Freshman Humanities Seminar

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The Freshman Humanities Seminar (FHS) program aims to give first-year students an introduction to some of the questions fundamental to individuals in their relationship to society and the world. Each section engages one or more critical themes such as the notion of the self, the community, individual and communal values, modes of understanding, and creative expression, and the relationships each one has with the others. In doing so, all FHS courses include historically significant texts: texts that have become objects of academic discourse in part because of their enormous impact in non-academic contexts. All CMC students are required to take a section of FHS in their first year at Claremont McKenna College.

All FHS sections share the following common methodology:

The seminars are not introductions to any specific discipline, even though the perspective of a given discipline may dominate a given seminar. Thus faculty may somewhat relax disciplinary orthodoxy and encourage active exploration via which students will develop their own, yet still informed, voices.
The seminars are intensely participatory, with a clear emphasis on expression via writing, oral presentation, and class discussion.
The course materials typically include a diversity of media, among which are readings, music, film, and the various visual arts.

Course

FHS 010 CM - Freshman Humanities Seminar

Topics include:

Identity and Society in Ancient and Medieval Culture. Bjornlie
This course offers a thematic approach to ancient and medieval culture by examining various strategies for portraying the self in literature. Students examine a variety of biographical material in order to consider how political, social and religious realities combined to shape the way individuals constructed their own identities in different historical settings, often in opposition to historical conditions which they viewed as antagonistic. In this sense, the course is a study of the rhetoric and reality of the ‘self’ in ancient and medieval contexts. Periods studied include Classical Athens, the Roman Republic and Empire, Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, and the High Middle Ages.
Liberty and Excellence: The Great Books. Blitz, Martin, Nadon, Nichols, Thomas
This course has several purposes. One is to examine several of the major thinkers who have guided Western understanding. A second is to explore the basic issues listed in the course outline. A third is to begin to understand the origin, nature, and differences among several fundamental ways to comprehend human experience and the world around us: religion, philosophy, moral and political practice, art and poetry, and science.
Poverty, Wealth, and Social Change. Chung-Kim
This seminar examines some of the most important religious, secular, and political thinkers in human history and their reflections on poverty, wealth, and social change. It also explores their strategies and methods for social change and why their views on wealth and poverty remain influential around the world to this day. Key thinkers analyzed include Moses, Confucius, the Buddha, Aristotle, Jesus, Mohammad, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Adam Smith, John Locke, Max Weber, Karl Marx, Mao Zedung, John Stuart Mill, Walter Rauschenbusch, Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu, Leonardo Boff, Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rigoberta Menchú, and Muhammad Yunus.
Self, Society, Freedom, and Faith in Western Arts, 1500 to present. Cody
This seminar examines how artists of the last 500 years have understood and represented the individual and peoples’ relationships to society, politics, and religion in the western world. By focusing on the theme of the self in relation to others, to the environment, and to the spiritual realm, this course uses the western visual tradition to explore historically transcendent questions about political rights and obligations, the role of religion, and interpersonal social relations. By focusing on the visual arts in the west, the course also emphasizes how these questions and their representations have been shaped by specific historical conditions of the last 500 years.
Mystics, Prophets, and Social Change. Espinosa
This seminar introduces students to religious and secular mystics, prophets, and social radicals whose revolutionary ideas continue to shape civilizations around the world: Moses, The Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, Augustine, Mohammad, Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, William James, Mircea Eliade, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Mary Daly, Gustavo Gutiérrez, and/or Osama bin Laden. It explores how their notions and critiques of God, sin, justice, and/or salvation shaped their attitude towards religion, politics, and strategies for revolutionary social change.
Natures of the Self. Gilbert
The course examines the Self as represented and understood during various periods and in different intellectual frameworks within western civilization. Through important works of literature, philosophy, and science, we will examine how the Self is constructed and contested, the relation between independent Self and social Self, between the Self and the story of the Self, and whether or not these exists and identifiable, irreducible Self.
Islam & the West: Cultural Encounters. Hamburg
This course analyzes Islam in certain of its religious, cultural and historical dimensions. After considering the emergence of Islam as a religion from the Age of the Prophet to the twelfth century, we shall focus on Islamic encounters with the European West. At the center of our attention will be Muslims’ religious self-understanding; Christian understanding of, misunderstanding of and hostility toward Islam; and the current rupture between Islamists and the West.
Trial and Ordeal in the Ancient World. Hamburg
