uhlenberg College
First-Year Seminars
Class of 2017
TABLE OF CONTENTS
First-Year Seminars at Muhlenberg…………………............................p. 3
2013-2014 First-Year Seminar Course Descriptions…..........................p. 4-17
(see below for individual course listings)
Registration Worksheet………………...………………………………p. 18
(bring to June advising)
2013-2014 First-Year Seminars
2013-2014 First-Year Seminars
Writing About Remix
p. 4
Cuisine as Culture: Allentown’s Hispanic Communities and
The Rise and Fall of the Modern Self
p. 4
Cuisines
p. 11
The Psychology of Choice
p. 4
Time Out of Mind
p. 12
Quentin Tarantino, Film Geek
p. 5
Power of the Pen and Rachel Carson
p. 12
Representing the Body in Art
p. 5
TMI (Too Much Information)
p. 12
Invasion of the Mute Swans
p. 5
Springsteen’s America
p. 13
Laughing to Death: Plays of Comedy & Menace
p. 6
Finding Your Muse: Creativity and Improvisation in
Thinking Like a Writer
p. 6
Performing Arts Groups
p. 13
Persuasion: The Methods and Ethics of Influence
p. 6
Insects and Humanity
p.13
Exploring Anarchy
p. 7
Reinventing Jane
p. 14
Human Rights/Human Wrongs
p. 7
Coffee: The Great Soberer
p. 14
Who Controls Your Digital World?
p.7
Imagined American Cities
p. 14
Musical Revolutions
p.7
Middle Earth Stories
p. 15
Representing the Age of Revolution
p. 8
Representing Italians: Family, Community and Ethnicity in
On Interwoven Lives: Linked Stories
p. 8
American Films
p. 15
Facts Are Dead. Please Send Flowers.
p. 8
Sustainability: Digging Deeper
p. 15
Fashioning Identity: Clothing and Culture
p. 9
2013-2014 Scholar Seminars
Race, Rasta, and Resistance
p. 9
Now I Am Become Death: Brains, the Bomb,
and the Bellicose
p. 9
Whodunit?
p. 9
Moving in the Movies
p. 10
Art, Experience, and the Irrational
p. 10
Representing Vietnam
p. 10
Brand New Plays
p. 11
Road Trip: American Literature & Film
p. 11
Other Bodies
p. 16
(Open only to Dana Scholars)
The Politics of Memory
p. 16
(Open only to Dana Scholars)
1968
p. 16
(Open only to RJ Fellows)
How to Think About Weird Things
p. 16
(Open only to Muhlenberg Scholars)
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First-Year Seminars at Muhlenberg
What are First-Year Seminars?
First-Year Seminars are small, discussion-oriented courses that introduce students to what it means
to think deeply, to talk, read and write critically about ideas. Required of all first-year students,
First-Year Seminars provide the opportunity to work closely with a faculty member and to read and
write about a topic in depth.
Taught by faculty from departments throughout the College, seminars vary in subject. Some
examine a topic from an interdisciplinary perspective; others focus on particular issues within a
discipline. What all First-Year Seminars share is an emphasis on writing and thinking critically
about the values and assumptions underlying various approaches to knowledge.
All First-Year Seminars are designated writing-intensive, and therefore, require frequent writing
and reading. Seminars teach students how to formulate a thesis and develop an argument or an
interpretation. In addition, students learn how to collect, evaluate and cite evidence that supports
and qualifies a thesis. With the help of professor’s comments on preliminary drafts, students also
learn how to revise their work.
What distinguishes First-Year Seminars from other
courses at Muhlenberg?
First-Year Seminars are limited in size to fifteen. This small size creates a community of inquiry
where participants share ideas. Often the professor serves as the academic advisor to the seminar
participants. This arrangement enhances the effectiveness of the advising process and helps ease the
transition to college life.
In addition, First-Year Seminars are assigned a Writing Assistant, a trained writing tutor who
assists first-year students with their writing, reading and critical thinking skills. Writing Assistants
(WAs) are highly motivated Muhlenberg students; all are skilled writers. They attend seminar
classes and arrange one-on-one and small group conferences with students. Because WAs and
professors work together closely, these peers provide first-year students with a writing specialist
who understands the course material and the expectations of the seminar.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 101: Writing About Remix
Dr. Francesca Coppa
Kelly-Rose McNeil ‘14, Writing Assistant
The artistic practices collected under the umbrella term of remix – rewrites, mashups, transformations, juxtapositions, edits,
collages, pastiches, and parodies – are both very old ways of making art and central to a vibrant and emerging digital culture.
In this course, we will survey a broad array of multimedia remix practices, including literary remixes, musical remixes, and
popular video remixes like fan vids, anime music videos, and political remix videos. We will write about these works in order
to theorize their aesthetics and articulate their (often complex and referential) layers of meaning. This class is writing-intensive
and will take place both in our Muhlenberg classroom and in a number of virtual spaces online.
FYS 105: The Rise and Fall of the Modern Self
Dr. Alec Marsh
John Bennett ‘15, Writing Assistant
Suppose the Self as we know it was invented, probably in the 17th century. If so, it flourished in the 18th through 20th centuries.
