists have historically questioned the impact of heredity vs. the environment in shaping the uniqueness of individuals. Modern scientists have arrived at a consensus whereby both genes and experience contribute to distinct behaviors. Indeed, “nature” and “nurture” are not isolated components. Understanding the constant and complex interaction between the two is the key to unlocking the mysteries of animal and human behaviors. We examine the nature vs. nurture debate over time by studying Darwin and Lamarck, as well as novel genetic tools that explore the interaction between DNA and the environment and papers treating the topic of genes and behavior. Group assignments will involve case studies that require students to gather evidence, propose solutions, or offer possible explanations for specific intrinsic vs. extrinsic situations. Students will also write research papers on topics and in a style accessible to the general public. Examples of paper topics include: inheriting trauma; the genetics of neurological disorders; the microbiome and your brain; and the science of addiction.

MARGARITA KAPLOW is Clinical Associate Professor at NYU’s Center for Neural Science. Her research interests focus on studying the cellular and molecular programs that instruct the development and assembly of chemosensory circuits. Her work has appeared in Genetics, the Journal of Neuroscience, the Journal of Neurogenetics, and eLife. She is also investigating the relationship between art and science and has implemented such pedagogical methods as Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) and Consider, Read, Elucidate the hypotheses/interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment (CREATE) in the undergraduate classroom. Before coming to NYU, she was a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University and also taught at the City College of New York. She has received an NIH MBRS graduate fellowship, the Julius Axelrod Award, and the CUNY Graduate Center Science Fellowship.




FYSEM-UA 476
Political Theater
Fall 2021
Instructor: Eric Dickson
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

This interdisciplinary seminar offers a survey of political theater from the ancient Greeks to the present. How have dramatic depictions of politics changed over time? In what ways have political plays been used to advance political agendas, both by the powerful and by dissidents and protest movements? To what extent can we understand political speeches and political campaigns as essentially theatrical productions? In a typical week, students will read one full-length play, accompanied by appropriate readings from political science or social psychology. Through these readings, writing assignments, and class discussion, we address the development of different dramatic techniques and forms throughout the history of theater; the co-evolving relationship between politically-themed spectacles and changing ideas about citizenship and political legitimacy; and the political psychology of speeches and campaign techniques.

ERIC S. DICKSON is Associate Professor of Politics and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Psychology. His research interests include political communication, election campaigning, political leadership, and identities in politics. His work, which uses both game theory and social-scientific experiments, focuses on the interface between political strategy and political psychology. He is also an installation artist with an extensive background in theater.




FYSEM-UA 900.007
Shaped by Human Hands: Studying the Ancient World through Past Technologies
Fall 2021
Instructor: Catherine Klesner
Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00-9:15 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Many of the important questions in archaeology and history deal with the study of technology. Who made the objects found in archaeological sites, and what materials did ancient craftspeople use to make them? Where did they find these raw materials? How did they produce pottery, stone tools, and weapons, and how did they share that technological knowledge within and between their communities? Where did they trade raw materials and finished products, and what was their assigned value? In this seminar, we will attempt to answer those questions through the study of common classes of artifacts found in the archaeological record: lithics, ceramics, and metals. In the process, we will cover the theory of technology, the development and evolution of complex technologies, and learn how reconstructing technologies can inform us about cultural change and exchange in the ancient world. We will discuss the social, cultural, economic, and functional reasons for the development and adoption of new technologies through the discussion of distinct artifact classes and through overviews of important case studies.

CATHERINE KLESNER is a Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Her research focuses on reverse engineering ancient ceramic technology, and how technological knowledge was transmitted, adopted, and adapted in the past. Having a background in both the sciences and social sciences, she approaches the study of archaeology from the perspective of archaeological science, and studies artifacts using modern, analytical instrumentation. She has studied a wide variety of materials including ceramics, lithics, and rock art from across the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Her current work examines low-fired, lead glazed pottery from Central Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. from the University of Arizona, and her B.A. from Grinnell College.




FYSEM-UA 900.003
Socialist Culture
Fall 2021
Instructor: Rossen Djagalov
Monday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The left, as a political concept, originated only during the French Revolution, over two centuries ago. Leftist (as opposed to working people’s) culture is even more recent. In this course, we will examine its evolution over the last 150 years, focusing on some of the best-known leftist imaginative works in a variety of cultural forms: the original Communist Manifesto and numerous later manifestoes; the novels of Emile Zola and Maxim Gorky; the revolutionary poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Nazim Hikmet; the plays of Bertolt Brecht and the Living Theater; the songs of Hanns Eisler, Pete Seeger, and Victor Jara; the films of Sergei Eisenstein, Patricio Guzman, Michael Moore, and Ken Loach. The diverse geographies where these texts originated—Western Europe and North America, the Soviet Union and the Third-World project—will help us think of the larger question of socialist internationalism, of how these cultural forms travelled across the globe, how they were translated, and received far away from their birthplace. In each case, we will place the work in the dual context of the history of the left and contemporary aesthetic practices.

ROSSEN DJAGALOV is an Assistant Professor of Russian at New York University. His interests lie in socialist culture globally and, more specifically, in the linkages between cultural producers and audiences in the USSR and abroad. His first book, From Internationalism to Postcolonialism (2020), reconstructs the Soviet genealogy of postcolonial literature, film, and ultimately, theory. His second book project, The People’s Republic of Letters: Towards a Media History of Twentieth-Century Socialist Internationalism, examines the relationship between the political left and the different media (proletarian novel, political theater, singer-songwriter performance, political documentary film) that at different times played a major role in connecting its publics globally. He is a member of the editorial collective of LeftEast.




FYSEM-UA 779
Socrates and His Critics
Fall 2021
Instructor: Vincent Renzi
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages


Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

That Socrates remains one of the most—if not the most—influential figure in the Western tradition is due in large part to the emergence in the years following his death of a new literary genre, the Socratic discourse, and the output especially of the two most prominent Socratic authors, Plato and Xenophon. Extending in the next generation through the distinctive rhetoric of Diogenes of Sinope, and through him into the figures of the Cynic philosopher and the Stoic sage, Socrates provides the literary precursor of a character tried and executed for idiosyncratic political and religious views four centuries before the presumed time of Jesus. Already in his own lifetime, Socrates’ literary influence is apparent in Aristophanes and other writers of comedies. In modernity, the image of Socrates both fascinates and repels the attention, notably of Nietzsche. Apart from the rough outlines of his biography, it is all but impossible to recover any sense of the “historical Socrates”; at the same time we must ask whether Socrates’ influence is not the result of his intellectual contributions, but rather an artifact of the doxography itself. Even though he did actually live, isn’t what we have of him really just literary fiction?

VINCENT RENZI is Clinical Professor in the Foundations of Contemporary Culture (FCC) and of Classics, and is also Director of the Foundations of Contemporary Culture in the College Core Curriculum. A scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, he also has interests in arts and aesthetics and in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy. He is a recipient of the College's Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.




FYSEM-UA 218
Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses: Religion and State in America
Fall 2021
Instructor: John Sexton
Tuesday, 6:00-8:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

Note: Most students consider the workload for this course very heavy; please do not select this seminar unless you are willing and eager to perform at a high and demanding level.

Should members of the Native American Church be allowed to smoke peyote at religious ceremonies? Can a public high school invite a rabbi to give a benediction and convocation at graduation? Should a state legislator rely on his or her religious convictions in forming a view about the legality of capital punishment or abortion? The course divides these questions into three subject areas: religious liberty; separation of church and state; and the role of religion in public and political life. It focuses on how the Supreme Court has dealt with these areas and, more important, invites students to construct anew a vision of the proper relationship between religion, state, and society in a twenty-first-century liberal constitutional democracy. Most students consider the workload for this course very heavy; please do not select this seminar unless you are willing and eager to perform at a high and demanding level.

JOHN E. SEXTON, President Emeritus of New York University, was the Dean of the NYU Law School from 1988 to 2002 and President of NYU from 2002-2016. He has taught courses on the Constitution and the courts, and has led seminars on the intersection of religion and the law. Before he came to NYU, he served as law clerk for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the US Supreme Court, and has testified frequently before the US Congress. In addition to his law degree, he holds a doctorate in the history of American religion.




FYSEM-UA 9905
Topics: Art in the City: Buenos Aires, New York, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City
Fall 2021
Instructor: Florencia Malbrán
Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m. (EST)
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change
This course will be taught online.

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

This course studies modern and contemporary art and architecture through a strategic focus on the cities of Buenos Aires, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City. We consider key artworks and architectural movements, approaching art history in urban, sociohistorical and contextual terms. Emphasis is placed upon the city as a hub for the production and reception of art. Our speculations on the urban environment will bring up multiple questions that point back to and extend beyond the mere physical structure of the city, discovering arenas of social action. How does art exploit the characteristics of the metropolis? How is art distributed and consumed throughout the dense fabric of the city? We will explore the city art as the context and staging ground for art. Developing comparative perspectives on Buenos Aires, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City will illuminate the particularities of the places under investigation, albeit with reference to aesthetic trajectories as well as broader technological, economic, and social-political changes. New York is included in our selected network of Latin American cities, acknowledging its critical importance as a center of cultural experimentation where artists (including Latin American artists) share ideas in a global context. The course features lively conversations with invited artists and architects.

FLORENCIA MALBRAN is a faculty member at New York University in Buenos Aires, and was Craig M. Cogut Visiting Professor in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University in Spring 2017. She holds a Ph.D. from Rosario National University, Argentina, and a M.A. from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, where she was a Bruce T. Halle Family Foundation Fellow. Specializing in Latin American art history, contemporary art, curatorial studies, and critical theory, Malbrán has served on the faculties of NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in New York City and Universidad de San Andrés in Buenos Aires. Also a curator, she has organized exhibitions in Argentina, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Colombia, and Paraguay. She has been in residence in France, Switzerland, and Spain, and was the Hilla Rebay International Fellow at the Guggenheim Museums in New York, Bilbao, and Venice. She has held curatorial positions at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires and the Pinacoteca do Estado in São Paulo. Her shows have been reviewed in Clarín and La Nación in Argentina, O Globo in Brazil, El Tiempo in Colombia, and Artforum in the United States. Selected catalog writing includes essays on Guillermo Kuitca and on Pablo Siquier for Argentina’s La Nación book series on seminal national artists, on Ernesto Neto for the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, and on Ragnar Kjartansson for the Icelandic Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale.




FYSEM-UA 371
Welcome to College: The Novel
Fall 2021
Instructor: Carol Sternhell
Tuesday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

Prerequisite: A score of 4 or 5 in AP English Literature (or equivalent international exam) OR permission of the instructor. Note that this seminar requires reading one full book every week.

Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Starting college can be exhilarating—and terrifying. A chance for intellectual enlightenment—or intense loneliness. An escape from a stultifying small town of narrow-minded people—or a riot of alcohol, sex, and drugs. In this class we read a selection of college novels from different historical periods, spanning about 100 years. We discuss these novels from a variety of perspectives: literary, historical, and journalistic. In addition to presenting biographical and historical and cultural reports on at least two of the authors and their novels, students write about their own experiences as first-year students at NYU in several genres, including fiction and nonfiction. Together we explore this important life passage, examining life as we live it. This is a class for people who love to read fiction—we read a full novel every week, and some of them are long—so please don’t sign up for it if that doesn’t sound like fun.

CAROL STERNHELL is Associate Professor of Journalism and a Director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s Studio 20 graduate program. She created the department’s study away programs in London, Prague, and Accra and was also a founder of the Women’s Studies major (now Gender and Sexuality Studies). She has written extensively about feminism, motherhood, and literature for a variety of publications. Before coming to NYU, she worked as an editor at Newsday, a general assignment reporter for the New York Post, and a freelance magazine writer. She received the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence in 2005.




FYSEM-UA 474
What is College For?
Fall 2021
Instructor: Trace Jordan
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: First-Generation Cohort

Note: FYSEM-UA 474, What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 806, State of a Country: Writing about Photography Made in the U.S. are strongly recommended for first-generation students. They provide an excellent opportunity to join a close-knit community of your peers who also identify as the first in their families to pursue higher education.

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Why did you decide to attend college? To broaden your intellectual horizons and become a more open-minded person? To gain specialized knowledge? To achieve a more successful and financially rewarding career? To make new friends? To become an engaged participant in a democratic society? To satisfy your parents’ plans for your future? Or perhaps some combination of these reasons that you are still figuring out? This seminar examines historical and contemporary discussions about the personal and social goals of higher education and studies issues that have the potential to profoundly transform the college experience in coming years. It also prompts students to be more reflective and purposeful about their own academic choices at NYU. We ask: what is the optimal balance between a “liberal arts” education, usually provided by a core curriculum, and the pursuit of specialized study within a major? How can professors and students cultivate deep learning instead of rote memorization? How is technology impacting education, and what further changes may occur in the future?

TRACE JORDAN is Clinical Professor and Associate Director of the College Core Curriculum. His research interests and publications include the role of science education in a liberal arts curriculum, the use of computer simulations for teaching and learning chemistry, and the impact of interest and motivation on educational engagement and achievement. Professor Jordan is a two-time winner of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.




FYSEM-UA 449
Wiseguys, Spies, and Private Eyes: Heroes and Villains in American Culture, Film, and Literature
Fall 2021
Instructor: Eddy Friedfeld
Thursday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

This seminar explores the ways in which specific American archetypes and themes are perceived and articulated—from the rugged Old West individualist, to the persevering underdog who becomes a boxing champ, to the Cold War era superspy. We examine representations of heroes and villains in modern American popular culture and how the great films and novels of three particular genres, the detective, the gangster, and the spy, influenced our understanding of these archetypes. From the early influences of Hamlet and Macbeth to Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, Mario Puzo’s (and Francis Ford Coppola’s) The Godfather, James Bond, and Batman, we look at the mythology and evolution of heroes and villains through popular and high culture icons, the genesis of the genres and how they developed over time, and how great directors, actors, and writers influenced audiences worldwide and were themselves influenced by culture and history.

EDDY FRIEDFELD is a film and entertainment journalist and historian, as well as an attorney specializing in corporate restructuring. He is the co-author of Caesar’s Hours with comedy legend Sid Caesar, and is working on a book on the history of comedy in America. He was the senior consultant for the PBS documentary Make ’Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America; has appeared on Fox News, PBS, and WOR and Bloomberg Radio; has written and lectured extensively on entertainment and film; has produced and hosted tributes to Dick Van Dyke, Eric Idle, Dick Cavett, Alan King, Robert Altman, George Carlin, and Paul Newman, among others; and has worked with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Billy Crystal. He received his BA from Columbia College and his JD from NYU Law School. He also teaches at Yale College and The Tisch School of the Arts.




EXPOS-UA 1
Writing the Essay: Science and Society

Note: if you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this course.

Writing the Essay: Science and Society is the foundational writing course, which provides instruction and practice in critical reading, creative thinking, and clear writing. The course stresses exploration, inquiry, reflection, analysis, revision, and collaborative learning. Our section of Writing the Essay will focus on the role of science in the contemporary world. We will learn to read, think, and write critically as we investigate how science, medicine, and technology are used to evaluate, characterize, and politicize elements of human behavior and society—and how social institutions challenge and complicate our behavioral and social norms. We question common conceptions of science and society as separate spheres, as well as examining the many paradoxes therein: how science can be simultaneously progressive and destructive, connecting and isolating, liberating and oppressive. As we progress, you will find that writing is not only a method to communicate ideas but also a process that generates new ones. The ultimate goal: for you to write and communicate confidently, to rely on writing as one of the best tools for developing fresh perspectives and appreciating subtle complexities, and to develop your own unique and more complex understanding of science, medicine, and technology.



EXPOS.UA 1.001
Fall 2021
Instructor: Joseph Califf
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m. -12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).



EXPOS.UA 1.002
Fall 2021
Instructor: Noelle Mole Liston
Monday and Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m. -12:15 p.m.



EXPOS.UA 1.006
Fall 2021
Instructor: Matthew McClelland
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m. -12:15 p.m.



EXPOS.UA 1.007
Fall 2021
Instructor: Joseph Califf
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m. -12:15 p.m.

 

FYSEM-UA 741
Staging Power: Political Ceremonies and Pageantry
Spring 2022
Instructor: Benoît Bolduc
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.

Participants in this seminar will investigate how displays of lavish ceremonies and pageantry have been used in history to legitimize political power. Sessions will focus on a series of political figures from the Western tradition such as Caesar, Charlemagne, Elizabeth I, Louis XIV, and Napoleon. Students will be encouraged to research political figures from other traditions as well as more recent ceremonial practices. Our main goal will be to deepen our understanding of the role artists and writers have played in the fabrication of political leaders. The reading list will include works of political theory, philosophy, aesthetics, and fiction. Emphasis will be put on the mediation of the events through monuments, images, print, and audio-visual recordings.

Professor BENOÎT BOLDUC teaches in the Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture and is the Faculty Director of Honors for the College of Arts and Science. A scholar of early modern literature, visual culture, music, and performance, he has published extensively on French and Italian theatre, opera and court festivals. His latest book, La Fête imprimée: Spectacles et cérémonies politiques (1549-1662), is the first comprehensive study of early-modern illustrated fête books. It shows how these carefully crafted printed objects shaped enduring cultural and historical narratives while transforming their readers into ideal spectators.

FYSEM-UA 771
The Art of Doing Nothing in Literature and Film
Spring 2022
Instructor: Michael Krimper
Meeting time: Tuesday & Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m. (Fall), Tuesday, 8:00-9:15 a.m. (Spring)
Theme: Literature Through the Ages

What would it take to stop working? To refuse work? Give it up? To do something else, besides productive activity and labor, or nothing at all? And how might doing nothing introduce radically different senses of freedom than what we’re used to? In this seminar, we’ll think about some of the ways that modern literature and film reflect on the art of doing nothing, frequently turning the city or its outskirts into a locus for personal and collective struggle, resistance, and transformation. Our aim will be to examine strategies for breaking free from the dominance of work, as illustrated by figures like the slacker, idler, cruiser, fugitive, drifter, ambler, streetwalker, and the so-called flâneur/flâneuse primarily but not exclusively within the urban topographies of New York, Paris, and London from the nineteenth century onward. We will pay special attention to the critical potentialities of unmanaged and wayward lives at the intersection of race, class, sexual orientation, and gender. Throughout we will read fiction and poetry by Baudelaire, Bataille, Beckett, Boyer, Breton, Calle, Delany, Jacobs, Kafka, Melville, Poe, and Woolf; and theoretical work by Barthes, Benjamin, Federici, Hartman, and Weeks. We will also view films by Tsai, Varda, and Chalfant/Silver (namely, the classic hiphop documentary Style Wars).

MICHAEL KRIMPER teaches in the Department of French, Gallatin, and Liberal Studies at New York University, where he received his PhD in Comparative Literature not so long ago. He specializes in francophone and anglophone literature from the nineteenth century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of aesthetics and politics in transatlantic modernisms. His current book project examines how work becomes a problem across a wide array of literature, art, and philosophy in postwar Europe and the Americas. His articles, reviews, and translations have been published New Literary History, SubStance, the Journal of Italian Philosophy, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among other venues. Before joining NYU, he worked as a music journalist in California.




FYSEM-UA 900.020
The Body in Horror
Spring 2022
Instructor: Andrew Ragni
Meeting time: Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

Theme: Literature Through the Ages “Horror” derives from the Latin verb horreo, a bristling of hair on the body while paralyzed with revulsion. This etymology underscores the body as the site upon which horror is registered. Texts and films within the horror genre unsettle the body’s integrity through vivid depictions of brutality or disfigurement, but they also raise important questions about the body’s subjection to forms of gendered, racist, and class-based violence: how do texts encode histories of horrific oppression within bodies? How do we interpret and contextualize this “body language” within its representative history, between literature and film? Why is the horror genre an effective vehicle for the transmission of inaccessible and painful knowledges about our collective histories? We explore the dimensions of these questions by reading and viewing international works of hair-raising horror as well as a rich tradition of literary and film criticism. Texts and films include The 120 Days of Sodom (Sade & Pasolini), Frankenstein (Shelley), The Masque of the Red Death (Poe), The Kreutzer Sonata (Tolstoy), Dracula (Stoker & Coppola), Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon), Rosemary’s Baby (Levin & Polanski), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper), Suspiria (Argento & Guadagnino), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Kaufman), Candyman (Rose), Horrorism (Cavarero), Hereditary (Aster), and Get Out (Peele).

ANDREW RAGNI is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He earned his Ph.D. from NYU in Comparative Literature. He researches colonial modernist literature, travel writing, and queer/psychoanalytic theory, and has published in Differences, philoSOPHIA, and Performa. His book project, Encrypted Resistances: Anticolonialism and Psychoanalysis, situates the work of Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalytic thinkers within a nexus of anti-colonial critique generated by proto-queer intellectuals from the early twentieth century.




FYSEM-UA 787
Born, Not Made? (Mis)understanding Genius
Spring 2022
Instructor: Amanda Kotch
Meeting time: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

The concept of “genius” celebrates originality and the advancement of ideas across the arts and sciences (there’s even a grant for it), but it has also been associated with inaccessible material, personal suffering, and perceptions of an unstable mind. This seminar explores genius as a cultural category used to understand knowledge production and artistic achievement from the romantic period to the present. Engaging with a wide range of texts from a variety of genres—philosophical treatises, artists’ notebooks, essays by and about scientists, plays, poems, musical recordings, and more—we’ll trace the ways genius transforms from a category mediating between earthly and spiritual realms into one that celebrates intellectual and creative labor while simultaneously rendering it rare and precarious. Some questions we’ll take up together include: How did “genius” become associated with individual creators in the first place? What is the relationship of genius to intelligence, talent, labor, and perseverance? Does genius have a gender? What stories do we tell about genius, and why is the narrative of the tragic genius, in particular, so persistent? And what is our role as consumers of the work of so-called geniuses?

AMANDA KOTCH is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. She received her PhD in Nineteenth-Century British Literature from Rutgers University, where she also previously taught. She is interested in the relationship between art, death, curiosity, and writing, with an emphasis on literary biography and site-specific narratives (cemeteries, death houses, libraries, museums, artists' studios, theatres, etc.) Her writing has appeared in Studies in English Literature (SEL), Biography, and The Morbid Anatomy Online Journal.




FYSEM-UA 666
Battle of the Sexes: Love, Desire, and War on the Stage and Beyond
Spring 2022
Instructor: Olga Taxidou
Meeting time: Wednesday, 8:00-10:30 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Literature Through the Ages

The theme of love is possibly one of the oldest in world literature. This course examines the ways this theme has been manifested on the stage and in poetry, spanning the period from antiquity to today. From the classics onwards what we may today consider as primarily a private expression and activity transpires as deeply embedded in broader historical and political narratives. For example, we examine the constitutive relationships between private desire and public politics. The family unit and all its multiple manifestations acts as a microcosm that mirrors but also challenges dominant power structures. The relationships between the genders, between siblings, and between parents and children all provide a fertile ground that helps to shape our personal subjectivity, but also our civic identity. The seminar looks at the ways great plays and poems have approached the theme of love in both its private and public dimensions, and also examines the formal and aesthetic experiments that resulted from this engagement. Authors covered will include: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Gertrude Stein, Lillian Hellman, Caryl Churchill, and Tony Kushner.

OLGA TAXIDOU is Professor of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and since 2015 she has been a Visiting Professor in Hellenic Studies at NYU every spring semester. She works on the relationships between “the ancients and the moderns” and the ways this dialogue has helped shape modernity. She has written extensively on modernist theatre and on theories of tragedy. Her books include The Mask: A Periodical Performance by Edward Gordon Craig; Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning; and Modernism and Performance: Jarry to Brecht. She has co-edited Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents and Post-War Cinema and Modernity. She is Series Editor of Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernism, Drama and Performance. She also writes adaptations of Greek tragedies, some of which have been performed. She is a founding judge of the James Tait Black Drama award, and has served as Edinburgh University’s Festivals coordinator with the Edinburgh International Festival.




FYSEM-UA 777
Beyond Athletics: Sports, Politics and Belonging in Europe and the U.S.
Spring 2022
Instructor: Jasmine Samara
Meeting time: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Identity and Society

Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

This course examines sports as politics, exploring sports as a site for debating national identity, rights, and citizenship across Europe and the U.S. From Greek NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo to the “multicultural” French and German World Cup soccer teams, athletes find themselves as political symbols at the center of public debates on immigration and multiculturalism, racial justice and gender equity. Sports can be a site for negotiating changing gender norms: for example, the use of sex testing to determine who can compete in gender-segregated competitions shows how ideas about culture and biology intersect with the legal regulation of identity. Sports shape international relations, from Cold War diplomacy to boycotts, in ways that reflect national ideas about gender and race. And in the U.S., athletes have used celebrity status to protest histories of racial injustice. We will examine these cases to explore: How is belonging determined, based on what criteria? How are cultural norms, political systems and ideas about the nation reproduced or challenged through sports? What is the potential, and what are the limits, of sports as a site for rights activism?

JASMINE SAMARA is a Faculty Fellow at New York University's Center for European and Mediterranean Studies. She is a legal scholar and social anthropologist whose work explores debates on law, rights and identity politics in contemporary Europe.




FYSEM-UA 900.015
Busting 14 Myths about the Archaeology of Human Evolution
Spring 2022
Instructor: Justin Pargeter
Meeting time: Tuesday & Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m. (Fall), 4:55-6:10 p.m. (Spring)
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

In several archaeological arenas, legitimate controversies among scientists about what is known and knowable grade into speculations about the past that go beyond any possibility of documentation. Sometimes these frontiers between the legitimate and the mythical are the most dynamic and interesting of all. This seminar takes a critical look at some of the most intriguing—yet widely misunderstood—topics in the archaeology of human evolution that make popular subjects for television shows, magazine articles, books, and the web—interpretations typically described as “pseudoscience.” Specifically, we consider how and why archaeologists use scientific methods to evaluate evidence put forth to explain historical events and cultural achievements around the world. To this end, we bust a series of 14 “myths” that often attract pseudoscientific claims such as: The Nazca Lines in southern Peru were made by aliens; the first Americans came from Europe; the people of Atlantis were the source of civilizations around the world; and Ancient astronauts help the Egyptians and Mayans build their pyramids. Students leave this seminar armed with the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate these and other claims—that is, the archaeological myth buster’s toolkit. They will learn about world cultures of the past and participate in interactive exercises aimed at enhancing understanding of some of their greatest accomplishments. In dissecting academic debates alongside mythical claims, students will gain appreciation for the scientific process, and the difference between intriguing mysteries of the past and falsehoods and myths spread to advance agendas.

JUSTIN PARGETER is an Assistant Professor in Anthropology and a paleolithic archaeologist whose research centers on understanding human biocultural evolution (how our technologies and bodies co-evolve) through the archaeological record in sub-Saharan Africa. His methodological expertise in ‘lithic [stone] technology’ includes powerful tools to track human technologies and cultural evolution that tell us about how people learnt to make and use material objects in the past. Over the past decade, Justin has worked at a number of archaeological sites in southern Africa to study changes in stone tool technologies, especially large cave sites in South Africa, and the impacts of climate and environmental change on human decision making over the past hundred thousand years. Justin’s work also involves several community outreach projects designed to dispel myths about archaeology and to promote and encourage a more diverse and equitable generation of future archaeologists. In his seminar courses, Justin strives to bring the excitement of “the field” to campus through inquiry-based and experiential learning that gets students first asking critical questions about relations among people, things, and places, and then moving to address these questions through hands-on activities and in-class debate.




FYSEM-UA 900.032
Cities and Countryside: Past and Present
Spring 2022
Instructor: Mitra Panahipour
Meeting time: Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

This course explores cities and their surrounding hinterlands across different temporal and spatial scales to discuss how the city, as a distinctive form of social organization, became the dominant feature of landscapes. What is the urban-rural dynamic about, how can we compare urban and non-urban landscapes through time? This course provides students with the understanding and skills for addressing environmental, political, and socioeconomic histories and longer-term patterns of human-environment interactions, settlement, resettlement, and abandonment. It also develops necessary skills in spatial understanding. With an interdisciplinary approach - including hands-on training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other geospatial analysis tools - we will look at archaeological and historical sources and practice computational methods to investigate the transformation of places in their wider natural and built contexts. We examine contemporary as well as historical landscapes from different regions, particularly the Near East, and  learn how understanding ancient landscapes can help us address current and future issues such as environmental and climatic change and issues of sustainability. The course combines lectures, weekly readings, class discussions, and some of the sessions will include in-class computer lab activities.

MITRA PANAHIPOUR is an Adjunct Professor at New York University’s College of Arts and Science. Previously, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, in 2019-2021. As an anthropological archaeologist, her research focuses on the dynamics of settlement, land use, and social organization across diverse microenvironmental zones in the Near/Middle East. She is particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches and applies landscapes surveys, geospatial analysis, remote sensing, and environmental and ethnographic data in understanding the longer-term patterns of change.



FYSEM-UA 900.031
Cities on Edge: Capitals, Culture, and City-Worlds in Latin American Fiction, and Film
Spring 2022
Instructor: Ana Dopico
Meeting time: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Identity and Society

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Havana. The names stand for an experience of Latin America that is at once familiar and seductive. We imagine the malecón of Havana, the favelas or beaches of Rio, the cafés of Buenos Aires, the contradictions of skyscrapers and Aztec sites in Mexico City. We watch films that drop us into the cityscape. We think we can anticipate what we find on arrival because we have learned the legends of cities, and because these global cities have colonized our imaginations through their culture, their art, their imagery. But the culture of Latin American cities disclose remarkable contradictions, in part because Latin Americans started living big city life before the explosion of urbanization across most of the globe. This course surveys the life of very different cities from Latin America whose identities, culture, politics, and everyday life have been shaped by colonization, revolution, empire, capitalism and cold wars, by urban migration, global and local uneven development, and by the resistance and resilience of its inhabitants. Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Rio De Janeiro/São Paulo, and Havana have a long history of grand ambitions and grand inequities, modern transformations and modern dislocations, and each reveals a specific national and political context. This course will be devoted to their recent past. Through non-fiction, literature, journalism, photography, digital media, and film, we will consider how these cities exploit their status as modern cultural capitals and negotiate political struggle, financial and ecological disaster, violence, inequality, and urban viability.

ANA DOPICO is Director of the Hemispheric Institute, as well as Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University (NYU). Professor Dopico is a comparative scholar of the Americas, Cuba, the Caribbean, and the Global South. She has published widely, including the book Cubanologies, Altered States of the Nation, and a new book project, Cold Civil Wars: Black and Cuban Miami, 1960-2000, which takes up the volatile cultural history of race politics, civil rights, anti-blackness, and segregation in Miami, from the arrival of Cubans to Jim Crow Miami through the Elián González affair.




FYSEM-UA 805
College Students Studying College
Spring 2022
Instructor: Ethan Youngerman
Meeting time: Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m. (Fall), Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (Spring)
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

This seminar will examine student experiences in and outcomes of college; because college is such a multi-faceted area of study, and because the field of Higher Education is an interdisciplinary field, our work will draw not only on education research but also on such disparate traditions as psychology, writing studies, statistics, and documentary filmmaking. Reading and employing both quantitative methods (including survey design and statistical analysis) and qualitative methods (including focus groups, interviews, and document analysis), we will aim to describe true college experiences, while staying deeply attuned to the reality that collegians may have different experiences depending on what identities they hold.

ETHAN YOUNGERMAN is a Clinical Associate Professor in NYU's Expository Writing Program and is also a playwright. He won the CAS Golden Dozen Teaching Award in 2013. Ethan's research interests include integrative learning, composition, and residential learning environments; he's the founding director of the College Students Studying College undergraduate research team, run through NYU's VIP program. His research on undergraduate experiences and outcomes has appeared in AERA Open, Learning Communities Research and Practice, New Directions for Higher Education, and The SAGE Encyclopedia of Higher Education, among others. He's worked on the Assessment of Collegiate Residential Environments and Outcomes, ACREO (formerly the Study of Integrated Living Learning Programs) since its launch and, in that capacity, has contributed to the technical reports for 17 different institutions across the country; he's also involved in residential education through his appointment as a Faculty Fellow in Residence in University Hall. He received his B.A. from Yale, his M.F.A. from NYU Tisch's Department of Dramatic Writing, and his Ed.D. from NYU Steinhardt's Higher Education Program.




FYSEM-UA 714
Crystallization in Life: Stories about Shells, Bones, and Kidney Stones
Spring 2022
Instructor: Zhihua An
Meeting time: Tuesday, 8:00-10:30 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m. (Fall), Monday, 4:55-6:10 p.m. (Spring)
Theme: Molecules of Material and Living Systems

Prerequisites: a score of 4 or 5 on the Chemistry Advanced Placement exam, and a score of 4 or 5 on either Calculus or Biology AP (or equivalent international credentials).

Note: conflicts with PhysicsI/ II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

This seminar introduces students to the world of biomineralization, the branch of chemistry that deals with crystal formation under the influence of biomolecules. Through readings, lectures, research projects, and assignments, students learn and study the fundamentals of crystal formation, crystal properties, and the structure of crystals surrounding us. We begin with solution chemistry, crystallization theory, and various aspects of the crystallization process in nature and then move on to the specific case studies of the title, with attention to biomolecules (proteins, lipids, etc.) and their roles in controlling the crystallization process. Understanding the biomineralization process in the formation of kidney stones can lead to preventative drug development, which illustrates a practical application of the field in biomedical science. In addition, studying the crystallization process in nature can lead to new bioinspired materials, such as optical fibers.

ZHIHUA AN is Clinical Associate Professor of Chemistry at New York University. Prior to joining NYU, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Columbia University, and at New York University. She holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor An’s research interests are biomaterials self-assembly, biointerface functionalization and engineering, and pathological biomineralization. Her work has appeared in Science, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cancer Letters, and more than ten other journals.




FYSEM-UA 900.025
Dance and the Big Apple
Spring 2022
Instructor: Laura Quinton
Meeting time: Wednesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

An introduction to the history of dance and culture in New York City since 1900. Moving from vaudeville in Midtown and Lindy Hop in Harlem to the New York City Ballet, experimental downtown dance, tango milongas, and hip hop, we explore how theatrical and social dance practices have shaped and responded to the life of the city for over a century. We consider how dances in this context express ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and identity, and interrogate how dance operates simultaneously as art, entertainment, and a medium for self-expression, social commentary and activism, and political critique. In class, we analyze and discuss different media, including dance films, images, performance reviews, and interviews with artists. We also attend live performances at venues such as St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, 92nd Street Y, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Harlem Stage, among others. Readings include historical, theoretical, and critical texts on dance and New York. For written assignments, students interpret the dances we study and reflect on how they speak to the city’s history and culture


LAURA QUINTON is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She received her PhD in History from NYU in 2021. Her current research explores the unexpected entanglements of ballet and British state politics from the early twentieth century to the present. Her writing has appeared in The Historical Journal, Twentieth Century British History, and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.




FYSEM-UA 814
Democracy and Science in the Year of the Pandemic
Spring 2022
Instructor: Paul Romer
Meeting time: Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

This seminar explores the complex interactions between science, politics, and our quality of life. Many examinations of these interactions highlight the positive and skip the political by looking at examples where a new scientific insight seems to improve the quality of life, but without any intervention by policymakers or the voters they represent. The events we lived through during 2020 give us a unique opportunity to step back and ask the hard but essential question: How can a society take advantage of scientific expertise without ceding the control that voters have to exert, through the politicians they elect, over the course that the nation will follow?

PAUL ROMER is an economist and policy entrepreneur and co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He has spent his career at the intersection of economics, innovation, technology, and urbanization, working to speed up human progress. He is currently a University Professor at NYU. Paul previously taught at Stanford, and while there, started Aplia, an education technology company he later sold to Thomson Learning. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Chicago.




FYSEM-UA 783
DNA: From the Double Helix to Nanotechnology
Spring 2022
Instructor: Yoel Ohayon
Meeting time: Tuesday, 8:00-10:30 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Molecules of Material and Living Systems

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

DNA from the basics to some of today's sophisticated applications. We begin with the experiments that first identified DNA as the molecule of heredity and read The Double Helix by James Watson, which gives a lively (and biased) first-person account of the discovery of this crucial building block of life. The seminar then moves on to technical issues and considerations: how does DNA store genetic information, and how does a cell process this information using the genetic code? At the end of the seminar, we build on these foundations and learn about DNA nanotechnology and its many potential applications in science and healthcare.

YOEL OHAYON is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at New York University. He received his B.A. in biochemistry from New York University (2000), his M.Phil. in chemistry from New York University (2008) and Ph.D. in chemistry from New York University (2010). He joined the faculty of New York University in 2011. His research interests include DNA topology and self-assembled 3D DNA crystals.




FYSEM-UA 900.026
Drawing Ecological Thought: Climate Crisis and Graphic Narratives
Spring 2022
Instructor: Christine M. Martínez
Meeting time: Monday & Wednesday, 8:00-9:15 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m. (Fall), Monday, 4:55-6:10 p.m. (Spring)
Theme: Environmental Studies

We consider the challenges of narrating contemporary climate and ecological crises while reading and discussing comics that portray these issues, building the skills to read and analytically discuss graphic narratives and, more importantly, think critically about 21st century solutions to climate and ecological crises. We discuss what differentiates comics from other media forms (novels, film, television news reports) and explore the potential of graphic narratives to represent non-human life or ecological phenomena that develop over wide geographies or scales of time. Our transnational corpus reflects the planetary scale of contemporary social and environmental crises, while it foregrounds a number of texts that engage southern European and Latin American thought on sustainability and climate solutions, notable for their critique of global capitalism and advocacy of community-driven alternatives. Some of the most important ecological critiques of capitalist society and economy to emerge from marginalized groups directly threatened by capitalist development and from scientific and activist circles since the 1960s; and texts address climate change, plastics pollution, mass extinctions and climate-provoked wars and migrations, and include the early environmentalist comic book series Slow Death Funnies (USA), Phillipe Squarzioni’s (France) graphic novel Climate Changed, Susie Cagle’s (USA) comics reporting on plastics pollution, Joe Sacco’s (Malta, USA) illustrations of communities marginalized by US American economic development, and Miguel Brieva’s (Spain) vignettes that illustrate the sustainable regeneration of urban communities.

CHRISTINE M. MARTÍNEZ is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her Ph.D. from NYU’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literature. She studies how cultural narratives of consumer society contribute to global ecological devastation and social injustice, with a particular focus on how contemporary southern European artists and communities imagine social alternatives to the unsustainable practices of global capitalism. Her research on socioecological activism and Spanish comics has been published in various book anthologies and in the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies. Her dissertation, Living Finitude in an Age of Growth: Spanish Late Capitalism and its Discontents, studies photographic, cinematic, literary and journalistic critiques of twenty-first century Spanish speculative development. It traces a lack of long-term and ecological vision in such critiques, which limits these critiques of Spanish capitalism from proposing more lasting and desirable social alternatives.




FYSEM-UA 900.017
The Dynamic Teacher: Unconventional Educators in American Culture
Spring 2022
Instructor: Jackie Reitzes
Meeting time: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m. (Fall), Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (Spring)
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

From Miss Jean Brodie to John Keating, we are fascinated by teachers who break the rules and the students who are activated by them. In reading novels, stories, and plays as well as watching films and TV episodes with big-personality teachers, we’ll ask ourselves the ways in which our education can shift shapes in unexpected ways-- how the influence of a powerful teacher can both create and erode our sense of self, redefine knowledge beyond the typical classroom, and question the limits of how radically we want our education to challenge the core of who we are. Through reading, writing, reflecting, posting, discussing, questioning, and researching, we’ll examine the complicated power dynamics that occur in the space between students and teachers. By investigating the methods of instruction and the implications of what gets passed down, we’ll chart the evolution that transpires as students come to define knowledge for themselves.

JACKIE REITZES is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Expository Writing Program. Her short fiction has been published in Epoch, The Nashville Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and The Madison Review. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in ESPN: The Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and elsewhere. She was a 2012 Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow, and she holds an MFA from Cornell University and a BA from the University of Michigan. She is currently at work on a short story collection.




FYSEM-UA 900.030
l Adaptations: Literature, Film and Media Franchise Culture
Spring 2022
Instructor: Priyanjali Sen
Meeting time: Wednesday, 8:00-10:30 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m. (Fall), Wednesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m. (Spring)

The relationship between literature and film has undergone significant transformations, from the privileged position held by literary classics to the cultural capital of film that enables cinematic versions to capture readers’ imaginations of literary works. Multimedia franchises, by way of television series, videogames, vlogs, and interactive new media, have recast adaptations as transmedia storytelling prioritizing the process of reception and interaction. Taking into consideration adaptation theory, history, and the socio-cultural processes through which adaptations are produced, this course will engage with debates on authorship, artistic originality, and dialogic intertextuality; analyze key concepts and tropes such as appropriation, transmutation, remediation, and transcoding that have informed our understanding of adaptations as cultural artifacts; trace interconnections between texts across national, cultural and historical contexts; and examine adaptation in relation to media franchise culture, which includes media convergence, brand identity, and merchandising. Film include: Throne of Blood, The Birds, The Leopard, Love and Death, Star Trek: episode “Chain of Command,” The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, The Hunger Games, The Lizzie-Bennet Diaries, and Deadpool.
PRIYANJALI SEN is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University and was a recipient of the Jay Leyda Award for Academic Excellence (2020). Her current book project, The Literary Poetics of Bengali Cinema (1947-67), demonstrates how the strong relationship between Bengali literature and film reached its pinnacle in the two decades post India’s independence and partition, as a response to the socio-political currents of the moment and a means of consolidating the high artistic possibilities of the filmic medium. She has published peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and book reviews in BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies; Studies in South Asian Film and Media; Adaptation, Awards Culture, and the Value of Prestige; and La famille au cinema: Regards juridiques et cinématographiques. She has taught courses on Indian Cinema, International Film History, Language of Film, Bollywood, Hollywood Adaptations, and Global Science Fiction Films at NYU as well as Baruch College, CUNY. Her research interests include literature, film and transmedia storytelling; World cinema; Bengali cinema; South Asian cultural studies; Indian indigenous film & media; and film historiography in relation to digital archival practices.

FYSEM-UA 900.027
The Global Sixties
Spring 2022
Instructor: Cos Tollerson
Meeting time: Monday 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (M 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Across the globe, the 1960s are remembered as a time of dramatic cultural, social, and political tumult. This seminar examines several of the phenomena associated with the decade: from “Third World” liberation movements and the emergence of Rock ‘n Roll to brutal state repression. How did anti-imperial struggles throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America influence protest movements in the U.S. and Western Europe and vice-versa? In what ways did the “sexual revolution” impact ideas about masculinity and femininity and attitudes toward non-normative sexuality? How did governments respond to activists challenging hierarchies within nations and between them? What defined “the counterculture”? To explore these and other questions, we’ll analyze the transnational, multi-directional flow of ideas, styles, and structural forces throughout the era. This will involve moving between cities including Algiers, Chicago, Jakarta, Mexico City, Paris, São Paulo, and Tokyo, while analyzing “texts” that range from political pamphlets and philosophical essays to commercial music and experimental cinema.

COS TOLLERSON is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in New York University’s History Department. His research focuses on post-colonial Latin America, with particular emphasis on twentieth-century Brazil. He also has expertise in the study of the U.S. Empire and the Global Cold War. His book project examines the interdependent ideas about race, development, and democracy circulating among civilian and military elites who coordinated the 1964 coup d’état in Brazil.




FYSEM-UA 728
How We Learn
Spring 2022
Instructor: Anamaria Alexandrescu
Meeting time: Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required Writing the Essay: Science and Society: Fall 2021 Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with PhysicsI/ II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Note: if you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this paired seminar and EXPOS-UA 1 course.

How do humans and other animals learn, and how do we study this in the laboratory? What is the neurobiological basis of learning and memory? What are the genetic and environmental factors that have shaped the learning process throughout evolution? What other cognitive processes influence learning, and how can we apply this knowledge to our own studies? In trying to address these questions, this seminar gives an overview of modern neuroscience and psychology research on learning and memory, and illustrates how cognitive science can be used to develop strategies for effective learning, while also discussing implications for societal issues, disorders, and artificial intelligence.

ANAMARIA ALEXANDRESCU is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from NYU in 2020 for research examining the neurobiology of learning and memory; in particular, her graduate work focused on the molecular mechanisms that contribute to synaptic plasticity underlying long-term memory formation. Her current research interests are centered at the intersection between neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and education.




FYSEM-UA 800
I, the Author
Spring 2022
Instructor: Chiara Marchelli
Meeting time: Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Genres of Writing

Note: conflicts with PhysicsI/ II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.)

This course will focus on identity and the autobiographical experience as narrated by a selection of contemporary American and European authors, with a particular attention to Italian examples. Through the analysis of their work, it will focus on how authorship and the identity/presence of the author have evolved in contemporary times, and how this evolution reverberates beyond national borders. We will investigate what moves these authors, what aspects of their experience they choose to narrate and how they relate to their own subjectivity and the world. We will explore thematic differences and convergences, social and historical influences, the relationship between the self and society, the evolution of narrative languages and purposes. The selection of readings is representative of the emergence of a new literary genre that blends memoir, autofiction and fiction, and describes the changing intellectual, cultural and social landscape of a literature that can no longer be contained within its national boundaries, but is inspired by a quest for a new identity or new identities, ignited by and reflected in today’s globalized world.

CHIARA MARCHELLI holds a degree in Oriental Languages from the University of Venice and an M.A. in Literary Translation from ISIT, Milan. In 2003, she published her first novel, Angeli e cani, which won the Premio Rapallo Carige Opera Prima. It was followed by a collection of short stories Sotto i tuoi occhi and three novels L’amore involontario, Le mie parole per te, and Le notti blu. Her latest novel, La memoria della cenere, was published in 2019 by NNE. She has taught contemporary literature, Italian, translation, and creative writing at New York University since 2004.




FYSEM-UA 900.023
Just Friends: Friendship, Desire and Italy from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century
Spring 2022
Instructor: Katherine Travers
Meeting time: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m. (Fall), 8:00-9:15 a.m. (Spring)
Theme: Literature Through the Ages

Everyone knows what a “love story” is—but what kinds of literatures are driven by other forms of desire? We explore what role friendship—from the erotic to the Platonic— plays as a force in literature, from the ancient to the modern. Drawing from the discipline of the history of emotions, we ask: When does friendship morph into another kind of desire? How do understandings of gender and sexuality define the boundaries of friendship? How do friendships between writers shape the course of literary history? Often cast as a land of passion and sensuality, Italy and Italians connect the texts we consider, as the story of friendship and desire in Italian literature can tell the history of Italy itself. We begin with theoretical examinations of friendship and affection, from Jacques Derrida and feminist theorist and activist bell hooks. With these conceptual tools at our disposal, we move to a chronological exploration of friendship, from Cicero and Augustine in antiquity to Elena Ferrante in the 21st century. We also discuss scenes from TV and film, and how “friend” became almost synonymous with “lover” in Romance languages.

KATHERINE TRAVERS is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her Ph.D. in Italian Studies at NYU. A specialist in medieval literature, she focuses on how gendered identities emerge from manuscript anthologies of lyric poetry. She is an assistant editor for the journal gender/sexuality/italy and has also published on contemporary Italian poetry.




FYSEM-UA 900.021
Language, Power and Activism
Spring 2022
Instructor: Dr. Carlos Yebra López Meeting time: Thursday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Language is a powerful tool. While some use it to inspire and connect, others weaponize it to deceive and manipulate. This course will explore the political nature of language, as well as how to capitalize on it to make a difference in the world at large. Together we will explore the following questions: What counts as a language? What is the relationship between colonialism and modern linguistics? How are the limits of my language the limits of my world? Don’t we all have an accent? Do native speakers even exist? What is the difference between postcolonial and decolonial linguistics? How can we further inclusive language? Can grammar be fascist? How can we empower endangered linguistic communities from a grassroots perspective? Throughout we will read essays by Chomsky, Voloshinov, Davis, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Blommaert, and Deleuze, as well as fiction by Karinthy, and watch films like Arrival, amongst others.

CARLOS YEBRA LÓPEZ is a postdoctoral lecturer in NYU’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures. His research focuses on the intersection between language and ideology. He is the director of a number of public outreach initiatives concerning language activism and the revitalization of endangered languages, including Ladino 21 (devoted to the documentation and revitalization of Judeo-Spanish in the 21st century) and The Hyperpolyglot Activist (focused on raising public awareness on multilingualism and linguistic ideologies, as well as putting forward emancipatory alternatives, including language activism, allyship and inclusivity).




FYSEM-UA 900.018
Listening and Composing With Bob Dylan
Spring 2022
Instructor: El Glasberg
Meeting time: Thursday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

In this class we will be listening to the music of Bob Dylan as it connects us to history, sound, musical and cultural traditions, to each other, and to ourselves, to the earth, and to the spiritual realm. Maybe you want to find out about his legend. What was all that 2016 Nobel Prize fuss about? What happened at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965? Did he really find Jesus? Is he a great author or a greater plagiarist? There’s so much material by Dylan himself: over 50 albums, thousands of songs, interviews, music videos, a memoir, liner notes, visual art, radio shows, and nearly 3,000 evenings (and counting) of the Never Ending Tour begun in 1989. We’ll familiarize ourselves with key albums and eras in his long career, of course. Yet the intent of this course is neither to introduce nor to exhaust Dylan as a topic (no one is a novice, nor will we become so-called experts). Rather, we’ll take up his most pointed question, aimed directly at his audience: “How does it feel?”: To be a member of a nation? To consume or produce popular music? To be (forever) young? Disenfranchised? A lover or a beloved?

As we listen and watch performances, films, documentaries, and interviews we will discuss questions of American musical genres and of authenticity: personal, cultural, and in performance. We will encounter American culture at its elemental oral roots and through routes across the Atlantic/Carribean extending across the entire world. If this course swirls around Dylan, it is not to deify him. Rather, it is to place Dylan in a world that he has had such a large part in creating. That world, ultimately, is the one we are all in the midst of creating.

EL GLASBERG pecializes in places without people and people without place, teaching and writing on US culture in transit at American University in Beirut, Princeton University, Duke University, and California State University, Los Angeles before coming to NYU’s Expository Writing Program in 2011. Glasberg’s book, Antarctica As Cultural Critique: The Gendered Politics of Scientific Exploration and Climate Change was published in 2012 by Palgrave. Glasberg’s writing has appeared in The Journal of Popular Music Studies, Journal of Historical Geography and Women’s Studies Quarterly on Survival.




FYSEM-UA 733
Looking back a century: New York from 1912 to 1922
Spring 2022
Instructor: Miriam Nyhan Grey
Meeting time: Tuesday, 8:00-10:30 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change

For historians, the centennial of an event or period can hold a special significance or inspire new writings. We divide the courses of history into distinct borders of periodization which is contrary to how we actually live our lives or experience historical events often. In this seminar, we will self-consciously take the viewpoint of one hundred years to explore the history of New York City from 1912 to 1922. New York, in this period, was being shaped by issues like the suffrage movement, the Great War, the growing presence of the automobile and the arrival of almost one million immigrants, among many other things. We will explore the New York of a century ago using a wide range of sources in an effort to grasp how New Yorkers experienced the city circa 1920.

MIRIAM NYHAN GREY is Associate Director of New York University's Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies, where she is also Director of Graduate Studies for the Master of Arts in Irish and Irish-American Studies. With an interest in the intersections of migration, race, and ethnicity, she focuses primarily on migrant experiences in comparative frameworks. Oral history is a central methodology in her research, and she has served as a collaborator for the Archives of Irish America’s Oral History Collection since 2008. She has been on the faculty at NYU since 2009, teaching an array of classes on Irish history and migration, oral history, and comparative migration.




FYSEM-UA 791
NeuroStories: Narratives of the Brain, Mind, and Heart
Spring 2022
Instructor: Justin Warner
Meeting time: Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Health and Society

What if you lost the ability to read, but could still write? What if your family members suddenly seemed like sinister replicas of their real selves? What if you were fully conscious, but could move and communicate only by blinking one eye? Can a person who can’t experience empathy lead an honorable life? Our brains are infinitely complex, which means they can be infinitely altered or divergent from what we think of as “typical.” In this seminar, we examine neurological conditions and differences as they appear in stories, from case studies and popular nonfiction to theatre, film, and television. We ask what the existence of these conditions teaches us about the link between our neural architecture and what we might otherwise call spirit, essence, heart, mind, or soul, and what people with neurological differences might understand in a way neurotypical people can’t. We also examine how people with neurodivergent profiles are represented in popular media, in part through the lens of the rapidly growing neurodiversity movement. Throughout the semester, we will reflect on the incomprehensible power of this spongy tissue in our skulls, and how everything we learn about it opens up new mysteries.

JUSTIN WARNER is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University, where he currently teaches writing in the Tisch School of the Arts. He holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting and a B.A. in Neural and Behavioral Psychology. He is a playwright and musical theater librettist, and is currently working on an adaptation of Andrew Solomon’s bestselling book Far from the Tree. His first full-length play, Impostors, was produced in NEUROFest, New York’s first (and only?) festival of plays inspired by neurological conditions. Prior to teaching at NYU, he was a writer, editor, and audio producer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a recent finalist for the Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre, the Jonathan Larson Grants, and the Sundance Theatre Lab, and has written for New Scientist, Popular Science, Newsday, McSweeney’s, and American Theatre, among others.




FYSEM-UA 804
Climate Change and Cities
Spring 2022
Instructor: Kimberly Bernhardt
Meeting time: Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m. (Fall), Monday, 4:55-6:10 p.m. (Spring)
Theme: Environmental Studies

After years of denial in the US, today conversations about the impact of climate change are a regular feature of mass media reporting. From fires in the west, to flooding in the south and east, everyone seems ready to discuss climate disasters, but we hear fewer discussions of how to understand—and help others understand—the many sides of this complex issue and, in particular, its effect on cities. That’s the work we will do together in this course.

We’ll begin with a general introduction to climate change science gathered through accessible articles, films, a tour of the American Museum of Natural History’s climate exhibit, local events and activities, and discussions with guest speakers. We’ll consider US and global political and societal responses to current climate science to better understand the debates in the media and popular culture. Our approach will be both analytical and personal: Your first project for the class will focus on the impact of climate change on a location of your choice, one that matters to your life and to the lives of those who matter to you. Then, we will turn our attention to the impact of climate change on cities and city dwellers, starting with representations of these impacts in fiction, film, art, and in the media. We will also look at efforts being made by cities—New York City in particular—to mitigate the impacts of climate change. We will tour Brooklyn's 110-million-dollar recycling facility, learn more about street trees, subway protection, and assess the city's BIG U proposal to protect lower Manhattan against rising sea levels. For your final project for the course, you will examine the impact of climate change on a city of your choice, focusing on how politicians, environmental groups, and community members are responding.

Throughout the course, our work will be grounded in our own responses to climate change and our evolving knowledge of what is to come. We will explore the ways that our expectations for comfort and choice are challenged by scientists’ prognoses, as we consider issues of responsibility, ethics, and justice. Major assignments include a personal essay, a multisource essay, and a multimodal project

KIMBERLY BERNHARDT is a Clinical Associate Professor currently teaching Writing the Essay and International Writing Workshop I and II at both Washington Square and Tandon. She received her Ph.D. in literature from Rutgers University. Her research interests include modern and contemporary poetry, literary theory, composition, student learning and success, student mental health, and representations of crises. She spent three years as a Faculty Affiliate, working with residents in the Outdoor and the Serve the City communities. She has previously taught at Rutgers University, Western Washington University, and Montclair State University, and has been teaching at NYU since 2006.




FYSEM-UA 789
Power Hungry: Food as a Tool for Social and Political Change
Spring 2022
Instructor: Suzanne Cope
Meeting time: Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

In this seminar we examine the role of food in social and political change, with an eye toward how historic events can provide a model for understanding how change can be made today. We begin with an historic overview of riots, initiatives, marches, and boycotts, considering how food was crucial to movements for social and political change in the United States and around the world. Then we move to present-day New York City and beyond, considering activism in the field of food justice as well as activism that uses food as a tool for broader justice initiatives. If scheduling permits we will visit some locations where this work is taking place across New York City and invite guest speakers to tell us about their efforts.

Dr. SUZANNE COPE teaches in the Expository Writing Program, and her research and writing focus on the intersection of food and political and social change. Her narrative journalism has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and The Atlantic, and her forthcoming book is POWER HUNGRY: The Story of Two Women Who Fed the Civil Rights Movement, and the Government's Quest to Stop Them. Dr. Cope has published and presented her scholarly work on food studies and writing pedagogy around the world, and she is the 2019 recipient of the Culinary Historians of New York grant for her research on POWER HUNGRY. She is also the author of the book Small Batch: Pickles, Cheese, Chocolate, Spirits, and the Return of Artisanal Food.




FYSEM-UA 900.028
“Red Vienna”: A Case Study in Social Democracy
Spring 2022
Instructor: Lauren Wolfe
Meeting time: Mondays, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m. (Fall), 8:00-9:15 a.m. (Spring)
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

“Red Vienna.”—that city’s early-20th century experiment in social democracy—was developed in response to the devastation of war, epidemic, the dissolution of empire, and emergent new social identities. We look to Red Vienna to explore social democracy as a way of facing the compounding global crises of the 21st century. We ask, What exactly is social democracy? What are its fundamental claims and tenets? On what material and ideological foundations does it stand—or fall? We examine the utopian vision of Red Vienna, its practical accomplishments, theoretical foundations, internal ambivalences, aesthetic innovations, the civil war that ended its political reign, and its social legacy in the 21st century as a model for thinking critically about our own present. We take a broad survey of new methodologies in the arts and sciences, new ways of working and living based in economic justice and gender equity, and new forms of public spectacle and social expression emerging from mass workers’ movements. Students engage with an array of genres and disciplines, from sociological analysis to film and dramatic performance to political economy; and a primary aim is to understand the interactions and collaborations among artists, scientists, urban planners, and philosophers in this unique historical moment, in order to develop models and imagine horizons for interdisciplinary work and collaboration.

LAUREN K. WOLFE is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her PhD from NYU in Comparative Literature in 2021 with a dissertation on translation theory and method. Her translation practice and research are focused on 20th Austrian literary culture and social history. Her book project, The Subject is an Axis, is an exploration of how the work of interlingual translation can reshape our ethical orientations at a time when our traditional categories of identity and belonging are no longer reflective of our lived realities.




FYSEM-UA 900.024
Revolutionary Women
Spring 2022
Instructor: Amy Obermeyer
Meeting time: Tuesday & Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (Fall), Tuesday, 8:00-9:15 a.m. (Spring)
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Women have been at the forefront of social protest and political revolution—a fact that often seems lost on the news media and in history textbooks, all of which tend to treat women’s activism as limited exclusively to so-called “women’s issues.” Overlooked are not just women’s contributions to political change, but also how much of women-oriented activism builds on communication networks and protest strategies first developed fighting on other fronts, as for example, many leaders of the United States’ women’s suffrage movement were first active in the slavery abolition movement; and before Margaret Sanger was agitating for birth control, she was agitating for workers’ rights in textile mill strikes. We examine editorials, political cartoons, advertisements, news segments, fictional depictions, and new media sources such as social media and blog posts, looking at social movements and the women who participated in them, and also the way these women are imagined and remembered in then-contemporary as well as present-day media.

AMY OBERMEYER received her Ph.D. from NYU’s Department of Comparative Literature. Her research focuses on gender and literary subjectivity in Japanese and Latin American literature from the late 19th through early 20th century, particularly as manifest in the Japanese shishôsetsu and modernismo in Latin America. Her work appears in The Journal of Intercultural Studies and Feminist Studies (forthcoming), and she is currently at work on her book project titled Worlded Women: Women, Subjectivity, and World Literature in Turn-of-the-century Japan and Latin America.




FYSEM-UA 255
School and Society: NYU in the Sixties and Seventies
Spring 2022
Instructor: Arthur Tannenbaum
Meeting time: Tuesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (M 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The 1960s and 1970s brought profound changes in American society, changes mirrored in the history of the nation, academe, and New York University. It was a time that witnessed the struggle for civil rights, assassinations, war abroad and riots at home, and a youth-led revolution in music, dress, and values. This course aims to develop an appreciation of those years by examining events and reactions to them as they affected campuses and students across America. Students prepare reports on different aspects of the era and work on group projects. In both cases, and in the spirit of the times, the topics are self-chosen with the approval of the group and the seminar leader.

ARTHUR TANNENBAUM is Associate Curator and Social Work Librarian in the Bobst Library, and has also taught in the English Department. First as a student and then as a faculty member, he has been at NYU for more than thirty years. In 1992 he received the University’s Distinguished Teaching Medal in recognition for his work with students.




FYSEM-UA 780
The Sea in History
Spring 2022
Instructor: Thomas Truxes
Meeting time: Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is water, most of it residing in the planet’s great seas and oceans. But how have those vast watery spaces, together with the world’s lakes and rivers, shaped the millennia? Have these bodies of water been connective tissues bringing peoples together or barriers pushing them apart? They have, of course, been both, providing highways for commerce and migration, life-sustaining fisheries, battlefields that determined the fate of civilizations, and powerful stimulants to the advancement of technology on a broad front. This seminar will explore the many—and often surprising—faces of the sea in history. It will, likewise, ask students to contemplate their own responsibility in preserving the rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans that have shaped the destiny of mankind.

