Classes

    Tragedy Today (Gen Ed 1168)

    Semester: 

    Spring

    Offered: 

    2024

    How can ancient Greek tragedy help us to address some of today’s most pressing sociopolitical problems?

     

    Aesthetics & Culture icon with text

    Naomi Weiss

    “It’s a sad tale, it’s a tragedy / It’s a sad song…. We’re gonna sing it anyway.” So sings Hermes at the start of Hadestown, the hit broadway show that deals with capitalism, demagoguery, borders, and climate change. Based on the ancient artform of tragedy, this musical provokes its audiences to reflect on very modern concerns; it also, as the show’s creator Anaïs Mitchell says, “lets us cry.”

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    Superheroes and Power (Gen Ed 1165)

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023

    What makes superheroes popular, and how can their stories answer enduring questions about identity, power, disability, symbolism, law, and the state?

    Aesthetics & Culture icon with text

    Stephanie Burt

    Image of superhero

    What’s a hero? What’s a superhero? Who gets to be one, and who decides? Why are superheroes so popular now? What do their stories tell us—casual viewers and devoted readers, fans and non-fans and aspiring writers-- about how power works, about its social, emotional, material and economic dimensions, and about how we represent power in art?... Read more about Superheroes and Power (Gen Ed 1165)

    Confronting COVID-19: Science, History, Policy (Gen Ed 1170)

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2020


    How do pandemics end?

    Science & Technology in Society icon with text

    Allan M. Brandt and Ingrid Katz

    We are living in a world radically reshaped by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This course will investigate the wide range of questions raised by the pandemic, its impact and significance. We will also examine how diseases raise fundamental issues for science, policy, and society.... Read more about Confronting COVID-19: Science, History, Policy (Gen Ed 1170)

    Zombies and Spirits, Ghosts and Ghouls: Interactions between the Living and the Dead

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2022
    Canvas Seminar Site

    Shaye J. D. Cohen (Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations)
    First-Year Seminar 62U     4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

    Virtually all the cultures and religions of the world, from ancient to contemporary times, have teachings and rituals about death. In this seminar we will deal with a subset of this very large topic, namely, the...

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    Nuclear Dilemmas

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023
    Canvas Site link

    Benjamin T. Wilson (Department of the History of Science)
    First-Year Seminar 52G 4 credits (spring term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

    This first-year seminar explores major issues in nuclear weapons history and policy. Did the use of atomic bombs by the United States against Japan end the Second World War? Have nuclear arsenals prevented a direct conflict between nuclear powers since 1945? Why have some countries pursued nuclear...

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    Changing Perspectives: The Science of Optics in the Visual Arts

    Semester: 

    Spring

    Offered: 

    2024
    CANVAS SITE LINK

    Aravinthan D. T. Samuel (Department of Physics)   
    First-Year Seminar 51X     4 credits (spring term)  

    Renaissance artists began to create stunningly realistic representations of their world. Paintings started to resemble photographs, suggesting that artists had solved technical problems that escaped their forebears. Our brains effortlessly deduce three-dimensional scenes from two-dimensional images. But faithfully...

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    Science and Technology Primer for Future Leaders

    Semester: 

    Spring

    Offered: 

    2024
    CANVAS SITE LINK

    Hongkun Park (Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Department of Physics)
    First-Year Seminar 52E 4 credits (spring term)

    We live in a world that is shaped by science and technology. As modern citizens who will lead the U.S. and the world in the coming generation, we should be aware of the rapidly changing landscape of science and technology and be ready to participate in the decision-making processes for...

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    The Economist’s View of the World

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023
    Canvas Seminar Site

    N. Gregory Mankiw (Department of Economics)
    First-Year Seminar 43J     4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

    Prerequisites: Students are expected to have had some background in economics, such as an AP economics course in high school or simultaneous enrollment in Economics 10a.

    This seminar's goal is to probe how economists of various perspectives view human behavior and the proper role of...