Now the “post-modern” age of neuroscience, the Self threatens to become an effect of “brain-chemistry.” Can concepts like the
individual, consciousness, the rational and irrational, will and desire; the so-called “three dimensional character” in fiction and
even “the soul” change and evolve over time? Let’s talk about it. In this course we will begin with Descartes’ Meditations a work
that lies near the heart of so-called “Western civilization” then we’ll explore the scandalous novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses—
(which we will read in English) and move towards the present via Whitman’s Song of Myself and the psychology of the
unconscious –Freud. We fetch up with a contemporary self, striving for realization in a world where ‘normality’ can be
prescribed by psychiatrists—the world of “neuroscience.”
.
FYS 112: The Psychology of Choice
Dr. Linda Bips
Katherine Roe ‘15, Writing Assistant
Making decisions is part of one’s every day experience but how does one choose a major, lunch, a new coat, or even a partner
for life? This course will examine decision making through many different lenses -biology, intuition, emotion, logic. Do we
make choices that conform to the norms of others or that are innovative and uncommon? Are we making decisions consciously
or unconsciously? Do the best decisions result from blending both feeling and reason and how do we know the ideal
contribution of each? We will also examine the impact of culture, media, the environment, and our personal history of
choices on our everyday decisions. Our primary text will be The Art of Choosing by Iyengar but we will also examine
decision making by reading other authors. We will look at how our choices construct our identity and impact our own
happiness. Ideally as a result of understanding choice, we will become better decision makers.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 113: Quentin Tarantino, Film Geek
Dr. Franz Birgel
Michael Wu ‘15, Writing Assistant
Quentin Tarantino, whose fast talking, super violent films helped to reinvigorate American cinema, was largely an autodidact
who learned his craft watching films while working in a video store. Like Tarantino, we will watch films closely and analyze
their themes and structures. This seminar will examine Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, the two-part Kill Bill,
Inglourious Basterds, and Django Unchained as well as some of the many disparate films that influenced him. Excerpts from
selected French New Wave and Asian films, The Killing, Coffy, The White Hell of Piz Palu, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, the
original Django as well as others will also be screened. Course readings will consist of secondary literature on Tarantino and
postmodern popular culture. Since this is a writing-intensive course, students will write short weekly essays as well as some
longer essays during the semester. The seminar will meet one evening per week from 6 to 10 p.m. with an additional hourlong meeting during the daytime. Films will be screened during the evening meetings.
Please note: These films contain scenes of very graphic violence and vulgar language. If you feel
uncomfortable watching these films, you should choose another seminar.
FYS 119: Representing the Body in Art
Dr. Pearl Rosenberg
Jen Freed ‘15, Writing Assistant
How do creative representations of the human body invite us to imagine our idealized selves, as well as reflect back to us
information about ourselves within social, political, and historical contexts? In this seminar we explore how the notion of the
human body has been conceptualized by the language of the arts. Through a variety of encounters with works of art by iconic
figurative artists (Michelangelo, Frida Kahlo, Egon Schiele to start), as well as more contemporary visions of the body (in
performance, photography, film, literary fiction, essays and memoir), we will explore themes of idealism, vanity, power and
various forms of distortions, projections, and scapegoating. This seminar is considered to be a writing-intensive class where
students will be asked to participate in critical reading, writing, and research activities in addition to having encounters with a
variety of art forms.
FYS 129: Invasion of the Mute Swans
Dr. Kimberly Heiman
Jadmin Mostel ‘16, Writing Assistant
Throughout history, humans have added and removed animals, plants, and other resources from ecosystems; modified the
physical characteristics of environments; and changed the flow of important nutrients through ecosystems. In this writing
intensive class we will explore the history and impacts, both good and bad, of human tinkering with the environment. We will
question the ethics of adding and removing animals and plants from ecosystems, why manipulating the environment is often
viewed as an economic or social necessity, and how to control the growing threats from human impacts. Part of our class time
will be spent outside on field trips observing human activities in the environment. We will read from 1491 by Charles C.
Mann, Sands County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, and Tinkering with Eden by Kim Todd to learn about our altered world. The
goal of this course is to use questions about human environmental impacts as a means of enhancing analytical reading and
writing skills.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 130: Laughing to Death: Plays of Comedy & Menace
Dr. David Rosenwasser
Brian Borosky ‘14, Writing Assistant
The premise of this seminar is that comedy is not the opposite of seriousness; it is a way of approaching subjects too serious to
be treated without comedy. The comic element is usually hard to control: it delights in transgression—in upsetting
expectations and in undermining the established order. In one of the most famous of modern plays, for example, we are asked
to laugh at the prospect of a son achieving heroism by killing his father. In another, a priest leaves a suicide note to compel
two brothers to start loving each other. The humor in these plays has a disturbing tendency to vanish suddenly, replaced by a
menace that not only afflicts the characters onstage but also threatens our conventional ways of thinking about art and life.
Along with a selection of ancient, modern and contemporary plays, we will sample a range of comic theory, from Hobbes,
Freud, Bakhtin, and others. Ultimately, this is a course about thinking and writing beyond comfortable clichés.
