Provisional University Bulletin (2026-2027)

First-Year Seminar

Last updated: March 19, 2026 at 6:32 PM

For students entering in fall of 2025.

Objectives

The First Year Writing Program at Brandeis University, administered by the University Writing Program, includes two courses: the First-Year Seminar (FYS) and the Composition Seminar (CSEM). The First-Year Seminar, which all students complete during their first year, emphasizes writing as a means of thinking, exploring, and understanding. It also makes transparent differences in conventions within the disciplines, so that students can apply their writing skills to courses in their major and throughout the Brandeis curricula. Each student chooses a seminar from a range of interdisciplinary topics.

Prior to FYS, some students complete the Composition Seminar, a one-semester course that offers additional experience with college writing. CSEM is taught in a small-group setting, allowing for opportunities to workshop ideas and writing strategies in a collaborative environment with seasoned instructors. Major course goals include building up confidence and flexibility to adapt to the different types of writing that students are assigned in college.

Requirement Beginning Fall 2025

Requirement Prior to Fall 2025

Courses of Instruction

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(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

CSEM 1a Composition Seminar

Placement by the Director of First-Year Writing. Successful completion of this course does NOT satisfy the first-year writing requirement.

A course in the fundamentals of writing, required as a prerequisite to the First-Year Seminar for selected students identified by the Director of First-Year Writing. Several sections will be offered in the fall semester.

FYS 2b Darwinian Dating: The Evolution of Human Attraction

Designed to instill and enhance flexible writing and research skills. A selection of readings stimulates discussion, deepens understanding, and serves as foundation for writing assignments. Students will recognize the role of writing in fostering critical thinking and learn to identify conventions of disciplinary writing.

Among animals, individuals choose mates based on biologically informative features such as long colorful tail feathers, large canines, or a red, swollen posterior. We typically assume that human attraction (and love) is much more nuanced and complex...but is it? Many features that humans find beautiful or attractive, such as small waists, curvy hips, and large eyes, can be tied to biological explanations. Even behavioral features, such as nurturing behaviors, may be attractive for adaptive reasons. In this course, we will explore and write about biological explanations for these and many other aspects of human attraction. Using an evolutionary perspective, we will examine global patterns of attraction and challenge stereotypes of beauty. Do nice guys really finish last? Do traditionally attractive features in western cultures, such as low body weight, actually provide an evolutionary benefit, or might some preferences be culturally derived? For the final essay, students will supplement library research with data collection to produce an interdisciplinary research paper. Usually offered every year.

FYS 3b Evil and Tragedy

What is the relationship between evil and tragedy? Does a tragedy necessarily involve evildoing or an evil agent? Or does tragedy occur (always? sometimes?) in the way Hegel said, not as a conflict between right and wrong, but as a conflict between right and right? This class will consider and debate the question in the course of studying three tragic literary works (Antigone, King Lear, and Uncle Vanya) and major critical statements about them. Usually offered every year.

FYS 4a Medical Ethics

The Hippocratic Oath is a guiding principle amongst doctors: “First, do no harm.” But what if your patient is a potential mass murderer? Does the doctor's obligation lie first with the patient or with society at large? We will explore these questions and others across a variety of genres, including the acclaimed medical mystery television series House and other forms of social media such as Ted talks and Instagram posts. In addition, students will have the opportunity to research a case study on a topic of their choice ranging from designer babies to anti-vaxxers. This course will foster the development of incisive analysis and sophisticated academic writing as well as an understanding of disciplinary differences through the exploration of bioethical dilemmas. Usually offered every year.

FYS 4b Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain

From 711 until 1492, the Iberian Peninsula was populated by people adhering to the three monotheistic traditions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Despite competing claims to religious truth, members of these religious communities lived together and interacted to form a unique society that some have called a “culture of tolerance” while others have decried such an irenic image as a mere myth. In this seminar, we will examine the interaction among the three religious communities focusing on political and social development, inter-religious conflict and violence, and intellectual and architectural/artistic production. We will investigate the degree to which “Spanish” (or more accurately “Castilian”) culture can be described as “Christian” or as “Muslim-Christian-Jewish” in character. We will also engage the historiographic traditions that have given rise to contrasting images of the medieval period and consider what is at stake in these debates from a modern and contemporary perspective. Usually offered every year.

FYS 5a Sugar in History and Society

Sugar and sweeteners have played a large role in influencing human societies. From its earliest origins as an exotic substance to its commodification and democratization at the hands of capitalism, sugar has shaped empires, fueled systems of slavery, and revolutionized the human diet. Even today, this commodity continues to shape our cultures, our vocabularies, our diets, our health, and our environment in surprisingly pervasive ways. Why and how has this seemingly ordinary substance had such an impact upon our lives, and how can we constructively manage and responsibly enjoy it in the global future? In this course, we will examine the complex history of human interactions with this sweet commodity through scholarship, film, poetry, novels, blogs, and art. We will also engage with current debates over how to manage its public health and environmental impacts and how to remedy the injustices that still accompany its production. Usually offered every year.