THOMAS M. TRUXES is Clinical Professor of Irish Studies and History. He has written extensively on the Irish in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Atlantic economy and the overseas trade of British America. Recent books include an edited volume of essays, Ireland, France, and the Atlantic in a Time of War: Reflections on the Bordeaux–Dublin Letters, 1757, and Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York, a finalist for the Francis Parkman Prize in American History. At NYU he teaches courses on early modern Irish history, piracy and seaborne terrorism, and the history of world trade.




FYSEM-UA 802
Sex and Gender in Philosophical Focus
Spring 2022
Instructor: Laura Franklin-Hall
Meeting time: Friday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Health and Society

What is it to be a female or male animal? Or to be a female or male human being? What is it to be a woman? To be a man? Or to have some other gender? And how are all these questions connected? This course will explore answers to these and other questions about sex and gender from a philosophical perspective, drawing along the way on relevant research in biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. We begin by considering how the sexes evolved across the living world, i.e., in both animals and plants. With this history in hand, we ask, given persisting disagreement about their nature, how the categories 'male' and 'female' should be understood and evaluated, both in humans and other living things. Next we explore the gender categories such as woman, man, boy and girl. How are American gender categories similar to or different from those found in other cultures? And how are gender categories generally related to, or distinct from, the sex categories previously investigated? Having considered a variety of philosophical approaches to gender--some tying gender directly to sex, others to social characteristics like oppression--we conclude by evaluating these options for ourselves.

LAURA FRANKLIN-HALL, Associate Professor of Philosophy, trained both as a biologist and as a philosopher. Her research and teaching interests include the nature of scientific explanation, scientific modeling, and classification; the structure of evolutionary theory and the tree of life; and the relationship between evolution and our ethical commitments. She has published articles on the functioning of the hippocampus, microbial species, the “scientific method,” scientific explanation, and the nature of the sexes—male and female—across the animal world. She is presently working on a book project on the Philosophy of Pregnancy. It tackles metaphysical, ethical, and evolutionary questions surrounding pregnancy, both human and non-human.




FYSEM-UA 900.016
Social Media and Fiction: Technologies of Imitation and Desire
Spring 2022
Instructor: Geoff Shullenberger
Meeting time: Tuesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (Fall), 12:30-1:45 p.m. (Spring)
Theme: Technology and Society

“We want what other people want because other people want it.” So the writer Dayna Tortorici has characterized the phenomenon of mimetic desire: desire not motivated by the intrinsic value of an object, but by the fact that other people also desire it. Advertisers have long tapped into this deep impulse, and recent years, social media has allowed us to observe other people’s consumption habits instantaneously, filling us with near constant “FOMO” and envy. However, this is the latest evolution of the modern experience of desire, which has been shaped for centuries by cutthroat social competition and consumer capitalism. Long before the rise of social media, the technology that revealed this sort of conflict most vividly was the novel, which came to prominence alongside urban consumer societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In this course, we will explore the relationship between imitation, competition, and human wants. Informed by the ideas of the late René Girard, the most prominent theorist of mimetic desire, we will read a series of novels from the nineteenth and early twenty-first centuries that dramatize these phenomena, by authors including Jane Austen, Stendhal, Elif Batuman, and Tao Lin. We will also examine the evolution of social media platforms in counterpoint with these literary works, which will enable deeper insight into social dynamics that now shape culture and politics.

GEOFF SHULLENBERGER is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. He has written for a variety of scholarly publications, magazines, and online media about topics ranging from literature and critical theory to conspiracy theory and contemporary online subcultures.




FYSEM-UA 806
State of a Country: Writing about Photography Made in the U.S.
Spring 2022
Instructor: Alexandra Falek
Meeting time: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: First-Generation Cohort

Note: FYSEM-UA 474, What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 806, State of a Country: Writing about Photography Made in the U.S. are strongly recommended for first-generation students. They provide an excellent opportunity to join a close-knit community of your peers who also identify as the first in their families to pursue higher education.

This course offers students an opportunity to look, think, read and write critically and creatively about photography made throughout the US in the last few decades. In the photographs, photo essays and photobooks we’ll explore, the photographers expose the state of a country, making visible what they’ve chosen to see. While their subjects, conceptual inquiries, approaches and technical practices vary, each photographer responds uniquely to the people, places and ideas that have captured their attention and shaped their intentions. A deep examination of these works will set in motion a larger conversation about writing on photography. Throughout the semester we’ll look and read closely, and practice different modes of writing, from short exercises to an extended research paper. A guest photographer and a writer whose work focuses on photography will join us in two class meetings, and students will see photography work on display at museums and/or galleries in New York City. Students will come away from the course with a new appreciation for the practice of making photographs, photo essays and photobooks and for the craft of writing meaningful texts that respond to them.

ALEXANDRA FALEK is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. She has been teaching at NYU since 2002, where she taught for many years in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese Languages and Literatures (teaching Latin American literature, cultural history, cinema and more) and where she currently teaches on the faculty of EWP (teaching reading and writing). She received her Ph.D. in Latin American Literatures and Cultures from NYU and her B.A. from UC Berkeley.




FYSEM-UA 792
Streaks and Coincidences
Spring 2022
Instructor: Michael Shum
Meeting time: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Mathematics and Modeling in Understanding of the Physical World

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

This seminar will explore the connections between and among events that cannot be explained by probability and causality—hot and cold streaks, coincidences, recurring or repetitive series, and other related phenomena—with the goal of transforming and expanding students' consciousness and sense of wonder at an interconnected universe that exists beyond the strictures of rationalism. Students will record and investigate their own experiences of such connections, vigorously engage with seminal texts in this speculative and under-researched field, and conduct their own individual and group explorations into these phenomena.

MICHAEL SHUM serves as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Expository Writing Program. His first novel, Queen of Spades, based on his experience dealing poker in a dead-end casino in rural Washington State, was published in 2017. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Tennessee.




FYSEM-UA 788
Technology vs. Democracy: Can the American Experiment Survive American Innovation?
Spring 2022
Instructor: Alexander Landfair
Meeting time: Monday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (Fall), 12:30-1:45 p.m. (Spring)
Theme: Technology and Society

From the Founders to the Facebook generation, Americans have regarded technological progress as an existential threat to American democracy. In this seminar, you will explore a range of texts—written by scientists, novelists, and religious and civic leaders—questioning whether the American experiment can survive American innovation, and whether its institutions can, or even should, evolve with its technologies. As citizens and apprentice scholars, students will devise their own possible answers to these questions (and related questions they generate themselves) and share their ideas using a range of modes and genres: class discussions, blog posts, research proposals, and formal research projects.

ALEXANDER LANDFAIR is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Expository Writing Program. He has written about technology for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica Magazine, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. He has held various editorial positions at Narrative Magazine, Guernica Magazine, and the New Yorker. He is now writing a study of Congress’s efforts to mitigate technology’s negative impacts on democracy.




FYSEM-UA 900.029
The Violence of Data: Wall Street and Slavery in Old New York
Spring 2022
Instructor: Thomas Augst
Meeting time: Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change

This seminar explores nineteenth-century connections between Wall Street and slavery, as well as its legacies for us in the twenty-first century, in the age of Big Data and #BlackLivesMatter. What can the records of one prominent bank teach us about the historical development of Wall Street and the role of Northern finance in the slave economy before the Civil War? What can the history of data teach us about the accounting of human life and the cultural consequences of these management practices? The seminar will explore these and related questions through reading, discussion, and research exercises related to slavery in New York City; the history of banking, accounting, and finance; data formats and ethics; and storytelling for social justice, among others. Depending on their interests, students will have the opportunity to participate in the Brown Brothers Collection Project, a research collaboration between NYU and the New York Public Library.

THOMAS AUGST is Associate Professor in the Department of English. His scholarship focuses on American literary and cultural history of the nineteenth-century, exploring libraries and the organization of knowledge, advanced literacy and self-cultivation, archival research and project-based learning in the digital humanities. He is the author of The Clerk’s Tale: Young Men and Moral Life in 19th Century America (Chicago, 2003), co-editor of Institutions of Reading: The Social Life of Libraries in the United States (UMass, 2007), and co-editor of Cultural Agencies and American Libraries (2001). He earned his doctorate from Harvard University, and has received research fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. He is a faculty co-director of NewYorkScapes, a research collaborative dedicated place-based learning and research-led teaching exploring the documentary record of the city.




FYSEM-UA 803
Ways of Thinking and Knowing
Spring 2022
Instructor: David Ellis
Meeting time: Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

This seminar introduces students to fundamental epistemological questions and concepts, both historical and new: what do we know and how do we know it? The academy has long divided knowledge and its pursuit into the Arts and the Sciences. Likewise, popular notions of the human brain suggest that those fissures run through individual minds: the analytical, science-minded "left brained" and the artistic, philosophical-minded "right brained." It is thought that the so-called left brains—analytical, logical, objective—become engineers, biologists, and bankers while right brains—intuitive, thoughtful, subjective—are the painters, philosophers, and social workers of the world. In practice, both in the science lab or in the artist's studio, these distinctions are more porous than we popularly believe. This seminar explores the interplay between reasoning, knowledge, belief, discovery, and creativity, the various acts of mind common to all fields in the academy and, essentially, all human endeavors. As we wrestle with conundrums which resist easy solution, whether presented to us in the "real world," the sciences, the arts, or philosophy, we will simultaneously be thinking about thinking. What “habits of mind” promote problem solving? Which of these habits limit innovation and novel insight? We’ll traverse many fields—logic, physics, neurology, psychology, artificial intelligence, literature, film, visual and performance art—as we hunt for approaches to understanding that we then put into practice. We will work towards the goal of "understanding our understanding," as the artist and essayist Matthew Goulish phrases it, in order to exploit the twinned powers of rationality and creativity. Trips to MoMath (Museum of Mathematics), MoMA, and other outings are planned. Readings to include Martin Heidegger, David Hume, Thomas Kuhn, Lynda Barry, Oliver Sacks, Nassim Taleb, Daniel Dennett, and others.

DAVID ELLIS is a faculty member in the Expository Writing Program, where he has taught for more than twelve years and received a Golden Dozen teaching award. His work in the Writing in the Disciplines initiative at NYU has exposed him to the myriad approaches that different fields utilize to discover new knowledge and insights. His research interests focus on the intersections between cognition, creativity, learning, and writing.




FYSEM-UA 790
"We are Not in a Post-Fact World": Wikipedia and the Construction of Knowledge
Spring 2022
Instructor: David Cregar
Meeting time: Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (Fall), Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m. (Spring)
Theme: Technology and Society

Where do you get your information? Do you trust it? How do you assess the credibility and reliability of what you read, see, and hear? We interrogate these questions through the hands-on work of writing, editing, and commenting on articles in Wikipedia. We join arguably the largest collaborative writing project in history, comprising 309 language editions and with more than 38 million registered users in the English language version alone. This work (and play) allows us to investigate key issues in research methods: identifying gaps in existing knowledge, locating and accessing public records and archival materials, and assessing and attributing sources. Perhaps most important of all, we will write to an authentic audience of readers who, as they say in Wikipedia, will “speak back” to what you write and edit. We also address some perennial themes of rhetoric and composition: genre, audience, style, structure and organization, and more. Alongside this work, we examine the larger question of how knowledge is constructed. Who has access to information? How is access to information controlled or “disciplined”? What perspectives are overrepresented or underrepresented in the texts (written, visual, audible) we encounter and engage with? How does a particular knowledge source shape or influence public knowledge or culture?

DAVID CREGAR is a Clinical Associate Professor and Senior Assistant Director in the Expository Writing Program. In his teaching and research, he focuses primarily on the experiences of English Language Learners as readers and writers in the academy. His teaching career began in the Educational Opportunity Fund Program at Montclair State University (NJ) and he has been on the faculty at NYU since 2000.




FYSEM-UA 900.019
Wikipedia?
Spring 2022
Instructor: Lisa Gitelman
Meeting time: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (Fall), Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m. (Spring)
Theme: Technology and Society

Let's agree that consulting Wikipedia is the opposite of going to college, that looking things up (always helpful!) does not an education make. Can we use a proposition like this as a launching pad for inquiry into the ways that knowledge is organized online and otherwise, as well as into the ways that new knowledge gets produced, preserved, and passed along? This seminar will consider the assumptions that have been baked into Wikipedia and then explore their origins and alternatives within the (mostly) Western intellectual tradition. Discussions of readings-in-common will focus on topics such as encyclopedism, objectivity and bias, the commons and open access, classification systems, and knowledge formats ranging from the humble file folder to the World Wide Web.

LISA GITELMAN is a professor in the NYU departments of English and Media, Culture, and Communication. Her teaching and research interests involve media technologies and the histories of knowledge. She is the author of Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture and Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents. She edited a scholarly collection entitled “Raw Data” Is an Oxymoron and is interested in so-called Big Data and AI.




FYSEM-UA 900.022
Writing the Blue Note: Jazz, Literature, Art and Diasporic Identity
Spring 2022
Instructor: Rachel Watson
Meeting time: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Sometimes, poems sing; paintings swing; and novels bop. A line of poetry can achieve the effect of a jazz melody through assonance and alliteration. A painting can, like a trumpet, blow hot and cold using alternating color fields. And a prose phrase can beat with syncopation, playing with stressed syllables and sibilance, like the rhythm section of a bebop group. Jazz musicians have long taken inspiration from literature; writers and painters have likewise borrowed strategies from jazz and blues music. Indeed, this borrowing and exchange is so prevalent that Brent Hayes Edwards writes: “Whether it is composers finding formal inspiration in verse or a poet invoking the sound of music, hearing across media is the source of innovation in black art.” We learn to perform the practice of “hearing across media” by examining the jazz and blues aesthetic that permeates the art of various African and Afro-descended artists. Immersing ourselves in work from Africa and the diaspora, we analyze literature, visual art, and music to trace the transfer of these aesthetic strategies across media and genres and to understand how these artists, finding connectivity beyond national borders through reference to American jazz, utilize this music to figure improvisation, non-fixity, multivocality, and elusion/subversion as central to diasporic identity. Inspired by the concept of the blue note—the microtonal flattening of certain pitches on a scale, a note in between notes, disruptive in its “in-betweenness”—we investigate how these artists practice a liberating aesthetic, calling on the subversive qualities of jazz to create space for challenging convention, creating and recreating the self, and claiming a belonging to the diaspora. We examine how diasporic work becomes a social and cultural performance, how—vibrating with the blue note, a sonic metonymy for the situation of dispersal, exile, and longing of slaves in the New World and their descendants—this art mourns while also celebrating the freeing potential of artistic techniques that deviate playfully from the conventional structures of their media. Some of the writers, artists, and musicians we examine include James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, and Suzan-Lori Parks; the négritude poets Léopold Senghor, Aimé Césaire, Léon Damas; Francophone writers Dany Laferrière and Koffi Kwahulé; painters Basquiat and Romare Bearden; musicians John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis. We also engage with theories of race, identity, postcoloniality, transnationalism, and aesthetics.

RACHEL WATSON is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her Ph.D. in NYU’s Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture. She specializes in 20th and 21st century French and Francophone theater and performance, with a particular focus on the roles of memory and the body in political theater. A confluence of praxis and scholarship informs her work, as she trained as an actor at Dartmouth College, the National Theater Institute, and the École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. Her current book project takes up embodied memory and intermediality in works by Wajdi Mouawad, Koffi Kwahulé, and the Théâtre du Soleil, and argues for theater as a site of socially and politically engaged practices of collective counter-memory. She participated in the translation of Le Théâtre du Soleil: The First Fifty-Five Years, and her articles have been published in The Drama Review, Arab Stages, and Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism (forthcoming).




FYSEM-UA 514
Xenophon of Athens
Spring 2022
Instructor: Vincent Renzi
Meeting time: Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with Physics I/ II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

The greatest ancient you’ve never heard of, Xenophon of Athens (c. 425-355 B.C.E.) was a brilliant general, a student of Socrates, and a renowned author. When knowledge of Greek was still required for admission to college, his fame was ubiquitous, as his writings formed the basis of the college preparatory curriculum. Particular attention is given to Xenophon’s literary style and technique, his invention of new literary genres and innovations as a writer of Socratic discourses, and issues of adaptation, as well as to his characterization of Socrates, depictions of women and non-Greek peoples and slaves, theory of leadership, and political thought. Readings, in English translation: Apology of Socrates, Symposium, Memorabilia, Cyropaedia, Cavalry Commander, Anabasis, and the film based on the latter, The Warriors—with a CAS connection—set in 1979 C.E. New York City.

VINCENT RENZI is Clinical Professor in the Foundations of Contemporary Culture (FCC) and of Classics, and is also Director of the Foundations of Contemporary Culture in the College Core Curriculum. A scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, he also has interests in arts and aesthetics and in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy. He is a recipient of the College's Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.




EXPOS-UA 1
Writing the Essay: Science and Society

Note: if you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this course.

Writing the Essay: Science and Society is the foundational writing course, which provides instruction and practice in critical reading, creative thinking, and clear writing. The course stresses exploration, inquiry, reflection, analysis, revision, and collaborative learning. Our section of Writing the Essay will focus on the role of science in the contemporary world. We will learn to read, think, and write critically as we investigate how science, medicine, and technology are used to evaluate, characterize, and politicize elements of human behavior and society—and how social institutions challenge and complicate our behavioral and social norms. We question common conceptions of science and society as separate spheres, as well as examining the many paradoxes therein: how science can be simultaneously progressive and destructive, connecting and isolating, liberating and oppressive. As we progress, you will find that writing is not only a method to communicate ideas but also a process that generates new ones. The ultimate goal: for you to write and communicate confidently, to rely on writing as one of the best tools for developing fresh perspectives and appreciating subtle complexities, and to develop your own unique and more complex understanding of science, medicine, and technology.




EXPOS.UA 1 (Spring 1)
Spring 2022
TBD
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.



EXPOS.UA 1 (Spring 2)
Spring 2022
TBD
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

FYSEM-UA 701

Adventures in Interviewing: Oral History Theory and Practice
Spring 2021
Instructor: Miriam Nyhan Grey
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Oral history is a very important tool for a historian. It is compelling in its ability to bring forward the voices of those who were frequently excluded from more typical sources and it often leads to new interpretations of history. As a method it presents both challenges and rewards, as the sources are not confined to the library or an archive. In the process of interviewing, the historian is confronted by sources that speak, think, remember, forget and recount—human beings. This course will explore theories of memory, how memory is constructed and forgotten, and how historians contend with this type of source. Preparing for and conducting an oral history interview will be a significant portion of the work for this course. The goal is to uncover the richness of oral history in complicating our explanations of the past.

MIRIAM NYHAN GREY is Associate Director of New York University's Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies, where she is also Director of Graduate Studies for the Master of Arts in Irish and Irish-American Studies. With an interest in the intersections of migration, race, and ethnicity, she focuses primarily on migrant experiences in comparative frameworks. Oral history is a central methodology in her research, and she has served as a collaborator for the Archives of Irish America’s Oral History Collection since 2008. She has been on the faculty at NYU since 2009, teaching an array of classes on Irish history and migration, oral history, and comparative migration.

FYSEM-UA 598

After the End: Post-Apocalypse Novels in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Spring 2021
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Instructor: David L. Hoover    
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Many authors have speculated about what would happen if (most) humans were destroyed. Authors have removed humans by natural disasters like floods, fires, earthquakes, and mysterious poisonous clouds or rays. They have imagined alien invasions, plagues, epidemics, agricultural collapses, and reproductive failure. More recently, humans themselves have become popular as causes of apocalypses because global thermonuclear war, lethal pollution, disastrous over-population, genetic engineering, and climate change have become realistic possible scenarios for the collapse of our species. This seminar will examine a variety of apocalypses from the 20th and 21st century with special attention to ones that have implications for the nature of humanity and human society. Most of the novels we will read treat an apocalypse as a kind of thought-experiment: what would happen if . . . ? Some focus more on the collapse of human institutions, culture, morality, and religion; others on the challenges the survivors face; and still others focus on the potential for the re-creation of human society or the creation of an alternative kind of society.

DAVID L. HOOVER is Professor of English at New York University, where he has taught for thirty-five years in the areas of digital humanities, science fiction, Chaucer, history of the English language, and linguistic stylistics. His most recent publications include “Simulations and Difficult Problems” in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities and Digital Literary Studies: Corpus Approaches to Poetry, Prose, and Drama, with Jonathan Culpeper and Kieran O’Halloran. He is just now completing Modes of Composition and the Durability of Style in Literature, a book about the effect of modes of composition (handwriting, dictation, typing, word-processing) on authorial style.

FYSEM-UA 815
American Epidemics
Spring 2021
Instructor: Kim Adams       
Wednesday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Health and Society

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

From colonial ailments to global pandemics, disease has shaped the United States. This seminar places the coronavirus outbreak of 2019-2020 in historical perspective, examining the wide-ranging effects of contagious disease in American life, literature, and culture. Together we seek to understand epidemics as both biological forces and social events. Beginning with the metaphor of “invisible bullets” that the Algonquin peoples of the Chesapeake Bay used to describe colonial settler diseases, the course traces the history of the nation through epidemics, addressing the social and political impact of a different disease each week. We read historical accounts, critical texts, and literary works; listen to podcasts; watch films; view works of art; and explore online archives. Students learn to approach disease as an object of humanistic inquiry, and examine intersectional questions of race, gender, colonial power, economic privilege, and national belonging through medical history. We find strategies for critiquing and comprehending the inequities and anxieties of the present through moments of biological crisis in America.

KIM ADAMS holds a Ph.D. in English from NYU and an M.A. in English from Brown University. Her research bridges gaps between the fields of medical humanities, critical race studies, science and technology studies, and literary scholarship. Her book project, The Body Electric, examines how electricity shapes the modern American body in the political categories of race, sex, and gender. Her teaching uses interdisciplinary methods to connect literature and science and positions the humanities as a political site of knowledge production within the university.

FYSEM-UA 808
Ancient Constructions of the World and its People
Spring 2021
Instructor: Jeremy Simmons      
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

How did ancient societies envision the wider known world? In this seminar, we will examine how ancient cultures throughout the Afro-Eurasian world, including ancient Egypt, the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, India, and Han China envisioned the world in which they lived and the diverse peoples that inhabited it. Through lecture and discussion, we will explore a variety of visual representations and textual sources—from ancient works of medicine and science to canonical texts of scripture—which all participated in ancient intellectual exercises of geography, ethnography, and cosmography. We will investigate not only how different ancient cultures understood the mechanics of the universe, but how they envisioned and represented “the Other,” those who dwelled beyond the rim of the recognizable world. We will also consider how these intellectual constructions became fossilized, just who learned and benefited from them, and how they could be used to legitimize systems of oppression from antiquity to today.

JEREMY SIMMONS is Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and specializes in ancient Indian Ocean trade. His current research seeks to demonstrate how Indian Ocean products like spices reached far more consumers throughout the ancient world than their labels of “luxury” would suggest. He is also interested in developing comparative frameworks for understanding ancient conceptions of the world and the transmission of this knowledge, whether through geography, mapmaking, or ethnographic treatments.

FYSEM-UA 900
Topics: Ancient Greek Tragedy
Spring 2021
Instructor: Laura Viidebaum
Friday 9.30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and General Chemistry II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Of the ancient Greeks’ many gifts to Western culture, one of the most celebrated and influential is the art of drama. This course provides an introduction to Greek tragedy through the best available translations. We will read original plays, think about the context where they were created, analyze the function they served, and examine the difficult questions that these performances explored head-on. Our primary focus will be on the famous triad Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides though we will also read fragments from their contemporaries and use Aristophanes’ comedy Frogs as a backdrop for thinking about the role of drama in the ancient world. Ancient Greek tragedy explores human relationships at their most complex and intimate – in our family and kinship – and demonstrates the broader and timeless questions that emerge in these contexts, the nature of justice and the relations between the human and the divine. There are often no easy solutions – is there something that Greek tragedy can teach us? We will also approach tragedy as a vehicle to examine the difficulties of translation and transmission of texts and ideas from Antiquity to today. How should we go about investigating ancient cultures or, for that matter, any culture other than our own? And more importantly – why?

LAURA VIIDEBAUM is Assistant Professor of Classics at NYU. She received her PhD in Classics from Cambridge in 2015 and moved subsequently to New York, where she has been teaching since. Her primary research interests are ancient rhetoric, drama, philosophy and literary criticism. Her first book Creating the Ancient Rhetorical Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 2021) looks at the emergence of the rhetorical tradition from the fourth to the first century BCE Greece and Rome. She has also published on the reception of ancient drama and is keeping a close eye on performances of ancient drama that take place in New York City.

FYSEM-UA 820
Antisemitism: History and Contemporary Reality
Spring 2021
Instructor: Ilana Ben-Ezra      
Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Identity and Society

Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

History is replete with examples of minority groups being subjected to persecution, stereotyped, and treated as undesirable others by the majority culture. While by no means the only group that has experienced discrimination and suffered violence, Jews have repeatedly been made into objects of hate and targets of brutality. We explore the development of antisemitism from antiquity through modernity, looking in depth at texts, ideas, and historical conditions that fostered unflattering and derogatory stereotypes and motifs about Jews. We try to understand how expressions of antisemitism have evolved or persisted. Through studying antisemitism, we aim for a greater appreciation and understanding of how derogatory rhetoric and stereotypes about any group can inflict lasting damage.  

ILANA BEN-EZRA is a is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her Ph.D. in NYU’s Departments of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History. Her research focuses on medieval Jewish-Christian relations, with a special focus on discourses about religious identity and otherness in legal texts and norms. She is interested in deepening understandings of the ways in which differing peoples conceive of one another, conditions and conceptions that enable peaceful coexistence, and sources of tension.

FYSEM-UA 771

Art of Doing Nothing: Idlers, Drifters, Slackers, and Fugitives in Literature and Film
Spring 2021
Instructor: Michael Krimper        
Monday and Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

What would it take to stop working? To refuse work? Give it up? To do something else, besides productive activity and labor, or nothing at all? And how might doing nothing introduce radically different senses of freedom than what we’re used to? In this seminar, we’ll think about some of the ways that modern literature and film reflect on the art of doing nothing, frequently turning the city or its outskirts into a locus for personal and collective struggle, resistance, and transformation. Our aim will be to examine strategies for breaking free from the dominance of work, as illustrated by figures like the slacker, idler, cruiser, fugitive, drifter, ambler, streetwalker, and the so-called flâneur/flâneuse primarily but not exclusively within the urban topographies of New York, Paris, and London from the nineteenth century onward. We will pay special attention to the critical potentialities of unmanaged and wayward lives at the intersection of race, class, sexual orientation, and gender. Throughout we will read fiction and poetry by Baudelaire, Bataille, Beckett, Boyer, Breton, Calle, Delany, Jacobs, Kafka, Melville, Poe, and Woolf; and theoretical work by Barthes, Benjamin, Federici, Hartman, and Weeks. We will also view films by Tsai, Varda, and Chalfant/Silver (namely, the classic hiphop documentary Style Wars).

MICHAEL KRIMPER teaches in the Department of French, Gallatin, and Liberal Studies at New York University, where he received his PhD in Comparative Literature not so long ago. He specializes in francophone and anglophone literature from the nineteenth century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of aesthetics and politics in transatlantic modernisms. His current book project examines how work becomes a problem across a wide array of literature, art, and philosophy in postwar Europe and the Americas. His articles, reviews, and translations have been published New Literary History, SubStance, the Journal of Italian Philosophy, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among other venues. Before joining NYU, he worked as a music journalist in California.

FYSEM-UA 782
At World’s End: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Societal Collapse
Spring 2021
Instructor: Sarah Adcock       
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Why do societies collapse, and when they do, what happens next? What does it mean to say a society has collapsed? And what might the failures of past societies tell us about our future? Using case studies on collapse from the past (Western and Eastern Roman Empires; the Maya; Angkor; Cahokia), the present (the post-Soviet world; Detroit; Syria), and the future (the zombie apocalypse), students will learn what societal collapse is and how it functions. We will examine the potential causes of collapse as well as its social and material effects, and we will explore the usefulness of collapse as an analytic framework and examine potential alternatives. This course emphasizes the importance of the current moment in shaping interpretations of the past and will include discussions of contemporary topics relating to collapse, including environmental change, urban ruins, and the Anthropocene. This course will enable students to bring knowledge about societal collapse to current conversations in scholarly fields, as well as to discussions of collapse in popular culture.

SARAH ADCOCK is Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Her research examines how people living in the ancient world responded to the impacts of societal collapse. She specializes in the study of animal remains from archaeological sites and uses them to examine how past human-animal relationships were shaped by collapse. Her current work focuses on the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean region around 1200 BCE. She received her Ph.D. and her M.A. from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago and her B.A. in Archaeology and English Literature from Baylor University.

FYSEM-UA 785
Becoming Ecospheric: Embracing Life on a Damaged Planet
Spring 2021
Instructor: Una Chaudhuri       
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Environmental Studies

Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This seminar explores current theories and practices for understanding—and learning to live responsibly and creatively on—our deeply damaged planet. The theoretical readings will be drawn from the fields of critical climate studies, environmental humanities, new materialism, and multi-species ethnography, and will include such thinkers as Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, Bruno Latour, and Jane Bennet. Their ideas will be explored with the help of a range of imaginative works in many genres: film, theatre, graphic novels, visual art, and performance.  A central interest of the course will be in trying out new ways of creating knowledge beyond reading and writing. To that end, we will experiment with a variety of activities and practices, including creative work, to engage with the question: what do we need to know and to do—as individuals and groups—in order for the planet's geophysical systems, landscapes, and species (including our own) to thrive?

UNA CHAUDHURI is Collegiate Professor and Professor of English, Drama, and Environmental Studies at New York University, as well as Director of the graduate program XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement. She is a pioneer in the fields of eco-theatre and animal studies. Her recent publications include Animal Acts: Performing Species Today (co-edited with Holly Hughes); The Ecocide Project: Research Theatre and Climate Change (co-authored with Shonni Enelow); and The Stage Lives of Animals: Zooësis and Performance. Professor Chaudhuri participates in collaborative creative projects, including the multi-platform intervention entitled Dear Climate, and is a founding member of CLIMATE LENS.

FYSEM-UA 777
Beyond Athletics: Sports, Politics and Belonging in Europe and the U.S.
Fall 2020
Instructor: Jasmine Samara
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Identity and Society

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.).

This course examines sports as politics, exploring sports as a site for debating national identity, rights, and citizenship across Europe and the U.S. From Greek NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo to the “multicultural” French and German World Cup soccer teams, athletes find themselves as political symbols at the center of public debates on immigration and multiculturalism, racial justice and gender equity. Sports can be a site for negotiating changing gender norms: for example, the use of sex testing to determine who can compete in gender-segregated competitions shows how ideas about culture and biology intersect with the legal regulation of identity. Sports shape international relations, from Cold War diplomacy to boycotts, in ways that reflect national ideas about gender and race. And in the U.S., athletes have used celebrity status to protest histories of racial injustice. We will examine these cases to explore: How is belonging determined, based on what criteria? How are cultural norms, political systems and ideas about the nation reproduced or challenged through sports? What is the potential, and what are the limits, of sports as a site for rights activism?

JASMINE SAMARA is a Faculty Fellow at New York University's Center for European and Mediterranean Studies. She is a legal scholar and social anthropologist whose work explores debates on law, rights and identity politics in contemporary Europe. 

FYSEM-UA 822
Bioethics: Life and Death
Spring 2021
Instructor: Jeanne Proust
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesdays, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

This course applies the ethical insights of philosophy to issues about life, death, bioethics, and medicine in an introductory way. Technological advances in health care made it possible to sustain biological life beyond the moment when the patient would have died without such intervention. As patients, their families, physicians and clergy were drawn into the end of life decision-making process, it became clear that more philosophical work needed to be done to provide guidance in these situations. The objective of this course is to expand students’ knowledge of issues related to death, dying and life in applied ethics. It examines various questions regarding the ethical, legal, and social implications of advances in biotechnology and biomedicine, and aims at providing a foundation in historical, philosophical, and socio-scientific approaches and frameworks to address bioethical challenges. Students will learn to read philosophy articles critically, as well as discovering how different philosophers have approached ethical issues and applied them to prominent debates in bioethics. The course will examine the major ethical theories on what is morally right and wrong, and the meaning of fundamental moral concepts. Focus, however, is upon ethical problems associated with the practice of medicine and biomedical research. Topics will include topics like abortion, issues about the rights of the unborn, euthanasia and Physician-assisted Suicide, Genetic Testing, Genetic Therapy and Discrimination, Infertility and In Vitro Fertilization, Surrogate Parenting, and Cloning.

JEANNE PROUST earned her PhD at the Sorbonne and studied philosophy and the arts in Bordeaux and Berlin as well as Paris. She has taught courses in philosophy (specifically critical thinking and ethics), as well as art history, visual arts, and French literature, at NYU, Pace University, the City University of New York, Miami Dade College, and Marymount Manhattan College. She brings philosophy to the world outside academia by giving numerous talks about interdisciplinary subjects related to moral questions for ThinkOlio, an association that organizes lectures in public spaces throughout New York City. She co-wrote The Feeling of Injustice in Popular Songs with Professor Charles Ramond of Université Paris 8.

FYSEM-UA 634
#BlackLanguageMatters
Fall 2020
Instructor: Renée Blake
Thursday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: Identity and Society

This seminar is about language—more specifically, the many ways African Americans use language to express their personal and community identities. The course focuses primarily on the language variety known as African American English, which often serves as a guise for deep-seated racial ideologies about African Americans and Black people more generally. We will study the linguistic structure of African American English and theories about its origins. We explore how language is used to convey social identity—particularly regarding race and ethnicity—and make meaning of one’s life. Issues addressed include language variation, language contact and change, and social and linguistic discrimination. Finally, we consider African American English as a nexus of ideas on race, identity, sexuality, violence, and equality in the United States and abroad, with reference to Cornel West’s Race Matters (1994) and the more recent #BlackLivesMatter movement.

RENÉE A. BLAKE is Associate Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, and a founding member of the Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora (CSAAD) at NYU. Her research examines language contact, race, ethnicity, class, and gender with a focus on African American English, Caribbean Creole English, and New York City English. Her work has been published in many journals, including Language in Society, Language and Education, Journal of English Linguistics, Language, Variation and Change, and English Today. She is the Associate Producer of the award-winning Talking Black in America. She has served as a consultant to many programs and organizations, including Disney and the Ford Foundation. She has developed two web-based linguistic sites: “Word. The Online Journal on African American English” and “Voices of New York” (nyuvoicesofnewyork.com). Professor Blake is a recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award and is a faculty leader in the Presidential Honors Scholars Program. She is also a specialist on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

FYSEM-UA 787
Born, Not Made? (Mis)understanding Genius
Spring 2021
Instructor: Amanda Kotch        
Thursday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Identity and Society

Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.), spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m. and F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and Accelerated General Chemistry Recitation (F 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The concept of “genius” celebrates originality and the advancement of ideas across the arts and sciences (there’s even a grant for it), but it has also been associated with inaccessible material, personal suffering, and perceptions of an unstable mind. This seminar explores genius as a cultural category used to understand knowledge production and artistic achievement from the romantic period to the present. Engaging with a wide range of texts from a variety of genres—philosophical treatises, artists’ notebooks, essays by and about scientists, plays, poems, musical recordings, and more—we’ll trace the ways genius transforms from a category mediating between earthly and spiritual realms into one that celebrates intellectual and creative labor while simultaneously rendering it rare and precarious. Some questions we’ll take up together include: How did “genius” become associated with individual creators in the first place? What is the relationship of genius to intelligence, talent, labor, and perseverance? Does genius have a gender? What stories do we tell about genius, and why is the narrative of the tragic genius, in particular, so persistent? And what is our role as consumers of the work of so-called geniuses?

AMANDA KOTCH is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. She received her PhD in Nineteenth-Century British Literature from Rutgers University, where she also previously taught. She is interested in the relationship between art, death, curiosity, and writing, with an emphasis on literary biography and site-specific narratives (cemeteries, death houses, libraries, museums, artists' studios, theatres, etc.) Her writing has appeared in Studies in English Literature (SEL), Biography, and The Morbid Anatomy Online Journal.

FYSEM-UA 748
Childhood and Youth in Cinema
Spring 2021
Instructor: Bruno Guaraná
Monday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesdays, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.).

We look at a wide range of films that offer different cultural and historical representations of children, childhood, and youth, paying close attention to how they manifest certain themes both aesthetically and narratively. The figure of the child in cinema may simultaneously convey crude realism and romantic nostalgia; but, beyond this tension, children in films also stand for tropes of innocence, dependence, inaptitude, sexuality, desire, and suffering, among others. We consider several questions: Why and how do filmmakers focus on child characters in their critiques of society, history, power, and discrimination? How do children on screen convey realism and/or nostalgia, future and/or past? Is the thematic rigidity of “childhood in cinema” a productive or a reductive analytical framework? We explore a range of visual and written texts from around the globe as a means of questioning and understanding changing notions of childhood and its representation in cinema.

BRUNO GUARANÁ is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the College of Arts and Science. He received his PhD in Cinema Studies from NYU, and his MA in Film from Columbia University. His research explores negotiations of cultural citizenship in contemporary Brazilian media through an intersectional approach. Bruno has taught courses in several departments at NYU, including Media, Culture, and Communication, and Cinema Studies, as well as in the Film Department at Brooklyn College, CUNY. He currently serves as the Page Views editor at Film Quarterly.

FYSEM-UA 796
Clothes and the City: Urban Fashion in Literature and the Visual Arts
Spring 2021
Instructor: Nicolas Estournel         
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Whether we “dress for success” or wear our pajamas to the grocery store, the clothes we put on our body all have a meaning. Though clothes are an essential part of our everyday life, do we ever stop and think about what they signify, and how they are perceived by people who look at them? We explore the representation of urban fashion in cities across the globe—Paris, London, New York, Hong Kong, Constantinople, Kinshasa, and Brazzaville—from the nineteenth century to the present, in a range of texts, films, paintings, and graphic novels that enable us to grasp the importance of clothing to issues of gender, social class, sexuality, and (post-) colonialism. Students engage in observing the clothes of New York City, take on a set of clothes-hunting journeys, and look carefully at the ways people dress in various neighborhoods.

NICOLAS ESTOURNEL is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He earned his Ph.D. in NYU’s Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture. At the intersection of literature, philosophy, and visual studies, his research explores the concept of surface as a medium connecting the world and the individual. His work draws on contemporary theory to examine the representations of various types of surfaces—skin, clothes, mirrors, screens, pages, drapery—in literature and cinema. He has published articles and book chapters on George Sand, 19th-century dandyism, Roland Barthes, and Alain Mabanckou.

FYSEM-UA 805
College Students Studying College
Spring 2021
Instructor: Ethan Youngerman        
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This seminar will examine student experiences in and outcomes of college; because college is such a multi-faceted area of study, and because the field of Higher Education is an interdisciplinary field, our work will draw not only on education research but also on such disparate traditions as psychology, writing studies, statistics, and documentary filmmaking. Reading and employing both quantitative methods (including survey design and statistical analysis) and qualitative methods (including focus groups, interviews, and document analysis), we will aim to describe true college experiences, while staying deeply attuned to the reality that collegians may have different experiences depending on what identities they hold.

ETHAN YOUNGERMAN is a Senior Language Lecturer in NYU's Expository Writing Program and is also a playwright. He won the CAS Golden Dozen Teaching Award in 2013. Ethan's research interests include integrative learning, composition, and residential learning environments; he's the founding director of the College Students Studying College undergraduate research team, run through NYU's VIP program. His research on undergraduate experiences and outcomes has appeared in AERA Open, Learning Communities Research and Practice, New Directions for Higher Education, and The SAGE Encyclopedia of Higher Education, among others. He's worked on the Assessment of Collegiate Residential Environments and Outcomes, ACREO (formerly the Study of Integrated Living Learning Programs) since its launch and, in that capacity, has contributed to the technical reports for 17 different institutions across the country; he's also involved in residential education through his appointment as a Faculty Fellow in Residence in University Hall. He received his B.A. from Yale, his M.F.A. from NYU Tisch's Department of Dramatic Writing, and his Ed.D. from NYU Steinhardt's Higher Education Program. 

FYSEM-UA 714
Crystallization in Life: Stories about Shells, Bones, and Kidney Stones
Spring 2021
Instructor: Zhihua An         
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Molecules of Material and Living Systems

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Prerequisites: a score of 4 or 5 on the Chemistry Advanced Placement exam, and a score of 4 or 5 on either Calculus or Biology AP (or equivalent international credentials).

This seminar introduces students to the world of biomineralization, the branch of chemistry that deals with crystal formation under the influence of biomolecules. Through readings, lectures, research projects, and assignments, students learn and study the fundamentals of crystal formation, crystal properties, and the structure of crystals surrounding us. We begin with solution chemistry, crystallization theory, and various aspects of the crystallization process in nature and then move on to the specific case studies of the title, with attention to biomolecules (proteins, lipids, etc.) and their roles in controlling the crystallization process. Understanding the biomineralization process in the formation of kidney stones can lead to preventative drug development, which illustrates a practical application of the field in biomedical science. In addition, studying the crystallization process in nature can lead to new bioinspired materials, such as optical fibers.

ZHIHUA AN is Clinical Associate Professor of Chemistry at New York University. Prior to joining NYU, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Columbia University, and at New York University. She holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor An’s research interests are biomaterials self-assembly, biointerface functionalization and engineering, and pathological biomineralization. Her work has appeared in Science, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cancer Letters, and more than ten other journals.

FYSEM-UA 774
Cuba: An American History
Spring 2021
Instructor: Ada Ferrer         
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: First-Generation Cohort

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: FYSEM-UA 474, What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 774, Cuba: An American History are strongly recommended for first-generation students. They provide an excellent opportunity to join a close-knit community of your peers who also identify as the first in their families to pursue higher education. Both seminars are taught by professors who were the first in their family to earn a four-year degree.

This seminar explores the question of how Cuba, one Europe’s longest-lived colonies, became so intricately tied to the United States. It asks: how did a place that on several occasions almost became a U.S. state and that for a long time served as a favorite haunt of American mobsters and missionaries, honeymooners, and businessmen reinvent itself as a beacon of third-world socialism, brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction, outlived the Soviet Union, and now once again beckons American travelers and investors. Starting (briefly) with the arrival of Columbus and the indigenous communities he encountered, and ending with the Cuba policies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, this course will explore in depth the intimate, fraught relationship between the two countries.

ADA FERRER is Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She is the author of two prize-winning books, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898, and Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution. She is currently finishing a book titled, Cuba: An American History.

FYSEM-UA 814
Democracy and Science in the Year of the Pandemic
Spring 2021
Instructor: Paul Romer
Tuesday, 2:00-4:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

This seminar explores the complex interactions between science, politics, and our quality of life. Many examinations of these interactions highlight the positive and skip the political by looking at examples where a new scientific insight seems to improve the quality of life, but without any intervention by policymakers or the voters they represent. The events we lived through during 2020 give us a unique opportunity to step back and ask the hard but essential question: How can a society take advantage of scientific expertise without ceding the control that voters have to exert, through the politicians they elect, over the course that the nation will follow?

PAUL ROMER is an economist and policy entrepreneur and co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He has spent his career at the intersection of economics, innovation, technology, and urbanization, working to speed up human progress. He is currently a University Professor at NYU. Paul previously taught at Stanford, and while there, started Aplia, an education technology company he later sold to Thomson Learning. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Chicago.

FYSEM-UA 734
Derrida’s Archive Fever
Spring 2021
Instructor: Juliet Fleming
Tuesday and Thursday, 9.30-10.45 a.m.

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

What is an archive? Is it a library, a legacy, a school of thought? For that matter, what does each of these terms mean? Derrida’s Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (1995) has provoked intense conversations among archivists, philosophers, historians, psychoanalysts, and social scientists about the archive and its relation to questions of memory.  But what is he actually arguing? In this seminar we will read Archive Fever and the literary, philosophical and other works that underlie and are necessary to understand it. In particular we will be reading a significant quantity of Freud: we will start with selections from Introductory Lectures to Psychoanalysis (1915-16); move through his detailed reading of a German novella, Delusion and Dream in Jensen’s Gradiva: A Pompeian Fancy (1907); study Freud’s famous essay on the death drive “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920); and finally encounter his strange and controversial late work, Moses and Montheism (1939). Our first aim is to learn to read both Derrida’s famously difficult writing and Freud’s notoriously provocative work accurately and with pleasure: our final aim is to see how it is possible to ask questions about our own most deeply held assumptions.

JULIET FLEMING is Professor in the Department of English, Faculty Fellow in Residence at the Palladium, and the recipient of a Golden Dozen Undergraduate Teaching Award. She is a literary theorist and translator of Derrida who specializes as a theorist of writing, and has worked on such topics as graffiti, tattooing, collaging, and taxidermy.

FYSEM-UA 783
DNA: From the Double Helix to Nanotechnology
Spring 2021
Instructor: Yoel Ohayon     
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Molecules of Material and Living Systems

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

DNA from the basics to some of today's sophisticated applications. We begin with the experiments that first identified DNA as the molecule of heredity and read The Double Helix by James Watson, which gives a lively (and biased) first-person account of the discovery of this crucial building block of life. The seminar then moves on to technical issues and considerations: how does DNA store genetic information, and how does a cell process this information using the genetic code? At the end of the seminar, we build on these foundations and learn about DNA nanotechnology and its many potential applications in science and healthcare.

YOEL OHAYON is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at New York University. He received his B.A. in biochemistry from New York University (2000), his M.Phil. in chemistry from New York University (2008) and Ph.D. in chemistry from New York University (2010).  He joined the faculty of New York University in 2011. His research interests include DNA topology and self-assembled 3D DNA crystals.

FYSEM-UA 379
Doctor’s Dilemma: Being Both Correct and Right
Spring 2021
Instructor: Michael E. Makover        
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Health and Society

Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.).

Dr. Saul Farber, former Dean of the NYU School of Medicine, frequently cautioned that just because an action or conclusion was correct did not mean that it was right. Ethics, laws, and religious and cultural beliefs intersect in every medical encounter and healthcare issue, affecting patients’ options and care. The challenging issues to be studied and debated in this seminar include the following: Should doctors help terminal patients die to relieve intractable suffering? Should doctors participate in executions or in the interrogation of terrorists? Do we want to know so much about our genetic makeup that we are faced with terribly difficult consequences of that knowledge? Is “alternative medicine” a reasonable alternative? What makes a good doctor good? Who should pay for your healthcare? The course aims to teach students how to address such questions by learning to think like doctors and scientists, to apply logic tempered by human values and experience, to analyze information critically, and to present ideas effectively and honestly.

MICHAEL E. MAKOVER is Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine and Attending Physician at the NYU Medical Center. He is also the Chief Medical Officer for a major union. An internist and rheumatologist, he is the author of Mismanaged Care, as well as articles on healthcare quality, ethics, and economics, and is currently writing another book entitled 120 Years Young. He was an aide to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and a spokesman for the American Cancer Society and the New York Heart Association.

FYSEM-UA 797
Erotic Empires
Spring 2021
Instructor: Andrew Ragni       
Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and Accelerated General Chemistry Recitation (F 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

We interrogate canonical texts of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European literature and travel writing by formulating questions about the erotic dimension of Orientalism. How is sexuality configured in colonial writing? What does this configuration tell us about the ideological map superimposed over the colony and the metropole? How is the historical practice of literary criticism informed by this sexual hierarchy, as in the psychoanalytic tradition of literary interpretation? Why do popular media feature the white colonizer striking up a romance with the brown colonized before “switching sides,” as in Pocahontas or Avatar? Students are introduced to literary criticism by closely reading a diverse collection of theoretical and primary texts that offer a global perspective on the history of European colonization. In so doing, they not only learn how to recognize Orientalist stereotypes but fashion a critical toolkit to unpack the effects of these colonial racisms on some of the most important discursive formations of the twentieth century.

ANDREW RAGNI is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He earned his Ph.D. from NYU in Comparative Literature. He researches colonial modernist literature, travel writing, and queer/psychoanalytic theory, and has published in Differences, philoSOPHIA, and Performa. His book project, Encrypted Resistances: Anticolonialism and Psychoanalysis, situates the work of Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalytic thinkers within a nexus of anti-colonial critique generated by proto-queer intellectuals from the early twentieth century.

FYSEM-UA 775
Ethics and Activism
Fall 2020
Instructor: Aisha Khan      
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 pm), Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

What is empathy? Does it aid or complicate activism? Does it influence scholarly activities such as ethnography? Working among communities, whether as scholars, journalists, human rights workers, or health care practitioners requires grappling with positions or persons one may find sympathetic—or not. Either perspective is multidimensional and complicated because such work requires spending extended time with interlocutors. Fieldworkers must generate rapport, empathy, and intimacy with their subjects—but without losing objectivity. The ethics of such encounters hinge both on doing no harm and on doing good—through advocacy, opposition, or expressions that are not so straightforward. Doing no harm is a clear-cut ethical imperative. But do empathy, intimacy, and approval fall within the same categorical imperative? What happens when boundaries break down between researcher and subject, sympathy and ambivalence, rapport and incompatibility? This seminar explores exemplary cases from across the globe, paying particular attention to the production of knowledge—both as text and as “activism” that engages the ambiguities and conventions that structure our societies and lived experience.

AISHA KHAN is a cultural anthropologist in NYU’s Department of Anthropology. Her research areas focus on the Caribbean and its Asian and African diasporas. She has conducted ethnographic and archival research in Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Haiti. She is particularly interested in exploring the contradictions that may be generated by the Western concept of identity when it is simultaneously a foundation for social equality and an instrument through which social inequality is reinforced. She teaches courses on racial and religious hierarchies in the Americas, colonial and postcolonial societies, ethical questions that are connected to social activism, and Muslims in the Americas.

FYSEM-UA 506
Game Theory and the Humanities
Spring 2021
Instructor: Steven J. Brams        
Wednesday, 4:55–7:25 p.m.    
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Prerequisite: No mathematical background beyond high school mathematics is assumed, but a willingness to learn and apply sophisticated reasoning to analyze the interactions of players in games is essential.

Game theory is a mathematical theory of strategy that has been applied to the analysis of conflict and cooperation in such fields as economics, political science, and biology. In this seminar, we discuss more unusual applications—to history, literature, philosophy, the Bible, theology, and law. We discuss Abraham’s decision to offer his son Isaac for sacrifice; the choices made by accused witches and their persecutors in medieval witch trials; Lady Macbeth's incitement of her husband to murder King Duncan in Shakespeare’s play; several strategic games played by presidents and their antagonists in domestic crises (e.g., the Civil War) and international crises (e.g., the Cuban missile crisis), and coping mechanisms used by characters in catch-22 games (including those in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22).

STEVEN J. BRAMS is Professor of Politics at NYU. He is author, co-author, or co-editor of 19 books and about 300 articles. He has applied game theory and social-choice theory to voting and elections, bargaining and fairness, international relations, and the Bible, theology, and literature. He is a former president of the Peace Science Society (1990-91) and of the Public Choice Society (2004-2006). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1986), a Guggenheim Fellow (1986-87), and was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation (1998-99).

FYSEM-UA 695
Gestures, Movement, and Literature
Spring 2021
Instructor: Lourdes Davila          
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.   
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Working in the space of articulation between dance, literature, and politics, this seminar examines movement(s) and dance as a key element with which to read transformative moments of history, culture, politics, and philosophy. How do philosophers use the body dancing as a metaphor for thought? How do we read the body dancing before Columbus’ arrival as the first archive of knowledge and resistance? How does the dancing body enter the stage of race relations in 19th century Cuba? What impact does US modern dance have in the political history of the nation and how is it that a Mexican, José Limón, stands as one of the leading figures in US modern dance? Why is it that political movements use the term “movement” to speak of a politics, and what impact does that have on the political histories of bodies? The course will include texts by Cirilo Villaverde, García Lorca, Luis Palés Matos, Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Andrés Caicedo, Claudia Salazar and Mario Bellatin; the films of Almodóvar; and flamenco dance and the dances of José Limón, Martha Graham and Pina Bausch, Oscar Araiz and Alicia Díaz. The theoretical and philosophical bases will be provided by Nietzsche, Agamben, Ranciére, Marie Bardet, Lepecki, and Badiou, all of whom talk specifically about the art of movement, about movement and politics, or about movement and dance as metaphor for thought. The course understands as a premise that we can use the history of dance and movement as a way of understanding history and politics in Latin America.

LOURDES DÁVILA is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and a two-time Golden Dozen Teaching Award winner. Since the 1980s, she has written and published widely on Julio Cortázar’s writing. Her first book, The Image Arrives on a Verbal Shore, focuses on Cortázar’s use of visual language. She has published multiple articles on photography and literature and dance and literature, and is the editor of the essay collection La variable Bellatin. She has worked as a translator since the early eighties in the fields of art and literature. She is the managing editor of the undergraduate online journal Esferas, produced by Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She also worked as a professional dancer for 25 years and is now working on a book about the relationship between dance and literature.

FYSEM-UA 484
Global Citizenship: Podcasting Global Issues
Spring 2021
Instructor: Ulrich Baer      
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Are there universal values? Do all people, cultures, and countries value freedom, justice, and personal autonomy in the same way—or do some strike a different balance between protecting individuals while maintaining the common good? Globalization, which describes both the current state of interdependence among people and a mindset that tries to account for everyone on the planet (and perhaps for the planet itself), brings these questions into sharp relief. How can one country impose rules for environmental pollution when toxins travel across the border? How can a country say that a free press is allowed to criticize rulers and religious authorities when the internet is accessible anywhere? New York City is a perfect place to test whether there are indeed universal values and how different people who hold disparate values and follow diverse rules can live together. The class will actively produce episodes for the podcast Think About It, dedicated to in-depth conversations on big ideas. The seminar will teach students how to prepare for intelligent interviews through background research; how to outline questions; how to professionally record someone; and how to edit, format, and upload interviews as professional podcasts. No technical skills are necessary, but students should be curious, open-minded, and enjoy a dynamic teaching environment that is not only a classroom, but also a studio and an editing suite.

ULRICH BAER, University Professor of Comparative Literature and German in FAS and Photography and Imaging in the Tisch School of the Arts, was awarded the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1998 and 2004. He hosts the podcast Think About It, and is the author of What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech, Equality, and Truth in the University; The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke; Remnants of Song: Trauma and the Experience of Modernity in Charles Baudelaire and Paul Celan; Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma; 110 Stories: New York Writes after September 11; and numerous essays, editorials, and articles on subjects such as free speech, higher education, politics, and art.

FYSEM-UA 747
Graves, Bodies, and Books: Funerary Commemorations from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century
Spring 2021
Instructor: Stephanie Crooks
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

In 2014, the start-up company Eterni.me began offering its services to preserve deceased loved ones as 3-D avatars. In the first four days of its existence, the company registered 3,000 people on its site and, consequently, joined the ranks of many other companies in the “e-death” industry that promise to prolong the life of a family member or friend beyond biological death. Companies like Eterni.me—and the digital age, more generally—will surely change the way that societies commemorate their dead; yet humans have always named their dead and marked their final resting places with a monument to ensure that they will be remembered beyond a single generation. We explore the human tendency to locate the dead in society and to engage with them postmortem through a series of literary case studies with a focus on the commemoration of deceased poets, and ask why it is that poets’ tombs are the destination of much literary tourism. Who visits poets’ tombs? What do they do there? How does the tomb help ensure a poet’s “immortality” after his biological death? To answer these and similar questions we study ancient Greek and Latin poetry and the tombs that ancient poets imagine for themselves in their verse. We then turn to a selection of funerary monuments dedicated to Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romantic poets. Finally, we will consider the twenty-first century’s evolving relationship to traditional modes of commemoration, as well as to digital and experimental forms of memorialization. Authors include: Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Voltaire, Keats, Shelley.

STEPHANIE CROOKS has served as a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. Her research focuses on representations of tombs in Latin poetry, and in particular, on those tombs which poets imagine for themselves in their verse. Her work questions how the literary tombs of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, as well as those of their characters, compare to actual commemorative practices from the first century BCE through the first century CE. She is also interested in the concept of necrotourism and the place of a writer’s tomb in the reader’s imagination.

FYSEM-UA 781
Happiness in Film
Spring 2021
Instructor: Ludovic Cortade         
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

This seminar investigates the representations of happiness in film, drawing on a variety of sources and disciplines including cinema studies, history, philosophy, positive psychology, ethology, and cultural studies. We will discuss the notion of “happiness” through the lens of different historical and cultural contexts, and consider how film techniques are used in those contexts to convey positive emotions. Topics include: the transformation and rebirth of heroes in myths and fairy tales in film; the building of the self away from social determinisms; “happy-endings” in classical Hollywood cinema, including comedies and musicals; the politics of happiness, race, class, and gender in world cinema; happiness and the practice of frugality; the building of common ground across communities, nations, and species.

Professor LUDOVIC CORTADE is Associate Professor in the Department of French and Associate Faculty in the Department of Cinema Studies. His books include Le Cinéma de l’immobilité. His research fields include film history and theory. Professor Cortade has previously taught at Harvard University, the University of Toronto, Brown University, the Ecole normale supérieure, and the Sorbonne. He was twice awarded Harvard’s Derek Bok Certificate of Distinction in Teaching.

FYSEM-UA 753
Heroic Journeys: Homer, Vergil, Dante
Fall 2020
Instructor: Matthew S. Santirocco
Tuesday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.), Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Homer's Odyssey, Vergil's Aeneid, and Dante's Inferno are key foundational texts of the West. These works span two millennia and very different cultures—archaic Greece at the dawn of literature, pagan Rome of the first century BCE, and Florence during the Christian Middle Ages. Reflecting very different social, political, and religious values, they explore very different visions of what it means to be human, particularly with regard to the individual's role in society and the individual's relationship to the divine. But for all their differences, the three poems self-consciously engage with one another, building on, competing with, and correcting their predecessors' visions. Thus, all are cast as journeys by a hero, and these journeys are both literal and metaphorical. All three also involve a descent into the underworld, from which the hero is, in a sense, reborn with a greater understanding and a new sense of purpose. As if to underscore the way in which these texts talk with one another, the Homeric underworld in the Odyssey is actually Vergil's model for the underworld that his hero, Aeneas, will visit; and Dante goes even further by making Vergil a character in his poem, the pagan spirit who will guide him through and out of the Christian hell. This course will involve close reading and discussion of the three poems. In addition, the seminar aims to develop students' research skills. These skills include how to ask the right questions about a text, how to conduct an internet search of relevant scholarship, how to write up a literature review, and, finally, how to build on that work to produce a paper that sets forth one's own conclusions. No prior knowledge of these texts and no familiarity with research skills are required. What is required is intellectual curiosity and a commitment to work hard and collaboratively.

MATTHEW S. SANTIROCCO is Professor of Classics and Angelo J. Ranieri Director of Ancient Studies at NYU; he is also Faculty Director of NYU Washington, DC. He served as Seryl Kushner Dean of the College of Arts and Science from 1994 to 2011, and then as NYU’s Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs until 2017, when he returned full-time to teaching. His interests range widely from ancient Greek and Latin literature and thought to issues in American higher education. He founded and directs NYU’s Center for Ancient Studies, which promotes interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the past. Among his many publications are a book on the Roman lyric poet, Horace, and several edited volumes, including a recent issue of Daedalus on new approaches to the study of Greece and Rome; in addition, he currently edits the Palgrave-Macmillan monograph series, The New Antiquity, and is working on a book on the poetics of patronage in Augustan Rome. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and serves as Assistant Secretary of the Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

FYSEM-UA 548
History of Disbelief
Spring 2021
Instructor: Mitchell Stephens       
Thursday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.), Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This seminar takes up an extended history of atheism and doubt (in the context of a history of religion). It begins with a consideration of anthropology, the Hebrews, and India before discussing the skeptics and the development of disbelief in ancient Greece and Rome. The course then follows the uneven progress of this idea and its consequences in continental Europe during the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Romantic period, and in 19th-century England and America, where disbelief was allied with radical politics. Finally, we move on to the connections between disbelief and realism, modernism and postmodernism. The main arguments for and against the existence of God are considered. However, the main purpose of this course is to force students to confront and grapple with some of the most sophisticated and profound human expressions of disbelief.

MITCHELL STEPHENS is Professor of Journalism. His book Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World was recently published by Palgrave. He is also the author of, among other books, the rise of the image the fall of the word and A History of News. His articles on media issues, philosophy, anthropology, physics, and other subjects have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and other publications. His current book project is on the future of journalism.

 

The following six Global First-Year Seminars (FYSEM-UA 9900-9905) are open to spring 2021 Go Local students only:

FYSEM-UA 9900
Topics: Food In France
Spring 2021
Instructor: Catherine Healey
Days: Tuesday and Thursday
Time (Paris): 10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Time (Shanghai): 5:45-7:00 p.m. through March 27; 4:45-6:00 p.m. from March 28 onwards

Open to Go Local students only

“Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are.” The French writer Brillat-Savarin coined his famous phrase almost one hundred years ago but it can just as easily be applied to our world today. With France as our primary focus, this class will explore just how much you can learn about a society from the way people produce, prepare and consume food. To unravel the myth and the reality of French foodways we will read texts, watch documentaries, fictional films and television programs, analyse advertising and marketing trends. We shall go on virtual visits to producers and consumers and even have a remote cheese tasting session! As we are an international class with members spread across the globe, we shall pay particular attention to the image of French cuisine throughout the world and compare French foodways to those of our own cultures and current places of residence. Most importantly this is a class where we can share our experiences and thoughts about food culture as a source for understanding global challenges from migration to  sustainability and beyond.