FYS 132: Thinking Like a Writer
Dr. Jill Stephen
Hannah Walborn ‘15, Writing Assistant
The aim of the seminar will be to turn you into a writer—not just a person who writes, but a person who reads, thinks, and
sees in the ways that writers do. The seminar’s guiding premise is that all of us, in a sense, write our lives--that writing is a
way not only of discovering but of inventing our “selves.” A related premise is that the thing we call “style” in writing is not
just cosmetic—a way to make our ideas look and sound good—but is directly related to who we are and how we typically
think. Together we will read, analyze, and experiment with writing a range of contemporary non-fiction forms. Over the
course of the semester, you will learn how to learn from other writers, especially how to use others’ writing to generate your
own ways of thinking on the page. The seminar is aimed at writers, which is to say people who tend to approach life through
writing, but it is really for anyone who would like to learn more about using writing as a means of becoming a more observant
and more resourceful thinker.
FYS 135: Persuasion, Manipulation, Deception
Dr. Tad Robinson
Christopher Chaky ‘15, Writing Assistant
How do other people try to influence our beliefs and our actions, and where is the line between persuasion, manipulation, and
outright deception? We are continually subject to the persuasive efforts of others who want us to think and act in conformity
with their wishes, e.g. to buy their product, to vote for their candidate, or merely to lend them the keys to the car. Similarly,
we are continually engaged in persuasive efforts of our own. In this seminar we will be concerned with persuasion as it occurs
both in interpersonal communication and through the mass media, and will consider persuasive techniques, whether such
techniques should be as persuasive as they are, and the extent to which such techniques may be manipulative or deceptive.
Exploring these questions will involve readings from a variety of disciplines including philosophy, psychology,
communications, and political science. This seminar is writing-intensive.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 140: Exploring Anarchy
Dr. Brian Mello
Tyler Schoen ‘15, Writing Assistant
This writing-intensive first-year seminar explores popular and philosophical interpretations of anarchy and anarchism.
Anarchy is, at its root, the absence of authority. For some, this means anarchy is tantamount to chaos, violence, immorality;
in the words of Thomas Hobbes, anarchy leads to a life that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” From AMC’s The
Walking Dead to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, to Hobbes’ Leviathan, we are repeatedly informed that mankind does not
function well in the absence of authority and order. This course seeks to challenge these beliefs by seriously engaging the
works of anarchist political thinkers. We will ask how the philosophical writings of anarchists cause us to challenge or rethink
some of the assumptions behind our popular, literary, and philosophical fears of anarchy. In addition, we will explore whether
and how anarchist thought can provide a critical lens for thinking about our contemporary world from wars and prisons to
education and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Students will engage in daily informal writing, which will be used to
generate three formal analytical essays over the course of the semester.
FYS 141: Human Rights/Human Wrongs
Dr. Jim Bloom
Samantha Tager ‘14, Writing Assistant
This seminar will focus on four novels published or set in 1941--Blood on the Forge by William Attaway and Darkness at Noon by
Arthur Koestler, both published in 1941, a watershed year in the struggle for human rights, and two 21st-century novels, set
largely in 1941, City of Thieves by David Benioff and The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Each novel raises questions about
fundamental human rights and some of history's greatest threats to human rights. We will also examine background materials
that provide the historical and philosophical contexts for these narratives. Such materials are likely to include: FDR's Four
Freedoms Speech; excerpts from Raphael Lemkin's Axis Rule, which introduced the concept "genocide" to international
jurisprudence and modern ethics; excerpts from Isaiah Berlin's "The Concept of Freedom"; J.S. Mill's On Liberty; and Hannah
Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism. While examining the moral and partisan arguments such reading should prompt, seminar
students will be required occasionally to step back from their own assumptions so as to consider analytically how the texts
studied construct their critiques, arguments, stances and to recognize the sources and contexts of the works studied.
FYS 142: Who Controls Your Digital World?
Prof. Tina Hertel
Kelly Toner ‘15, Writing Assistant
Digital technologies are closely integrated in how we learn, work, socialize and collaborate in an ever-connected digital
culture. Alongside these opportunities are challenges and realities in how these digital technologies intersect with our
everyday lives. This course examines the cultural impact of digital technologies, how an individual can actively and effectively
participate in these digital cultures, and what external forces, policies, and institutions may influence control over these digital
environments. This seminar will explore contemporary online behaviors and the challenges associated with them and will give
students exercises to mindfully observe, understand, reflect, and take control of these information technology practices.
FYS 143: Musical Revolutions
Dr. Ted Conner
Iana Robitaille ‘15, Writing Assistant
What makes Nietzsche think that “God is Dead”? How is Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro related to the French revolution? What’s
so earthshaking about Darwin’s Origin of the Species, and why did Marx write the Communist Manifesto? Revolutions in music,
politics, science and literature are often intertwined. We will read books and listen to music that shook the very foundations
of Western culture. Through class discussions and writing explorations, we will see what kinds of connections can be made
between these works and how they affect us today. Other possible texts for the seminar may include Freud’s On Dreams,
Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, Nietzsche’s The Gay Science and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 145: Representing the Age of Revolution
Dr. Thomas Cragin
Chelsea Lockwood ‘14, Writing Assistant
Between 1776 and 1848, America and Europe experienced a series of revolutions -- political and industrial -- that transformed
nations and societies. From A Tale of Two Cities to the recent film version of Les Miserables, the course will examine the ways
revolutions have been represented by historians, novelists, and film-makers. We will begin by familiarizing ourselves with the
events of the revolutions, investigating not only their causes, courses, and impacts, but also competing interpretations made
during and after those revolutions. We will then spend the bulk of the course exploring the representation of revolution in
novel and cinema.