FYS 6a Understanding Russian Culture: Myths and Paradoxes

Russia has given the world renowned cultural luminaries such as Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky. At the same time, the Russian state—in different historical forms—has a long tradition of censoring, imprisoning, or even murdering artists and intellectuals. One scholar suggests that even as the Russian Empire has violently expanded its boundaries, the state has “colonized” its own people. Paradoxically, this very repression has made culture politically relevant—sometimes reinforcing imperial ideology, sometimes subverting it—and charged it with particular urgency. This seminar takes us inside the paradox by engaging with some of the most important works of modern Russian literature, film, philosophy, and the performing arts in the context of the country’s troubled history. Usually offered every year.

FYS 6b American Political Violence from the Founding to the Present

Uses a variety of scholarly approaches to explore the centrality of political violence to American political development. The course will focus on violence that Americans explicitly aim at achieving domestic political goals, for example, an anti-colonial rebellion, the ethnic cleansing of native peoples, violent enslavement and racial domination, assassinations, labor/anarchist protests and authorities’ efforts to defeat them,1960s-era Black, women and anti-war protests and their repression, domestic terrorism and mass shootings, anti-abortion clinic violence, and police violence generally. The content will be transdisciplinary: archival materials and government documents, novels, movies, documentaries, academic research in history, psychology, sociology, and political science. We will survey the social science and historical literatures for concepts, crucial cases, and useful theories, which help us make sense of these kinds of episodes. Usually offered every year.

FYS 7a Drama Queens

Ancient drama loved nothing more than a powerful queen. Despite the exclusion of women from participation in political life, female characters are some of the most memorable figures of ancient drama. In this course, we consider the connection between art and life, centering on women in Athenian drama. How and why did society turn to theater to experience the emotional purification known as katharsis? What is the effect of these plays today? Throughout the semester, we will interrogate some of the greatest dramatic works of classical Athenian culture, searching for answers to these enduring questions. Our plays center on the actions and experiences of powerful women, from the vengeful Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, to the title characters of Sophocles’ Antigone, Euripides’ Medea, and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. We will approach these women by reading the plays in which they appear, viewing past performances, and considering modern adaptations. We will discuss, critique, perform, write, investigate, and seek to learn about the political, social, and ethical questions that lie at the heart of Athenian drama. Usually offered every year.

FYS 7b Big Tech Under Fire: Power, Platforms, and Policy in the Digital Age

Investigates how powerful tech giants and breakthrough innovations are fundamentally transforming the global landscape – upending traditional economic systems and rewiring the fabric of society – while confronting the delicate balance between rapid technological advancement and essential protections for human welfare. The course examines central issues including: balancing AI advancement with existential risks to humanity; market concentration in digital platforms and debates about breaking up tech giants; algorithmic fairness in healthcare and how AI-driven decisions affect insurance access; how technological advances shape inequality and mitigation strategies; tradeoffs between innovation, healthcare quality, and consumer privacy; implications of technological advances for national security; and strategic career planning in an AI-transformed economy. Through class discussions, targeted readings, and structured writing assignments, the course aims for students to develop analytical and communication skills needed to address these complex issues effectively and articulate solutions to emerging challenges. Usually offered every year.

FYS 8a Chinese Poetry: Desire and Form

An introduction to the great tradition of classical Chinese poetry. While tracing the development of poetry in ancient China, this course will explore a central question: How do personal, erotic, and socio-political desires find their literary forms? How do the Chinese represent their desire through figurative language? Training students to understand a poetic tradition through translation, this course emphasizes transcultural encounters and develops the skills of comparative critical thinking.

Engaging with writing as a crucial aspect of critical thinking and humanistic inquiry, students will learn how to conduct close reading and how to compose essays of literary studies. In so doing, we will consider how we read, interpret, discuss, present, and criticize poetic transformations both orally and in writing. We will then confront, more concretely, comparatively and comprehensively, the issues of poetic culture, literary translation, and transcultural interpretation. Usually offered every year.

FYS 9a Monsters in Human Culture

Humans have a long history of imagining beings that violate the norms of terrestrial corporealities. The monstrous, the hybrid, the supernatural figure prominently in cultural products from the oldest writing down to the contemporary horror film. Occupying positions ranging from the ultimate cosmic antagonist to the beloved, even tame pet, the monster and its meanings shift and change, often unstably within a text or across a tradition. Why are such beings so prevalent in our histories, our literatures, even our everyday conversation? What does the human obsession with monsters reveal about our hopes and fears? This seminar will address such questions through focused encounters with four major literary texts spanning the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. Usually offered every year.

FYS 10a Trials from Antiquity to the Present

Few events capture the dramatic imagination like the specter of a criminal trial. This seminar addresses the multifaceted nature of criminal trials through historical, literary, religious, legal, and political lenses. The course begins in history with Plato’s account of the prosecution of his teacher Socrates (399 BCE) for heresy and betrayal of Athenian gods and mores. It traces conversations about jurisprudential framing and authority of criminal trials and their key agents: judges, defendants, prosecutors, defense lawyers, officers of the court, as well as the surrounding public. We cut across cases from Europe to China and include archival research into the local trial of two Italian immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti. The class will also have the chance to experience how trials are conducted in a courtroom in present-day Boston. Throughout the course, our central questions will be ambitious: what political and moral terms have been significant for constructing notions of criminality? How have judicial procedures been kept separate from or implicated by political leaders for political purposes? How have trials been used as an aesthetic resource in imaginative and academic writing, and how do such concerns inform trial proceedings themselves? Usually offered every year.