FYSEM-UA 9901
Topics: Comparative U.S. and European Human Rights
Spring 2021
Instructor: Adam Dubin
Days: Tuesday and Thursday
Time (Madrid): 8:00-9:15 a.m.
Time (Shanghai): 3:00-4:15 p.m. through March 27; 2:00-3:15 p.m. from March 28 onwards

Open to Go Local students only

This course is designed for first-year CAS students to engage in a comparative discussion and analysis of human rights between European countries and the United States of America. We will focus on how human rights norms, despite their supposed universality, are applied and interpreted differently between the United States and Europe as a result of cultural, historical, religious and other differences. To this end, we will read the jurisprudence coming from the United States Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights with an aim of exploring larger questions as to how this interpretation and application reflects cultural and historical questions common to individual European countries and the U.S.

FYSEM-UA 9902
Topics: Singing the Self: Opera and Identity in a Global Context
Spring 2021
Instructor: Gaia Varon
Days: Tuesday and Thursday
Time (Florence): 11:00 am-12:15 p.m.
Time (Shanghai): 6:00-7:15 p.m. through March 27; 5:00-6:15 p.m. from March 28 onwards

Open to Go Local students only. Please note, for spring 2021 only, students who complete FYSEM-UA 9902 Singing the Self with a passing grade also satisfy the CORE Expressive Culture requirement.

Can we cry for the love troubles of a prostitute or the sadness of a witch? Or laugh while watching a man of power harassing his servant? It happens with opera, the most dramatic, spectacular, and emotional form of European culture. Combining words, music and stage action, opera creates a separate, artificial, sometimes absurd, space and time where we experience intense and compelling emotions. While this is itself a pleasure, opera also challenges our biases and allows us to approach crucial issues of everyday life from an unusual perspective, distinct from ordinary experience: to what extent can an extravagant art form from the past prove itself truly contemporary and help us understand our present private and public life? To answer this question, this First-Year Seminar investigates opera in a multidisciplinary perspective. Meetings will be organized around individual operas, each one being taken as a vantage point to explore one main thematic issue (social mores, family ties, power, social hierarchy, seduction, death, loss, racial and gender stereotypes). This seminar is intended to help you appreciate one of the most profound and beautiful art forms, while also allowing you to reflect upon emotions that are important in your own lives.

FYSEM-UA 9903
Topics: Italy During the Renaissance: Florence
Spring 2021
Instructor: Matteo Duni
Days: Tuesday and Thursday
Time (Florence): 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Time (Shanghai): 4:30-5:45 p.m. through March 27; 3:30-4:45 p.m. from March 28 onwards

Open to Go Local students only

With its aura as a golden age of divine art and superhuman geniuses, of Machiavellian intrigue and ground-breaking discoveries, the Italian Renaissance still fascinates the contemporary collective imagination to such a degree that it is unmatched by many other historical periods. While scholars have now long dispelled parts of the mythical vision that the Renaissance was the cradle of modernity, it is undeniable that this historical period saw epic changes that would greatly affect European civilization in long-lasting ways. This course aims to unpack the Renaissance, focusing on the challenges that the new urban civilization, best embodied by the republic of Florence and typical of the Italian Peninsula, faced between roughly 1300 and 1600 CE. Students will engage with both primary sources and up-to-date scholarship illuminating some of the areas in which the Renaissance experience has been particularly original, and its legacy fruitful, but also on aspects seldom associated with it. Topics will include the rise of city-states with their unique political systems, the humanists’ re-evaluation of pagan antiquity and new conception of history, the impact of the printing press on ideas and cultural practices, the crisis of the Catholic Church in its different forms - from the outbreak of the witch-hunt to the interaction between humanistic and Protestant ideologies in the transition to the Counter-Reformation era.

FYSEM-UA 9904
Topics: Inter-American Relations: Latin America and the U.S.
Spring 2021
Instructor: Nicolás M. Comini
Days: Tuesday and Thursday
Time (Buenos Aires): 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Time (Shanghai): 9:00-10:15 p.m.

Open to Go Local students only

This course offers an introduction to the study of U.S.-Latin American relations. After a brief overview of the main theoretical perspectives within the field of international relations that can be used to understand the nature of the inter-American system, the course devotes to trace the historical interaction between the United States and its southern neighbors. The rest of the seminar focuses on the latter period to capture the central processes and key issue-areas of current U.S.-Latin American relations. It looks in detail at the post-1990 regional agenda. Case studies – the 2016 impeachment in Brazil, the post conflict in Colombia, the protests across the region, the Venezuelan crisis, the US-Cuba normalization, the TPP, G20 negotiations, the upcoming elections in Latin America and the increasing Chinese presence in Latin America – are used to illustrate the multifaceted and evolving nature of inter-American relations at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

FYSEM-UA 9905
Topics: Art in the City: Buenos Aires, New York, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City
Spring 2021
Instructor: Florencia Malbran
Days: Monday and Wednesday
Time (Buenos Aires): 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Time (Shanghai): 9:00-10:15 p.m.

Open to Go Local students only

This course studies modern and contemporary art and architecture through a strategic focus on the cities of Buenos Aires, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City. We consider key artworks and architectural movements, approaching art history in urban, sociohistorical and contextual terms. Emphasis is placed upon the city as a hub for the production and reception of art. Our speculations on the urban environment will bring up multiple questions that point back to and extend beyond the mere physical structure of the city, discovering arenas of social action. How does art exploit the characteristics of the metropolis? How is art distributed and consumed throughout the dense fabric of the city? We will explore the city art as the context and staging ground for art. Developing comparative perspectives on Buenos Aires, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City will illuminate the particularities of the places under investigation, albeit with reference to aesthetic trajectories as well as broader technological, economic, and social-political changes. New York is included in our selected network of Latin American cities, acknowledging its critical importance as a center of cultural experimentation where artists (including Latin American artists) share ideas in a global context. The course features lively conversations with invited artists and architects.

 

FYSEM-UA 801
History of Italian Opera
Fall 2020
Instructor: Roberto Scarcella Perino
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.), Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.), General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m).

The course covers the evolution of opera from Monteverdi to the early 20th century. The genres analyzed in this course are favola in musica, intermezzo, opera seria, opera buffa, grand opera, dramma lirico. Operatic production styles are considered with regard to the recordings used in the course; class discussion is meant to help students develop a critical approach to opera appreciation. No specific musical training is required.

ROBERTO SCARCELLA PERINO is Composer in Residence at the NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Assistant Clinical Professor in Italian Studies at NYU, and a Scholar in Residence at the American Institute for Verdi Studies. He has written five operas: Verdi, Merli e Cucú; A Caval Donato; Blackout; Furiosus; and A Sweet Silence in Cremona.

FYSEM-UA 603
Hoarding before Hoarders
Spring 2021
Instructor: Rebecca Falkoff            
Monday and Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m).

The early years of the twenty-first century have seen an overwhelming cultural interest in people who accumulate things. Hoarding is the subject of medical research, as well as documentary and narrative films, novels and memoirs, theater, painting, photography, and television episodes and series—including A&E’s “megahit,” Hoarders. These texts, along with related newspaper and magazine articles, are characterized by two contradictory yet often overlapping analytic frameworks: hoarding is understood both as a result of the excesses of consumer culture and as a response to material deprivation. Though the behaviors that define hoarding today have existed at least since the development of a market economy and probably much longer than that, the contemporary obsession with hoarding is both staggering and suggestive. This seminar is guided by the questions “Why hoarding?” and “Why now?” We will ask whether the emergence of contemporary hoarding discourse reflects anxieties about the immateriality of digital culture? Or about the scarcity of the earth’s resources? Or about what it means to be human? We will address these questions by studying the contemporary hoarder within a broader literary and cultural context that encompasses fetishists, collectors, misers, rag-pickers, gleaners, and other figures defined (and pathologized) by their attachments to things.

REBECCA FALKOFF is an Assistant Professor of Italian Studies with research interests in new materialism, gender and sexuality, psychoanalysis, and biopolitics, as well as modern and contemporary Italian literature. She has published on Elena Ferrante, Giorgio Manganelli, and Luigi Malerba, and was awarded the Romance Studies Essay Prize for Early Career Researchers for “Carlo Emilio Gadda’s Professional Alchemy, or How to Make Literature from Science and Bread from Air.” She is currently completing a manuscript on hoarding and modernity.

FYSEM-UA 728
How We Learn
Spring 2021
Instructor: Anamaria Alexandrescu        
Friday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

How do humans and other animals learn, and how do we study this in the laboratory? What is the neurobiological basis of learning and memory? What are the genetic and environmental factors that have shaped the learning process throughout evolution? What other cognitive processes influence learning, and how can we apply this knowledge to our own studies? In trying to address these questions, this seminar gives an overview of modern neuroscience and psychology research on learning and memory, and illustrates how cognitive science can be used to develop strategies for effective learning, while also discussing implications for societal issues, disorders, and artificial intelligence.

ANAMARIA ALEXANDRESCU is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from NYU in 2020 for research examining the neurobiology of learning and memory; in particular, her graduate work focused on the molecular mechanisms that contribute to synaptic plasticity underlying long-term memory formation. Her current research interests are centered at the intersection between neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and education.

FYSEM-UA 497
How We See
Fall 2020
Instructor: Marisa Carrasco
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Do we see the world the way we do because we are the way we are or because the world is the way it is? This course looks at what we know about vision from multiple scientific perspectives: perceptual psychology tells us about the process of seeing and provides important insights into the workings of visual mechanisms; neuropsychology shows us what happens to perception when these mechanisms malfunction; and neuroscience tells us about processes at the level of cells and neural systems. At the same time, we discuss modes and techniques of scientific inquiry from these different perspectives. How do vision scientists learn? What kinds of experiments do they conduct? How has the development of new neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, for example) shaped the field?

MARISA CARRASCO is Julius Silver Professor of Psychology and Neural Science and a Collegiate Professor, as well as a former Chairperson of the Department of Psychology. Born and raised in Mexico City, she received her licentiate in Psychology from the National University of Mexico and her PhD in Psychology (with an emphasis on cognition and perception) from Princeton University. She conducts research in cognitive neuroscience, exploring the relation between the psychological and neural mechanisms involved in visual perception and attention. Her papers have been published in the leading scientific journals in the field, and she has won numerous prestigious awards and fellowships throughout her career, such as a National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, a Cattell Fellowship, an American Association of University Women Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

FYSEM-UA 800
I, the Author
Spring 2021
Instructor: Chiara Marchelli         
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Genres of Writing

This course will focus on identity and the autobiographical experience as narrated by a selection of contemporary American and European authors, with a particular attention to Italian examples. Through the analysis of their work, it will focus on how authorship and the identity/presence of the author have evolved in contemporary times, and how this evolution reverberates beyond national borders. We will investigate what moves these authors, what aspects of their experience they choose to narrate and how they relate to their own subjectivity and the world. We will explore thematic differences and convergences, social and historical influences, the relationship between the self and society, the evolution of narrative languages and purposes.

The selection of readings is representative of the emergence of a new literary genre that blends memoir, autofiction and fiction, and describes the changing intellectual, cultural and social landscape of a literature that can no longer be contained within its national boundaries, but is inspired by a quest for a new identity or new identities, ignited by and reflected in today’s globalized world.

CHIARA MARCHELLI holds a degree in Oriental Languages from the University of Venice and an M.A. in Literary Translation from ISIT, Milan. In 2003, she published her first novel, Angeli e cani, which won the Premio Rapallo Carige Opera Prima. It was followed by a collection of short stories Sotto i tuoi occhi and three novels L’amore involontario, Le mie parole per te, and Le notti blu. Her latest novel, La memoria della cenere, was published in 2019 by NNE. She has taught contemporary literature, Italian, translation, and creative writing at New York University since 2004.

FYSEM-UA 503
In Search of Lost Time
Fall 2020
Instructor: Marcelle Clements
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: This intensive course requires a minimum of 350 pages of reading a week.

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

We read Marcel Proust (in translation) as he should be read: hedonistically—with respect and admiration but also with delectation. At about 4,000 pages, In Search of Lost Time is one of literature’s most challenging and pleasurable reads, still unparalleled in how it combines finesse and wit with raw emotion, self-examination with social history and a scathing portrait of the French beau monde at the outset of modernity. Although Proust (1871–1922) is often cited as France’s greatest novelist, many readers never move past the first fifty pages of his work, reading the same gorgeous sentences again and again. However, as its architecture cannot be appreciated until it has been read once in its entirety, we move at a brisk pace through all six volumes. When we read the final volume, we begin to understand the extraordinarily intimate and imaginative relationship Proust sustains with his reader, and, most importantly, how the vast structure of In Search of Lost Time reveals the intertwining of life and art to create literature. In-class creative writing exercises and wide-ranging class discussion are designed to assist with the reading and to articulate an expressive, personal response.

MARCELLE CLEMENTS is Collegiate Professor and Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU. She is the author of a collection of essays, The Dog Is Us and Other Observations; a book of nonfiction, The Improvised Woman; and two novels, Rock Me and, most recently, Midsummer. Her prizewinning articles and essays on the arts, culture, and politics have appeared in many national publications. In addition to the Proust seminar, she teaches advanced workshops in fiction and creative nonfiction in the Creative Writing Program. She is a recipient of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

FYSEM-UA 784
Italian Renaissance: A New Reading
Spring 2021
Instructor: Virginia Cox        
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

The Renaissance remains one of the great iconic moments of Western history: a time of remarkable innovation within artistic and intellectual culture, and a period still widely regarded as the crucible of modernity. Italy was the original heartland of the Renaissance and home to some of its most powerful and enduring figures, such as Leonardo and Michelangelo in art, Petrarch and Ariosto in literature, and Machiavelli in political thought. This seminar provides an overview of Italian culture from the 14th to the 16th century, examining not only literary, artistic, and intellectual history, but also material culture, cartography, science, technology, and the history of food and fashion. It reflects recent trends in scholarship in investigating the extent to which Renaissance ideas and cultural trends became diffused beyond the social elites to a wider public, and the extent to which women participated in literary and artistic culture alongside men. The course is based on the instructor’s most recent book, A Short History of the Italian Renaissance.

VIRGINIA COX studied at the University of Cambridge, and then taught at the universities of Edinburgh, London, and Cambridge before coming to New York University. She is a specialist in Italian Renaissance literature and culture, and Professor in the Department of Italian Studies. Her books include The Renaissance Dialogue: Literary Dialogue in its Social and Political Contexts, Castiglione to Galileo, as well as the trilogy Women's Writing in Italy, 1400-1650; The Prodigious Muse: Women's Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy; and Lyric Poetry by Women of the Italian Renaissance.

FYSEM-UA 722
Italy and North America: Contact, Conflict, and Exchange, 1492-2017
Spring 2021
Instructor: Rachel Love        
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

We consider how Italy’s diaspora has affected its conception of itself and examine five hundred years of North America as artistic inspiration, as cultural and political influence, and even as a source of existential anxiety. For example, how did European discovery of a “new” continent impact Renaissance authors like Ariosto and Tasso and destabilize the center of their known world? How did American literature like Hemingway and Steinbeck offer twentieth-century Italian writers new possibilities of literary expression and political resistance? We consider literature of immigration and travel in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Italians documented their journeys to North America (and New York City) in poetry and prose. We investigate how Fascism, war and recovery—as well as the physical presence of American soldiers on Italian soil—shifted the political and social stakes of this relationship. Finally, we explore American cultural influence throughout the increasingly globalized 20th century, as US models permeated Italian politics, film, television, music, and food, and pop singers teased teenagers who tried to “fa’ l’americano.” Throughout, we take advantage of our location in New York City to explore aspects of cultural exchange within our urban environment, including an excursion to the Italian American Museum and Little Italy.

RACHEL LOVE has served as a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her PhD from NYU in Italian Studies. Her essays on twentieth-century Italian politics and culture have appeared in the journals Popular Music, Modern Italy, and Interventions. Her current book project, Songbook for a Revolution: Popular Culture and the New Left in 1960s Italy, analyzes the political use of folk music in 1960s Italy through the history of a leftist musical collective, the Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano (NCI). Her interdisciplinary research interests move between contemporary Italian history and literature, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and oral history. Most mornings, she can be found riding her bike across the Manhattan Bridge.

FYSEM-UA 740
It’s All a Plot: Uncovering the Conspiracy Narrative
Spring 2021
Instructor: Mark Braley          
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.) and Physics II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

The Masons, the grassy knoll, birtherism. While we seem to live in an especially paranoid moment, conspiracy narratives have been around as long as people have been able to whisper and needed to explain social inequities, major calamities, or the workings of power and oppression. This course will explore the nature of conspiracy narratives, both those we find in fiction and those that circulate among us in the “real” world. We will examine conspiracy narratives across genres and media, including novels and film, as well as investigate their appearance on various news platforms. Do these narratives share common attributes and motivations? What roles do race, class, and gender play in their construction? What are the ramifications of their proliferation for democratic societies? The texts we explore may include novels like Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo and Don DeLillo’s Libra, as well as films like the 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Sorry to Bother You. We’ll also analyze some of the more well-known conspiracies promulgated by such internet sites as InfoWars. Bring your tin hat, your powers of analysis, and a healthy dose of skepticism.

MARK BRALEY is a Senior Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. His publications include essays on W.E.B. DuBois and Wallace Stegner. A former Air Force officer and United States Air Force Academy English instructor, he’s interested in American literature and the literature of war.

FYSEM-UA 203
Jews and Other Minorities in Nazi Germany
Fall 2020
Instructor: Marion Kaplan
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

The destruction of European Jewry has been a central focus in studying Nazi extermination policies. This course will look at Nazi policies towards the Jewish people and examine how the “racial state” (or racist state) dealt with those it deemed “racially unfit” to belong to the German Volk. It will analyze the ways in which the Nazis sought to create a nation based on blood and race. By studying policies towards the so-called “enemies” of the Third Reich—including Jews, Sinti and Roma (Gypsies), the physically and mentally disabled, homosexuals, Afro-Germans, “asocials,” etc.—the course will also highlight how these policies interacted with each other. It will examine measures that the government enacted to delegitimize, isolate, rob, incarcerate, sterilize, and/or murder many of these minorities, as well as measures intended to increase the “Aryan” population. The course will also examine theories that attempt to explain why many German perpetrators and bystanders participated in discrimination or murder, or allowed it to happen.

MARION KAPLAN is the Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at NYU. She is a three-time National Jewish Book Award winner for The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany; Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany; and Gender and Jewish History (with Deborah Dash Moore), as well as a finalist for Dominican Haven: The Jewish Refugee Settlement in Sosua. Her other monographs include The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany and (as editor) Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618-1945. She has edited several other books on German-Jewish and women’s history and has taught courses on German-Jewish history, European women’s history, and both German and European history, as well as European Jewish history and Jewish women’s history. Her newest book, Hitler’s Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal, 1940-45 was published in 2020.

FYSEM-UA 384
Journalism of War, Revolution, Genocide, and Human Rights
Fall 2020
Instructor: Susie Linfield
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

This seminar will focus on some of the extraordinary political events that made, and changed, the political (and moral) realities of the past century, and that created the world that we now inhabit. Throughout the term we will return to certain questions, including the changing nature of violence and the emergence of disputed concepts such as "crimes against humanity" and "human rights." We'll consider the ways in which "the face of war" in the 20th century (and early 21st) has changed—and the ways in which the journalism that described those wars also changed. We will start with the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War and then study the journalism of, among other events, the Holocaust, the Iranian Revolution, the fall of Communism, the genocide in Rwanda, the war in Bosnia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 9/11, and the Arab Spring.

SUSIE LINFIELD is Associate Professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and writes about the intersection of culture and politics for a wide array of publications. Recent essays have addressed Syrian torture photographs (the New York Times), war photography (Aperture and The Nation), the Zionist Left in Israel (the Boston Review), and an anti-Vietnam War classic (Bookforum). Professor Linfield’s book The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Professor Linfield was the editor in chief of American Film, the deputy editor of the Village Voice, and the arts editor of the Washington Post; she also spent six years as a critic for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She serves on the editorial boards of Dissent and Photography and Culture, and is a member of the New York Institute of the Humanities. Professor Linfield received her B.A. from Oberlin College, where she studied American History, and her M.A. in Journalism from NYU (minor: Documentary Film). From its founding in 1995 until 2014, Professor Linfield was instrumental in building NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program, first as Associate Director and then as Director.

FYSEM-UA 772
Journey of Journalism and History: How We Got Here
Fall 2020
Instructor: Charles J. Glasser Jr.
Monday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Technology and Society

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Physics I/II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

This course is more than a survey of important journalism of the twentieth century. Through intensive reading and discussion, we will explore both how significant historical events affected journalism and how journalism helped shape those events. If journalism is truly “the first draft of history,” then looking at significant cultural and political moments through the eyes of contemporaneous journalism yields new insight on who we are as a nation—for better or worse. We examine such historical events and movements as the robber barons of the Gilded Age and their antagonists the Muckrakers; the early Anarchist and labor movements; the coverage of the World Wars and government censorship; the role of the press in the civil rights movement; and the golden age of investigative journalism. We will read and discuss the work of a wide range of media notables, including Ida Tarbell, Jacob Riis, H. L. Mencken, Walter Winchell, Edward R. Murrow, Sy Hirsch, Woodward and Bernstein, Tom Wolfe, Matt Taibbi, Amanda Bennett, Judith Miller, and Glenn Greenwald.

CHARLES J. GLASSER JR. is Adjunct Professor of Media Law and Ethics at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is a former journalist and covered spot news and combat photojournalism in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the late 1970s and 80s. He spent several years as a copy editor at Time Inc. and then studied first amendment law at the New York University School of Law. After earning his JD he started his legal career at NBC News, and then moved on to several law firms representing Gannett, the New York Post, the Portland Press-Herald, and other regional and national newspapers and publishers. He served as the founding global media counsel of Bloomberg News for more than a dozen years and is the author of The International Libel and Privacy Handbook. In addition, he appears frequently as an expert on free speech and media law in a variety of news outlets and writes about media for Reuters, the Washington Examiner, and several not-for-profit free-speech organizations. He is also a regular contributor on media ethics for The Daily Caller.

FYSEM-UA 456
Laboratories for Democracy: Making American Cities Better
Fall 2020
Instructor: Eric Gioia
Thursday, 4:55–7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This course examines the intersection of ideas, politics, and action. We study best practices from around the country (and the world), evaluate their effectiveness, and determine whether and how successful programs can be replicated. The seminar asks students to not only think critically about issues of public policy, but also to think anew about the role they play in shaping it. Cities, states, and municipalities serve as what Justice Brandeis called “little laboratories for democracy”—where ideas flourish and problems get solved. From fighting crime in the streets of New York City, to banning smoking in bars and restaurants, to making the power grid more efficient, to encouraging the arts and culture in urban environments, innovations in American cities have spread across the globe. Topics for student projects are drawn from current issues and problems facing decision-makers and elected officials in America today.

ERIC GIOIA is an attorney with extensive experience in business, law, and government. He joined J.P. Morgan in January 2010 after serving for eight years on the New York City Council. Prior to serving on City Council, he practiced law at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, and served in the White House under President Bill Clinton. Professor Gioia holds a BA from New York University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center.

FYSEM-UA 210
Language and Reality in Postclassical Science and Postmodern Literature
Fall 2020
Instructor: Friedrich Ulfers
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.), Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.), and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (M 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

This seminar explores the possibility that there exists a common ground between the so-called two cultures of science and the humanities. It posits the hypothesis of a correlation between postclassical science (e.g., quantum theory) and “postmodern” literature and philosophy. Among the key notions examined are Werner Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle,” Niels Bohr’s “principle of complementarity,” and Jacques Derrida’s notion of “undecidability” in deconstructive theory. The discussion of these theories and their implications for literary works revolves around their effect on classical logic, the referential function of language, and the traditional goal of a complete explanation or description of reality. The seminar also asks whether this paradigm change leads to a form of posthumanism/transhumanism. Readings include works of Borges, Kundera, Pirsig, Pynchon, and Virginia Woolf, among others, and texts on modern scientific theories.

FRIEDRICH ULFERS is Associate Professor of German at New York University. He has received NYU’s Distinguished Teaching Medal and Great Teacher Award, and has twice won the College of Arts and Science Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2013 he was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (The Federal Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany) for his support of transatlantic cultural relations. His specific teaching and research interests are German Romanticism and 19th and 20th century German literature (with specific emphasis on Nietzsche and Kafka). He is also affiliated with the European Graduate School in Switzerland, where he offers an intensive summer seminar on Nietzsche and gives a variety of lectures; from 2006 to 2009 he was Dean of the Media and Communications Division of the School. Professor Ulfers has published extensively, with a recent focus on Nietzsche.

FYSEM-UA 306
Latin America at the Start of the Twenty-First Century: Coming of Age or Continuing Chaos?
Fall 2020
Instructor: Jorge G. Castañeda
Monday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This seminar focuses on Latin America’s longstanding problems and possible solutions to them. It takes up such topics as the absence of orderly, peaceful, and steady democratic governance following independence from colonial rule, and the consolidation of representative democracy today; the slowdown of economic growth in the last 20 years and prospects for a new economic takeoff; the phenomenon of widespread violence at a time of growing respect for human rights; and how the traditional weakness of civil society is being overcome. For each topic, there are readings dealing with its political, economic, and cultural dimensions in both past and present.

JORGE D. CASTAÑEDA is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico since 1979, he has also been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Princeton, and Dartmouth. A principal strategist in the election campaign of President Vicente Fox in 2000, he served as Mexico’s Foreign Minister from late 2000 until early 2003. He is the author of, among many other books, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War; Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara; Perpetuating Power; Ex-Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants; and Leftovers: Tales of the Latin American Left (with Marco Morales). He has also written articles for many newspapers and magazines in Mexico, the United States, and other countries.

FYSEM-UA 738
Literature and Film of Human Rights
Spring 2021
Instructor: William Morgan       
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This course is an introduction to the study of human rights through literature, creative non-fiction, photography, and documentary film. The course is divided into three units—one on foundational texts for understanding human rights ideals (including grappling with both bystander and official complicities in injustice), a second that considers the uses and limits of photography and documentary film in raising awareness about human rights stories, and a third that examines how (and undertakes case studies of how) climate change and immigration have become fundamental, often intertwined, human rights problems today. We seek to understand a number of questions, including: the connection between the modern notion of the individual and the ideal of human rights; why some bystanders and spectators develop empathy and others do not,­­ and what separates those who are merely moved from those who are moved to act; what blocks awareness and guilt among those who are culpable for inhumane acts; and why, how, and where climate change and immigration are core and intertwined human rights issues today.

WILLIAM MORGAN is Director of the Writing Center and Clinical Professor of Expository Writing at New York University. He teaches essay writing, directs the Writing Center and all of its tutoring programs, and contributes to the leadership of the Expository Writing Program. His articles on style, the practices of tutoring, and the reading-writing connection have appeared in College English, Praxis, and Reader. His book of literary criticism is titled Questionable Charity: Gender, Humanitarianism, and Complicity in U.S. Literary Realism.

FYSEM-UA 572
Literature and Machines
Fall 2020
Instructor: Nicola Cipani
Tuesday, 6:00-8:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Machine metaphors and narratives play an important role in modern literature, conveying shifting beliefs and anxieties about the nature of human intention and consciousness, the creative process, the dynamics of desire and gratification, gender roles, the organization of society, the meaning of “nature,” etc. This course explores different manifestations of the machine theme in literature, broadly clustered around the following categories: imaginary machines constituting the centerpiece of narrative plots; machine aesthetic as modernist ideal (e.g. Marinetti’s “identification of man with motor”); and mechanization of the inventive process (e.g. text-generating machines). We will read and discuss a selection of works from different periods and cultural contexts (Victorian era, Belle Époque, Futurist period, and Post-war experimental literature), representing a spectrum of dispositions and moods, ranging from the dreamy immersion in virtual realities to enlightened machine-assisted awakening, from the obsessive fear of mechanistic dehumanization to the desire for fusion with the machine.

NICOLA CIPANI is Clinical Professor at the Department of Italian Studies, where he also directs the language program. His interests include reception of antiquity in medieval and early modern culture, Renaissance philosophy, the intersection of verbal/visual forms (such as the art of memory, emblem books, and representations of dreams), and 20th-century experimental literature and sound studies.

FYSEM-UA 389
Living Off the Laughter: Comedy in America
Spring 2021
Instructor: Eddy Friedfeld      
Monday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The history of comedy in America is the history of America. Comedians have provided a funhouse mirror as well as a perceptive lens for American society and culture. Silent film comedians, for example, were instrumental in establishing the movie industry, while the physical nature of vaudeville’s humor reflected the linguistic diversity of its immigrant audience. An overview of American comedy, this seminar will be history with a laugh track, taking the significant periods and players of modern America and analyzing them against their historic context and their legacy, using their humor as the platform. We will examine how their comedy was shaped by and responded to American society, and how they in turn influenced and shaped American life. The great comedians and moments from film, radio, and TV to be studied in this seminar include Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s, The Golden Age of Television, the Sitcom, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis, Eddie Murphy, Sarah Silverman, Dave Chappelle, as well as new comedians and trends. We will also focus on how comedians and comedy built and builds bridges between gender, culture and racial and ethnic groups. Clips and segments from classic TV and movies will enrich our discussion of the evolution of comedy, its place in history, and its similarities in time.

EDDY FRIEDFELD is a film and entertainment journalist and historian, as well as an attorney specializing in corporate restructuring. He is the co-author of Caesar’s Hours with comedy legend Sid Caesar, and is working on a book on the history of comedy in America. He was the senior consultant for the PBS documentary Make ’Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America; has appeared on Fox News, PBS, and WOR and Bloomberg Radio; has written and lectured extensively on entertainment and film; has produced and hosted tributes to Dick Van Dyke, Eric Idle, Dick Cavett, Alan King, Robert Altman, George Carlin, and Paul Newman, among others; and has worked with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Billy Crystal. He received his BA from Columbia College and his JD from NYU Law School. He also teaches at Yale College and The Tisch School of the Arts.

FYSEM-UA 799
Mapping the Literary Mind of New York City
Fall 2020
Instructor: Anton Borst
Monday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

New York City has inspired many great writers, past and present. In this course, we’ll explore some of their works, as well as the actual locations they map, to find our own inspiration as readers, writers, and inhabitants of the city. We’ll think about the layers of history and imagination that overlay the streets, parks, and neighborhoods around NYU and across Manhattan. How has the city’s contours and currents, diversity and density, shaped the way authors have experienced and imagined life? Engaged discussion, frequent writing, and field excursions will focus our critical appraisal of the city and its texts. The culminating project of the semester will ask you to plot your most meaningful engagements on a digital map, as part of a collaborative class essay. We’ll be reading a selection of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, from the 19th century to the present day.

ANTON BORST is an instructional consultant with the Teaching and Learning with Technology group at New York University, where he conducts workshops and consultations on best teaching practices, writing across the curriculum, and digital pedagogy. He received his Ph.D. in English from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and has taught literature and writing at Hunter College, Baruch College, and Pace University. His research and teaching have focused on 19th-century American literature, Romanticism, and creative nonfiction. He is co-author of The Craft of College Teaching: A Practical Guide and co-editor of Critical Reading Across the Curriculum, Volumes 1 and 2.

FYSEM-UA 810
Mechanical Minds in History and Philosophy
Fall 2020
Instructor: Joseph Lemelin
Monday and Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.), Accelerated General Chemistry Lab ((M 2:30-6:45 p.m.), and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (M 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The idea that mental processes are mechanical is pervasive in contemporary thinking about what minds are and how they work, serving as a guiding principle behind artificial intelligence research. How did this notion arise and what assumptions underlie it? What past debates are embedded in present conceptions of the mechanical mind? This course tracks the emergence of analogies between minds and machines in early modern philosophy and science, and explores artificial intelligence’s philosophical lineage. To this end, we will examine the work of Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, G. W. Leibniz, Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, and Alan Turing, among others, together with historical investigations of the machines that inspired their thinking.

JOSEPH LEMELIN’S work centers on the philosophical history of the distinction between the natural and the artificial. He earned a doctorate in philosophy from The New School for Social Research, writing on the emergence of the concepts of nature and artifice in Aristotle’s physics. Joseph’s current research addresses ways that contemporary technologies such as artificial intelligence transform self-understanding, and his work draws from the philosophy of technology, philosophy of mind, and critical theory. He has been the Onassis Lecturer at the New School for Social Research and Humanities and a Science Postdoctoral Researcher at NYU’s Center for Data Science. In addition, Joseph has taught philosophy and literary studies at Eugene Lang College and Parsons School of Design, and was a Mellon fellow at the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography, and Social Thought.

FYSEM-UA 564
Modern Poetry: Craft and Revolution
Fall 2020
Instructor: Matthew Rohrer
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Genres of Writing

This course thrusts students headlong into the dark cobwebby interiors of the modern poem. We’ll look closely at how modern poems became modern, examining several revolutions as we think about what poems are—beginning in England in 1798, coming to Walt Whitman’s and Emily Dickinson’s America in the 1850s, stopping in Harlem in the 1920s, and ending up in today’s online world. We’ll consider how modern poems are actually put together, considering such elemental concerns as image, voice, structure, etc. And we’ll also write our own poems, sometimes with these examples as our models. Students will leave this course with a deeper understanding of the lineage of the modern poem and what makes the modern poem go. And, thanks to the generous and critical attentions of the workshop, students will come to the same understanding of their own work.

MATTHEW ROHRER is Clinical Professor in the Creative Writing Program at NYU, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate students. He is the author of nine books of poetry, was a founder of Fence Magazine and Fence Books, and has participated in residencies and performances at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and the Henry Museum (Seattle). His poems have been widely anthologized, and he has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing.

FYSEM-UA 813
Music and the Coronavirus
Fall 2020
Instructor: Michael Beckerman
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.; and 45 minutes of instructional time per week that will take place online asynchronously.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

Rolling Stone publishes an article titled “How Coronavirus is Wreaking Havoc on Music,” while the World Economic Forum asks, “Why Do We Turn to Music in Times of Crisis?” Science notes that “Scientists Have Turned the Structure of the Coronavirus into Music,” and the New Yorker offers a story on “Music to Endure the Coronavirus Quarantine.” This seminar investigates the way music has been used as inspiration, solace, resistance, drug, distraction, and source of energy from the beginning of the current crisis, as well as the mostly devastating way the coronavirus has impacted the music industry, from classical orchestras to street musicians. In addition to looking at music and the virus in the broader historical context of artistic responses to calamity, the course tracks the evolution of the coronavirus and its impact on music.

MICHAEL BECKERMAN is Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Music, Collegiate Professor of Music, and Chair of the Department of Music at NYU. A composer, pianist, and scholar, he writes on such subjects as nationalism, film music, music and war, opera, and popular song. He lectures regularly throughout North America and Europe, writes for the New York Times, and during the corona crisis has curated a series of online musical postings for DAHA (the Dvořák American Heritage Society) titled “From DAHA with Love."

FYSEM-UA 812
Native American Women Writers: Storytelling and Survivance
Spring 2021
Instructor: Sara Partridge           
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m. and F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and Accelerated General Chemistry Recitation (F 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

How do twentieth-century and contemporary Native American women writers pursue questions of historical memory in literature? What role do stories play in the transmission of history? How do they reflect the phenomenological and collective processes of memory? How do Native oral traditions challenge conventional definitions of authorship and text? We consider the ways these works draw on Native storytelling traditions with deep histories, enacting the form of cultural resistance that Gerald Vizenor calls “survivance,” and yielding novel experimentations with literary form. Many of the authors we read work to record or recreate history (Zitkala-Sa, Mourning Dove, and Diane Glancy), others offer new modes of historiography (Linda Hogan, Deborah Miranda), while others give old stories new meaning through contemporary literary forms (Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko). Many of these works depict spiritual or ancestral relationships to the land, and thus offer environmental critiques of American imperialism. They also explore stages and cycles of womanhood, including girlhood, coming-of-age, and motherhood. Memory, trauma, and poverty constitute another type of cycle these works engage. Together, these texts challenge hegemonic forms of history-making by drawing on indigenous epistemologies and feminist positionalities.

SARA PARTRIDGE is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her Ph.D. in English literature from New York University in 2020. Her book project investigates the relationship between the history of religion and radical movements in early American literature through the conceptual history of the conscience, while her broader research and teaching interests include political philosophy, spirituality and literature, peace studies, and women writers. She has presented research at conferences sponsored by the Society of Early Americanists, the Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, and the British Association for American Studies.hhhh

FYSEM-UA 732
Nature vs. Nurture: The Neurobiology of Individuality
Fall 2020
Instructor: Margarita Kaplow
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Psychologists, biologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists have historically questioned the impact of heredity vs. the environment in shaping the uniqueness of individuals. Modern scientists have arrived at a consensus whereby both genes and experience contribute to distinct behaviors. Indeed, “nature” and “nurture” are not isolated components. Understanding the constant and complex interaction between the two is the key to unlocking the mysteries of animal and human behaviors. We examine the nature vs. nurture debate over time by studying Darwin and Lamarck, as well as novel genetic tools that explore the interaction between DNA and the environment and papers treating the topic of genes and behavior. Group assignments will involve case studies that require students to gather evidence, propose solutions, or offer possible explanations for specific intrinsic vs. extrinsic situations. Students will also write research papers on topics and in a style accessible to the general public. Examples of paper topics include: inheriting trauma; the genetics of neurological disorders; the microbiome and your brain; and the science of addiction.

MARGARITA KAPLOW is Clinical Associate Professor at NYU’s Center for Neural Science. Her research interests focus on studying the cellular and molecular programs that instruct the development and assembly of chemosensory circuits. Her work has appeared in Genetics, the Journal of Neuroscience, the Journal of Neurogenetics, and eLife. She is also investigating the relationship between art and science and has implemented such pedagogical methods as Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) and Consider, Read, Elucidate the hypotheses/interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment (CREATE) in the undergraduate classroom. Before coming to NYU, she was a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University and also taught at the City College of New York. She has received an NIH MBRS graduate fellowship, the Julius Axelrod Award, and the CUNY Graduate Center Science Fellowship.

FYSEM-UA 791
NeuroStories: Narratives of the Brain, Mind, and Heart
Spring 2021
Instructor: Justin Warner      
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

What if you lost the ability to read, but could still write? What if your family members suddenly seemed like sinister replicas of their real selves? What if you were fully conscious, but could move and communicate only by blinking one eye? Can a person who can’t experience empathy lead an honorable life? Our brains are infinitely complex, which means they can be infinitely altered or divergent from what we think of as “typical.” In this seminar, we examine neurological conditions and differences as they appear in stories, from case studies and popular nonfiction to theatre, film, and television. We ask what the existence of these conditions teaches us about the link between our neural architecture and what we might otherwise call spirit, essence, heart, mind, or soul, and what people with neurological differences might understand in a way neurotypical people can’t. We also examine how people with neurodivergent profiles are represented in popular media, in part through the lens of the rapidly growing neurodiversity movement. Throughout the semester, we will reflect on the incomprehensible power of this spongy tissue in our skulls, and how everything we learn about it opens up new mysteries.

JUSTIN WARNER is a Senior Language Lecturer at New York University, where he currently teaches writing in the Tisch School of the Arts. He holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting and a B.A. in Neural and Behavioral Psychology. He is a playwright and musical theater librettist, and is currently working on an adaptation of Andrew Solomon’s bestselling book Far from the Tree. His first full-length play, Impostors, was produced in NEUROFest, New York’s first (and only?) festival of plays inspired by neurological conditions. Prior to teaching at NYU, he was a writer, editor, and audio producer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a recent finalist for the Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre, the Jonathan Larson Grants, and the Sundance Theatre Lab, and has written for New Scientist, Popular Science, Newsday, McSweeney’s, and American Theatre, among others.

FYSEM-UA 793
New Documentary Cinema in Brazil
Fall 2020
Instructor: Marta Peixoto
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.).

How does documentary film represent reality? Not, certainly, as a transparent window, but as a complex form that may include elements of staging and fiction. In Brazil (as elsewhere), the last thirty years have seen a surge in documentary filmmaking and critical thinking about this kind of film, which have reached a larger and more enthusiastic audience than ever before. This course examines a selection of these Brazilian films from the 1990s to the present (with brief retrospectives to earlier films). Throughout the course, we will address the tension that documentary films invite and foster: the films as aesthetic constructs and as presentations of historical experiences and social issues. We will explore topics such as: the uses of fact and fiction and the multiple ways in which documentary film goes beyond offering realistic versions of preexistent realities; ethical concerns about the respectful use of other people's images and words; the scope of its political impact; the construction of layered and multi-faceted images of Brazil. Readings concern these and other aspects of documentary films.

MARTA PEIXOTO is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and has taught as a visiting professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She has worked primarily on 20th-century Brazilian literature and published books on poetry and fiction, including Passionate Fictions: Gender, Narrative and Violence in Clarice Lispector as well as several other essays on this writer. She has also published essays on women's autobiographical writing and on questions of urban crisis and artistic representation in literature and film. She is currently working on a collection of essays on Brazilian poetry that contains a chapter on lyrical inflections in recent Brazilian documentary films.

FYSEM-UA 804
“Our House is on Fire”: Representations of the Climate Crisis
Spring 2021
Instructor: Kimberly Bernhardt       
Thursday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Environmental Studies

Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

How do we respond to news that koalas are burning, our houses are on fire, and that we are watching the death of our planet in slow motion? Are they a call to action or a call to join in as we all watch (spectatorship)? This multidisciplinary course examines the intersections of climate science and the narratives we tell about it. Stories about climate disasters and discoveries mutate and spread throughout our culture. Through our studies of these narratives of the climate crisis, we will attempt to answer some of the following questions: How have conceptualizations and representations of the climate crisis changed over time? How have the rhetoric of both natural disaster and contagion been used in this context? What do the narratives we use to talk about the climate crisis help us see about our own culture?  What are the relationships between the actions we take (both individually and as a nation) and the narratives we read? The goal of the course is for students to learn and practice analyzing texts in order to think critically about the representations of pressing environmental and social issues. We will explore these narratives (using both reporting and storytelling) in a wide range of contexts including newspapers, tv news, magazine articles, television, film, and fiction. We will examine the ways in which language and communication are inseparable from public understanding of science and crises. As part of this exploration we will also consider how the choices made when we represent issues can impact broader ideas of justice, equality, and humanity.

KIMBERLY BERNHARDT is a Senior Language Lecturer currently teaching Writing the Essay and International Writing Workshop I and II at both Washington Square and Tandon. She received her Ph.D. in literature from Rutgers University. Her research interests include modern and contemporary poetry, literary theory, composition, student learning and success, student mental health, and representations of crises. She spent three years as a Faculty Affiliate, working with residents in the Outdoor and the Serve the City communities. She has previously taught at Rutgers University, Western Washington University, and Montclair State University, and has been teaching at NYU since 2006.

FYSEM-UA 802
Sex and Gender in Philosophical Focus
Spring 2021
Instructor: Laura Franklin-Hall          
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

What is it to be a female or male animal? Or to be a female or male human being? What is it to be a woman? To be a man? Or to have some other gender? And how are all these questions connected? This course will explore answers to these and other questions about sex and gender from a philosophical perspective, drawing along the way on relevant research in biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. We begin by considering how the sexes evolved across the living world, i.e., in both animals and plants. With this history in hand, we ask, given persisting disagreement about their nature, how the categories 'male' and 'female' should be understood and evaluated, both in humans and other living things. Next we explore the gender categories such as woman, man, boy and girl. How are American gender categories similar to or different from those found in other cultures? And how are gender categories generally related to, or distinct from, the sex categories previously investigated? Having considered a variety of philosophical approaches to gender--some tying gender directly to sex, others to social characteristics like oppression--we conclude by evaluating these options for ourselves.

LAURA FRANKLIN-HALL, Associate Professor of Philosophy, trained both as a biologist and as a philosopher. Her research and teaching interests include the nature of scientific explanation, scientific modeling, and classification; the structure of evolutionary theory and the tree of life; and the relationship between evolution and our ethical commitments. She has published articles on the functioning of the hippocampus, microbial species, the “scientific method,” scientific explanation, and the nature of the sexes—male and female—across the animal world. She is presently working on a book project on the Philosophy of Pregnancy. It tackles metaphysical, ethical, and evolutionary questions surrounding pregnancy, both human and non-human.

FYSEM-UA 746
Poetry and War
Fall 2020
Instructor: Liana Theodoratou 
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

There can be no poetry that is not about destruction and survival, and this is especially the case in the poetry of war. We might even say that the poetry of war tells us what is true of all poetry: that it bears witness to the enigmatic relation between death and survival, loss and life, mourning and courage. The poetry of war often speaks of the death, if not the impossibility, of poetry. But what makes poetry poetry is its capacity to bear the traces of what it cannot say, to go on, in the face of this inability, to suggest its potential for speaking. What is at stake is the emergence and survival of a poetry that bears witness to what history has silenced, to all the vanished who, arising from the darkest nights of memory, haunt us, and encourage us to remember the deaths and losses for which we remain, still today, responsible. This is the lesson of twentieth-century poets who speak of war. Responding to the violence and trauma of war, to the deaths and suffering that result from wartime conflict, these poets seek to offer us a critical genealogy of war. They stage and enact their own troubled understanding of the capacities and incapacities of poetry in the face of disaster and catastrophe, even as they assert the necessity of remembering the uncertain traces and legacies of war, and of doing so without traducing or reducing the experience of war, without betraying the dead.

LIANA THEODORATOU is Clinical Professor in and Director of the Alexander S. Onassis Program in Hellenic Studies, and is also Director of the NYU in Athens Program. She is a recipient of the College’s Outstanding Teaching Award and of its Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence. She has written widely on ancient and modern Greek poetry and has translated several works by, among others, Foucault, Althusser, and Derrida into modern Greek. She is currently completing a book on the politics of mourning in contemporary Greek poetry, entitled Mourning Becomes Greece.

FYSEM-UA 476
Political Theater
Fall 2020
Instructor: Eric Dickson
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

This interdisciplinary seminar offers a survey of political theater from the ancient Greeks to the present. How have dramatic depictions of politics changed over time? In what ways have political plays been used to advance political agendas, both by the powerful and by dissidents and protest movements? To what extent can we understand political speeches and political campaigns as essentially theatrical productions? In a typical week, students will read one full-length play, accompanied by appropriate readings from political science or social psychology. Through these readings, writing assignments, and class discussion, we address the development of different dramatic techniques and forms throughout the history of theater; the co-evolving relationship between politically-themed spectacles and changing ideas about citizenship and political legitimacy; and the political psychology of speeches and campaign techniques.

ERIC S. DICKSON is Associate Professor of Politics and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Psychology. His research interests include political communication, election campaigning, political leadership, and identities in politics. His work, which uses both game theory and social-scientific experiments, focuses on the interface between political strategy and political psychology. He is also an installation artist with an extensive background in theater.

FYSEM-UA 789
Power Hungry: Food as a Tool for Social and Political Change
Spring 2021
Instructor: Suzanne Cope       
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

In this seminar we examine the role of food in social and political change, with an eye toward how historic events can provide a model for understanding how change can be made today. We begin with an historic overview of riots, initiatives, marches, and boycotts, considering how food was crucial to movements for social and political change in the United States and around the world. Then we move to present-day New York City and beyond, considering activism in the field of food justice as well as activism that uses food as a tool for broader justice initiatives. If scheduling permits we will visit some locations where this work is taking place across New York City and invite guest speakers to tell us about their efforts.

Dr. SUZANNE COPE teaches in the Expository Writing Program, and her research and writing focus on the intersection of food and political and social change. Her narrative journalism has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and The Atlantic, and her forthcoming book is POWER HUNGRY: The Story of Two Women Who Fed the Civil Rights Movement, and the Government's Quest to Stop Them. Dr. Cope has published and presented her scholarly work on food studies and writing pedagogy around the world, and she is the 2019 recipient of the Culinary Historians of New York grant for her research on POWER HUNGRY. She is also the author of the book Small Batch: Pickles, Cheese, Chocolate, Spirits, and the Return of Artisanal Food.

FYSEM-UA 786
Quixotic Fanfiction: Cervantes, Don Quixote, and Their Afterlives
Spring 2021
Instructor: Victor Sierra Matute      
Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Don Quixote is often considered the first modern novel. However, few critics have paid attention to the fan phenomenon that Don Quixote generated after its first publication in 1605: the adventures of Quixote and Sancho were quickly forged, adapted, imitated, modified, and appropriated by authors from all over Europe. The quixotic fever has continued up to the present, and even Disney has announced its own adaptation of Don Quixote. The purpose of this seminar is twofold: on the one hand, we will read the original novel in its historical context; on the other, we will examine quixotic fanfictions, reboots, and crossovers by writers, graphic novel artists, filmmakers, musicians, playwrights, and painters such as Gustave Doré, Salvador Dalí, Kathy Acker, Salman Rushdie, Jorge Luis Borges, and Terry Gilliam, among others. As part of this course, we will make a class trip to the Hispanic Society of America, where the first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha and most of its first translations are preserved.

VICTOR SIERRA MATUTE is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Early Modern Literature and Culture in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. His research focuses on the intersection of materiality, affect, and history of the senses in the early modern Iberian world. He has worked for the Department of Incunabula and Rare Books at the National Library of Spain, where he catalogued a significant part of the early modern poetic and theatrical manuscripts. He is currently working on a book-length manuscript provisionally entitled Materia Poetica: The Affective Life of Texts in the Early Modern Iberian World. Preliminary research towards this project has been funded by fellowships and grants from the Huntington Library, the Golden Age International Association, and the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry. His papers have appeared in the journals Voz y Letra and Manuscrt.cao, Entre caníbales, and the companions Biblioteca de Autógrafos Españoles and Memoria manuscrita del Siglo de Oro en la Biblioteca Nacional de España, among others.

FYSEM-UA 821
Beyond Eurocentrism: Race Theory from the German Enlightenment to Postcoloniality
Fall 2020
Instructor: Michael Saman
Wednesday, 6:20-8:50 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Identity and Society

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and Accelerated General Chemistry Recitation (F 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Scientifically defining “race” is impossible, the African American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois once wrote, yet since the Enlightenment attempts to do so have continually been made. The philosopher Immanuel Kant first introduced the concept into scientific language in the late eighteenth century, and it quickly became a vibrant point of contention among European scholars. By the twentieth century, intellectuals of color from around the world took the lead in critically reconfiguring the hitherto Eurocentric conversation around race to reflect the realities of identity, culture, and politics in the colonial and postcolonial eras; meanwhile, older patterns of thought established by thinkers such as Kant, Herder, and Hegel still persist in the ways we think about the topic. To critically engage with such an ingrained idea requires exploring the complexities and ambiguities of its history, and in this seminar, we will read a rich range of texts from Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, and North America in order to sound out some of the contending iterations of this concept that so profoundly shapes our world and the way we live in it.

MICHAEL SAMAN’s scholarship centers on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German literature and philosophy, as well as on intersections of German and Africana intellectual history. He is currently writing on topics ranging from the works of W.E.B. Du Bois and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to the electronic music group Kraftwerk. Before coming to NYU, Michael taught at UCLA, Princeton, Brown, the College of William & Mary, and the College of the Holy Cross. He holds a Ph.D. in German from Harvard University, and his research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Fulbright Foundation.

FYSEM-UA 817
Reading the Plague
Fall 2020
Instructor: Rebecca Falkoff
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Health and Society

Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, a story about a group of young 14th-century Florentines who flee their plague-devastated city for the countryside, begins with a simple claim: “It is a matter of humanity to show compassion for those who suffer.” The plague tested the power of Boccaccio’s pen: “What I have to tell is incredible, and if I and many others had not seen these things with our own eyes, I would scarcely dare to believe them, let alone write them down.” In this seminar we read, discuss, and analyze historical and literary works about the plague and other contagious illnesses, real and fictional. In the account of Thucydides, the plague threw funeral customs into confusion as desperate Athenians sought to dispose of the dead in any way possible. In a haunting story by Dino Buzzati, an infectious disease that afflicts automobiles also debases social relations as friends turn on friends and neighbors on neighbors to report those suspected of harboring infected vehicles. By reading these and other seminal accounts of plague and disease through the centuries by survivors, historians, storytellers, and philosophers, we gain perspective on our own tragic and unsettling times, finding compassion in—that is, “suffering with”—the past.

REBECCA FALKOFF is Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at New York University. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Italian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature and Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include modern and contemporary Italian literature, gender and sexuality, psychoanalysis, biopolitics, and theories of materialism. Her book Possessed: A Cultural History of Hoarding from the Age of Reason to the Anthropocene will be published by Cornell University Press in 2021.

FYSEM-UA 255
School and Society: NYU in the Sixties and Seventies
Spring 2021
Instructor: Arthur Tannenbaum       
Tuesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

The 1960s and 1970s brought profound changes in American society, changes mirrored in the history of the nation, academe, and New York University. It was a time that witnessed the struggle for civil rights, assassinations, war abroad and riots at home, and a youth-led revolution in music, dress, and values. This course aims to develop an appreciation of those years by examining events and reactions to them as they affected campuses and students across America. Students prepare reports on different aspects of the era and work on group projects. In both cases, and in the spirit of the times, the topics are self-chosen with the approval of the group and the seminar leader.

ARTHUR TANNENBAUM is Associate Curator and Social Work Librarian in the Bobst Library, and has also taught in the English Department. First as a student and then as a faculty member, he has been at NYU for more than thirty years. In 1992 he received the University’s Distinguished Teaching Medal in recognition for his work with students.

FYSEM-UA 794
Science and the Theater
Fall 2020
Instructor: David Scicchitano
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Technology and Society

Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Arthur Miller, who wrote Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and other renowned plays, asserted the following: “Everything influences playwrights. A playwright who isn’t influenced is never of any use.” Science is definitely among that ‘everything.’ Astronomy, medicine, mathematics and biology have influenced the plots and themes of playwrights like Bertolt Brecht, Margaret Edson, Tom Stoppard and Anna Ziegler. But how can complex scientific issues be addressed in a theatrical format without compromising the subject or the dramatic form? When a dramatic plot revolves around a scientific issue, how are the science and the scientists portrayed? What are the consequences of literary license when a playwright elects to take liberties with scientific matters to augment dramatic effect? When do such liberties negate the veracity of the work? This course examines these issues. Relevant plays are read with an eye toward addressing science’s influence on theater and the theater’s influence on the perception of science as we seek to understand the complementary relationship between the two domains.

DAVID SCICCHITANO is Professor of Biology at New York University. From 2009 until 2019, he was Dean of Science at NYU Abu Dhabi. A molecular biologist by training, his own scholarly interests are in genomic maintenance mechanisms, which are biochemical pathways and networks in cells that prevent DNA from accumulating damage and mutations. He is the author of more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and academic texts. He has taught undergraduate courses in introductory biology, molecular biology and pharmaceutical ethics, as well as graduate courses in molecular biology. He also taught a course called Immortality in the liberal education core at NYU Abu Dhabi. He is devoted to both science and the performing arts, particularly the theater.

FYSEM-UA 798
Slavery in Ancient Greece and Rome
Spring 2021
Instructor: Christopher Parmenter       
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.  
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Varieties of unfree labor have existed from ancient Mesopotamia to the present. Across the Western hemisphere, slavery’s legacy has been crucial in the formation of national histories, particularly in the United States, the Caribbean, and Brazil. Nevertheless, the persistence of slavery through history—even to the present day—remains poorly understood. Why do societies accept the practice of enslavement and the use of unfree labor? What roles do different societies reserve for free or unfree labor? And why do some societies ostensibly reject slavery while others continue to embrace it? Beginning with the rise and expansion of slavery in the Mediterranean world, we focus on early Greece and Rome, with attention to ecological, political, and economic history, and why slavery has continuously flourished in the region from antiquity to the present day. We attempt to look at Greek and Roman history through the eyes of slaves themselves, and the extent to which they were able to maintain their personhood despite enslavement. Finally, we examine the legacy of Greek and Roman slavery in the eyes of Thomas Jefferson, Kara Walker, and others, allowing students to situate the growth of the “peculiar institution” in Greece and Rome in the broader context of Western history.

CHRISTOPHER PARMENTER is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He received his Ph.D. in Classics from New York University. His book project, Racialized Commodities: Long-distance Trade, Mobility, and the Emergence of the Body in Archaic and Classical Greece, traces the emergence of a distinct idea of physiognomical “race” in Greece between c. 800-500 B.C.E. His recent article, “Journeys into Slavery on the Black Sea Coast, c. 550-450 B.C.E.,” treats the human toll of this trade and seeks to give names and faces to people who were enslaved.

FYSEM-UA 779
Socrates and His Critics
Fall 2020
Instructor: Vincent Renzi
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (R 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

That Socrates remains one of the most—if not the most—influential figures in the Western tradition is due in large part to the emergence in the years following his death of a new literary genre, the Socratic discourse, and the output especially of the two most prominent Socratic authors, Plato and Xenophon. Extending in the next generation through the distinctive rhetoric of Diogenes of Sinope, and through him into the figures of the Cynic philosopher and the Stoic sage, Socrates provides the literary precursor of a character tried and executed for idiosyncratic political and religious views four centuries before the presumed time of Jesus. Already in his own lifetime, Socrates’ literary influence is apparent in Aristophanes and other writers of comedies. In modernity, the image of Socrates both fascinates and repels the attention, notably of Nietzsche. Apart from the rough outlines of his biography, it is all but impossible to recover any sense of the “historical Socrates”; at the same time we must ask whether Socrates’ influence is not the result of his intellectual contributions, but rather an artifact of the doxography itself.  Even though he did actually live, isn’t what we have of him really just literary fiction?

VINCENT RENZI is Clinical Professor in the Foundations of Contemporary Culture (FCC) and of Classics, and is also Director of the Foundations of Contemporary Culture in the College Core Curriculum. A scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, he also has interests in arts and aesthetics and in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy. He is a recipient of the College's Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

FYSEM-UA 795
Sound: History, Culture, Politics
Spring 2021
Instructor: Ian VanderMeulen         
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

An interdisciplinary exploration of the history, culture, and politics of our audible—and sub-audible—worlds, from musicology and history to anthropology, film and media studies, and beyond. We begin with a historical survey, grappling with problems of technological, political, and even epistemological change, and critically examine prevailing notions about the increasing “noisiness” of our modern world. We then shift to case studies that illuminate how attitudes about voice and audibility—particularly the problematic distinction between “sound” and “noise”—figure into constructions of religion, race, ethnicity, and other cultural categories and identities. By thinking critically about the sound/noise distinction we begin to wonder about “sound” as a category at all, and arrive at the possibilities of pure “vibration,” a turn that raises potentials for both political liberation (as in its inclusivity toward deaf populations) and authoritarian domination through sonic booms, the Long Range Acoustic Device, and other forms of “acoustic violence.”
 
IAN VANDERMEULEN is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow.  He earned his Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU. His research explores entanglements among sound, media, and religion, in particular how technological advances over the last few centuries have impacted the vocal performance of the Qur’an in contemporary Morocco. He has published two short book reviews in Contemporary Islam and Arab Media & Society and has a feature article forthcoming with American Ethnologist. He is also an avid guitar player who has recorded several albums and toured internationally.

FYSEM-UA 806
State of a Country: Writing about Photography Made in the U.S.
Spring 2021
Instructor: Alexandra Falek       
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

This course offers students an opportunity to look, think, read and write critically and creatively about photography made throughout the US in the last few decades. In the photographs, photo essays and photobooks we’ll explore, the photographers expose the state of a country, making visible what they’ve chosen to see. While their subjects, conceptual inquiries, approaches and technical practices vary, each photographer responds uniquely to the people, places and ideas that have captured their attention and shaped their intentions. A deep examination of these works will set in motion a larger conversation about writing on photography. Throughout the semester we’ll look and read closely, and practice different modes of writing, from short exercises to an extended research paper. A guest photographer and a writer whose work focuses on photography will join us in two class meetings, and students will see photography work on display at museums and/or galleries in New York City. Students will come away from the course with a new appreciation for the practice of making photographs, photo essays and photobooks and for the craft of writing meaningful texts that respond to them.

ALEXANDRA FALEK is a Senior Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. She has been teaching at NYU since 2002, where she taught for many years in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese Languages and Literatures (teaching Latin American literature, cultural history, cinema and more) and where she currently teaches on the faculty of EWP (teaching reading and writing). She received her Ph.D. in Latin American Literatures and Cultures from NYU and her B.A. from UC Berkeley.

FYSEM-UA 739
Stories to Live By
Spring 2021
Instructor: Jenni Quilter        
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Genres of Writing

Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The stories we choose to tell about ourselves are crucial in defining our sense of possibility. How we understand our past (what constellations of cause and effect we craft from our history) helps us navigate the choices we have to make in the future. What stories have we learned already? What others are latent? This course offers a history of narratives of the self. When and how did self-consciousness in texts begin to manifest itself? To what end? And how does the process of narrating changes of the self alter our very understanding of it? Cutting across a wide range of disciplines—from literature to narrative theory and narrative therapy, from Bildungsroman to evolutionary theory—this course considers textual representations of interior space. Students will complete a narrative writing assignment and two analysis papers in order to both experiment with their own stories and learn to interpret others.

