First Year Seminar
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