Freshman Seminars in the Residential Colleges

FRS 101 Signals, Yardsticks, and Tipping Points of Global Warming and Ocean Environments  ST
Eileen Zerba
Shelly and Michael Kassen ’76 Freshman Seminar in the Life Sciences

In a recent USA Today article, “Is Earth near its tipping points from global warming?”, Richard Moss, director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program Office commented, “In a sense, we are looking at a series of tipping points for humanity and climate.” Physical signals of global warming, such as temperature, sea level rise, and concentrations of greenhouse gases are the most certain past and future yardsticks for global warming. The interconnections of these physical effects with biological ones suggest the next significant climate change impacts will involve dramatic species extinctions and, for human life, increased disease and hunger.

This seminar will focus on understanding climate signals, yardsticks, and tipping points of global warming, followed by discussions of what we can do to begin the process of solving the carbon and climate problem. General topics will include principles of climate change, the scientific basis for risk of human-induced climate change, and potential environmental and biological impacts of global warming. Emphasis will be placed on how climate change is expected to affect ocean systems and life. Subject areas related to environmental impacts will include: atmosphere-ocean interconnections, melting of continental ice caps and glaciers, sea level rise, sea temperature and acidification, and changes in vertical ocean circulation. Topic areas related to biological consequences will include limits of temperature tolerances and adaptations from single cells to whole organisms, including inter-relationships within complex ocean communities, such as coral reefs.

The format of the class will include presentations, readings, discussions, films, and hands-on lab and field inquiry-based exercises, including a seven-day excursion during fall break (Saturday, October 31, to Sunday, November 8) to the island of Bermuda. We will be based at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science (BIOS, www.bios.edu), an institution with an international reputation for scientific research and education on marine ecosystems. The island of Bermuda is located in the core of the Sargasso Sea, a warm, clear surface ocean environment in the mid-Atlantic, an ideal place to study the role of the ocean in global climate change. Early studies in the Atlantic have revealed connections between both surface ocean circulation, such as the Gulf Stream, and deep ocean circulation with climate. In ongoing research in affiliation with BIOS, the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) is focused on understanding the causes of variability in ocean biogeochemistry and provides the framework for the longest continuous time-series of open ocean data in the world. Lab exercises will use BATS data to study and track changes in sea temperature and ocean circulation patterns. The unique marine habitat around Bermuda includes reef-building corals that also provide excellent field sites for the investigative labs of the course to study the impact of a warming Gulf Stream on temperature tolerances and adaptations of ocean communities, including the coral bleaching phenomenon.

During the trip, students will conduct snorkeling-based exercises over shallow coral reefs linked to lab-based exercises at the BIOS station on coral bleaching, explore the completed restoration of a nearby island (Nonsuch Island) to pre-settlement conditions, and contribute to a new island restoration project initiated by BIOS at Cooper’s Island. Students must plan on devoting their fall break to the class trip, must be able to swim, and have a valid passport. All costs of the fall break trip are covered by the University. (Wednesday, Friday 11 a.m.–12:20 p.m.)

FRS 103 Metals and Art  LA
Robert Bagley
Barrett Family Freshman Seminar

The first priority of this seminar will be to ask what an understanding of materials can tell us about the creative process in art. Artists are, first and foremost, makers, and our subject will be making in metal. Taking our case studies from all over the world, and ranging from prehistory to the Renaissance to modern times, we will look at Egyptian gold, Greek lost-wax casting, Chinese pattern-block casting, medieval ironwork, Cellini’s Perseus, Rodin sculpture, and more, finishing with the little bronze dancers of Edgar Degas, an artist who, contrary to popular belief, never made anything in metal. The central question before us at all times will be how the thinking of artists relates to their materials and techniques. Perhaps surprisingly, we will find that a concern with technique leads directly to some classic preoccupations of art history—artistic intentionality, for example, or the idea of a tension between ends and means—and gives us a fresh perspective on them. And we will see familiar works differently when we look on them with metallurgically informed eyes.

Along the way we will discover that the history of art in metal has something to tell us about the history of science. Sometime in the ninth millennium B.C., a prehistoric craftsman worked a piece of native copper into a bead and in the process discovered a hitherto unknown class of materials, a class defined by new and unfamiliar physical properties. (Was that discoverer a scientist or an artist?) The steps that led from that first discovery to our modern understanding of metals are not easy to trace, for most of them were taken by ancient metalworkers who did not put their expertise down in writing; hands-on knowledge of materials seldom made it into the written record before modern times. Thus if we wish to follow the progress of pre-modern understanding of materials, our only recourse is to study its reflection in the expanding repertoire of metallurgical techniques. A technique is an exploitation of physical properties, and the techniques that in their day were at the cutting edge of innovation are documented for us mostly in fine artifacts that we nowadays put in art museums. In the view of at least one distinguished metallurgist, the prehistory of materials science is to be found in the history of art. (Monday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 105 Water: Keystone for Sustainable Development  QR
Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe
Richard L. Smith ’70 Freshman Seminar

The seminar focuses on the premise that the health of any economy and the well-being of any society are intimately intertwined with the functioning of the ecosystems on which they depend. Poverty, disease, and political collapse will follow the failure of environmental support systems. Water is fundamental for human life and the keystone of environmentally responsible development. The seminar will explore issues related to water shortages in different regions of the world and their implications for food, disease, and energy. The stress that scarcity of water places on sustainable development will be studied from the perspective of its impact on food production, the health of ecosystems, and the consequences that this carries at local, regional, and global levels. Emphasis will be placed on the links of those impacts to a changing climate and their expected consequences regarding floods, droughts, and biodiversity. (Monday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 107 Going Back: The History of Princeton University  HA
James Axtell

Becoming a college freshman can be a strange and daunting process because Princeton is a sizable and complex university with its own distinctive look, location, parts, past, rules, habits, ideals, standards, and traditions. In some ways it resembles other universities, but it differs from them all in the combination of its characteristic features, the product, in turn, of its unique evolution since 1746. One way to become better acquainted with, and more quickly acclimated to, your new academic home is to learn where its current manifestations came from, when, and why. Realizing that your Princeton did not spring fully grown from the heads of President Tilghman or Deans Rapelye and Malkiel, and that you stand in a very long line of previous freshmen, should bring comfort and understanding to your transition from secondary school to university life.

In this seminar we will explore Princeton’s past from its colonial founding to the present, with a special focus on student life. As you gradually discover Princeton’s remarkable (and less obvious) features, we will seek their origins in the past, the tensions that often accompanied their genesis, and their subsequent evolution. We will also pay attention to the interpretive challenge of understanding and re-creating, in picture and prose, the fluid complexity of Princeton’s (or any college’s) history. To do so we will read four books (by a former faculty member, two antebellum seniors, an alumnus, and the instructor) and a coursepack of articles; write four papers; engage in conversations with two visiting faculty experts; visit the University Archives for a tour of its historical holdings (material, pictorial, and written); and explore the campus as a living embodiment of its past. If you have a passion for original historical research and are eager to explore the surprising stories of Princeton’s past, this may be the course for you. (Tuesday, Thursday: 1:30–2:50 p.m.)

FRS 109 Music and the Holocaust: Culture, Identity, and Ideology  LA
Christopher Hailey
Professor Roy Dickinson Welch Freshman Seminar in Music

In early 20th-century Germany, musical culture was a central component of national pride and identity. For many of Germany’s Jews, this classical music heritage was a core element of their own identification as German citizens. Indeed, many of Germany’s leading singers, conductors, violinists, and pianists were of Jewish background, not to mention such prominent composers as Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler. Moreover, Jewish patrons were a mainstay of classical music audiences and key figures in music publishing, management, and journalism.

With the rise of religious and “racial” anti-Semitism in the later 19th century and the institution of anti-Semitic legislation by the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, music became a principal battleground of cultural and “racial” ideology. In short order, classical music became, for some, an arbiter of what it meant to be German, and for others, pushed to the point of extinction, what it meant to be a human being.