JENNI QUILTER is Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU's Expository Writing Program, and is also a Senior Director of NYU's Leadership Initiative. Her current research is on the intersection of decision theory and narratology. She received her M.Phil. and D.Phil. in English Literature from Oxford University. She taught at Oxford before arriving at NYU in 2007, first teaching within CAS and, more recently, at the Tisch School of the Arts. She has been awarded a Golden Dozen Award for teaching, and her most recent book, Neon in Daylight: Poets and Painters of the New York School, was a finalist in the "Best Criticism" category of the U.S. AICA awards. Her writing has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, Poetry Magazine, AGNI, and Avidly. She is currently finishing a book about fertility and choice for Riverhead Books.

FYSEM-UA 792
Streaks and Coincidences
Spring 2021
Instructor: Michael Shum     
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Mathematics and Modeling in Understanding of the Physical World

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This seminar will explore the connections between and among events that cannot be explained by probability and causality—hot and cold streaks, coincidences, recurring or repetitive series, and other related phenomena—with the goal of transforming and expanding students' consciousness and sense of wonder at an interconnected universe that exists beyond the strictures of rationalism. Students will record and investigate their own experiences of such connections, vigorously engage with seminal texts in this speculative and under-researched field, and conduct their own individual and group explorations into these phenomena.

MICHAEL SHUM serves as a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. His first novel, Queen of Spades, based on his experience dealing poker in a dead-end casino in rural Washington State, was published in 2017. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Tennessee.

FYSEM-UA 788
Technology vs. Democracy: Can the American Experiment Survive American Innovation?
Spring 2021
Instructor: Alexander Landfair     
Monday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Technology and Society

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.), Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (M 9:30-10:45 a.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

From the Founders to the Facebook generation, Americans have regarded technological progress as an existential threat to American democracy. In this seminar, you will explore a range of texts—written by scientists, novelists, and religious and civic leaders—questioning whether the American experiment can survive American innovation, and whether its institutions can, or even should, evolve with its technologies. As citizens and apprentice scholars, students will devise their own possible answers to these questions (and related questions they generate themselves) and share their ideas using a range of modes and genres: class discussions, blog posts, research proposals, and formal research projects.

ALEXANDER LANDFAIR is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. He has written about technology for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica Magazine, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. He has held various editorial positions at Narrative Magazine, Guernica Magazine, and the New Yorker. He is now writing a study of Congress’s efforts to mitigate technology’s negative impacts on democracy.

FYSEM-UA 780
The Sea in History
Spring 2021
Instructor: Thomas Truxes         
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is water, most of it residing in the planet’s great seas and oceans. But how have those vast watery spaces, together with the world’s lakes and rivers, shaped the millennia? Have these bodies of water been connective tissues bringing peoples together or barriers pushing them apart? They have, of course, been both, providing highways for commerce and migration, life-sustaining fisheries, battlefields that determined the fate of civilizations, and powerful stimulants to the advancement of technology on a broad front. This seminar will explore the many—and often surprising—faces of the sea in history. It will, likewise, ask students to contemplate their own responsibility in preserving the rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans that have shaped the destiny of mankind.

THOMAS M. TRUXES is Clinical Professor of Irish Studies and History. He has written extensively on the Irish in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Atlantic economy and the overseas trade of British America. Recent books include an edited volume of essays, Ireland, France, and the Atlantic in a Time of War: Reflections on the Bordeaux–Dublin Letters, 1757, and Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York, a finalist for the Francis Parkman Prize in American History. At NYU he teaches courses on early modern Irish history, piracy and seaborne terrorism, and the history of world trade.

FYSEM-UA 811
The Self and What to Do About It
Fall 2020
Instructor: John Richardson
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

This seminar examines a variety of views about “the self.” Each of us, it seems, is or has a self. Just what is this self—how can we identify it? And when we see what it is, what lessons should we draw—what should we do about it? We study an eclectic range of writings on these questions, mostly philosophical works, but also some fiction and poetry. Central attention will be paid to existentialist treatments of the self by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre, for whom the topic is crucial. We compare their answers with those given by Emerson, Whitman, and William James—a second focus of the seminar. But we also broaden the discussion well beyond these thinkers, drawing into the conversation other writers from different ages and cultures, including the Indian and Chinese traditions. By the end of the course, students may or may not be able to say just what their self is, but they will have a better understanding of the complexity and interest of the question.

JOHN RICHARDSON is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. He has published two books on Heidegger (Existential Epistemology and Heidegger) and two books on Nietzsche (Nietzsche's System and Nietzsche's New Darwinism), with a third soon to come (Nietzsche's Values).

FYSEM-UA 776
The Work of Translation: What Does Translation Do?
Fall 2020
Instructor: Emmanuelle Ertel
Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.).

The founding mission of NYU as a global university is purposeful engagement in the world. In this multilingual world, our goal can only be achieved with the help of translators and interpreters. Reflecting on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ prediction that translation jobs will increase by 29% between 2014 and 2024, this seminar considers translation as a scholarly, professional, and lay activity. As we consider the wealth of languages and cultures in the NYU students’ community and the way in which the curriculum is indebted to the work of translation, students will critically discuss what is gained or lost—or perhaps, simply transformed in translation. We ask: Why are source texts often privileged over translations? What is a good or faithful translation and why are translations mistrusted? How does a written translation differ from spoken interpreting?  What does the study of translation teach us about power relations and border crossings, or the role of gender, race, or class in translational transactions? What are the ethics of translating and interpreting? What do translators say about their art and practice?

EMMANUELLE ERTEL is Associate Professor of contemporary French literature and translation at New York University. She is also a professional translator. Among her translations of American novels into French are Louis Begley’s The Man Who Was Late and As Max Saw It, Rick Moody’s The Black Veil, and Tom Perrotta’s Little Children and The Leftovers. Most recently, she translated Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, which was shortlisted for the 2015 National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and Pulitzer. 

FYSEM-UA 752
Vikings and Celts: Ireland, Scandinavia, and the North Sea World during the Long Viking Age
Spring 2021
Instructor: Sarah Waidler       
Tuesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Past Cultures and Societies

Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (F 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (F 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m).

This seminar explores the late eighth to twelfth centuries, from our earliest evidence of Scandinavian raiders, known to the modern world as Vikings, sailing across the seas to Ireland, Scotland, and England, to the establishment and fall of dynasties at home and abroad, conversion and cultural assimilation. This period allows students to investigate different aspects of medieval history ranging from political, military, and economic events and processes to the myriad of social and cultural changes that were to have a long-term impact on Ireland and the North Sea world. We will work with historical and archaeological sources to understand some of the challenges and scholarly debates that surround the long-term interaction between the Irish, their neighbors, and the Scandinavians. Although the Irish experience of the Viking Age will be at the heart of this course, the entire North Atlantic region will be examined both to add context to our consideration of this period and to appreciate different facets of this interrelated and varied area during this time. Text-based classes and discussions focusing on particular sources, individuals, and events will give students a grounding in critical thinking and how to approach historical texts and offer the chance to gain an in-depth understanding of this exciting period of change, conflict, engagement, and opportunity.

SARAH WAIDLER earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, and was an O’Donovan Postdoctoral Scholar at the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, in 2016–2018. She works on medieval Celtic literature and history and the cult of saints in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. She is particularly interested in the overlap between the literature of saints and “secular” literature. Her work also explores the intellectual environment of learning and the interplay of ideas between Ireland, Wales, and the wider medieval world.

FYSEM-UA 803
Ways of Thinking and Knowing
Spring 2021
Instructor: David Ellis      
Monday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

This seminar introduces students to fundamental epistemological questions and concepts, both historical and new: what do we know and how do we know it? The academy has long divided knowledge and its pursuit into the Arts and the Sciences. Likewise, popular notions of the human brain suggest that those fissures run through individual minds: the analytical, science-minded "left brained" and the artistic, philosophical-minded "right brained."  It is thought that the so-called left brains—analytical, logical, objective—become engineers, biologists, and bankers while right brains—intuitive, thoughtful, subjective—are the painters, philosophers, and social workers of the world. In practice, both in the science lab or in the artist's studio, these distinctions are more porous than we popularly believe. This seminar explores the interplay between reasoning, knowledge, belief, discovery, and creativity, the various acts of mind common to all fields in the academy and, essentially, all human endeavors. As we wrestle with conundrums which resist easy solution, whether presented to us in the "real world," the sciences, the arts, or philosophy, we will simultaneously be thinking about thinking. What “habits of mind” promote problem solving? Which of these habits limit innovation and novel insight? We’ll traverse many fields—logic, physics, neurology, psychology, artificial intelligence, literature, film, visual and performance art—as we hunt for approaches to understanding that we then put into practice. We will work towards the goal of "understanding our understanding," as the artist and essayist Matthew Goulish phrases it, in order to exploit the twinned powers of rationality and creativity. Trips to MoMath (Museum of Mathematics), MoMA, and other outings are planned. Readings to include Martin Heidegger, David Hume, Thomas Kuhn, Lynda Barry, Oliver Sacks, Nassim Taleb, Daniel Dennett, and others.

DAVID ELLIS is a faculty member in the Expository Writing Program, where he has taught for more than twelve years and received a Golden Dozen teaching award. His work in the Writing in the Disciplines initiative at NYU has exposed him to the myriad approaches that different fields utilize to discover new knowledge and insights. His research interests focus on the intersections between cognition, creativity, learning, and writing.

FYSEM-UA 790
"We are Not in a Post-Fact World": Wikipedia and the Construction of Knowledge
Spring 2021
Instructor: David Cregar     
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Technology and Society

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.), Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Where do you get your information? Do you trust it? How do you assess the credibility and reliability of what you read, see, and hear? We interrogate these questions through the hands-on work of writing, editing, and commenting on articles in Wikipedia. We join arguably the largest collaborative writing project in history, comprising 309 language editions and with more than 38 million registered users in the English language version alone. This work (and play) allows us to investigate key issues in research methods: identifying gaps in existing knowledge, locating and accessing public records and archival materials, and assessing and attributing sources. Perhaps most important of all, we will write to an authentic audience of readers who, as they say in Wikipedia, will “speak back” to what you write and edit. We also address some perennial themes of rhetoric and composition: genre, audience, style, structure and organization, and more. Alongside this work, we examine the larger question of how knowledge is constructed. Who has access to information? How is access to information controlled or “disciplined”? What perspectives are overrepresented or underrepresented in the texts (written, visual, audible) we encounter and engage with? How does a particular knowledge source shape or influence public knowledge or culture?

DAVID CREGAR is a Senior Lecturer and Senior Assistant Director in the Expository Writing Program. In his teaching and research, he focuses primarily on the experiences of English Language Learners as readers and writers in the academy. His teaching career began in the Educational Opportunity Fund Program at Montclair State University (NJ) and he has been on the faculty at NYU since 2000.

FYSEM-UA 371
Welcome to College: The Novel
Fall 2020
Instructor: Carol Sternhell
Tuesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Prerequisite: A score of 4 or 5 in AP English Literature (or equivalent international exam) OR permission of the instructor. Note that this seminar requires reading one full book every week.

Note: conflicts with PhysicsI/ II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.).

Starting college can be exhilarating—and terrifying. A chance for intellectual enlightenment—or intense loneliness. An escape from a stultifying small town of narrow-minded people—or a riot of alcohol, sex, and drugs. In this class we read a selection of college novels from different historical periods, spanning about 100 years. We discuss these novels from a variety of perspectives: literary, historical, and journalistic. In addition to presenting biographical and historical and cultural reports on at least two of the authors and their novels, students write about their own experiences as first-year students at NYU in several genres, including fiction and nonfiction. Together we explore this important life passage, examining life as we live it.  This is a class for people who love to read fiction—we read a full novel every week, and some of them are long—so please don’t sign up for it if that doesn’t sound like fun.

CAROL STERNHELL is Associate Professor of Journalism and a Director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s Studio 20 graduate program. She created the department’s study away programs in London, Prague, and Accra and was also a founder of the Women’s Studies major (now Gender and Sexuality Studies). She has written extensively about feminism, motherhood, and literature for a variety of publications. Before coming to NYU, she worked as an editor at Newsday, a general assignment reporter for the New York Post, and a freelance magazine writer. She received the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence in 2005.

FYSEM-UA 474
What is College For?
Fall 2020
Instructor: Trace Jordan
Students in this seminar will meet on Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m. and also be assigned 90 minutes of asynchronous instruction per week that will take place online.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Theme: First-Generation Cohort

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (M 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: FYSEM-UA 474, What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 774, Cuba: An American History are strongly recommended for first-generation students. They provide an excellent opportunity to join a close-knit community of your peers who also identify as the first in their families to pursue higher education. Both seminars are taught by professors who were the first in their family to earn a four-year degree.

Why did you decide to attend college? To broaden your intellectual horizons and become a more open-minded person? To gain specialized knowledge? To achieve a more successful and financially rewarding career? To make new friends? To become an engaged participant in a democratic society? To satisfy your parents’ plans for your future? Or perhaps some combination of these reasons that you are still figuring out? This seminar examines historical and contemporary discussions about the personal and social goals of higher education and studies issues that have the potential to profoundly transform the college experience in coming years. It also prompts students to be more reflective and purposeful about their own academic choices at NYU. We ask: what is the optimal balance between a “liberal arts” education, usually provided by a core curriculum, and the pursuit of specialized study within a major? How can professors and students cultivate deep learning instead of rote memorization? How is technology impacting education, and what further changes may occur in the future?

TRACE JORDAN is Clinical Professor and Associate Director of the College Core Curriculum. His research interests and publications include the role of science education in a liberal arts curriculum, the use of computer simulations for teaching and learning chemistry, and the impact of interest and motivation on educational engagement and achievement. Professor Jordan is a two-time winner of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

FYSEM-UA 770
What is Evil?
Fall 2020
Instructor: Jeanne Proust
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (M 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

When we try to describe, understand, and respond to such atrocities as rapes, genocides, or serial killings, we often use the word evil. We will discuss the historicity of the concept of evil, its relativity, and the diversity of feelings that it inspires in us—such as fear, disgust, shame, contempt, hate, or compassion. We will also analyze the complexity of this concept, and its many symbolic representations. The seminar considers such questions as: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions to label an action or character as “evil”? What happens when we qualify something or someone as “evil”? What causes this moral judgment, and what effects may it have? We ground our investigation in the wider context of moral philosophy and ethics, introducing such topics as cultural relativism (“what’s right here is not necessarily right there”) and subjectivism (“what’s right for me is not necessarily right for you”). The goal is to better understand, and improve our thinking about, questions of right and wrong.

JEANNE PROUST earned her PhD at the Sorbonne and studied philosophy and the arts in Bordeaux and Berlin as well as Paris. She has taught courses in philosophy (specifically critical thinking and ethics), as well as art history, visual arts, and French literature, at NYU, Pace University, the City University of New York, Miami Dade College, and Marymount Manhattan College. She brings philosophy to the world outside academia by giving numerous talks about interdisciplinary subjects related to moral questions for ThinkOlio, an association that organizes lectures in public spaces throughout New York City. She co-wrote The Feeling of Injustice in Popular Songs with Professor Charles Ramond of Université Paris 8.

FYSEM-UA 507
What is Memory? Multidisciplinary Perspectives
Spring 2021
Instructor: Martha Rust        
Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science       

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Thanks to the written records that serve as our cultural memory, we know that memory has been a topic of inquiry at least since those records began sometime in the third millennium BCE. Along the way, philosophers, poets, playwrights, memoirists, musicians, theologians, psychologists, sociologists, neuroscientists, and literary scholars from Homer, Plato and Augustine to John Locke, David Hume, and Sigmund Freud to Pierre Nora, Vladimir Nabokov, and NYU’s own memory scientists have sought to answer the question “What is memory?” Together their quests have raised such sub-questions as: How is memory embodied? What is the connection between memory and the self? and between memory and story-telling? and between memory and ethical reasoning? What is the connection between memory and emotion? and between memory and the senses? How and why do we forget? What events—personal or cultural—are best forgotten and how do we go about forgetting them? This course will address these questions and more as we progress through five units: Life Memories, Theories of Mind, The Science of Memory, The Art of Memory, and Collective Memory and the Politics of Forgetting. Reading, watching, and listening assignments will facilitate an exploration of the full spectrum of western thinking about memory, from its beginnings to the emerging academic field of Memory Studies. I hope that in addition to learning a great deal about memory and forgetting as academic topics, you will come away from this seminar having gained new insights into the workings of your own memories and having developed a personal practice of memory that will serve your growth as individuals long after your memories of the course itself have dimmed.

MARTHA RUST is Associate Professor of English in NYU’s Department of English, specializing in the literary-historical period of the Middle Ages with a focusing on late-medieval manuscript culture. The broader interests she brings to her study of this field include the phenomenology of reading, picture theory, cognitive archaeology, the history of writing, and memory studies. Her current book project, Lists and the Poetics of Reckoning in Middle English Culture, seeks to develop a theory of the written list as a device that functions within three signifying domains: the domains of words, of pictures, and of things.

FYSEM-UA 818
What is Real?
Spring 2021
Instructor: Laurence Maloney
Tuesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (M 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Is there something you believe that helps you to act effectively, relieves stress, makes you a better person—but that you sometimes think may just be an illusion? Recent work in many disciplines indicates that the things we take for granted—what we see, hear, feel, etc.—are arguably illusions. Visual illusions are well-documented and frequently amusing but there are "cognitive illusions" as well: we frequently find consistent patterns in human decision making that are frankly erroneous. We are confident—and we are wrong. The claims that we have an accurate picture of the world and that we make decisions that lead us to the goals we intend are under attack. This seminar covers the main issues, theories, and experimental results in perceptual organization, decision making, and related work in cognitive neuroscience. Readings come from such fields as psychology, economics, biology, neuroscience, and even physics, but the course requires no specific background in any of these disciplines.

LAURENCE MALONEY is Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University. He studied mathematics at Yale and spent six years working as a systems programmer. After that, he pursued graduate studies at Stanford and earned an M.S. in Mathematical Statistics and a Ph.D. in Psychology (specializing in the field of cognition). Professor Maloney’s research is almost entirely based on statistics and linear systems and examines decision making, visual perception, and motor planning. He finds that many cognitive and perceptual tasks can be cast as statistical problems of estimation, hypothesis testing, and game theory. He develops optimal models of perception and action from basic statistical principles, and then uses experiments to compare human performance to the predictions of the models.

FYSEM-UA 449
Wiseguys, Spies, and Private Eyes: Heroes and Villains in American Culture, Film, and Literature
Fall 2020
Instructor: Eddy Friedfeld
Thursday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.).

This seminar explores the ways in which specific American archetypes and themes are perceived and articulated—from the rugged Old West individualist, to the persevering underdog who becomes a boxing champ, to the Cold War era superspy. We examine representations of heroes and villains in modern American popular culture and how the great films and novels of three particular genres, the detective, the gangster, and the spy, influenced our understanding of these archetypes. From the early influences of Hamlet and Macbeth to Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, Mario Puzo’s (and Francis Ford Coppola’s) The Godfather, James Bond, and Batman, we look at the mythology and evolution of heroes and villains through popular and high culture icons, the genesis of the genres and how they developed over time, and how great directors, actors, and writers influenced audiences worldwide and were themselves influenced by culture and history.

EDDY FRIEDFELD is a film and entertainment journalist and historian, as well as an attorney specializing in corporate restructuring. He is the co-author of Caesar’s Hours with comedy legend Sid Caesar, and is working on a book on the history of comedy in America. He was the senior consultant for the PBS documentary Make ’Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America; has appeared on Fox News, PBS, and WOR and Bloomberg Radio; has written and lectured extensively on entertainment and film; has produced and hosted tributes to Dick Van Dyke, Eric Idle, Dick Cavett, Alan King, Robert Altman, George Carlin, and Paul Newman, among others; and has worked with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Billy Crystal. He received his BA from Columbia College and his JD from NYU Law School. He also teaches at Yale College and The Tisch School of the Arts.

FYSEM-UA 500
Work and Family in the New Economy
Spring 2021
Instructor: Kathleen Gerson       
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics

Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.), Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (M 3:30-4:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

The rise of a globalized “new economy” has created jobs with more short-term flexibility but less long-term security. In a parallel way, the rise of more diverse options in intimate relationships has created similar uncertainties in the nature of commitments to partners and children. Taken together, these revolutionary shifts have left recent generations facing deepening conflicts between earning a living and caring for others. To explore the causes, contours, and longer-term consequences of these changes in economic and private life, this course will take a two-pronged approach. We first study cutting-edge research on these contemporary trends and, second, we draw on these readings as students develop and conduct original research projects on a relevant topic of their choice.

KATHLEEN GERSON is Collegiate Professor of Sociology and a recognized authority on the intertwined revolutions in gender, work, and family life in the United States and globally. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other awards, and the author of numerous books, including The Unfinished Revolution, an award-winning study of how new generations have responded to growing up in changing families. She is currently completing a book on “the science and art of interviewing” and is at work on another book about the gender strategies now emerging to cope with the growing work-care conflicts facing today’s workers and parents. 

EXPOS-UA 1.001
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 001)
Fall 2020
Instructor: Joseph Califf
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.002
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 002)
Fall 2020
Instructor: Noelle Liston
Monday and Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.004
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 004)
Fall 2020
Instructor: Matthew McClelland
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.005
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 005)
Fall 2020
Instructor: Noelle Liston
Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.006
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 006)
Fall 2020
Instructor: Matthew McClelland
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.007
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 007)
Fall 2020
Instructor: Joseph Califf
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.001
Writing the Essay: Science (Spring 001)
Spring 2021
Instructor: TBD
Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.002
Writing the Essay: Science (Spring 002)
Spring 2021
Instructor: TBD
Monday and Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I (M 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.004
Writing the Essay: Science (Spring 004)
Spring 2021
Instructor: TBD
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

EXPOS-UA 1.006
Writing the Essay: Science (Spring 006)
Spring 2021
Instructor: TBD
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Prehealth/Science

Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (TR 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Writing the Essay is the foundational writing course. It provides instruction and practice in critical reading, creative thinking, and clear writing. It provides additional instruction in analyzing and interpreting written texts, the use of written texts as evidence, the development of ideas, and the writing of both exploratory and argumentative essays. The course stresses exploration, inquiry, reflection, analysis, revision, and collaborative learning. In these special WTE: Science sections, course readings and assignments focus on current issues in the worlds of science and medicine. Students read and respond to essays by prominent scientists, physicians, and science writers, such as Stephen Jay Gould, Primo Levi, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Richard Selzer.

JOSEPH CALIFF is Language Lecturer of Expository Writing at New York University. He received a BSc in Evolutionary Anthropology from Rutgers University and received an MA and PhD in Biological Anthropology from New York University. His academic research and interests range from behavioral endocrinology and human evolution to science education and writing pedagogy. In addition to teaching university courses, he has spoken to elementary and high school students about many aspects of biology throughout New York and New Jersey and conducted family workshops and adult courses with students of all ages at the American Museum of Natural History. He has received grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Gates Cambridge Trust, and the Walter D. Head Foundation of Rotary International.

NOELLE MOLÉ LISTON is Senior Language Lecturer of Expository Writing at New York University. She holds a doctorate in cultural anthropology from Rutgers University. A former Fulbright scholar, Liston’s first book, Labor Disorders in Neoliberal Italy, received the Society for the Anthropology of Work Book Award in 2013. She has received the Teaching Excellence Award at NYU and the 2011 Quin Morton ’36 Teaching Award from Princeton University. She is completing her second book, The Truth Society: Science and the Pseudo in Italy.

MATTHEW MCCLELLAND is Senior Language Lecturer of Expository Writing at New York University. He received his PhD from the University of Washington and his BA from Whittier College. He currently teaches Writing The Essay: Science and is the UHall Writing Affiliate.

FYSEM-UA 819
Written and Sung Poetry in the Americas under Neoliberalism (1973-2020)
Fall 2020
Instructor: Ezequiel Zaidenwerg
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (W 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This seminar—which spans from 1973 to the present, from the Southern Cone to New York to Mexico—aims to expand the contemporary notion of the lyric under neoliberal rule in the Americas by studying written poetry alongside song lyrics. Today, contrary to the common idea that poetry is an endangered species in the aesthetic realm, poetry is deeply rooted in people’s imagination and memories through songs. While it may be true that nobody reads poetry, it certainly seems like everyone listens to it. At the same time, written poetry, which had been steadily and vocally detaching from its musical origins, has recently started to make amends—to the point of reverting to traditional rhythmic techniques and borrowing some of their forms of circulation and socialization. As we learn about the history of neoliberalism—which we will frame not only as an economic ideology, but more specifically as a device for the production of subjectivity—we will study lyric forms (written, sung, and/or performed) that challenge the neoliberal status quo, focusing on both radical anachronisms and conceptual experimentation.

EZEQUIEL ZAIDENWERG is a poet, translator, and scholar, not necessarily in that order. His research and teaching interests include poetry, translation, and both the politics of rhythm and the rhythms of political life.  His most recent book is 50 estados: 13 poetas contemporáneos de Estados Unidos, a novelized anthology of recent American poetry. He translates a poem a day at zaidenwerg.com, produces the podcast series Orden de traslado, and writes on poetry, translation, and politics for El Malpensante.

FYSEM-UA 514
Xenophon of Athens
Spring 2021
Instructor: Vincent Renzi
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (TR 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (R 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

The greatest ancient you’ve never heard of, Xenophon of Athens (c. 425-355 B.C.E.) was a brilliant general, a student of Socrates, and a renowned author. When knowledge of Greek was still required for admission to college, his fame was ubiquitous, as his writings formed the basis of the college preparatory curriculum. Particular attention is given to Xenophon’s literary style and technique, his invention of new literary genres and innovations as a writer of Socratic discourses, and issues of adaptation, as well as to his characterization of Socrates, depictions of women and non-Greek peoples and slaves, theory of leadership, and political thought. Readings, in English translation: Apology of Socrates, Symposium, Memorabilia, Cyropaedia, Cavalry Commander, Anabasis, and the film based on the latter, The Warriors—with a CAS connection—set in 1979 C.E. New York City.

VINCENT RENZI is Clinical Professor in the Foundations of Contemporary Culture (FCC) and of Classics, and is also Director of the Foundations of Contemporary Culture in the College Core Curriculum. A scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, he also has interests in arts and aesthetics and in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy. He is a recipient of the College's Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

FYSEM-UA 778
Youth and Youth Movements in the Modern Middle East
Fall 2020
Instructor: Sara Pursley
Tuesday and Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Theme: Identity and Society

Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (T 2:45-7:00 p.m.).

During the past year (2019-2020), young people have led major uprisings in Iraq and Lebanon, demanding an end to sectarianism, corruption, and economic inequality. These events are reminiscent of the 2011 “Arab spring” uprisings that overthrew dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere, and that many referred to as a “youth revolution.” Meanwhile, in between the 2011 and 2019 events, the Islamic State became famous for recruiting young people across the Arab world and beyond for its campaign to restore a so-called Islamic caliphate. Does it make sense to associate these revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements with young people? Do young people in the Middle East (or elsewhere) have political sensibilities different from those of older people? Does the focus on youth distract from issues such as those of class or gender? What is the relationship between political mobilization and other expressions of youth counter-culture, such as drag racing or hip hop? In what ways are the current uprisings similar to or different from earlier upheavals in the region, such as the student uprisings that challenged European colonialism from the 1920s to the 1940s, the widespread youth rebellions of the 1950s and 1960s, or the disproportionate participation of young people in the Palestinian Intifadas since the 1980s? Are there “political generations” in the Middle East, and if so what have been the characteristics of different political generations across the past 100 years? Using “youth” and “generation” as lenses onto the history of the modern Middle East, this course will explore these and other questions related to political mobilization and revolution; religion and secularism; gender and sexuality; colonialism and nationalism; sectarianism and democracy; and experiences of war, dislocation, and migration.

SARA PURSLEY is Assistant Professor in the departments of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and of History at NYU. She works on the cultural and social history of the modern Middle East, especially the Arab world, with an interest in conceptions of selfhood in relation to political economy and political mobilization. She also works on histories of British and U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, particularly Iraq. She is the author of Familiar Futures: Time, Selfhood, and Sovereignty in Iraq and numerous articles. From 2009-2014 she served as associate editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies.

 

 

FYSEM-UA 701
Adventures in Interviewing: Oral History Theory and Practice
Spring 2020
Instructor: Miriam Nyhan Grey        
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Memoirs and Diaries in Modern European Jewish History (FYSEM-UA 312) in the Narrating History cohort.

Oral history is a very important tool for a historian. It is compelling in its ability to bring forward the voices of those who were frequently excluded from more typical sources and it often leads to new interpretations of history. As a method it presents both challenges and rewards, as the sources are not confined to the library or an archive. In the process of interviewing, the historian is confronted by sources that speak, think, remember, forget and recount—human beings. This course will explore theories of memory, how memory is constructed and forgotten, and how historians contend with this type of source. Preparing for and conducting an oral history interview will be a significant portion of the work for this course. The goal is to uncover the richness of oral history in complicating our explanations of the past.

MIRIAM NYHAN GREY is Associate Director of New York University's Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies, where she is also Director of Graduate Studies for the Master of Arts in Irish and Irish-American Studies. With an interest in the intersections of migration, race, and ethnicity, she focuses primarily on migrant experiences in comparative frameworks. Oral history is a central methodology in her research, and she has served as a collaborator for the Archives of Irish America’s Oral History Collection since 2008. She has been on the faculty at NYU since 2009, teaching an array of classes on Irish history and migration, oral history, and comparative migration.

FYSEM-UA 649
America in the World: Benevolent Giant or Just Another Superpower?
Spring 2020
Instructor: James Traub      
Tuesday, 9:30-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

From the moment of its birth, the United States has told a story about itself: that it was not simply a nation among nations but a beacon of democracy and individual freedom. As it became a world power at the end of the nineteenth century, the US began to deploy its wealth and force abroad to advance its national interests, as other great powers did—but also, or so it said and so its people deeply believed, to shape a more peaceful, democratic, and just world order. The United States continued to pursue that self-assigned mission through two world wars and the Cold War, and now in the face of terrorism. America is unlike any previous world power both in the beliefs on which it was founded and in its geographical situation, surrounded by oceans and far removed from the conflicts in which it intervenes. And yet it is also a hegemon—a dominant power—and shapes the world to its perceived interests, as all hegemons do. Over the last century, critics have never stopped accusing the US of hypocritically pursuing narrow interests in the name of global good. In electing a new president, American voters may finally have put that claim to rest by choosing someone who does not accept the nation's historic mission. This class will examine a series of critical points—war, colonialism, the founding of global institutions, interventions abroad—in order to understand the tension between America's idealistic global mission and the brute fact of its power and dominance.

JAMES TRAUB is a long-time journalist whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. He writes a column for www.foreignpolicy.com and teaches two classes in foreign policy at NYU Abu Dhabi. He has written half a dozen books, most recently a biography of John Quincy Adams. He is now writing a study of the rise and fall of liberalism.

FYSEM-UA 742
Apocalypses: Reflections on the End of the World
Spring 2020
Instructor: John Moran        
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

In this seminar we will explore, discuss, and dissect several important works of post-apocalyptic fiction. As we examine these works (through close readings, small-group and class discussions, lectures, reflective writing assignments, and considerations of cinematic adaptations), we will pose such questions as: What do the different ways in which we envision the end of the world as we know it reveal about our society’s collective concerns and fears? How might society play a central role in precipitating its own demise? Who will survive the apocalypse (or rather, the different types of apocalypse that we consider) and what does that survival mean? How do survivors try (or not try, or try and fail) to restructure a new society? Students will work to improve their ability to present ideas and arguments in a clear, concise, well-structured, and convincing manner both in writing and speaking. Furthermore, students will discover how best to find, read, and appreciate relevant research on literary work and genre and apply it to their own work.

JOHN MORAN is Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture, where he also serves as the Director of Language Programs. Holding a PhD in French Linguistics from Tulane University, he has been at New York University for fifteen years, teaching courses on French and francophone history, literature, languages, and linguistics. He is particularly active in the field of language education and assessment, serving as the chair for the CLEP French Language Test and the Chief Reader for the Advanced Placement French Language and Culture Exam. He lives in Lipton Hall, where he serves both as a Faculty Fellow in Residence and a Faculty Affiliate for the French Floor, with his husband and their two Welsh Corgis. He has loved post-apocalyptic fiction ever since he saw the film Omega Man late one long-ago Saturday night on Creature Feature, and he is very excited to have the chance to share his passion with a group of first-year students.

FYSEM-UA 743
Archaeology of Ireland: Land of Saints and Scholars
Spring 2020
Instructor: Pam J. Crabtree       
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Archaeology uses material culture, including artifacts and structures, in order to understand the daily lives of people in the past. Large-scale excavations carried out in the later twentieth and twenty-first centuries have shed new light on Irish history, from the island’s initial settlement at the end of the Ice Age through the nineteenth century. This course will explore how archaeology can be used to reconstruct Irish history. Particular emphasis will be placed on the Irish “Dreamtime,” the Iron Age and early medieval periods (ca. 600 BCE to 1100 CE). We will also examine the role that the Irish monastic tradition played in perpetuating and passing on to posterity many of the classic texts of Western civilization.

PAM J. CRABTREE is an archaeologist and Professor in NYU’s Department of Anthropology, where she also serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies. She is a field archaeologist who has worked on historic and prehistoric sites in Europe, the Near East, and eastern North America, and she is particularly interested in how archaeological data can be used to illustrate the daily lives of people who lived in the past. Her area of expertise is zooarchaeology, the study of animal bones as a way of reconstructing ancient hunting practices, animal husbandry patterns, and diets. Crabtree is currently the co-director of the excavations at Dún Ailinne, an Irish Iron Age site located in County Kildare. She teaches courses on prehistoric and medieval archaeology, archaeological methods, and agricultural origins.

FYSEM-UA 771
Art of Doing Nothing: Idlers, Drifters, Slackers, and Fugitives in Literature and Film
Fall 2019
Instructor: Michael Krimper     
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

What would it take to stop working? To refuse work? Give it up? To do something else besides productive activity and labor, or nothing at all? And how might doing nothing introduce radically different senses of freedom than what we are used to? In this seminar, we will think about some of the ways that modern literature and film reflect on the art of doing nothing, turning the city or its outskirts into a locus for personal and collective struggle, resistance, and transformation. Our aim will be to examine strategies for breaking free from the dominance of work, as illustrated by figures like the slacker, idler, fugitive, drifter, ambler, and so-called flâneur/flâneuse, primarily but not exclusively within the urban topographies of Paris, New York, and London from the nineteenth century onwards. We will pay special attention to the critical potentialities of unmanaged and wayward lives at the intersection of race, class, and gender. We will read stories by Beckett, Breton, Calle, Chamoiseau, Cole, Melville, Rhys, Rousseau, and Woolf; poetry by Baudelaire, Boyer, Hughes, and Poe; and theoretical work by Benjamin, Federici, Hartman, and Wilde. We also view films by Varda and Chalfant.

MICHAEL KRIMPER teaches in the Department of French at New York University, where he received his PhD in Comparative Literature not so long ago. He specializes in francophone and anglophone literature from the nineteenth century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of aesthetics and politics in transatlantic modernisms. His current book project examines how work becomes a problem across a wide array of literature, art, and philosophy in postwar France. Parts of this study have been published or are forthcoming in SubStance and New Literary History, among other venues. Before joining NYU, he worked as a music journalist in California.

FYSEM-UA 713
Artful Lives
Spring 2020
Instructor: Jennifer Cayer        
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Recitation (Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.), General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

How, and to what unique ends, have artists, performers, and writers crafted art from the materials of lived experience? We will explore a variety of works across genres, including diaries, graphic memoirs, auto ethnographies, films, performances, and theater works that innovatively and directly draw upon lived experience. We will consider autobiographical as well as documentary projects as we ask: what does it mean to represent ourselves and others in art? And what aesthetic and ethical questions arise in the making of such works? For example, what is the relationship between memory and memoir? How do we understand the complexities of reading and writing essays that fall into the category of “creative nonfiction”? And what changing roles do social media play in our representations and comprehension of ourselves and selfhood? Along the way, we will experiment with making our own artful representations in multiple modalities from written language to playing with sonic, visual, and kinetic forms. Artists under consideration may include: Jamaica Kincaid, Maggie Nelson, Alison Bechdel, Cynthia Hopkins, Reverend Billy, Coco Fusco, Kara Walker, Agnes Varda, Lucy Grealy, Ana Mendieta, Anna Deavere Smith, and Spalding Gray.

JENNIFER CAYER is a Senior Language Lecturer at New York University, where she teaches writing in the Tisch School of the Arts and serves as a Writing in the Disciplines consultant. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature and has taught courses on literature, drama, and performance studies at Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts. She was awarded a Copeland Fellowship on the Future of the Humanities and served as a Five College Women’s Studies Research Center Associate. Her scholarship, essays, and creative nonfiction have been published in The Washington Post, Theater Journal, The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, TDR: The Drama Review, Culturebot, and Contrary Magazine.

FYSEM-UA 705
Banned Books
Spring 2020
Instructor: Michelle Kelly       
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

What does it mean when we ban a book? What can a book’s absence tell us about a society? In this seminar we will read and analyze censored literature, but we will also consider meanings that are constituted by erasure. We will confront controversial and offensive writing, consider its worth, and weigh its right to exist through nuanced thinking about cultural context, practical implications, and moral philosophy. Drawing on theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, and J.M. Coetzee, we will connect our readings of twentieth-century poetry and novels to the issues of free speech and censorship that we confront in our daily lives. Students will have the opportunity to conduct archival research in NYU’s Special Collections in order to restore public consciousness of texts that have been censored, overlooked, or otherwise silenced.

MICHELLE MCSWIGGAN KELLY is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. A Weaponized Poetics, her current work in progress, explores how the intersections among literature, history, and politics were reshaped by the crises of the Second World War. She received her PhD from Fordham University and her BA and MA from Emory University.

FYSEM-UA 634
#BlackLanguageMatters
Fall 2019
Instructor: Renée Blake       
Thursday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

This seminar is about language—more specifically, the many ways African Americans use language to express their personal and community identities. The course focuses primarily on the language variety known as African American English, which often serves as a guise for deep-seated racial ideologies about African Americans and Black people more generally. We will study the linguistic structure of African American English and theories about its origins. We explore how language is used to convey social identity—particularly regarding race and ethnicity—and make meaning of one’s life. Issues addressed include language variation, language contact and change, and social and linguistic discrimination. Finally, we consider African American English as a nexus of ideas on race, identity, sexuality, violence, and equality in the United States and abroad, with reference to Cornel West’s Race Matters (1994) and the more recent #BlackLivesMatter movement.

RENÉE A. BLAKE is Associate Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her research examines language contact, race, ethnicity, and class, with a focus on African American English, Caribbean Creole English, and New York City English. Her work has been published in many journals, including Language in Society, Language and Education, Journal of English Linguistics, Language, Variation and Change, and English Today. She has served as a consultant to many programs and organizations, including Disney and the Ford Foundation. She developed two web-based linguistic sites: “Word. The Online Journal on African American English” (africanamericanenglish.com) and “Voices of New York” (nyuvoicesofnewyork.com). Professor Blake is a recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award and is a faculty member in the Presidential Honors Scholars Program.

FYSEM-UA 707
Borderlands and Belonging in the Americas
Spring 2020
Instructor: Natasha Zaretsky        
Thursday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Migration has shaped the Americas in powerful ways, creating immigrant communities and diasporas that transcend national boundaries. As people continue to move across borders, the relationship between identity and place has been reimagined, offering new possibilities for connection. Yet, this has also sparked political anxieties about belonging and citizenship for both individuals and nations, rendering some immigrants as perpetually outside the “imagined community” of the nation, effectively living on the borderlands of belonging. How do those on the borders navigate belonging, citizenship, and identity in the Americas? What are the implications of these struggles for understandings of nations and selves? This seminar explores the lived experience of those moving across national borders as they negotiate various borderlands in their search for home. We turn to testimonial accounts and ethnographies to explore life on the borderlands, also drawing on key conceptual frameworks in migration and diaspora studies related to borders and identity. Readings primarily draw on ethnographies of diaspora groups (Caribbean, Latin American, Jewish, and Asian communities), as well as testimonial accounts in various genres—including fiction, memoir, and the narrative testimonies of undocumented migrants and Dreamers in public protests.

NATASHA ZARETSKY is a Senior Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program and a cultural anthropologist, focusing on human rights, migration, and the politics of memory and truth in the Americas. A former Fulbright scholar, she earned her doctorate in Anthropology from Princeton University. Her recent book, Landscapes of Memory and Impunity (with coeditor A.H. Levine) examines memory and survival in Argentina; her writing about human rights and diaspora communities in the Americas has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Tablet, and Global Americans. Currently, she leads the Truth in the Americas program at Rutgers’ Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights; she is also working on documentary films about Argentina and Cuba, and finishing a manuscript about transitional justice in Latin America.

FYSEM-UA 748
Childhood and Youth in Cinema
Spring 2020
Instructor: Bruno Guaraná         
Monday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.), Principles of Biology II Lecture (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.), and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (Monday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.).

We look at a wide range of films that offer different cultural and historical representations of children, childhood, and youth, paying close attention to how they manifest certain themes both aesthetically and narratively. The figure of the child in cinema may simultaneously convey crude realism and romantic nostalgia; but, beyond this tension, children in films also stand for tropes of innocence, dependence, inaptitude, sexuality, desire, and suffering, among others. We consider several questions: Why and how do filmmakers focus on child characters in their critiques of society, history, power, and discrimination? How do children on screen convey realism and/or nostalgia, future and/or past? Is the thematic rigidity of “childhood in cinema” a productive or a reductive analytical framework? We explore a range of visual and written texts from around the globe as a means of questioning and understanding changing notions of childhood and its representation in cinema.

BRUNO GUARANÁ is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. His research explores negotiations of cultural citizenship in contemporary Brazilian media through an intersectional approach. He has taught courses in several departments at NYU, including Media, Culture, and Communication (Steinhardt), and Cinema Studies (Tisch), as well as in the Film department at Brooklyn College.

FYSEM-UA 496
Cultural Nature of Language
Fall 2019
Instructor: Bambi Schieffelin            
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

Whether it’s accents, pronouns, swearing, or spelling, how one uses language is never value-free. In this seminar we examine language use as a social practice, and analyze how speakers and their language(s) are evaluated and regulated across a range of contexts and cultures. Starting with how children learn to talk, or don’t (e.g., feral children), we examine speech and silence across a range of societies. We look at popular attitudes toward language and the practices by which people regulate its use in the media (e.g., political correctness), in legal and educational institutions (e.g., “English only”), and in multilingual cities (e.g., Barcelona, Montreal) in order to understand how ideas about language are often recruited to non-linguistic concerns, such as who should be included and who excluded. In thinking about the cultural nature of language in this way, we critically explore issues of identity and authority.

BAMBI SCHIEFFELIN is Collegiate Professor and Professor of Anthropology. A linguistic anthropologist, she is the author of The Give and Take of Everyday Life: Language Socialization of Kaluli Children and co-editor of, among other books, The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives; Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory; and Consequences of Contact. She has also published articles in the preeminent journals of her field. She is completing a book on the impact of Christianity on the language and social life of Bosavi people of Papua New Guinea over the past twenty-five years, and continues her research on linguistic creativity and change as evidenced in computer-mediated communication (such as IM). Professor Schieffelin received the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence in 2010.

FYSEM-UA 719
Daughters, Mothers, and Sisters: Women Who Shaped the Irish Diaspora in America
Fall 2019
Instructor: Linda Dowling Almeida          
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Any successful immigrant community relies on both its men and its women to thrive and survive. Since the late nineteenth century, Irish female immigrants have been an undeniable and atypical force in the rise of the Irish in America from servant class to elite. Traveling alone without male protection, young Irish women found work and oversaw the social mobility of their families from the home, in the classroom, and within the community. This interdisciplinary course will look at the experience of female Irish immigrants and their descendants over the last 125 years. Using fiction, historical sources, personal testimony, and film, we will consider both the conventional and the unique factors that characterize the Irish-American female experience and that contribute to their influence on this ethnic community and the country.

LINDA DOWLING ALMEIDA, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Irish Studies at NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House (GIH), teaches courses in the history and literature of Irish America. Her book Irish Immigrants in New York City, 1945-1995 compares the experience of the Irish who arrived in the 1950s with that of their counterparts thirty and forty years later. Professor Almeida has published chapters in The Irish World Wide, Ireland in the 1950s, and Making the Irish American, and has delivered papers on post-war Irish America as well as pedagogical approaches to oral history at the American Conference for Irish Studies, the Oral History Association, and the International Oral History Association. Her projects include the production of podcasts on a variety of themes and issues drawn from GIH's Archives of Irish America.

FYSEM-UA 767
Dead Sea Scrolls and the Foundations of Judaism and Christianity
Spring 2020
Instructor: Lawrence H. Schiffman       
Tuesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This seminar investigates the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for our understanding of the history of Judaism in ancient times and the development of Christianity. The course will deal with these long-lost scrolls as ancient documents testifying to the Judaism of the Greco-Roman period and the manner in which they influenced early Christianity. The seminar will also explain the modern drama of their discovery and publication as well as the ways in which they have reshaped our understanding of Judaism and Christianity. Each student will engage in a research project, working closely with the instructor throughout the semester.

LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN is Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and Director of the Global Network for Advanced Research in Jewish Studies. He earned his PhD in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. He is a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism in late antiquity, the history of Jewish law, and Talmudic literature. His many publications include Who Was a Jew? Rabbinic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism; From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism; Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls; The Courtyards of the House of the Lord: Studies on the Temple Scroll; Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism; and more than 200 articles on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism. In 2006 he received the National Foundation for Jewish Culture Scholarship Award. He coedited the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the award-winning Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture. Dr. Schiffman was featured in the PBS Nova documentary Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls; four BBC documentaries on the scrolls; a Discovery special; the series Mysteries of the Bible (A&E) and Kingdom of David (PBS); and other documentaries. More recently he served as the academic advisor to the exhibition at Discovery Times Square entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times.

FYSEM-UA 723
Death Talk: How We Write About Death, Dying, and Grieving Today
Spring 2020
Instructor: Stéphane Gerson      
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 pm).

It has long been said that death has been hidden from view in the modern West. Most people now die in hospitals or old age institutions rather than at home. Older rituals of grief and bereavement have grown marginal, making death less visible in our daily lives. Our media culture privileges youth and vigor rather than aging and death. Certain deaths, such as a child’s, are almost taboo because they contradict our prevailing beliefs about progress, happiness, the sanctity of childhood, and the elimination of risk. And yet, in recent years, there has been an apparent surge of books about death and grief, assisted dying, and loss in its multiple forms. These include memoirs and novels, poems and essays by doctors, and works of history, sociology, and anthropology. A number of these works have attained critical and popular success. Our goal in this course will be to put these different works in conversation. By analyzing the ways in which these different authors approach the matter, we will seek to determine what may be said about death today. What is audible? What is permissible and publishable? Are we living through a significant transformation of our public discourse about death? Students in this course will engage in both analytical and personal forms of writing about death, grief, and loss.

STÉPHANE GERSON, a historian, is Professor of French and French Studies at NYU and director of the Institute of French Studies. He has published several historical works as well as a memoir entitled Disaster Falls: A Family Story.

FYSEM-UA 765
Democracy, Avant-garde, and Counterculture in Contemporary Spain
Spring 2020
Instructor: Sara Nadal-Melsió        
Wednesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

The social and political imaginaries of General Franco’s Spain (1939-1975)—that is, its institutions, laws, and values—created a singular instance of temporal dislocation in the avant-garde of the 1960s and 70s, in the countercultures of the 70s, and in the social fabric of political militancy and resistance against the Francoist regime. This course proposes an examination of those political, historical, and aesthetic conjunctures and their effect on the subjectivities of a generation that felt “infinitely foreign” in its own country. Artists, poets, filmmakers, activists, and militants introduced a sense of desire into a political context of discipline and obedience, and by doing so they redefined the meanings of work, sexuality, and everyday life. In addition, they often paid homage to the democratic legacies of the Second Republic of the 1930s and to the avant-gardism of its cultural milieu. Similarly, the recent indignados movement that occupied Spain’s public squares and demanded more radical democratic practices (a movement similar in many ways to Occupy Wall Street) recalled, in turn, the countercultural practices of the 70s. We will study these cross-generational alliances in an effort to understand the relationship of art and aesthetics on one hand and politics on the other.

SARA NADAL-MELSIÓ is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. She previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and SOMA in Mexico City. Her essays have appeared in academic journals, various edited volumes, and museum catalogs. She is the co-author of Alrededor de/Around, a book on the photography and architecture of the last fin-de-siècle, and the editor of two special issues on cinema, The Invisible Tradition: Avant-Garde Catalan Cinema under Late Francoism and The Militant Image: Temporal Disturbances of the Political Imagination. She recently co-curated a show on the visual artist duo of Allora & Calzadilla for the Fundació Tàpies in Barcelona, and also edited a critical volume on the current Puerto Rican crisis.

FYSEM-UA 734
Derrida’s Archive Fever
Fall 2019
Instructor: Juliet Fleming          
Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

What is an archive? Is it a library, a legacy, a school of thought? For that matter, what does each of these terms mean? Derrida’s Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (1995) has provoked intense conversations among archivists, philosophers, historians, psychoanalysts, and social scientists about the archive and its relation to questions of memory. In this seminar we will read Derrida’s Archive Fever, and the writing that underlies and is necessary to understand it: Freud’s controversial Moses and Monotheism; Freud's famous essay on the death drive, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”; Jensen’s novella Gradiva: A Pompeian Fancy, and Freud’s response to it; and Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi's Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable. Students will learn to read Derrida's famously difficult writing accurately and with pleasure, and will visit Derrida's own archive at Princeton University.

JULIET FLEMING is Professor in the Department of English, Faculty Fellow in Residence at the Palladium, and the recipient of a Golden Dozen Undergraduate Teaching Award. She is a literary theorist and translator of Derrida who specializes as a theorist of writing, and has worked on such topics as graffiti, tattooing, collaging, and taxidermy.

FYSEM-UA 759
Dictadura: Stories of Tyranny and Liberation in Central America and the Caribbean
Spring 2020
Instructor: Sibylle Fischer          
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Latin America at the Start of the Twenty-First Century: Coming of Age or Continuing Chaos? (FYSEM-UA 306) in the Exploring Latin America cohort.

The figure of the dictator is one of the recurrent tropes in twentieth-century Latin American literature. The dictator in his fiefdom—the “Banana Republic”—is also one of the classic stereotypes about “dysfunctional” and “unstable” Latin American states. In this seminar we will study some of the canonical Spanish American novels about dictators along with documentary films, primary sources, and selected historiography. We discuss how it is that oppression and seduction so frequently combine to sustain tyrannical regimes. What kinds of fantasies and hopes do tyrants draw on? How do these fantasies compare to what we know from historical sources? What is the role of gender and race in these fantasies about “patriarchs,” “benefactors,” and “liberators”? How do writers, journalists, and artists understand their role in relation to tyrannical regimes? How do they narrate stories of resistance and tyrannicide, and why are these stories so rarely happy ones? What happens after the death of the dictator? Cases to be discussed will likely include the dictatorships of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Duvalier in Haiti, Juan Vicente Gomez in Venezuela, and Somoza in Nicaragua. There will be a current affairs component to the course. Students will be asked to research recent events and/or follow the news on the countries we discuss. All texts will be provided in English translation.

SIBYLLE FISCHER is Associate Professor at New York University, where she holds appointments in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Department of History, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She is the author of Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, which received numerous awards. She is currently working on a book on Spanish American Independence, Simón Bolívar, and the place of race in the revolutionary upheavals of the early nineteenth century. Fischer is also head of research at the New Sanctuary Coalition’s pro se Legal Clinic, where she oversees country condition research for asylum applications.

FYSEM-UA 766
Dimensions: Art, Nature, and Human Survival
Fall 2019
Instructor: Luciano Medina          
Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This seminar introduces students to the mathematical definition of dimensions, including non-intuitive fractional dimensions. The human understanding of the concept “dimension” can be viewed through its evolution in art: two dimensions in medieval tapestries, three dimensions in da Vinci’s Renaissance masterpiece depicting the Last Supper, and four dimensions in Cubist art and the Bolshevik era. The existence of fractional dimensions is observed throughout nature in the beautiful patterns of snowflakes, pineapples, and the rings of Saturn. At the intersection of generative and computer art, fractional dimensions can also be experienced through never-ending patterns called fractals. The course culminates with studies of higher dimensions (or hyperspace) and theories of wormholes and parallel universes as an escape for humanity from the death of our star.

LUCIANO MEDINA is Lecturer and Course Coordinator at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science. He uses mathematics as a compass to travel through the realm of the unknown in engineering and science. Some of his published work includes examining tumor growth models through the lens of chaos theory, determining the “critical voltage” in microelectromechanical actuators, and establishing a rigorous proof for the solutions of partial differential equations modeling the fractional quantum hall effect. He teaches a full array of classes, ranging from the standard calculus course to such specialized courses as “The Art of Mathematics.”

FYSEM-UA 379
Doctor’s Dilemma: Being Both Correct and Right
Fall 2019
Instructor: Michael E. Makover         
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Dr. Saul Farber, former Dean of the NYU School of Medicine, frequently cautioned that just because an action or conclusion was correct did not mean that it was right. Ethics, laws, and religious and cultural beliefs intersect in every medical encounter and healthcare issue, affecting patients’ options and care. The challenging issues to be studied and debated in this seminar include the following: Should doctors help terminal patients die to relieve intractable suffering? Should doctors participate in executions or in the interrogation of terrorists? Do we want to know so much about our genetic makeup that we are faced with terribly difficult consequences of that knowledge? Is “alternative medicine” a reasonable alternative? What makes a good doctor good? Who should pay for your healthcare? The course aims to teach students how to address such questions by learning to think like doctors and scientists, to apply logic tempered by human values and experience, to analyze information critically, and to present ideas effectively and honestly.

MICHAEL E. MAKOVER is Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine and Attending Physician at the NYU Medical Center. He is also the Chief Medical Officer for a major union. An internist and rheumatologist, he is the author of Mismanaged Care, as well as articles on healthcare quality, ethics, and economics, and is currently writing another book entitled 120 Years Young. He was an aide to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and a spokesman for the American Cancer Society and the New York Heart Association.

FYSEM-UA 708
Dream Homes and Heartache
Spring 2020
Instructor: David Markus         
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Recitation (Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.), General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Throughout much of the last century, the “dream home” has been almost synonymous with the American Dream itself. But as the 2007-2010 mortgage crisis dramatically highlighted, dreams of “the good life” in late capitalist societies can unexpectedly turn into nightmares. This course investigates the fantasies, disappointments, and psychopathologies—both everyday and aberrant—that have accompanied twentieth- and twenty-first century experiences of dwelling. We examine a series of existing, or formerly existing, architectural spaces (from large scale housing projects to O.J. Simpson’s Brentwood estate and Donald Trump’s Fifth Avenue penthouse) alongside an array of artworks and narratives from literature and film that center on built environments. We also look at how the fundamental human activity of dwelling has been thought about by philosophers, critics, psychoanalysts, urban geographers, and political theorists. Students’ research will explore how the problems associated with dwelling intersect with issues such as economic inequality, racial and sexual marginalization, creative and emotional growth or arrestation, and the everyday strategies involved in coping with large-scale social and political upheaval. Of particular concern to us will be the ways in which the private spaces people inhabit—even, or especially, when they are designed to embody their most sought-after dreams—fail to provide the sense of comfort and security associated, in the popular imagination, with "home."

DAVID MARKUS is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. He earned his PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago. At present, his research is centered on spatiality in contemporary art and literature, late capitalist economies of excess, and theories of gender and intimacy. His writing appears in publications such as Art Journal, Frieze, Art in America, Next City, and Flash Art.

FYSEM-UA 753
Epic Journeys: Homer, Vergil, Dante
Fall 2019
Instructor: Matthew S. Santirocco        
Tuesday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Homer's Odyssey, Vergil's Aeneid, and Dante's Inferno are key foundational texts of the West. These works span two millennia and very different cultures—archaic Greece at the dawn of literature, pagan Rome of the first century BCE, and Florence during the Christian Middle Ages. Reflecting very different social, political, and religious values, they explore very different visions of what it means to be human, particularly with regard to the individual's role in society and the individual's relationship to the divine. But for all their differences, the three poems self-consciously engage with one another, building on, competing with, and correcting their predecessors' visions. Thus, all are cast as journeys by a hero, and these journeys are both literal and metaphorical. All three also involve a descent into the underworld, from which the hero is, in a sense, reborn with a greater understanding and a new sense of purpose. As if to underscore the way in which these texts talk with one another, the Homeric underworld in the Odyssey is actually Vergil's model for the underworld that his hero, Aeneas, will visit; and Dante goes even further by making Vergil a character in his poem, the pagan spirit who will guide him through and out of the Christian hell. This course will involve close reading and discussion of the three poems. In addition, the seminar aims to develop students' research skills. These skills include how to ask the right questions about a text, how to conduct an internet search of relevant scholarship, how to write up a literature review, and, finally, how to build on that work to produce a paper that sets forth one's own conclusions. No prior knowledge of these texts and no familiarity with research skills are required. What is required is intellectual curiosity and a commitment to work hard and collaboratively.

MATTHEW S. SANTIROCCO is Professor of Classics and Angelo J. Ranieri Director of Ancient Studies at NYU; he is also Academic Director of NYU Washington, DC. He served as Seryl Kushner Dean of the College of Arts and Science from 1994 to 2011, and then as NYU’s Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs until last year, when he returned full-time to teaching. His interests range widely from ancient Greek and Latin literature and thought to issues in American higher education. He founded and directs NYU’s Center for Ancient Studies, which promotes interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the past. Among his many publications are a book on the Roman lyric poet, Horace, and several edited volumes, the most recent of which is an issue of Daedalus on new approaches to the study of Greece and Rome; in addition, he currently edits the Palgrave-Macmillan monograph series, The New Antiquity, and is working on a book on the poetics of patronage in Augustan Rome. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and serves as Assistant Secretary of the Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

FYSEM-UA 749
Feeding the Future
Spring 2020
Instructor: Schuyler Marquez           
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

How is what we eat connected to how we understand our past, present, and future? Food is often at the heart of narratives about the formation and preservation of key societal institutions such as the family and national identity, or about humans’ relationship with nature. More recently, food has been the subject of a host of TV shows, documentaries, and policy conversations about how to balance convenience, efficiency, and tasty foods with health, equity, and sustainable production. In this course, we examine both historical and contemporary controversies and developments to investigate how food generates social relations, structures of power, economies, ecologies, and ontological realities. We look to an array of marketing campaigns, social movements, and government initiatives, asking how producing and eating food has material and symbolic consequences for building solidarity among social groups (such as families, clans, voluntary associations, and religious communities) as well as for creating hierarchies and distinctions within such groups. Through reading and analysis of primary source documents and ethnographic, historical, and other social scientific accounts, we reflect on the myriad ways food shapes our local communities and global society at large.

SCHUYLER MARQUEZ is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at New York University. Based on ethnographic research in Brazil, her dissertation research examined how the task of producing halal meat on an industrial and global scale negotiates the politics and difficulties of materializing a universal Islamic community. Her work explores the nature of global commodity circuits and the question of religion and materiality in capitalist modernity.

FYSEM-UA 710
Fiction, Feminism, and the #MeToo Movement
Spring 2020
Instructor: Courtney Chatellier       
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: This seminar discusses rape and other forms of sexual violence.

When Kristen Roupenian's short story "Cat Person" was published in the New Yorker in December, 2017 amidst a larger public conversation about power, gender, and changing definitions of sexual harassment, it went viral, becoming the magazine's most-read story of the year. The story—which represents the murky and often unspoken power dynamics that influence how we act towards ourselves and others—resonated with the recent #MeToo movement, but it also speaks to farther-reaching questions about sex, gender, and inequality. In this seminar, we will read novels and short stories (from the very recent, to the not-so-recent) that have grappled with these questions, as well as some work in feminist theory, in order to think about how literature has been used in the past—and might be used today—both to critique existing inequalities, and to imagine a more just world.

COURTNEY CHATELLIER is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. She holds a PhD in English and American Studies from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and is writing a book about American literary responses to, and translations of, the French and Haitian Revolutions. Part of this project will appear in the forthcoming summer issue of the journal Early American Studies. Her other current research interests include translation theory; histories of feminism; and the relationships between language, realism, and belief and disbelief in popular culture.


FYSEM-UA 235
First Amendment Freedom of Expression
Fall 2019
Instructor: Stephen D. Solomon        
Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

Prerequisite: A score of 4 or 5 in either AP US History OR in AP US Government and Politics (or equivalent international exam); both recommended.

Political dissent and debate fills the public square at every turn. Citizens demonstrate in the streets, social media carries vitriolic material, speakers are disinvited on college campuses, and President Trump attacks the media. This seminar will enhance your understanding of these conflicts. You will study the First Amendment freedoms of speech and press, and the role that they play in a democratic society. The course engages students in a close study of history as well as law, emphasizing how the American commitment to freedom of expression grew during the nation’s founding period and culminated in ratification of the First Amendment. The course begins with the protests against British authority in colonial times, when the law permitted prosecution of citizens who criticized the government. We examine the conflicting meanings that the founders themselves attached to freedom of speech and press. In our own day, we learn how the Supreme Court has interpreted freedom of expression by studying the Court’s opinions in key cases. We apply those principles to contemporary conflicts, and discuss how new media raise questions that will test the boundaries of freedom of expression in the future.

