In the genre of science fiction, women authors have always been present if not always as widely known or accepted as their male counterparts. Published in 1818, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is considered the first true science fiction story; in 2018, N.K. Jemisin became the first person ever to win the Hugo award for science fiction/fantasy three years in a row.

Uber, Twitter, Facebook, Google -- smart technologies have transformed our world, disrupting old patterns of life, communication, work, and politics. As new technologies push us into an uncertain future, thinking critically about the positive and the negative effects of disruption has never been more important.

From the ancient world to the present day, animals have been captive to the demands of human exceptionalism. Evolutionary theorists, along with critical thinkers from a growing number of disciplines, have interrogated the human-animal binary, asking difficult and provocative questions about the nature of life and the politics of being. In this course, first- year students will explore these issues from a variety of perspectives, revisiting their own assumptions and experiences as they discover works of art and literature that engage directly with animal presence and absence.

How do we represent ourselves as we document our lives and communicate with others? In this seminar we will move beyond critiques of selfie culture, instead analyzing self-representation as an important avenue for forming identities. We will study forms of self-representation across history and will focus on visual and new media as platforms for performing selfhood. Students will discuss the politics and aesthetics of self-fashioning across these media forms, and will execute multiple forms of self-expression, including the argumentative essay, the op-ed, the blog post, and the tweet.

This course explores the sometimes catastrophic intersection of geology with people's lives. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods are geologic events; they are also natural hazards that pose significant challenges to communities in high risk areas. Where are these risky areas? Why? Is it possible to predict when and where catastrophic geologic events will occur? How do we assess geological risks? Using case studies from around the world, we explore these three natural hazards in the context of evolving geologic research on plate tectonics and climate change.

With ever more dire news about our planetary future hitting the headlines regularly, what better time to look at how human beings past and present have envisioned the demise of the earth or our species? In this course we will study representations of apocalyptic futures from illuminated manuscripts, from illustrated poetry, and from science fiction films that waver between hope for escape and doomsday scenarios.

With the rise of the two-sex model, the eighteenth century might be seen to be a bastion of heteronormativity leading directly to Victorian cis-gender binary roles of angel in the house and the bourgeois patriarch. Yet, beginning with the Restoration's reinvention of ribald theater, this period was host to a radical array of experimentation in gender and sexuality, alongside intense play with genre (e.g., the invention of the novel). We will explore queerness in all its forms alongside consideration of how to write queer literary histories.

With the rise of the two-sex model, the eighteenth century might be seen to be a bastion of heteronormativity leading directly to Victorian cis-gender binary roles of angel in the house and the bourgeois patriarch. Yet, beginning with the Restoration's reinvention of ribald theater, this period was host to a radical array of experimentation in gender and sexuality, alongside intense play with genre (e.g., the invention of the novel). We will explore queerness in all its forms alongside consideration of how to write queer literary histories.

The course will address international problems and issues that are multi-dimensional, including those shaping and shaped by political, cultural, economic, and ecological processes. Each issue or problem will be analyzed from multiple theoretical perspectives, drawing upon a wide range of theories in economics, politics, and sociology.

This course will introduce students to the field of applied economics in which microeconomic and macroeconomic theory and concepts are applied in real-world planning and decision making in a variety of business organizations having particular yet varying priorities and goals (for example, one question to explore is how do decision makers in a socially responsible Benefit Corporation, a worker-owned cooperative, a more traditional company and a startup apply economic analysis in their pursuit of having a successful enterprise?).