Fall 2012
FRESHMAN SEMINAR PROGRAM
UNCG College of Arts and Sciences
Marker Abbreviations:
WI: Writing Intensive
SI: Speaking Intensive
GL: Global Perspectives
GN: Global Non-Western
Perspectives
These seminars are open only to students who will be freshmen in the Fall 2012 semester. For the most current information including location of
the class, see UNCGenie on the web: www.uncg.edu. (TBA means To Be Announced) We encourage students not to sign up for a seminar
without first reading the course description and not to sign up for more than one seminar. You may not receive credit for more than one
seminar under the same course number, even if the contents of the seminar are different . Talk with your advisor about registering for a
seminar. A more in depth description of the class is available on the web at http://www.uncg.edu/aas/fms .
REASONING AND DISCOURSE I
Also carries credit equivalent to ENG 101. You may not receive credit for both FMS 115 and ENG 101.
GEC category: GRD
Course
Days/Time/Place
Course Title/Description
Instructor
FMS
115-01
M, W, F
10:00-10:50 a.m.
TBA
Greg
Brown
FMS
115-02
M, W, F
12:00-12:50 p.m.
What Writing Is: An Introduction to Argument & Invention. This course is designed to prepare you for
writing and thinking at the university level. We focus on developing your understanding of issues of rhetoric
and rhetorical analysis. We examine and interpret various kinds of writing and use the strategies and
approaches in these texts to construct our own arguments and essays. We will consider aspects of academic
and non-academic writing, including issues of style, genre, form and argumentation. Much of our class is
devoted to the practical matter of improving your writing by applying to it the techniques of drafting, peer
review and revision.
See FMS 115-01 for course description.
REASONING AND DISCOURSE II
Also carries credit equivalent to ENG 102. You may not receive credit for both FMS 116 and ENG 102.
Course
FMS
116-01
SI
GEC category: GRD
Days/Time/Place
Course Title/Description
Instructor
T,R
11:00-12:15 p.m
TBA.
Drama, Scandal, and Rhetoric in American Life. Be the star lawyer or key witness in a gripping court
battle; use cunning arguments to win the minds of a jury of your peers. Fill the shoes of a community leader
who makes decisions that affect thousands; further your own political agenda while protecting your
scandalous secrets. In this course, we will use large-scale role-playing activities to explore the ethical
challenges that face modern democratic societies. The course will begin with philosophical readings and
discussion of concepts in moral and political theory, apply those concepts in a series of role-playing mock
legal trials where your character will try to persuade a jury, and conclude with a three-week-long role-playing
game where you will fight for your character’s agenda and try to uncover the secrets of your rivals.
Chris
Metivier
Days/Time/Place
Course Title/Description
Instructor
Vanishing Points. This course applies Jean Baudrillard’s “aesthetics of disappearance” to assess the features
of music, image, literature, and film that depict the theme of the Road: its freedom of movement, its dangers
of disorientation, and its threat of strangers. The course examines the speed of media through televised
images, film projections across empty space, and the succession of signs that advertise the consumerist
ideology infiltrating our subconscious
A Tarheel Born and a Tarheel Read. How does North Carolina look through the eyes of its local
contemporary novelists? How do writers build a convincing sense of place in the worlds they build with their
words? In this course, we will read from the mountains to the beach, sampling work from Fred Chappell,
Clyde Edgerton, Kaye Gibbons, Jill McCorkle, Michael Parker and Ron Rash. During our tour, we’ll consider
what it means to be a North Carolina novelist and how language, place, and truth interact.
Nancy Bucknall has lived, worked, and read in North Carolina for 25 years, which makes her a naturalized
Tarheel. She enjoys North Carolina’s mountains and its beaches, and longs to visit the Great Dismal Swamp,
to see if it’s really all that dismal.