FYS 10b American Scholars: Public Intellectuals in American Life

Examines the role and the influence of public intellectuals in American society. The primary focus is on the 20th and 21st centuries, although students also explore the work of America’s first “home-grown” public intellectuals in the 19th century. Students are asked to consider what constitutes an “intellectual” body of work and how and why that body of work might be rendered relevant to a mass audience. In addition to exploring the ideas put forth by some of the most influential public intellectuals in American life (people like Walter Lippmann, Jane Addams, Cornel West, and Heather Cox Richardson), students are challenged to explore the impact the modern university has had on public intellectualism; the role the broadcast and internet media are playing in the making of public intellectuals; whether and how pundits are different from public intellectuals; and the benefits and drawbacks to taking one’s work to the public, or venturing outside one’s established and credentialed discipline. Usually offered every year.

FYS 11b Cleopatra in Antiquity and the Modern World

Cleopatra, known as the last ruler of Ancient Egypt before its conquest by Rome, was a noble and wise leader determined to save her country from the advancing power of the Roman Republic. Her leadership and education made her Egypt’s greatest hope, but her husband, Marc Antony, failed to recognize the value of her decisions. What made her an effective ruler? Why did Rome see her as its greatest threat? Why have centuries of Western painters, writers, musicians, and filmmakers depicted her? This seminar will explore the history and world of Cleopatra VII, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Ancient Egypt, and her powerful legacy in the modern world. We will read plays about her, examine works of Western art since the Baroque period, and watch 20th-century movies, ballet, and opera to explore how Cleopatra has been remade for modern audiences. Cleopatra influenced a multi-ethnic Mediterranean region and became a symbol of dangerous power. We will reconstruct and uncover one of Africa’s greatest rulers: Cleopatra, pharaoh of Egypt. Usually offered every year.

FYS 12a Prisons, Power, and Progress

Develops writing skill through the lens of the law, specifically by a close examination of the case Brown v. Plata and attendant documents. Through reflective writing, students will examine their perceptions of prison, and the origin of those perceptions. They will then investigate primary sources in law to evaluate the reality of the prison system in America and the legal power structures responsible for its continued growth. After learning to navigate unique tools for legal research, students will pursue their own questions about the prison system, learn to develop a research plan, and develop their analysis. Finally, students will explore how personal narratives, literature, and scientific research are utilized in the law, and aid the social movement for prison reform. Usually offered every year.

FYS 13a Asian American Films

Takes a critical look at a century of Asian American representations in film. We study prime examples of how Asian Americans have been scripted and portrayed through major eras and genres of American cinema: the silent era’s love for Anna May Wong, the noir genre’s obsession with Chinatown, mid-century song and dance over devastating wars, social and memoiristic documentaries, all through the halting embrace of multiculturalism and globalism of the past three decades. Along the way, we scrutinize various difficult subjects lurking behind the silver screen: fear of the yellow peril, racialized labor strife, war legacies, racist violence, family and community crises, among others. Usually offered every year.

FYS 13b Business Ethics

In 1978, childhood friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield founded Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream using socially responsible principles such as funding the Ben and Jerry's Foundation to pay for community-oriented projects. They prided themselves on their small company independence and touted their unique approach to melding business with social responsibility. Yet, in 2000 Ben and Jerry sold the company to the international food conglomerate Unilever. Many wondered: was this a sellout? This class on business ethics will explore different Harvard Business School cases studies such as this one using ethical lenses including Milton Friedman's 'Free Market' theory and Utilitarianism. In addition to analyzing case studies on topics such as the National Football League and concussions, we will examine the acclaimed film The Big Short to consider the boundaries of ethical behavior in the business world. This course will also foster the development of incisive analysis and sophisticated academic writing as a way to explore dilemmas relating to business ethics. Usually offered every year.

FYS 14a War and Peace in Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended the principles of diplomacy that had held off global conflict for eighty years. In conquering parts of a sovereign state without suffering serious consequences, Moscow has thrown into question every border and every treaty.

This class will be a multidisciplinary reflection on the origins of the war, its major events, and its implications for international relations in the 21st century. We will study contesting national visions and historical grievances, both real and imagined. We will look especially closely at the end of the Soviet Union and the gap between the elation that newly freed nations experienced and the humiliation, on the other hand, that Russians felt.

We will examine authoritarian nationalism, but will also study patriotic dissent, civic virtue, and extraordinary heroism. When Russia began its full-scale invasion efforts on February 24, 2022, most of the world’s military analysts thought Ukraine would surrender within weeks. Instead, it has largely defended itself and has emerged as arguably a prouder, more united, and more determined nation. What can we learn from a country that has faced complete destruction but survived to imagine a better future for itself? What kind of society would you risk your life for? Usually offered every year.

