University Writing Program

The program offers a range of topic-driven seminars that encourage students to construct well-reasoned arguments, support them with observations and evidence, and express their ideas clearly and persuasively. Reading and writing are integral components of the seminars. Each seminar will feature a selection of readings that align with its themes, stimulate discussion, deepen understanding, and serve as a foundation for writing assignments. Students will engage with writing as a crucial aspect of both academic and professional life, recognizing its role in fostering critical thinking and active citizenship.

Additionally, students will learn to identify the conventions of disciplinary writing, enabling them to apply these skills across their major courses and throughout the broader Brandeis curriculum.

All students must complete a First-Year Seminar during their first year at Brandeis. The seminars will meet the Brandeis Core first-year writing requirement, which aims to improve students’ written communication skills during their careers at Brandeis.

Students who completed UWS prior to Fall 2025 fulfilled the FYS requirement.

Upon completion of the First-Year Seminar, students will be able to:

• Articulate elements of effective writing, including the revision process, and integrate them into their own work
• Identify and assess central ideas, arguments, and concepts in foundational texts
• Generate original questions and pursue independent research
• Construct well-reasoned arguments and substantiate them with observations and evidence
• Identify and evaluate sources and use them responsibly
• Provide constructive feedback to peers and respond to feedback provided by others
• Develop awareness of disciplinary differences in writing and adapt their writing to different genres, contexts, and audiences

FYS 2b: Darwinian Dating: The Evolution of Human Attraction (Elissa Jacobs)
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.

FYS 3b: Evil and Tragedy (Laura Quinney)
This is a course for people who love literature. We will read three challenging and fiercely beautiful plays that all explore how human conflict results in evil and suffering: Sophocles’ Antigone, Shakespeare’s King Lear and Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. (This is your chance to read King Lear in depth!) These tragic dramas ask how it is that tragedy comes into the world. Is it precipitated by evil? Does it necessarily involve evildoing or an evil agent? Or is it, as Hegel said, the result of conflict, not between right and wrong, but between one right and another? This class will consider and debate the question in the course of studying the three plays along with major critical statements about them, as well as actors’ notes and recordings of performances.

FYS 4b: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain (Jonathan Decter)
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 First Year 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.

FYS 5a: Sugar in History and Society (Robert Cochran)
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.

FYS 6a: Understanding Russian Culture: Myths and Paradoxes (David Powelstock)
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 First-Year 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.

FYS 6b: American Political Violence from the Founding to the Present (Daniel Kryder)
This First-Year Seminar will use 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 is transdisciplinary: archival materials and government documents, novels, movies, documentaries, academic research in history, psychology, sociology and political science, etc. This course 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.

FYS 10b: American Scholars: Public Intellectuals in American Life (Maura J. Farrelly)
This course 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.

FYS 11b: Cleopatra in Ancient and Modern History (Darlene Brooks Hedstrom)
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.

FYS 12a: Prisons, Power, and Progress (Rosalind Kabrhel)
In this class, students will develop writing skills 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.

FYS 13a: Asian American Films (Howie Tam)
This course takes a critical look at a century of Asian American representations on 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.

FYS 23a: The Bible and Contemporary Arts, Literature and Film (Lynn Kaye)
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 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.
As a writing seminar, the course introduces 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. There will be readings on writing process, originality, the pace of life and the cultivation of focus, and writing style, interspersed with materials on the bible and arts.

FYS 32a: Pursuing Truth in a Post-Truth World (Joshua Lederman)
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.

FYS 40a: The Bookshelf of Childhood (Robin F. Miller)
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. “The Bookshelf of Childhood,” through its numerous and varied writing assignments, 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 writing assignments – to reflect upon their own childhoods and the nature of childhood more generally.

FYS 43a: Storytelling in Business (Katrin Fischer)
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?

FYS 62a: Video Gameplay, Players, and Styles (James Heazlewood-Dale)
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.

FYS 72a: Autobiographical Comics (Rafael Abrahams)
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.

FYS 76a: Musical Storytelling in Film, Television, and Video Games (James Heazlewood-Dale)
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.

FYS 76b: Narratives of Migration (Yael Kenan)
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.