Re-imagining Shakespeare’s Women. Shakespeare created some of the most memorable female characters in
literature. Yet other writers of the Renaissance and beyond offer differing portrayals of Shakespeare’s female
characters. This writing-intensive freshman seminar focuses on four of the Bard’s most popular female
characters as found in Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, and Othello. Reading
Shakespeare alongside Renaissance and some of our own contemporary texts, we will trace how writers,
especially women writers, respond to Shakespeare’s women. Ultimately, the course poses two main questions,
“How does Shakespeare represent female characters and gender relations?” and “How can other writers’
responses to his work enlarge our understanding of representing gender then and now?”
Re-imagining Shakespeare’s Women.
See FMS 120-03 for course description.
Todd
Atchison
Reading Daniel Boone. Who was Daniel Boone: Patriot or Tory? Indian killer or Indian lover? Solitary
wanderer or family man? And what was it really like to live in the North Carolina and Kentucky
backcountries, 250 years ago? This class considers these questions by asking what fiction can possibly teach
us about history. We will read a biography of Daniel Boone and historical documents; we also will consider
poem, novels, TV, and films such as The Last of the Mohicans. Students may write about historical
documents or on one historical novel of their own choosing.
Hope
Hodgkins
LITERATURE
Course
Greg
Brown
GEC category: GLT
FMS
120-01
WI
T, R
12:30-1:45 p.m.
TBA
FMS
120-02
WI
M, W
2:00-3:15 p.m.
TBA
FMS
120-03
WI
T, R
9:30-10:45 a.m.
FMS
120-04
WI
T, R
11:00-12:15 p.m.
FMS
120-05
WI
T, R
9:30-10:45 a.m.
TBA
Nancy
Bucknall
Lauren
Shook
Lauren
Shook
FINE ARTS
Course
GEC category: GFA
Days/Time/Place
Course Title/Description
Instructor
Modern American Art through Controversy. The history of modern American art has been shaped by
themes and issues that have reappeared over the course of the 20th century, frequently becoming highly
publicized controversies. The rapid sequence of styles and movements (Realism to Abstract Expressionism to
Pop Art to “art off the easel”) are woven together by an aesthetic of independence and individualism.
American artists of the 20th century simultaneously embraced and challenged standards of public taste. This
course will examine many of the controversies that shaped modern American art, including the role of art
critics, outsider art, public funding, and the role of museums.
After the Fall: American Drama in Response to September 11, 2001 In this course we will read, analyze,
and discuss eight plays that respond to (or, in one case predict) the attacks of September 11th. Theatre is a
mirror held up to life and these plays look at how our lives have been irrevocably changed since that morning.
Class activities will include play and character analysis, reading from the scripts, and seeing local and UNCG
theatre performances
History and Art of Animation. Animation is an art form that brings fanciful imaginings to vivid realization.
As a popular form of entertainment for children and adults, animation captivates our imagination and
influences our way of perceiving the world. In this class we will look at the historical progression of
animation techniques, the social characterizations presented in popular cartoons, and the artistic brilliance of
animators from around the world.
Jennifer
Reich
FMS
130-01
WI
T,R
3:30-4:45 p.m.
FMS
130-02
WI
M, W, F
10:00-10:50 a.m.
TBA
FMS
131-01
WI
T,R
11:00-12:15 p.m.
TBA
PHILOSOPHICAL, RELIGIOUS, AND ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
Course
FMS
142-01
WI
FMS
151-01
WI
GEC category: GPR
Course Title/Description
Instructor
MWF
10:00-10:50 a.m
Telling Her Story: Women, Autobiography and Islam. Muslim women today are recording their lives in
unprecedented numbers. The memoirs that have emerged are often controversial, sometimes irreverent, rarely
boring. This class will examine several contemporary autobiographical accounts by women living in Iran,
Egypt and Morocco with the goal of answering the following questions: How do these women portray
themselves and their worlds? What role does Islam play in their lives and how did it help to shape the
historical circumstances in which they find themselves? How do these narrations contradict or otherwise
challenge popular stereotypes about the “oppressed” Muslim woman? Finally, can we speak of an Islamic for
of autobiography? A variety of genres will be explored, including film, the graphic novel, poetry, and
memoir. Assignments will include book reviews, oral presentations, weekly response papers, and a final
research paper.