FYS 146: On Interwoven Lives: Linked Stories
Prof. Dawn Lonsinger
Elizabeth Neary ‘14, Writing Assistant
Being neither novels nor classic short story collections, linked narratives are strange hybrids that define a world, delivering
disparate narrative pleasures—“the novel’s long immersion into a character’s world and the short story’s energetic (and
mortal) brevity.” We will consider how linked collections—such Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and Torres’s We the Animals-uniquely draw into focus the ways our layered lives are ruptured by and wedded to others’ narratives. Through a series of
critical essays and creative reflections, we will investigate how individual stories are linked by an incident, a place, or the
development of characters, and explore what this reveals about being simultaneously (subjectively) alone and in community,
essentially the protagonist of our own lives and a small part of events. The individual stories remind us how quickly everything
we are can be upended, while the collections reveal the protracted evolution of our lives. We will examine how stories work
with and against other stories in a book, collectively producing feeling and knowledge beyond the sum of parts, as well as how
large social narratives and individual stories complicate one another, paying particular attention to the necessary fire and
silences that rise up from the gaps between stories.
FYS 147: Facts Are Dead. Please Send Flowers.
Prof. Linda Miller
Francesca Aldrich ‘16, Writing Assistant
On April 20th, 2012, the Chicago Tribune declared, “Facts are Dead.” Facts, it seems, were born in 350 BC, when the
philosopher Aristotle declared that there were “universal principles based on shared assumptions.” As facts aged, they became
“empirical observations,” which somehow over time, transformed to “opinion.” More recently, Gary Alan Fine, a Sociology
Professor at Northwestern University said, “Facts aren’t Dead. If anything, there are too many of them out there. There has
been a population explosion.” In our age of Twitter, Facebook, Google and Wikipedia, facts have definitely exploded. This
seminar will investigate the many ways of seeing facts. We may read philosophers, such as Aristotle and Francis Bacon,
scholars such as Mary Poovey, Peter Berger, and Eric Hoffer and neuroscientists, such as Oliver Sacks or V.S. Ramachandran.
We will take a look at poems by Wallace Steven and Emily Dickinson, and novels by Don DeLillo and John Barth. If we have
time, we will even take a look at some current debates, such as global warming, where the facts and their interpretations are
disputed.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 150: Fashioning Identity: Clothing & Culture
Dr. Jessica Cooperman
Emma Gillam ‘14, Writing Assistant
This class will explore the many ways that dress and clothing reflect and help to shape cultures and identities. Clothing and
dress will serve as the critical lens through which we will consider the complex dynamics of social status, self-representation,
and consumer culture. We will examine issues of dress, style, costume, and fashion from a variety of historical and cultural
perspectives using a range of materials: fiction, non-fiction, paintings, photographs and advertising. As a first-year seminar,
this class is writing-intensive where we will explore issues through critical reading, writing, class discussion, as well as research
assignments.
FYS 153: Race, Rasta, and Resistance
Dr. Krista Bywater
Donald Adler ‘15, Writing Assistant
For many people, the Caribbean islands are tropical paradises and ideal tourist destinations. This course examines the myths
and realities of Caribbean life and history by investigating the legacy of slavery and the rise of Rastafarianism in the region. We
will consider the social implications of the Caribbean’s colonial past and its place in today’s globalized world by asking: how
have experiences of exploitation and perseverance influenced Caribbean culture? And, what forces shape religious, racial, and
national identities? As a writing-intensive seminar, the course requires students to complete in-class writing, take-home
response papers, and peer-reviews of others’ work.
FYS 154: Now I Am Become Death: Brains, the Bomb, and the Bellicose
Dr. Brett Fadem
Kathleen Rogers ‘14, Writing Assistant
The gathering of intellectual talent for the construction of the atom bomb was attended by many of the world’s most creative
scientists. The product of their labors, however, was the most destructive weapon yet assembled. This seminar will explore
the lives of these geniuses, the environment of the Manhattan Project, and the ethical issues that wove their way through the
daily existence of scientists both in the United States and Europe.
While some of the major players appeared to be deeply engaged with the ethical minefield that surrounded them, others
seemed oblivious, and a few went so far as to adopt an attitude of active disengagement. We will explore these issues both
from a modern perspective and that of the participants.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb provides an excellent history of the Manhattan Project and its scientists. American Prometheus
focuses on the life of the scientific leader of the effort to create the bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, while Uncertainty: The Life
and Science of Werner Heisenberg explores the decisions of Oppenheimer’s counterpart in Germany.
FYS 156: Whodunit?
