GROUP II

The following sections will examine ways of knowing across the curriculum. We will examine experimenting in science, performing in art, valuing in social studies, and engaging literature, and reflect upon these activities, considering such questions as what is particular about each form of knowledge or expression? What is to be known and what does it mean "to know?" There will be some collaboration among the sections, but sections have different reading lists and will differ in their attention and activities, focusing variously on the specific role of language, on the production of knowledge, and on how different perspectives and areas illuminate and reflect upon each other.

FSEM I BAB First-Year Seminar I CRN: 92219

Professor: B. Boretz

Time: Tu Th 10:30 am - 11:50 am Brook House

How is a poem a "way of knowing"? How is a poem a "thing to know"? How is a discourse a "way of knowing"? How is a discourse a "thing to know"? How is a scientific experiment a "way of knowing"? How is a scientific experiment a "thing to know"? Ask the same questions about: a novel/a song/a dance/a drama/a painting/a photograph/a spectacle/a ritual/a film.

Four modes of "knowing": 1. demonstrative (as in scientific theory) 2. interpretive (as in theoretical and critical discourse), expressive (as in conscious reception of direct experience, non-verbal and sensory as well as linguistic), narrative/ descriptive/declarative/mythic-ritualistic (as in storytelling, ideologizing, documenting, symbolizing,...)

FSEM I BB First-Year Seminar I CRN: 91920

Professor: B. Brody

Time: M 4:00 pm - 5:20 pm OLIN 309

W 2:50 pm - 4:10 pm OLIN 306

This section will have more science, and will be concerned with applying ideas from one area to another. Readings will include core texts and books by an epidemiologist, a conservationist, a sociologist, and a book critic, short stories, a legal brief and reportage on an alleged science fraud, essays by a physicist, a philosopher of science, and an art historian, and other handouts. There will be several activities and field trips.

FSEM I PC First-Year Seminar I CRN: 91924

Professor: P. Connolly

Time: M 2:50 pm - 4:10 pm LC 210

W 2:50 pm - 4:10 pm Henderson Lab

This section will study scientific experimentation, artistic composition and performance, ethical and political evaluation, and reflective reading of literature as ways of knowing, and contrast how these are performed in and out of school. In additional to the core texts readings include: Sven Birkerts The Gutenberg Elegies; John Dewey Art as Experience; Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Christopher Stone Should Trees Have Standing.

FSEM I VT1 First-Year Seminar I CRN: 91934

Professor: V. Tekavec

Time: M W 2:50 pm - 4:10 pm OLIN 107

This section will explore similar questions to those outlined in Connolly's. The reading list will also be similar. There will be additional handouts throughout the semester. The texts are important, but we won't isolate them as our sole motivation for discussion. Instead, we'll read them in the context of making our own knowledge through active writing, performing, evaluating, and experimenting. Students will keep journals as a means of documenting these activities, and how they relate to the readings. Journal material will be used in class discussion. Additional texts: Sven Birkerts The Gutenberg Elegies; John Dewey Art as Experience; Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Christopher Stone Should Trees Have Standing.

FSEM I VT2 First-Year Seminar I CRN: 91935

Professor: V. Tekavec

Time: M W 10:30 pm - 11:50 pm OLIN 107

See description for section VT1