Explore a focused topic you are interested in by reading selected texts, writing papers, and participating in classroom discussions. First-Year Seminar (FP 0006) is a dynamic, three-credit course for first-year students that fulfills the Seminar in Composition requirement.
- Funny Story: Humor & Critique
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Comedy pervades American culture. Storytelling is ubiquitous in the modern world. And funny stories can be so much, well, fun! While enjoying the pleasures of humor and narrative, students in this course will take humor seriously and consider how humor and storytelling function as a powerful force in our personal lives and contemporary culture. In this course we will read and analyze funny stories by contemporary humorists, comedians, and critics from a diverse range of backgrounds, including David Sedaris, Lindy West, Pheobe Robinson and Cathy Park Hong. We will also read and apply scholarly theories and critiques of humor from disciplines including philosophy, psychology and cultural studies. The course readings will provide models and inspiration for writers, who will draw on previous experiences in search of unusual, playful, and humorous ways to reconsider everyday life and diverse cultural interests. Written assignments include in-class writings, humorous personal essays, academic source summaries, and creative nonfiction that blends academic inquiry and personal narrative.
- Class Number: 21330
- Days: Monday and Wednesday
- Time: 3:00-4:15pm
- On a Quest
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In this class we will be reading about and watching stories of quests from quest narratives in Medieval times to those of the future as depicted in science fiction. We’ll consider a range of quests – those that the individual chooses to go on and those that the individual is sent on by another. These will entail both religious and secular quests. Examples will serve as a way of discussing, writing about, and understanding personal present-day quests. You’ll read about and write essays that consider questions people ask to initiate their quests and the nature and significance of asking good questions. This course is a kind of quest in itself, finding a way to ask important questions, review goals, and reach tentative answers through reading, watching, discussing, and writing.
- Class Number: 27751
- Days: Tuesday and Thursday
- Time: 4:00-5:15pm