STEPHEN D. SOLOMON is Marjorie Deane Professor in NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. His book Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech explores the birth of freedom of speech and press in America through the robust dissent of America’s founding period. An earlier book, Ellery’s Protest, tells the story of the controversial Supreme Court case that ruled that state-organized prayer and Bible reading in public schools violated the First Amendment. He is currently working on a book about the birth of the Bill of Rights. He is founding editor of First Amendment Watch (firstamendmentwatch.org), which provides legal and historical background on contemporary conflicts over freedom of expression. Professor Solomon is a recipient of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence. He earned a JD at Georgetown University Law Center.

FYSEM-UA 735
Food for Thought: Narrating the Global Food System
Spring 2020
Instructor: Emily Stone        
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Culinary traditions—and culinary innovations—are forged at the intersection of culture, history, politics, economics, geography, and ecology. In the twenty-first century, amid animated conversations about globalization and climate change, we are increasingly aware of where our food comes from and how our individual food choices affect our neighbors and the rest of the world. This course examines how we write and read about our food system—and ultimately what we do with that information. Our conversation begins with two seminal works about food’s relationship to its surrounding environment: anthropologist Sidney Mintz’s study of sugar production and consumption, Sweetness and Power, and environmental activist Rachael Carson’s polemic about pesticide use in American agriculture, Silent Spring. We then shift to the contemporary moment, considering new ideas about the combination of global politics and local food by journalist Michael Pollan, novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, and chefs Dan Barber and José Andrés. In written assignments, you will analyze the assigned texts as well as write your own food system narratives.

EMILY STONE is a Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. She was also once an undergraduate here (at the Gallatin School) before opening a small bookstore in Guatemala, working as a freelance writer in Australia, traveling to several other countries, writing a blog about chocolate, and ultimately earning graduate degrees in creative writing and food studies. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Fourth Genre, North American Review, and Tin House, and has been among the notable selections in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing. Before returning to NYU, Emily taught writing and literature in English at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.

FYSEM-UA 700
Free Speech, Hate Speech, and Political Correctness
Fall 2019
Instructor: Tom Gerety       
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses: Religion and State in America (FYSEM-UA 218) in the Legal Studies cohort.

This seminar begins with first principles of free expression, especially as articulated by such eighteenth-century figures as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and the great nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill. We examine closely the origins of the First Amendment to the Constitution and some of the modern Supreme Court cases that have interpreted its guarantees. Then we turn to recent controversies, particularly about offensive, insulting, or hateful speech, both on and off campus. We try to understand the concept of a “hostile environment,” first developed as part of the law of sexual harassment but extended in our time to racial and religious insults or indignities, in classrooms, workspaces, and such public spaces as parks and sidewalks. We also weigh the various uses of the loaded concept of “political correctness.” Finally, we seek some comparative insights from the more restrictive laws of such nations as Germany, where the Nazi past has shaped a strong sense of restraint, and France, where a strict conception of secularism has led to prohibitions on religious displays that are usually protected by the First Amendment in the United States. Because many people have passionately held but quite divergent views about what should or should not be allowed to be said (or written) in a democracy, the readings in this seminar come from activists, philosophers, and artists as well as from judges and scholars.

TOM GERETY, Collegiate Professor, first came to NYU to head up the Brennan Center for Justice at the School of Law; he then joined the NYU faculty in 2005 to teach courses in law and the humanities. He served as President of Amherst College from 1994 to 2003 and of Trinity College from 1989 to 1994. From 1986 to 1989 he was Dean and Nippert Professor at the College of Law of the University of Cincinnati. As a law professor he taught and wrote on constitutional law and political philosophy, with a special emphasis on such First Amendment freedoms as speech, privacy, and religious freedom. He wrote and narrated a PBS series, Visions of the Constitution, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of a book of essays on the liberal arts, The Freshman Who Hated Socrates. He holds degrees in Law and Philosophy from Yale.

FYSEM-UA 745
Future of Medicine
Fall 2019
Instructor: Justin Blau            
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.),

How will medicine evolve in the future? Will doctors ever be able to prevent disease rather than react to it? And how can your DNA sequence be used to develop personalized treatments? Healthcare is arguably the most important place where science meets society, and technical advances are raising important ethical issues about healthcare, such as genetic discrimination and designer babies. This course will look at the science, economics, and politics behind medicine and healthcare systems and use healthcare as a tool to study the relative roles of the individual and government.

JUSTIN BLAU is Professor of Biology and Neural Science and the current Chair of the Department of Biology. His research focuses on the molecular and cellular bases of behavior, and particularly on circadian rhythms. He has taught at NYU since 2000 (including extensive teaching experience at NYU Abu Dhabi) and has won the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

FYSEM-UA 695
Gestures, Movement, and Literature
Spring 2020
Instructor: Lourdes Dávila           
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Staging Power: Political Ceremonies and Pageantry (FYSEM-UA 741) in the Art, Politics, and Culture cohort.

Working in the space of articulation between dance, literature, and politics, this seminar examines movement(s) and dance as a key element with which to read transformative moments of history, culture, politics, and philosophy. How do philosophers use the body dancing as a metaphor for thought? How do we read the body dancing before Columbus’ arrival as the first archive of knowledge and resistance? How does the dancing body enter the stage of race relations in 19th century Cuba? What impact does US modern dance have in the political history of the nation and how is it that a Mexican, José Limón, stands as one of the leading figures in US modern dance? Why is it that political movements use the term “movement” to speak of a politics, and what impact does that have on the political histories of bodies? The course will include texts by Cirilo Villaverde, García Lorca, Luis Palés Matos, Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Andrés Caicedo, Claudia Salazar and Mario Bellatin; the films of Almodóvar; and flamenco dance and the dances of José Limón, Martha Graham and Pina Bausch, Oscar Araiz and Alicia Díaz. The theoretical and philosophical bases will be provided by Nietzsche, Agamben, Ranciére, Marie Bardet, Lepecki, and Badiou, all of whom talk specifically about the art of movement, about movement and politics, or about movement and dance as metaphor for thought. The course understands as a premise that we can use the history of dance and movement as a way of understanding history and politics in Latin America.

LOURDES DÁVILA is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and a two-time Golden Dozen Teaching Award winner. Since the 1980s, she has written and published widely on Julio Cortázar’s writing. Her first book, The Image Arrives on a Verbal Shore, focuses on Cortázar’s use of visual language. She has published multiple articles on photography and literature and dance and literature, and is the editor of the essay collection La variable Bellatin. She has worked as a translator since the early eighties in the fields of art and literature. She is the managing editor of the undergraduate online journal Esferas, produced by Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She also worked as a professional dancer for 25 years and is now working on a book about the relationship between dance and literature.

FYSEM-UA 484
Global Citizenship: Podcasting Global Issues
Spring 2020
Instructor: Ulrich Baer       
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Are there universal values? Do all people, cultures, and countries value freedom, justice, and personal autonomy in the same way—or do some strike a different balance between protecting individuals while maintaining the common good? Globalization, which describes both the current state of interdependence among people and a mindset that tries to account for everyone on the planet (and perhaps for the planet itself), brings these questions into sharp relief. How can one country impose rules for environmental pollution when toxins travel across the border? How can a country say that a free press is allowed to criticize rulers and religious authorities when the internet is accessible anywhere? New York City is a perfect place to test whether there are indeed universal values and how different people who hold disparate values and follow diverse rules can live together. The class will actively produce episodes for the podcast Think About It, dedicated to in-depth conversations on big ideas. The seminar will teach students how to prepare for intelligent interviews through background research; how to outline questions; how to professionally record someone; and how to edit, format, and upload interviews as professional podcasts. No technical skills are necessary, but students should be curious, open-minded, and enjoy a dynamic teaching environment that is not only a classroom, but also a studio and an editing suite.

ULRICH BAER, University Professor of Comparative Literature and German in FAS and Photography and Imaging in the Tisch School of the Arts, was awarded the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1998 and 2004. He hosts the podcast Think About It, and is the author of What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech, Equality, and Truth in the University; The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke; Remnants of Song: Trauma and the Experience of Modernity in Charles Baudelaire and Paul Celan; Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma; 110 Stories: New York Writes after September 11; and numerous essays, editorials, and articles on subjects such as free speech, higher education, politics, and art.

FYSEM-UA 437
History, Memory, and the Quest for Social Justice in the US
Fall 2019
Instructor: Jack Salzman         
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.

This course explores the relationship between history and memory in the United States from the middle of the twentieth century to the present. One of its primary objectives is to address the ethics of memory. Do we remember events not as they are but as we are? Do we have an obligation to remember events from the past? If we do, which events must we remember, and how do we remember those we did not experience? Or, as Marc Augé argues, is it essential for the health of the individual and of society that we know how to forget? We consider such events and issues as the response to the Holocaust; internment camps for Japanese Americans; racial segregation; the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima; anticommunism; the Civil Rights Movement; the destruction of the World Trade Center; and genocides in Rwanda and Darfur. We address the role that museums, photography, film, and popular culture have in defining our individual and collective memory.

JACK SALZMAN served as the Director of the Center for American Culture Studies at Columbia University and as editor of Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History. Much of his work has been devoted to the relationship between African Americans and American Jews, including Struggles in the Promised Land (with Cornel West) and Bridges and Boundaries, the catalog for an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York. He recently completed We Remember the Children, a collection of memoirs by Holocaust survivors. He is writing a book on the impact of the Holocaust on Jews and social justice in the US. Professor Salzman has received the Distinguished Teaching Award and two Fulbrights.

FYSEM-UA 711
How the Irish Turned Right (or Have They?)
Spring 2020
Instructor: Stephen Butler        
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: FYSEM-UA 474, What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 711, How the Irish Turned Right (or Have They?) are both recommended for first-generation college students. Both seminars are taught by professors who were first-generation students themselves.

The starting point for this freshman seminar will be an article published in the 24 October 2017 Newsweek, titled “Why are all the Conservative Loudmouths Irish-American?” First, we will analyze author Van Gosse’s argument, which claims that the current generation of Irish-American conservative commentators (e.g., Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly) are direct descendants of Senator Joe McCarthy’s reactionary populism. Then, we will use other texts to begin interrogating and refining many of Gosse’s foundational assumptions about Irish-American socio-economic and political history, including the fracturing of the Democratic party, the decline of organized labor, the effects of suburbanization, the relationship between Irish-American identity and whiteness, and the relationship between Irish-American identity and Catholicism. In addition to Gosse’s article and other recently published thought-pieces, course readings will include seminal essays written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Andrew Greeley, David Roediger, Peter Quinn, Linda Dowling Almeida, and Diane Negra. During the seminar, students will craft their own research questions related to Irish-American studies, and/or related to other American ethnic groups that might be fruitfully studied in comparison to Irish Americans. The culmination of each student’s research will be a sophisticated essay that explores an inquiry related to the complex relationship between ethnicity and/or class and/or race and/or gender and American politics, an exploration that will ultimately develop an idea of the student’s own.

STEPHEN BUTLER is a Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. Since his appointment in Fall 2012, he has taught Writing the Essay, International Writing Workshop, and Advanced College Essay. Currently, he is an associate editor of the New York Irish History, the annual journal of the New York Irish History Roundtable. Butler earned a PhD in Modern History and Literature from Drew University; his dissertation focused on the intersection of Irish Writers and Irish-American audiences. His first book, Irish Writers in the Irish-American Press, 1882-1964 is forthcoming from the University of Massachusetts Press.

FYSEM-UA 773
How to Look at Chinese Painting
Spring 2020
Instructor: Michele Matteini       
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Cohort: none linked specifically to this seminar. Students stay in their original cohort when they switch into this course.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

New York City's museums house extraordinarily rich collections of Chinese painting. Through site visits and in-class discussions, this seminar will teach students how to analyze and understand traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy. We will investigate formats, materials, and techniques, and will also examine classical ideas about representation and expression. Throughout the semester, students will be introduced to different kinds of artifacts as well as how they are conserved and displayed.

MICHELE MATTEINI is Assistant Professor of Art History at NYU. His specialization is Chinese painting of the 18th and 19th centuries, with a special focus on cross-cultural exchanges and global history.

FYSEM-UA 728
How We Learn
Spring 2020
Instructor: Monica Lewin         
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

How do humans learn and remember information? We examine the scientific principles of learning and how you can apply this knowledge to your college studies. We begin by introducing the foundations of learning and memory first proposed by psychologists such as Ebbinghaus, James, Pavlov, and Skinner. Next, we discuss the biological basis for learning at the level of the brain and the formation of connections between neurons. We investigate a variety of factors that affect learning and memory, including sleep, hormones, drugs, technology, and neurological conditions such as dyslexia and Alzheimer’s disease. Throughout, we illustrate how cognitive science can be used to develop strategies to enhance the effectiveness of your learning in college.

MONICA LEWIN is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She received her PhD from NYU in 2018 for research examining sleep disturbances in animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders. Her research interests center on the relationship between sleep and psychiatric disorders, and the long-term effects of sleep loss or disturbance on cognition, mood, and health.

FYSEM-UA 497
How We See
Fall 2019
Instructor: Marisa Carrasco      
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Nature vs. Nurture: The Neurobiology of Individuality (FYSEM-UA 732) in the Learning and Perception cohort.

Do we see the world the way we do because we are the way we are or because the world is the way it is? This course looks at what we know about vision from multiple scientific perspectives: perceptual psychology tells us about the process of seeing and provides important insights into the workings of visual mechanisms; neuropsychology shows us what happens to perception when these mechanisms malfunction; and neuroscience tells us about processes at the level of cells and neural systems. At the same time, we discuss modes and techniques of scientific inquiry from these different perspectives. How do vision scientists learn? What kinds of experiments do they conduct? How has the development of new neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, for example) shaped the field?

MARISA CARRASCO is Collegiate Professor and Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, as well as a former Chairperson of the Department of Psychology. Born and raised in Mexico City, she received her licentiate in Psychology from the National University of Mexico and her PhD in Psychology (with an emphasis on cognition and perception) from Princeton University. She conducts research in cognitive neuroscience, exploring the relation between the psychological and neural mechanisms involved in visual perception and attention. Her papers have been published in the leading scientific journals in the field, and she has won numerous prestigious awards and fellowships throughout her career, such as an American Association of University Women Fellowship, a National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, a Cattell Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

FYSEM-UA 704
Humans in the Environment from the Ice Age to the Present
Spring 2020
Instructor: John O’Hara       
Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Science and Policy of Climate Change (FYSEM-UA 432) in the Investigating Climate Change cohort.

In a time of unprecedented man-made climate change, the term Anthropocene has gained currency as the geological epoch defined by human impact on the world. But what exactly does that mean, and when did it start? In this course, we will explore the long history of the back-and-forth relationship between the humans and the environment, and examine how past human activity has shaped the world around us. We will review the interactions of climate and environment with the evolution of our species, and explore the effects of the ice ages on human societies and cultures and also on our dispersal across the globe as the ultimate invasive species. We will discover the effects of climate change on societies as diverse as the ancient Middle East, the pre-Columbian Maya, and the Norse settlers of Iceland and Greenland. We will also see how past peoples did not simply react to environmental change, but often induced it, from the earliest domestications of animals and plants, to the manipulation of entire landscapes by Europeans, Native Americans, and Aboriginal Australians. We will examine cases where past societies collapsed due to climatic change, and other examples of societies which continued to thrive despite it, and we will take an anthropological approach to explore how past societies understood environmental change and its political, social, cultural, and economic ramifications.

JOHN O’HARA is a Faculty Fellow at the College of Arts and Science. An archaeologist by training, he has excavated all over the world, from 40,000-year-old rockshelters to nineteenth-century landfill sites in New York City. He completed his PhD at NYU, where his Wenner-Gren and NSF-funded research focused on late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in Western Europe. His interests extend broadly across prehistoric and historic archaeology, archaeological science, and anthropological approaches to the past.

FYSEM-UA 757
Impressionism, the True Picture
Spring 2020
Instructor: Christopher Wood        
Monday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Impressionism—a luminous and sensuous way of painting developed in France in the nineteenth century—is for many people the gateway to art. In its own time, impressionist painting was rejected by the art establishment and the general public. But today impressionism is prized because there are no prerequisites, no symbols to decode, and no obscure subject matter demanding insider knowledge. It is a democratic art form. This course will try to understand the original, radical intentions of the impressionists—their rejection of tradition, their embrace of modern life, their competition with photography. We may learn that there is, after all, more than meets the eye in impressionism. We will work with the artists Manet, Degas, Pissarro, Renoir, Monet, and Cézanne as well as with their realist predecessors Courbet and Corot and the post-impressionists Seurat, Gauguin, and van Gogh. We will also read literary and other texts from the period.

CHRISTOPHER WOOD is Professor in the NYU Department of German. He has published on European art and culture from the late middle ages to the twentieth century, including several books on Renaissance art as well as on the history of the discipline of art history. He has previously taught at Yale University and, as a visitor, at the University of California, Berkeley; the Hebrew University, Jerusalem; and NYU Shanghai.

FYSEM-UA 503
In Search of Lost Time
Fall 2019
Instructor: Marcelle Clements        
Wednesday, 2:00-4:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: This course requires 350 pages of reading a week.

We read Marcel Proust (350 pages per week, in translation) as he should be read: hedonistically—with respect and admiration but also with delectation. At more than 4,000 pages, In Search of Lost Time is one of modern literature’s most challenging and pleasurable reads, still unparalleled in how it combines finesse and wit with raw emotion, self-examination with social history, and psychological acuity with a portrait of the French beau monde at the outset of modernity. Although Proust (1871–1922) is often cited as France’s greatest novelist, many readers never move past the first fifty pages of his novel, reading the same gorgeous sentences again and again. However, as its architecture cannot be appreciated until it has been read once in its entirety, we move at a brisk pace through all six volumes; when we read the final volume, we can begin to understand the extraordinarily intimate relationship Proust has created with his reader. In-class creative writing exercises are designed to help with the reading and to articulate an expressive, personal response.

MARCELLE CLEMENTS is Collegiate Professor and Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU. She is the author of a collection of essays, The Dog Is Us and Other Observations; a book of nonfiction, The Improvised Woman; and two novels, Rock Me and, most recently, Midsummer. Her prizewinning articles and essays on the arts, culture, and politics have appeared in many national publications.

FYSEM-UA 740
It’s All a Plot: Uncovering the Conspiracy Narrative
Spring 2020
Instructor: Mark Braley        
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.), Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.), and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 pm).

The Masons, the grassy knoll, birtherism. While we seem to live in an especially paranoid moment, conspiracy narratives have been around as long as people have been able to whisper and needed to explain social inequities, major calamities, or the workings of power and oppression. This course will explore the nature of conspiracy narratives, both those we find in fiction and those that circulate among us in the “real” world. We will examine conspiracy narratives across genres and media, including novels and film, as well as investigate their appearance on various news platforms. Do these narratives share common attributes and motivations? What roles do race, class, and gender play in their construction? What are the ramifications of their proliferation for democratic societies? The texts we explore may include novels like Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo and Don Delillo’s Libra, as well as films like the 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Sorry to Bother You. We’ll also analyze some of the more well-known conspiracies promulgated by such internet sites as InfoWars. Bring your tin hat, your powers of analysis, and a healthy dose of skepticism.

MARK BRALEY is a Senior Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. His publications include essays on W. E. B. DuBois and Wallace Stegner. A former Air Force officer and United States Air Force Academy English instructor, he’s interested in American literature and the literature of war.

FYSEM-UA 722
Italy and North America: Contact, Conflict, and Exchange, 1492-2017
Spring 2020
Instructor: Rachel Love      
Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

We consider how Italy’s diaspora has affected its conception of itself and examine five hundred years of North America as artistic inspiration, as cultural and political influence, and even as a source of existential anxiety. For example, how did European discovery of a “new” continent impact Renaissance authors like Ariosto and Tasso and destabilize the center of their known world? How did American literature like Hemingway and Steinbeck offer twentieth-century Italian writers new possibilities of literary expression and political resistance? We consider literature of immigration and travel in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Italians documented their journeys to North America (and New York City) in poetry and prose. We investigate how Fascism, war and recovery—as well as the physical presence of American soldiers on Italian soil—shifted the political and social stakes of this relationship. Finally, we explore American cultural influence throughout the increasingly globalized 20th century, as US models permeated Italian politics, film, television, music, and food, and pop singers teased teenagers who tried to “fa’ l’americano.” Throughout, we take advantage of our location in New York City to explore aspects of cultural exchange within our urban environment, including an excursion to the Italian American Museum and Little Italy.

RACHEL LOVE is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her PhD from NYU in Italian Studies. Her essays on twentieth-century Italian politics and culture have appeared in the journals Popular Music, Modern Italy, and Interventions. Her current book project, Songbook for a Revolution: Popular Culture and the New Left in 1960s Italy, analyzes the political use of folk music in 1960s Italy through the history of a leftist musical collective, the Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano (NCI). Her interdisciplinary research interests move between contemporary Italian history and literature, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and oral history. Most mornings, she can be found riding her bike across the Manhattan Bridge.

FYSEM-UA 384
Journalism of War, Revolution, Genocide, and Human Rights
Fall 2019
Instructor: Susie Linfield       
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 pm).

Note: this seminar is paired with Telling Stories: Journalists and Ethnographers (FYSEM-UA 663) in the Reporting the Event cohort.

This seminar will focus on some of the extraordinary political events that made, and changed, the political (and moral) realities of the past century, and that created the world that we now inhabit. Throughout the term we will return to certain questions, including the changing nature of violence and the emergence of disputed concepts such as "crimes against humanity" and "human rights." We'll consider the ways in which "the face of war" in the 20th century (and early 21st) has changed—and the ways in which the journalism that described those wars also changed. We will start with the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War and then study the journalism of, among other events, the Holocaust, the Iranian Revolution, the fall of Communism, the genocide in Rwanda, the war in Bosnia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 9/11, and the Arab Spring.

SUSIE LINFIELD is Associate Professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and writes about the intersection of culture and politics for a wide array of publications. Recent essays have addressed Syrian torture photographs (the New York Times), war photography (Aperture and The Nation), the Zionist Left in Israel (the Boston Review), and an anti-Vietnam War classic (Bookforum). Professor Linfield’s book The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Professor Linfield was the editor in chief of American Film, the deputy editor of the Village Voice, and the arts editor of the Washington Post; she also spent six years as a critic for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She serves on the editorial boards of Dissent and Photography and Culture, and is a member of the New York Institute of the Humanities. Professor Linfield received her BA from Oberlin College, where she studied American History, and her MA in Journalism from NYU (minor: Documentary Film). From its founding in 1995 until 2014, Professor Linfield was instrumental in building NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program, first as Associate Director and then as Director.

FYSEM-UA 772
Journey of Journalism and History: How We Got Here
Fall 2019
Instructor: Charles J. Glasser Jr.     
Tuesday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m), Physics I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.), General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This course is more than a survey of important journalism of the twentieth century. Through intensive reading and discussion, we will explore both how significant historical events affected journalism and how journalism helped shape those events. If journalism is truly “the first draft of history,” then looking at significant cultural and political moments through the eyes of contemporaneous journalism yields new insight on who we are as a nation—for better or worse. We examine such historical events and movements as the robber barons of the Gilded Age and their antagonists the Muckrakers; the early Anarchist and labor movements; the coverage of the World Wars and government censorship; the role of the press in the civil rights movement; and the golden age of investigative journalism. We will read and discuss the work of a wide range of media notables, including Ida Tarbell, Jacob Riis, H. L. Mencken, Walter Winchell, Edward R. Murrow, Sy Hirsch, Woodward and Bernstein, Tom Wolfe, Matt Taibbi, Amanda Bennett, Judith Miller, and Glenn Greenwald.

CHARLES J. GLASSER JR. is Adjunct Professor of Media Law and Ethics at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is a former journalist and covered spot news and combat photojournalism in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the late 1970s and 80s. He spent several years as a copy editor at Time Inc. and then studied first amendment law at the New York University School of Law. After earning his JD he started his legal career at NBC News, and then moved on to several law firms representing Gannett, the New York Post, the Portland Press-Herald, and other regional and national newspapers and publishers. He served as the founding global media counsel of Bloomberg News for more than a dozen years and is the author of The International Libel and Privacy Handbook. In addition, he appears frequently as an expert on free speech and media law in a variety of news outlets and writes about media for Reuters, the Washington Examiner, and several not-for-profit free-speech organizations. He is also a regular contributor on media ethics for The Daily Caller.

FYSEM-UA 456
Laboratories for Democracy: Making American Cities Better
Fall 2019
Instructor: Eric Gioia        
Thursday, 4:55–7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m).

This course examines the intersection of ideas, politics, and action. We study best practices from around the country (and the world), evaluate their effectiveness, and determine whether and how successful programs can be replicated. The seminar asks students to not only think critically about issues of public policy, but also to think anew about the role they play in shaping it. Cities, states, and municipalities serve as what Justice Brandeis called “little laboratories for democracy”—where ideas flourish and problems get solved. From fighting crime in the streets of New York City, to banning smoking in bars and restaurants, to making the power grid more efficient, to encouraging the arts and culture in urban environments, innovations in American cities have spread across the globe. Topics for student projects are drawn from current issues and problems facing decision-makers and elected officials in America today.

ERIC GIOIA is an attorney with extensive experience in business, law, and government. He joined J.P. Morgan in January 2010 after serving for eight years on the New York City Council. Prior to serving on City Council, he practiced law at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, and served in the White House under President Bill Clinton. Professor Gioia holds a BA from New York University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center.

FYSEM-UA 761
Landscape and Environment from Prehistory to the Present
Spring 2020
Instructor: Mitra Panahipour          
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.) and with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Landscapes are dynamic products of interactions between human activities and environmental elements, and landscape archaeology is a discipline that investigates the ways past people formed and transformed their surroundings through time and space. In this seminar, we use an interdisciplinary approach and explore how landscapes have been constructed or influenced by both cultural and natural processes. We will review the main theoretical perspectives and a wide range of methods used in landscape archaeology that can be applied to other disciplines as well. We particularly focus on technological applications including satellite remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), geospatial analysis, methods in field survey, and archaeological site prospection. We will analyze multiple case studies from the ancient Near East and other parts of the world and learn about settlement distribution, water management systems, and diverse land use strategies. Finally, by exploring issues of sustainability, productivity, and microenvironmental diversity, we discuss how archaeology benefits longer-term views of change.

MITRA PANAHIPOUR is Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Her research focuses on the dynamics of settlement, land use, and social organization across diverse microenvironmental zones, such as plains and foothills in the late antique Near East. She received her PhD from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arkansas, her MA in Landscape Archaeology from the University of Birmingham, and her BA from the Department of Archeology at the University of Tehran.

FYSEM-UA 210
Language and Reality in Postclassical Science and Postmodern Literature
Fall 2019
Instructor: Friedrich Ulfers        
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This course explores the possibility that there exists a common ground between the so-called two cultures of science and the humanities. It posits the hypothesis of a correlation between postclassical science (e.g., quantum theory) and “postmodern” literature and philosophy. Among the key notions examined are Werner Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle,” Niels Bohr’s “principle of complementarity,” and Jacques Derrida’s notion of “undecidability” in deconstructive theory. The discussion of these notions and of their implications in literary works revolves around their effects on classical logic, the referential function of language, and the traditional goal of a complete explanation/description of reality. Readings include selections from the works of Borges, Kundera, Pirsig, and Pynchon, among others, and from texts on modern scientific theories.

FRIEDRICH ULFERS is Associate Professor of German. Winner of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence, the University’s Distinguished Teaching Medal, and the NYU Alumni Association Great Teacher Award, he has taught not only in the German Department but also in the Draper Interdisciplinary Master’s Program, offering courses on Nietzsche, Kafka, and other figures. He has written widely on 20th-century German authors and is at present preparing a study of Nietzsche as a postmodernist.

FYSEM-UA 306
Latin America at the Start of the Twenty-First Century: Coming of Age or Continuing Chaos?
Fall 2019
Instructor: Jorge G. Castañeda      
Monday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (Monda and Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Dictadura: Stories of Tyranny and Liberation in Central America and the Caribbean (FYSEM-UA 759) in the Exploring Latin America cohort.

This seminar focuses on Latin America’s longstanding problems and possible solutions to them. It takes up such topics as the absence of orderly, peaceful, and steady democratic governance following independence from colonial rule, and the consolidation of representative democracy today; the slowdown of economic growth in the last 20 years and prospects for a new economic takeoff; the phenomenon of widespread violence at a time of growing respect for human rights; and how the traditional weakness of civil society is being overcome. For each topic, there are readings dealing with its political, economic, and cultural dimensions in both past and present.

JORGE D. CASTAÑEDA is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico since 1979, he has also been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Princeton, and Dartmouth. A principal strategist in the election campaign of President Vicente Fox in 2000, he served as Mexico’s Foreign Minister from late 2000 until early 2003. He is the author of, among many other books, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War; Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara; Perpetuating Power; Ex-Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants; and Leftovers: Tales of the Latin American Left (with Marco Morales). He has also written articles for many newspapers and magazines in Mexico, the United States, and other countries.

FYSEM-UA 763
Library for the Perplexed: Essayism and the Contemporary World
Fall 2019
Instructor: Sara Nadal-Melsió      
Wednesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

The essay is the appropriate genre for our time and its perplexities and reflects our need to make sense of the contemporary world. In this way, the essay derives its energy and momentum from the desire to understand rather than from the authority of knowledge. A good essay has a distinctive voice that persuades its reader to go along for an extremely particular ride that may very well end up nowhere. Idiosyncrasy, fragmentation, intuitive and unexpected connections, sudden illuminations, and even dead ends are all part and parcel of the essay as a genre that refuses to be pinned down (it is very much not the college essay we have all been taught to master!). This course will not attempt to define what the essay is, but rather explores essayism as a “literary drive,” a compulsive need to engage with and take pleasure in the complexity of the world rather than explain it away.

SARA NADAL-MELSIÓ is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. She previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and SOMA in Mexico City. Her essays have appeared in academic journals, various edited volumes, and museum catalogs. She is the co-author of Alrededor de/Around, a book on the photography and architecture of the last fin-de-siècle, and the editor of two special issues on cinema, The Invisible Tradition: Avant-Garde Catalan Cinema under Late Francoism and The Militant Image: Temporal Disturbances of the Political Imagination. She recently co-curated a show on the visual artist duo of Allora & Calzadilla for the Fundació Tàpies in Barcelona, and also edited a critical volume on the current Puerto Rican crisis.

FYSEM-UA 738
Literature and Film of Human Rights
Spring 2020
Instructor: William Morgan       
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This course is an introduction to the study of human rights through literature, creative non-fiction, photography, and documentary film. The course is divided into three units—one on foundational texts for understanding human rights ideals (including grappling with both bystander and official complicities in injustice), a second that considers the uses and limits of photography and documentary film in raising awareness about human rights stories, and a third that examines how (and undertakes case studies of how) climate change and immigration have become fundamental, often intertwined, human rights problems today. We seek to understand a number of questions, including: the connection between the modern notion of the individual and the ideal of human rights; why some bystanders and spectators develop empathy and others do not,¬¬ and what separates those who are merely moved from those who are moved to act; what blocks awareness and guilt among those who are culpable for inhumane acts; and why, how, and where climate change and immigration are core and intertwined human rights issues today.

WILLIAM MORGAN is Director of the Writing Center and Clinical Professor of Expository Writing at New York University. He teaches essay writing, directs the Writing Center and all of its tutoring programs, and contributes to the leadership of the Expository Writing Program. His articles on style, the practices of tutoring, and the reading-writing connection have appeared in College English, Praxis, and Reader. His book of literary criticism is titled Questionable Charity: Gender, Humanitarianism, and Complicity in U.S. Literary Realism.

FYSEM-UA 736
The Living and the Dead, from Prehistory to the Present
Spring 2020
Instructor: Cicek Tascioglu Beeby        
Thursday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Every individual eventually faces mortality, every religion addresses death and the afterlife, and every society devises rituals to cope with bereavement. This seminar explores the entanglements between the living and the dead in cultures across the world and through time. Weekly discussions will focus on readings from the anthropological and sociological literature on death, burial, and funerary rituals, followed by an in-depth examination of the topic through case studies from the ancient and the modern world. Topics include imaginings of the afterlife in world religions, art, and literature; funerary rituals and expressions of grief; the space and place of death (cemeteries, hauntings, and dark tourism); the commodification of death; the materiality of the human body after death (including the adornment, beautification, manipulation, or preservation of the corpse); holy relics; public commemoration and funerary art as a means of expression of social identity; death and gender; and the exploration of death (and the undead) in 21st-century American pop culture.

CICEK TASCIOGLU BEEBY is an archaeologist and a Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has participated in several archaeological projects in Greece, Turkey, and the United States. Her research explores the art, archaeology, and social history of Greece in the Early Iron Age and the Archaic period, with particular focus on funerary practices, bioarchaeology, urbanization, state-formation, and spatial analysis. Her current project examines the space and place of death and burial during the rise of the Greek city-states in the 8th through 7th centuries BC.

FYSEM-UA 733
Looking Back a Century: New York from 1910 to 1919
Fall 2019
Instructor: Miriam Nyhan Grey       
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.

For historians, the centennial of an event or period tends to hold a special significance. We like to divide the course of history up into distinct borders of periodization—which is, of course, entirely contrary to how we actually live our lives or experience historical events. In this seminar, we will self-consciously take the viewpoint of one hundred years to explore the history of New York City from 1910 to 1919. New York, in this period, was being shaped by issues like women’s suffrage, the Great War, the growing presence of the automobile, and the arrival of almost one million immigrants, among many other things. We will examine the New York of a century ago by using a wide range of sources and approaches.

MIRIAM NYHAN GREY is Associate Director of New York University's Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies, where she is also Director of Graduate Studies for the Master of Arts in Irish and Irish-American Studies. With an interest in the intersections of migration, race, and ethnicity, she focuses primarily on migrant experiences in comparative frameworks. Oral history is a central methodology in her research, and she has served as a collaborator for the Archives of Irish America’s Oral History Collection since 2008. She has been at NYU since 2009, teaching an array of classes on Irish history and migration, oral history, and comparative migration.

FYSEM-UA 768
Manifestoes and Modernism: Art and Politics in Europe, 1915-1945
Spring 2020
Instructor: Jordana Mendelson      
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.), spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This seminar examines visual and literary culture produced in Europe between World War I and World War II, a period in which artists and writers were actively involved in forging new ideas about the relationship between themselves, their craft, and the world. Most often, these new ideas were announced to the world in the form of manifestoes that were often published and distributed widely, reaching local and international readers; sometimes they were published in limited numbers and handed out on street corners. The intent of their revolutionizing tone, the ambition of their writers, and the impact that these tracts had on the development of modern art will be our central focus throughout the semester. We will develop a critical understanding of the relationship of art to politics during a period of time that saw the development of new political parties, régimes, and models of citizenship across Europe. It was a time in which artists operated as avant-gardists: challenging the status quo and pushing the limits of representation. So, we will also examine the historical "isms" that defined this moment in European modern art (Futurism, Dada, Expressionism, Surrealism, etc.). Field trips to museums, collections, and archives to view art and publications of the period are an integral part of the course.

JORDANA MENDELSON is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She is the author of essays on Spanish modern art, photography, and the illustrated press, and is curator or co-curator of several exhibitions that take the illustrated press as a central focus: Margaret Michaelis: Photography, Vanguard and Politics in Republican Barcelona; Magazines and War 1936-1939; Other Weapons: Photography and Print Culture during the Spanish Civil War; and Encounters with the 1930s. She is the author of Documenting Spain: Artists, Exhibition Culture, and the Modern Nation 1929-1939 and co-editor of Postcards: Ephemeral Histories of Modernity.

FYSEM-UA 762
Materials Science in the Ancient and Modern Worlds
Spring 2020
Instructor: Mena Youssef       
Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.), Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (Monday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Materials science is an interdisciplinary field involving the fabrication of new materials that have different functions. While chemistry is often seen as a science involving matter on a small scale (such as atoms and molecules) and technology is typically thought of on larger scales, materials chemistry bridges these extremes and typically deals with matter in the micron size range (100 times smaller than the width of human hair!). This field uses advancements from chemistry, engineering, physics, and other disciplines and applies them to the real world. Breakthroughs in materials science readily become implemented in technology and influence how humans interact with each other and the world around them. In this seminar, we will explore different types of materials developed over the span of human history (during the Stone and Bronze Ages, the Industrial Revolution, modernity, etc.). We will investigate how the development of these materials then inspired the fabrication of tools and technology across different time periods. Finally, we will highlight developments that led to recent breakthroughs, including materials that are used in smartphones, solar cells, batteries, self-healing devices, and much more.

MENA YOUSSEF is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He received his PhD in Chemistry from New York University in 2019. His research interests focus on synthesizing colloidal particles with novel functions and directed self-assembly. The interdisciplinary nature of his research (bridging chemistry, physics, engineering, and technology) has resulted in collaborations with numerous research groups across the world, including the department of Physics at UCSD and NASA. During his graduate studies, Mena taught numerous general and organic chemistry courses.

FYSEM-UA 545
Media and Communication in the Medieval World
Spring 2020
Instructor: Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak       
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Medieval tools of communication and methods of transportation circulated news, rumors, propaganda, and revolutionary ideas; permitted contact with the supernatural; equipped governments with bureaucratic powers of local subjugation and global interaction; and enabled people to travel far away from their homes on pilgrimages, diplomatic missions, entertainment tours (jongleurs, troubadours), commercial ventures, explorations, and conquests. With a focus on Western Europe, we will consider modes and means of communication: languages, speech and writing, gestures, fashions, rituals, images, artifacts, and maps. Assessing the breadth of medieval mobility will elucidate a pre-modern world system that extended across Eurasia, including the Mongol Empire, the Middle East, and China. Weekly readings will be presented by one student and then discussed by all. A research paper will be prepared through several intermediary shorter essays, each dealing with material relevant to the paper’s topic.

BRIGITTE M. BEDOS-REZAK is Professor of History at NYU. Trained in France at the Sorbonne and at the Ecole nationale des Chartes (Paris), her teaching and research interests cover medieval Europe, in particular its urban life and secular elites. She is particularly interested in the ways that increasingly material communicative practices shaped concepts of identity and forms of governance. Her publications include Les sceaux de villes; When Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages; “Semiotic Anthropology: The Twelfth-Century Experiment,” in European Transformations 950-1200, T. Noble and J. Van Engen, eds.; “Seals and Stars: Law, Magic, and the Economy of Rulership (France, 13th-14th Centuries),” in Seals and their Context in the Middle Ages, P. Schofield, ed.; and “The Ambiguity of Representation. Semiotic Roots of Political Consent in Capetian France,” in The Capetian Century, 1214-1314, W.C. Jordan and J. Phillips, eds.

FYSEM-UA 312
Memoirs and Diaries in Modern European Jewish History
Fall 2019
Instructor: Marion Kaplan         
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Adventures in Interviewing: Oral History Theory and Practice (FYSEM-UA 701) in the Narrating History cohort.

This seminar uses memoirs, diaries, and letters to analyze modern Jewish history. These sources, sometimes called ego-documents, offer an abundance of detail about the political, economic, social, and religious worlds of individuals. They provide valuable, often rare, glimpses into the motivations and expectations of a minority group regarding those who control or oppress them. Moreover, these ego-documents reveal often concealed thoughts and emotions. They depict the full human being as well as her or his attitudes and behaviors within the family, friendship networks, and the religious community. These documents also allow us to delve into relations between parents and children, spouses, generations, neighbors, and friends. Finally, memoirs, diaries, and letters offer us clues as to how people thought they should write about their lives and the ways they fashioned their own images in relation (or opposition) to their societies. Our readings begin with one of the earliest memoirs we have, written by a seventeenth-century rabbi, and continue through the Holocaust and postwar generations. They include the autobiography of Glückl of Hameln, a businesswoman and widow who was born circa 1646; Pauline Wengeroff, a traditional Jewish woman in nineteenth-century Russia; and twentieth-century diaries and memoirs.

MARION KAPLAN is the Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at NYU. She has taught courses on German-Jewish history, European women’s history, and German and European history, as well as European Jewish history and Jewish women’s history. She is a three-time National Jewish Book Award winner for The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany; Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany; and Gender and Jewish History (with Deborah Dash Moore), and was a finalist for Dominican Haven: The Jewish Refugee Settlement in Sosua. Her latest book is Jewish Refugees Fleeing Hitler: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal, 1940-45.

FYSEM-UA 564
Modern Poetry: Craft and Revolution
Fall 2019
Instructor: Matthew Rohrer         
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

This course thrusts students headlong into the dark cobwebby interiors of the modern poem. We’ll look closely at how modern poems became modern, examining several revolutions as we think about what poems are—beginning in England in 1798, coming to Walt Whitman’s and Emily Dickinson’s America in the 1850s, stopping in Harlem in the 1920s, and ending up in today’s online world. We’ll consider how modern poems are actually put together, considering such elemental concerns as image, voice, structure, etc. And we’ll also write our own poems, sometimes with these examples as our models. Students will leave this course with a deeper understanding of the lineage of the modern poem and what makes the modern poem go. And, thanks to the generous and critical attentions of the workshop, students will come to the same understanding of their own work.

MATTHEW ROHRER is Clinical Professor in the Creative Writing Program at NYU, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate students. He is the author of nine books of poetry, was a founder of Fence Magazine and Fence Books, and has participated in residencies and performances at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and the Henry Museum (Seattle). His poems have been widely anthologized, and he has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing.

FYSEM-UA 764
Music and Those Pesky Emotions
Spring 2020
Instructor: Michael Beckerman      
Tuesday, 2:00-4:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Everyone talks about music in terms of emotions, taking it on faith that music communicates, expresses or contains emotions.  But no one has ever seen an emotion under a microscope, and no one seems clear about whether the word represents something real, or whether it is more metaphor or fiction, a stand-in for what we absolutely do not understand.  We also do not fully understand whether these emotions, if they really exist, can be meaningfully detached from what we call "ideas" without vastly misrepresenting human experience.  Despite this vagueness, no art form is more associated with emotions than music.  Although if music does “communicate emotions,” it does not do so any more than painting, ballet or theater, the vocabularies used to discuss music, especially from non-professionals, is rooted in approaches that stress “emotion” over “reason.”  While most people would easily accept the idea that it takes a certain amount of “reason” to create “emotionally charged musical vehicles,” people are a bit more resistant to the notion that music also communicates ideas, or even that the separation of the two--ideas and emotions--is done at the expense of greater understanding.  This course looks at a selection of musical works to be encountered in the context of a series of interdisciplinary readings to ask questions about just how (and why) we respond to music, and what role what we call "emotions" might actually play in the process.

MICHAEL BECKERMAN is Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Music and Collegiate Professor at New York University. He writes on such subjects as nationalism, film music, music and war, opera, and popular song. He lectures regularly throughout North America and Europe, and writes for the New York Times. He is currently Leonard Bernstein Scholar in Residence at the New York Philharmonic.

FYSEM-UA 732
Nature vs. Nurture: The Neurobiology of Individuality
Fall 2019
Instructor: Margarita Kaplow      
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with How We See (FYSEM-UA 497) in the Learning and Perception cohort.

Psychologists, biologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists have long debated the impact of heredity vs. the environment in shaping the uniqueness of individuals. Modern scientists have arrived at a consensus whereby both genes and experience contribute to distinct behaviors. Indeed, “nature” and “nurture” are not isolated components, and understanding the constant and complex interaction between the two is the key to unlocking the mysteries of animal and human behaviors. This seminar examines the nature vs. nurture debate over time by studying Darwin, Lamarck, and novel genetics tools that explore the interaction between DNA and the environment. Reading assignments cover the topic of genes and behavior, and in group assignments students will gather evidence and propose solutions, or offer possible explanations for specific intrinsic vs. extrinsic situations. The course requires research papers exploring topics related to genetics, the environment, and the brain. Paper topics should be relevant to the general public and may examine (among other possibilities): the inheritance of trauma, the genetics of neurological disorders, the microbiome and the brain, and the science of addiction.

MARGARITA KAPLOW is Clinical Associate Professor at NYU’s Center for Neural Science. Her research interests include the cellular and molecular programs that direct the development and assembly of chemosensory circuits. Her work has been published in Genetics, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Neurogenetics, and eLife. She also studies the relationship between art and science and has implemented innovative teaching methods, such as Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) and Consider, Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment (CREATE), in the undergraduate classroom. Prior to NYU, Margarita was a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University. She was also Adjunct Assistant Professor at the City College of New York. She has received the National Institute of Health’s MBRS graduate fellowship, the Julius Axelrod Award in Pharmacology, and the Graduate Center (City University of New York) Science Fellowship.

FYSEM-UA 706
New Orleans in Literature and Film: From the Old St. Louis Hotel to Hurricane Katrina
Spring 2020
Instructor: Greg Weiss      
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

“There are a lot of places I like,” writes 2016 Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan, “but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment.” Due to its status as a mercantile port, New Orleans was/is where much of what we now think of as “American” originally entered America, either literally or metaphorically. These different angles include the direct and indirect results of slavery, colonialism, immigration, war, corruption, and natural disaster. Over the course of the semester, we will read writers such as Tennessee Williams, John Kennedy Toole, and Anne Rice, as well as viewing films such as A Streetcar Named Desire, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and When the Levees Broke as a means of considering the relationships between slavery, colonialism, etc. and words that more often come to mind when one considers New Orleans—jazz, Bourbon Street, “The Big Easy.” How does thinking about New Orleans help us think differently about America in general, as well as even larger concepts such as time, memory, history, and place?

GREG WEISS is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. His first book of poems, Interstate, came out in 2014, and he’s currently at work on his second.

FYSEM-UA 500
New Worlds of Work and Family
Spring 2020
Instructor: Kathleen Gerson       
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

We live in a period of immense social change in the public world of work and the private world of family life. New technologies have blurred the boundary between home and work. New economic opportunities and pressures have sent women into the workplace. The rise of the “new economy” has created jobs with more short-term flexibility, but less long-term security. And new options in intimate relationships have created more diverse and voluntary, but less predictable, family ties. These intertwined shifts signal a social revolution that is reshaping the daily lives and life paths in the twenty-first century. To explore the revolution in work and care, the class will address several questions: what does an overview of changes in work, family, and gender patterns tell us about where we are now and where we are going? What are the major dilemmas and dislocations created by these changes, and how are people responding to these conflicts? What are the prospects for the future? And what can we do to enhance the opportunities and limit the insecurities and inequalities of these new arrangements?

KATHLEEN GERSON is Professor of Sociology and Collegiate Professor of Arts and Science at New York University, where she studies work-family connections and their links to the structuring of gender inequality. The author of numerous books and articles, her most recent book, The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age in a New Era of Gender, Work, and Family, is an award-winning study of how new generations have responded to the rapidly unfolding gender revolution of the last several decades. Now at work on a study of "work and care in the new economy," her other books include Hard Choices: How Women Decide About Work, Career, and Motherhood; No Man’s Land: Men’s Changing Commitments to Family and Work; The Time Divide: Work, Family, and Gender Inequality (with Jerry A. Jacobs); and a forthcoming book, The Art and Science of Interviewing: How to Learn About Society by Talking with People. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Distinguished Career Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association, the ASA’s Jessie Bernard Award for distinguished contributions to the study of women and gender, and the Rosabeth Kanter Award for excellence in work-family research. In addition to her many years at NYU, Kathleen has held visiting positions at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City, and the Center for Status Passages in the Life Course at Bremen University, Germany.

FYSEM-UA 703
Photography and Identity: Images of the Self
Fall 2019
Instructor: Cécile Bishop       
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

We all use photography to express, show, and prove our identity (just think about your student ID). But to what extent does photography shape and construct who we are? Do our various identities really exist outside their many representations and images? We investigate a wide variety of photographic images from the nineteenth century to the present day, including art images, historical archives, internet imagery, and press documents, so as to explore the role of photography in constructing, mediating, and circulating a wide range of identities—including not only race, gender, and class, but the very idea of the individual, as well as that of the human. We discuss: what does the multiplication of images do to our sense of self? What are ethical ways of representing identities other than one’s own? How does photography confirm or contest identities? We also examine the works of major thinkers, including Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Roland Barthes, closely associating the study of theoretical texts with the discussion of specific images.

CÉCILE BISHOP is Assistant Professor of French at New York University. Before joining NYU, she was a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and a lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her work focuses on francophone postcolonial literatures and visual culture. She is the author of Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship: The Aesthetics of Tyranny. Her current book project, Forms of Blackness, explores the relationship between race and aesthetic representation in a selection of textual and visual works from the francophone world. She has also published articles in Photographies, Word and Image, French Studies, and The International Journal of Francophone Studies.

FYSEM-UA 746
Poetry and War
Fall 2019
Instructor: Liana Theodoratou      
Tuesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

There can be no poetry that is not about destruction and survival, and this is especially the case in the poetry of war. We might even say that the poetry of war tells us what is true of all poetry: that it bears witness to the enigmatic relation between death and survival, loss and life, mourning and courage. The poetry of war often speaks of the death, if not the impossibility, of poetry. But what makes poetry poetry is its capacity to bear the traces of what it cannot say, to go on, in the face of this inability, to suggest its potential for speaking. What is at stake is the emergence and survival of a poetry that bears witness to what history has silenced, to all the vanished who, arising from the darkest nights of memory, haunt us, and encourage us to remember the deaths and losses for which we remain, still today, responsible. This is the lesson of twentieth-century poets who speak of war. Responding to the violence and trauma of war, to the deaths and suffering that result from wartime conflict, these poets seek to offer us a critical genealogy of war. They stage and enact their own troubled understanding of the capacities and incapacities of poetry in the face of disaster and catastrophe, even as they assert the necessity of remembering the uncertain traces and legacies of war, and of doing so without traducing or reducing the experience of war, without betraying the dead.

LIANA THEODORATOU is Clinical Professor in and Director of the Alexander S. Onassis Program in Hellenic Studies, and is also Director of the NYU in Athens Program. She is a recipient of the College’s Outstanding Teaching Award and of its Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence. She has written widely on ancient and modern Greek poetry and has translated several works by, among others, Foucault, Althusser, and Derrida into modern Greek. She is currently completing a book on the politics of mourning in contemporary Greek poetry, entitled Mourning Becomes Greece.

FYSEM-UA 476
Political Theater
Fall 2019
Instructor: Eric Dickson        
Tuesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This interdisciplinary seminar offers a survey of political theater from the ancient Greeks to the present. How have dramatic depictions of politics changed over time? In what ways have political plays been used to advance political agendas, both by the powerful and by dissidents and protest movements? To what extent can we understand political speeches and political campaigns as essentially theatrical productions? In a typical week, students will read one full-length play, accompanied by appropriate readings from political science or social psychology. Through these readings, writing assignments, and class discussion, we address the development of different dramatic techniques and forms throughout the history of theater; the co-evolving relationship between politically-themed spectacles and changing ideas about citizenship and political legitimacy; and the political psychology of speeches and campaign techniques.

ERIC S. DICKSON is Associate Professor of Politics and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Psychology. His research interests include political communication, election campaigning, political leadership, and identities in politics. His work, which uses both game theory and social-scientific experiments, focuses on the interface between political strategy and political psychology. He is also an installation artist with an extensive background in theater.

FYSEM-UA 731
The Mathematics of Ramsey Theory
Fall 2019
Instructor: Vindya Bhat        
Friday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Recitation (Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.), General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Prerequisite: none. Prior exposure to discrete mathematics topics (set theory, functions, probability, and graph theory) and proof techniques is a plus but is not required, as these concepts will be reviewed in the course.

Ramsey theory answers the question, "under what circumstances can we find order in disorder?" For example, suppose six people are at a party and each pair of guests is either friends or strangers. Can we always find three people at the party who are mutual friends (or strangers)? How many people must we invite to the party so that four people are mutual friends? Five? The Ramsey number is the smallest number of people we must invite to the party to ensure a certain number of guests are mutual friends. We will generalize the “party problem” in the context of Ramsey's Theorem for graphs and discuss bounds for Ramsey numbers. We will then explore other results and variations of this theory.

VINDYA BHAT is Clinical Assistant Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. She received her PhD from Emory University, MA from Columbia University, and BA from Rutgers University. Her research focuses on extremal combinatorics and graph theory. At NYU she has taught Courant’s Calculus, Linear Algebra, Probability, Statistics, and Discrete Mathematics courses. She is a fellow of Project NExT and PIC Math. Her Erdős number is 2.

FYSEM-UA 751
Reading Religion in the Anthropocene: Religious Ecology and Environmental Ethics
Spring 2020
Instructor: Alex Weisberg      
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

What does the dawning of the Anthropocene—a new geological era in which humans determine the fate of the planet—mean for our common identity? If nothing else, its realization has pointed to a new discontent with civilization and the terrifying possibility of social collapse. Some scholars and activists have pointed to foundational texts of world religions as the root causes of our current ecological crisis. Still others have cited these very traditions as resources for societal and personal renewal in the face of global climate change. We probe the limits of ecological awareness, intergenerational responsibility, and animal welfare in a range of religious traditions and texts including the Hebrew Bible, the Gospels, the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tripitaka, and the Babylonian Talmud. Through critical analysis of these texts, with an eye toward the nonhuman, we investigate both the accusations against and the promise of these traditions. We assess whether religious texts themselves can ever be the cause of real social and political change, or whether they only “come alive” when read and acted upon. Along the way we explore various discourses in the environmental humanities and consider their efficacy in understanding ancient religious traditions.

ALEX WEISBERG is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He holds a PhD in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University and a BS in Economics and Environmental Studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has lived and farmed in various regions of the world. His research explores nonhumans, environmental ethics, and science in ancient Judaism. His doctoral dissertation examines rabbinic Jewish law in conversation with new materialism and other environmental humanities through a study of the early rabbinic sabbatical year laws in their material and cultural context. He has been an Association of Jewish Studies Dissertation Completion Fellow and a Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar. His publications under review include an article, “New Materialism and the Study of Late Antique Religions: Rabbinic Literature, Situated Knowledges, and Nonhuman Agency,” and an edited volume, Talmud and Philosophy.

FYSEM-UA 754
Rural Queerness in Literature and Film
Spring 2020
Instructor: Patrick Abatiell       
Monday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

How do queer lives and communities form in rural spaces? How is the lived experience of rural queers taken up in literature and film? What particular vulnerabilities, risks, pleasures, possibilities, and social forms contour queer life outside the city? Urban spaces have long held a privileged position in literature and critical theory as sites of queer possibility. We reexamine that narrative by looking at the complex relationship between the country and the city, and investigate the ways in which our particular geographies determine what queerness means, and how it is experienced and made visible. We also focus on more directly "urban" texts—especially the literature of New York City—to ask what role figures, fantasies, and myths of the rural, the natural, or the agrarian play in producing queer desires, fantasies, and communities within the city limits. Readings range from antiquity to today and include a diverse array of literary and cultural texts, including history by Thucydides; poetry by Frank O'Hara and C.A. Conrad; memoirs by Eli Clare and David Wojnarowicz; Shakespeare's plays; fiction by Toni Morrison and Annie Proulx; theoretical writings by Jack Halberstam; and films by James Bidgood, John Waters, Todd Haynes, and Clair Denis.

PATRICK ABATIELL is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He holds a PhD in English from NYU. His research focuses on late-twentieth century literature, affect, and the environment. His dissertation examines the relationship between bodily experience and literary form, and looks at a series of writers from the 1980s and 90s who experiment with form in order to archive the particular sensory experience of inhabiting crisis environments. He has taught classes on environmental disaster in literature and film, postcolonial literature and theory, and composition at the University of Virginia, Middlebury College, and NYU.

FYSEM-UA 255
School and Society: NYU in the Sixties and Seventies
Fall 2019
Instructor: Arthur Tannenbaum      
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

The 1960s and 1970s brought profound changes in American society, changes mirrored in the history of the nation, academe, and New York University. It was a time that witnessed the struggle for civil rights, assassinations, war abroad and riots at home, and a youth-led revolution in music, dress, and values. This course aims to develop an appreciation of those years by examining events and reactions to them as they affected campuses and students across America. Students prepare reports on different aspects of the era and work on group projects. In both cases, and in the spirit of the times, the topics are self-chosen with the approval of the group and the seminar leader.

ARTHUR TANNENBAUM is Associate Curator and Social Work Librarian in the Bobst Library, and has also taught in the English Department. First as a student and then as a faculty member, he has been at NYU for more than thirty years. In 1992 he received the University’s Distinguished Teaching Medal in recognition for his work with students.

FYSEM-UA 432
Science and Policy of Climate Change
Fall 2019
Instructor: Edwin Gerber            
Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Humans in the Environment from the Ice Age to the Present (FYSEM-UA 704) in the Investigating Climate Change cohort.

Your time in high school was an exceptional period for our planet: 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 were the four warmest years in recorded history. It is likely the hottest the Earth has ever been since the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago. The first predictions of human-induced global warming were made over a century ago, but the topic remains controversial despite the fact that the world has warmed almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the intervening years. In this seminar, we will investigate observational evidence as well as the physical and mathematical foundations upon which forecasts of future climate are based. We will find that it is not the science of global warming that is controversial, but rather, what to do about it. We must weigh the costs of taking action today versus responding to potential consequences tomorrow, and come to grips with the ethical implications of the fact those who benefit from the use of fossil fuels are not the ones who will bear the costs. Armed with a scientific and policy background, you will conduct a research project on the response to global warming—delving into the details of climate engineering, alternate energy, psychology, ethics, and/or economics—thus giving you a chance to enter the debate, and perhaps even contribute to the solution.

EDWIN GERBER is an Associate Professor of Atmosphere-Ocean Science and Mathematics at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. His research focuses on the natural variability of the Earth's atmosphere (for example, why are some winters so cold and snowy compared to others?) and the role it plays in the response of the climate system to anthropogenic forcing. More recently, he has investigated how the formation of the ozone hole changed circulation patterns in the Southern Hemisphere, with possible implications for the melting of the Antarctic ice sheets and global sea level rise. With two small children at home, he has more than just an academic interest in the future of our planet.

FYSEM-UA 758
Seeing the Universe
Spring 2020
Instructor: Neal Weiner
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday, Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Prerequisites: high school algebra and geometry, and a basic level of comfort with mathematics.

The universe is full of stuff, but our ability to see it is quite limited. In this seminar we will aim to understand the limits of our perception, and how and what we humans have done to see beyond it. In short, we will discuss the universe we can see, how we see it, and how we see the universe we cannot. This will include how we see with light, and what we can see with different forms of light. We will discuss other ways of seeing, including relying on neutrinos and gravity. We will discuss how we can see things from the early universe; how we see things like dark matter; and whether it makes sense to talk about things we cannot see, like beyond the observable universe. Along the way, we will develop a basic picture of the history of the universe.

NEAL WEINER is Professor of Physics in the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics. He arrived at NYU in 2004 and has taught a wide range of courses, including a number in the College Core Curriculum. His research focuses on questions of particle physics and cosmology, with a particular focus on understanding the properties of dark matter and the search to discover what it is. He received a Golden Dozen Teaching Award in 2013.

FYSEM-UA 725
Seeing through Ghosts
Spring 2020
Instructor: Patricia Crain     
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

From Hamlet to Harry Potter, ghosts have long haunted books and film. This seminar asks these questions: What do ghosts want? What do we owe them? When and where do they appear? What are they good for? What do writers and readers use them for? We begin with one of the most famous ghosts in the Western canon, the ghost of Hamlet’s father, to lay the groundwork for our own thinking and responding to the spectral. With the help of Freud’s essays on “The Uncanny” and “Mourning and Melancholia” and Jacques Derrida’s concept of “hauntology,” we will then pivot to nineteenth-century and contemporary literature—the invention of the “ghost story,” the use of ghosts to confront the history and legacies of slavery in the United States, and a contemporary novel’s cross-cultural exploration of US history and Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to Hamlet (and we will keep an eye out for performances in New York), texts will include Henry James’s “The Jolly Corner” and “The Turn of the Screw,” Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “The Lost Ghost,” Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo. Students will work collaboratively, sharing responsibilities for leading discussions and reporting on research. Frequent writing assignments will include one personal essay, on-line forum posts, a final research essay, and opportunities for work in creative genres.

PATRICIA CRAIN is Professor of English. She is the award-winning author of The Story of A: The Alphabetization of America from The New England Primer to The Scarlet Letter and Reading Children: Literacy, Property, and the Dilemmas of Childhood in Nineteenth-Century America, which explores some ghostly themes.

FYSEM-UA 709
Spectacle of Cruelty: A Theatrical Investigation
Spring 2020
Instructor: David Foley      
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This course rests on the hypothesis that cruelty, at least in its political forms, is a form of spectacle: a performance designed to horrify or dazzle an intended audience. Perhaps for this reason, some of our most potent theatrical writers, from Euripides to Suzan-Lori Parks, have performed cruelty for us, shown us its face, explored its dimensions, invited us to live in its world. We will use theatrical texts to explore basic questions about cruelty—what it is, what drives it, in what forms it appears, how it can be resisted—but also to think about what these staged performances do for us. Why do we need them? In what way do they reflect the times and cultures that produced them? What themes and images remain consistent? What does a performance of cruelty allow us to see and experience? We’ll put a range of theatrical texts in conversation with writers like Susan Sontag, Maggie Nelson, Antonin Artaud, Hannah Arendt, and Albert Camus. Equally important will be our own investigations: the resources we reach for, the discoveries we make, the difficulties we encounter in trying to answer our questions about this most troubling aspect of being human.