FYS 17b Bodies of Evidence: Forensic Science in Fact and Fiction

Forensic science has helped to identify the dead, to solve crimes, and to bring culprits to justice. Forensic techniques, later discredited, have also led to false convictions: a man was found guilty of rape and spent decades in prison before DNA tests confirmed his innocence; a convicted arsonist was proven innocent but had been executed years earlier. This course invites students to explore the achievements and shortcomings of forensic science. We will investigate the work of forensic scientists, take a look at real-life cases to learn about the history and effectiveness of investigative techniques, and analyze how forensic science has been portrayed (and transformed) in popular television series such as CSI or Bones. Usually offered every year.

FYS 23a The Bible and Contemporary Arts, Literature, and Film

The Bible is a foundational text for contemporary art, literature, and political discourse as well as a sacred text for several religious traditions. This course teaches you how to read narratives from the Hebrew Bible in translation from a literary perspective. At the same time, we study how modern artists and authors have used the texts of the Hebrew bible in literary, poetic, artistic, and cinematic productions to reflect moral, familial, and societal successes, struggles, and confusions. By looking at old texts and new interpretations, the course aims to provide students opportunities to see their own cultural contexts anew and to determine how the Bible might or might not be considered relevant to our time.

We will explore the concept of “intertextuality” from literary studies to help reflect on the relation between bible and art and the idea of originality. On the one hand, we see that different texts and art works relate to one another – is anything ever new? On the other hand, writing in the age of generative AI demands that we consciously cultivate our own voices, so we are not limited in our thought and expression to what computers can produce from what has already been said. Usually offered every year.

FYS 24a Conceptions of Friendship

Joey and Chandler, Woody and Buzz, Thelma and Louise, Will and Grace, Harry and Lloyd, Romy and Michelle, Hermoine and Harry: Over the years, popular culture has offered a plethora of “friendship” examples through its depictions of “besties” and “bosom-buddies.” These examples naturally reflect the changing societal values and cultural norms from which they emerge. This course will examine many depictions of friendship and consider what assumptions they convey in their time and place. Through reading a chosen novel or short story, watching a television episode of Friends or Black Mirror, or critically examining a movie like Toy Story or Clueless, we will seek answers to questions like: What are the benefits of friendship? What role does gender play in friendship? What do friendship-depictions tell us about how audiences view and participate in friendship? What assumptions about friendship are made in these depictions? Usually offered every year.

FYS 32a Pursuing Truth in a Post-Truth World

In an age where seemingly every fact is in dispute – from the shape of the earth to the impact of vaccinations – how do we know what’s true and what isn’t? How is it that the same available information leads some to believe an election was free and fair, while others fully believe it was fraudulent? This course focuses on the concept of Truth in today’s post-truth world. We will explore principles of rhetoric, epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge), and the interplay of social identity with the concept of truth. Through critical analysis, students will examine their own (and others’) belief systems and develop tools for navigating the complexities of evidence, persuasion, and misinformation. Usually offered every year.

FYS 34a Reading and Writing Boston

What is Boston? Boston is best known for baked beans, Fenway Park, The Boston Marathon, and over fifty colleges and universities that attract nearly 200,000 students in the Greater Metropolitan area. In the 1700's, Boston was called the "Athens of America" because of its literate and engaged citizenry, wisdom, knowledge and education. Boston is a city of FIRSTS: the first public park, Boston Common, in 1634; the first public school, Boston Latin, in 1635; the first street-car subway system in the nation in 1897. In 2017, Boston ranked fifth in the world for innovations including cultural assets, education centers, transportation, and biking/walking accessibility. From the Esplanade on the Charles River, the Back Bay, Fens, and Boston Common to the newer 15-acre Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the beauty of Boston is unsurpassed. In this section of UWS, we will be using material on the City of Boston and its neighborhoods, with readings that focus on the historical, sociological, literary, and contemporary beat of the city. The main goal for UWS is to further develop your academic research and writing skills , and this course will utilize the City of Boston as a textbook, enabling you to '"experience" Boston, close to where you have chosen to spend your college years. Usually offered every year.

FYS 37a The Biology of Morality

Humans often consider themselves to be "the moral animal," distinguished from other animals by our complex and socially derived systems of morality, characterized by empathy and cooperation. However, when comparing humans with the rest of the animal world, are we really so different? In this course, we will examine through discussion and writing the degree to which human morality is grounded in our evolutionary past. We will explore the development of human morality during childhood and adulthood through the lens of evolution and will look at classic scientific tests of morality/ethics (e.g., the trolley problem). Additionally, we will engage with evidence for morality in non-human species and probe the degree to which our primate relatives engage in altruistic, empathetic, and moral behaviors. During the final paper, students will have the freedom to choose their own topic and to utilize interdisciplinary literature in their exploration of the nature and nurture of morality. Usually offered every year.

