First-Year Seminars
Agnes Scott offers exciting and distinctive First-Year Seminars that introduce new students to advanced study at the college level. In a First-Year Seminar, you will learn to write and speak more effectively, think more analytically and develop extensive knowledge of the seminar topic.
The seminar will have you focus on a compelling question or critical issue selected by your professor. Together, you will conduct a semester-long inquiry into the topic and, thereby, learn how to evaluate information, formulate arguments and interpretations and pose and assess solutions.
First-Year Seminars are:
- Four-credit hour, academic courses
- Required of and limited to first-year students (transfer and nontraditional students with more than 28 credit hours are exempt)
- Offered fall semester only
- Led by professors who have selected and researched the special topics for these courses
- Often interdisciplinary, so that students may explore topics from more than one perspective
Fall 2011 Course Descriptions:
A. The Discourses of Fashion
Willie Tolliver
T/TH 10:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the meanings and functions of fashion. The class will examine fashion as a language, as an industry, and as an art. The intersections of fashion and history, society, culture, identity, race, and gender will also be scrutinized. Special topics will include the designer as auteur, fashion and film, fashion photography, magazine culture, dandyism, and the aesthetics of shopping. Central to the course will be literary and film texts that either foreground clothing and appearance as categories of meaning, or represent the worlds in which fashion is produced and consumed. These works will include fiction by Bret Easton Ellis and Haruki Murakami and films by Alfred Hitchcock, Paul Schrader, and Robert Altman. Additional reading assignments will include the history and theory of fashion by such writers Diana Crane, Joanne Entwistle, and Christoper Breward.
B. Foodways and Food Writing
Nicole McDaniel-Carder
TTH 10:00-11:15 a.m.
In 1993, the Food Network debuted and helped to usher in a tidal wave of food shows and attendant celebrities, illuminating our contemporary fascination with all things food. As the French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin promised, “Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are.” Food is about us—it symbolizes who we are, where we have come from, what we believe, and what we value—and foodways illuminate how particular kinds of food and culinary traditions evolve. In this course, we will survey some of the myriad ways in which food, culture, and identity intersect in contemporary American culture, considering questions about ethics, celebrity, tourism, health, history, religion, families, bodies, the environment, and taste. We will use essays collected in Best Food Writing 2010 to gauge what we’re saying right now about food; other course texts will include culinary memoir, television programs, cookbooks, and film.
C. Aesthetic Investigations of the American Dreamscape
Toby Emert
TTH 10:00-11:15 a.m.
This course investigates the broad question, “What does it mean to dream in ‘American’?” Drawing on the themes addressed in a number of literary texts, including August Wilson’s Fences, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Adrienne Rich’s The Dream of a Common Language, Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles, and Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, students will examine portrayals of the “American dreamscape.” Class discussions will focus on how playwrights, poets, lyricists, and visual artists have conceptualized and critiqued the idea of a uniquely American identity. Students will also read essays by a number of cultural critics (Cornel West, bell hooks, Nikki Giovanni, Augusto Boal, Paulo Freire, for example) and virtually visit several fine art museums, viewing the work of artists who seek to represent some aspect of the “American dream” through various media. They will write about the intersections of ideas from artists and critics, analyzing, evaluating, synthesizing, and personalizing.
D. The Educated Omnivore: The Life of Food
Harry Wistrand
TTH 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Your main thoughts while looking over the menu at Raging Burrito in Decatur are about how much the food costs and how it tastes. What else should you consider? What are the origins of different parts of your burrito? What kind of thinking did the chef use in creating the menu’s newest dish? In this course, we will consider questions about food, including the history of certain foods as well as the influence of those foods on history; the perspectives of different cultures on food; the original use of certain spices; the reasons foods are raised and prepared in particular ways; the relationship of organic and local foods to sustainability; and the use of genetic modification, hormones, and antibiotics in the food industry. We will explore these topics through readings from sources that include The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Cookwise, Slow Food Nation, and Real Food: What to Eat and Why, along with interviews, guest lectures, and video clips from sources like "Food, Inc.," "Big Night," "Babette’s Feast," "Julie and Julia," "Eat Drink Man Woman," "Like Water For Chocolate," "Ratatouille," "Tampopo," and "Top Chef." The course end will include a gathering for a meal where we will analyze everything possible about what we are consuming.
E. Are We Alone?
Chris De Pree
TTH 10:00-11:15 a.m.
In the past fifteen years, humans have progressed from the first detection of a planet orbiting another star to our current tabulation of over 1000 such planets. What techniques have been used to make these discoveries? What prospects do these worlds hold for the presence of other life in the universe? Through lectures and discussion of contemporary science fiction novels and movies, students will explore the search for life in the universe. Classes will also involve use of the Bradley Observatory’s Delafield Planetarium.
F. Cryptology and Cryptography: the Mathematics of Making and Breaking Secret Codes
Alan Koch
MWF 9:30-10:20 a.m.
How did Julius Caesar communicate with his generals? How did three British code breakers draw the Americans into World War I? How did America, Britain, and Poland crack Nazi Germany’s “unbreakable” Enigma code? How can today’s financial institutions exchange information without working out a secret code ahead of time? How are online web transactions done in a secure manner? How can a code be designed so that anyone can encode a message but only the recipient can decode it? How can a message carry a “digital signature” to authenticate its origin? This course will address the mathematics behind both aspects of cryptology: making and breaking secret codes. We will approach the topic through a historical perspective, starting with the Caesar cipher and progressing through affine ciphers, Vigenère squares, and Rivest-Adelman-Shamir “public key” codes, and more. We will explore vulnerabilities in these ciphers and determine how they can possibly be broken.