This course begins by examining some of the controversies surrounding music as a means of commemorating the Holocaust before addressing the larger historical perspective of Jewish experience within German culture from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. There follows an examination of the nature of right-wing music ideology and the means by which it was transformed into state policy after 1933. The central focus of the course rests upon the years of the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945, during which Jews were first ejected from public musical life and finally either forced into emigration or hiding, or herded into concentration camps.

Throughout this period the Jews themselves continued to cultivate a vibrant musical life, first through the officially sanctioned Jewish Cultural Association (Der jüdische Kulturbund) in Germany (1933–1941) and then, after the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939, within the concentration camps themselves, including the notorious death camp of Auschwitz. Particularly significant is the flowering of cultural activity in Theresienstadt near Prague, where the Nazis created a self-governing “city for the Jews” intended to show the world that their racial policies were benign. Theresienstadt was in fact a potemkin village whose façade of normalcy masked the fact that it was little more than an antechamber to the death camps in the east. Nevertheless, under primitive conditions, the concerts, opera, theater, and cabaret within Theresienstadt were of the highest quality and give evidence of the way the inmates used culture as a form of spiritual resistance.

The final section of the course, After Auschwitz, returns to an examination of the role of music in post-war commemorations of the Holocaust and the way in which the Holocaust has shaped the course and narrative of music history. (Wednesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 111 Democracies at War  SA
Tamar Hermann
L. Richardson Preyer ’41 Freshman Seminar in Public Service

Like “love and marriage, horse and carriage,” democracy and peace also often go together in our minds. Indeed, reality teaches us that democracies never fight each other. They are also less likely to get involved in wars than non-democratic states. However, contrary to the common wisdom, when democracies do get caught up in wars, they fight just as ruthlessly as non-democracies. The bombing of German towns in the last phase of WWII by the Allies, the first and second Iraq wars, and the wars Israel fought in the context of the Middle East conflict are but a few examples of such hard line, hard-hitting behavior. Furthermore, and in the eyes of many even more problematic, when at war, democracies tend to drop some of their basic features: orderly decision-making processes are often suspended and replaced by rather authoritarian decision-making modes. In addition, their inherent sensitivity to human rights and civil rights at home and elsewhere is often dramatically eroded when the clouds of war cover the skies. The interment of Japanese-American citizens in the 1940s and Israel’s checkpoint and closure policy in the occupied territories are highly disturbing examples of this erosion.

FRS 113 Eye of the Tiger: Reading Buildings  LA
Alan Chimacoff

We all look at buildings. But what does it mean to understand them? We look at buildings from the outside as we first come upon them. Later, as we experience them, we look from the inside. We can understand buildings in simple, pragmatic terms, and we can understand them as architecture. This seminar is about the logic of architectural form: the phenomena, the principles, characteristics, geometries, and themes at the basis of making and understanding architecture—irrespective of time. We seek to define the “defineable” while acknowledging that much of the soul-stirring power of architecture eludes definition. This is a course for anyone interested in understanding architecture.

Works of architecture are supposed to embody inherent relationships between outside and inside. Yet, between inside and outside, between form and system, between idea and realization, there are as many contradictions and conundrums as there are clarities. These contrasts make architecture endlessly fascinating and endlessly challenging. Consider Nassau Hall. Virtually everything about the building’s organization strategy can be inferred from its exterior. It is symmetrical, hierarchically arranged about a single, central axis running southward from FitzRandolph Gates across Cannon Green and down campus. There is a cross-axis of internal circulation with all the offices along it. Crystal clear. Alternatively, consider Whig and Clio halls. They are identical—monumentally symmetrical—on the outside, yet radically different on the inside. Neither fulfills the symmetrical promise of its exterior. How do we make sense of this?

This seminar will explore questions such as: Can we understand the inside of a building from the outside and the outside from the inside? What are the important relationships between architectural form and space? How well can buildings be understood from photographs and drawings? What compositional and organization strategies have been used in architecture throughout the ages? Most significant—what is the singular distinction between historic and modern architecture that enables the radical nature of some of today’s architecture on the “cutting edge”?

A secondary theme of this seminar is a focus on the development of the Princeton University campus, using a number of its buildings as illustrative examples. A place of unusual beauty, Princeton’s architecture ranges from (mostly) good to excellent. We explore a quarter-millennium of buildings, tracing how the campus has grown and transformed as different attitudes tied to the cultural ethos of their era have prevailed.

Visual exercises emphasizing both analysis and design, and maximizing each student’s potential for invention and creativity, are a regular part of class discussion. There is limited but challenging reading, and written assignments will emphasize clear, direct, purposeful, “anti-jargonistic” writing. (Tuesday 7:30–10:20 p.m.)

FRS 115 Wordplay: A Wry Plod from Babel to Scrabble  LA
Joshua Katz
William H. Burchfield 1902 Freshman Seminar

What was Georges Perec thinking when he wrote—and what should we think when we read—his 1969 novel La Disparition (“The Disappearance”), which lacks the letter e? And what about the continued e-lessness of Gilbert Adair’s English translation, A Void? All forms of linguistic expression involve constraints (this course description must be under 550 words, for example, and a Shakespearean sonnet must have 14 decasyllabic verses), but some of these are more difficult to manage, more remarkable, and just plain stranger than others, like writing hundreds of pages without even once using the letter that makes up about 14.7 percent of any normal French text and 12.7 percent of any normal English one. (In case you are worried about their fate, be assured that Perec used up the saved e’s, while at the same time abjuring other vowels, in his 1972 novella “Les Revenentes,” which Ian Monk [a.k.a. E. N. Menk] proceeded to render as “The Exeter Text: Jewels, Secrets, Sex.”)

The purpose of this course is to bring together interesting reading, thoughtful scholarship, and hands-on revelry in the exploration of the ludic side of language. Linguistic play is part of many people’s normal experience (think of the daily crossword puzzle and the excitement that surrounds the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee) and yet it is widely considered a trivial pursuit, often childish (Dr. Seuss and counting-out rhymes) but sometimes abstruse (James Joyce and Vladimir Nabokov). We—ideally a wide-ranging group of adventurers interested in such fields as comparative literature, linguistics, and mathematics, as well as anthropology, computer science, history, psychology, and religion—will spend the semester considering the formal features, aesthetic pleasures, and societal roles of wordplay from as wide a temporal and geographical perspective as possible. Building on my own areas of expertise and the linguistic competence and passions of the participants, which I hope will be broad, we will read lipogrammatic poetry both ancient and modern, think about linguistic games with non-Western scripts, and regularly try to produce decent examples of “constrained writing” ourselves. We will start with David Crystal’s fine introductory book Language Play (1998), move on to authors you’ve heard of (Lewis Carroll) and others you probably haven’t (Christian Bök), and arrive in the end at a better understanding of how language works and how these workings can be bent in unusual ways to produce striking effects. Along the way we will watch some movies, challenge each other at games such as Boggle, and enjoy the “Princeton dimension” of the whole enterprise. After all (to take just three cases), Paul Muldoon’s poems are legendary for their linguistic virtuosity, French professor David Bellos is the leading authority on Perec, and biophysicist William Bialek has recently applied the concept of maximal entropy to the spelling of four-letter words.

Students will be encouraged to become scholars in interests old and new by seeking out the many resources (both animate and inanimate) on campus, by collaborating with one other, and by sharing their own personal discoveries. All are required to give an oral report and to submit two projects that show evidence of creativity and research: one a (fairly conventional) academic paper, the other an (ideally unconventional) example of ludic verbal art. (Monday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 117 Sprawl: Historical and Global Perspectives  SA
Shlomo Angel

A survey by the Pew Center for Civic Journalism in 2000 found that urban sprawl tied with crime as a top local concern for most Americans. This seminar focuses on sprawl—the vast expansion of cities into the countryside in recent times—in both a historical and global perspective. The key questions participants in the seminar will seek to answer are: What is sprawl? How do we measure it? Why, when, and where does it occur? Do we need to be concerned about its manifestations and consequences? How can cities effectively prepare for their inevitable expansion? Can cities be made more compact and, if so, should they? What are the policy instruments now being used to combat undesirable sprawl? Do such policies work or do they make things worse?

