All entering Middlebury students take a First-Year Seminar during their first semester on campus. These seminars are writing intensive courses, limited to 15 students each, and they are taught by regular, full-time faculty members who also serve as students' academic advisers for their first three semesters at Middlebury. Seminar topics, which change from year to year, are selected by the individual professor and generally reflect that faculty member's research interests or an area of expertise not directly addressed in departmental courses. These are not survey courses. Rather they are designed to prick students' intellectual curiosity in a particular subject, and to encourage them to pursue a focused interest in depth. Many of the seminars offer interdisciplinary perspectives; most include activities outside the classroom; all seminars help students develop their reading, thinking, writing, and speaking skills.
Wonnacott's Commons-based Seminars, Fall 2008
This year, eight first-year seminars are based in Wonnacott Commons. Animated discussions from the classroom can continue on in the dorm, bringing the academic and residential worlds together naturally and productively.
Here is the list of our Commons-based seminars and their professors:
FYSE 1144 Jane Austen & Film (Fall)
Why did a writer born over 200 years ago become a hot property in Hollywood? The explosion of film adaptations of Austen's novels has sent readers scurrying to Austen's six major works: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. We will study these novels and their film and video adaptations, while examining the differences between the language of film and the language of fiction, and while considering Austen's appeal to twenty-first century men and women. 3 hrs. sem. ART LIT EUR (M.E. Bertolini) mbertoli@middlebury.edu
FYSE 1211 Gödel, Escher, Bach (Fall)
About 100 years ago, mathematics took an introspective turn when its practitioners endeavored to organize human reasoning itself into a formal axiomatic system. The attempt ended in a kind of paradox when logician Kurt Gödel proved that all formalized logical systems would necessarily contain some unprovable truths. Reading Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach, we will discover the connections among the seemingly disparate fields of mathematics, visual arts, and music. Our journey will pass through the philosophical worlds of Lewis Carroll, Artificial Intelligence, non-Euclidean geometry, and Zen Buddhism, and crash head-on into questions about the nature of human consciousness and creativity. 3 hrs. sem. DED (D. Scharstein) schar@middlebury.edu
FYSE 1235 Livin' For the City: Representing Urban African America (Fall)
In this seminar we will examine how African American artists have represented urban life in the twentieth century. Our “test case” city will be Chicago; using key readings in history, sociology, and cultural theory as our background, we will consider how different Black Chicago artists’ portrayals of their city both reflect and help shape the actual urban environment they occupy. Texts may include Richard Wright’s Native Son; Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry; Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun; several collections of photographs of Black Chicago; the music of Curtis Mayfield, Lou Rawls, Common, and Lupe Fiasco; and the film Candyman. 3 hrs. sem. LIT NOR (W.Nash) nash@middlebury.edu
FYSE 1240 Children’s Literature and Society (Fall)
The moral of the story might be spelled out at the end of an Aesop’s Fable, but the messages behind many children’s stories are less obvious. In this seminar we will examine a wide range of mainly Western children’s literature from the late-18th century to the present for its social meanings. What are children being encouraged to do, think, feel, or believe about gender, race, politics, class, sexuality, religion, and other socially problematic categories? Readings will include picture books and early readers as well as middle grade and teen novels. 3 hrs. sem. LIT SOC (A. Losano) alosano@middlebury.edu
FYSE 1244 Geology of National Parks (Fall)
The collision of continents, the passage of glaciers, and time itself have sculpted our country, creating landscapes that have captivated humankind's attention for generations. This course will develop the sequence of events that have led to the formation of many such natural wonders found in our national parks. The course will proceed through lectures focused on basic geology and plate tectonic theory; textbook readings about specific parks; in-class and homework exercises that develop familiarity with important geologic materials and methods; and weekly video "excursions" to the parks. 3 hrs. sem. SCI (P. Manley) manley@middlebury.edu
FYSE 1245 Sounds: Tuning in to the Aural Ether (Fall)
In this seminar we seek to understand the world through sound (noise, speech, music, etc.) What kind of sounds do we encounter (and produce) every day? How is the urban space experienced through sound? Where is the origin of sound - on the side of production or of reception? What’s the sound of silence? What kind of power do soundtracks hold? Why are we emotionally attached to the songs we loved as teenagers? We will read and discuss introductory texts by neuroscientists, literary scholars, linguists, anthropologists, musicologists, and others; films (silent films and "talkies"); music. 3 hrs. sem. ART SOC (F. Feiereisen) ffeierei@middlebury.edu
FYSE 1250 Songwriting Workshop (Fall)
In this seminar we will examine the songwriter’s art through the analysis of great songs and the creation of original student work. We will cover many historical periods and styles, from traditional to experimental, from Hip Hop to Opera, from old to new, popular, folk, classical, and so on. Students must be willing to explore unfamiliar song styles and subject their work to critical evaluation from the instructor and class. Grading will be based on written historical/analytical papers, songwriting projects, and song production projects. Students should possess a basic guitar chord vocabulary, but do not have to be experienced songwriters to participate. 3 hrs. sem. ART (P. Hamlin) phamlin@middlebury.edu
FYSE 1251 Freedom (Fall)
We will begin this seminar by investigating whether there is such a thing as a “free will.” Next, we will examine questions pertaining to the relationship between freedom and moral judgments: for example, are people always less blameworthy when they have less choice to do as they do? Then, we will inquire into the role that freedom plays in personal relationships and in identity formation. We will end this seminar by analyzing freedom in political contexts. Readings will be drawn from contemporary critical analysis of these issues and some fictional works (e.g. Vonnegut and Camus). 3 hrs. sem. PHL (S. Viner) sviner@middlebury.edu