H. Temple, Text, Image: Buddhist Journeys
Anne Beidler
MWF 9:30-10:20 a.m.
This course will explore literary and artistic manifestations of Buddhism. Students will draw from contemporary and traditional sources on Buddhism and Asian art in order to understand the richness of this tradition. Through writing and artistic work in the studio, each student may chart the text and vision that encompasses her own individual expression. The word and image together, become the culmination of the individual student’s journey amidst the Buddhist monks of Asia.
I. The Bible and Human Rights in Atlanta
Tina Pippin
TTh 10:00-11:15 a.m.
This course investigates the historical, social, political, and economic context of the Atlanta area with special emphasis on religious communities (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and theological responses in community organizing, the history of the civil rights movement, human rights education, and gender justice. We will read theoretical works in religious and biblical studies and human rights history with a focus on the city of Atlanta. This course is experience-based (theory-practice learning), and many class sessions will be on-site at various locations in Atlanta.
J. Zen: History, Meditation, and Creativity
Shu-Chin Wu
T/TH 10:00-11:15 a.m.
This course is an introduction to the history of Zen Buddhism, its cultural context, and its practices in meditation and creativity. It covers the ideas and development of Zen from its beginnings in China to its developments in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and to its recent growth and popularity in the United States. This study of Zen history, culture, and theory will extend along experiential lines. A number of meditation and creativity exercises will be adopted. The practice of meditation includes the cultivation of a focused, calm mind and pure perception—a direct, fresh, unconditional way of seeing reality as it is. Students will engage in a Zen approach to creativity and learn to appreciate the unique aesthetic of Zen art. Through the exploration of the nature of creativity, both as an inherent human activity and as an enlivening capacity to be nurtured and developed, students will gain an important understanding of learning as a creative process and develop an understanding of the relationship between creativity and self-expression. By integrating theoretical with experiential learning on Zen, I hope this course will help students discover their own creative potentials, learn about their creative blockages to gain insight from them, and discover their own ways of expressing themselves.
K. Consumption and Citizenship
Cathy Scott
TTH 10:00-11:15 a.m.
We usually treat consumption and citizenship as two different topics. In this course, however, we will explore the overlaps, tensions, and interactions between them, examining the ways in which consumption criteria prevail in all walks of life (the privatization of education, security, and much else), the role of celebrities in shaping perceptions of policy issues (George Clooney goes to Darfur), and the way civic activism often revolves around consumption (Bono’s Project Red, fair trade coffee, and community supported agriculture). What happens to political life when consumption defines our politics and what are the prospects for the “citizen consumer”?
L. Vampires, Monsters, and Robots: Images of the Non-Human from the 19th to the 21st Century
Gundolf Graml
MWF 9:30-10:20 a.m.
Undead, non-human, or artificial bodies confront us on an almost daily basis via contemporary TV and film. Vampires threaten to extinguish entire villages, robots run amok and turn against their human engineers, and clones infiltrate and destroy communities. While the more exaggerated versions of these stories remain confined to the realm of entertainment media, similar topics appear in more subtle ways in mainstream media, where issues like cloning and reproductive medicine are routinely connected to images of monstrosity and a declining humanity.
In this seminar we will read and discuss cultural texts that trace the fears and discourses surrounding non-human figures from 19th-century stories and legends to 20th- and 21st-century novels and films. By analyzing and comparing texts from different genres and historical periods, as well as from different national and ethnic communities, we will try to understand how images of the non-human at times expressed fears about the unknown and, at other times, legitimized verbal and physical discrimination and violence against various “outsiders”: women, immigrants, racial others, mentally and physically impaired, AIDS patients, etc.
Literary works will include E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novella The Sandman, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. We will watch and interpret films such as Fritz Lang’s "Metropolis," Paul Wegener’s "The Golem," F.W. Murnau’s "Nosferatu," and Ridley Scott’s "The Bladerunner."
M. The King Legacy and the Atlanta Civil Rights Movement
Kijua Sanders-McMurtry
T/TH 10:00-11:15 a.m.
How was Martin Luther King Jr. shaped by his experiences growing up on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta? What role did Ebenezer Baptist church play in his development as an activist minister? How did King’s experience at Morehouse influence his later work to mobilize youth? How was Coretta shaped by the challenges she experienced growing up in the South? How did Coretta’s participation in anti-apartheid movements, women’s rights and LGBT activism influence the King legacy? This interdisciplinary course will examine the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King and their roles in the Civil and Human Rights Movements. We will explore the early lives of the Kings, their work together as a young married couple in Atlanta, and the activism of Coretta Scott King after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In addition to articles, books, oral histories and films, we will visit local historic sites including the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change and the William Breman Jewish Heritage and Holocaust Museum. Primary sources available through various Atlanta venues will also contribute to our study of the significance of the King legacy and the history of the civil rights movement in Atlanta.
N. Broadway and Beyond
David Thompson
MWF 9:30-10:20 a.m.
This seminar features an examination of recent significant Broadway and Off-Broadway productions and the actors, directors, designers and playwrights who bring them to life. In light of attempts to decentralize theatrical attention with regional theatres and touring companies, the class will investigate why New York continues to command a prominent position. Focal points include an evaluation of trends in theatrical practice and a consideration of the impact on theatre outside New York. Class meetings will include discussions of award-winning plays of the 21st century including recipients of the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award. Students will also view video clips of Broadway musicals, artist interviews and screen adaptations of stage material.