Dr. Linda McGuire
Alex McKhann ‘14, Writing Assistant
What does it take to write a great mystery or crime story? Devotees of these genres often seek a particular experience: they
are drawn to stories about the disruption of the social order brought about by a criminal act, they enjoy the intellectual
challenge of solving the crime, they like to explore and resolve psychological tension, and they value knowing that the truth
will be revealed by the end of the tale. In this seminar we will read broadly in the mystery and crime genres in order to
explore and analyze how successful stories are logically constructed and what techniques writers use to effectively tell their
stories. Students will write their own mystery stories as part of the course requirements.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 157: Moving in the Movies
Prof. Corrie Cowart
Annie Williams ‘14, Writing Assistant
What do the feel-good song and dance moments in movie musicals tell us about American Culture? How do the popular dance
forms highlighted in these films reflect and challenge social trends of the twentieth century? These are some of the questions
this course seeks to explore, investigating how dance both perpetuates and challenges social and cultural issues of power, class,
gender, sexual orientation and age. We will view iconic classics such as West Side Story, Singin’ In the Rain and Flash Dance,
looking for the words to analytically describe the cultural and aesthetic significance of the dance and the dancers, assessing
their contribution to the overall film experience. Each week students will watch a film and read related articles. As a class we
will explore our own responses, as well as examine what others have written. Ultimately, cinematic dance serves as a
fascinating platform for developing the tools to tackle and analyze the significance of cultural and artistic products. Come and
be moved!
FYS 158: Art, Experience, and the Irrational
Professor Kevin Tuttle
Kelly Osborne ‘15, Writing Assistant
Artists and writers work at the limits of understanding. As they struggle with experiences that seem beyond language, possibly
in realms that appear irrational, how do artists and writers invent the language they need to reveal these experiences? What is
the nature of language and what is its potential for newfound experience? In what ways have artists and writers created new
structure in order to describe their experience?
Picasso said "There is no such thing as 'feet' in nature." The French artist Matisse, as an old man, said with satisfaction "At last
I've forgotten how to draw." What can these statements have in common? We will examine these and other unusual
statements that artists have uttered and analyze how artists think, how they work, and investigate the paradoxical worlds they
inhabit.
Through reading, weekly informal writing to extended written analyses, discussion, drawing, and working in a
sketchbook/journal we will analyze these issues; issues which haunt artists and may propel their work in unexpected
directions. Some of the readings will come from John Dewey’s Art as Experience, Charles Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil,
Suzuki Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, Rudolph Arnheim Art and Visual Perception.
FYS 161: Representing Vietnam
Dr. Grant Scott
Julia Miller ‘15, Writing Assistant
The course will be devoted to a study of the Vietnam War as it was experienced, represented, created, and imagined in
memoirs, novels, poems, short stories and films (documentary & fictional). By looking at these works, we will attempt to
understand what it is we made (and continue to make) of the war, and how the Vietnamese themselves understood and
represented the war. We will address questions such as the following: What does the word “Vietnam” mean for both
Vietnamese and American writers? To what extent and in what ways were fictional representations of the war responsible for
creating or encouraging a particular view of Vietnam? To what extent is it possible to show what the war was “really” like?
How was the war “covered” by the press? How much did this coverage determine the outcome of the war? How powerful and
influential was the anti-war movement? What has the war come to mean for us now, especially in the context of Iraq and
terrorism?
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 174: Brand New Plays
Dr. Jim Peck
Jeffrey Robb ‘14, Writing Assistant
This seminar will take stock of contemporary playwriting in the United States. One agenda of the course will be to introduce
students to the work of several cutting-edge American playwrights. To develop a sense of the current scene, we’ll read only
plays written, produced or published in the last two years. Throughout the course, we’ll explore the task of script analysis.
What, actually, is a play? How should plays be read? What, if anything, makes drama a unique form of literature? Is drama
literature? If it’s not literature, what is it? What’s at stake in the answer to this question? More broadly, we’ll use the particular
case of reading, analyzing, and writing about plays to explore the practice of analysis generally. What is it to analyze something
and communicate that analysis in writing? How are works of art best analyzed? How are works of art best written about? In
what ways are the analytic practices useful for works of art also useful for having and communicating ideas about other social
phenomena?
FYS 176: Road Trip: American Literature & Film
Professor Susan Clemens
Brad Ziegler ‘14, Writing Assistant
Road Trip! The excitement of dropping everything and taking to the road is an American joy. We love the road, and the
freedom and adventure it represents, whether by automobile, train, bicycle, or on foot. In this seminar we will read books,
short stories, and articles about other people’s journeys. We will see films, listen to the music of the road, take a short road
trip, and connect the intellectual with the actual wherever possible. In the past, core readings have been chosen from the
following: Water for Elephants, On the Road, Into the Wild, The Motorcycle Diaries, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance, The Glass Castle. We will watch a number of films that deal with road experiences, for example: Oh! Brother,
Where Art Thou, Thelma and Louise, Big Fish, Little Miss Sunshine, Elizabeth Town, and even Up! From our readings and
film, we will explore the lessons learned on and from the road, including personal growth and new ways of thinking.
FYS 205: Cuisine as Culture
Dr. Erika Sutherland
Rachel Skalka ‘16, Writing Assistant
Humans have always thought about food as something much more than physical sustenance. In this course we will explore the
concept of food most specifically as a cultural marker. In the local Hispanic immigrant communities food may be a marker of
assimilation or socioeconomic status or it may be a nostalgic link to a distant homeland or disappearing culture. Looking at
food through the eyes of filmmakers and the words of poets, historians, visionaries, and activists, we will consider food as an
object of study and a lens through which broader issues can be analyzed. Exploring the area’s diverse Hispanic communities,
you will be able to add your own sensorial and analytical impressions to this mix.