FYS 38a Fantasy Worlds: From Gilgamesh to Romantasy

Fantasy is as old as storytelling and as new as LARP (Live Action Role Play). It appeals to both young and old readers as few other genres do. We explore its historical roots in satires like Gulliver's Travels, its modern rebirth in Middle Earth and Le Guin's Earthsea. The course also explores recent participatory fantasy realms, including online gaming and live action role-playing. The class begins by testing scholarly ideas about “subcreation,” “secondary worlds,” and the theological/spiritual underpinnings of modern fantasy. It offers a genealogy that goes back to ancient times and takes a satirical turn with Jonathan Swift before landing in the recognizably modern form with modernists such as Stella Benson and the distinctive worldbuilding of JRR Tolkien. We explore better and lesser known 20th century prose fantasy before turning towards the fascinating range of virtual and live-action fantasy role-playing that has made fantasy less a genre than a way of life, and a subject of ethnography as well as literary analysis. Usually offered every year.

FYS 40a The Bookshelf of Childhood

Whether children’s literature has sought to civilize or to subvert, to moralize or to enchant, it forms a bedrock and an important reference point for the adult sensibility. Our reading in childhood reflects the unresolved complexity of the experience of childhood itself as well as larger cultural shifts in values and beliefs, both historically and around the globe. We will read a number of fairy tales and look at how these tales migrate through place and time, and, as they do so, take on or challenge the particular values of the culture at hand. We will also consider a group of stories written for children, among them Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and The Witches. Through numerous and varied writing assignments, the course will foster the development of incisive close reading, analysis, research, and successful academic writing generally. The immensely enjoyable readings offer students an opportunity – as readers, in classroom conversations, and through the writing assignments – to reflect upon their own childhoods and the nature of childhood more generally. Usually offered every year.

FYS 43a Storytelling in Business

Storytelling plays a crucial role in our lives. We draw on stories to make meaning of ourselves and others, to shed light on our experiences, and to express who we are or would like to be. The same holds true for businesses. Storytelling is not only a core competency of business leaders but an indispensable component of functional organizations. Successful companies take pride in compelling stories; troubled companies tend to lack institutional stories and a culture of storytelling. Capable business leaders are effective storytellers, and strategic storytelling has been a proven means of initiating change and of turning companies around. This course invites students to investigate the power of stories and storytelling in business contexts. By analyzing texts from various media, we will discuss questions such as: What characterizes effective stories? What is the importance of storytelling and story-making in companies? How can storytelling bring about organizational change? Which traits do storytellers and business leaders share? What is the connection between storytelling and leadership? Usually offered every year.

FYS 52b Environmental Justice

Focuses on nature and the environment through the lens of environmental justice, which encompasses the equal access of all people to the benefits of nature as well as the equitable distribution of environmental harms. Students learn about the causes and effects of environmental injustices, giving visibility and voice to those who have suffered the most from environmental hazards and the effects of climate change: communities of color, indigenous peoples, and the poor. We explore stories of resilience, transformational leadership, and hope. By reading, researching, and writing about inspirational individuals, groups, and movements, students develop their critical thinking and analytical writing skills as they consider answers to some of the pressing problems of our time. Usually offered every year.

FYS 56b Romanticism in European Music and Literature: Breakups, Breakdowns, and Beauty

Romantic art abounds in depictions of hallucinators, madwomen, obsessives, and other individuals whose thoughts and behaviors deviate sharply from societal norms. In this course, we will seek to understand the cultural and historical significance of the ways in which late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music and literature portray exceptional emotional, mental, and physiological states. We'll investigate the connections among madness, genius, physical illness, and the supernatural in the Romantic imagination and think about the artistic techniques contemporary writers and composers used to represent 'extreme' psychology. By examining works written and composed in different countries and at different times within the Romantic period, students will develop their close reading, critical thinking, and analytical writing skills. Usually offered every year.

FYS 62a Video Games, Gaming Cultures, and the Study of Play

Video games afford opportunities to immerse ourselves in virtual worlds in an interactive and engaging manner. The creativity and imagination behind game design necessitate the interaction of a wide range of skills: coding, graphic design, storytelling, musical composition, and sound design. How is it that we can spend hours picking up virtual weeds in Animal Crossing, be fearful of turtle shells in Mario Kart, or experience immense satisfaction when leveling up our Pokemon or beating a boss in Dark Souls? This course addresses these questions by tracing the development of video games from the early pixelated heroes of Mario and Pac-Man to online spaces that involve the global participation of millions of people, such as League of Legends and Call of Duty. Students are required to think critically about the virtual worlds they inhabit and consider how video games implement play, immersion, and engagement and how their unique function as an interactive medium has evolved throughout the latter half of the 20th century to the present day. The interdisciplinary nature of game studies allows students to think and write critically on an array of topics concerning narrative, immersion, gender, music, technology, and game design. Usually offered every year.