This course will focus on the experiences of trial and ordeal in antiquity. After considering Homer’s notion that overcoming some physical or mental challenge is a marker of virtuous life, we shall examine how the trials of Antigone, Socrates and Jesus turned on contending definitions of the moral good. Finally, we shall examine the ways in which Augustine understood inner struggle as central to the human personality.
The Virtues. Hurley
The virtues are traits of character that are taken to allow human beings to do well in every aspect of their lives. This course will trace the development of accounts of the virtues in the Western tradition from the Greeks to the present day. Authors to be covered might include Homer, Aristotle, St. Paul, Aquinas, David Hume, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Jane Austen, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Gilbert Harman.
Life, Death, and Meaning. Kind
The Sisyphus of myth was condemned to an eternal punishment of rolling a stone up a hill, only to have that stone roll back down so that he was forced to begin his task anew. While Sisyphus’s fate thereby epitomizes meaninglessness, many writers have thought that we are in no better of a position. Do our lives have meaning, or are we no better off than Sisyphus? If we’re doomed to meaninglessness, what kind of attitude should we take our existence? And regardless, how should we view death? Course readings, both classical and contemporary, will be drawn primarily from philosophical, religious, and literary texts.
Freedom. Kreines
What makes human life worth living? One possible and popular answer is: freedom. This seminar focuses on two clusters of issues raised by that answer. The first cluster concerns politics: Perhaps individual freedom is of central political importance, so that any restrictions on such freedom would require special justification. The second cluster of issues concerns what freedom of the will is, and whether our wills really are free. This seminar approaches these two clusters of issues by reading classic works of philosophy and literature, and viewing some films as well.
Reason, Morals, and Reality. Kreines
This class focuses on two clusters of issues. First, would the most reasonable person recognize moral constraints? A skeptic might propose that reason requires acting in self-interest without constraint. Someone even more skeptical might propose that the most reasonable life is not in any case the best human life at all. The second cluster of issues concerns similar optimistic and skeptical views about whether we can gain knowledge of reality by means of reason. We will attend to philosophy, literature and film, and ask whether literature and film are in a better position to advance skeptical views about reason.
Individual and Society in South Asia. Kumar
This course examines South Asian civilization by looking at the problems of the individual and society, discipline and freedom, culture, the arts and science in comparative perspective.
Theism, Naturalism, and Morality. Locke
Debates between theists and atheists typically focus on (1) naturalistic evolution and (2) the problem of evil (i.e., the tension between the existence of suffering and an all good god). These issues raise difficult questions concerning morality. Naturalists charge that any god willing to allow suffering is too immoral to be worthy of worship; theists counter that naturalistic evolution leaves no place for morality at all. This course will explore the moral implications of theism and naturalism. We will look at historically important religious/naturalistic accounts of morality, and we will explore the recent research on the (alleged) evolution of morality.
Autobiography and the Construction of the Self. Michon
This seminar explores how the self is constructed through the act of writing one’s own life story. Students will read both classic works, for example St. Augustine’s City of God, and contemporary works, for example Nawal El Saadawi’s A Daughter of Isis. Key themes include the impact of modernity on the sense of self, ethnic identity in the post-colonial world, and the gendering of the self. The reading list includes not only autobiographies but also key theoretical essays on the literary genre of autobiography and historical essays to place the works in context.
Religion and Modernity. Michon
As Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar argued in 2001, “modernity is inescapable…[and we must]…desist from speculations about the end of modernity. Born in the West some centuries ago under relatively specific socio-historical conditions, modernity is now everywhere” [Gaonkar, Alternative Modernities, p. 1]. The first half of the course, then, does the important work of tracing the story of the birth and development of modernity in the West, and it pays particular attention to the role of religion in this process. The course moves from the religious foundations of modernity to religion’s impact on modern philosophy, science, politics, and economics. The second half of the course takes Gaonkar’s claim that Western modernity has “specific socio-historical conditions” seriously, and it explores both the impact of Western modernity and the subsequent configurations of non-Western modernity through a case study of India.
Ideas of Church and State. Morrison
The role of church and state is a time-honored political issue, but the question of the social and cultural relation of these two domains has also infused many traditions of the humanities. This course finds a new lens on the topic through a detailed study of two key figures—Antigone and Joan of Arc—whose stories have been often retold in a variety of contexts as parables of a clash between civic responsibility and personal faith.
Socratic Questions. Obdrzalek