The seminar is structured as a general introduction to the theory and practice of urban planning as it pertains to the central issue of sprawl, or urban expansion. Through reading a broad range of texts on planning and sprawl, regular class discussions, the presentation of case studies by students, and practical exercises with ArcGIS mapping software, students are introduced to what we now know about the growth and expansion of cities, to the successes and failures of urban planners in guiding and moderating urban expansion, and to the challenging agenda facing urban planners today in making room for a planet of cities. By the end of seminar, participants will have formulated informed views about urban sprawl, its global dimensions, its historical origins, and the appropriate policies needed to confront it in both industrialized and developing countries. (Tuesday, Thursday 11 a.m.–12:20 p.m.)

FRS 119 Cinema and Philosophy: An Introduction to Media Theory  LA
Thomas Levin

“And then came the film and burst this prison world apart with the dynamite of the 10th of a second, so that now, in the midst of its far-flung ruins and debris, we calmly and adventurously go traveling.” Among the many challenging questions raised in this fascinating statement written by the German philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin in 1935 is whether and how a new medium, a new type of representational practice, can fundamentally change our perception and, in turn, our world. Do we see differently today than people did prior to the advent of cinema? As cyberspace and a proliferation of cable and satellite TV offerings explode the familiar media landscape, it might be tempting to dismiss the cinema as little more than a curious anachronism, a once important but now increasingly marginal moment in the archaeology of mass culture. Yet despite film’s dwindling socioeconomic significance, it is precisely through the study of the earlier “virtual reality” of the cinema that one can gain important insights into many of the central aesthetic, political, social, and philosophical issues raised by these so-called “new” media technologies.

What is film? How does it produce meaning? What are we saying when we refer to cinematic “realism” and in what sense is the “reality effect” of film more or less “virtual” than, for example, perspectival painting or photography? What does it mean to “read” a film or to speak of “cinematic literacy”? Is film a language, and if so, of what sort? Is cinema an art, or has it changed the very meaning of that term? In what sense is film political? Can film be philosophical and, if so, how? What is an “essay film”? Is there such a thing as “responsible” or “critical” viewing? In order to answer these and many other questions of increasing urgency for our media culture, this seminar will examine a wide range of canonical and contemporary works of film theory and aesthetics, which will be discussed in relation to weekly screenings of narrative, documentary, and avant-garde films. Through a careful theoretical and historical analysis of the rise of “classical Hollywood narrative” (the dominant idiom of cinema that we all “know” well), we will explore the philosophical stakes of what the theorist David Bordwell calls different “modes”—historical-materialist, art-cinema, parametric—of cinematic narration. This in turn will provide us with the critical tools needed to interrogate other more marginal genres such as the “essay film” (Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker) as well as new forms of narrationally complex media practices such as Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino 1994) or the music videos by Michel Gondry for Cibo Matto (“Sugar Water”) or the Chemical Brothers (“Star Guitar”).

While some familiarity with the history of philosophy and/or film would be a great asset for this seminar, it is not at all a prerequisite. What is required, however, is a willingness to engage difficult theoretical texts and complex media with reflective curiosity, enthusiastic analytic energy, and open-minded dialogue. (Thursday 1:30–4:20 p.m.; film screening Wednesday 7:30–9 p.m.)

FRS 121 Hedge Funds: Their Purpose, Strategies, and Social Value  SA
Jean-Christophe de Swaan
John H. Laporte Jr. ’67 Freshman Seminar

Hedge funds have gained in importance in recent years, becoming an increasingly prevalent investment vehicle as well as a significant focus of policy debate. Originally targeted at high net worth individuals, they now cater to a broad spectrum of investors, ranging from university endowments to funds comprised of hedge funds. Their main appeal stems from their mandate to generate absolute investment returns, meaning positive returns regardless of the performance of global financial markets. The combination of fast growth, lack of regulatory oversight, and limited transparency has triggered a variety of concerns. These include whether the growing size and increasingly ubiquitous presence of hedge funds across financial markets could create risks to the global financial system that are not well understood—an uncertainty most vividly illustrated by the collapse of LTCM, a large hedge fund that required emergency intervention by the U.S. Federal Reserve and major banks in 1998. Another concern relates to whether hedge fund investor rights are being adequately protected as the hedge fund industry’s investor base expands beyond its original niche. In the wake of the current global financial crisis, political momentum is pointing toward greater regulation of hedge funds and financial institutions.

To address these issues, this seminar will offer a combination of theory, practice, and reflection on the economic and social value of hedge funds, along the following lines:

• Introduction to hedge funds, their theoretical underpinning, and purpose.

• Practical overview of their business model and investment strategies—with three case studies to be discussed in class.

• Reflection on the value hedge funds bring to various economic actors, including their investors (e.g., have hedge funds delivered on their mandate to generate absolute returns on behalf of their investors?), the corporate sector, and the global economy. This discussion will be set in the broader context of why finance matters.

• Discussion of the systemic risks hedge funds may create and of the nature and potential efficacy of various new regulations under consideration.

The seminar is targeted at a broad group of students, including those interested in hedge funds as investment vehicles, as well as those interested in the economic development and public policy issues related to hedge funds. There are no specific prerequisites for the class, although having taken an introductory economics class will help. (Thursday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 123 Behind the Scenes: Inside the Princeton University Art Museum  LA
Caroline Harris

Would you like to hold in your hands a piece of history such as an ancient Maya figurine, or see a Toulouse-Lautrec up close and without its frame? Participants in this seminar will go behind the scenes of a major university art museum with an encyclopedic collection of some 68,000 objects from ancient to contemporary art. Students will visit storage rooms, learn appropriate methods for handling objects, and discuss issues of connoisseurship. Faculty members and museum curators of two major exhibitions (“Gifts from the Ancestors: Ancient Ivories of Bering Strait” and “Life Objects”) will lead seminars on all aspects of exhibition planning from scholarship and education to loans and installations. Course readings will introduce students to some of the most compelling practical, theoretical, and ethical issues confronting museums in the 21st century.

A team of curators, the director, and other members of the professional staff of the Princeton University Art Museum will lead the seminar sessions, which focus on particular topics. Students are expected to discuss critically issues in acquisitions, conservation, education, and interpretation based on readings and outside projects. There also will be a trip to New York City to visit museums, art galleries, and collections. (Wednesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 125 In the Service of All Nations? Elite Universities, Public Policy, and the Common Good  SA
Christopher Eisgruber

For many people, America’s elite universities inspire hope and the dream of a better future. Students and their parents regard a high-quality education as a gateway to a successful and rewarding life. World leaders count on top universities to produce transformative discoveries and address social problems. But America’s elite universities also attract criticism, and expressions of concern have increased as private university endowments have grown. Is it good that so few universities have so much wealth? Are elite universities admitting the right people? Do they charge too much? Are they educating their students as well as they could? Do they deserve the favorable policy treatment that they receive? These and other questions are being vigorously debated within governmental agencies, on the pages of newspapers, and within universities themselves.

This course will examine public policy controversies related to the role of elite universities. Topics to be considered will include academic freedom, endowment spending rates, financial aid, the assessment of teaching and learning, fairness in admission, funding for scientific research, campus planning, and the obligations of universities with regard to environmental concerns and other aspects of social justice. Readings will draw upon texts in law, moral and political theory, history, and social science, as well as from policy briefs and university documents. No special background of any kind is required or expected. (Tuesday 7:30–10:20 p.m.)