FYS 64b The Resistance Mix-Tape: Music and Social Justice

Considers music as a radical political tool for social justice. Guided by different genres of music and different social justice issues, we will listen to politically resonant songs in order to explore how music not only actively participates in and shapes our culture, but also offers modes of resistance to regimes of power. From the pro-labor and anti-war politics of folk music, the anti-establishment and anti-normative bents of punk, and the racial and social justice orientations of hip-hop, students will examine how music fights power, encourages activism, and effects social change. This course is designed in such a way that students may participate fully regardless of the level of their prior musical knowledge or experience. All of the music we will be examining involves texts that are linguistic, sonic, and occasionally, in the case of music videos, visual. Our study of these musical texts will be enhanced through various critical and theoretical approaches to the intersections of race, gender, and class. For final research papers, students will be encouraged to develop a research topic about music and social justice issues that are meaningful to them. Usually offered every year.

FYS 65a Everyday Apocalypse, or Living Through the Long Emergency

Our contemporary moment has been marked by various catastrophes and crises: the pandemic, the climate emergency, the refugee crisis, widening economic disparities, rising nationalist extremism, and racial inequalities and police violence. These crises have combined to create a present moment of profound uncertainty and growing unrest, and daily life has become undergirded by a rising tide of anxiety. Using contemporary events and recent cultural texts as sites of inquiry about the global tumult of our present, students will consider how the convergence of the everyday and the catastrophic frame our “new normal,” as well as how distinctions between normalcy and emergency are connected to media narratives, corporate agendas, and political rhetoric and policy. Altogether, the course invites students to examine our experience of the contemporary world from multiple lenses and encourages students to research, learn, write about, and potentially reimagine the social, economic, and environmental challenges of our time. Usually offered every year.

FYS 66a Travel and Self-Discovery

The ocean, the open road, and the automobile all entice us to travel. From Thelma and Louise, a female buddy road crime film, to acclaimed food critic Anthony Bourdain, who samples foods from across the globe, travel has long worked in popular culture to offer the tantalizing possibilities of reinvention, of getting lost, of escape into the new. However, travel is more than just a romantic fantasy about self-transformation. In fact, British travel essayist Pico Iyer argues that our travel experiences are always structured by our preconceptions about ourselves and the world; for Iyer, we can never completely escape from ourselves. Building on the ideas of Iyer and others, we will investigate what we do when we travel and the motivations that drive the urge to explore. How does travel relate to identity, gender, and self-discovery? In this course, we will probe this question and others by watching films and reading texts from a variety of genres and disciplines, examining the desires, pressures, and delusions that propel us to hit the open road or take flight. Building on ideas from the course, students will be encouraged to write papers that engage with issues related to travel and self-exploration that they find compelling. Usually offered every year.

FYS 66b Sports, Money, and Power

Despite being united by the common desire to win, few relationships in popular culture are as fraught as the relationship between athletes and the various organizational structures—teams, leagues, coaches, agents—of sports. Indeed, given the amount of money at stake, the sports industry’s many competing interests make it a productive case study for thinking about this ever-shifting balance of power. Beginning with the film Jerry Maguire, this course will track these ongoing power negotiations by looking at a variety of relationships within sports, attempting to understand how different actors—athletes, coaches, owners—try to win, maintain dominance, and get paid. How do organizations respond, for example, when individual players like Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers upset the traditional hierarchies that govern teams? Are some coaching styles—such as those of Steve Kerr or Phil Jackson—better suited than others to balancing the competing personalities and interests of professional sports? To further engage with the topics we discuss, students will be encouraged to write papers that grapple with sports-related questions and issues of power dynamics that are of interest to them. Usually offered every year.

FYS 67b Music, Protests, and Social Change of the Sixties

The Times They Are A-Changin…When Bob Dylan wrote this song in the early 1960s, it was the time of political and military upheaval in America. Dylan was trying to rally people to come together to bring about needed change in our society: culturally, socially, and politically. The decade marked revolutionary ideas and turmoil, and the most prevalent included individual freedoms, Civil Rights, Women’s Liberation, the Viet Nam controversy, Woodstock, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Gay Liberation, and more. Students played a major role in bringing about change as campus protests occurred across America. To explore their role, we will start by examining primary sources and personal narratives between 1960 and 1974 from the extensive archive at Brandeis. Through a series of writing assignments, this seminar will provide students an opportunity to examine the Sixties phenomena, first through the lens of music, then through a comparative analysis of controversies, and finally through research into movements that accomplished social change. Usually offered every year.

FYS 69a Hip-Hop as Social Commentary

Examines hip-hop as a form of social commentary, focusing on how hip-hop artists use their music to address social, political, and cultural issues. Through readings, discussions, and listening exercises, we will explore how hip-hop artists have commented on topics such as racism, police brutality, poverty, and other social issues. Students will be encouraged to engage in critical thinking and discussion about the social issues addressed in hip-hop music, and to analyze how these messages are conveyed through the music. By the end of the course, students will have an understanding of how hip-hop can be used as a form of social commentary, and will have developed the skills necessary to analyze any genre of text that addresses social issues. Usually offered every year.