DAVID FOLEY is a Senior Language Lecturer in NYU’s Expository Writing Program, where he has taught for nine years. He is also a playwright whose plays include Paradise, Nance O’Neil, Cressida Among the Greeks, The Murders at Argos, and A Hole in the Fence. His plays have been produced around the world and are published by Oberon Books and Samuel French. He has an MFA in Fiction Writing from NYU’s Creative Writing Program and is the author of the novel The Traveler’s Companion.

FYSEM-UA 741
Staging Power: Political Ceremonies and Pageantry
Spring 2020
Instructor: Benoît Bolduc         
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Note: this seminar is paired with Gestures, Movement, and Literature (FYSEM-UA 695) in the Art, Politics, and Culture cohort.

Participants in this seminar will investigate how displays of lavish ceremonies and pageantry have been used in history to legitimize political power. Sessions will focus on a series of political figures from the Western tradition such as Caesar, Charlemagne, Elizabeth I, Louis XIV, and Napoleon. Students will be encouraged to research political figures from other traditions as well as more recent ceremonial practices. Our main goal will be to deepen our understanding of the role artists and writers have played in the fabrication of political leaders. The reading list will include works of political theory, philosophy, aesthetics, and fiction. Emphasis will be put on the mediation of the events through monuments, images, print, and audio-visual recordings.

Professor BENOÎT BOLDUC teaches in the Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture. A scholar of early modern literature, visual culture, music, and performance, he has published extensively on French and Italian theatre, opera and court festivals. His latest book, La Fête imprimée: Spectacles et cérémonies politiques (1549-1662), is the first comprehensive study of early-modern illustrated fête books. It shows how these carefully crafted printed objects shaped enduring cultural and historical narratives while transforming their readers into ideal spectators.

FYSEM-UA 739
Stories to Live By
Spring 2020
Instructor: Jenni Quilter     
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

The stories we choose to tell about ourselves are crucial in defining our sense of possibility. How we understand our past (what constellations of cause and effect we craft from our history) helps us navigate the choices we have to make in the future. What stories have we learned already? What others are latent? This course offers a history of narratives of the self. When and how did self-consciousness in texts begin to manifest itself? To what end? And how does the process of narrating changes of the self alter our very understanding of it? Cutting across a wide range of disciplines—from literature to narrative theory and narrative therapy, from Bildungsroman to evolutionary theory—this course considers textual representations of interior space. Students will complete a narrative writing assignment and two analysis papers in order to both experiment with their own stories and learn to interpret others.

JENNI QUILTER is Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU's Expository Writing Program, and is also a Senior Director of NYU's Leadership Initiative. Her current research is on the intersection of decision theory and narratology. She received her MPhil and DPhil in English Literature from Oxford University. She taught at Oxford before arriving at NYU in 2007, first teaching within CAS and, more recently, at the Tisch School of the Arts. She has been awarded a Golden Dozen Award for teaching, and her most recent book, Neon in Daylight: Poets and Painters of the New York School, was a finalist in the "Best Criticism" category of the US AICA awards. Her writing has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, Poetry Magazine, AGNI, and Avidly. She is currently finishing a book about fertility and choice for Riverhead Books.

FYSEM-UA 218
Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses: Religion and State in America
Spring 2020
Instructor: John E. Sexton        
Wednesday, 6:30-9:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (Monday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m).

Note: this seminar is paired with Free Speech, Hate Speech, and Political Correctness (FYSEM-UA 700) in the Legal Studies cohort.

Note: Most students consider the workload for this course very heavy; please do not select this seminar unless you are willing and eager to perform at a high and demanding level.

Should members of the Native American Church be allowed to smoke peyote at religious ceremonies? Can a public high school invite a rabbi to give a benediction and convocation at graduation? Should a state legislator rely on his or her religious convictions in forming a view about the legality of capital punishment or abortion? The course divides these questions into three subject areas: religious liberty; separation of church and state; and the role of religion in public and political life. It focuses on how the Supreme Court has dealt with these areas and, more important, invites students to construct anew a vision of the proper relationship between religion, state, and society in a twenty-first-century liberal constitutional democracy. Most students consider the workload for this course very heavy; please do not select this seminar unless you are willing and eager to perform at a high and demanding level.

JOHN E. SEXTON, President Emeritus of New York University, was the Dean of the NYU Law School from 1988 to 2002 and President of NYU from 2002-2016. He has taught courses on the Constitution and the courts, and has led seminars on the intersection of religion and the law. Before he came to NYU, he served as law clerk for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the US Supreme Court, and has testified frequently before the US Congress. In addition to his law degree, he holds a doctorate in the history of American religion.

FYSEM-UA 737
Taste: History, Theory, and Ideology of a Concept
Spring 2020
Instructor: Anne Lounsbery            
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (Monday, Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

When and how did it become possible to possess what we call taste? What theories have been advanced to explain, defend, and critique taste as a phenomenon? What can we learn from “bad” taste (kitsch, camp, vulgarity, Russian poshlost’)? We examine primary sources from the Russian, English, French, and American traditions, including novels, stories, poems, films, philosophy, and the visual arts. We also read theoretical and historical works addressing such topics as connoisseurship, class, gendered tastes, dandyism, details and femininity, minorness, the slavery/luxury nexus, and Russian/post-Soviet sovok.

ANNE LOUNSBERY is Associate Professor and Chair of Russian and Slavic Studies. She earned her BA in Medieval Studies and Studio Art at Brown University and her PhD in Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature. She taught for three years as a tutor in Harvard’s History and Literature program and for one year as an Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon before coming to NYU in 2002. Her first book—Thin Culture, High Art: Gogol, Hawthorne, and Authorship in Nineteenth-Century Russia and America—was published in 2006; her second—Life is Elsewhere: Symbolic Geography in the Russian Provinces, 1800-1917—will appear in 2019. She has published widely in North America, Europe, and Russia on such topics as nineteenth-century Russian prose, the Russian novel in comparative perspective, the rise of print culture, imaginary geographies, adultery novels, and race in Russia and the US. Her teaching addresses all these areas, with a particular focus on nineteenth-century Russian prose.

FYSEM-UA 663
Telling Stories: Journalists and Ethnographers
Fall 2019
Instructor: Robert S. Boynton         
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 pm).

Note: this seminar is paired with Journalism of War, Revolution, Genocide, and Human Rights (FYSEM-UA 384) in the Reporting the Event cohort.

This course will introduce students to the various methods journalists and ethnographers use to explore the human condition. Using the written word, still photography, audio, and some combination of the three (slideshow, etc.), students will create portraits of communities and individuals. We will read such classic ethnographies as Mitchell Duneier's Sidewalk, as well as oral histories by Studs Terkel and narrative journalism (like Adrian LeBlanc's Random Family). We will listen to audio pieces produced by StoryCorps and Radio Diaries, and look at photographs by Diane Arbus, Gary Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander.

ROBERT S. BOYNTON is Associate Professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, where he runs the Literary Reportage program. He is the author of The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project and The New New Journalism, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, and elsewhere.

FYSEM-UA 750
The “Other” on Film: From Natives to Terrorists
Spring 2020
Instructor: Jennifer Varela         
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

From Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) to Aladdin (1993), there are many examples of problematic representations of non-Western peoples and cultures in film. We consider the history and evolution of the “other” on film, including feature films, documentaries, and ethnographic visual anthropology, going beyond popular films and recognized stereotypes and focusing instead on how images and narratives create knowledge through the mediation process. Films include: Nanook of the North (1922), The Searchers (1956), Battle of Algiers (1966), Black Girl (1966), Petit à Petit (1969), The Axe Fight (1975), The Deer Hunter (1978), Babakieuria (1988), The Siege (1998), Caché (2005), Argo (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014).

JENNIFER VARELA is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her PhD in the Cultural Studies track of the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU. Her research concentrates on the intersection of cultural texts, transnational NGOs, and the international promotion of humanitarian discourses within the contemporary Israeli/Palestinian context.

FYSEM-UA 755
Theories of Reproduction
Spring 2020
Instructor: Kim Adams     
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

What does the printing press have to do with condoms? Photography with the human genome project? We examine theories of reproduction in literary, philosophical, and scientific thought. A necessary condition for biological life and a fundamental mechanism for understanding mass culture, reproduction connects human sexuality to the history of technology and the life sciences to the debates of cultural politics. Drawing connections between disparate theories of visual reproduction, audio reproduction, textual reproduction, human reproduction, and historical reproduction, we consider ideas of birth control and eugenics in the context of memes and photocopies, situating the issues of sexual politics and reproductive rights in a wider cultural history of reproduction, and using alternate theoretical paradigms to reframe contemporary political debates. Students learn to apply an interdisciplinary approach to the historical construction of biological categories including race, gender, and sexuality.

KIM ADAMS is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She holds a PhD from the department of English at NYU and a MA from the department of English at Brown University. Her dissertation, “The Body Electric,” examines literary and medical technologies in American culture, from Walt Whitman and the electrocardiogram to Sylvia Plath and shock therapy. She is interested in how electricity shapes the modern American body in the political categories of race, sex, and gender. Her research uses interdisciplinary methods to connect literature and science, and positions the humanities as a political site of knowledge production within the university.

FYSEM-UA 747
Graves, Bodies, and Books: Funerary Commemorations from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century
Spring 2020
Instructor: Stephanie Crooks         
Monday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I/II Lecture (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Introductory Experimental Physics II Lecture (Monday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

In 2014, the start-up company Eterni.me began offering its services to preserve deceased loved ones as 3-D avatars. In the first four days of its existence, the company registered 3,000 people on its site and, consequently, joined the ranks of many other companies in the “e-death” industry that promise to prolong the life of a family member or friend beyond biological death. Companies like Eterni.me—and the digital age, more generally—will surely change the way that societies commemorate their dead; yet humans have always named their dead and marked their final resting places with a monument to ensure that they will be remembered beyond a single generation. We explore the human tendency to locate the dead in society and to engage with them postmortem through a series of literary case studies with a focus on the commemoration of deceased poets, and ask why it is that poets’ tombs are the destination of much literary tourism. Who visits poets’ tombs? What do they do there? How does the tomb help ensure a poet’s “immortality” after his biological death? To answer these and similar questions we study ancient Greek and Latin poetry and the tombs that ancient poets imagine for themselves in their verse. We then turn to a selection of funerary monuments dedicated to Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romantic poets. Finally, we will consider the twenty-first century’s evolving relationship to traditional modes of commemoration, as well as to digital and experimental forms of memorialization. Authors include: Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Voltaire, Keats, Shelley.

STEPHANIE CROOKS is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. Her research focuses on representations of tombs in Latin poetry, and in particular, on those tombs which poets imagine for themselves in their verse. Her work questions how the literary tombs of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, as well as those of their characters, compare to actual commemorative practices from the first century BCE through the first century CE. She is also interested in the concept of necrotourism and the place of a writer’s tomb in the reader’s imagination.

FYSEM-UA 546
Travel and Communication in the Ancient World
Fall 2019
Instructor: Raffaella Cribiore        
Monday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This course explores traveling, communicating, and spreading news in antiquity. Unlike us moderns, the ancients did not travel for leisure, and the notion of travel as “routine” would have been foreign to them; their journeys had mythic and epic significance and took place under precarious conditions. Likewise, whereas today we are able to communicate with each other in many convenient ways, sending letters and messages in the Greek and Roman worlds was cumbersome and time-intensive. Nonetheless, people did get in touch with each other and exchange news. Indeed, one of the goals of the course is to question what might be called a “progressive model” of understanding communication(s) that automatically assumes the superiority of modern technology.

RAFFAELLA CRIBIORE is Professor of Classics and an authority on education in antiquity. Her publications include Writing, Teachers, and Students in Greco-Roman Egypt; Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, which won the Goodwin Prize in 2003; and Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt, 300 BC-AD 800 (with Roger Bagnall). Her most recent book, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch, is a study of an elite school of rhetoric in Syria.

FYSEM-UA 434
Trials of the Century
Fall 2019
Instructor: Jack Ford           
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

How does a trial gain notoriety as a “trial of the century”? What does that designation say about the crime and the personalities involved; about the legal, social, and political implications of the case; and about the nature and extent of the attendant media coverage? Since the trial of Socrates, the public has been intrigued, galvanized, and even entertained by the real drama of real trials, which often act as a prism through which society’s strengths and weaknesses are revealed. This course offers in-depth examinations of select “trials of the century” in the US, approaching each case from a specific angle, from celebrity (the Lindbergh kidnapping case and the trial of O.J. Simpson) to race (the trials of the Scottsboro Boys), politics (the Chicago Seven), and religion (the Scopes Monkey Trial).

JACK FORD is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist, author, and nationally recognized trial attorney. Currently a CBS News Legal Analyst, he has had a distinguished career on network and cable television. As a litigator, he successfully handled a number of high-profile cases, such as the Northeast’s first death-penalty trial; one of the nation’s first corporate homicide cases; and the Wall Street insider-trading scandal of the late 1980s. He has also written articles for respected legal publications. The recipient of five honorary degrees in recognition of his professional accomplishments and his extensive public service, he has taught at, in addition to NYU, Yale College and Fordham Law School.

FYSEM-UA 205
Understanding Terrorism
Fall 2019
Instructor: Tom Gerety       
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Recitation (Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.), General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.), and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

This seminar examines terrorist attacks and movements from an interdisciplinary perspective, seeking to reach a better understanding of the attackers themselves, their motivations and backgrounds, and their plots and ideologies—whether secular or religious. We also consider the challenges of countering terrorism in societies with many “soft” targets and extensive global entanglements. We will read case studies of terrorism and counter-terrorism, including moral and legal arguments about torture, detention, and targeted killings. We will also try to understand how and why young men and women can be so powerfully drawn to violence, particularly violence against non-combatant (and often randomly targeted) civilians. We will visit various sites in New York City and meet with people with direct experience of terrorism and radicalization, including representatives of both the police and the immigrant communities who have suffered profiling, prejudice, and mistrust. Looking towards the future, we will examine local, national, and international strategies to prevent such attacks and to halt the radicalization that brings fresh recruits to terrorist movements.

TOM GERETY, Collegiate Professor, first came to NYU to head up the Brennan Center for Justice at the School of Law; he then joined the NYU faculty in 2005 to teach courses in law and the humanities. He served as President of Amherst College from 1994 to 2003 and of Trinity College from 1989 to 1994. From 1986 to 1989 he was Dean and Nippert Professor at the College of Law of the University of Cincinnati. As a law professor he taught and wrote on constitutional law and political philosophy, with a special emphasis on such First Amendment freedoms as speech, privacy, and religious freedom. He wrote and narrated a PBS series, Visions of the Constitution, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of a book of essays on the liberal arts, The Freshman Who Hated Socrates. He holds degrees in Law and Philosophy from Yale.

FYSEM-UA 744
Venice, A Tourist History
Spring 2020
Instructor: Karl Appuhn        
Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with spring General Chemistry I Recitations (Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

In 2018 an estimated thirty million people visited Venice. While New York City gets about twice as many annual visitors, Venice has a stable population of only 55,000 inhabitants and occupies an area smaller than Central Park. Venice is also, famously, a city built on water in the middle of a tidal lagoon. Its small size and unusual site render Venice exceptionally vulnerable to the more pernicious effects of modern mass tourism, including over-crowding, pollution, and an economy increasingly reliant on a single source of revenue. Indeed, for Venetians it has become commonplace to describe the situation as both a social and environmental crisis. Venice, locals often say, is drowning in tourists and under rising sea levels. But in many ways this situation is not new. Venice has always been overrun with outsiders, whether medieval pilgrims, crusaders, and merchants; eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cosmopolitan elites on the so-called Grand Tour; or twentieth- and twenty-first century mass tourists arriving by train, plane, and cruise ship. This seminar will explore the longer history of Venice as a travel destination through documents, literature, and film. In so doing we will consider how Venice has been shaped by its history as a travel destination; how representations of the city affect people’s desire to visit it and their perceptions of the challenges it faces; and how the city’s current tourism-driven economy, when combined with rising sea levels, threatens the city’s very existence.

KARL APPUHN is Associate Professor of History and Italian at New York University and the Director of NYU’s Medieval and Renaissance Center. His research focuses on the environmental history of Renaissance Venice and the history of Renaissance medicine. He is particularly interested in the ways in which societies address (or sometimes fail to address) environmental problems through policy. He has been at NYU since 2004, and teaches classes on environmental history, the history of early science and medicine, and the cultural and intellectual history of Renaissance Italy.

FYSEM-UA 752
Vikings and Celts: Ireland, Scandinavia, and the North Sea World during the Long Viking Age
Fall 2019
Instructor: Sarah Waidler         
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This seminar explores the late eighth to twelfth centuries, from our earliest evidence of Scandinavian raiders, known to the modern world as Vikings, sailing across the seas to Ireland, Scotland, and England, to the establishment and fall of dynasties at home and abroad, conversion and cultural assimilation. This period allows students to investigate different aspects of medieval history ranging from political, military, and economic events and processes to the myriad of social and cultural changes that were to have a long-term impact on Ireland and the North Sea world. We will work with historical and archaeological sources to understand some of the challenges and scholarly debates that surround the long-term interaction between the Irish, their neighbors, and the Scandinavians. Although the Irish experience of the Viking Age will be at the heart of this course, the entire North Atlantic region will be examined both to add context to our consideration of this period and to appreciate different facets of this interrelated and varied area during this time. Text-based classes and discussions focusing on particular sources, individuals, and events will give students a grounding in critical thinking and how to approach historical texts and offer the chance to gain an in-depth understanding of this exciting period of change, conflict, engagement, and opportunity.

SARAH WAIDLER earned her PhD from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, and was an O’Donovan Postdoctoral Scholar at the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, in 2016–2018. She works on medieval Celtic literature and history and the cult of saints in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. She is particularly interested in the overlap between the literature of saints and “secular” literature. Her work also explores the intellectual environment of learning and the interplay of ideas between Ireland, Wales, and the wider medieval world.

FYSEM-UA 718
Walking the Global City: Spatial Practice, Cultural Production
Fall 2019
Instructor: Downing Bray Kress    
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m. and Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

New York, the city that never sleeps, is also a city that never stops walking. Pedestrianism propels us into the vibrant dynamism and diversity of the metropolis and navigates us through neighborhoods and streets, where we discover the unexpected and interact with a dizzying accumulation of people and objects. We investigate representations of walking in literature, film, and art produced in and about New York, Paris, and London from the nineteenth century to the present. Immersing ourselves in the work of peripatetic artists, writers, and thinkers from a range of epochs and cultural backgrounds, we treat walking as a framework for cultural and social analysis. Tracing the itineraries of walkers from the Parisian flâneur to the London “streethaunter” to the exiled wanderer of New York, we view the city as a space that is both bordered and borderless; as a site of community, connection, and belonging; and as one of alienation and exclusion. Walking provides a lens through which we can investigate the evolving dynamics of race, gender, and sexuality in modern society; the relationship between urban experience and creative production; and the notion of the city as palimpsest. Students also engage in their own projects of walking the metropolitan landscape of New York City, cataloguing their experiences with words and images.

DOWNING BRAY KRESS is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her PhD in NYU’s Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture. Her research focuses on representations of migration, displacement, and globalization in contemporary francophone and Caribbean literature. Her work questions how the literary imagination is shaped by human interactions with the physical world—with city streets, buildings, objects, and landscapes—in a context of global wandering. She is interested in the ways in which the visual arts and architecture intersect with literature in representations of the urban experience.

FYSEM-UA 371
Welcome to College: The Novel
Fall 2019
Instructor: Carol Sternhell             
Tuesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Prerequisite: A score of 4 or 5 in AP English Literature (or equivalent international exam) OR permission of the instructor. Note that this seminar requires reading one full book every week.

Starting college can be exhilarating—and terrifying. A chance for intellectual enlightenment—or intense loneliness. An escape from a stultifying small town of narrow-minded people—or a riot of alcohol, sex, and drugs. In this class we read a selection of college novels from different historical periods, spanning about 100 years. We discuss these novels from a variety of perspectives: literary, historical, and journalistic. In addition to presenting biographical and historical and cultural reports on at least two of the authors and their novels, students write about their own experiences as first-year students at NYU in several genres, including fiction and nonfiction. Together we explore this important life passage, examining life as we live it. This is a class for people who love to read fiction—we read a full novel every week, and some of them are long—so please don’t sign up for it if that doesn’t sound like fun.

CAROL STERNHELL is Associate Professor of Journalism and a Director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s Studio 20 graduate program. She created the department’s study away programs in London, Prague, and Accra and was also a founder of the Women’s Studies major (now Gender and Sexuality Studies). She has written extensively about feminism, motherhood, and literature for a variety of publications. Before coming to NYU, she worked as an editor at Newsday, a general assignment reporter for the New York Post, and a freelance magazine writer. She received the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence in 2005.

FYSEM-UA 474
What is College For?
Fall 2019
Instructor: Trace Jordan         
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: FYSEM-UA 474, What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 711, How the Irish Turned Right (or Have They?) are both recommended for first-generation college students. Both seminars are taught by professors who were first-generation students themselves.

Why did you decide to attend college? To broaden your intellectual horizons and become a more open-minded person? To gain specialized knowledge? To achieve a more successful and financially rewarding career? To make new friends? To become an engaged participant in a democratic society? To satisfy your parents’ plans for your future? Or perhaps some combination of these reasons that you are still figuring out? This seminar examines historical and contemporary discussions about the personal and social goals of higher education and studies issues that have the potential to profoundly transform the college experience in coming years. It also prompts students to be more reflective and purposeful about their own academic choices at NYU. We ask: what is the optimal balance between a “liberal arts” education, usually provided by a core curriculum, and the pursuit of specialized study within a major? How can professors and students cultivate deep learning instead of rote memorization? How is technology impacting education, and what further changes may occur in the future?

TRACE JORDAN is Clinical Professor and Associate Director of the College Core Curriculum. His research interests and publications include the role of science education in a liberal arts curriculum, the use of computer simulations for teaching and learning chemistry, and the impact of interest and motivation on educational engagement and achievement. Professor Jordan is a two-time winner of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

FYSEM-UA 770
What is Evil?
Fall 2019
Instructor: Jeanne Proust         
Wednesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lab (Friday, 9:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

When we try to describe, understand, and respond to such atrocities as rapes, genocides, or serial killings, we often use the word evil. We will discuss the historicity of the concept of evil, its relativity, and the diversity of feelings that it inspires in us—such as fear, disgust, shame, contempt, hate, or compassion. We will also analyze the complexity of this concept, and its many symbolic representations. The seminar considers such questions as: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions to label an action or character as “evil”? What happens when we qualify something or someone as “evil”? What causes this moral judgment, and what effects may it have? We ground our investigation in the wider context of moral philosophy and ethics, introducing such topics as cultural relativism (“what’s right here is not necessarily right there”) and subjectivism (“what’s right for me is not necessarily right for you”). The goal is to better understand, and improve our thinking about, questions of right and wrong.

JEANNE PROUST earned her PhD at the Sorbonne and studied philosophy and the arts in Bordeaux and Berlin as well as Paris. She has taught courses in philosophy (specifically critical thinking and ethics), as well as art history, visual arts, and French literature, at NYU, Pace University, the City University of New York, Miami Dade College, and Marymount Manhattan College. She brings philosophy to the world outside academia by giving numerous talks about interdisciplinary subjects related to moral questions for ThinkOlio, an association that organizes lectures in public spaces throughout New York City. She co-wrote The Feeling of Injustice in Popular Songs with Professor Charles Ramond of Université Paris 8.

FYSEM-UA 449
Wiseguys, Spies, and Private Eyes: Heroes and Villains in American Culture, Film, and Literature
Fall 2019
Instructor: Eddy Friedfeld         
Thursday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55-6:10 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This seminar explores the ways in which specific American archetypes and themes are perceived and articulated—from the rugged Old West individualist, to the persevering underdog who becomes a boxing champ, to the Cold War era superspy. We examine representations of heroes and villains in modern American popular culture and how the great films and novels of three particular genres, the detective, the gangster, and the spy, influenced our understanding of these archetypes. From the early influences of Hamlet and Macbeth to Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, Mario Puzo’s (and Francis Ford Coppola’s) The Godfather, James Bond, and Batman, we look at the mythology and evolution of heroes and villains through popular and high culture icons, the genesis of the genres and how they developed over time, and how great directors, actors, and writers influenced audiences worldwide and were themselves influenced by culture and history.

EDDY FRIEDFELD is a film and entertainment journalist and historian, as well as an attorney specializing in corporate restructuring. He is the co-author of Caesar’s Hours with comedy legend Sid Caesar, and is working on a book on the history of comedy in America. He was the senior consultant for the PBS documentary Make ’Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America; has appeared on Fox News, PBS, and WOR and Bloomberg Radio; has written and lectured extensively on entertainment and film; has produced and hosted tributes to Dick Van Dyke, Eric Idle, Dick Cavett, Alan King, Robert Altman, George Carlin, and Paul Newman, among others; and has worked with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Billy Crystal. He received his BA from Columbia College and his JD from NYU Law School. He also teaches at Yale College and The Tisch School of the Arts.

FYSEM-UA 760
Writing About the Past in the Ancient Near East
Spring 2020
Instructor: Odette Boivin         
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

From writing one’s own résumé to chronicling political events, piecing together and presenting the past in written form is a complex combination of factors: availability of sources, conventions and tradition, audience, interpretation, intention, and unconscious bias. Shortly after the invention of writing in the Near East in the late fourth millennium BCE, scribes of the most ancient full-fledged writing system, cuneiform, started to chronicle their own recent or remote past in written form. The texts they left behind include annals, king lists, (pseudo-)biographies, historical omens, and chronicles. These earliest historiographic sources offer a fascinating glimpse into preclassical antiquity and into the events recorded. They also reflect how people in the ancient world perceived time, and how they may have understood their own place in it. The texts studied (all in translation) will be principally Babylonian and Assyrian; a number of Hittite, Biblical, and Greek sources will also be discussed.

ODETTE BOIVIN is Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. She earned her PhD in Assyriology from the University of Toronto and specializes in Babylonian history. She recently published The First Dynasty of the Sealand in Mesopotamia, a history of a southern Babylonian polity in the mid-second millennium BCE and its place in later historiography. She is currently working on the later history of the southern Babylonian town of Larsa, using a sixth-century BCE family archive that she is reconstructing, as well as other textual and archaeological sources.

EXPOS-UA 1.001
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 001)
Fall 2019
Instructor: TBD
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.002
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 002)
Fall 2019
Instructor: TBD
Monday and Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.004
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 004)
Fall 2019
Instructor: TBD
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

EXPOS-UA 1.005
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 005)
Fall 2019
Instructor: TBD
Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.006
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 006)
Fall 2019
Instructor: TBD
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.007
Writing the Essay: Science (Fall 007)
Fall 2019
Instructor: TBD
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Tuesday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.001
Writing the Essay: Science (Spring 001)
Spring 2020
Instructor: TBD
Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

EXPOS-UA 1.002
Writing the Essay: Science (Spring 002)
Spring 2020
Instructor: TBD
Monday and Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Introductory Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

EXPOS-UA 1.004
Writing the Essay: Science (Spring 004)
Spring 2020
Instructor: TBD
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

EXPOS-UA 1.006
Writing the Essay: Science (Spring 006)
Spring 2020
Instructor: TBD
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Writing the Essay is the foundational writing course. It provides instruction and practice in critical reading, creative thinking, and clear writing. It provides additional instruction in analyzing and interpreting written texts, the use of written texts as evidence, the development of ideas, and the writing of both exploratory and argumentative essays. The course stresses exploration, inquiry, reflection, analysis, revision, and collaborative learning. In these special WTE: Science sections, course readings and assignments focus on current issues in the worlds of science and medicine. Students read and respond to essays by prominent scientists, physicians, and science writers, such as Stephen Jay Gould, Primo Levi, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Richard Selzer.

FYSEM-UA 514
Xenophon of Athens—Cavalry Commander and Socratic Philosopher
Spring 2020
Instructor: Vincent Renzi          
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and spring General Chemistry I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The greatest ancient you’ve never heard of, Xenophon of Athens (c. 425–355 B.C.E.) was a brilliant general, student of Socrates, and renowned author. His heroism leading the army of the Ten Thousand inspired the conquests of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. His political philosophy informed the thought of Cicero, Machiavelli, Franklin, and Jefferson. When knowledge of Greek was still required for admission to college, his fame was ubiquitous, as his writings formed the basis of the pre-college curriculum. Readings, in English translation: Apology of Socrates, Symposium, Memorabilia, Cyropaedia, Cavalry Commander, Anabasis, and the film based on the latter, The Warriors (1979).

VINCENT RENZI is Clinical Professor in the Foundations of Contemporary Culture (FCC) and of Classics, and is also Director of the Foundations of Contemporary Culture in the College Core Curriculum. A scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, he also has interests in arts and aesthetics and in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy. He is a recipient of the College's Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

 

 

FYSEM-UA 701
Adventures in Interviewing: Oral History Theory and Practice
Spring 2019
Instructor: Miriam Nyhan Grey        
Tuesday, 2:00-4.30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Oral history is a very important tool for a historian. It is compelling in its ability to bring forward the voices of those who were frequently excluded from more typical sources and it often leads to new interpretations of history. As a method, it presents challenges and rewards as the sources are not confined to the library or an archive. In the process of interviewing the historian is confronted by sources that speak, think, remember, forget and recount—human beings. This course will explore theories of memory, how memory is constructed and forgotten, and how historians contend with this type of source. Preparing for and conducting an oral history interview will be a significant portion of the load for this course. The goal is to uncover the richness of oral history in complicating our explanations of the past.

MIRIAM NYHAN GREY is Associate Director of New York University's Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies, where she is also Director of Graduate Studies for the Master of Arts in Irish and Irish-American Studies. With an interest in the intersections of migration, race and ethnicity, she focuses primarily on migrant experiences in comparative frameworks. Oral history is a central methodology in her research and she has served as a collaborator for the Archives of Irish America’s Oral History Collection since 2008. She has been on faculty at NYU since 2009, teaching an array of classes on Irish history and migration, oral history and comparative migration.

FYSEM-UA 598
After the End: Post-Apocalypse Novels in the 20th Century
Spring 2019
Instructor: David L. Hoover          
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Many authors have speculated about what would happen if (most) humans were destroyed. Authors have removed humans by natural disasters like floods, fires, earthquakes, and mysterious poisonous clouds or rays. They have imagined alien invasions, plagues, epidemics, agricultural collapses, and reproductive failure. More recently, humans themselves have become popular as causes of apocalypses because global thermonuclear war, lethal pollution, disastrous over-population, genetic engineering, and climate change have become realistic possible scenarios for the collapse of our species. This seminar will examine a variety of apocalypses from the 20th century with special attention to ones that have implications for the nature of humanity and human society. Most of the novels we will read treat an apocalypse as a kind of thought-experiment: what would happen if . . . ? Some focus more on the collapse of human institutions, culture, morality, and religion, others on the challenges the survivors face, and still others focus on the potential for the re-creation of human society or the creation of an alternative kind of society.

DAVID L. HOOVER is Professor of English at New York University, where he has taught for thirty-five years in the areas of digital humanities, science fiction, Chaucer, history of the English language, and linguistic stylistics. His most recent publications include Digital Literary Studies: Corpus Approaches to Poetry, Prose, and Drama, with Jonathan Culpeper and Kieran O’Halloran; “Modes of Composition in Henry James: Dictation, Style, and What Maisie Knew,” in the Henry James Review; and “Text Analysis,” in Ken Price and Ray Siemens (eds.), Literary Studies in the Digital Age: An Evolving Anthology (the first digital-only publication of the MLA). The breadth of his interests are shown in his earlier books: Stylistics: Prospect & Retrospect (as editor), Language and Style in The Inheritors, and A New Theory of Old English Meter. He is currently writing a book on how modes of composition (handwriting, dictation, typing, word-processing) affect authorial style.

FYSEM-UA 649
America in the World: Benevolent Giant or Just Another Superpower?
Spring 2019
Instructor: James Traub      
Monday, 3:30-6:10 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

From the moment of its birth, the United States has told a story about itself: That it was not simply a nation among nations but a beacon of democracy and individual freedom. As it became a world power at the end of the 19th century, the US began to deploy its wealth and force abroad to advance its national interests, as other great powers did—but also, or so it said and so its people deeply believed, to shape a more peaceful, democratic, and just world order. The United States continued to pursue that self-assigned mission through two world wars and the Cold War, and now in the face of terrorism. America is unlike any previous world power both in the beliefs on which it was founded and in its geographical situation, surrounded by oceans and far removed from the conflicts in which it intervenes. And yet it is also a hegemon—a dominant power—and shapes the world to its perceived interests, as all hegemons do. Over the last century, critics have never stopped accusing the US of hypocritically pursuing narrow interests in the name of global good. In electing a new president, American voters may finally have put that claim to rest by choosing someone who does not accept the nation's historic mission. This class will examine a series of critical points—war, colonialism, the founding of global institutions, interventions abroad—in order to understand the tension between America's idealistic global mission and the brute fact of its power and dominance.

JAMES TRAUB is a long-time journalist whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. He writes a column for www.foreignpolicy.com and teaches two classes in foreign policy at NYU Abu Dhabi. He has written half a dozen books, most recently a biography of John Quincy Adams. He is now writing a study of the rise and fall of liberalism.

FYSEM-UA 688
Art and Science of Approximate Reasoning: Physics, Sustainable Energy, and the Future of Humanity
Spring 2019
Instructor: David Hogg
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Because physics works over a vast range of scales, and because of simple requirements for the forms of physical laws, it is possible to make progress on important problems with extremely simple physical arguments. We learn and practice the methods of approximation, estimation, and dimensional analysis in the context of questions about energy, the environment, and sustainable solutions to the problems of humans on Earth. Themes include the following: What roles do wind and solar energy have in the future of humanity? What are the fundamental physical limits on the efficiencies of vehicles used for transportation? How can we make buildings and cities run as energy-efficiently as possible? How could we travel from the Earth to other solar systems? The techniques developed in this course are among the most important items in the toolbox of a research physicist, and also apply in most scientific and engineering domains. Understanding these techniques and concepts, however, is within the reach of anyone concerned about the future of our planet, and this seminar has no science or mathematics prerequisites.

DAVID W. HOGG is Professor of Physics at New York University. His main research interests are in observational cosmology, especially approaches that use galaxies (including our own Milky Way) to infer the physical properties of the universe. He also works on models of stellar spectroscopy and exoplanet measurement and discovery. In all areas, he is interested in developing the engineering systems that make these projects possible, for his group and for the astrophysics community as a whole. His research is or has been recently supported by New York University, NASA, the NSF, the Moore Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, the Humboldt Foundation, and the Simons Foundation. Professor Hogg is currently working towards several comprehensive projects in observational astrophysics, including the measurement and simultaneous analysis of every galaxy (above some mass) in the observable universe, every star (above some brightness) in our galaxy, or every image (above some quality) taken by any astronomical camera.

FYSEM-UA 713
Artful Lives
Spring 2019
Instructor: Jennifer Cayer      
Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

How, and to what unique ends, have artists, performers, and writers crafted art from the materials of lived experience? We will explore a variety of works across genres, including diaries, graphic memoirs, auto ethnographies, films, performances, and theater works that innovatively and directly draw upon lived experience. We will consider autobiographical as well as documentary projects as we ask: what does it mean to represent ourselves and others in art? And what aesthetic and ethical questions arise in the making of such works? For example, what is the relationship between memory and memoir? How do we understand the complexities of reading and writing essays that fall into the category of “creative nonfiction”? And what changing roles do social media play in our representations and comprehension of ourselves and selfhood? Along the way, we will experiment with making our own artful representations in multiple modalities from written language to playing with sonic, visual, and kinetic forms. Artists under consideration may include: Jamaica Kincaid, Maggie Nelson, Alison Bechdel, Cynthia Hopkins, Reverend Billy, Coco Fusco, Kara Walker, Agnes Varda, Lucy Grealy, Ana Mendieta, Anna Deavere Smith, and Spalding Gray.

JENNIFER CAYER is a Senior Language Lecturer at New York University, where she teaches writing in the Tisch School of the Arts and serves as a Writing in the Disciplines consultant. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature and has taught courses on literature, drama, and performance studies at Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts. She was awarded a Copeland Fellowship on the Future of the Humanities and served as a Five College Women’s Studies Research Center Associate. Her scholarship, essays, and creative nonfiction have been published in The Washington Post, Theater Journal, The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, TDR: The Drama Review, Culturebot, and Contrary Magazine.

FYSEM-UA 717
Arthurian Legend: Arthur and the Celts
Spring 2019
Instructor: Sarah Waidler        
Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

The legend of King Arthur has continued to fascinate audiences from the early medieval period until the modern day. But was there a real Arthur? How did his story begin and how did it grow? Why did he become such an iconic hero? This seminar will search for the roots of the legend of the famous king as a hero in medieval Wales and look at its development, plotting the many depictions of its main character from villain to tragic hero. We will also explore the origins of his companions, with particular emphasis on the wizard Merlin. From there, we will travel across the sea to Ireland and examine how the legend developed, to what extent it took on elements of Irish mythology, and how the Celtic Arthur compared with that of the continental Romances. Students will be encouraged to investigate such elements as the legend’s interpretation of Christianity and the pagan past, the depiction of “magic” and “miracles” within the story, and the role of gender in medieval writing. In assessing the creation of the Arthurian legend, this course will delve into medieval understandings of history, the construction of identity, and the concept of the “hero” in Celtic literature, and will give students a grounding in critical thinking and how to approach historical texts.  

SARAH WAIDLER earned her PhD from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, and was an O’Donovan Postdoctoral Scholar at the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in 2016–2018. She works on medieval Celtic literature and history and the cult of saints in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. She is particularly interested in the overlap between the literature of saints and “secular” literature. Her work also explores the intellectual environment of learning and the interplay of ideas between Ireland, Wales, and the wider medieval world.

FYSEM-UA 705
Banned Books
Spring 2019
Instructor: Michelle Kelly       
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

What does it mean when we ban a book? What can a book’s absence tell us about a society? In this seminar we will read and analyze censored literature, but we will also consider meanings that are constituted by erasure. We will confront controversial and offensive writing, consider its worth, and weigh its right to exist through nuanced thinking about cultural context, practical implications, and moral philosophy. Drawing on theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, and JM Coetzee, we will connect our readings of twentieth-century poetry and novels to the issues of free speech and censorship that we confront in our daily lives. Students will have the opportunity to conduct archival research in NYU’s Special Collections in order to restore public consciousness of texts that have been censored, overlooked, or otherwise silenced.

MICHELLE MCSWIGGAN KELLY is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. A Weaponized Poetics, her current work in progress, explores how the intersections among literature, history, and politics were reshaped by the crises of the Second World War. She received her PhD from Fordham University and her BA and MA from Emory University.

FYSEM-UA 634
#BlackLanguageMatters
Fall 2018
Instructor: Renée Blake         
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

This course is about language, specifically the myriad of ways that many African Americans express their personal and community identities. The course focuses primarily on the language variety known as African American English, which often serves as a guise for deep-seated racial ideologies about African Americans and Black people more generally. In this course, students learn about the linguistic structure of African American English and theories about its origins. We explore how language is used to convey social identity, particularly regarding race and ethnicity, and make meaning of one’s life. Issues addressed include language variation, language contact and change, in addition to social and linguistic discrimination. Finally, we consider African American English as the nexus of ideas on race, identity, sexuality, violence and equality in the United States and globally found in Cornel West’s Race Matters (1994) and the more recent #BlackLivesMatter movement. Students develop research projects on African American English regarding language production or perception.

RENÉE A. BLAKE is Associate Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Social & Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her research examines language contact, race, ethnicity, and class with a focus on African American English, Caribbean Creole English, and New York City English. Her work has been published in journals including Language in Society, Language and Education, Journal of English Linguistics, Language, Variation and Change, and English Today. She has served as a consultant to many programs and organizations including Disney and the Ford Foundation. She developed two web-based linguistic sites: “Word. The Online Journal on African American English” (africanamericanenglish.com) and “Voices of New York” (nyuvoicesofnewyork.com). Professor Blake is a recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award and a faculty member in the Presidential Honors Scholars Program.

FYSEM-UA 707
Borderlands and Belonging in the Americas
Spring 2019
Instructor: Natasha Zaretsky    
Thursday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

Migration has shaped the Americas in powerful ways, creating immigrant communities and diasporas that transcend national boundaries. As people continue to move across borders, the relationship between identity and place has been reimagined, offering new possibilities for connection. Yet, this has also sparked political anxieties about belonging and citizenship for both individuals and nations, rendering some immigrants as perpetually outside the “imagined community” of the nation, effectively living on the borderlands of belonging. How do those on the borders navigate belonging, citizenship, and identity in the Americas? What are the implications of these struggles for understandings of nations and selves? This seminar explores the lived experience of those moving across national borders as they negotiate various borderlands in their search for home. We turn to testimonial accounts and ethnographies to explore life on the borderlands, also drawing on key conceptual frameworks in migration and diaspora studies related to borders and identity. Readings primarily draw on ethnographies of diaspora groups (Caribbean, Latin American, Jewish, and Asian communities), as well as testimonial accounts in various genres—including fiction, memoir, and the narrative testimonies of undocumented migrants and Dreamers in public protests.

NATASHA ZARETSKY is a Senior Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program and a cultural anthropologist, focusing on human rights, migration, and the politics of memory and truth in the Americas. A former Fulbright scholar, she earned her doctorate in anthropology from Princeton University. Her recent book, Landscapes of Memory and Impunity (with coeditor A.H. Levine) examines memory and survival in Argentina; her writing about human rights and diaspora communities in the Americas has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Tablet, and Global Americans. Currently, she leads the Truth in the Americas program at Rutgers’ Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights; she is also working on documentary films about Argentina and Cuba, and finishing a manuscript about transitional justice in Latin America.

FYSEM-UA 730
Countercultural Encounters in Latin America
Spring 2019
Instructor: Patricio Orellana      
Monday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

The impact and legacies of countercultures in Latin American literature, film, music, and the visual arts, with a focus on Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and Argentina in the second half of the 20th century. We discuss key concepts for the analysis of recent Lain American literary and cultural production, such as regional, national, communal, and sexual identities; high, popular, and counter-culture; and tradition, modernization, (under)development, revolution, and (neo)colonialism. We trace how new forms of political contestation interfaced on the one hand with the cultural traditions of the Left in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, and, on the other, with “modernist” notions of art and literature’s critical power. We also reflect upon the relations between this spreading of countercultural practices and the supposed death of art and literature, the figure of the author, and ideas of autonomy and specificity. Our focus is on interdisciplinary cultural artifacts and practices that fostered the creation of new subjectivities and alternative communities.

PATRICIO ORELLANA is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow.  He received his PhD in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. His dissertation focused on the impact of youth culture in Argentine literature, film, and visual arts in the 1960s. His specialization is twentieth century Latin American literatures and cultures, with a focus on the Southern Cone, and on cultural studies as well as youth and counter-culture studies. He has also written articles on film and visual arts in Latin America.

FYSEM-UA 714
Crystallization in Life: Stories about Shells, Bones, and Kidney Stones
Spring 2019
Instructor: Zhihua An    
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

Prerequisites: a reported 4 or 5 in two of the following AP exams: Biology, Chemistry, or Calculus (international equivalents accepted), and also a score of 700 or higher on the SAT Subject Exam in Chemistry or a rigorous high school course in chemistry.

This research-oriented course will introduce students to the world of biomineralization, the branch of chemistry that deals with crystal formation under the influence of biomolecules. Students will be exposed to the fundamentals of crystal formation, crystal properties, and the structure of crystals that surround us. We begin with crystallization theory and the various aspects of the biomineralization process in nature and then move on to specific case studies, with attention to biomolecules (proteins, lipids) and their roles in controlling the crystallization process. Understanding the biomineralization process in the formation of kidney stones can lead to a preventative drug development, which illustrates a practical application of the field in biomedical science. In addition, studying the crystallization process in nature can lead to new bioinspired materials, such as optical fibers.

ZHIHUA AN is a Clinical Associate Professor of Chemistry at New York University. Prior to joining NYU, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and at Columbia University. She holds a PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor An’s research interests are biomaterial self-assembly, biointerface functionalization, and engineering and pathological biomineralization. Her work has appeared in Science, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cancer Letters, and numerous other journals.

FYSEM-UA 496
Cultural Nature of Language
Spring 2019
Instructor: Bambi Schieffelin       
Friday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.) and Intro Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m.).

Note: not for students with Friday travel obligations (athletics, etc.).

Whether it’s accents, pronouns, swearing, or spelling, how one uses language is never value-free. In this seminar we examine language-using as a social practice, and analyze how speakers and their language(s) are evaluated and regulated across a range of contexts and cultures. Starting with how children learn to talk, or don’t (e.g., feral children), we examine speech and silence across a range of societies. We look at popular attitudes toward language and the practices by which people regulate its use in the media (e.g., political correctness), in legal and educational institutions (e.g., “English Only”), and in multilingual cities (e.g., Barcelona, Montreal) in order to understand how ideas about language are often recruited to non-linguistic concerns, such as who should be included and who excluded. In thinking about the cultural nature of language in this way, we critically explore issues of identity and authority.

BAMBI SCHIEFFELIN is Collegiate Professor and Professor of Anthropology. A linguistic anthropologist, she is the author of The Give and Take of Everyday Life: Language Socialization of Kaluli Children and co-editor of, among other books, The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives; Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory; and Consequences of Contact. She has also published articles in the preeminent journals of her field. She is completing a book on the impact of Christianity on the language and social life of Bosavi people of Papua New Guinea over the past twenty-five years, and continues research on linguistic creativity and change as evidenced in computer-mediated communication such as IM. Professor Schieffelin received the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence in 2010.

FYSEM-UA 723
Death Talk: How We Write About Death, Dying, And Grieving Today
Fall 2018
Instructor: Stéphane Gerson            
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.) and with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

It has long been said that death has been hidden from view in the modern West. Most people now die in hospitals or old age institutions rather than at home. Older rituals of grief and bereavement have grown marginal, making death less visible in our daily lives. Our media culture privileges youth and vigor rather than aging and death. Certain deaths, such as a child’s, are almost taboo because they contradict our prevailing beliefs about progress, happiness, the sanctity of childhood, and the elimination of risk. And yet, in recent years, there has been an apparent surge of books about death and grief, assisted dying and loss in its multiple forms. These include memoirs and novels, poems and essays by doctors, works of history, sociology, and anthropology. A number of these works have attained critical and popular success. Our goal in this course will be to put these different works in conversation. By analyzing the ways in which these different authors approach the matter, we will seek to determine what may be said about death today. What is audible? What is permissible and publishable? Are we living through a significant transformation of our public discourse about death? Students in this course will engage in both analytical and personal forms of writing about death, grief, and loss.

STÉPHANE GERSON, a historian, is Professor of French and French Studies at NYU and director of the Institute of French Studies. He has published several historical works as well as a memoir entitled Disaster Falls: A Family Story.

FYSEM-UA 466
Dostoyevsky: Modernity and the Novel
Spring 2019
Instructor: Ilya Kliger             
Tuesday, 2:00–4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

In this course we examine Fyodor Dostoevsky’s fiction as a particularly helpful prism for understanding the conditions, experience, and philosophical ramifications of modernity. The novel is often understood as the genre best capable of representing and reckoning with the complexities of modern life. This is, in fact, how Dostoevsky himself understood his mission as a novelist. Following his cue, then, we try to understand what it is about his writing that is specifically modern. Readings of Dostoevsky’s novels, early as well as late, are supplemented by a number of canonical statements about the modern. Readings from Dostoevsky will include Poor People, Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. Supplementary readings from the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, Georg Lukács, Walter Benjamin, Mikhail Bakhtin, and others.

ILYA KLIGER is Associate Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU. His primary interests include the nineteenth-century novel in Russia and France as well as literary and critical theory. His first book explored parallel developments in notions of temporality in nineteenth-century novelistic and philosophical works. His more recent projects have involved exploring tragic patterns in the tradition of the Russian novel.

FYSEM-UA 708
Dream Homes and Heartache
Spring 2019
Instructor: David Markus           
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

Throughout much of the last century, the “dream home” has been almost synonymous with the American Dream itself. But as the 2007-2010 mortgage crisis dramatically highlighted, dreams of “the good life” in late capitalist societies can unexpectedly turn into nightmares. This course investigates the fantasies, disappointments, and psychopathologies—both everyday and aberrant—that have accompanied twentieth and twenty-first century experiences of dwelling. We examine a series of existing, or formerly existing, architectural spaces (from large scale housing projects to O.J. Simpson’s Brentwood estate and Donald Trump’s Fifth Avenue penthouse) alongside an array of artworks and narratives from literature and film that center on built environments. We also look at how the fundamental human activity of dwelling has been thought about by philosophers, critics, psychoanalysts, urban geographers, and political theorists. Students’ research will explore how the problems associated with dwelling intersect with issues such as economic inequality, racial and sexual marginalization, creative and emotional growth or arrestation, and the everyday strategies involved in coping with large-scale social and political upheaval. Of particular concern to us will be the ways in which the private spaces people inhabit—even, or especially, when they are designed to embody their most sought-after dreams—fail to provide the sense of comfort and security associated, in the popular imagination, with "home."

DAVID MARKUS is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. He earned his PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago. At present, his research is centered on spatiality in contemporary art and literature, late capitalist economies of excess, and theories of gender and intimacy. His writing appears in publications such as Art Journal, Frieze, Art in America, Next City, and Flash Art.

FYSEM-UA 280
Emerson and Thoreau: The Life Fully Lived
Fall 2018
Instructor: Philip Kunhardt         
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

This seminar will take students on a personal exploration of the lives and thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, two of the most inspiring figures in American history and letters. Emerson was intensely engaged with society, ever committed to close friendships and community. Thoreau in contrast was reclusive and austere, so alone in his beloved nature that he seemed to lack human warmth. Still, despite growing contentiousness between them, Thoreau considered Emerson his most important mentor, and the older sage considered Thoreau his closest friend. Emerson was at the center of the most searchingly brilliant, progressive, and creative community in 19th century America. His friends kept diaries, wrote letters to one another, explored alternative lifestyles, and served as public intellectuals. And they strove to live fully engaged lives—“to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours,” as Emerson once exclaimed. Thoreau preferred his life alone in the outdoors and yet he too sought the fully engaged life. In his masterpiece, Walden, he implored his readers to abandon lives of “quiet desperation” and to come alive in new ways—to dare to “suck all the marrow out of life.” This course, in which students will also encounter such extraordinary figures as Margaret Fuller, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Peabody, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, will involve intensive reading, personal and expository writing, and active participation in transformative conversation.

PHILIP KUNHARDT is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Humanities, and teaches history and biography in the College of Arts and Science. He focuses on the lives of transformative figures and has co-authored five books, including Looking for Lincoln, The American President, and P.T. Barnum: America’s Greatest Showman. He was also the writer and co-producer of more than a dozen documentary films for PBS, ABC, HBO, Discovery, and others, including the ten-part PBS series The American President and the sixteen-part Freedom: A History of US. Before coming to NYU in 2010 he was a Bard Center Fellow at Bard College in Annandale, New York.

FYSEM-UA 435
Encountering Frederick Douglass
Spring 2019
Instructor: Philip Kunhardt        
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

Few figures in American history are as compelling or inspiring as the former slave turned abolitionist and editor Frederick Douglass, whose eloquence and moral passion resonate still. A complex and at times conflicted figure, his life intersected with some of the most interesting and charged characters of his age, including Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Tubman, John Brown, and many others. This seminar will take a deep and sustained look at the life of this American prophet, probing his thought and character and examining his trajectory through a freighted era. Though he claimed to have written with “the ragged style of a slave’s pen,” he is now considered one of the most important and original writers of the 19th century. Students will read a selection of his works, as well as several biographies and scholarly treatments, and will explore important questions in the light of Douglass’s thinking. For example: How does the religion of slaves relate to the religion of slave- holders? Is there a legitimate use of violence in the pursuit of noble ends? Does there exist, as Douglass believed, a force of progress in history? How do self-awareness, moral insight, and public eloquence undergird the effectiveness of a reformer? And what can we learn from the life of Douglass and other nineteenth century reformers that can help us as we confront contemporary issues of social justice and racial equality?

PHILIP KUNHARDT is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Humanities, and teaches history and biography in the College of Arts and Science. He focuses on the lives of transformative figures and has co-authored five books, including Looking for Lincoln, The American President, and P.T. Barnum: America’s Greatest Showman. He was also the writer and co-producer of more than a dozen documentary films for PBS, ABC, HBO, Discovery, and others, including the ten-part PBS series The American President and the sixteen-part Freedom: A History of US. Before coming to NYU in 2010 he was a Bard Center Fellow at Bard College in Annandale, New York.

FYSEM-UA 670
Encountering New York: Memoirs of Place
Spring 2019
Instructor: Christopher Wall        
Monday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

In “Washington Square, 1946,” Cynthia Ozick recounts the most embarrassing of freshman mistakes: how she arrived at New York University for classes the day before they started. She walked around, unaware of the rich history of the neighborhood and the artists working nearby, having faith that her education and her experience in the city would eventually “awaken” her. In this class we will immerse ourselves in writings about New York and will come to know the city through the eyes of the people who have come before us. Readings will cover major authors who have written about the city but will also include pieces by lesser-known writers, like the journalist Wong Chin Foo, who can help us glimpse what it was like to be a Chinese journalist in the city in 1885. This will serve as a jumping-off point for students to write a series of urban mini-memoirs as a way to explore their writerly voices, their experiences of the city, and the voices and experiences of those who came before them.

CHRISTOPHER WALL, a playwright and non-fiction writer, is Senior Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. He has an MFA in playwriting from NYU and a BA from Dartmouth College, and was a fellow in non-fiction at the Norman Mailer Center. His essays have appeared in Longform, the LA Review of Books, The Missouri Review, Poets & Writers, and other publications. His play Dreams of the Washer King was performed Off Broadway, and his songs, co-written with Howard Fishman, have been performed at Joe’s Pub and SubCulture in New York.

FYSEM-UA 630
Epics 4.1: The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Paradise Lost, Moby Dick
Fall 2018
Instructor: Ernest Gilman       
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The question of what it means to be human is the fundamental concern of all works of literature. Lyric poetry focuses closely on the interior life of the individual, as a kind of snapshot or psychological x-ray—the poetic example of a selfie. Drama opens up the wider social and familial perspective on individual identity by exploring the relationships among an ensemble of actors in a theater, asking what it means both to act and to “act.” The epic, by contrast, sets the human protagonist on a global stage, in its very amplitude opening a wide expanse of time and place and history. Its fundamental question: what does it mean to be a human in the world? This seminar will examine the epic, with a careful study of Homer’s Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Melville’s Moby Dick, supplemented by briefer related readings; as time permits, Paradise Lost will be accompanied by selections from Milton’s other poetry, and Moby Dick by Melville’s Benito Cereno and/or “Bartleby.”

ERNEST B. GILMAN, Professor of English, has taught at Columbia, the University of Virginia, and now–for the last thirty-six years–at NYU. His main field of interest is the English Renaissance. He has published a number of books and articles on such topics as poetry and the visual arts, literature and disease, artistic patronage, and Shakespeare and Milton.

FYSEM-UA 278
Ethics, Pointillism, Epidemiology, and Epistemology: EPEE—Dueling with Health Science Information
Fall 2018
Instructor: Ralph Katz         
Tuesday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

The common citizen is well-challenged trying to deal with the flood of scientific health information as presented in the media. “Scientific” health findings of this week seem routinely to conflict with the “scientific” health findings of last week. As the movie theme song first asked so poignantly over three decades ago, “What’s it all about, Alfie?” This course explores that question as it relates to scientific health information as used both by individuals to make personal life decisions about health behaviors, and by society to protect its citizens via court decisions and governmental regulations. Concepts from the fields of ethics, art, and science are central to readings and discussions focused on how to make sense of it all. Beginning with the historical and foundational concepts of bioethics and epidemiology, the course provides a framework for understanding this flood of scientific health information and assessing the strengths and limitations (and misuses) of this free flow of scientific health findings in our democratic “instant, electronic news” world. Textbooks and videos cover background on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, truth, polar bears, limes, and rubbish. As the major course assignment, each student writes a newspaper-style “op-ed” article, backed up by an annotated bibliography.

RALPH V. KATZ, BS, DMD, MPH, PhD is Professor, and former and founding Chair, of the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion at the NYU College of Dentistry. He is an epidemiologist who focuses on the study of oral diseases and health disparities and has been a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology (FACE) since 1982. He served as the Director of the NIH-funded NYU Oral Epidemiology Postdoctoral T32 Training Program for 20 years and also served as the Director of two NIH-funded oral health research centers focused on health disparities and minority health for the better part of two decades (between 1992-2009). He has led the Tuskegee Legacy Project research study team for the past two decades, ever since its inception in 1997. Having served on the National Legacy Committee which initiated the formal request for a Presidential apology, he was invited to the White House by President Clinton for the May 1997 Presidential Apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. He currently is a Visiting Scholar and a member of the External Board of Advisors at the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Healthcare at Tuskegee University, which was formed by order of President Clinton in his Presidential Apology.

FYSEM-UA 648
Exploration: New Worlds
Spring 2019
Instructor: Susanah Shaw Romney       
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

For millennia, peoples and cultures here on earth lived in a series of separate worlds, isolated by the oceans and landscapes that divided them. Then, in the fifteenth century, that isolation was forever shattered as new maritime empires violently brought everyone into contact with one another. As people explored this new shared world they repeatedly had to decide, “Who is human?” We will examine the maps, letters, journals, pamphlets, and fiction that spread the knowledge of these cultural encounters in order to illuminate how people understood themselves. We also will consider how our own, continuing search for new worlds still raises this question today.

SUSANAH SHAW ROMNEY is Assistant Professor of History at NYU. Her teaching and research interests focus on global contact and colonization between 1400 and 1800. She is particularly interested in the role of race and gender in the building of empires. She is the author of New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America. She received her PhD from Cornell University and her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

FYSEM-UA 539
Facing Fascism: The Spanish Civil War and U.S. Culture
Fall 2018
Instructor: James D. Fernández
Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Intro Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m.), and General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Prerequisite: 4 or 5 in AP Spanish, or a 4 or 5 in any AP history exam, or a 700 or higher in the SAT subject exam in Spanish (international equivalents accepted).

The Great Depression. Liberal democracy in crisis. On the rise: a spectrum of ideologies ranging from anarchism to fascism, promising solutions to the afflictions of people all over the planet. July 1936: a right-wing military coup attempts to overthrow a democratically elected left-wing coalition government in Spain, and war begins. This course explores the place occupied by Spain and the Spanish Civil War in American culture from the 1930s forward; how journalists, writers, artists, and citizens reacted to the war; and how the legacy of the war has affected U.S. culture over the last seventy years. It also introduces students to research methods in history and culture, as they carry out a major archival research project based on unique sources in NYU's Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA), a vast collection of materials that chronicles the lives of the 2,800 Americans who, between 1936 and 1939, volunteered to fight fascism in Spain.

JAMES D. FERNÁNDEZ is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. His research interests include the literature, history, and culture of modern Spain; autobiography; cultural relations between Spain and Latin America; and visions of Spain in the United States. He served as the Director of NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center from 1995 to 2007 and as Chairperson of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese from 2003 to 2007. He is the Vice-Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. He is the author of Apology to Apostrophe: Autobiography and the Rhetoric of Self-Representation in Spain and co-editor of the essay collection Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War.

FYSEM-UA 694
Federico García Lorca: Life, Work, and After-Life
Spring 2019
Instructor: James D. Fernández
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

An exploration of the question of historical memory in Spain, focused on the life, works, and legacy of the country's most important playwright and poet of the twentieth century. García Lorca (b. 1898) was at the height of his career when he was executed by fascist thugs in his native Granada at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936). A kind of secular martyr, his unlocated remains still haunt Spain. We will read and analyze his works and his biography, as well as key texts from contemporary debates about the legacy of Civil War and dictatorship in Spain.

JAMES D. FERNÁNDEZ is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. His research interests include the literature, history, and culture of modern Spain; autobiography; cultural relations between Spain and Latin America; and visions of Spain in the United States. He served as the Director of NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center from 1995 to 2007 and as Chairperson of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese from 2003 to 2007. He is the Vice-Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. He is the author of Apology to Apostrophe: Autobiography and the Rhetoric of Self-Representation in Spain and co-editor of the essay collection Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War.

FYSEM-UA 710
Fiction, Feminism, and the #MeToo Movement
Spring 2019
Instructor: Courtney Chatellier      
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

Note: This seminar discusses rape and other forms of sexual violence. If you are not comfortable with this, please choose another seminar.

When Kristen Roupenian's short story "Cat Person" was published in the New Yorker in December, 2017 amidst a larger public conversation about power, gender, and changing definitions of sexual harassment, it went viral, becoming the magazine's most-read story of the year. The story—which represents the murky and often unspoken power dynamics that influence how we act towards ourselves and others—resonated with the recent #MeToo movement, but it also speaks to farther-reaching questions about sex, gender, and inequality. In this seminar, we will read novels and short stories (from the very recent, to the not-so-recent) that have grappled with these questions, as well as some work in feminist theory, in order to think about how literature has been used in the past—and might be used today—both to critique existing inequalities, and to imagine a more just world.