FRS 127 Poetry and Its Public  LA
Meredith Martin
Class of 1975 Freshman Seminar

Since Plato kicked the poets out of the Republic, it seems that poets have been worried about the obsolescence of their craft. Should they be worried? Chances are, if you are still reading this course description, you were lucky enough to have a teacher, somewhere along the way, who invited you to think of poetry as more than just a puzzle, who perhaps showed you that even Dr. Seuss used poetic language to lodge a phrase into your memory. How did it happen that just the word “poetry” might inspire absolute fear or a passionate defense? Despite the rise and dominance of other media in the late 19th and 20th century (music with lyrics, radio, television), poetry has emerged in the 21st century as a medium that strives to be both public and private. Without distinguishing between poetry of the “page” or “stage,” this class will trace the history of poetry in the public eye over the course of the 20th century, paying particular attention to poems that address the audience for poetry directly, as well as the ways that different media and institutions have shaped the reception and reputation of “poetry” in American life. We will read 20th-century poetry but also think about anthologies, magazines, television shows, movies, and music that both generate and question what we might think of as typical poetic conventions. Though we will cover about a decade of American poetry per week, students will be asked to synthesize material through a list of thematic interests that we will determine as a class. (Tuesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 129 The Soviet Gulag  HA
Deborah Kaple
Agnew Family Freshman Seminar

The Gulag—what do we know about this except that the word conjures an abstract horror? The word Gulag refers to the extensive, far-reaching system of slave labor camps that dotted Soviet Russia and claimed millions of lives. Gulag, an acronym for the words Glavniyi Upravlenie Lagerei in Russian, simply means Main Administration of Camps. In this course, we will attempt to make sense of the context for the development of this slave labor system. We will try to understand how the Gulag came into existence, why it endured for so long, and what the possible consequences are for civil society.

We will first examine the ideology that led to the formation of a communist state in Russia. Then, in an attempt to understand how and why a relatively new government could set up what would become an enormous slave labor system, we will study the Soviet state, including the dynamics of Stalinist political, cultural, economic, international, and social state policies, and its use (and abuses) of power. To see how the camps functioned as a part of the Soviet state, we will read about the organization of the Communist Party, and about its subordinate organization (precursors to the KGB), which ran the camps. And we will look at the Gulag from the inside, by reading camp memoirs by survivors and former employees.

Throughout the course, we will ask the age-old question of how “ordinary people” could participate in such a system. What are the ethical and sociological questions posed by the Gulag? To what extent was it a distinct product of Soviet communism? Over time, many millions of people have found totalitarian philosophies appealing. This course will help us understand how it happens and why. (Thursday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 131 Can Virtue Be Taught? (Introduction to the Philosophy of Education)  EM
Erika Kiss
Kurt and Beatrice Gutmann Freshman Seminar in Human Values

Can people be made better by education? Can moral improvement by education lead you to a good life? Is the good life for you a life of social and economic advancement? Would you rather take Socrates’s advice to shun social recognition and financial success and care only for the improvement of your soul? Is teaching a professional activity under the laws of the market? Is higher learning a luxury available only for the elite? The central text of this course is the Platonic dialogue in which these questions first emerged in a philosophical manner between Socrates and the sophist Protagoras. Through these and other related questions, we will explore the broad themes of the philosophy of education.

Careful close reading of Plato’s Protagoras and the second and seventh books of The Republic will enable us to identify three characteristic educational theories: the sophist, the Socratic, and the Platonic. We then follow these three theories throughout the history of ideas in various philosophical, literary, and cinematic presentations of moral arguments about education. The sophist educators claim to provide you with an instrument that enables you to achieve the good life of social and economic success. (We will recognize this position most clearly in the 20th-century American philosopher John Dewey’s work.) Socrates, however, defines the good life as one that shuns social and economic advancement for a relentless examination of the self. (This position appears in the philosophy of Dewey’s British contemporary, Michael Oakeshott.) Plato’s educational ideal is the cultivation of common ancestral values (of an elite) in order to nurture a sense of national or ethnic belonging that becomes vital in wartime for the survival of the community. In his Platonic educational theory, Allan Bloom identifies the common ancestral values of the United States as the love of freedom and democracy, which can be best inculcated by Western literature and philosophy. We will investigate this provincial claim for universalism and its possible consequences in the context of our university, which incorporates teachers and students from a broad variety of cultural heritages. An important portion of our intellectual work in this seminar will be dedicated to the viewing and the discussion of films. (Wednesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 133 The Virgin Mary in the Hispanic World  HA
Christina Lee

This course will explore the role of the Virgin Mary in the formation of cultural and social identities in Spain, Latin America, and Hispanic communities in the United States. We will consider the impact that the Virgin Mary has had in shaping notions of the ideal woman in the Hispanic world throughout history. In addition, we will examine how the Virgin Mary, and more specifically, her images, have been conceived and have inspired multiple and varied myths, rituals, and folk devotions. Our focus will be in unveiling the inner workings of a “religion” of the people. We will take into account that most worshippers of the Virgin Mary have recognized, in principle, that their devotion is directed in some way to the Mother of God and not to a particular image. At the same time, the way in which these same followers have focused on the image itself—her physical features and singular character—reveals the reality of how religion has been and continues to be practiced in the Hispanic world.

We will see how a particular image of the Virgin is treated like an actual person, in the way she is dressed, worshipped, despised, or displayed in religious festivals or fiestas. Marian rituals have been a means to create sense of solidarity and faith in the culture that produced them, whether they are used to fight a plague, the Moors, a rebel army, or an oppressing government. We will analyze how she has been literally and figuratively used for political ends throughout history, as seen in the Spanish wars of the Reconquest against the Moors, the Spanish colonization of the New World, the wars of Latin American independence, and the more recent Falkland/Malvinas war. We will investigate how the Virgin and what she is believed to represent has been forged by different groups when establishing and reinforcing collective identities (national and local) as seen in the reverence for the popular advocations of Guadalupe (México and Hispanic communities in the U.S.), Copacabana (Bolivia), La Macarena (Seville), and Belén (Cuzco), among others. Furthermore, we will survey how the cult of Mary has been projected onto devotions of female folk saints of Latin America, such as in the case of Eva Perón (Santa Evita). (Monday, Wednesday 11 a.m.–12:20 p.m.)

FRS 135 History and Memory: Inventing the Past, Constructing the Present  EM
Michael Flower
Class of 1976 Freshman Seminar in Human Values

This seminar will pose four interrelated questions. How do we know about what happened in the past? Why do we want to know about past events? What meaning does the past have for the present? What are the ethical and moral implications of how we construct the past? None of these questions has a straightforward or unproblematic answer. The main point of the seminar is to investigate how and why the past is a contested ground and why this contestation is never morally neutral.

What we think we know about the past comes from a combination of different sources, but none of those sources can possibly provide an unmediated window into what actually took place. Nonetheless, a society wants to know about its past because the shared recollections of group experience create a shared identity. This “collective memory” provides a people with an image of their past and a direction for their future. The past obviously means different things to different societies, and to different groups within a given society. A community’s version of its past is both constituted by its concerns in the present and is used to justify actions taken in the present. Thus the past becomes a contested ground, something worth arguing over, fighting for, and even killing for. The use of the past for action in the present inevitably has a strong ethical and moral dimension. Is it legitimate to base contemporary claims to land ownership, nationhood, and ethnicity on conditions that allegedly existed in the remote past?

After reading some short theoretical essays, we will spend most of the semester on controversial case studies from different places and time periods (including misrepresentations of ancient Sparta, the problem of how to remember/commemorate the French Revolution, and the role of the siege of the Alamo in creating Texan identities). At the end of the semester each student will also present a case study of their own choice for an oral presentation. (Wednesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 137 20th-Century Poems and Poets: Politics, War, Religion, and Art  LA
Neil Rudenstine

This seminar will focus on a few poets, and only a limited number of their poems. The hope will be to understand how each of these writers sought to respond to the increasingly complex, often violent, sometimes promising, and sometimes apparently meaningless nature of life in their societies, as well as in aspects of their own personal experience.