FYS 69b The Ethics of True Crime

In recent news, Adnan Syed – the lead figure in the seminal true crime podcast Serial – was released from prison after twenty-three years. Syed had been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Hay Min Lee, but the podcast shed enough doubt on the conviction that a court eventually overturned it, leading to Syed’s release. At the same time, many have noted that the emergence of true crime podcasts and docuseries has its roots in the exploitation of people’s misery for the entertainment of the masses (and the financial benefit of the media outlets). In this course, we will examine the ethics of this genre. We will read texts in ethical philosophy (authors like Kant, James, and Mill), as well as arguments about true crime series themselves. In the end, we will have examined some of our own beliefs about right and wrong, and will have conducted a critical investigation into the culture that surrounds us. Usually offered every year.

FYS 72a Autobiographical Comics

Autobiography is an extremely popular genre among comics artists. Masterpieces like Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home are now common inclusions in high school and college curricula. These works share an uncanny ability to take difficult subjects — e.g., warfare, violence, and family trauma — and portray them in a human dimension that is accessible to readers of all ages and backgrounds. Other texts in the genre depict lighter subject matter, but these also claim to represent the past through images drawn much later in time than the episodes that they depict actually occurred. What is it about comics as a medium that draws artists to reflect on their personal experiences and enchants readers to engage? What should we make of the connection between lived reality and its portrayal in comics? Are comics more or less “real” than other media like text, photography, film, and paint?

In this course, we will pair autobiographical comics with theory from various disciplines: art and visual representation, history and narrativization, and psychology and memory studies. Students will be encouraged to write papers that investigate the relationship between comics, the self, and the notion of truth. Usually offered every year.

FYS 72b Driving Change: Student-Led Social Movements

In January of 1969, Black students and other students of color at Brandeis led an 11-day sit-in at Ford Hall, an administrative building, and issued a list of ten demands that promoted racial justice. Brandeis students aren’t unique: Students and young adults play a critical role in nearly every social movement. For generations, youth across the world have used innovative tactics to protest inequality, racism, violence, and human rights violations. Is the rest of the world listening? How do these movements form and how are they portrayed in media and pop culture? Why do they succeed or fail?

This course utilizes documentaries, archives, pop culture, and scholarly histories to explore the tactics of student and youth-led groups through the intersecting lenses of race, gender identity, citizenship, and sexuality. Throughout the semester, students will reflect on these activists’ impact on social justice movements around the world as well as how authorities and media view their tactics. During the final paper, students will have the freedom to choose their own topic and to utilize interdisciplinary literature in their exploration of how youth activism shape our understanding of how to fight for change. Usually offered every year.

FYS 73a Paris: City of Light and Shadow

Ernest Hemingway declared that “Paris is a moveable feast,” and this city with its café culture, Art Nouveau architecture, museums, and fashion houses has provided a multi-course banquet for visitors throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Known both as the “City of Light” and the “City of Love,” Paris is a cultural conduit for those outside of its borders who reshape it to fit certain preconceptions and desires. In this course, we will first explore the history and geography of France’s capital city and learn how its inhabitants—and our imaginations—have transformed a muddy island in the Seine into the most visited place on Earth. Over the course of three units dedicated to examining idealization versus reality (as well as questioning such binary divisions), we will explore Paris as a representation of socio-economic status (rich/poor), human connections (love/sex), and ethnic identities (French/"other") as we sharpen our analytical skills. Considering film, images (caricatures, paintings, photographs, fashion plates), journalistic writing, sociological studies, literature, and science writing about these topics as they relate to Paris, we will learn how to tailor our oral and written expression to audiences in different contexts. Berets suggested but not required (and we will deconstruct that cliché). Usually offered every year.

FYS 74a Art and Social Change

A painter or sculptor might not change the world simply by installing their work in a museum or on the street, but they might change how we see the world. How does this process work? What kind of things can a piece of art allow us—or force us—to see about the society that we live in? And how can we use writing to come to grips with these new ways of seeing and being? This course invites us to ask questions about the possibilities and the limits of art to represent and effect social change. We will look at theories of how art can change the way we see the world and even how we act within it, look at famous case studies from artists like Banksy, Dana Schutz, Kerry James Marshall, and Kara Walker, and head to some museums or other public spaces for art ourselves to see these ideas in action. Usually offered every year.

FYS 74b The Making of Star Wars

It has earned 10 billion dollars, created millions of fans, inspired thousands of books, dozens of TV episodes, and hundreds of baby Yoda toys. Since its premiere in 1977, Star Wars has become one of the most widely recognizable pop culture phenomena, with the franchise having expanded from a film trilogy to numerous television series, novels, comic books, video games, and its own theme park. But how did this massive world come to be?

Star Wars has often been called a “modern fairytale”; like all fairytales, it reflects artistic and political contexts of its time. In this class, we will look at the literary sources – including samurai films, cowboy mythology, space operas, and 1930s serials – and the real-world social contexts that informed George Lucas, the director of Star Wars, and inspired other filmmakers working under the auspices of the Disney Corporation. Students will be encouraged to think critically about how the fictional world of Star Wars has been constructed by different authors, at different times. The breadth of the text of Star Wars and the interdisciplinary nature of this course allow everyone to engage in discussion and writing activities – you do not have to be a “hardcore” fan to contribute! Usually offered every year.