This course is writing-intensive. In it you will develop a set of tools to help you navigate each of your academic pursuits: you
will be learning about cuisine and immigrant communities, but you will also be acquiring tools that will go far beyond this
course. The work you will do here –reading closely, honing your powers of observation, conceptualizing essays, applying
criticism, revising, and revising again—will provide you with a solid base for growing as a reader, thinker, and writer.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 210: Time Out of Mind
Dr. Trevor Knox
Teresa Kennedy’15, Writing Assistant
Do you have too much time on your hands? Too little? Wondering where it went? Interested in buying some time? Or just
biding it? This course won’t provide answers, but it will shed some light on what these and other timely questions mean,
which, it turns out, is no simple task! This is an interdisciplinary course in how people understand, use and experience time.
To an economist, time is a resource to be allocated. To a musician, it’s a duration to be divided. To an athlete, it’s a
countdown to victory or defeat. To a psychologist, it’s a subjective experience to be analyzed. To a physicist, time might be
subjective—or relative—in a very different way, as in Einstein’s theory. Time-traveling authors write about time as if it were
a two-way highway, and some philosophers doubt it exists at all! This course will ask you to try out many of these
perspectives as we consider readings that have stood the test of time. Don’t be late for class!
FYS 212: Power of the Pen and Rachel Carson: Science, Pesticides, and Politics
Dr. Patricia Bradt
Brooke Dobossy ‘16, Writing Assistant
When best seller, Silent Spring was published in 1962, marine biologist Rachel Carson launched the environmental revolution.
This book changed forever the way humans not only interpret their relationship to their environment, but also how they
viewed government's role in protecting human and environmental health. Ms. Carson's earlier books about the ocean (ex. The
Sea Around Us) established her reputation as an outstanding author and also provided a foundation from which she developed
scientific arguments for irresponsible pesticide use. This course will examine Ms. Carson's writings about the sea, the
controversies precipitated by Silent Spring and the effectiveness of current legislation. By reading several biographies students
will observe how different biographers view Ms. Carson's life. Readings from reviews of Silent Spring and from Ms. Carson's
personal letters will provide insight into the impact of Silent Spring on the agro-chemical and government establishments and
on Carson's personal life. Students will read William Souder’s recent biography (2012) On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of
Rachel Carson that discusses Silent Spring's impact and how it inspired the public to force governmental institutions to investigate
indiscriminate pesticide use and to respond with appropriate legislation.
FYS 232: TMI (Too Much Information)
Professor Sharon Albert
Mel Ferrara ‘15, Writing Assistant
Over the past two decades, the growth of the Internet has dramatically altered the way we communicate, exchange ideas, and
gather, disseminate, and manage what is simply too much information. In this course we will explore some of the issues that
Internet technologies such as Facebook, Google, and smart phones raise. We will also compare our information age to other
revolutionary moments in information history such as the development of printing and the invention of the telegraph.
Readings will include some recent material on this topic such as Sunsteins Infotopia, Reynolds Ethics in Information Technology
and Nobles The Religion of Technology, as well as some classic futurist books such as Toffler’s Future Shock. Books about past
revolutionary moments may include Standage’s Victorian Internet and Ong’s Orality and Literacy. We will also make extensive
use of Internet resources. This seminar is writing-intensive.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 254: Springsteen’s America
Dr. Christopher Borick
Luke Ramsay ‘14, Writing Assistant
Few artists are more associated with America than Bruce Springsteen. For nearly 35 years, Springsteen has been hailed as the
heir to a great tradition of musicians that have used their art to define the promise and perils of the nation. From Woody
Guthrie and his Depression Era ballads to Bob Dylan and his 1960s folk critiques of a society in turmoil, artists have helped
define America through their lyrics and music. Since his arrival on the scene in the early 1970s, Springsteen has used his music
to portray America in a manner that shows both the beauty and ugliness that is found in his native land. In this course we will
use Springsteen's work as a point of departure for an examination of contemporary culture. Topics will include war, economic
displacement, racial tensions, urban decline, and immigration. The course will also examine Springsteen's focus on the
importance of place in the American consciousness, with an emphasis on New Jersey and the northeast corner of the United
States.
FYS 256: Finding Your Muse
Dr. Michael London
Lydia Condoluci ‘16, Writing Assistant
In this seminar we’ll consider why and how group dynamics play a role in the creative process and learn to write and think
about something we love; the creative act. There is nothing more satisfying than to sing, play, act, dance or communicate
with others, when everyone is being creative and collaborating with each other. In exploring our “creative muses”, we’ll
begin by looking at various performance areas such as music, theatre, dance and poetry, and read about how the most creative
people have gone about their work. We’ll examine the factors that strengthen the ability to create with others and apply
theory toward analyzing performance groups of many kinds. Finally, we’ll engage in active learning through small group
discussions, collaborative writing, reflection and improvisation as we study our own efforts to create together and learn to
analyze the factors that bring success. We’ll end the term by becoming a performance ensemble, writing and performing an
original ensemble show for the Muhlenberg Community.