There will be selective brief readings in the biographies of individual poets, as well as in episodes of the political and social history (including war and civil war) of the period from the 1890s to the 1960s. The primary goal will be to concentrate on several important themes and preoccupations in the work of W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, and Philip Larkin.

Two seminar sessions will concentrate on a number of lyrics from the late 19th and early 20th century, to give some sense of the larger context in which our main poets were writing. There will be a small selection of lyrics from Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Arnold, Hopkins, and Frost, and some of Walter Pater’s prose.

We will usually spend two weeks on the poetry of each of the seminar’s five major writers. When we study Yeats, there will be a concentration on the lyrics dealing with the Irish national movement and the beginning of civil war. In addition, Yeats’s love lyrics, and his commitment to poetry and art—as a counter-point to politics and war—will be an important focus.

In Eliot’s verse, the relationship to public life is more indirect. But “The Wasteland” was published shortly after World War I, and the “Four Quartets” during World War II. These and other major poems show Eliot struggling with his own vocation as a poet; with aspects of his personal—including spiritual and religious—experience; and with his perception of the bleakness that seemed to characterize so much of the society in which he lived.

Auden, meanwhile, was born into a very different world from his predecessors. We will read work of his from the 1930s, when he was engaged by the social and political issues of his time, leading to the outbreak of World War II (“September 1, 1939”), as well as some of his poems that touch on religious themes. In the later verse, we will concentrate on Auden’s effort to explore moral and other dilemmas presented by ordinary daily existence, outside the public realm.

In Stevens and Larkin, we encounter two poets who had—unlike Yeats, Eliot, and Auden—no desire to pursue religious “solutions” to existential dilemmas, but who discovered very different ways of making sense of human experience in their poetry (and in their lives).

Participants will write a few short papers (three to five pages), usually discussing and analyzing a single poem in detail (or perhaps a small number of closely related poems). (Monday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 139 The Ghetto  SA
Mitchell Duneier
Professor Amy Gutmann Freshman Seminar in Human Values

According to urbandictionary.com, the word “ghetto” used to refer to the part of European cities in which Jews were restricted. Since then, it has come to refer to “yelling at your boo in the middle of the street,” “replacing a broken window with a trashbag and duct tape,” and the “tendency to eat every free sample.” How did we get here?

From the Jewish ghetto of the 16th century to the communal ghetto of pre-civil rights America to the “gangsta” ghetto of contemporary America and Europe, an important socio-historical phenomenon has been the restriction of stigmatized minorities to certain zones of the city. Through our close readings, we will explore a series of dilemmas about how ghettos emerge, what their consequences are for those living within them, and what meaning people inside and outside make of the experience yesterday and today. A key theme of life in these areas is the conflict over moral values as different “kinds of people” who would not choose to be together end up living side by side. A related theme for many ghetto dwellers is the struggle to live a moral life under conditions that are not conducive to such behavior. We will relate these themes to a third overarching set of questions: How has the concept of ghetto emerged over time? How does social science distinguish between folk and scientific concepts, and is a scientific conception of the ghetto even possible when beginning with a morally laden folk conception?

The name “ghetto” comes from the Venetian word “geto” and was originally used to denote the Jewish quarter of European cities, beginning in the mid-16th century. The European Jewish case will serve as a point of departure to put the modern U.S. experience in a broader comparative context. Beginning with W.E.B. DuBois’s The Philadelphia Negro (1899), we will ask how this concept emerged in American sociology and intellectual life. Through a careful reading of Drake and Cayton’s classic community study, Black Metropolis, we will develop an understanding of the everyday material and moral struggles of the pre-civil-rights-era U.S. black ghetto and the social forces that created it. The class will continue to trace the transformation of the ghetto by examining contemporary problems like joblessness, mass incarceration, violence, and the drug trade. As we shall do when studying the Roman Jews, we will continue to look at how the geographic concentration of a stigmatized group leads to behaviors that are then labeled as pathological, and how those very behaviors become a justification for further residential exclusion and social control from the outside and moral struggles within. The class will end by exploring current debates about the transformation of ghetto from a place inhabited by blacks and Jews to a trait referring to black culture, poverty, and bad taste. (Friday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 141 Life in a Nuclear-Armed World  SA
Zia Mian
Frank E. Richardson ’61 Freshman Seminar in Public Policy

When he was told on August 6, 1945, that America’s new atom bomb had destroyed its first target, the Japanese city of Hiroshima, President Harry Truman declared, “This is the greatest thing in history.” Three days later, another bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki. Amid the overwhelming public support for the bombings there were voices of concern about what the “nuclear age” may have in store. The popular radio commentator Edward R. Murrow observed, “Seldom, if ever, has a war ended leaving the victors with such a sense of uncertainty and fear, with such a realization that the future is obscure and that survival is not assured.” Within months, some of the scientists who had built the bomb began to publish The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in an “emergency action … to help the public understand what nuclear energy and its application to war meant for mankind.”

In the 60 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have been spared the horror of a nuclear weapon attack on another city. But the nuclear danger has grown and changed in many ways. The Cold War saw the building of vast nuclear arsenals by the United States and Soviet Union and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Today, the United States still has 10,000 nuclear weapons, each far more powerful than the first atomic bombs, and 2,000 of these weapons are ready to launch within 15 minutes and can reach targets almost anywhere in the world. Where there was one country with the bomb, there are now nine: the U.S., Russia, U.K., France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Still others may be seeking the bomb.

The nuclear age has been more than just growing arsenals, crises, proliferation, and an ever present threat of nuclear war. The American novelist E. L. Doctorow has written of “the secret story of American life under the bomb,” observing, “We have had the bomb on our minds since 1945. It was first our weaponry and then our diplomacy, and now it’s our economy. How can we suppose that something so monstrously powerful would not, after years, compose our identity?”

This course will try to unpack some of these meanings of the nuclear age, using scholarly and popular writings as well as movies and documentary films about “the bomb.” It will start by introducing some of the basic science and technology of nuclear weapons, and the consequences of the atomic bombing of Japan. We will then examine the decision to build and field the even more destructive hydrogen bomb, and the use of nuclear weapons for deterrence and as an instrument of power in international affairs.

The design, development, production, and maintenance of a nuclear arsenal carries many costs. We will work through the economic, political, and environmental consequences of America’s nuclear arsenal during the Cold War. While some costs were borne by the country as a whole, there were many impacts that were local to nuclear facilities and shaped the lives of people in communities who lived and worked as part of the nuclear complex. We will look at the growing literature about the experiences of the people of the bomb.

The bomb has incited opposition for many reasons. It has been the focus of some of the most important public protests in modern U.S. history, especially in the 1950s and 1980s. We will examine the struggles of the anti-nuclear movement in its efforts to restrain decision makers, end arms races, and ban the bomb.

While much of the course will focus on what it has meant to live with the bomb in America, we will cover the spread of nuclear weapons to other states and the fear of nuclear terrorism, especially after the attacks of September 11. At the end of the course, we will try to examine what the future may hold and ask whether the bomb is here to stay or whether it may be possible to imagine an end to the nuclear age. (Wednesday 7:30–10:20 p.m.)