Socrates is considered the father of Western philosophy. This course will offer students the opportunity to engage in depth with Socrates as a philosopher, and as a historical and literary figure. We will read Plato’s dialogues, which recount Socrates’ philosophical conversations with his fellow-Athenians. Some of the core questions we will address include: What is the meaning of life? Should I primarily seek pleasure? To what degree am I obliged to obey the law? Why do we sometimes do what we know is wrong? How do we learn to be good? How do we learn to apply concepts?
Nature, Environment and the Human Imagination in Asia. A. Park
This course examines how individuals and societies in pre-modern and modern Asia have defined nature and environment, how definitions of nature and the environment have guided everyday life, and how theories of nature and environment have inspired new forms of design and social movements. Using a historical and comparative approach to analyze how people in Asia have imagined the relationship between humanity, nature and society, this class explores topics such as Taoist, Shamanistic and Buddhist concepts of nature, geomancy and architecture in traditional Korea, antipollution campaigns in modern Japan, industrialization and agrarian ideology in 1930s Asia and environmental politics in present day China.
Culture and Politics in Europe since the Renaissance. Petropoulos
This course examines the interplay of culture and politics in Europe over the past six hundred years. “Culture” will be defined fairly broadly, so as to include a wide range of human behavior, but students will focus primarily on works of literature and political philosophy, visual arts and music, and for the twentieth century, film. The course will explore several key themes, including new conceptions about the individual’s place in society, the formation of the nation-state, and the articulation of power through cultural forms.
Unconventional Thinking. Rajczi
One goal of a liberal arts education is to develop the ability to think unconventionally—that is, the ability to critically examine the presuppositions of one’s society. This course focuses on improving this particular skill. We study psychological and philosophical information about unconventional thinking, historical material on great unconventional thinkers of the past, and arguments that are critical of our society’s current presuppositions. Rather than attempting to cover all sides of an issue, the course focuses on a selection of radical challenges to the conventional wisdom. Thinking through these challenges expands our ability to evaluate views that are very different from our own.
State, Society and the Individual in Asia. Rosenbaum
This course examines how Asian societies defined the relationship between the state, society, and the individual. Themes include the role of the state in ordering society and economy; definitions of the rights and obligations of the individual against those of family, community, and church; and the composition and functions of the dominant elite.
Gender and Society. Selig
This course explores how influential writers have analyzed the social roles of women and men. We will consider a set of questions: How have thinkers understood the interplay of nature and culture? What arguments did they make regarding education, economics, citizenship, and family life for men and women? What social and political changes did they advocate? We will examine, as well, how their writings were received, what influence they had, and how authors responded to each other’s ideas. After some readings from the ancient and medieval world, our focus will be on Europe and the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Identity and Nation in Latin America. Skinner
How do people see themselves both as individuals and as members of larger communities? How do people conceive of their roles, rights and responsibilities as citizens and human beings? How are identities constructed in the face of challenges to the very understanding of the self? This seminar examines these questions in Latin American cultures and societies over the last few hundred years. We focus on some of the crucial works in which Latin Americans have explored, constructed, and critiqued the very idea of “Latin American-ness”. Thus, we investigate the processes by which identities in general are constructed and undermined. Prerequisite: SPAN 044CM - Advanced Spanish: Contemporary Hispanic Culture and Society .
How We Know Arabia. Staff
The premise of this course is that Orientalism—how we “know” the Arab and Muslim world—is more than a set of ideas about “Eastern lands and people” but is also a necessary fiction for the West. We will explore this premise through a reading list which includes selections from classics such as Dante’s Inferno, Don Quixote, The 1001 Nights, as well as selections by Edward Lane, Richard Burton, and T.E. Lawrence, together with Arab writers such as Albert Hourani and Tariq Ramadan. We will also read selections by Said, Lewis, Huntington, and others.
The Individual, Community and Culture. Valenza
A transdisciplinary examination of the constitution of the individual and his or her role in community, including the development and influence of culture. Sources include classic texts from Plato to Freud and an extensive use of novels, film, music and the visual arts. Topics range over the meaning of being human, the nature of good and evil, the nature of science and knowledge, and fundamental questions of art and religion. At its heart, the course seeks to develop a deep understanding of how the tension between the individual and community defines cultures or entire civilizations.
Religion and Social Change. D. Yoo, Staff
Using the history of the United States as a framework, this course examines the complex relationship between religion and social change. The seminar will address the role of voluntary association as a feature of American life and social organization, especially as it was informed by Christianity. Topics and themes for the course may include the religious impetus for reform in the areas of slavery/abolition, temperance, women’s suffrage, and immigration/urbanization/industrialization.