COURTNEY CHATELLIER is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. She holds a PhD in English and American Studies from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and is writing a book about American literary responses to, and translations of, the French and Haitian Revolutions. Part of this project will appear in the forthcoming summer issue of the journal Early American Studies. Her other current research interests include translation theory; histories of feminism; and the relationships between language, realism, and belief and disbelief in popular culture.

FYSEM-UA 235
First Amendment Freedom of Expression
Spring 2019
Instructor: Stephen D. Solomon       
Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Prerequisites: A score of 4 or 5 in either AP U.S. History OR in AP U.S. Government and Politics (or equivalent international exam); both recommended.

Political dissent and debate fill the public square at every turn. Citizens demonstrate in the streets, public figures launch libel suits, social media carries vitriolic material, and President Trump attacks the media. Although the First Amendment appears on its face to prohibit any governmental restrictions on speech and the press, the Supreme Court in fact balances free expression against other vital interests of society. This seminar engages students in a close study of history as well as law, emphasizing how the American commitment to freedom of expression grew during the nation’s founding period and culminated in ratification of the First Amendment. The course begins with the protests against British authority in colonial times, when the law permitted prosecution of citizens who criticized the government. We examine the conflicting meanings that the founders themselves attached to freedom of expression. In our own day, we look at how the Supreme Court has interpreted freedom of speech by examining a rich variety of contemporary conflicts, including libel of public and private persons, invasions of privacy, symbolic speech, and restrictions on speech during wartime.

STEPHEN D. SOLOMON is Associate Professor in NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. His recent book Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech explores how robust dissent during America’s founding period gave meaning to the First Amendment freedoms of speech and press. An earlier book, Ellery’s Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition & Sparked the Battle over School Prayer, tells the story of the controversial Supreme Court case that ruled that state-organized prayer and Bible reading in public schools violated the First Amendment. Professor Solomon is a recipient of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence. He earned a JD at Georgetown University Law Center.

FYSEM-UA 700
Free Speech, Hate Speech, and Political Correctness
Spring 2019
Instructor: Tom Gerety       
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

This seminar begins with first principles of free expression, especially as articulated by such 18th century figures as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and the great 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill. We examine closely the origins of the First Amendment to the Constitution and some of the modern Supreme Court cases that have interpreted its guarantees. Then we turn to recent controversies, particularly about offensive, insulting, or hateful speech, both on and off campus. We try to understand the concept of a “hostile environment,” first developed as part of the law of sexual harassment but extended in our time to racial and religious insults or indignities, in classrooms, workspaces, and such public spaces as parks and sidewalks. We also weigh the various uses of the loaded concept of “political correctness.” Finally, we seek some comparative insights from the more restrictive laws of such nations as Germany, where the Nazi past has shaped a strong sense of restraint, and France, where a strict conception of secularism has led to prohibitions on religious displays that are usually protected by the First Amendment in the United States. Because many people have passionately held but quite divergent views about what should or should not be allowed to be said (or written) in a democracy, the readings in this seminar come from activists, philosophers, and artists as well as from judges and scholars.

TOM GERETY, Collegiate Professor, first came to NYU to head up the Brennan Center for Justice at the School of Law; he then joined the NYU faculty in 2005 to teach courses in law and the humanities. He served as President of Amherst College from 1994 to 2003 and of Trinity College from 1989 to 1994. From 1986 to 1989 he was Dean and Nippert Professor at the College of Law of the University of Cincinnati. As a law professor he taught and wrote on constitutional law and political philosophy, with a special emphasis on such First Amendment freedoms as speech, privacy, and religious freedom. He wrote and narrated a PBS series, Visions of the Constitution, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of a book of essays on the liberal arts, The Freshman Who Hated Socrates. He holds degrees in law and philosophy from Yale.

FYSEM-UA 727
Headlessness, Desire, and Political Failure in Literature and Beyond
Fall 2018
Instructor: Alani Hicks-Bartlett       
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Taking as our point of departure early mythological and literary descriptions of violence and dismemberment enacted upon literal and political bodies, in this course we will examine corporal fragmentation as metaphor for national disintegration and failure. From classical antiquity to the present, violence has often circumscribed the way in which politics and authority are discussed in literary texts. Examples of extreme physical violence such as decapitation, disembowelment, and drawing and quartering, have often been used as vicious propaganda to flaunt the despotic power of a nation; headlessness and dismemberment are also frequently used as metaphors for the writing process and the negotiation of authority, gender, exemplarity, and power. As preoccupations with honor, integrity, and authority were some of the most obsessive anxieties of the pre-modern period, we will give particular attention to the societal, cultural, and religious pressures that combine to facilitate acts of violence such as torture, beheadings, and even cannibalism in literary, historical, and operatic works.

ALANI HICKS-BARTLETT is Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at NYU’s Center for the Humanities and the Department of Comparative Literature. She received a PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures and Medieval Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women’s and Gender Studies from UC Berkeley, and earned MA degrees in French, Italian, and Spanish from Bryn Mawr College and Middlebury College. Her research interests include gender and violence in medieval and early modern drama, the relationship between politics and notions of empire in epic literature, and vernacular poetics and the development of the love lyric from the 11th century to the present. Her work has been supported by the American Association for University Women, the Ford Foundation, the Digital Humanities Institute at the University of Victoria, and others. She is currently working on the following projects: a book about literary discussions of gender, dis/ability, and political instability in Chrétien de Troyes, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, and Calderón, a study of Early Modern English, French, Italian, and Spanish wife-murder plays, and a history of penitence and the Petrarchan complaint in medieval and early modern poetry.

FYSEM-UA 729
History and Aesthetics of Music Videos
Spring 2019
Instructor: Sylvie Vitaglione
Wednesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

Situated between art and advertisement, between television and experimental filmmaking, the music video sells much more than music. What used to be played on a loop on TV now gets millions of views online, making the music video a must-have for any singer or band. These three to five minutes of content can shape an artist’s career, launch a new dance or fashion trend, and even go viral. We examine the history and aesthetics of music videos from MTV to YouTube and consider their impact on popular culture. As we view videos from Michael Jackson, Madonna, Nirvana, Radiohead, Daft Punk, Bjork, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and many others, we will question the representation of gender, sexuality, and race and their impact on audiences of different ages around the world. We study auteur directors such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and David Fincher to question the relationship between music videos and cinema and look to the future of videos as they migrate online and change their shape to fit industry needs.

SYLVIE VITAGLIONE is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She holds a PhD in Cinema Studies from New York University, an MA in Film Studies from University College London and a BA in Dance and Performance Studies from University of California Berkeley. Her research is centered on the ways media technologies transform the body in motion. Her doctoral dissertation focused on site-specific choreographic practices in contemporary Screendance and her publications include “Surface Tension: Experimental Dance Films And The Undoing Of Urban Space” and “New Materials: Natural Elements and the Body in Screendance.” Sylvie has taught film history, theory, style and genre classes at NYU, The New School, Queens College, Brooklyn College, and the College of Staten Island.

FYSEM-UA 603
Hoarding before Hoarders
Fall 2018
Instructor: Rebecca Falkoff     
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.) and with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

The early years of the twenty-first century have seen an overwhelming cultural interest in people who accumulate things. Hoarding is the subject of medical research, as well as documentary and narrative films, novels and memoirs, theater, painting, photography, and television episodes and series—including A&E’s “megahit,” Hoarders. These texts, along with related newspaper and magazine articles, are characterized by two contradictory yet often overlapping analytic frameworks: hoarding is understood both as a result of the excesses of consumer culture and as a response to material deprivation. Though the behaviors that define hoarding today have existed at least since the development of a market economy and probably much longer than that, the contemporary obsession with hoarding is both staggering and suggestive. This seminar is guided by the questions “Why hoarding?” and “Why now?” We will ask whether the emergence of contemporary hoarding discourse reflects anxieties about the immateriality of digital culture? Or about the scarcity of the earth’s resources? Or about what it means to be human? We will address these questions by studying the contemporary hoarder within a broader literary and cultural context that encompasses fetishists, collectors, misers, rag-pickers, gleaners, and other figures defined (and pathologized) by their attachments to things.

REBECCA FALKOFF is an Assistant Professor of Italian Studies with research interests in new materialism, gender and sexuality, psychoanalysis, and biopolitics, as well as modern and contemporary Italian literature. She has published on Elena Ferrante, Giorgio Manganelli, and Luigi Malerba, and was awarded the Romance Studies Essay Prize for Early Career Researchers for “Carlo Emilio Gadda’s Professional Alchemy, or How to Make Literature from Science and Bread from Air.” She is currently completing a manuscript on hoarding and modernity.

FYSEM-UA 689
Homer versus Vergil
Fall 2018
Instructor: Matthew S. Santirocco       
Tuesday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

The epics of Homer (Iliad and Odyssey) and Vergil (Aeneid) are key foundational texts of the West. But they also represent competing narratives of what it means to be human, particularly with regard to the individual’s role in society. Moreover, not only do these texts offer starkly different paradigms, but they are also acutely aware of their differences and subtly engage with one another. Thus, the Odyssey questions the heroic assumptions underlying the Iliad, and the Aeneid imitates Homer while, at the same time, drastically reworking the Greek myth to explore contemporary Roman concerns. This course will read these texts with particular attention to changing concepts of the individual (a/k/a “hero”)—e.g., the Greek warrior Achilles, who is alienated from his society not only by pride in his military prowess, but also because he makes moral demands out of step with the prevailing values of his society; his comrade Odysseus, more cunning than brave, whose difficult homecoming represents the recovery of a self defined by the domestic joys of family and friends; and, finally, the Trojan Aeneas who also wanders after the war, but as a refugee, for his home has been destroyed, and whose piety (rather than bravery or cunning) compels him to lead his people to a new promised land which, like Moses, he will not live to see. The catastrophic losses suffered by both sides in war, the mass migration and displacement of peoples, the tension between political expediency and ethical choice, and the achievement of public good at great personal cost—these themes are as relevant today as they were in Greece of the 8th century BCE or the Rome of the emperor Augustus. No prior knowledge of these texts or of the ancient world will be assumed. Students who have never read these “great books” will delight in encountering them in the company of other smart readers; and those who are familiar with the works will deepen their understanding of their richness and enduring relevance.

MATTHEW S. SANTIROCCO is Professor of Classics and Angelo J. Ranieri Director of Ancient Studies at NYU; he is also Academic Director of NYU Washington, DC. He served as Seryl Kushner Dean of the College of Arts and Science from 1994 to 2011, and then as NYU’s Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs until last year, when he returned full-time to teaching. His interests range widely from ancient Greek and Latin literature and thought to issues in American higher education. He founded and directs NYU’s Center for Ancient Studies, which promotes interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the past. Among his many publications are a book on the Roman lyric poet, Horace, and several edited volumes, the most recent of which is an issue of Daedalus on new approaches to the study of Greece and Rome; he currently edits the Palgrave-Macmillan monograph series, The New Antiquity, and is working on a book on the poetics of patronage in Augustan Rome. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and serves as Assistant Secretary of the Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

FYSEM-UA 724
How Cities Remember
Spring 2019
Instructor: Andrew Dufton      
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.) and General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Since the earliest pre-urban settlements of the Neolithic, city dwellers have needed to reckon with the physical remains of history. Earlier buildings, streets, and public spaces are either maintained or demolished to make way for new developments. Some people or events are celebrated with monuments or memorials, others are left to fade from memory. But who chooses what figures are commemorated, and what things we might forget? Which buildings are preserved for generations, and which are removed? How has the past influenced the present in cities throughout history? This seminar explores how the built spaces of cities—and the people who live in them—interact with the past. Examples will be drawn from ancient and modern sites across the globe, relying on the cities of different places and periods to understand how memory shapes urban life. Weekly topics include the beginnings of urban memory, monuments to events or individuals, burial practices, memory in the household, and deliberate erasure. Regular trips to places of remembrance (or forgetting) in New York City connect the theory and themes of the course to the city we live in.

ANDREW DUFTON is Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. He received his PhD in Archaeology from Brown University, his MSc from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, and his BA from McGill University’s Department of Anthropology. His research interrogates the long-term dynamics of urban change in North Africa, from the Iron Age into late antiquity. This work highlights the diversity, haphazardness, and improvisation that best characterize urban life in both ancient and modern contexts. Professor Dufton has excavated and surveyed at sites in the US, the UK, and across the Mediterranean world, including at the imperial villa and medieval monastery at Villa Magna (2006–2010); at the Tunisian site of Utica (2010–present); and with Brown University at Petra, Jordan (2012–14). His recent publications include an examination of digital tools for collecting and communicating archaeological knowledge, an overview of North African urbanism in the Roman period, and an exploration of the suburban zone at Petra.

FYSEM-UA 656
How Do You Know Anything?
Fall 2018
Instructor: James S. Uleman       
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

What is the nature of knowledge? What kinds of knowledge are there? How is it gained, stored, and retrieved? How accurate is it? This seminar will introduce students to the basics of social cognition (using Fiske and Taylor’s Social Cognition: From Brains to Culture, 2013), with additional readings from epistemology (from Plato to Popper) and the psychological research literature. Topics will include introspection, the accuracy of self-knowledge, automatic and controlled cognition processes, heuristics and biases, memory systems, the Big Lie, implicit attitudes and knowledge, spontaneous inferences, unconscious goals, theory of mind in both adults and children, and cultural differences in cognition and perception.

Professor JAMES S. ULEMAN received the 2013 Ostrom Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Cognition, particularly for his work on spontaneous social inferences. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and of the American Psychological Association. He has held research grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health, and has been teaching psychology at NYU for several decades. He was educated at Caltech, Michigan, and Harvard.

FYSEM-UA 711
How the Irish Turned Right (Or Have They?)
Spring 2019
Instructor: Stephen Butler      
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: FYSEM-UA 474: What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 711: How the Irish Turned Right (Or Have They?) are recommended for first-generation college students. Both seminars are taught by professors who were first-generation students themselves.

The starting point for this freshman seminar will be an article published in the 24 October 2017 Newsweek, titled “Why are all the Conservative Loudmouths Irish-American?” First, we will analyze author Van Gosse’s argument, which claims that the current generation of Irish-American conservative commentators (e.g., Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly) are direct descendants of Senator Joe McCarthy’s reactionary populism. Then, we will use other texts to begin interrogating and refining many of Gosse’s foundational assumptions about Irish-American socio-economic and political history, including the fracturing of the Democratic party, the decline of organized labor, the effects of suburbanization, the relationship between Irish-American identity and whiteness, and the relationship between Irish-American identity and Catholicism. In addition to Gosse’s article and other recently published thought-pieces, course readings will include seminal essays written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Andrew Greeley, David Roediger, Peter Quinn, Linda Dowling Almeida and Diane Negra. During the seminar, students will craft their own research questions related to Irish-American studies, and/or related to other American ethnic groups that might be fruitfully studied in comparison to Irish Americans. The culmination of each student’s research will be a sophisticated essay that explores an inquiry related to the complex relationship between ethnicity and/or class and/or race and/or gender to American politics, an exploration that will ultimately develop an idea of the student’s own.

STEPHEN BUTLER is a Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. Since his appointment in Fall 2012, he has taught Writing the Essay, International Writing Workshop and Advanced College Essay. Currently, he is an associate editor of the New York Irish History, the annual journal of the New York Irish History Roundtable. Butler earned a PhD in Modern History and Literature from Drew University; his dissertation focused on the intersection of Irish Writers and Irish-American audiences. His first book, Irish Writers in the Irish-American Press, 1882-1964 is forthcoming from the University of Massachusetts Press.

FYSEM-UA 728
How We Learn
Spring 2019
Instructor: Monica Lewin        
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.) and with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

How do humans learn and remember information? We examine the scientific principles of learning and how you can apply this knowledge to your college studies. We begin by introducing the foundations of learning and memory first proposed by psychologists such as Ebbinghaus, James, Pavlov, and Skinner. Next, we discuss the biological basis for learning at the level of the brain and the formation of connections between neurons. We investigate a variety of factors that affect learning and memory, including sleep, hormones, drugs, technology, and neurological conditions such as dyslexia and Alzheimer’s disease. Throughout, we illustrate how cognitive science can be used to develop strategies to enhance the effectiveness of your learning in college.

MONICA LEWIN is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She received her PhD from NYU in 2018 for research examining sleep disturbances in animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders. Her research interests center on the relationship between sleep and psychiatric disorders, and the long-term effects of sleep loss or disturbance on cognition, mood, and health.

FYSEM-UA 497
How We See
Fall 2018
Instructor: Marisa Carrasco     
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

Do we see the world the way we do because we are the way we are or because the world is the way it is? This course looks at what we know about vision from multiple scientific perspectives: perceptual psychology tells us about the process of seeing and provides important insights into the workings of visual mechanisms; neuropsychology shows us what happens to perception when these mechanisms malfunction; neuroscience tells us about processes at the level of cells and neural systems. At the same time, we discuss modes and techniques of scientific inquiry from these different perspectives. How do vision scientists learn? What kinds of experiments do they conduct? How has the development of new neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, for example) shaped the field?

MARISA CARRASCO is Collegiate Professor and Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, as well as a former Chairperson of the Department of Psychology. Born and raised in Mexico City, she received her licentiate in psychology from the National University of Mexico and her PhD in psychology (cognition and perception) from Princeton University. She conducts research in cognitive neuroscience, exploring the relation between the psychological and neural mechanisms involved in visual perception and attention. Her papers have been published in the leading scientific journals in the field, and she has won numerous prestigious awards and fellowships throughout her career, such as an American Association of University Women Fellowship, a National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, a Cattell Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

FYSEM-UA 698
Human Evolutionary Medicine
Spring 2019
Instructor: Todd Disotell
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

Disease, and the human response to it, has been a dominant factor in the biological and cultural evolution of our species. This course integrates evolutionary biology, genetics, immunology, ecology, and behavioral ecology, along with sociocultural anthropology, politics, and economics, to better understand newly emerging and reemerging diseases as they affect human health. General evolutionary theory and an introduction to Darwinian medicine are provided before the course examines viral, bacterial, parasitic, and prion-based diseases along with their hosts, vectors, and other organisms. Particular attention is paid to how humans have purposely and inadvertently created both biological and cultural environments for the transmission of different diseases. Media representations and misrepresentations are examined throughout the course. The seminar is writing intensive and will include a series of short papers investigating different topics throughout the course, due approximately every three weeks. By the end of the semester students will be able to view states of health and disease through the lenses of evolution from both our own and other organisms’ perspectives.

TODD DISOTELL is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and an Affiliated Faculty member in the Department of Biology/Center for Genomics and Systems Biology. While much of his research centers around the evolution of Old World monkeys and apes, he is involved in studies involving New World monkeys, lemurids and lorisids, human population history, ape and monkey conservation and behavioral genetics, forensic applications, cryptozoology, and molecular evolutionary studies of diseases such as AIDS and malaria. His lab has recently embarked on several new projects using Next Generation Sequencing technologies in a variety of applications. They have developed techniques for recovering DNA from museum specimens and are actively involved in using environmental DNA to scan for biodiversity and to assist with conservation genetic studies. He has taught in Emerging Diseases, Human Variation, Health and Human Evolution, Molecular Techniques, Phylogenetic Analysis, Genetics and Human Variation, Human Evolution, and Human Origins.

FYSEM-UA 716
Human Sacrifice in the Ancient World
Spring 2019
Instructor: Daniela Wolin     
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.) and General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Human sacrifice formed an integral part of ritual practices in many ancient societies across the globe. In this seminar, we will use a cross-cultural perspective to compare the sociopolitical conditions and world views that gave rise to, sustained, and eventually halted practices of human sacrifice in the ancient world. Readings will review diverse sources of evidence, including: contemporaneous texts, pictorial representations and iconography, material culture, and the bioarchaeological analysis of human skeletal remains. This course takes an anthropological approach and challenges students to critically evaluate the intersecting functions of ritually-sanctioned violence in the past.

DANIELA WOLIN is a Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of The Ancient World. As a bioarchaeologist, Daniela studies human skeletal remains in their archaeological context. She has excavated in East Asia, the Andes, and North America. Her research focuses on the intersection of violence, health, and gender in Bronze Age China. She earned her PhD in the Department of Anthropology at Yale University.

FYSEM-UA 704
Humans in the Environment from the Ice Age to the Present
Spring 2019
Instructor: John O’Hara
Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

In a time of unprecedented man-made climate change, the term Anthropocene has gained currency as the geological epoch defined by human impact on the world. But what exactly does that mean, and when did it start? In this course, we will explore the long history of the back-and-forth relationship between the humans and the environment, and examine how past human activity has shaped the world around us. We will review the interactions of climate and environment with the evolution of our species, and explore the effects of the ice ages on human societies and cultures, and on our dispersal across the globe as the ultimate invasive species. We will discover the effects of climate change on societies as diverse as the ancient Middle East, the pre-Columbian Maya, and the Norse settlers of Iceland and Greenland. We will also see how past peoples did not simply react to environmental change, but often induced it, from the earliest domestications of animals and plants, to the manipulation of entire landscapes by Europeans, Native Americans, and Aboriginal Australians. We will examine cases where past societies collapsed due to climatic change, and other examples of societies which continued to thrive despite it, and we will take an anthropological approach to explore how past societies understood environmental change, and its political, social, cultural, and economic ramifications.

JOHN O’HARA is a Faculty Fellow at the College of Arts and Science. An archaeologist by training, he has excavated all over the world, from 40,000-year-old rockshelters to 19th century landfill sites in New York City. He completed his PhD at NYU, where his Wenner-Gren and NSF-funded research focused on late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in Western Europe, although his interests extend broadly across prehistoric and historic archaeology, archaeological science, and anthropological approaches to the past.

FYSEM-UA 672
Immigrants, Ethnics, Illegal Aliens: The Irish in America
Fall 2018
Instructor: Linda Dowling Almeida       
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

This course will take an interdisciplinary look at the history of the Irish who settled in American cities in the mid-nineteenth century, and explore how this immigrant group established foundation communities that became the model for successive generations of Irish and other the immigrant groups who followed them to America. However, at the end of the twentieth century, legislation in the US and social changes in Ireland resulted in a blip in the trajectory of uninterrupted legal migration producing an illegal community known as the New Irish. Using their own words through novels, film, memoir, and oral histories to complement the historical record we will investigate not only who the Irish are and the impact they have had on the urban landscape and American culture, but what it means to be an immigrant, legal and illegal, in the United States.

LINDA DOWLING ALMEIDA, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Irish Studies at NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House, teaches classes in the history and literature of Irish America. Her book Irish Immigrants in New York City, 1945-1995 compares the experience of the Irish who arrived in the 1950s with that of their counterparts thirty and forty years later. Professor Almeida has published chapters in The Irish World Wide, Ireland in the 1950s, and Making the Irish American, and has delivered papers on post-war Irish America as well as pedagogical approaches to oral history at the American Conference for Irish Studies, the Oral History Association, and the International Oral History Association. Her projects have included the production of podcasts on a variety of themes and issues drawn from GIH's Archives of Irish America housed at NYU.

FYSEM-UA 503
In Search of Lost Time
Fall 2018
Instructor: Marcelle Clements       
Thursday, 2:00-4:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

We read Marcel Proust (350 pages per week, in translation) as he should be read: hedonistically—with respect and admiration but also with delectation. At more than 4,000 pages, In Search of Lost Time is one of modern literature’s most challenging and pleasurable reads, still unparalleled in how it combines finesse and wit with raw emotion, self-examination with social history, and psychological acuity with a portrait of the French beau monde at the outset of modernity. Though Proust (1871–1922) is often cited as France’s greatest novelist, many readers never move past the first fifty pages of his novel, reading the same gorgeous sentences again and again. However, as its architecture cannot be appreciated until it has been read once in its entirety, we move at a brisk pace through all six volumes; when we read the final volume, we can begin to understand the extraordinarily intimate relationship Proust has created with his reader. In-class creative writing exercises are designed to help with the reading and to expand an expressive, personal response.

MARCELLE CLEMENTS is Collegiate Professor and Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU. She is the author of a collection of essays, The Dog Is Us and Other Observations, a book of nonfiction, The Improvised Woman, and two novels, Rock Me and, most recently, Midsummer. Her prizewinning articles and essays on the arts, culture, and politics have appeared in many national publications.

FYSEM-UA 720
Irish and Chinese in the Modern Pacific World
Spring 2019
Instructor: Barry McCarron       
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

The Pacific Ocean covers almost one-third of the earth’s surface, roughly one-third of the world’s population inhabits its islands and shores, and many have dubbed the twenty-first century the “Pacific Century” to reflect major shifts in global power from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This course surveys the history of the Pacific world (the immense space that includes the Pacific Ocean, west coast of the Americas, Pacific Islands and Oceania, and East and Southeast Asia) from the perspective of Irish and Chinese diasporas in the Pacific since the late eighteenth century. We will chart Irish and Chinese involvement in the processes that shaped the modern Pacific world, such as migration, imperial expansion, maritime commerce, diplomacy, nationalism, and cross-cultural exchange. Utilizing comparative and transnational approaches and drawing on an array of primary sources, we will examine the nature of interactions between Irish, Chinese, and various other people who inhabited and traversed the Pacific Rim, study the similarities and differences between the experiences of Irish and Chinese migrants in the Pacific world, and explore the influence of Pacific Irish and Chinese on receiving societies and their respective homelands.

Faculty Fellow in Irish Studies BARRY MCCARRON earned his PhD in history from Georgetown University and before coming to New York University taught American history at McDaniel College and world history at Hunter College. He is currently working on a book project based on his dissertation, “The Global Irish and Chinese,” which won the 2016 World History Association Dissertation Prize. Drawing on multinational and multilingual archival research including Chinese language sources, this manuscript is the first study to examine relations between the Irish and Chinese in the United States, the British Empire, and China during the long nineteenth century. While Irish and Chinese labor and ingenuity helped expand Britain’s Anglophone empire and paved the way for the rise of the United States to world-power status, this manuscript argues that the Irish diaspora was also a significant force behind anti-Chinese movements that gave rise to Chinese immigration restriction laws in Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, caused major friction in US-Chinese and Anglo-Chinese relations, and threatened to undermine the interests of the British Empire and the United States in China and the broader Pacific world.

FYSEM-UA 722
Italy and North America: Contact, Conflict, and Exchange, 1492-2017
Spring 2019
Instructor: Rachel Love       
Thursday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.) and General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

In tackling cultural representations from epic poetry to film, we piece together a transhistorical mosaic of artistic and material products of exchange and explore how Italians of different eras grappled with the North American continent, its inhabitants, and its many facets of influence. As students analyze canonical works of Italian film and literature, they develop new perspectives on Italian and American cultural histories and question how cultural contact and exchange shape our own understanding of national identity. We consider how Italy’s diaspora has affected its conception of itself and examine 500 years of North America as artistic inspiration, as cultural and political influence, and even as a source of existential anxiety. For example, how did European discovery of a “new” continent impact Renaissance authors like Ariosto and Tasso and destabilize the center of their known world? How did American literature like Hemingway and Steinbeck offer 20th-century Italian writers new possibilities of literary expression and political resistance? We consider literature of immigration and travel in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as Italians documented their journeys to North America (and New York City) in poetry and prose. We investigate how Fascism, war and recovery—as well as the physical presence of American soldiers on Italian soil—shifted the political and social stakes of this relationship. Finally, we explore American cultural influence throughout the increasingly globalized 20th century, as US models permeated Italian politics, film, television, music, and food, and pop singers teased teenagers who tried to “fa’ l’americano.” Throughout, we take advantage of our location in New York City to explore aspects of cultural exchange within our urban environment, including an excursion to the Italian American Museum and Little Italy.

RACHEL LOVE is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her PhD from NYU in Italian Studies in May 2018. Her essays on 20th-century Italian politics and culture have appeared in the journals Popular Music, Modern Italy, and Interventions. Her current book project, Songbook for a Revolution: Popular Culture and the New Left in 1960s Italy, analyzes the political use of folk music in 1960s Italy through the history of a leftist musical collective, the Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano (NCI). Her interdisciplinary research interests move between contemporary Italian history and literature, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and oral history. Most mornings, she can be found riding her bike across the Manhattan Bridge.

FYSEM-UA 203
Jews and Other Minorities in Nazi Germany
Fall 2018
Instructor: Marion Kaplan           
Monday, 9:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30–10:45 a.m.) and Intro Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m.).

The destruction of European Jewry has been a central focus in studying Nazi extermination policies. This course will look at Nazi policies towards the Jewish people and examine how the “racial state” (or racist state) dealt with those it deemed “racially unfit” to belong to the German Volk. It will analyze the ways in which the Nazis sought to create a nation based on blood and race. By studying policies towards the so-called “enemies” of the Third Reich—including Jews, Sinti and Roma (Gypsies), the physically and mentally disabled, homosexuals, Afro-Germans, “asocials,” etc.—the course will also highlight how these policies interacted with each other. It will examine measures that the government enacted to delegitimize, isolate, rob, incarcerate, sterilize, and/or murder many of these minorities, as well as measures intended to increase the “Aryan” population. The course will also examine theories that attempt to explain why many German perpetrators and bystanders participated in discrimination or murder, or allowed it to happen.

MARION KAPLAN is Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at New York University. She is a three-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award for her books The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany; Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany; and Gender and Jewish History, co-edited with Deborah Dash Moore. Her other books include: The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Jüdischer Frauenbund, 1904-1938; When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany, co-edited with Renate Bridenthal and Atina Grossmann; The Marriage Bargain: Women and Dowries in European History, ed.; Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618-1945, ed.; Jüdische Welten: Juden in Deutschland vom 18. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart, co-edited with Beate Meyer; and Dominican Haven: The Jewish Refugee Settlement in Sosúa, 1940-1945, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. All of her monographs have been translated into German.

FYSEM-UA 384
Journalism of War, Revolution, Genocide, and Human Rights
Fall 2018
Instructor: Susie Linfield          
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.) and with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

In this seminar we will read some of the key journalistic works on war, revolution, genocide, and human rights that have been written in the past one hundred years. We will attempt to answer such questions as: How, and why, has the nature of war changed in the past century? Why do some revolutions, such as those in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism, largely succeed, while others, such as those of the Arab Spring, fail so miserably? How do we understand senseless, sadistic violence—what Primo Levi called “useless cruelty”? Why do sufferers of violence and oppression so often become perpetrators of it? What is the difference between war and genocide, and why did the latter emerge in the 20th century? Why has terrorism re-emerged with such vengeance in the past two decades? What are “human rights”—another invention of the 20th century—and how, if at all, have they become a reality?

SUSIE LINFIELD is Associate Professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and writes about the intersection of culture and politics for a wide array of publications. Recent essays have addressed Syrian torture photographs (the New York Times), war photography (Aperture and The Nation), the Zionist Left in Israel (the Boston Review), and an anti-Vietnam War classic (Bookforum). Professor Linfield’s book The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Professor Linfield was the editor in chief of American Film, the deputy editor of the Village Voice, and the arts editor of the Washington Post; she also spent six years as a critic for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She serves on the editorial boards of Dissent and Photography and Culture, and is a member of the New York Institute of the Humanities. Professor Linfield received her BA from Oberlin College, where she studied American history, and her MA in journalism from NYU (minor: documentary film). From its founding in 1995 until 2014, Professor Linfield was instrumental in building NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program, first as Associate Director and then as Director.

FYSEM-UA 692
Knights, Ladies, and Chivalry
Fall 2018
Instructor: David A. Boruchoff      
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Intro Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m.).

Although chivalry was practiced by a small number of noble men and women, writings extolling its ideals had a profound impact on European thought and customs as a whole. These writings—letters and handbooks about the institution of chivalry; poems, fictions, and histories recounting chivalric exploits—set forth religious virtues and the role that religion ought to play in daily life; proper conduct in battle; relations between the sexes, between different members and sectors of the social hierarchy, and between peoples of different faiths; and the conceits and rhetoric to be used in political and amorous discourse. Through a diverse set of readings and images, we will consider the promotion of chivalric ideals, on one hand, and critiques of chivalry’s contradictions and unintended consequences, especially its divorce from reality and from realism, on the other.

DAVID A. BORUCHOFF took early retirement from McGill University, in Montreal, after teaching there for more than twenty-five years, and is now affiliated with Brown University. His publications address a wide range of topics in the literature, intellectual history, and culture of early modern Europe and America. These include the novel prior to and as elaborated by Cervantes; movements of religious dissent and reform; the Inquisition; how the Catholic Monarchs and their chroniclers shaped opinion; the editorial practices of maritime historians; and the inventions that distinguish the Moderns from the Ancients. He has also examined the interdependence of natural history and moral philosophy in the colonial Americas; the spiritual conquests of New Spain and New England; and missionary histories and hagiography more broadly. He is now completing a book titled Renaissance Exploration and the Invention of a New World, and also a critical edition, translation and study of the recently discovered manuscript of the Vida y sucesos de la Monja Alférez (Life and Exploits of the Lieutenant Nun).

FYSEM-UA 210
Language and Reality in Post-Classical Science and Postmodern Literature
Fall 2018
Instructor: Friedrich Ulfers       
Tuesday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

The course explores the possibility that there exists a common ground between the so-called two cultures of science and the humanities. It posits the hypothesis of a correlation between postclassical science (e.g., quantum theory) and “postmodern” literature and philosophy. Among the key notions examined are Werner Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle,” Niels Bohr’s “principle of complementarity,” and Jacques Derrida’s notion of “undecidability” in deconstructive theory. The discussion of these notions and of their implications in literary works revolves around their effects on classical logic, the referential function of language, and the traditional goal of a complete explanation/description of reality. Readings include selections from the works of Borges, Kundera, Pirsig, and Pynchon, among others, and from texts on modern scientific theories.

FRIEDRICH ULFERS is Associate Professor of German. Winner of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence, the University’s Distinguished Teaching Medal, and the NYU Alumni Association Great Teacher Award, he has taught not only in the German Department but also in the Draper Interdisciplinary Master’s Program, offering courses on Nietzsche, Kafka, and other figures. He has written widely on 20th-century German authors and is at present preparing a study of Nietzsche as a postmodernist.

FYSEM-UA 726
Language and Thought
Spring 2019
Instructor: Stephanie Harves
Monday, 11:00 am - 1:30 pm
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

Does the language we speak influence the way we think? If so, how? Can thought exist in the absence of language? These questions have been at the heart of a recurrent (and often heated) debate within the cognitive sciences (e.g. linguistics, psychology, philosophy) going back to the eighteenth century. The claim that structurally diverse languages can affect the thoughts of their speakers is referred to as the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. This course examines this hypothesis primarily through the lens of cognitive science but with consideration of views from linguistic anthropology, fiction (e.g. George Orwell’s 1984), and film (e.g. Arrival).

STEPHANIE HARVES is Clinical Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Linguistics and an affiliated faculty member at NYU Abu Dhabi. Her research focuses on the interaction between the structure of words (morphology) and its interaction with word order (syntax) in a number of different languages, with a specialization in Slavic languages. Her research is guided by the question, "What is a possible human language?" She has been teaching at NYU since 2009 and received the College's Golden Dozen Teaching Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013.

FYSEM-UA 627
Language, Religion, and Ethnicity
Fall 2018
Instructor: Benjamin Hary      
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

This seminar asks fundamental questions, such as: What is a language? What is religion? What is ethnicity? And above all, what is the connection between them? The course offers a linguistic view of religion and ethnicity and examines the sociolinguistic history, society, and culture of the United States and other nations. We will consider the great diversity of communicative systems we encounter both as a source of enrichment for individuals and the nation as a whole, and as a source of problems. In addition, we will study the universal phenomenon of language change and how it affects our understanding of language behavior both religiously and ethnically. Related topics include the interplay of language with power, gender, and education.

BENJAMIN HARY is Professor at the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and the Director of NYU Tel Aviv. In the fall of 2018 he will be teaching on the Square. Until 2014 he was a Professor of Hebrew, Arabic, and Linguistics and the Director of the Program in Linguistics at Emory University. He is the author of Multiglossia in Judeo-Arabic, Translating Religion, and Daily Life in Israel (with R. Adler). He is also the editor and co-editor of Judaism and Islam, Corpus Linguistics and Modern Hebrew, and Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo-Arabic Culture. He has published over 50 articles and book reviews and has lectured widely in Europe, Israel, Egypt, and North America. He is currently working on completing Sacred Texts in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic; his co-edited volume (with Sarah Benor), Languages in Jewish Communities, Past and Present, will appear next year.

FYSEM-UA 306
Latin America at the Start of the 21st Century: Coming of Age or Continuing Chaos?
Fall 2018
Instructor: Jorge G. Castañeda      
Monday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30–10:45 a.m.) and Intro Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m.).

This seminar focuses on Latin America’s longstanding problems and possible solutions to them. It takes up such topics as the absence of orderly, peaceful, and steady democratic governance following independence from colonial rule, and the consolidation of representative democracy today; the slowdown of economic growth in the last 20 years and prospects for a new economic takeoff; the phenomenon of widespread violence, and growing respect for human rights; and how the traditional weakness of civil society is being overcome. For each topic, there are readings dealing with its political, economic, and cultural dimensions in both past and present.

JORGE D. CASTAÑEDA is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico since 1979, he has also been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Princeton, and Dartmouth. A principal strategist in the election campaign of President Vicente Fox in 2000, he served as Mexico’s Foreign Minister from late 2000 until early 2003. He is the author of, among many other books, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War; Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara; Perpetuating Power; Ex-Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants; and Leftovers: Tales of the Latin American Left (with Marco Morales) He has also written articles for many newspapers and magazines in Mexico, the United States, and other countries.

FYSEM-UA 377
Lethal Passions: Medea and Her Legacies
Fall 2018
Instructor: Liana Theodoratou      
Tuesday, 3:30–6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30–4:45 p.m.

The mythic figure of Medea has held our imagination for nearly 2,500 years. What kind of woman is capable of casting such an enduring spell? Best known as the partner of Jason and the murderer of her own children, Medea has symbolized an exploration into the passion and violence, the devastation and vengeance, the complex relations and modes of betrayal that so often punctuate our everyday existence. She has demanded that we think about the relations between the sexes, the meaning of home and exile, the experience of the foreigner, the ethical and moral dimensions of agency and decisions, and the meaning of motherhood. Because these issues have remained vital, her popularity has outlived the ancient Greek texts in which she was born and has found new expressions in various forms—including tragic drama, poetry, novels, painting, cinema, and music. This course seeks to find the reasons for her longevity in the rich complexity of her character and actions and to explore the ways in which her story has been revised and recontextualized across the ages for new and different ends. We will consider a range of texts from antiquity to the present in order to think about how they understand the tensions, contradictions, and conflicting desires embodied and enacted in this mesmerizing figure.

LIANA THEODORATOU is a Clinical Professor, Director of the Alexander S. Onassis Program in Hellenic Studies, and Director of the NYU in Athens Program. She is a recipient of the College’s Outstanding Teaching Award and of its Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence. She has written widely on ancient and Modern Greek poetry and has translated several works by, among others, Foucault, Althusser, and Derrida into Modern Greek. She is currently completing a book on the politics of mourning in contemporary Greek poetry, entitled Mourning Becomes Greece.

FYSEM-UA 660
Love: The Sociology of Intimacy
Spring 2019
Instructor: Deirdre Royster         
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Intro Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m.) and with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

Note: this seminar uses sexually explicit reading and visual material.

If a toddler does not receive physical affection and companionship from a caregiver, it will die—but even the mere sight of a caregiver, on a daily basis, can avert the tragedy of death from lack of social and physical intimacy. Love is a powerful social force; this course provides an opportunity for students to read, learn, think, write, and talk about research into, theories of, and essays about love—mostly from a sociological perspective—with a special focus on romantic relationships and pairings. Much has been written about love from every conceivable point of view, but sociology asks very specific questions about how social contexts influence how people love across different eras, societies, groups, and so forth. American society has undergone many changes that profoundly affect how we love, including what forms we expect our relationships to take; when we expect to form enduring relationships with romantic partners; and what it may take to move from exploration to commitment. Sociology de-bunks many “love” myths that we’ve told ourselves as a society and instead highlights realities we’ve lived but not understood well—providing clarity on the distance between “idealized” and “realized” love. This course is for the skeptic and romantic alike and asks students to develop their own sociological theory about what love will look like as their generation shapes it anew.

DEIRDRE ROYSTER is Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at NYU. Her areas of specialization are the political economy of labor markets, public policy, and racial inequality, but she came to the study of love and intimacy by way of her longstanding interest in work and masculinity. Men’s changing relationships to work alongside wider cultural changes have profoundly changed men’s patterns of sociality and their romantic proclivities and ideas about marriage—all while women enter higher education and the workplace in unprecedented numbers. Professor Royster will share her interest in this field—and the fascinating research that is emerging—with her students.

FYSEM-UA 693
Making Sense of Doubles and Masks
Fall 2018
Instructor: Judith Miller     
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Among the more significant activities of human beings is that of giving shape to fears and desires through art. All cultures participate in this form of emotional exteriorization, including creating through myths and literature “doubles” and sculpting in textures and words various types of “masks.” In this seminar, we will concentrate on doubles and masks in several different cultures. We will thus chart the meaning and impact of the archetypal masked figures of the commedia dell’arte in French and Italian theatre (Molière and Goldoni); the obsessive concern with the grotesque (the monstrous mask) in French romanticism (Hugo) and in Victorian fantasy (Mary Shelley); and we will look at excessive doubling in South American magical realism (Garcia-Marquez). We will think about zombification, carnival figures, and ghostly doubles in Latin American, North American, and African cultural forms (Morrison and Fanon). We will build a repertory of approaches to interpreting and uncovering the many layers of masking and doubling by reading in anthropology, psychoanalysis, aesthetics, and literary theory. As interesting as the masks and doubles “peopling” culture are, we will be especially alert to the different ways in which human beings at various points in time have attempted to understand what making masks and creating doubles means.

Professor JUDITH MILLER writes on French and Francophone theatre and has translated some twenty plays from the French. She has been with NYU since 1998, first as head of NYU in Paris, then as Chair of the Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture. From 2012-2015, she was Dean of Arts and Humanities at NYU Abu Dhabi, where she has also been an affiliate professor. She teaches courses in contemporary French literature, theatre, and translation, as well as CORE courses on significant human questions that literature and the arts attempt to answer. Her publications include Theatre and Revolution in France, Françoise Sagan, French and Francophone Women Playwrights, Ariane Mnouchkine (Routledge 2007, 2018), and In and Out of Africa: Seven Plays by Koffi Kwahulé. She has recently translated a novel by Guadeloupian author Gerty Dambury (The Restless) and is currently working on a translation of Béatrice Picon-Vallin’s Le Théâtre du Soleil: les cinquante premières années.

FYSEM-UA 545
Media and Communication in the Middle Ages
Fall 2018
Instructor: Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak       
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required Cohort Meeting: Monday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.

Medieval tools of communication and methods of transportation circulated news, rumors, propaganda, and revolutionary ideas; permitted contact with the supernatural; equipped governments with bureaucratic powers of local subjugation and global interaction; and enabled people to travel far away from their homes on pilgrimages, diplomatic missions, entertainment tours (jongleurs, troubadours), commercial ventures, explorations, and conquests. With a focus on Western Europe, we will consider modes and means of communication: languages, speech and writing, gestures, fashions, rituals, images, artifacts, and maps. Assessing the breadth of medieval mobility will elucidate a pre-modern world system that extended across Eurasia, including the Mongol Empire, the Middle East, and China. Weekly readings will be presented by one student and then discussed by all. A research paper will be prepared through several intermediary shorter essays, each dealing with material relevant to the paper’s topic.

BRIGITTE M. BEDOS-REZAK is Professor of History at NYU. Trained in France at the Sorbonne and at the Ecole nationale des Chartes (Paris), her teaching and research interests cover medieval Europe, in particular its urban life and secular elites. She is particularly interested in the ways that increasingly material communicative practices shaped concepts of identity and forms of governance. Her publications include Les sceaux de villes; When Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages; “Semiotic Anthropology: The Twelfth-Century Experiment,” in European Transformations 950-1200, T. Noble and J. Van Engen, eds.; “Seals and Stars: Law, Magic, and the Economy of Rulership (France, 13th-14th Centuries),” in Seals and their Context in the Middle Ages, P. Schofield, ed.; and “The Ambiguity of Representation. Semiotic Roots of Political Consent in Capetian France,” in The Capetian Century, 1214-1314, W.C. Jordan and J. Phillips, eds.

FYSEM-UA 662
Molecular Modeling and Simulation: From Theory to Applications
Fall 2018
Instructor: Tamar Schlick      
Tuesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

Prerequisites: a reported 4 or 5 in one of the following AP exams: Biology, Chemistry, or Calculus (international equivalents accepted), and high SAT Subject Exam scores or rigorous high school courses in the other two subjects. Recommended: AP or a high school course in physics, and/or knowledge of computer programming.

This seminar introduces students to the science and art of modeling molecular systems and simulating their structures and dynamic pathways on modern computers. We trace the historical trajectory of the field, from the early systematic force-field development and computations of small molecules to simulations of huge molecular machines like viruses and ribosomes—even approaching single cells. The basic structural elements of life's biological molecules (proteins and nucleic acids) and the universe of protein folds and RNA motifs will be presented. Practical ingredients of biomolecular modeling will be introduced: the governing force fields, computations of the nonbonded molecular interactions, energy minimization algorithms, sampling algorithms for describing molecular configurations, and Monte Carlo sampling and molecular dynamics simulations and their analyses. Finally, selected applications to molecular design and medicine will be discussed, to illuminate the practical utility and immense success of the field.

TAMAR SCHLICK is Professor of Chemistry, Mathematics, and Computer Science at NYU’s Department of Chemistry and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Her field of research is the multiscale modeling and simulation of biological macromolecules, especially regulatory DNA/protein complexes related to chromatin folding, DNA replication and repair, and RNA structure and function. Her graduate textbook entitled Molecular Modeling: An Interdisciplinary Guide is widely used. She is a fellow of AAAS, APS, SIAM, and the Biophysical Society, and has received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigatorship, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, NYU Distinguished Recent Alumni Award, NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, and Searle and Whitaker Scholarships. She currently heads (as associate editor) the newly formed section on nucleic acids and genome biophysics in the Biophysical Journal. She is also editor of PLOS One, the Journal of Computational Physics, and Springer Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering.

FYSEM-UA 702
Music, Sound, Film, Television
Spring 2019
Instructor: Michael Beckerman
Tuesday, 2:00-4:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Some of the most powerful, expressive and effective moments created by human beings involve the combination of sound and moving image. Yet we do not really understand how or why such effects actually work, especially because the experience of music and image together is radically different from either one on their own. This course explores the use of music, and sound broadly in film, television, MTV, and advertising and even considers the possibility that through our use of portable listening devices we have turned our entire lives into one vast soundtrack. In this course we shall watch films, engage criticism related to music and the moving image, and work together to create projects that test various approaches.

MICHAEL BECKERMAN is Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Music and Collegiate Professor at New York University. He writes on such subjects as nationalism, film music, music and war, opera, and popular song. He lectures regularly throughout North America and Europe, and writes for the New York Times. He is currently Leonard Bernstein Scholar in Residence at the New York Philharmonic.

FYSEM-UA 691
Narrating Climate Change
Fall 2018
Instructor: Andrew Needham     
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Global warming is, by many accounts, the gravest danger facing human life on the planet at the present moment. Unlike other potentially catastrophic crises, however, climate change lacks clear divisions between people or nations or apocalyptic symbols. Climate change does not split the globe into a Free World and an Evil Empire, or a sacred Motherland and a nation of Capitalist Running Dogs. As the author Per Espen Stoknes writes, “There is no clear enemy with climate change. We’re all participating in the climate crisis—if there is an enemy, it’s us. And it’s hard to go to war against ourselves.” The transformations associated with climate change do not appear as sudden explosions or even exist as perceptible on a daily fashion; instead, they exist as graphs that climb ever upward, as never before heard of glacial shelves cracking, and droughts, fires, and storms “correlated to but not caused by” disruptions in climatic patterns. Its changes are long term, it poses collective action problems, and its agents are generalized and often indistinct. Climate change, in short, poses narrative problems. This seminar will examine six separate, but interrelated, disciplinary means of narrating climate change―scientific writing, historical narratives, journalism, political explanations, personal memoir, and fiction. The emphasis will be not, primarily, on what narratives “work” but on investigation of the commonalities and differences in which climate change is explained and put in time according to different fields and disciplines. Students will explore the differing ways that disciplines attempt to convey knowledge, learn how to recognize and understand different narrative forms, and determine for themselves what makes for effective narration.

ANDREW NEEDHAM is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Director of NYU’s Minor in Native and Indigenous Studies. He teaches US environmental, urban, and American Indian History. He is particularly interested in the relationship between urban culture and ecological change.

FYSEM-UA 696
Native Peoples and Sovereignty in the Americas
Spring 2019
Instructor: Sinclair Thomson      
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

This course will take a broad view of the critical issue of sovereignty that arises in the history of European colonialism in the Americas and in the political struggles of native peoples. A first challenge in the course will be temporal: we will trace the long arc of power relations involving indigenous people, focusing on the conquest and colonial periods from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, but considering later ramifications in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as well. A second challenge will be spatial: to compare and connect the histories of Iberian, English, and French colonial powers and the processes in the Caribbean, Latin America, and North America. We will reflect on problems of sovereignty in conceptual, legal, political, and administrative dimensions.

SINCLAIR THOMSON is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, focusing on Latin American and Andean history with particular emphasis on the colonial period. He specializes in issues of peasant and indigenous politics; race/ethnicity; Andean religion; and historical imagination and political memory. He is the author of We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency; co-author (with Forrest Hylton) of Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics; and co-editor of The Bolivia Reader: History, Culture, Politics.

FYSEM-UA 706
New Orleans in Literature/Film: From the Old St. Louis Hotel to Hurricane Katrina
Spring 2019
Instructor: Greg Weiss        
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

“There are a lot of places I like,” writes 2016 Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan, “but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment.” Due to its status as a mercantile port, New Orleans was/is where much of what we now think of as “American” originally entered America, either literally or metaphorically. These different angles include the direct and indirect results of slavery, colonialism, immigration, war, corruption, and natural disaster. Over the course of the semester, we will read writers such as Tennessee Williams, John Kennedy Toole, and Anne Rice, as well as viewing films such as A Streetcar Named Desire, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and When the Levees Broke as a means of considering the relationships between slavery, colonialism, etc. and words that more often come to mind when one considers New Orleans—jazz, Bourbon Street, “The Big Easy.” How does thinking about New Orleans help us think differently about America in general, as well as even larger concepts such as time, memory, history, and place?

GREG WEISS is a Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. His first book of poems, Interstate, came out in 2014, and he’s currently at work on his second.

FYSEM-UA 500
New Worlds of Work and Care
Spring 2019
Instructor: Kathleen Gerson      
Wednesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.) and with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

We live in a period of immense social change in the public world of work and the private world of family life. New technologies have blurred the boundary between home and work. New economic opportunities and pressures have sent women into the workplace. The rise of the “new economy” has created jobs with more short-term flexibility, but less long-term security. And new options in intimate relationships have created more diverse and voluntary, but less predictable family ties. These intertwined shifts signal a social revolution that is reshaping the daily lives and life paths in the 21st century. To explore the revolution in work and care, the class will address several questions: What does an overview of changes in work, family, and gender patterns tell us about where we are now and where we are going? What are the major dilemmas and dislocations created by these changes, and how are people responding to these conflicts? What are the prospects for the future? And what can we do to enhance the opportunities and limit the insecurities and inequalities of these new arrangements?

KATHLEEN GERSON is Professor of Sociology and Collegiate Professor of Arts & Science at New York University, where she studies work-family connections and their links to the structuring of gender inequality. The author of numerous books and articles, her most recent book, The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age in a New Era of Gender, Work, and Family, is an award-winning study of how new generations have responded to the rapidly unfolding gender revolution of the last several decades. Now at work on a study of "work and care in the new economy," her other books include Hard Choices: How Women Decide About Work, Career, and Motherhood; No Man’s Land: Men’s Changing Commitments to Family and Work; The Time Divide: Work, Family, and Gender Inequality (with Jerry A. Jacobs), and a forthcoming book, The Art and Science of Interviewing: How to Learn About Society by Talking with People. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Distinguished Career Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association, the ASA’s Jessie Bernard Award for distinguished contributions to the study of women and gender, and the Rosabeth Kanter Award for excellence in work-family research. In addition to her many years at NYU, Kathleen has held visiting positions at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City, and the Center for Status Passages in the Life Course at Bremen University, Germany.

FYSEM-UA 616
Planet Human: Reading and Writing the Anthropocene
Fall 2018
Instructor: Daniel Fagin     
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

“Anthropocene” is a new and still unofficial term, but a mind-blowing one. It signifies we are living at a moment both exhilarating and terrifying: The dawn of a new historical epoch in the 4.5 billion-year history of Earth. For the first time, just one of the 8.7 million species on this planet will determine (though not necessarily “control”) the fate of all the rest. We humans are not only reshuffling the kaleidoscope of life forms on Earth, we are also altering the chemistry of its sky and oceans, and terraforming its surface as easily as if it were made of Play-Doh. All of this is occurring at an accelerating pace that has now overwhelmed the various non-human forces that shaped our planet until now, forces like natural selection, plate tectonics, glaciation, volcanism and orbital variation. Yet the scientists, philosophers, essayists and activists who have looked deeply at the concept of the Anthropocene (most of them, anyway) tell us that this is not about apocalypse. The end is not near, if by “end” we mean the imminent destruction of our planet and ourselves. The Anthropocene is a transformation, and where it will lead is both unknowable and entirely dependent on the choices we humans make, both individually and collectively. Our inability to know our future does not leave us powerless, however, because a rich body of scholarly and popular work has already scouted this terrain, and can assist us in our own explorations. In this class, we will mine this work, approaching the Anthropocene as both a scientific and cultural construction. We will read, research and write, and most of all we will think—all with the goal of understanding how we got here, and where we might go next.

DAN FAGIN is a science journalism professor at New York University. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who writes frequently about environmental science. His bestselling book, Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation, was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer for General Nonfiction, as well as the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, the National Academies Science Book Award and the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, among other honors. He has recently been published in The New York Times, Scientific American, Nature, and Slate. His new book project is about monarch butterflies and the future of biodiversity in the Anthropocene.

FYSEM-UA 657
Political Gesture: From Art to Activism
Fall 2018
Instructor: Jill Lane         
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

On February 1, 1960, four African American college students sat down at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina; when refused service, they remained in their seats, thus initiating the dramatic Greensboro Sit-in. In Argentina in 1977, a group of mothers whose children had been "disappeared" by the military dictatorship began to march in front of the presidential palace, holding large pictures of their missing children; those marches continue to this day. In 2003, the Guatemalan artist Regina Galindo created a piece meant to remind the public of the genocidal killings in Guatemala’s internal civil war; in Who Can Erase the Traces? (Quién puede borrar las huellas?) she walked barefoot through the streets of Guatemala City carrying a basin filled with human blood into which she periodically dipped her feet, leaving a trail of bloody footprints. What do sitting, holding a picture, and walking in these examples have in common? Each functions as a political gesture—a codified way of using the body to interrupt everyday life and pose a public challenge, demand, or critique in relation to abuses of power. We consider: How do political gestures establish relationships with the public (at times an unwitting or unwilling public), and how do such gestures directly impact the social and physical context? We read the work of artists, activists, and philosophers, and consider cases drawn primarily from North and South America from the 1960s to the present, allowing a broad comparative approach. Where possible we leave the classroom to visit relevant museums and archives.

JILL LANE is Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. She is author of Blackface Cuba, 1840-1898, co-editor with Peggy Phelan of The Ends of Performance, and author of numerous articles on performance and politics in the Americas.

FYSEM-UA 476
Political Theater
Fall 2018
Instructor: Eric Dickson       
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

This interdisciplinary seminar offers a survey of political theater from the ancient Greeks to the present. How have dramatic depictions of politics changed over time? In what ways have political plays been used to advance political agendas, both by the powerful and by dissidents and protest movements? To what extent can we understand political speeches and political campaigns as essentially theatrical productions? In a typical week, students will read one full-length play, accompanied by appropriate readings from political science or social psychology. Through these readings, writing assignments, and class discussion, we address the development of different dramatic techniques and forms throughout the history of theater; the co-evolving relationship between politically-themed spectacles and changing ideas about citizenship and political legitimacy; and the political psychology of speeches and campaign techniques.

ERIC S. DICKSON is Associate Professor of Politics and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Psychology. His research interests include political communication, election campaigning, political leadership, and identities in politics. His work, which uses both game theory and social-scientific experiments, focuses on the interface between political strategy and political psychology. He is also an installation artist with an extensive background in theater.

FYSEM-UA 597
Problem Solving
Fall 2018
Instructor: Dennis E. Shasha      
Monday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.) and with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Prerequisite: Some programming experience in Python, Java, Javascript, R, or C.

Many problems in science, business, and politics require heuristics—problem-solving techniques that often work well but give imperfect guarantees. This course teaches heuristics as they apply to the design of scientific experiments, the resolution of economic or political negotiations, and the construction of engineering devices in hostile environments. Students will work in small teams that will solve puzzles, conduct experiments, and build strategies for a competitive auction game. Students will use and learn computational tools such as Python. The intent is to make you better able to face complex problems in any field of study you choose.

DENNIS SHASHA is a Professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of New York University and an Associate Director of NYU Wireless. He works with biologists on pattern discovery for network inference; with computational chemists on algorithms for protein design; with physicists and financial people on algorithms for time series; on DNA computing for microbiomes; on methods to improve machine learning; and on computational reproducibility. Other areas of interest include database tuning as well as tree and graph matching. Because he likes to type, he has written six books of puzzles about a mathematical detective named Dr. Ecco, a biography about great computer scientists, and a book about the future of computing. He has also written five technical books about database tuning, biological pattern recognition, time series, DNA computing, resampling statistics, and causal inference in molecular networks. He has co-authored over seventy journal papers, seventy conference papers, and twenty patents. He has written the puzzle column for various publications including Scientific American, Dr. Dobb's Journal, and the Communications of the ACM. He is a fellow of the ACM and an INRIA International Chair.

FYSEM-UA 536
Race and Culture in Brazil
Fall 2018
Instructor: Dylon Robbins
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Brazil is often invoked in conversations about race and culture, held up as an example for its presumably more egalitarian race relations, considered the embodiment of an exceptional fusion of African, Indigenous, and European elements and a model for understanding heterogeneity and difference. And yet it is also a nation frequently cited for its incidence of violence and extreme economic inequality. This seminar explores some of the unique contradictions shaping Brazilian reality. We trace the history of race relations in the ongoing transformation of Brazilian culture, looking at key social, political, and economic factors such as slavery and the plantation economy, popular music, Carnival, populism, racial democracy, affirmative action, and urban and rural violence. How do race and culture coincide and diverge in Brazil? And what may we gather about these convergences and divergences from textual, musical, and cinematic examples?

DYLON ROBBINS is Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. He teaches courses on Brazil and the Caribbean, with particular emphasis on the cultural and theoretical production of these regions and their place in the African Diaspora. With support from a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, he undertook research in Brazil at the Cinemateca Brasileira and the Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros and, in Cuba, at the ICAIC, the Biblioteca Nacional, and the Casa de las Américas. Professor Robbins is currently completing his book manuscript on popular music and political subjectivity in Brazil.

FYSEM-UA 215
Reclaiming the Narrative: Contemporary West African Writers Unleash Their Africa upon the World
Spring 2019
Instructor: Frankie Edozien      
Tuesday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Comprehensive news coverage of Africa is scant. The sparse coverage is often a variation of an incomplete portrait that has dominated the Western media for the last fifty years: tales of starvation, political instability, and disease are mainstays. There is often little or no historical or political context in most of this coverage. In recent years, a cadre of West African writers has begun to change that narrative. These writers, often educated in the West and equally comfortable on the streets of Lagos, Accra, Rome, or New York, have churned out works of fiction and non-fiction essays about their homelands. Their writing offers a nuanced, balanced portrait of contemporary African life, giving a detailed understanding of issues and events and succeeding where their counterparts in mainstream journalism are not.

FRANKIE EDOZIEN has directed the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s “Reporting Africa” program at NYU since 2008. He is a journalist who honed his skills writing about government, health, and cultural issues for a variety of publications. His work has appeared in the Times (UK), Vibe, Time, Out Traveler, Blackaids.org, The Advocate, Quartz, the New York Times, and elsewhere. For fifteen years he was an award-winning New York Post reporter, serving as city hall reporter and also covering crime, courts, labor issues and human services, public health, and politics from around the country and abroad. In 2001, he co-founded the AFRican magazine and served as its editor-in-chief. He has traveled around the world reporting on the impact of HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa, and was a 2008 Kaiser Foundation fellow for global health reporting. He is a contributor to the Arise News Network, where he reports weekly on issues in sub-Saharan Africa, and has contributed commentary on MSNBC on sub-Saharan African issues. A selection of his work is available on www.edozien.net.