FRS 143 The Literature of Place and Travel  LA
William Howarth
Henry David Thoreau Freshman Seminar in Environmental Studies

In this era of global change, many writers have found new ways to express ideas about places, travel, home, abroad, borders, and quests. Our seminar examines recent works of literary nonfiction that recount journeys in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. The authors range from Peter Matthiessen and Joan Didion to Che Guevara and Jill Ker Conway; themes include cultural perceptions of wilderness, habitat preservation, endangered species, war and nature, environmental sustainability, development versus the indigenous, and the social ecology of cities and schools. Meetings will feature intensive critical discussion and practice at writing literary nonfiction. Each student will keep a reading journal and also post a summary of one week’s discussion. Maps, images, music, and films supplement our understanding of distant places and cultures. (Monday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 145 Earth’s Changing Surface and Climate  ST
Adam Maloof and Frederik Simons
Richard L. Smith ’70 Freshman Seminar

The surface of Earth today, an amalgamation of mountain ranges, basins, and the hydrosphere, records an integrated history of processes that act on a range of time scales spanning 17 orders of magnitude. The central question treated in this freshman seminar is: How does Earth’s surface evolve in response to internal (e.g., tectonic and magmatic), surficial (e.g., weather, climate, and anthropogenic effects), and external (e.g., extraterrestrial) forcing? The seminar provides students with practical experience making geological and geophysical observations, and in particular, focuses on quantitative analysis of observables such as topography, gravity, and weather. The classroom seminar is complimented by a mandatory week-long field trip to the western United States. During this trip, students will develop research projects that involve geological and geophysical mapping of the interplay between recent volcanic explosion craters, changing climate, and anthropogenic demands on water resources in the Mono Lake region. All costs of the fall break trip are covered by the University.

This seminar is not a comprehensive introduction to the geological sciences, but rather a look at a select few processes of import to understand changes to the Earth’s surface in space and time. While certain fundamental principles of geology will be explained in class and through reading assignments, the emphasis is on how you can be a natural scientist with a background of nothing but high school math and physics, a keen observational sense, a knack for spatial and quantitative analysis, and a careful and precise way with words.

Please visit http://geoweb.princeton.edu/people/simons/FRS-ECSC.html for more information, photos, and student reviews. (Thursday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 147 The Stock Market  QR - CANCELLED
Burton Malkiel
William T. Young Jr. ’70 Freshman Seminar

The seminar will involve students in a comprehensive analysis of the stock market. We will survey the institutions of the equity markets and a history of stock valuations. Models of stock valuation will be surveyed as well as traditional methods of fundamental analysis (security analysis) and technical analysis (charting) used by practitioners. Contributions of economic theory will be presented, including portfolio theory as well as the capital asset pricing model and arbitrage pricing theory. The efficient market theory will be analyzed as well as recent empirical work suggesting that market prices are to some extent predictable. Investment strategies espoused by professionals will be reviewed and examined critically. Psychological theories will be assessed as will passive and active investment strategies.

Students will be asked to participate in a stock market game. At the start of the semester, each student will be given a hypothetical sum of a million dollars and told to invest it in the stock market. At the end of the semester, the records of the students will be assessed.

Two papers will be required. The major paper will involve some original empirical work on the part of the student. Students will be asked to test some hypothesis about the stock market. For example, students might test whether certain “predictable patterns” in the stock market have persisted. Using ex-sample data (data from a period later than the period during which the predictable pattern or excess-return opportunity existed), students will be asked to test the persistence of the pattern. Rigorous statistical analysis will be encouraged. Students will also be asked to write a paper on their model portfolio explaining the reasons for their security selections and portfolio balance, assessing the results, and describing what they have learned from the experience. Weekly problem sets will be required during the first weeks of the semester.

Readings will include Zvi Bodie, A. Kane, and A. Marcus, Essentials of Investments, seventh edition, and Burton Malkiel, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, ninth paperback edition, and a daily reading of The Wall Street Journal.

The seminar will be most valuable to students who demonstrate a keen interest in the stock market. In addition, it will be helpful if students have some background in microeconomics and have a reasonable facility with mathematics and computers so that they can easily pick up the statistical tools that will be used in this seminar.

FRS 149 Freud on the Psychology of Ordinary Mental Life  EC
Susan Sugarman
Dean Eva Gossman Freshman Seminar in Human Values

When we laugh at an incredibly funny joke, what, exactly, are we laughing at, and why is it laughing that we do? How do we come to be engrossed in a novel? Given that the characters are nothing to us—they are neither relatives nor friends, and they are not real—why do we care what happens to them? How does it come about that perfectly rational people sometimes succumb to moments of magical thinking, and which aspects of our psychological makeup might explain both the pervasiveness and tenacity of religion in human society?

Although he is best known for his elucidation of the unusual in human mental life, Sigmund Freud also attempted to illuminate ordinary human experiences and values, such as people’s susceptibility to humor, their capacity to become engrossed in fiction, and their susceptibility to superstition and religion. His insights into the everyday and his sense of where the productive questions lay reveal an incisiveness of argument that defy both earlier and subsequent thought on his topics. The seminar will consider both Freud’s accounts of ordinary mental phenomena and his method of inquiry, with the aims of coming to understand some of his seminal thought, learning a powerful method of critical inquiry, and honing fresh ideas about the nature of ordinary mental life and human values.

Readings include original works by Freud and a few brief selections by other authors whose work provides useful material for comparison. The seminar is organized to allow for maximal play of students’ own ideas and their development of Freud’s technique of identifying and unpacking anomalies as a method for investigating human mental life. (Tuesday, Thursday 11 a.m.–12:20 p.m.)

FRS 151 Art and the Lifecycle in Africa  LA
Chika Okeke-Agulu

In many African societies life did not begin at conception or at birth, and death was not the end of life. Rather birth and death were two gateways among other lesser ones through which human beings passed in their cyclical cosmic journey. And they are not alone! Gods, spirits, ancestors play crucial roles in the lives of the individuals and their communities. But how can we even begin to make sense of this bewildering idea about life and about the world? This course takes us on journey, through an exciting process of examining art objects—utilitarian objects, figurative sculptures, masks, multimedia works--and performances involved in rituals that made the individual’s movement along the life cycle effective and successful. In the seminar we shall engage in lively yet critical exploration and analysis of the art and rites associated with birth and childhood, initiation and rites of passage, marriage, manhood and womanhood, death and ancestorship in Africa. We will also read texts that will help our understanding and questioning of these processes. Our study will be enhanced by regular seminar discussions inside Life Objects: Rites of Passage in African Art, a special art exhibition organized specifically for this seminar by the Princeton University Art Museum. (Wednesday 7:30–10:20 p.m.)

FRS 155 Romani Culture in Russia and East Europe  LA
Margaret Beissinger

Roma (Gypsies) are among the least understood and most frequently stereotyped ethnic groups in Western society. Much mystery and misinformation surround them. They have long been viewed negatively by majority populations due to their dark features, distinctive culture, and non-mainstream ways of life and are often treated with hostility and disdain. At the same time, Roma are frequently typecast in idealized terms—in exotic, romanticized, and sensual roles that speak to passion, creativity, and free spirit. Strong family bonds, an acute sense of group identity, and a clear recognition of the boundaries that separate them and non-Roma permeate Romani culture and their strategies of dealing with the non-Romani world around them. As the quintessential “other” of Europe—an image that Roma also cultivate—they have been persecuted and spurned for centuries, yet they have contributed significantly to, and are a central part of, the cultures and communities in which they live.