FYS 75a Youth Activism Around the World

Whether in high schools, universities, or international forums like the United Nations, young people are major actors in many contemporary movements for social change. Their activism is central to shifting the political and economic priorities of our society and imagining a more compassionate and equal society for all. In this class, we will look at examples of youth activism and activists from around the world, such as the youth climate movement and Greta Thunberg, to contemplate what makes youth activism unique and powerful. What are the issues, experiences, and ambitions that motivate young people to organize and advocate for change? What strategies or opportunities do youth activists leverage to gain legitimacy as social actors? What challenges do youth activists confront from institutions and people in power? Usually offered every year.

FYS 75b On Being Someone Else

Have you ever wanted to trade lives with someone else, to experience a different consciousness? In Charlie Kaufman's film Being John Malkovich, office workers discover a tiny, mysterious door that turns out to be a portal into John Malkovich's mind. For 15 minutes, they get to be John Malkovich – and yet, they retain their own identity at the same time. What is it to be someone else? Is it to know what their body feels like? To hear their thoughts? To see through their eyes? Is it more than that? If the office workers are still themselves while 'inside' John Malkovich, do they really know what it is like to be John Malkovich? This course explores the strangeness of being a particular self, and of not being someone else. We will ponder various kinds of other minds, from strangers to enigmatic lovers, philosophical zombies to dogs and bats, and think about what knowledge is possible or desirable or ethical to seek. How are we shaped by and intertwined with others? Usually offered every year.

FYS 76a Musical Storytelling in Film, Television, and Video Games

In 1975, Steven Spielberg made a film about a shark that terrorizes summer tourists in Martha's Vineyard. What music did his collaborator, John Williams, compose to underscore the shark as it attacked its unsuspecting victims? Two notes. In screen media, music plays an integral role in stirring emotions, depicting characters, and structuring narrative. We may not see the shark in Spielberg's Jaws, but William's music proclaims its terrifying presence. "Musical Storytelling in Film, Television, and Video Games" focuses on the sounds and music emanating from your speakers or headphones when you watch television shows or movies or play video games. While this seminar does not require any formal musical training to participate, students are required to engage with scholarly discourse and critical thinking, express their unique perspectives, and hone their writing skills by examining how audiovisual relationships bring the stories, characters, and locations in screen media to life. Usually offered every year.

FYS 76b Narratives of Migration

Why do people migrate? What is the impact of the circumstances and context of such moves? How do immigrants write about moving to new locations – leaving their old home and arriving at a new one? In this seminar, we explore patterns of human migration, the political and cultural significance of such movement and the ways in which people narrate their experience. In exploring multiple types and contexts of migration, we consider multilingualism and translation, identity, borders, and cultural encounters and differences – topics that continue to pervade our public discourse. Our sources include literary texts, historical and legal documents, journalistic writing, personal narratives, and film. We discuss these readings and the choices made in them in terms of tone, word choice, audience and more, and use them to formulate our own critical ideas on topics such as home, belonging and navigating cultural differences. Usually offered every year.

FYS 77a Jerusalem, Then and Now

Jerusalem is a city with multiple names, a long and tumultuous history, and myriad admirers. For millennia, it has been conquered, destroyed, and rebuilt. People have killed and died for it, traveled from afar to see it, dreamed about it, and written poetry and prose commemorating it. Why has this city captured so many people’s imagination for so long? And what is it like to actually live in a city that has long been a symbol? In this course, we ask how Jerusalem became sacred and to whom, trace recurring instances of exile and of longing to return and discuss the city’s symbolic and political importance in the violent national conflict of the past 100 years. Our journey through Jerusalem’s many lives includes an array of texts and artifacts depicting the city across centuries and perspectives: religious texts, poetry, short stories, paintings, film, and television. Usually offered every year.

FYS 77b Laughing Matters: Sitcoms and Society

Explores the role of the television sitcom (or “situational comedy”) as a programming and cultural mainstay in American life. Despite being occasionally derided as mere entertainment, the television sitcom functions as a social and cultural artifact that often indicates the norms and values of its time and place. This course will analyze how sitcoms reflect and influence societal values. By dissecting the humor, characters, and underlying social messages of iconic sitcoms ranging from I Love Lucy to The Office, students will develop a nuanced understanding of how shifting societal values have been reflected in sitcoms, and how this popular entertainment form shapes the construction of social norms and social difference in American culture. We will also consider the transformational role of digital streaming platforms in the development and consumption of contemporary sitcoms. Usually offered every year.

FYS 78b Fallacies and Failures That Make Us Human

Humans are logical beings – but only sometimes! Logical fallacies, irrational attachments to opinions, mistakes with massive implications, and just plain being wrong are all part of the human experience. Rather than pretending that these parts of ourselves don’t exist, this course deliberately seeks them out to ask: Why do we act like this? What can we learn from our missteps? How can we use them to become better people? This course explores the many tragic and comedic ways in which humans make mistakes through film, literature, and history. It aims not only to help us recognize our own limitations and behavioral quirks, but also to use this understanding to develop a more nuanced, tolerant, and empathetic outlook on our world. Usually offered every year.