FYSEM-UA 690
Redesigning College: The Student Perspective
Spring 2019
Instructor: Matthew S. Santirocco     
Tuesday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.) and General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Like many institutions in our society, higher education has recently been the subject of heated public discussion and debate. Much of the recent focus has been not on the extraordinary achievements of American colleges and universities, but on problems, real and perceived. Also, most of the conversation has been driven by legislators, trustees, faculty, parents, and journalists; it is striking that, to date, the voice of students has not always received sufficient attention. This seminar will function like a workshop: students will participate in the design of the by selecting five key issues on which to focus, and they will then work in small teams to review the literature and come up with concrete proposals for how to improve the college experience in these areas. Possible topics from which they will choose include: access and affordability to higher education, diversity and inclusion, time to degree, the college rankings industry, the content and quality of the curriculum, learning outcomes and assessment, the use of metrics and predictive analytics, the challenge of globalization, the higher purposes of education and the practical value of a degree, the role of college in perpetuating or combatting inequality, the politicization of the academy (including questions about free speech on campuses), health and wellness issues, the role of extra-curricular activities (including recent scandals involving fraternities and athletics), the use of technology and the relationship between residential and online education, the role of private philanthropy and state support, academic integrity, and the relationship between research and teaching. The final product of the seminar will be a “white paper” written by the students. No prior familiarity with the scholarship on higher education is required; what is required is a passion for your education, a willingness to work hard and collaboratively as a member of a team, and (perhaps most importantly) a commitment to avoid facile assumptions and generalizations in favor of evidence-based recommendations. Class readings and discussions will be supplemented by guest presentations by leaders in higher education, both from NYU and elsewhere.

MATTHEW S. SANTIROCCO is Professor of Classics and Angelo J. Ranieri Director of Ancient Studies at NYU; he is also Academic Director of NYU Washington, DC. He served as Seryl Kushner Dean of the College of Arts and Science from 1994 to 2011, and then as NYU’s Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs until last year, when he returned full-time to teaching and research. His interests range widely from ancient Greek and Roman literature and thought to issues in American higher education. He founded and directs NYU’s Center for Ancient Studies, which promotes interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the past. Among his many publications are a book on the Roman lyric poet, Horace, and several edited volumes, the most recent of which is an issue of Daedalus on new approaches to the study of the ancient world. He currently edits the Palgrave-Macmillan monograph series, The New Antiquity, and is working on a book on the poetics of patronage in Augustan Rome. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and serves as Assistant Secretary of the Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

FYSEM-UA 255
School and Society: NYU in the Sixties and Seventies
Fall 2018
Instructor: Arthur Tannenbaum       
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

The 1960s and 1970s brought profound changes in American society, changes mirrored in the history of the nation, academe, and New York University. It was a time that witnessed the struggle for civil rights, assassinations, war abroad and riots at home, and a youth-led revolution in music, dress, and values. This course aims to develop an appreciation of those years by examining the events and the reactions as they affected campuses and students across America. Students prepare reports on different aspects of the era and work on group projects. In both cases, and in the spirit of the times, the topics are self-chosen with the approval of the group and the seminar leader.

ARTHUR TANNENBAUM is Associate Curator and Social Work Librarian in the Bobst Library, and has also taught in the English Department. First as a student and then as a faculty member, he has been at NYU for more than thirty years. In 1992 he received the University’s Distinguished Teaching Medal in recognition for his work with students.

FYSEM-UA 432
Science and Policy of Climate Change
Fall 2018
Instructor: Edwin Gerber      
Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Your time in high school was an exceptional period for our planet: 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 were the four warmest years in recorded history. It is likely the hottest the Earth has ever been since the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago. The first predictions of human induced global warming were made over a century ago, but the topic remains controversial despite the fact that the world has warmed almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the intervening years. In this seminar, we will investigate observational evidence as well as the physical and mathematical foundations upon which forecasts of future climate are based. We will find that it is not the science of global warming that is controversial, but rather, what to do about it. We must weigh the costs of taking action today versus responding to potential consequences tomorrow, and come to grips with the ethical implications of the fact those who benefit from the use of fossil fuels are not the ones who will bear the costs. Armed with a scientific and policy background, you will conduct a research project on the response to global warming—delving into the details of climate engineering, alternate energy, psychology, ethics, and/or economics—thus giving you a chance to enter the debate, and perhaps even contribute to the solution.

EDWIN GERBER is an Associate Professor of Atmosphere-Ocean Science and Mathematics at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. His research focuses on the natural variability of the Earth's atmosphere (for example, why are some winters so cold and snowy compared to others?) and the role it plays in the response of the climate system to anthropogenic forcing. More recently, he has investigated how the formation of the ozone hole changed circulation patterns in the Southern Hemisphere, with possible implications for the melting of the Antarctic ice sheets and global sea level rise. With two small children at home, he has more than just an academic interest in the future of our planet.

FYSEM-UA 654
Searching for a Musical Ethics in the Twentieth Century
Fall 2018
Instructor: David Samuels         
Tuesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

The twentieth century witnessed an ethical discourse about the scope of the human. Shaken by two world wars, a great depression, and a global expansion of industrial power, people in the United States searched for ways to maintain their integrity as human beings in the face of these upheavals. An important part of this search took inspiration from imagining how people should sound when they made music together. Movements growing out of that inspiration—in folk music, medieval and Renaissance music, and world music—will be the focus of this class. We will explore these overlapping attempts to reclaim ethical human communities within the perceived dehumanizing processes of modernity. Ultimately, our goal will be to attempt to understand why the tones and timbres of certain kinds of musical activities mattered to people as an expression of their ethical and political positions within modern urban industrial capital.

DAVID SAMUELS, Professor and Chair of NYU’s Department of Music, is a linguistic anthropologist, folklorist, and ethnomusicologist. His book, Putting a Song on Top of It: Music and Identity on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, was the first book-length monograph exploring popular music’s place in the formation of contemporary Indigenous identities. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. His essays have appeared in leading anthropology and music journals, including American Ethnologist, Annual Review of Anthropology, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Ethnomusicology, and Semiotica.

FYSEM-UA 725
Seeing through Ghosts
Spring 2019
Instructor: Patricia Crain       
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.

From Hamlet to Harry Potter, ghosts have long haunted books and film. This seminar asks them questions: What do they want? What do we owe them? When and where do they appear? What are they good for? What do writers and readers use them for? We begin with one of the most famous ghosts in the Western canon, the ghost of Hamlet’s father, to lay the groundwork for our own thinking and responding to the spectral. With the help of Freud’s essays on “The Uncanny” and “Mourning and Melancholia,” and Jacques Derrida’s concept of “hauntology,” we will then pivot to nineteenth-century and contemporary literature—the invention of the “ghost story,” the use of ghosts to confront the history and legacies of slavery in the United States, and a contemporary novel’s cross-cultural exploration of US history and Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to Hamlet (and we will keep an eye out for performances in New York), texts will include Henry James’s “The Jolly Corner” and “The Turn of the Screw,” Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “The Lost Ghost,” Toni Morrison’s Beloved and George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo. Students will work collaboratively, sharing responsibilities for leading discussions and reporting on research. Frequent writing assignments will include one personal essay, on-line forum posts, a final research essay, and opportunities for work in creative genres.

PATRICIA CRAIN is Professor of English. She is the award-winning author of The Story of A: The Alphabetization of America from The New England Primer to The Scarlet Letter and Reading Children: Literacy, Property and the Dilemmas of Childhood in Nineteenth-century America, which explores some ghostly themes.

FYSEM-UA 709
Spectacle of Cruelty: A Theatrical Investigation
Spring 2019
Instructor: David Foley     
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.

This course takes as its hypothesis that cruelty, at least in its political forms, is a form of spectacle: a performance designed to horrify or dazzle an intended audience. Perhaps for this reason, some of our most potent theatrical writers, from Euripides to Suzan-Lori Parks, have performed cruelty for us, shown us its face, explored its dimensions, invited us to live in its world. We will use theatrical texts to explore basic questions about cruelty—what it is, what drives it, in what forms it appears, how it can be resisted—but also to think about what these staged performances do for us. Why do we need them? In what way do they reflect the times and cultures that produced them? What themes and images remain consistent? What does a performance of cruelty allow us to see and experience? We’ll put a range of theatrical texts in conversation with writers like Susan Sontag, Maggie Nelson, Antonin Artaud, Hannah Arendt, and Albert Camus. Equally important will be our own investigations: the resources we reach for, the discoveries we make, the difficulties we encounter in trying to answer our questions about this most troubling aspect of being human.

DAVID FOLEY is a Senior Language Lecturer in NYU’s Expository Writing Program, where he has taught for nine years. He is also a playwright whose plays include Paradise, Nance O’Neil, Cressida Among the Greeks, The Murders at Argos, and A Hole in the Fence. His plays have been produced around the world and are published by Oberon Books and Samuel French. He has an MFA in Fiction Writing from NYU’s Creative Writing Program and is the author of the novel The Traveler’s Companion.

FYSEM-UA 667
Tales Out of School: Fiction and Film about Teachers, Students, and Schooling
Spring 2019
Instructor: Brian Schwartz        
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.) and with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

By investigating a variety of recent films, short stories, and novels about schools and schooling, participants in this seminar will seek to add complexity to their own and each other’s understanding of education and its purposes. Our central questions will include the following: What images of students, teachers, and schools are presented in contemporary literature and cinema? What do these images suggest about the place of schooling in American life? In our discussions of a body of texts ranging from literary fiction by Sherman Alexie and Don DeLillo to blockbuster tales depicting fantastical academies of magic, we will also investigate the seams between our identities as people and our personae as students and teachers. Over the course of the term, students will write a handful of short response papers, a concise analytical essay, and a final project that can be fiction, non-fiction, or a hybrid of both.

BRIAN SCHWARTZ is Senior Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. His short stories and essays have appeared in Harvard Review, Blackbird, Rhetoric Review and other publications, including the anthology Inheriting the War. He has taught writing and literature at UC Irvine, San Francisco State, and Bard College, where he is a Faculty Associate at the Institute for Writing and Thinking.

FYSEM-UA 663
Telling Stories: Journalists and Ethnographers
Fall 2018
Instructor: Robert S. Boynton      
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

This course will introduce students to the various methods journalists and ethnographers use to explore the human condition. Using the written word, still photography, audio, and some combination of the three (slideshow, etc.), students will create portraits of communities and individuals. We will read such classic ethnographies as Mitchell Duneier's Sidewalk, as well as oral histories by Studs Terkel and narrative journalism (like Adrian LeBlanc's Random Family). We will listen to audio pieces produced by StoryCorps and Radio Diaries, and look at photographs by Diane Arbus, Gary Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander.

ROBERT S. BOYNTON is Associate Professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, where he runs the Literary Reportage program. He is the author of The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project and The New New Journalism, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, and elsewhere.

FYSEM-UA 650
Terrorism: What Is It, Does It Work, and Is It Ever Justified?
Fall 2018
Instructor: Jeff Goodwin         
Wednesday, 3:30-6:10 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

Following the 9/11 attacks, politicians, journalists, and scholars have all engaged in a great deal of discussion about “terrorism.” But what exactly is “terrorism,” and how does it differ from other types of violence? Is the word helpful, or a source of endless confusion? If there is something we can usefully call terrorism, why exactly do rebels, gangs, governments, or individuals carry it out? Does it work—that is, do terror tactics help their perpetrators to attain their ends? And is terrorism ever morally justified? To answer these questions, we will examine a range of historical cases of political violence in the modern world, including the “terror bombing” of Japan by the United States during World War II; recent suicide bombing campaigns by various insurgent political groups, including Al Qaeda and ISIS; and several violent episodes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We will also examine various types of violence in the contemporary US—including school shootings, violence against women, and police shootings of African Americans—and ask whether these should be considered terrorism. One goal of this course is to challenge a number of myths about terrorism, including the idea that terror tactics are employed exclusively by zealous “extremists” or “radicals.” This course proposes, instead, that terrorism—however morally repugnant—is very often a rational strategy of warfare or social control. Accordingly, terrorism has been employed by a wide range of political groups, governments, and individuals, including quite moderate and normal people.

JEFF GOODWIN is Professor of Sociology. He has written extensively about social movements, revolutions, and terrorism. His books include The Social Movements Reader; Contention in Context; Passionate Politics; and No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945–1991. He is currently writing a book about why states and rebels sometimes employ terrorism as a strategy. He is a winner of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

FYSEM-UA 205
Understanding Terrorism
Spring 2019
Instructor: Tom Gerety     
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

This seminar examines terrorist attacks and movements from an interdisciplinary perspective, seeking to reach a better understanding of the attackers themselves, their motivations and backgrounds, and their plots and ideologies—whether secular or religious. We also consider the challenges of countering terrorism in societies with many “soft” targets and extensive global entanglements. We will read case studies of terrorism and counter-terrorism, including moral and legal arguments about torture, detention, and targeted killings. We will also try to understand how and why young men and women can be so powerfully drawn to violence, particularly violence against non-combatant (and often randomly targeted) civilians. We will visit various sites in New York City and meet with people with direct experience of terrorism and radicalization, including representatives of both the police and the immigrant communities who have suffered profiling, prejudice, and mistrust. Looking towards the future, we will examine local, national, and international strategies to prevent such attacks and to halt the radicalization that brings fresh recruits to terrorist movements.

TOM GERETY, Collegiate Professor, first came to NYU to head up the Brennan Center for Justice at the School of Law; he then joined the NYU faculty in 2005 to teach courses in law and the humanities. He served as President of Amherst College from 1994 to 2003 and of Trinity College from 1989 to 1994. From 1986 to 1989 he was Dean and Nippert Professor at the College of Law of the University of Cincinnati. As a law professor he taught and wrote on constitutional law and political philosophy, with a special emphasis on such First Amendment freedoms as speech, privacy, and religious freedom. He wrote and narrated a PBS series, Visions of the Constitution, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of a book of essays on the liberal arts, The Freshman Who Hated Socrates. He holds degrees in law and philosophy from Yale.

FYSEM-UA 674
Unsolved Mysteries: Reimagining the Detective Novel
Spring 2019
Instructor: Austin Kelley      
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.

In this class, we will study literary stories and novels that borrow from the mystery genre to pose larger questions. We’ll consider political questions about race, class, gender, and power as well as metaphysical questions about human desire, moral courage, and our place in the universe. After reading a genre classic by Raymond Chandler, we will study diverse literary works that may not fit neatly into the crime genre but that play with the desire to uncover truth. Students will be required to read and analyze the texts in a series of response papers and longer essays, and will embark on a creative “detective” project involving multiple modes of research.

AUSTIN KELLEY is Senior Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, and the New Yorker, where he spent four years in the editorial department. He is the founding editor of the Modern Spectator, and is at work in a somewhat mysterious novel about a fact checker. He earned his PhD in English from Duke University and has been teaching at NYU since 2010.

FYSEM-UA 697
Unusual Encounters with the Ancient Greeks and Romans
Fall 2018
Instructor: Michael Peachin      
Thursday, 12:30-3:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I/II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.).

In this course, we will read, and discuss, a series of less popular texts from the ancient Greek and Roman worlds which reveal some of the lesser known aspects of that world. We will not read Homer, or Sophocles, or Plato, or Vergil, or Cicero, or Caesar. Here are a few examples of the kinds of thing we will read. Apuleius’ Apology: This is the court oration, given by a man named Apuleius from Madauros in Numidia (Algeria). He had been charged with using magic to cause a rich widow to marry him – a capital crime. Juvenal, Satires: Juvenal wrote vicious, biting satires, about Rome, about women, etc. We will read some of these, to try to understand this kind of abusive literature, and its attractions for the Romans. Petronius, Satyricon: Here, we have the story of a boorish, newly rich man, and the group of gross hangers-on that surrounds him. Again, a fairly scurrilous document, about a bunch of Roman low-lives. Plautus, Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus: Two comedies by the playwright Plautus, again portraying the antics of some Roman low-lives. These plays formed the stuff of the Broadway musical (and then film) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. We will read the plays, watch the movie, and then compare and discuss. Pliny the Younger, Letters: Here, we will read selections from his letters, e.g.: his description of the death of his uncle in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. These are a few samples of the texts we will read. The plan will be to have one text per week, which we read, discuss, and try to understand against the background of the complex worlds of ancient Greece and Rome. In particular, we will be observing aspects of the life of these worlds which are generally not touched upon by courses in Classics.

MICHAEL PEACHIN is Professor of Classics and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Classics at New York University. He works on the social, political, and legal history of the ancient Roman world, and has written about all these areas. In doing so, he has become particularly fascinated by the ways in which particular, and often, to modern taste, quite peculiar forms of thinking among the ancient Romans caused them to behave in thoroughly singular ways. He has come increasingly to see the need for (re)connecting Roman mentalities with Roman realities. This conviction informs much of his current teaching and research, which go hand-in-hand.

FYSEM-UA 718
Walking the Global City: Spatial Practice, Cultural Production
Spring 2019
Instructor: Downing Bray Kress      
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.) and General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

New York, the city that never sleeps, is also a city that never stops walking. The automatic act of putting one foot in front of the other is a vital part of urban experience, determining our relationship with the city and with our fellow city-dwellers. Pedestrianism propels us into the vibrant dynamism and diversity of the metropolis and navigates us through neighborhoods and streets, where we discover the unexpected and interact with a dizzying accumulation of people and objects. We investigate representations of walking in literature, film, and art produced in and about New York, Paris, and London from the nineteenth century to the present. Immersing ourselves in the work of peripatetic artists, writers, and thinkers from a range of epochs and cultural backgrounds, we treat walking as a framework for cultural and social analysis. Tracing the itineraries of walkers from the Parisian flâneur to the London “streethaunter” to the exiled wanderer of New York, we view the city as a space that is both bordered and borderless; as a site of community, connection, and belonging; and as one of alienation and exclusion. Walking provides a lens through which we can investigate the evolving dynamics of race, gender, and sexuality in modern society; the relationship between urban experience and creative production; and the notion of the city as palimpsest. Students also engage in their own projects of walking the metropolitan landscape of New York City, cataloguing their experiences with words and images.

DOWNING BRAY KRESS is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. Her research focuses on representations of migration, displacement, and globalization in contemporary Francophone and Caribbean literature. Her work questions how the literary imagination is shaped by human interactions with the physical world—with city streets, buildings, objects, and landscapes—in a context of global wandering. She is interested in the ways in which the visual arts and architecture intersect with literature in representations of the urban experience.

FYSEM-UA 371
Welcome to College: The Novel
Fall 2018
Instructor: Carol Sternhell      
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Starting college can be exhilarating—and terrifying. A chance for intellectual enlightenment—or intense loneliness. An escape from a stultifying small town of narrow-minded people—or a riot of alcohol, sex, and drugs. In this class we read a selection of college novels from different historical periods, ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise to Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons. We discuss these novels from a variety of perspectives: literary, historical, and journalistic. In addition to presenting biographical and historical and cultural reports on at least two of the authors and their novels, students write about their own experiences as first-year students at NYU in several genres, including fiction and nonfiction. Together we explore this important life passage, examining life as we live it.

CAROL STERNHELL is Associate Professor of Journalism and a Director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s Studio 20 graduate program. She created the department’s study-away programs in London, Prague, and Accra and was also a founder of the Women’s Studies major (now Gender and Sexuality Studies). She has written extensively about feminism, motherhood, and literature for a variety of publications. Before coming to NYU, she worked as an editor at Newsday, a general assignment reporter for the New York Post, and a freelance magazine writer. She received the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence in 2005.

FYSEM-UA 712
West Meets East: English-Language Literature about China from the Middle Kingdom to the PRC
Spring 2019
Instructor: Emily Stone     
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

Xanadu, “Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree,” was how Samuel Taylor Coleridge described China in his poem “Kubla Khan.” Such romantic images might have been the only encounter that many nineteenth-century readers in England had with the Asian country. Today, on the other hand, the global movement of information and people (students included) creates increasingly diverse and discerning audiences. This course will examine what literature about China written in English reveals not only about cultures of the “East” but also about assumptions and interpretations in the “West.” We will read classic novels by the Americans Pearl Buck and Maxine Hong Kingston, along with the work of American journalists Peter Hessler and Leslie Chang, historical fiction about the Opium Wars by Indian author Amitav Ghosh, and new fiction by Chinese expatriate Yiyun Li and Hong Kong resident Xu Xi.

EMILY STONE is a Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. She was also once an undergraduate here (at the Gallatin School), before opening a small bookstore in Guatemala, working as a freelance writer in Australia, traveling to several other countries, and ultimately earning an MFA in creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Before returning to NYU, she taught writing and literature in English at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Fourth Genre, North American Review, and Tin House, and been among the notable selections in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing.

FYSEM-UA 474
What is College For?
Fall 2018
Instructor: Trace Jordan      
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Accelerated General Chemistry Lab (Monday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Note: FYSEM-UA 474: What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 711: How the Irish Turned Right (Or Have They?) are recommended for first-generation college students. Both seminars are taught by professors who were first-generation students themselves.

Why did you decide to attend college? To broaden your intellectual horizons and become a more open-minded person? To gain specialized knowledge? To achieve a more successful and financially rewarding career? To make new friends? To become an engaged participant in a democratic society? To satisfy your parents’ plans for your future? Or perhaps some combination of these reasons that you are still figuring out? This seminar examines historical and contemporary discussions about the personal and social goals of higher education and studies issues that have the potential to profoundly transform the college experience in coming years. It also prompts students to be more reflective and purposeful about their own academic choices at NYU. We ask: What is the optimal balance between a “liberal arts” education, usually provided by a core curriculum, and the pursuit of specialized study within a major? How can professors and students cultivate deep learning instead of rote memorization? How is technology impacting education, and what further changes may occur in the future? Recommended for first-generation college students.

TRACE JORDAN is Clinical Professor and Associate Director of the College Core Curriculum. His research interests and publications include the role of science education in a liberal arts curriculum, the use of computer simulations for teaching and learning chemistry, and the impact of interest and motivation on educational engagement and achievement. Professor Jordan is a two-time winner of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

FYSEM-UA 699
When Science Gets It Wrong: Retractions and the “Replication Crisis”
Spring 2019
Instructor: Ivan Oransky       
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

Fraud. Cutting corners. “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” Could this possibly be describing science today? We look to science to answer the big questions. And when it’s done right, it gets us closer to the answers. But lately, cracks in the scientific edifice have appeared. Retractions of scientific papers―the “nuclear option” of correction―are breaking records every year, and researchers in a number of fields are realizing that many of their highest-profile findings do not hold up. Some even refer to a “reproducibility crisis,” while others are concerned that such language erodes the public trust, particularly among those who may use science’s weaknesses to promote their own agendas. Starting with the writings of Kuhn and Merton, we will explore how scientists see themselves, and grapple with how the incentives and structures that govern scientific research have led us to where we are. This is not a science course, and should not intimidate students who are not studying science. This is a seminar about how science is done, and will offer a view into solutions that some researchers hope will make science even more robust.

IVAN ORANSKY is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU’s Arthur Carter Journalism Institute. He is co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that reports on scientific integrity, fraud, and other issues, and which has been funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Helmsley Charitable Trust. He previously was global editorial director of MedPage Today, executive editor of Reuters Health, and held editorial positions at Scientific American and the Scientist. He is the recipient of the 2015 John P. McGovern Medal for excellence in biomedical communication from the American Medical Writers Association, and in 2017 was awarded an honorary doctorate in civil laws from The University of the South (Sewanee). He holds an appointment at the NYU School of Medicine as a clinical assistant professor of medicine and has written for publications from Nature to the New York Times. As of September 2017, he serves as president of the Association of Health Care Journalists.

FYSEM-UA 715
Who Speaks for God? Prophecy and Kingship in Antiquity
Spring 2019
Instructor: Julie Deluty         
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.) and General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

The human process of communication lies at the core of ancient Near Eastern, biblical, and classical prophecy. From the construction of temples to the promise of military or diplomatic success, the utterance of the prophet and prophetess lends legitimacy to the king because they speak on behalf of a deity. When do gods speak directly to humans via prophets, and when is a third-party human intermediary necessary to mediate between that prophet and the ruler? We probe the limits of political authority in Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, and Ancient Greece with a particular focus on the role of prophets and diviners in society. Through critical analysis of ancient texts from Mari (modern-day Syria), ancient Israel and Judah, Delphi, and Claros, we investigate the system of mediation among prophets, intermediaries, and kings to undertake an interdisciplinary study of ancient prophecy. Such communication among these three groups facilitates the transmission of the words of a deity to legitimize political governance and regulate human experience.

JULIE DELUTY is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She received her PhD in Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East from the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU. Her research explores the networks of communication among prophets, intermediaries, and kings in 2nd millennium BCE Mesopotamia and in the Bible. She has served on the faculty of Marymount Manhattan College and the Jewish Theological Seminary’s undergraduate joint program with Columbia University. She is interested in Israelite religion, the social and political history of the ancient world, and prophecy and divination.

FYSEM-UA 721
Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Islamic World
Spring 2019
Instructor: Tara Stephan      
Tuesday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45 p.m.) and General Chemistry I/II Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.–1:45 p.m.).

Discussions about women’s rights in the Middle East and in Islamic communities in the West have become increasingly prevalent, revolving around hot-button issues such as veiling. However, many modern politicians and writers have little understanding of how issues surrounding gender and sexuality in Islam have developed and changed, including the plurality of ideas and opinions in different times and places. We examine the status of women and issues of gender and sexuality in the Islamic world from the emergence of the religion in the 7th century until today. Topics include the discussion of women in the Quran; the various roles of women in early Islamic, medieval, and modern societies; how Islamic law conceptualizes gender (including eunuchs and intersex individuals); and issues of masculinity and homosexuality. We contend with several overarching questions: What were the roles of women in different societies and cultures? What do religious texts say about women and gender, and how have Muslim scholars interpreted these texts over time and place? How did premodern texts conceptualize gender and sexuality? And do those interpretations reflect modern rather than historical notions?

TARA STEPHAN is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her PhD in the joint program in History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU. Her research analyzes representations of women in the Mamluk Sultanate by considering the intersection of gender and class in medieval Islamic texts.

FYSEM-UA 514
Xenophon of Athens—Cavalry Commander and Socratic Philosopher
Fall 2018
Instructor: Vincent Renzi       
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The greatest ancient you’ve never heard of, Xenophon of Athens (c. 425–355 B.C.E.) was a brilliant general, student of Socrates, and renowned author. His heroism leading the army of the Ten Thousand inspired the conquests of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. His political philosophy informed the thought of Cicero, Machiavelli, Franklin, and Jefferson. When knowledge of Greek was still required for admission to college, his fame was ubiquitous, as his writings formed the basis of the pre-college curriculum. Readings, in English translation: Apology of Socrates, Symposium, Memorabilia, Cyropaedia, Cavalry Commander, Anabasis, and the film based on the latter, The Warriors (1979).

VINCENT RENZI is Clinical Professor in the Foundations of Contemporary Culture (FCC) and of Classics, and is also Director of the FCC in the College Core Curriculum. A scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, he also has interests in arts and aesthetics and in 19th and 20th century philosophy. He is a recipient of the College's Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence.

FYSEM-UA 598
After the End: Post-Apocalypse Novels in the 20th Century
Fall 2017
Instructor: David L. Hoover        
Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Advanced General Chemistry I Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

Many authors have speculated about what would happen if (most) humans were destroyed. Authors have removed humans by natural disasters like floods, fires, earthquakes, and mysterious poisonous clouds or rays. They have imagined alien invasions, plagues, epidemics, agricultural collapses, and reproductive failure. More recently, humans themselves have become popular as causes of apocalypses because global thermonuclear war, lethal pollution, disastrous over-population, genetic engineering, and climate change have become realistic possible scenarios for the collapse of our species. This seminar will examine a variety of apocalypses from the 20th century with special attention to ones that have implications for the nature of humanity and human society. Most of the novels we will read treat an apocalypse as a kind of thought-experiment: what would happen if . . . ? Some focus more on the collapse of human institutions, culture, morality, and religion, others on the challenges the survivors face, and still others focus on the potential for the re-creation of human society or the creation of an alternative kind of society.

DAVID L. HOOVER is Professor of English at New York University, where he has taught for thirty-five years in the areas of digital humanities, science fiction, Chaucer, history of the English language, and linguistic stylistics. His most recent publications include Digital Literary Studies: Corpus Approaches to Poetry, Prose, and Drama, with Jonathan Culpeper and Kieran O’Halloran; “Modes of Composition in Henry James: Dictation, Style, and What Maisie Knew,” in the Henry James Review; and “Text Analysis,” in Ken Price and Ray Siemens (eds.), Literary Studies in the Digital Age: An Evolving Anthology (the first digital-only publication of the MLA). The breadth of his interests are shown in his earlier books: Stylistics: Prospect & Retrospect (as editor), Language and Style in The Inheritors, and A New Theory of Old English Meter. He is currently writing a book on how modes of composition (handwriting, dictation, typing, word-processing) affect authorial style.

FYSEM-UA 649
America in the World: Benevolent Giant or Just Another Superpower?
Spring 2018
Instructor: James Traub       
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

From the moment of its birth, the United States has told a story about itself: that it was not simply a nation among nations but a beacon of democracy and individual freedom. As it became a world power at the end of the 19th century, the US began to deploy its wealth and force abroad to advance its national interests, as other great powers did—but also, or so it said and so its people deeply believed, to shape a more peaceful, democratic, and just world order. The United States continued to pursue that self-assigned mission through two world wars and the Cold War, and now in the face of terrorism. America is unlike any previous world power both in the beliefs on which it was founded and in its geographical situation, surrounded by oceans and far removed from the conflicts in which it intervenes. And yet it is also a hegemon—a dominant power—and shapes the world to its perceived interests, as all hegemons do. Over the last century, critics have never stopped accusing the US of hypocritically pursuing narrow interests in the name of global good. In electing a new president, American voters may finally have put that claim to rest by choosing someone who does not accept the nation's historic mission. This class will examine a series of critical points—war, colonialism, the founding of global institutions, interventions abroad—in order to understand the tension between America's idealistic global mission and the brute fact of its power and dominance.

JAMES TRAUB is a long-time journalist whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. He writes a column for www.foreignpolicy.com and teaches two classes in foreign policy at NYU Abu Dhabi. He has written half a dozen books, most recently a biography of John Quincy Adams. He is now writing a study of the rise and fall of liberalism.

FYSEM-UA 675
Ancient Economies: The Agricultural Foundation
Spring 2018
Instructor: Stephanie Rost   
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

In this seminar we will explore the organization of ancient economies from the perspective of agricultural systems and food production. Agriculture, and in particular the production of agricultural surplus, was the foundation of the economic organization of ancient societies, which constitutes the fundamental difference between ancient and modern economies. The 18th century group of French economists known as the Physiocrats considered agricultural production and labor the “wealth of the nation.” Moreover, the seasonality of agriculture production, as well as the exchange and consumption of agricultural goods, fundamentally shaped the organization of ancient economies. We will explore the different kinds of agricultural systems (crop and animal packages, agricultural practices, labor organization, etc.) ancient societies developed in different parts of the ancient world to sustain their lifestyle and perpetuate it into the future. We will look at how agricultural goods were distributed, exchanged, and consumed, and will compare a variety of cases to assess how different environmental settings, historical circumstances, and cultural notions shaped ancient economies. We will also discuss the contributions to past and current theoretical debates on ancient economies of such thinkers as François Quesnay, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, Karl Marx, Karl Polanyi, Max Weber, and David Graeber.

STEPHANIE ROST is Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. She earned her BA at the Free University of Berlin, her MA at Vienna University, and her PhD at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her research focuses on the investigation of early state economies with an emphasis on agricultural systems and political ecology. Her dissertation research was concerned with the technical and social aspects of water management of late third millennium BC southern Mesopotamia as a means to assess the degree of political centralization in early state societies. Her future research agenda is to reconstruct the historical geography of ancient southern Mesopotamia, in order to build a framework in which the rich data sets of economic documents from this period can be explored to their full potential. She was trained primarily as an archaeologist and anthropologist but has a strong background in ancient languages. She adopts the approach of historical archaeology in her research by combining archaeological and textual data.

FYSEM-UA 621
Animated Words: Workshop/Seminar in Contemporary Poetry and Performance
Spring 2018
Instructor: Mara Jebsen           
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

We tend to think of poetry and theatre as two very distinct genres;: one built for the page and one for the stage. However, a quick look at the work of Shakespeare, Homer, Brecht, Derek Walcott, Ntozake Shange, Sarah Ruhl, and many others suggest an intimate tie between poet and playwright. What’s more, beginning in the 1950s, poetry readings became an official practice in literary scenes. In this course students will be introduced to many contemporary poets (and some comics) whose live performances seem particularly singular and moving. Drawing on ideas from the fields of linguistics, African-American studies, and performance studies, students will be encouraged to consider 1) the persistence of oral traditions in our rapidly-changing, tech-driven culture, and 2) the politics of poems presented by the body and voice of the writer. They will also learn to close-read powerful oral and written texts, and to craft expressive poem-monologues of their own.

MARA JEBSEN is Senior Language Lecturer at NYU, where she specializes in teaching essay writing to Tisch students. A poet, performer, and essayist, Mara has written for the arts and literatures column of 3quarksdaily, and has poems featured in the American Poetry Review and Transition Magazine, Harvard's Afro-Diasporan journal. Her "Alphabet," a chapbook of poems mythologizing the letters of the English language, was published in Spring 2016. A New York Foundation for the Arts fellow, Mara is also a veteran of New York's performance poetry scene, and sometime member of PUP (Pop Up Poets). She holds an MFA in Poetry from New York University, and a BA in African and African American Studies from Duke University.

FYSEM-UA 688
Art and Science of Approximate Reasoning: Physics, Sustainable Energy, and the Future of Humanity
Spring 2018
Instructor: David Hogg     
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. 
Note: conflicts with General Chemistry II Recitations (Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

Because physics works over a vast range of scales, and because of simple requirements for the forms of physical laws, it is possible to make progress on important problems with extremely simple physical arguments. We learn and practice the methods of approximation, estimation, and dimensional analysis in the context of questions about energy, the environment, and sustainable solutions to the problems of humans on Earth. Themes include the following: What roles do wind and solar energy have in the future of humanity? What are the fundamental physical limits on the efficiencies of vehicles used for transportation? How can we make buildings and cities run as energy-efficiently as possible? How could we travel from the Earth to other solar systems? The techniques developed in this course are among the most important items in the toolbox of a research physicist, and also apply in most scientific and engineering domains. Understanding these techniques and concepts, however, is within the reach of anyone concerned about the future of our planet, and this seminar has no science or mathematics prerequisites.

DAVID W. HOGG is Professor of Physics at New York University. His main research interests are in observational cosmology, especially approaches that use galaxies (including our own Milky Way) to infer the physical properties of the universe. He also works on models of stellar spectroscopy and exoplanet measurement and discovery. In all areas, he is interested in developing the engineering systems that make these projects possible, for his group and for the astrophysics community as a whole. His research is or has been recently supported by New York University, NASA, the NSF, the Moore Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, the Humboldt Foundation, and the Simons Foundation. Professor Hogg is currently working towards several comprehensive projects in observational astrophysics, including the measurement and simultaneous analysis of every galaxy (above some mass) in the observable universe, every star (above some brightness) in our galaxy, or every image (above some quality) taken by any astronomical camera.

FYSEM-UA 677
Art, Politics, and the Crisis of Humanism in the 1960s
Fall 2017
Instructors: Stefanos Geroulanos and Ara H. Merjian
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and RCT Monday, 6:20–8:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.). 

The 1960s were a momentous decade in European politics, aesthetics, and culture at large. As former empires unraveled, as the Cold War intensified, and as the postwar welfare states established greater equality, stability, and economic growth than could have been imagined among the middle and working classes even a decade prior, social tensions rose rapidly and sharply. Art, philosophy, and political thought both responded and contributed to these seismic shifts. Our seminar will concern itself with this latter notion: how culture serves as a catalyst for change, rather than simply a mirror of ideological shifts or political history. We will focus on this most international of decades as it was experienced in western Europe (France, Italy, Britain, West Germany) in relation to the rest of the world (including the US, former English and French empires, and the other side of the Iron Curtain). Within these parameters, we will examine a range of topics focusing on the intersection of politics, intellectual thought, and aesthetic form: the "new Enlightenment" in philosophy; early anxieties about cybernetics and computerization; the crisis of Marxism and the emergence of the New Left; Antonio Gramsci's notion of a "passive revolution" and Pier Paolo Pasolini's arguments about "anthropological change"; Situationist theory and practice; civil rights, decolonialization, and the struggle for racial equality; the politics of happenings, aesthetic dematerialization, and "no art for war"; the international student movements as they culminated in the events of 1968; and the fraught legacies of humanism and humanist thought. Students will be required to attend one mandatory film screening every week in addition to the 2 1/2–hour class.

STEFANOS GEROULANOS is Associate Professor of History at New York University and has taught intellectual history and history of science at NYU since 2008. He is the author of An Atheism That is not Humanist Emerges in French Thought as well as of the forthcoming books Transparency in Postwar France and The Brittleness of the Body. He is the recipient of two awards from the American Council of Learned Societies.

ARA H. MERJIAN is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at New York University, where he is an affiliate of the Institute of Fine Arts and the Department of Art History, as well as Director of Undergraduate Studies. He is the author of Giorgio de Chirico and the Metaphysical City: Nietzsche, Paris, Modernism as well as of the forthcoming volume Against the Avant-garde: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Art and Politics, 1960-75, for which he received a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

FYSEM-UA 666
Battle of the Sexes: Love, Desire, and War on the Stage and Beyond
Spring 2018
Instructor: Olga Taxidou        
Thursday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Advanced General Chemistry II Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.).

The theme of love is possibly one of the oldest in world literature. This course examines the ways this theme has been manifested on the stage and in poetry, spanning the period from antiquity to today. From the classics onwards what we may today consider as primarily a private expression and activity transpires as deeply embedded in broader historical and political narratives. For example, we examine the constitutive relationships between private desire and public politics. The family unit and all its multiple manifestations acts as a microcosm that mirrors but also challenges dominant power structures. The relationships between the genders, between siblings, and between parents and children all provide a fertile ground that helps to shape our personal subjectivity, but also our civic identity. The seminar looks at the ways great plays and poems have approached the theme of love in both its private and public dimensions, and also examines the formal and aesthetic experiments that resulted from this engagement. Authors covered will include: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Gertrude Stein, Lillian Hellman, Caryl Churchill, and Tony Kushner.

OLGA TAXIDOU is Professor of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and since 2015 she has been a Visiting Professor in Hellenic Studies at NYU every spring semester. She works on the relationships between “the ancients and the moderns” and the ways this dialogue has helped shape modernity. She has written extensively on modernist theatre and on theories of tragedy. Her books include The Mask: A Periodical Performance by Edward Gordon Craig; Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning; and Modernism and Performance: Jarry to Brecht. She has co-edited Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents and Post-War Cinema and Modernity. She is Series Editor of Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernism, Drama and Performance. She also writes adaptations of Greek tragedies, some of which have been performed. She is a founding judge of the James Tait Black Drama award, and has served as Edinburgh University’s Festivals coordinator with the Edinburgh International Festival.

FYSEM-UA 634
#BlackLanguageMatters
Fall 2017
Instructor: Renée Blake         
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.

This course is about language, specifically the myriad of ways that many African Americans express their personal and community identities. The course focuses primarily on the language variety known as African American English, which often serves as a guise for deep-seated racial ideologies about African Americans and Black people more generally. In this course, students learn about the linguistic structure of African American English and theories about its origins.  We explore how language is used to convey social identity, particularly regarding race and ethnicity, and make meaning of one’s life. Issues addressed include language variation, language contact and change, in addition to social and linguistic discrimination. Finally, we consider African American English as the nexus of ideas on race, identity, sexuality, violence and equality in the United States and globally found in Cornel West’s Race Matters (1994) and the more recent #BlackLivesMatter movement. Students develop research projects on African American English regarding language production or perception.

RENÉE A. BLAKE is Associate Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Social & Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her research examines language contact, race, ethnicity, and class with a focus on African American English, Caribbean Creole English, and New York City English. Her work has been published in journals including Language in Society, Language and Education, Journal of English Linguistics, Language, Variation and Change, and English Today. She has served as a consultant to many programs and organizations including Disney and the Ford Foundation. She developed two web-based linguistic sites: “Word. The Online Journal on African American English” (africanamericanenglish.com) and “Voices of New York” (nyuvoicesofnewyork.com). Professor Blake is a recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award and a faculty member in the Presidential Honors Scholars Program.

FYSEM-UA 609
Children of Immigrants in Contemporary American Fiction
Spring 2018
Instructor: Jackie Reitzes      
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

In this seminar we read, discuss, reflect upon, and write about contemporary fictional narratives of first-generation Americans—children coming of age in the U.S. whose parents hail from somewhere else. These characters straddle a cultural divide between the homeland of their ancestors and the country of their youth. Imbued with the older generation’s hopes for a better life, they must also negotiate existing social and economic structures and, frequently, an anti-outsider climate that threatens to unravel the very fabric of the American Dream. We will write in multiple genres—creative, researched, expository argument, and personal response. And through novels, stories, and film adaptations, we’ll examine questions of language and identity—how the protagonists of these stories forge their own sense of self through the families, cultures, experiences, and desires that shape them.  ¬¬

JACKIE REITZES is a lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. Her short fiction has been published in Iron Horse Literary Review and The Madison Review. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in The Huffington Post, ESPN: The Magazine, and The Minneapolis Star-Tribune. She was a 2012 Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow, and she holds an MFA from Cornell University. She is currently at work on a short story collection.

FYSEM-UA 669
Colonial to Postcolonial Archives: Histories of Caribbean Collecting
Fall 2017
Instructor: Wendy Muñiz           
Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Principles of Biology I Lecture (Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Intro Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

General Washington reminds the hero in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton that people have no control over “who tells your story.” This is no news to Caribbean-born Alexander Hamilton, who grew up in a region where archives have had a fleeting history: pirates looted them; colonial administrations shipped the archives’ contents to Europe; corrupt governments erased records entirely. Because of these circumstances, it has been argued that Caribbean nations have no recorded history. Contrary to historical narratives that have denied the existence of the region’s archives, like Miranda’s Hamilton we will reimagine the ways in which from the 19th-century revolutionary period to the digital present Caribbean nations have assembled private and public archives and transformed them into a political tool to produce historical knowledge about their people. Through readings in theory, Caribbean historiography, literature, film, and visual art, we will consider important archival functions such as colonial governance, state coercion and corruption, and the forming of race and gender identities, and will also examine the role of art and technology. While discussing how and why societies build their archives, students will become familiar with current debates on cultural heritage and reflect on how theoretical frameworks function in cross-cultural contexts. Drawing on field trips to museums, libraries, and archives in New York City, students will also curate an archive of Caribbean records online and put together a final digital exhibition.

WENDY V. MUÑIZ is Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at both NYU’s Center for the Humanities and Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her research centers on unorthodox archival media in the Hispanic Caribbean, with a focus on the Dominican Republic. Also a writer and producer for films that explore cultural memory in the Americas, she is currently producing two documentaries that aim to preserve and disseminate endangered queer archives and contemporary curiosity cabinets in the region. Muñiz’s scholarly and filmmaking work has received grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the CUNY DSI Archives and Library, the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University, Programa Ibermedia, and FONPROCINE, among others. She received her PhD from Columbia University, where she was appointed Lead Teaching Fellow from 2015 to 2016 in recognition of her work with students, and is the recipient of the NYU Center for the Humanities Diversity Post-Doctoral Fellowship.

FYSEM-UA 671
Crime and Punishment in Western History
Fall 2017
Instructor: Peter Baldwin        
Monday, 3:30-6:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30-4:45 p.m.).

After defending against external enemies, punishing misdeeds at home is arguably the state’s primary function. How it did so has changed dramatically over the course of the West’s development. At first, it was the family’s duty to take vengeance on those who harmed its members. Even as feuds were beaten back by a slowly emerging state, individual citizens remained the ones who accused and prosecuted miscreants. Only gradually, with the development of law as the rules by which all citizens must abide, did the idea of crime emerge. And only by the early modern era did it fall to the state to enforce that law. Punishment, in turn, has also evolved. Death, mutilation, exile: those were the tools at the disposal of the early state. The modern prison emerged only when the authorities accumulated the resources to keep the incarcerated immobile and maintained. In our own day, the focus of punishment has shifted from the state’s external application of force to the internal restraints we are raised and educated to impose on ourselves. The dramatic fall in everyday violence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries raises the question of whether punishment is becoming obsolete. Topics to be covered include: feud and its end, the emergence of law, treason as the ultimate crime, murder and its decline, torture, the development of the prison, the death penalty, and thought crimes.

PETER BALDWIN is Global Distinguished Professor at NYU's Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, and received his BA from Yale and his PhD from Harvard. His main research focus has been the development of the modern state in its many aspects. He has published on the comparative history of the welfare state, on social policy more broadly, and on public health. Other interests have included Nazi Germany and historiography. His latest book is a trans-national legal history of copyright from 1710 to the present. He also has projects underway on privacy and honor, and is working on a more general history of the state.

FYSEM-UA 496
Cultural Nature of Language
Fall 2017
Instructor: Bambi Schieffelin         
Friday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Advanced General Chemistry I Recitation (Friday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and General Chemistry I Recitations (Friday, 8:00 a.m.-1:45 p.m.).

Whether it’s accents, pronouns, swearing, or spelling, how one uses language is never value-free. In this seminar we examine language-using as a social practice, and analyze how speakers and their language(s) are evaluated and regulated across a range of contexts and cultures. Starting with how children learn to talk, or don’t (e.g., feral children), we examine speech and silence across a range of societies. We look at popular attitudes toward language and the practices by which people regulate its use in the media (e.g., political correctness), in legal and educational institutions (e.g., “English Only”), and in multilingual cities (e.g., Barcelona, Montreal) in order to understand how ideas about language are often recruited to non-linguistic concerns, such as who should be included and who excluded. In thinking about the cultural nature of language in this way, we critically explore issues of identity and authority.

BAMBI SCHIEFFELIN is Collegiate Professor and Professor of Anthropology. A linguistic anthropologist, she is the author of The Give and Take of Everyday Life: Language Socialization of Kaluli Children and co-editor of, among other books, The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives; Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory; and Consequences of Contact. She has also published articles in the preeminent journals of her field. She is completing a book on the impact of Christianity on the language and social life of Bosavi people of Papua New Guinea over the past twenty-five years, and continues research on linguistic creativity and change as evidenced in computer-mediated communication such as IM. Professor Schieffelin received the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence in 2010.

FYSEM-UA 629
Death in Rome
Fall 2017
Instructor: Michael Peachin          
Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

Death was an ever-present fact of life for an ancient Roman. A list of some of the topics covered by this course will immediately provide a sense of that. Extremely high infant mortality. The exposure (throwing away, quite literally) of newborn babies. Widespread diseases and epidemics. Death at the hands of your doctor—in most cases. Astonishingly violent, and deadly, entertainments. Spartacus, and his roughly 6,000 followers, crucified for miles along the Appian Way. Individuals constantly falling prey to bandits, or pirates—and simply disappearing from the face of the earth. Roads just beyond city gates lined with tombs—where you might read about the departed, or have a banquet with your dead relatives. And much more. Given, then, that a Roman was constantly confronted by numerous forms of death and dying, how did (s)he come to terms with this aspect of his or her life? What did death mean for the typical resident of that long-gone world? To understand the varied ramifications of the end of life is arguably to understand much about what transpires before the end. This course will attempt to grapple with this complex, as it played out in ancient Roman culture and society. Recommended for first-generation college students.

MICHAEL PEACHIN is Professor of Classics and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Classics at New York University. He works on the social, political, and legal history of the ancient Roman world, and has written about all these areas. In doing so, he has become particularly fascinated by the ways in which particular, and often, to modern taste, quite peculiar forms of thinking among the ancient Romans caused them to behave in thoroughly singular ways. He has come increasingly to see the need for (re)connecting Roman mentalities with Roman realities. This conviction informs much of his current teaching and research, which go hand-in-hand.

FYSEM-UA 623
Drawing Borders: Latino-American Literature and Representation
Spring 2018
Instructor: Osvaldo Oyola      
Thursday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Advanced General Chemistry II Lab (Thursday, 2:30-6:45 p.m.) and Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Throughout life we are asked to draw discrete boxes around categories of race, ethnicity and national-belonging—college applications, job applications, the census, and so on. For Latino-Americans it can be difficult to know which of the inflexible checkboxes regarding those categories of identity to tick off. The logistical designations of the US census (which has designated “Hispanics” as the fasting growing US population by birth) cannot account for the complexity of the American racial imaginary and the incongruities of self-identification, and lived experience. In Drawing Borders, we will examine literature and popular culture both about and by American Latinos (of different national heritages) to trace out the complex and varied ways Latino-American identity is understood, performed, written through, and historically situated. In particular, we will be looking at both graphic literature and memoir as sites that establish a matrix for that necessary visibility, and consider the role of notions of masculinity, youth subcultures (like punk and hip hop) and the representation of Latinos in mainstream media influencing those ideas.

OSVALDO OYOLA has been a full-time lecturer in the NYU Expository Writing Program since 2014, the same year he received his PhD from Binghamton University in English, focusing on contemporary transnational American literature and popular culture. He has written about Latina superheroes in Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez’s Love and Rockets comics for the Journal of Comics and Culture, Prince and queering the popular love song for Stone Canoe, and was a regular contributor to the peer-reviewed Sounding Out! blog, writing in-depth on a range of sound-related topics including race, masculinity, hip hop and authenticity.

FYSEM-UA 659
Egyptomania! Past and Present
Spring 2018
Instructor: Emily Cole       
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

From early explorers, Napoleon’s expedition, and curious tourists to the modern pop recreation by Katy Perry and the Assassin’s Creed videogame franchise, the land and cultures of Egypt have held a fascination for millennia. The backdrop of the Nile and its seemingly timeless monuments have provided a source of inspiration and mystery since the Greeks and Romans encountered Egyptian culture in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. But why do we remain so intrigued by this culture? What are the sources of this interest? And what can be learned about modern historical practice and prejudice from the phenomenon known as “Egyptomania”?

This seminar introduces students to issues that relate to how we interpret, write, and portray historical facts over time. We read original historical sources that range from the ancient Egypt of the pharaohs to the present day. Students consider how contemporary issues of cultural appropriation, media portrayal, and stereotype are reflected in the obsession that has surrounded Egyptian culture, from classical authors discussing the Egyptian queen Cleopatra to modern Egyptian scholars arguing for the repatriation of Egyptian objects. In short, we explore what “Egyptomania” means for our modern understanding of history and its place in society.

EMILY COLE is a Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. She earned her PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA with a focus in Egyptology. Her research focuses on the social use of language in ancient cultures. In her previous work, she showed how translation developed out of scribal practices of textual annotation in ancient Egypt. She also demonstrated that different languages were manipulated by elites during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods (3rd century BCE to 3rd century CE) to promote and retain their privileged position in society. In her current project, Professor Cole is investigating the visual display of multilingual texts. This research will serve to reconstruct how individuals and political bodies captured cultural affiliation in writing. Through this work, she further hopes to explore how text and image were juxtaposed in multilingual inscriptions in order to communicate with a diverse and largely illiterate audience. Since 2007, she has also participated in archaeological fieldwork in the Fayum region in Egypt, where she is co-director of a project at the Graeco-Roman site of Qarah el-Hamra.

FYSEM-UA 280
Emerson and Thoreau: The Life Fully Lived
Fall 2017
Instructor: Philip Kunhardt
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics I Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

This seminar takes students on a personal exploration of the lives and thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, two of the most inspiring figures in American history and letters. Emerson was intensely engaged with society, ever committed to close friendships and community. Thoreau in contrast was reclusive and austere, so alone in his beloved nature that he seemed to lack human warmth. Still, despite growing contentiousness between them, Thoreau considered Emerson his most important mentor, and the older sage considered Thoreau his closest friend. Emerson was at the center of the most searchingly brilliant, progressive, and creative community in 19th century America. His friends kept diaries, wrote letters to one another, explored alternative lifestyles, and served as public intellectuals. And they strove to live fully engaged lives—“to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours,” as Emerson once exclaimed. Thoreau preferred his life alone in the outdoors and yet he too sought the fully engaged life. In his masterpiece, Walden, he implored his readers to abandon lives of “quiet desperation” and to come alive in new ways—to dare to “suck all the marrow out of life.” This course, held in the bicentennial year of Thoreau’s birth, involves intensive reading, personal and expository writing, and active participation in transformative conversation.

PHILIP KUNHARDT is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Humanities, and teaches history and biography in the College of Arts and Science. He focuses on the lives of transformative figures and has co-authored five books, including Looking for Lincoln, The American President, and P.T. Barnum: America’s Greatest Showman. He was also the writer and co-producer of more than a dozen documentary films for PBS, ABC, HBO, Discovery, and others, including the ten-part PBS series The American President and the sixteen-part Freedom: A History of US. Before coming to NYU in 2010 he was a Bard Center Fellow at Bard College in Annandale, New York.

FYSEM-UA 665
Emotions: The Passions in Early European Literature
Fall 2017
Instructor: Evelyn (Timmie) Vitz        
Wednesday, 2:00-4:45 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.

This seminar focuses on such emotions as love, joy, anger, fear, sorrow, and awe as major “drivers” of narratives and other texts. We examine how the "passions" (as emotions were called) are represented in major works of medieval literature, including epic poetry, Arthurian legends, the Lais (short narrative poems, often on the topics of chivalry and love) of Marie de France, and others. Were the passions seen as spontaneous, or as culturally constructed? How were they treated differently in various literary genres? Did male and female writers handle them the same or differently? How did the passions vary by class, gender, and age? How did medieval people understand the passions and place them within such larger conceptual frameworks as the vices and virtues or the bodily humors? We will also look at some modern theories of the emotions and see how they apply (and don't) to medieval works.

EVELYN (TIMMIE) BIRGE VITZ is Professor of French and Affiliated Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Religious Studies, and Comparative Literature. She has won two New York University Golden Dozen Awards for Excellence in Teaching. Professor Vitz is currently studying the role and conceptualization of the emotions in the Middle Ages and is writing a book on the topic of awe in medieval French literature. She has published widely on many aspects of medieval literature, and co-directs three performance websites. Details of her work are available at: http://french.as.nyu.edu/object/EvelynBirgeVitz.html.

FYSEM-UA 519
Encountering Martin Luther King, Jr.
Spring 2018
Instructor: Philip Kunhardt       
Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Physics II Lecture (Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.).

Few historical figures are more revered or transcendent than Martin Luther King, Jr. But as David Levering Lewis wrote almost forty years ago, America’s canonization of King has draped him in such a cloak of mythology that “in a sense we have sought to remember him by forgetting him.” This course will seek to vividly remember the human being at the center of the most significant popular movement in US history, one that took up the unfinished legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction 80 years after the nation turned its back on social and racial justice. Students will explore King’s thought, oratory, character, and public actions at a depth that will make him unforgettable to them. We will consider his tenaciously held philosophy of nonviolent social change, and his growth from a southern Baptist minister to a leading civil rights activist and then to a visionary leader of global human rights and peace. We will ask: how can we understand him in the context of his times, amidst fellow activists, adversaries, elected leaders, and critics during one of the most volatile, freedom-advancing periods of American history? We will pay close attention to King’s final three years, a period in which he became increasingly marginalized, losing support among white liberals as well as black radicals, but in the face of war and racism still held firmly to his deeply-held non-violent philosophy. Using film and little-known interviews, as well a challenging immersion in some of the most significant King literature, the course—coming in the 50th anniversary year of King’s assassination—will make King and his times newly relevant to our own changed but still violence-prone and haunted world.

PHILIP KUNHARDT is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Humanities, and teaches history and biography in the College of Arts and Science. He focuses on the lives of transformative figures and has co-authored five books, including Looking for Lincoln, The American President, and P.T. Barnum: America’s Greatest Showman. He was also the writer and co-producer of more than a dozen documentary films for PBS, ABC, HBO, Discovery, and others, including the ten-part PBS series The American President and the sixteen-part Freedom: A History of US. Before coming to NYU in 2010 he was a Bard Center Fellow at Bard College in Annandale, New York.

FYSEM-UA 670
Encountering New York: Memoirs of Place
Spring 2018
Instructor: Christopher Wall        
Monday, 12:30-3:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.

In “Washington Square, 1946,” Cynthia Ozick recounts the most embarrassing of freshman mistakes: how she arrived at New York University for classes the day before they started. She walked around, unaware of the rich history of the neighborhood and the artists working nearby, having faith that her education and her experience in the city would eventually “awaken” her. In this class we will immerse ourselves in writings about New York and will come to know the city through the eyes of the people who have come before us. Readings will cover major authors who have written about the city but will also include pieces by lesser-known writers, like the journalist Wong Chin Foo, who can help us glimpse what it was like to be a Chinese journalist in the city in 1885. This will serve as a jumping off point for students to write a series of urban mini-memoirs as a way to explore their writerly voices, their experiences of the city, and the voices and experiences of those who came before them.

CHRISTOPHER WALL, a playwright and non-fiction writer, is Senior Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. He has an MFA in playwriting from NYU and a BA from Dartmouth College, and was a fellow in non-fiction at the Norman Mailer Center. His essays have appeared in Longform, the LA Review of Books, The Missouri Review, Poets & Writers, and other publications. His play Dreams of the Washer King was performed Off Broadway, and his songs, co-written with Howard Fishman, have been performed at Joe’s Pub and SubCulture in New York.

FYSEM-UA 630
Epics 4.1: The Odyssey, the Aeneid, Paradise Lost, Moby Dick
Spring 2018
Instructor: Ernest Gilman           
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.).

The question of what it means to be human is the fundamental concern of all works of literature. Lyric poetry focuses closely on the interior life of the individual, as a kind of snapshot or psychological x-ray—the poetic example of a selfie. Drama opens up the wider social and familial perspective on individual identity by exploring the relationships among an ensemble of actors in a theater, asking what it means both to act and to “act.” The epic, by contrast, sets the human protagonist on a global stage, in its very amplitude opening a wide expanse of time and place and history. Its fundamental question:  what does it mean to be a human in the world? This seminar will examine the epic, with a careful study of Homer’s Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Melville’s Moby Dick, supplemented by briefer related readings; as time permits, Paradise Lost will be accompanied by selections from Milton’s other poetry, and Moby Dick by Melville’s Benito Cereno and/or “Bartleby.”

ERNEST B. GILMAN, Professor of English, has taught at Columbia, the University of Virginia, and now–for the last thirty-five years–at NYU. His main field of interest is the English Renaissance. He has published a number of books and articles on such topics as poetry and the visual arts, literature and disease, artistic patronage, Shakespeare and Milton.

FYSEM-UA 648
Exploration: New Worlds
Spring 2018
Instructor: Susanah Shaw Romney       
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30-10:45 a.m.). 

For millennia, peoples and cultures here on earth lived in a series of separate worlds, isolated by the oceans and landscapes that divided them. Then, in the fifteenth century, that isolation was forever shattered as new maritime empires violently brought everyone into contact with one another. As people explored this new shared world they repeatedly had to decide, “Who is human?” We will examine the maps, letters, journals, pamphlets, and fiction that spread the knowledge of these cultural encounters in order to illuminate how people understood themselves. We also will consider how our own, continuing search for new worlds still raises this question today.

SUSANAH SHAW ROMNEY is Assistant Professor of History at NYU. Her teaching and research interests focus on global contact and colonization between 1400 and 1800. She is particularly interested in the role of race and gender in the building of empires. She is the author of New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America. She received her PhD from Cornell University and her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

FYSEM-UA 539
Facing Fascism: The Spanish Civil War and U.S. Culture
Fall 2017
Instructor: James D. Fernández     
Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Intro Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

Prerequisite: 4 or 5 in AP Spanish, or a 4 or 5 in any AP history exam, or a 700 or higher in the SAT subject exam in Spanish (international equivalents accepted).  

The Great Depression. Liberal democracy in crisis. On the rise: a spectrum of ideologies ranging from anarchism to fascism, promising solutions to the afflictions of people all over the planet. July 1936: a right-wing military coup attempts to overthrow a democratically elected left-wing coalition government in Spain, and war begins. This course explores the place occupied by Spain and the Spanish Civil War in American culture from the 1930s forward; how journalists, writers, artists, and citizens reacted to the war; and how the legacy of the war has affected U.S. culture over the last seventy years. It also introduces students to research methods in history and culture, as they carry out a major archival research project based on unique sources in NYU's Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA), a vast collection of materials that chronicles the lives of the 2,800 Americans who, between 1936 and 1939, volunteered to fight fascism in Spain.

JAMES D. FERNÁNDEZ is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. His research interests include the literature, history, and culture of modern Spain; autobiography; cultural relations between Spain and Latin America; and visions of Spain in the United States. He served as the Director of NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center from 1995 to 2007 and as Chairperson of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese from 2003 to 2007. He is the Vice-Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. He is the author of Apology to Apostrophe: Autobiography and the Rhetoric of Self-Representation in Spain and co-editor of the essay collection Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War.

FYSEM-UA 619
Fact and Fiction since the Famine: The Stories and History of the Irish in America
Fall 2017
Instructor: Linda Dowling Almeida       
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Note: conflicts with Intro Experimental Physics I Lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.).

This course will examine what the stories of a people can tell us of their past and their influence on the present. We will take an interdisciplinary look at the history of the Irish who settled in American cities in the mid-nineteenth century and explore how this immigrant group established foundation communities that became the model for the immigrant groups who followed them to America. Using their own words through novels, film, memoir, and oral histories to complement the historical record we will investigate who the Irish are and the impact they have had on the urban landscape and American culture.

LINDA DOWLING ALMEIDA, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Irish Studies at NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House, teaches classes in the history and literature of Irish America. Her book Iri