FYS 262: Insects & Humanity: Exploring a Love-Hate Relationship
Dr. Marten Edwards
Rachel Dordal ‘14, Writing Assistant
Insects have an amazing capacity to disgust and delight humans. As long as people have been able to document their thoughts in
writing, they have recorded their struggles with the bugs that have plagued them. They have also celebrated the hard work of
bees, the beauty of butterflies and the magical light of fireflies. Franz Kafka deepened our ambivalent relationship with insects
through the eyes of a man who was suddenly transformed into a beetle. More recently, “A Bug’s Life” depicted insect lives in
ways that contrasted with the insect horror films of the 1950’s. Our societally mixed-feelings toward “beneficial” and
“harmful” insects are even reflected in the scientific literature. This Seminar will focus on the complex interactions between
humans and insects. It will include our own observations of real insects under microscopes and in butterfly nets. It will involve
a close-up look at insects as captured in documentary films or as imagined in animated movies. Critical readings, ranging from
short scientific papers to passages from ancient texts to pop-culture artifacts will be discussed and written about. In the
process of capturing, digesting and synthesizing multiple streams of evidence, students in this course will become more
effective analytical writers.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 271: Reinventing Jane
Dr. Barri Gold
Carly Lyon ‘16, Writing Assistant
Novels and screen plays, sequels and countertexts, adaptations and analyses, mini-series and musicals: In this seminar, we
investigate the legacy of Charlotte Bronte's 1842 masterpiece, Jane Eyre. After revisiting this classic in surprising new ways,
we turn to its literary successors, including Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. In this reading and writing-intensive course, we
will also consider key critical essays, such as Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman in the Attic' (1979), thematically related
literature including Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1929) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper'
(1892), as well as two film adaptations (1944 and 1996). In this way, we may explore the larger question of how literature
serves within a culture - both Bronte's and our own - to explore its most worrying concerns, among these, questions of
individuality and isolation, gender, sexuality, race, and nation.
FYS 282: Coffee: The Great Soberer
Dr. Keri Colabroy
Gabrielle Whitney ‘15, Writing Assistant
The sale and consumption of coffee is a billion dollar industry, making it the second most traded commodity around the world
(behind petroleum). The coffee bean was first discovered in the mountains of Ethiopia and treasured for its psychoactive
properties. This powerful elixir has fueled political, cultural and economic revolutions since its discovery in the 6th century.
Today growing and exporting coffee employs some of the world's most impoverished people, while the urban chic flock to a
new generation of coffeehouses. Did coffee really shape world history? Why are so many of the world's poor tied to the
economy of coffee farming? Why do we think of coffeehouses as places of comfort and conversation? Can coffee really break
down social barriers? In this seminar, we will explore the globalization, economy and culture of coffee and the coffee industry.
Course work will include analysis of short stories, other narratives, essays, and film. Students should expect to analyze through
writing and improve that analysis by revision.
FYS 285: Imagined American Cities
Professor Sue Clemens
Sarah Mercanti ‘16, Writing Assistant
Americans imagined cities in places and ways that defied logic and tradition. Imagine a rationally planned city in the 1600s—
Philadelphia. Imagine trekking across a continent into a desert wilderness to build a city for religious freedom—Salt Lake City.
Imagine the crazy dream to promote a green city with orange groves by building a 223 mile aqueduct from the Colorado River
in 1913--Los Angeles. Perhaps the largest leap of imagination grew out of a desert spring that developed into the largest and
most spectacular American city established in the twentieth century—Las Vegas. Imagine a city that constantly reinvents
itself—New York City.
We will explore these actual cities and cities imagined by Americans to keep us dreaming in the 21st century. We will read
books, articles, and stories plus watch various films to discover audacious magic of cities. In addition, we will incorporate
some of the ingenious planners who inspired the dreamers, including the architects of the city beautiful movement at the 1893
Worlds Columbian Exposition, the technological visionaries of the 1939 World of Tomorrow, and the Imagineers of Disney
World and Celebration, Florida.
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First-Year Seminars — 2013-2014
FYS 287: Middle Earth Stories
Dr. William Tighe
Aubrea Bailis ‘16, Writing Assistant
J. R. R. Tolkien’s *The Lord of the Rings* trilogy became something of a craze in the 1960s, and has maintained its popularity
ever since, and in recent years became the subject of a film trilogy which attracted a vast audience. Tolkien’s trilogy actually
emerged as almost a by-product of his professional (and professorial) interest in language, philology (the study of words, their
origins and changes in meaning), myth and legend and Anglo-Saxon England and its literature. In this course we will study the
sources of Tolkien’s creative imagination and its origins in his own life experiences, and how it has been received and purveyed
as a work of popular culture, working our way backwards from the films through the stories to their sources and origins. We
will also look at the historical and biographical contexts of LOTR (and ancillary works), and at Tolkien’s own ideological,
cultural and aesthetic commitments.