This seminar will critically examine Russian and East European Romani (Gypsy) culture from both the outsiders’ (dominant) and insiders’ (Romani) perspectives. We will turn to history, anthropology, oral traditions, literature, and film in order to gain an understanding of the various public and private faces of Roma and how they function and survive in an often harsh and unjust world. We will attempt to untangle and clarify the seemingly contradictory discourse that promotes cultural stereotypes—on the one hand, notably negative, and on the other, overtly romanticized—that are perpetuated about Roma. What roles do ethnicity, gender, and occupation play in the projection and presentation of “self  ”? How are family and group identity maintained? How do the music, ritual, dance, and verbal art performed by Roma provide strategies for meaningful expression? In order to address these questions, we will read ethnographic, theoretical, and journalistic texts, Romani folktales, literary works by writers such as Pushkin, and pieces by East European and Russian Romani writers; we will also view a number of films. This course will offer new perspectives for understanding the ongoing problems facing minorities in the post-communist world as ethnic strife and conflict continue. We will also consider how other minority group cultures (such as the African American) inform the situation of Roma and vice versa. (Wednesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 157 Dilemmas in Intercollegiate and Professional Athletics  SA
Harold Feiveson  
Bert G. Kerstetter '66 Freshman Seminar

This seminar will explore selected ethical, educational, social, and economic dilemmas in athletics. We will examine both the role of varsity athletics in higher education and of the place of professional athletics in American culture. Why do student-athletes compete—what values do they bring to, and what benefits do they derive from, intercollegiate competition? What is the value of intercollegiate athletics to college and university communities and what sorts of principles should guide admissions and academic standards, recruiting, and budgetary policies in varsity athletics? We will look at how the university system of athletics evolved and how it has been impacted by the commercialization and internationalization of sports over the past half-century. We also will explore the factors that have driven the drastic changes in the Olympic movement (from almost wholly amateur to almost wholly professional). With respect to professional sports, we will examine the economic forces that drive decisions today, including the legal and ownership structures in different professional sports leagues. We will also look at the impact of sports on critical social issues such as race relations and at the practical and ethical factors that must be considered in developing policies about performance-enhancing drugs. We expect to have several visitors during the semester to help us sort out the various issues.

The seminar will be given in collaboration with Steve Mills ’81, formerly president and chief operating officer of Madison Square Garden Sports and now consultant with Magic Johnson Enterprises. (Monday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 159 Consciousness: Brain and Mind  EC
Anne Treisman
Richard L. Smith ’70 Freshman Seminar

We are naturally curious about the working of our minds, and in particular about the nature of awareness and of the self. We will explore people’s intuitions about consciousness, and about the criteria we would apply in deciding whether another being was conscious or not. Then we will ask what light (if any) the scientific method can throw on phenomena that seem intrinsically subjective and mysterious.

We will look at a variety of surprising and counterintuitive empirical findings and discuss their implications for the nature of consciousness. For example, is it possible to perceive without awareness? There is evidence that this can happen both in healthy people presented with “subliminal” or unattended stimuli, and in patients with brain lesions causing “blindsight” (the ability to respond correctly to “unseen” stimuli), agnosia (a failure to recognize objects despite intact sensory mechanisms), prosopagnosia (the selective loss of the ability to recognize faces), neglect (a failure to respond to or be aware of anything on one side of space), and anosognosia (denial of these and other deficits accompanying brain damage). Can consciousness be split? We will read about patients with “split brains” (divided corpus callosum) and see what happens to their subjective experience. Are there two selves, one in each hemisphere? Can consciousness also be split through hypnosis? What about multiple personalities?

Can we remember without knowing that we remember? Amnesic patients seem unable to remember anything earlier than a few seconds ago, but by indirect measures they may show normal learning and priming effects from items for which they have no conscious, explicit memory. What role does conscious thinking play in problem solving and creativity? Do parts of our minds react to events or things that other parts “know” nothing about? For example, are there separate neural pathways mediating emotional and cognitive responses? Can we really introspect—do we have privileged access to our own knowledge, to our reasons for action, to our feelings? What happens to consciousness when it is altered by sleep, anesthesia, or drugs?

The seminar will consist of a mix of presentations and discussion, and there will also be opportunities to try out some experiments or demonstrations in a psychology lab. The aim will be to stimulate discussion about the conclusions that can and cannot be drawn from the data. (Tuesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 161 Magical Realism  LA
Zahid Chaudhary
Professor Whitney J. Oates ’25 *31 Freshman Seminar in the Humanities

What is magical realism, and why has it come to define a trend in contemporary postcolonial literature? Why might contemporary writers find it necessary to endow their characters with wings and make them fly (Angela Carter), describe a mother screening the dreams and thoughts of her daughters (Rushdie), endow their hero with a supernatural capacity for detecting the specific smells of another person (Suskind), or allow a character to survive multiple generations of her own family (Marquez)? Henry James once described reality as that which we cannot not know. The turn to magical realist tropes in literature is both a comment on realism and simultaneously a new opening through which writers may engage questions of politics, difference, nation, and belonging from heretofore unseen angles. While associated with Latin America, magical realist fiction is a global phenomenon, originating in Germany before the Second World War, and we will assume a global perspective in the course. Our texts will be drawn from literature as well as visual culture, literary studies as well as anthropological essays on magic. (Wednesday 7:30–10:20 p.m.)

FRS 163 Body and Spirit: A Comparative Approach to Sacred Dance  LA
Ze’eva Cohen

This seminar will look at dance as a form of spiritual expression. It is aimed at students who are willing to think, feel, and move. Studio workshops, where students will learn some basic dance traditions, will be enhanced with occasional visits by teachers who are scholars and practitioners of the various dance forms. These sessions, along with readings, class discussions, video viewings, and field trips, will allow students to experience various global traditions of dance firsthand.

Our inquiry will be shaped by a series of questions: Why, in some cultures, is dance an essential part of religious and/or spiritual ritual? In such societies, when, how, and for whom does dance facilitate the attainment of a transcendent spiritual state? Why in other societies and at other times is dance marginalized or forbidden?

Case studies will be drawn from a wide range of cultures and historical periods. We will look at sacred dance traditions practiced in such countries as India, Bali, Turkey, Israel, Brazil, Ghana, and the United States. We will also look at how some contemporary “cutting-edge” choreographers use sacred texts as sources for artistic exploration and expression. In some instances, we will see how worldviews suggest a split between the spirit and the body, the sacred and the profane, that is detrimental to dance as a form of spiritual expression; in others, we will discover how a belief in the fundamental holiness of the body gives rise to forms of dance that are considered forms of prayer. All are welcome; no dance training is necessary. (Thursday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 165 Borges for Beginners  LA
Gabriela Nouzeilles
Class of 1975 Freshman Seminar

What is an author? As Samuel Becket once wondered, does it matter who’s speaking? What does it mean to study a particular oeuvre? What kind of meaning can we find interweaving the individual texts of a writer or a poet? This seminar grapples with the question of authorship and the attribution of meaning in the literature of Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), the legendary Argentine writer whose convoluted fictions have fascinated and puzzled readers from all over the world for decades. His influence has been so decisive that, according to the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, there would not be a modern Latin American novel, and therefore no “magical realism,” without the prose of Jorge Luis Borges. He created a unique world of labyrinthic fictions and poems that explore the aporetic dynamics of time and space, the paradoxes of identity, as well as the ambiguous frontier between reality and fiction. His stories and essays are magical, curious pieces of prose that often mimic standard genres such as the detective story, literary criticism, or science fiction, but which also include subtle and unexpected twists that suddenly leave the reader spinning in a philosophical conundrum about the nature of language, the self, and the universe.

This seminar offers an introduction to Borges’s literature and its themes from a variety of perspectives, from philosophy and aesthetics to politics and cultural analysis. As we pursue the question of who is “Jorge Luis Borges” through the reading of some of his most famous fictions, essays, and poems, we will discuss four of the philosophical and literary questions that preoccupied him the most. First, challenging short stories such as “Funes, the Memorious” and “The Immortal” will allow us to study how Borges approached the concept of time and memory, and how in his view forgetting could be a productive way of remembering. Second, by closely reading texts such as “The Babel Library” and “Pierre Menard, author of Don Quijote,” we will explore the metaphysical consequences brought about by the existence of a book that includes all books, and the scandalous creativity of a man who “re-writes” the famous Spanish masterpiece by literally transcribing it. Thirdly, we will consider Borges’s selective re-writing of “Argentine” local traditions such as tango music and the culture of the gauchos, as well as his appropriation and transformation of the detective story as a literary genre. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion of Borges’s disturbing meditations on the notion of identity, the role of the state, and the figure of the traitor.