FYS 77a: Jerusalem, Then and Now (Yael Kenan)
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.

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR FOR HUMANITIES FELLOWS (FALL 2025)

HUM 1a: Tragedy: Love and Death in the Creative Imagination (John Burt and Stephen Dowden)
Our seminar concerns elemental experiences, above all love and death. The medium through which we will explore them is tragedy, an ancient literary form closely allied with myth. Consider this remark by philosopher Simone Weil:

Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way around. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound and full of charm. (S.W., On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, 160)

Hence the appeal of the tragic, which directly addresses evil. There will be abundant, and sometimes horrifying evil in the plays, fiction, and poetry we read this term. We begin with Cormac McCarthy’s shocking Blood Meridian, a tragic tale of the American West, much as the Iliad is a tragic tale of ancient Greece. But why belabor the tragic, the mythic? Because in myth and tragedy we find not merely the self-confident moral posturing so common in modern writing but instead an attempt to get at that which underlies morality: good and evil, love and death. They are more fundamental, possibly divine, and therefore the remit of myth and tragedy rather than science and law.

HUM 15a: Truth in Fiction (William Flesch and Umrao Sethi)
The fundamental question we’ll be asking is a question about truth in fiction. What is truth? At a minimum, we think that if a sentence is true, there’s something that makes it true. Much of our ordinary discourse is rendered true or false by how the actual world is. If I tell you that it is raining when it is in fact sunny outside, the world renders my utterance false. If you say that the tallest person in the world is Turkish, your utterance is made true by the fact that the current record holder was born in a village in the Mardin Province of Turkey. But what makes something true in fiction? What makes it true that Cordelia dies at the end of Lear or that Jacob has died in the Great War in Jacob’s Room or that the Governess is or is not hallucinating in The Turn of the Screw? It cannot be a fact about how the world actually is, but might it be a fact about how the world might have been? Or is it socially constructed facts agreed upon by the creators or the readers of fiction? Do reflections on truth in fiction make us reconsider our view of how we should think about everyday truth? What should we say about contexts in which people cannot agree on a single truth? Are all of our observations of the world ultimately theory-laden?
We won’t so much be trying to answer these questions once and for all as trying to make them exciting and real. We’ll do this by looking at literary texts that are particularly insightful about questions pertaining to truth in fiction, fictional entities and the nature of evidence, coupled with classical and contemporary readings in philosophy.

FYS 4a: Medical Ethics (Lisa Rourke)
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.

FYS 6a: Understanding Russian Culture: Myths and Paradoxes (David Powelstock)
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 First-Year 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.

FYS 7a: Reading and Re-Reading Homer's Odyssey (Joel Christensen)
The Homeric Odyssey is one of the most influential pieces of literature that remains from the Ancient World. As a text deeply engaged with questions of individual identity, the importance of community, and the impact of storytelling on both, it has beguiled audiences over time. Yet, in its original context, the Odyssey was part of a dynamic performance environment, where its hero was part of a challenging and changing story tradition, adapting to audience interests and needs over time. In this First-Year Seminar, we will perform a close reading of Homer's Odyssey with a special focus on what it says about what it means to be a person and how different audiences have interpreted over time. In the second half of the course, we will look at how ancient and modern audiences have 're-read' the Odyssey by rewriting it, looking in particular at Euripides' Cyclops, Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, Madeline Miller's Circe and other forms of reception, like Epic: The Musical and the recent movieThe Return.

FYS 7b: Big Tech Under Fire: Power, Platforms & Policy in the Digital Age (Benjamin Shiller)
This course 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.

FYS 8a: Chinese Poetry: Desire and Form (Pu Wang)
This course is an introductory course on classical Chinese poetry that serves as a First-Year Seminar. In this course we will explore the great tradition of Chinese poetry. Following a development of poetry in ancient China, this course will revolve around 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? Aimed to train students to understand a poetic tradition through translation, this course emphasizes transcultural encounters and develops the skills of comparative critical thinking (all readings are in English). By exploring Chinese poetry, this course will help first-year students construct well-reasoned arguments, support them with observations and evidence, and express their ideas clearly and persuasively. In developing the students’ skills of literary analysis and humanistic inquiry, this course attaches importance to academic writing. Engaging with writing as a crucial aspect of critical thinking, students will learn how to conduct close reading and how to compose essays of literary studies. In so doing, we will raise the central question as to 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.