FYS 290: Representing Italians: Family, Community and Ethnicity in American Films
Dr. Jack Gambino
Sara Grasberg ‘14, Writing Assistant
From Reginald Barker’s silent film The Italian (1915, originally entitled The Dago) to MTVs series Jersey Shore, which features
self-proclaimed Guidos and Guidettes, Italians and Italian Americans have been the subject of various film and TV
representations. This seminar explores the various portrayals, sometimes stereotypical and sometimes complex, of Italians and
Italian Americans in American movies, TV shows, and commercial advertisements. Most often, these portrayals have focused
on Italians as gangsters, uncouth immigrants, and prizefighters, but they have also shown Italians as ethnics with strong values
of community, work and family that have challenged the highly individualistic character of the American modernity. By
exploring the representations of Italian ethnicity in American films, students will be asked to examine the peculiar polarity
between ethnic-traditional-communal values on the one hand, and the [white] modern-individualist-rationalist values on the
other. Among the possible films considered in the seminar are the following: Golden Door, Christ in Concrete, The Godfather,
Household Saints, The Rose Tattoo, Marty, A Bronx Tale, Mean Streets, The Big Night, Jungle Fever and Do the Right Thing. We will
also consider the impact of TV series such as The Sopranos and the use of Italian ethnicity in commercial advertizing in shaping
Italian ethnicity as the alter-ego to American modernity.
FYS 296: Sustainability: Digging Deeper
Professor Tim Averill
Kate McMorran ‘15, Writing Assistant
SUSTAINABILITY IS GOOD! Right! So why is it so difficult to achieve? This course will explore unresolved issues and the
complications and problems that fuel the debate about sustainability. Our readings and research will focus on food and health
issues, the importance of gardening and the impact of the organic/localvore movement. A series of various writing
assignments will improve your critical thinking skills. Our class is slated to participate in the Muhlenberg College Community
Garden, where we will integrate our study with work in the garden. You will never look at food the same way again!
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Scholar Seminars — 2013-2014
DANA 108: Other Bodies
Dr. Jeremy Teissere
Dan Schloss ‘15, Writing Assistant
In current practice, Western medicine has been largely obsessed with cataloguing bodily deviations from the norm. These
deviations – labeled “ugly”, “monstrous”, “freakish” – embody deep-seated cultural fears about the limits of normalcy.
Representations of extraordinary bodies generally fall prey to two simultaneous arenas: the surgical suite, in which the freakish
body is hidden and “cured” to pass as normal, and the freak-show, in which the same body is garishly displayed to satisfy
cultural tastes for the amazing and fantastical. Our conversations in this seminar will be guided by the premise that definitions
of the marginal body shape what counts as “normal,” “ordinary” and “healthy.” We will consider several bodily deviations,
including nose shape, conjoinment, size, reproductive anatomies, and mobility differences, and their relationship to identity,
power, and ideology. Our raw data will include histories of medicine, circuses, and sideshows; memoirs and narratives of
identity; critical theory; and representations in art and performance.
DANA 115: The Politics of Memory
Dr. Marcia Morgan
Joanna Tsacoyeanes ‘16, Writing Assistant
What role does individual memory play in carving out the future, both for individuals and for society as a whole? What
obligation do we have as individuals in questioning and remembering the past to live our lives ethically? In this course we will
explore multiple aspects of memory understood both from individual and societal perspectives. We will look at various ways
in which individuals and societies have shaped their future in positive and negative ways. For example, we will view diverse
representations of reparative memory from around the globe, including cases in South Africa, Taiwan, the US, and Europe.
Like other FYSs, writing is a core value of this course. Our readings and discussions will focus on works by St. Augustine, Paul
Ricoeur, and Tzvetan Todorov. In addition, we will consider examples by architects, artists, journalists, and other thinkers
who help us understand some of the most profound historical moments of the recent past. Our investigations will also include
listening to political speeches, reading personal memoirs, and viewing some documentaries.
RJF 107: 1968
Dr. Jeff Pooley
Matthew Bocchese ’14, Writing Assistant
In this course, we will explore a single, extraordinary year in world history: 1968. From violent protests in Chicago to the
assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy; from the Prague Spring to France's near-revolution in May; from
the counterculture to college students' seizure of campus buildings across the country; from the 'silent majority' to the musical
Hair - 1968 was a watershed moment in U.S. (and world) history. The course traces back a few of the trends and movements
that, in 1968, would crescendo: the civil rights and student anti-war movements, Cold War tensions, the nascent
counterculture, black militancy, and the rise of rock 'n roll. The course also explores the lasting influence of the year's events
in the decades to follow, for American political conflict, for the 'culture wars', and for popular culture. As a first-year seminar,
the course aims above all to impart college-level writing skills, and the 1968 material that we explore will be harnessed to that
end.
MBS 101: How to Think About Weird Things
Dr. Ted Schick
Rebecca Diamond ‘15, Writing Assistant
It's the dawning of a new age. TV shows about mediums, ghosts, and the supernatural abound. People are making millions
talking to the dead, running psychic hotlines, and peddling alternative medicines. What's a reasonable person to believe? Are
we entering a brave new world or, as Carl Sagan suggests, has our educational system simply failed to provide us with
adequate "baloney detection" skills? In this seminar, we will examine a number of “fringe” claims in an attempt to determine
what makes a claim worthy of belief. Is creationism as plausible as evolution? Can people survive the death of their bodies? Is
what people say about alien abductions, psychic powers, near death experiences, etc. true? How can we tell? When are we
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justified in believing something? Answering these questions will require thinking critically and writing intensively. Readings
will include selections from: Schick and Vaughn, How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age; Sagan, A
Candle in the Dark, and Humphrey, Leaps of Faith.
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