The course will be taught entirely in Spanish, while readings will be in Spanish and English. This course is addressed to students who are interested in literature, philosophy, art and Latin American modernity, and who would like to strengthen and polish their reading, writing, and speaking skills in Spanish. (Tuesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 167 Music of the Americas: From Tango to Bossa Nova and Beyond  LA
Alexandra Vazquez

Musical movements of the New World have always captured the global imagination: the tango was the salon sensation of 1920s Paris; mambo contours Fellini’s 1960 La Dolce Vita; West African musicians have long shaped the son and rumba; and recent evidence points to reggaetón as the dance music of choice for young people across the planet. These musical movements inspire a few pressing questions: What kinds of convergences make the New World sound the way it does? And, what stories are moved through music?

This interdisciplinary course introduces a set of musical movements from the early 20th century to the present. Key genres include the tango, rumba, samba, bossa nova, nueva canción, mambo, salsa, rock en Español, turntablism, and reggaetón.

The phrase “musical movements” does not only depict a set of shared characteristics organized by genre, but it also suggests a sonic transition, a politicized alliance, and a change in location. Using music as a lens, students will investigate the specific regional factors that contributed to a genre’s development. For example, we will study the interlinked artistic histories of New Orleans and Havana; the port of Buenos Aires as a creative matrix of the Southern Cone; Salvador, Brazil, as the capital of carnaval; and the U.S.-Mexico border as a site of improvisation. This seminar will offer an alternative survey of Latin American cultural studies.

Beyond the regional histories of particular sounds, the course will examine the communities and global migrations made by music that are often erased elsewhere. Part of this presence will be studied by way of the musicians themselves. We will pay attention to how performers play with genre, incorporate their spheres of influence, and anticipate their roles as global cultural agents. By pairing these musical performances with writings (including historical texts, musicological writings, filmed performances, oral histories, news articles, poetry, and prose), we will want to ask: What are the altering senses of “New” in the New World? What are the concerns shared between the music and readings? How has music shaped national literature and forms of protest? This seminar will feature a series of guest speakers and performers. (Wednesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 169 The Rest of the Story: The Six O’Clock News, National Security, Intelligence, and You  SA
Diane Snyder

Flooded with e-mail alerts, blogs, headline news, podcasts, and even late-night comics, we are assaulted by important information out of context. “Democrats enraged at Bush’s alleged warrantless spying on Americans.” Many claim this is a slippery slope. Should you be concerned? What does this really mean? More importantly, is it legal? Necessary? Let’s find out. Consider this: “Increased surveillance pays off in thwarting terrorist threats.” What’s the whole story? Are we winning the War on Terror? “Glamorous CIA agent has cover blown as political payback.” Is this just a headline-grabbing, sensational line or is there something serious behind it? The latter. Join this seminar in understanding why. This will be a unique semester with a new president and an opportunity to examine the administration’s positions regarding national security, intelligence, government, and secrecy.

These are simple examples of hot issues in intelligence, national security, and our constitutional democracy. How would you ever recognize the real issues behind the “sound bite” headline and not merely dismiss it as political ranting? Are secrecy and democracy compatible? Tough question—come wrestle with the answers in this seminar.

While the smorgasbord of relevant topics is broad, this seminar will familiarize the student with the intelligence, national security, and constitutional background essential to discuss and evaluate the controversies regarding the potentially irresolvable trade-off between national security and civil liberties; privacy and the increased role of the private sector. The dilemma has raged for centuries, is expanding, and is currently on the front burner for public policy as well as technology practitioners. We must see both sides.

The seminar examines these tensions through history, statute, scientific innovation, public opinion, the media, and current events. Can we implement effective homeland security and not adversely impact our constitutional rights? Who are the key players? What is the “correct” relationship between intelligence and law enforcement? Did Homeland Security “solve” the problems facing the U.S.? Does technology threaten or protect our constitutional democracy? What information should be shared and/or protected? Is the post-9/11 reform on the right track?

Our readings will include current news articles, basic statues, testimony, and both sides of contentious debates along with key commission reports, juicy exposés of CIA and FBI spying on Americans, and its fallout. Is the Patriot Act evil, as some portray it? Read it in class and decide for yourself. The pendulum swings again as it has since the founding of the republic. By the seminar’s end, you will be able to decide if you believe this government is making the right choices—for the country and individuals—based on evaluating intelligence and national security issues viewed through the lens of current events. Can popular culture influence policy? You may be surprised. What does 24 have to do with the Global War on Terror? In addition to core readings, a spicy spy novel, award-winning film, and TV episodes, along with recent scholarly works, students will be expected to stay on top of current events, come prepared to debate controversial topics, and use outside resources—even late-night comics. There’s more to Jay Leno’s remarks than just humor! (Tuesday 1:30–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 171 “Something wicked this way comes”: Witchcraft, Belief, and Agency in Early Modern Literature  LA
Russell Leo

The pamphlet literature of the English Renaissance acts as a record of grim occurrences associated with witchcraft: poisoned wells, grisly murders, possessions, communion with devils in the shapes of beasts—macabre relations that to us seem unfamiliar, fanatical, and unreasonable. But witchcraft and the threat of the devil are certainly more than mere historical curiosities. Indeed, for early modern men and women, accusations of witchcraft entail very serious legal and social consequences. The witch or sorcerer is a danger to the commonwealth and to the safety of its members and thus must be dealt with accordingly. Witchcraft accusations also entail spiritual consequences; attitudes toward witchcraft draw from numerous legal, philosophical, and theological approaches to the devil and evil that emphasize the degree to which Satan and his minions might hold sway over the realm of humans. Moreover, many historians suggest that witchcraft accusations were primarily misogynistic acts. Taking these observations as points of departure, our task will be to discover, through the examination of several works of literature in their historical situations, the ways in which accusations of witchcraft comment on belief, community, sexuality, propriety, and agency. Who are the witches? How do they act? How are they dealt with?

The language of the texts we will read need not intimidate interested students. I expect that most of the seminar participants will encounter early modern English prose and poetry here for the first time, and I will conduct class accordingly. We will spend ample time discovering how to read the texts, and in addition to teaching about witchcraft and the Renaissance, this class will serve as an introduction to poetry and form and to reading historically. (Monday, Wednesday 3–4:20 p.m.)

FRS 173 Tolerance and Its Discontents: The Origins and Limits of a Political and Religious Virtue  EM
Elisha Russ-Fishbane

This course traces the development of the quintessentially modern virtue of tolerance through key sources of the Western tradition. We will explore the complexity of this idea by contrasting civic and religious perspectives on tolerance and the tensions that lurk behind both. We will look closely at several case studies of how tolerance functioned in the charged climate of medieval society and political religion. The Jewish experience as a tolerated minority sheds crucial light on the origins and limits of medieval tolerance and will therefore serve as an archetype of the toleration of minority communities under Islam and Christendom. We will explore the question of the toleration of dissent and the religious problem of “heresy” by a close look at the cases of Spinoza and Galileo. The course will conclude with an analysis of the arguments for political and religious toleration in the West, the question of religion and state, and the emergence of political liberalism.

The goal of this course is to bring the competing discourse of tolerance in the religious and political spheres into creative tension by challenging the modern assumptions of each in today’s civic culture. Questions of power, pragmatism, and the politics of religion will be subjects of special inquiry. The limits of tolerance will be explored in light of the comparative and historical models studied in class. The contemporary implications abound. Where does tolerance fit into the competing claims for “faith-based” initiatives and policy debates in the United States? How do we determine the role of competing religious visions in the public sphere, and when does the freedom of religion infringe on the freedom of the polity? In what way does the Jewish historical experience contribute to the tone of this debate in our times? What is the difference between political and social tolerance and how do the two intersect? (Monday, Wednesday 11 a.m.–12:20 p.m.)