When we talk about "artificial intelligence," what do we mean? 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 much more than just AI. Exploring the intelligences we make is a way of exploring the intelligences that we are. In fiction, robots and sentient computers are blank slates that allow us to dream up other ways of being or reimagine ourselves, revising everything from sexuality to mortality to humor. Writers from Mary Shelley to Philip K.

Do you think UMass buildings like the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, the Campus Center, and Southwest are ugly? In this class, we will explore the history of Brutalism and how you can learn to love (or at least not hate?) these not-so-gentle giants. You will also learn where the word "Brutalism" came from, how the term is a poor translation (or happy accident, depending on the way you look at it) of the original French beton brut (literally "raw concrete"), and the legacy Modernism left behind, aesthetically and politically.

In this first-year seminar, we will read about and discuss many of these issues that are so pervasive in our daily life that we rarely pay attention to them. The hope is that we can go through our time in college paying a little bit more attention, making more intentional choices, rather than simply floating downstream.

What do popular cultural icons such as Kendrick Lamar, Colin Kaepernick, and Beyonce have in common with Black Power activists such as Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and Huey P. Newton? In this first-year seminar, we will explore African American activism beginning with the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and 70s to the current #BlackLivesMatter movement of 2022. As we examine the past and present struggle for racial justice, we will pay close attention to the role of art, music, fashion, mass media, and culture as tools for activism and resistance.