FYS 9a: Monsters in Human Culture (Madadh Richey)
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 First-Year Seminar will address such questions through focused encounters with four major literary texts spanning the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. This year our inquiry will center on the theme of association between the monster and the monarch.

FYS 9b: Latinx Banned Books (María Durán)
Book-banning is a multifaceted issue that intersects with art, politics, culture, spirituality, and personal identity – no wonder it is such a contentious topic. It touches on the very aspects that define us both individually and collectively. In recent years, the conversation around book banning has become increasingly visible, playing out in classrooms, libraries, churches, and government offices across the country. How can we facilitate meaningful dialogue when strong convictions are at stake? How can we maintain civility in the face of deeply divided opinions? Is it possible to engage with the issue of challenged books without immediately taking sides, digging in, and becoming entrenched in conflict?
This course will examine the history, present, and future of book-banning in the United States. Through close readings of three frequently Latinx banned books, as well as writing assignments related to these texts, we will investigate the political, cultural, and social forces behind the banning of Latinx-authored works, focusing on issues of race, immigration, sexuality, gender, etc. We will examine the causes and consequences of book challenges – from local communities to the national stage. We will also explore points of views from a range of experts, including teachers, librarians, administrators, and school board members, who navigate complex and contentious conversations around book censorship. Throughout the semester, we will be challenged to reflect on the role of literature in resisting systems of oppression.

FYS 10a: Trials from Antiquity to the Present (Eugene Sheppard)
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?

FYS 14a: War and Peace in Ukraine (Chandler Rosenberger)
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?

FYS 34a: Reading and Writing Boston (Marsha Nourse)
What is Boston? Boston is best known for baked beans, Fenway Park, the Boston Marathon, and over 50 colleges and universities that attract nearly 200,000 students in the Greater Metropolitan area. In the 1700s, 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 streetcar 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 First-Year Seminar, 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. To further develop your academic research and writing skills, 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.

FYS 32a: Pursuing Truth in a Post-Truth World (Joshua Lederman)
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.

FYS 52b: Environmental Justice (Katrin Fischer)
This course 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. It invites students to 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. It explores 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.

FYS 56b: Romanticism in European Music and Literature: Breakups, Breakdowns, and Beauty (Emily Frey)
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.

FYS 62a: Video Gameplay, Players, and Styles (James Heazlewood-Dale)
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.

FYS 69b: The Ethics of True Crime (Joshua Lederman)
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.

FYS 76a: Musical Storytelling in Film, Television, and Video Games (James Heazlewood-Dale)
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.

FYS 72a: Autobiographical Comics (Rafael Abrahams)
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.

FYS 73a: Paris: City of Light and Shadow (Hollie Harder)
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).

FYS 76b: Narratives of Migration (Yael Kenan)
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.

FYS 77a: Jerusalem, Then and Now (Yael Kenan)
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.

Yes and no. On the one hand, each First-Year Seminar has the same Learning Goals. On the other hand, each seminar uses a different topic and approach. 

Both options are viable, but students who take the First-Year Seminar in the fall can then apply what they’ve learned to their spring courses. Consult Academic Advising if you have further questions.

First-Year Seminar is a full-credit course. It counts as one of the 32 courses required for graduation.

First-Year Seminars instructors work closely with their students, providing one-on-one tutorials, sustained attention to individual development, and extensive comments on drafts. With larger classes, instructors could not give this kind of individualized attention.

Depending on availability, students may change their First-Year Seminar to another in the same semester.

First-Year Seminars are a first-year requirement. If you do not fulfill it during your first year, you may be placed on academic probation.

An online writing assessment, taken in the spring before entering Brandeis, helps the Writing Program reach out to students who might most benefit from what the Composition Seminar has to offer. (Students wishing to enroll directly into CSEM without taking the online assessment may do so.)

The Writing Center offers support for all students, including those enrolled in First-Year Seminars, with 30- and 60-minute one-on-one tutorials available by appointment. The Writing Center also offers workshops on each of the major First-Year Seminar assignments.