Alyssa
Gabbay
GEC/CAR category: GHP/GPM
Days/Time/Place
Course Title/Description
Instructor
T,R
9:30-10:45 a.m.
TBA
The (Not-So) Dark Ages. The years between 500 and 1050 CE have a terrible reputation. Often called ‘the
Dark Ages,’ this time frame is described as the low point in European civilization, when barbarism, warfare,
raping, pillaging, illiteracy, and superstition ran rampant. But was it really that bad? In this course, we’ll
look at early medieval society in detail – were Vikings really men in horned hats? Did kings really murder
their relatives? Did people really worship bones? - to decide if the ‘Dark Ages’ were really all that dark.
Caitlin
Saraphis
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES: Modern
Course
Eleanor
Cowen
Days/Time/Place
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES: Pre-Modern
Course
Jeff
West
GEC/CAR category: GHP/GMO
Days/Time/Place
Course Title/Description
Instructor
FMS
160-01
WI
canceled
History and Identity in American Popular Music. American popular music continues to evolve everyday as new styles
emerge and others disappear. And yet as they disappear they leave an indelible mark on American history, culture, and
identity. This class investigates the interaction of American popular music with American history and both personal and
community identity development. Throughout the semester we will attempt to answer a series of historical questions as we
read about and listen to American popular music. How do artists draw on the past to create vibrant new musical styles? How
do Americans’ visions of “authentic” musical roots reflect their ideas about race, class, and identity? In this course, we will
look at and listen to case studies in blues, rock, rap, jazz, folk, and country, and how these styles have helped shaped our
identities and our sense of history.
Kevin
Greene
FMS
160-02
FMS
160-03
WI
canceled
See FMS 160-01 for course description.
WI
MWF
10:00-10:50 a.m.
Mary Foust 128
"Been in the Storm So Long:” The Long Road of the American Civil Rights Movement. Pick up any high
school history book, and the story of 20th century America is always the same: a War, the Roaring Twenties,
the Great Depression, another war, then another war, this one of a different kind, affluence, and then, all of
the sudden, by the way, POOF! The Civil Rights movement comes out of nowhere. The real story is much
more deeply embedded in American History, with its roots at the very beginning. As with all history, the civil
rights movement did not up and occur one day, so we will look at each event in its larger historical context,
finding the roots of each.
This class is cross-listed with Ashby Residential College; 11 spaces are reserved for Residential College.
Kevin
Green
Christine
Flood
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL STUDIES
Course
GEC category: GSB
Days/Time/Place
Course Title/Description
Instructor
Fans, Athletes, and Sports in Modern Society. This course investigates the place of sport in society with a
special emphasis on identity. Social identities are clearly an important factor in how a person understandings
his or her sense of self and place in society—and identities formed in and around the issue of sport are
becoming increasingly important in late modern societies. As such we’ll be looking at how these identities are
achieved and disengaged for both athletes and fans. Central to this discussion will be issues of race, gender,
and sexual orientation.
War and Conflict. It has been estimated that there has been a war somewhere in the world 94% of the time
since the dawn of civilization. Why does mankind periodically organize himself for armed conflict and
warfare? This course will begin by asking these questions and try to answer them through an examination of
the United States’ involvement in war and conflict over the last hundred years.
Creating and Communicating the Self. How do you know who you are? How do others know who you
are? We'll be exploring the ways we create, interpret, and share our identities through discourse, nonverbal,
and mediated communication. Do we create ourselves as members of society or does society create us? Could
both be true? We will examine theoretical perspectives on human identity, focusing on communicative
processes.
Fans, Athletes, and Sports in Modern Society.
See FMS 170-01 for course description.
Steve
O’Boyle
FMS
170-01
WI
M,W,F
11:00-11:50 a.m.
TBA
FMS
170-02
WI
T, R
9:30-10:45 a.m.
TBA
FMS
170-03
WI
T,R
11:00-12:15 p.m.
TBA
FMS
170-04
WI
M,W,F
1:00-1:50 p.m.
A. Leigh
Sink
Jessica
Digh
Steve
O’Boyle