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    Vegetal Humanities: Paying Attention to Plants in Contemporary Art and Culture

    Semester: 

    Spring

    Offered: 

    2024
    CANVAS SITE LINK

    Carrie Lambert-Beatty (Department of History of Art and Architecture and Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies)
    First-Year Seminar 63W   4 credits (spring term)

    This class invites you to practice a new kind of plant-consciousness. Our guides will be contemporary artists and thinkers who are encouraging new relationships between human and vegetal life, or recalling very old ones. Suddenly, we have plant protagonists, gardens in galleries, and...

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    Appraising and Reimagining Middle and High School Math Education

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023
    Canvas Seminar Site

    Robin Gottlieb (Department of Mathematics)    
    First-Year Seminar 40P    4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

    Note: This seminar has no prerequisites. An invitation is extended to all students whether or not they are thinking about studying mathematics.

    What are the goals of mathematics education at the middle and high school level, and how do these goals impact our evaluation of the success or failure of math education in...

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    Black Holes, String Theory and the Fundamental Laws of Nature

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023
    Canvas Seminar Site

    Andrew E. Strominger (Department of Physics)
    First-Year Seminar 21V     4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

    The quest to understand the fundamental laws of nature has been ongoing for centuries. This seminar will assess the current status of this quest. In the first five weeks we will cover the basic pillars of our understanding: Einstein’s theory of general relativity, quantum mechanics and the Standard Model of particle...

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    Skin, Our Largest, Hottest, and Coolest Organ: From Cancer to Cosmetics

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023
    Canvas Seminar Site

    David E. Fisher (Harvard Medical School)
    First-Year Seminar 51M 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

    Skin provides a protective barrier that is vital to survival of all multicellular organisms. Its physical properties have been exploited for centuries, from clothing to footballs, and yet skin is a vibrant and dynamic organ that responds to environmental signals in myriad ways. Skin protects humans from toxic exposures, but can also be an...

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    All of Physics in 13 Days

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023
    Canvas Seminar Site

    John M. Doyle (Department of Physics)
    First-Year Seminar 23Y 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment: Limited to 8

    Some claim that there are 13 ideas or principles that can form the bedrock for a pretty good understanding of our physical and technological world. These are: 1) Boltzmann factor and thermal equilibrium, 2) Turbulence, 3) Reaction rates, 4) Indistinguishable particles, 5) Quantum waves, 6) Linearity, 7) Entropy and information, 8) Discharges, ionization, 9)...

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    Americans at Work in the Age of Robots and Artificial Intelligence

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023
    Canvas Seminar Site

    Benjamin M. Friedman (Department of Economics)
    First-Year Seminar 71G  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

    Where will the coming generation of Americans (say, today's 18-year-olds) find jobs? And will the jobs be worth having? People have worried about losing their jobs to technology at least since the Luddites 200 years ago. In the aggregate, they have been wrong....

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    Complexity in Works of Art: Ulysses and Hamlet

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023
    Canvas Site link

    Philip J. Fisher (Department of English)
    First-Year Seminar 33X 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

    Is the complexity, the imperfection, the difficulty of interpretation, the unresolved meaning found in certain great and lasting works of literary art a result of technical experimentation? Or is the source of this extreme complexity psychological, metaphysical, or spiritual?  Does it...

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    Death and Immortality

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2022
    Canvas Seminar Site

    Cheryl K. Chen (Department of Philosophy)
    First-Year Seminar 30Q  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment: Limited to 12

    In this seminar, we will discuss philosophical questions about death and immortality. What is death? Is there a moral difference between "brain death" and the irreversible loss of consciousness? Is the classification of a person as dead a moral judgment, or is it an entirely scientific matter? Is death a misfortune to the person who dies? How can death be a...

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    Earth Science Goes to the Movies: Math and Physics of Natural (?) Disasters

    Semester: 

    Fall

    Offered: 

    2023
    Canvas Site link

    Miaki Ishii (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences)
    First-Year Seminar 23I 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

    Note: Students are expected to attend Tuesday evening movie viewing sessions (time TBD).  This seminar is highly participatory and collaborative, and students should be ready to engage not only with the material, but also with one another.

    Prerequisites: Students must be comfortable with high-school level math and...

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