This seminar takes a unique look at ancient Mediterranean mythology along with just some of the countless art pieces and architecture these stories have inspired over the last two thousand years. Every two weeks will focus on a specific mythological story from the ancient world. In the first of these two sessions, we will read primary sources describing these myths and discuss the many things that these stories can tell us about the cultures that produced them. In the second class session on this particular myth, we will focus on art and architecture inspired by these stories.

This seminar will explore ways in which artists produce cultural memory through the creation of Artists Archives. It will touch on themes of public history, private memory, and cultural authorship through investigations of the contemporary art museum, archives and special collections on campus, culminating in the students' creation of artist archives with material from class research and their own life experience. What does it mean to make our own archive of the past decade, what should we include or exclude, and what do we want an audience to know about us and our lives?

In 1959, Noam Chomsky wrote an article in response to the book "Verbal Behavior," by B.F. Skinner, that infamously ignited a debate regarding learning and human cognition within the field of Cognitive Science. In this seminar, we will take a deep dive into this debate and ask ourselves: is it nature? Or is it nurture? We will consider a wide array of perspectives from Philosophy, Computer Science, Linguistics, Neuroscience, and Psychology, as well as the experimental and theoretical results from each field that have shaped our current understanding of cognition.

In this seminar we will focus on the joyful exploration of Afro-Latina/o/x texts which confront and respond to racism, colorism, social issues, and current events.

Have you wondered about what "artificial intelligence" really means? The idea is everywhere. It recommends playlists, optimizes shipping networks, and even crashes a few cars. We've been writing about it in fiction for decades, but those texts talk about more than just AI. Exploring the intelligences we "make" is often a way of exploring the intelligences that we "are." In many works of fiction, robots and sentient computers are blank slates that allow us to dream up other ways of being. Writers from Mary Shelley to Philip K.

This seminar will take an interdisciplinary American studies approach to the figure of the nerd/geek in popular culture and in other public discourses. We will follow the history of representing nerds and geeks in American culture with an emphasis on gender and on the ways in which changes in representation reveal a changing relationship between people and technology. We will also examine the shift of mainstream American pop culture toward "nerdy" entertainment in the past 20 years.

Through using creative and mindful-based contemplative practices such as journal writing, drawing and coloring, this seminar supports first year students interested in the humanities and fine arts as they critically explore and examine issues of inequality and injustice. This academic experience will provide students with a strong sense of awareness of their own personal and social identities, while encouraging them to build meaningful connections that can help them be more successful in college and beyond.

This seminar is an examination of gender and race as an introduction to History and its methods. It is intended to provide students with skills useful throughout their college career, particularly in an HFA (Humanities and Fine Arts) track. We will use gender and race as analytical frameworks to understand history and relate it to our present world. This will include topical discussions on feminism, masculinity and war, slavery and emancipation, and Civil Rights. Students will explore a relevant topic of their choosing throughout the semester to hone their research abilities and interests.

This seminar is an examination of gender and race as an introduction to History and its methods. It is intended to provide students with skills useful throughout their college career, particularly in an HFA (Humanities and Fine Arts) track. We will use gender and race as analytical frameworks to understand history and relate it to our present world. This will include topical discussions on feminism, masculinity and war, slavery and emancipation, and Civil Rights. Students will explore a relevant topic of their choosing throughout the semester to hone their research abilities and interests.

What was the world like at the time of the Rise of Islam and how did the new religion change the Global World Order? The Historical circumstance of the rise of Islam is often misunderstood and shrouded in mystery, or obfuscated by partisan bickering.