To read more about available courses, select from the list below or scroll to find the full list.
The first grouping of seminars are part of the
What Now? network of first-year seminars and require a .5 credit co-requisite, Ethics 189
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EDUC 89S WHY ARE WE HERE?
HISTORY 89S/I&E 89S/MUSIC 89S/ETHICS 89S LONG, STRANGE TRIPS
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ARTHIST 89S / CLST 89S MEDUSA ICON, MYTH, NATURE
Bio 89S NATURAL HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION
CLST 89S TROY EXCAVATING AN EPIC
CULANTH 89S WORLD OF SPORTS
EDUC 89S WHY ARE WE HERE?
ENERGY 89S ENERGY & SOCIETY
ENGLISH 89S/ETHICS 89S LAWS OF LOVE AND OBEDIENCE
GERMAN 89S MONSTERS, VAMPIRES, AND GHOSTS
GERMAN 89S / PHIL 89S / SCISOC 89S YOU, ME, AND THE MACHINE
GSF 89S GENDER AND SCIENCE
HISTORY 89S END OF THE WORLD: A HISTORY
ITALIAN 89S / LIT 89S / ROMST 89S EPIC OTHERWORLDS
MATH 89S Math and Medicine
PHYSEDU 89S ANALYSIS OF DIETARY TRENDS
POLSCI 89S CAPITALISM, FOR AND AGAINST
POLSCI 89S / PUBPOL 89S THE DANGEROUS 21ST CENTURY
PSY 89S EMPATHY AND IDENTITY
SOCIOL 89S EDUCATION INEQUALITIES
THEATRST 89S INVESTIGATING ADAPTATION
First-Year Seminars Connected to the
"What Now?" Network of First-Year Seminars
This first grouping of seminars are part of the What Now? network of first-year seminars. What Now? courses contain a shared “wellness lab,” offering opportunities to engage with faculty and students in other participating seminars. Register for this .5-credit component of the program by adding Ethics 189 to your schedule. Scroll down for the full range of first-year seminars offered during Spring 2025.
EDUC 89S
WHY ARE WE HERE? (Codes Forthcoming)
Description coming soon
HISTORY 89S / INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP 89S / MUSIC 89S/ ETHICS 89S
What Now? Long, Strange Trips: The Grateful Dead & American Cultural Change (CZ, EI) “We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.” Jerry Garcia. Few musical acts have ever reached the level of cultural awareness and impact as the Grateful Dead, and perhaps none has enjoyed such ardent devotion for so long. The story of the Grateful Dead offers a lens through which to view not only the tumult of the 1960s counterculture movement but also to understand broader political and historical forces in the United States. In other words, the Grateful Dead and their history and music will form the backbone for the class, but this will be used to shed light on social upheaval, identity and shared experience, how ideas endure, and the sometimes-murky search for collective meaning. Using a mix of scholarly and biographical accounts, this course will offer students a multidimensional and interdisciplinary examination of how ideas form, inspire, intimidate, and ultimately stand the test of time. We will also explore the significance of how ideas can go from the margins to the mainstream through notions of authenticity and cooperation.
Professor: Eric Mlyn
Eric Mlyn, Ph.D. (University of Minnesota), is a Lecturer in the Sanford School of Public Policy and Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the Kenan Institute for Ethics. His research and teaching interests include civic engagement and social change.
The seminars listed above are part of the What Now? network of first-year seminars. What Now? courses contain a shared “wellness lab,” offering opportunities to engage with faculty and students in other participating seminars. Register for this .5-credit component of the program by adding Ethics 189 to your schedule. Scroll down for the full range of first-year seminars offered Spring 2024.
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ART, ART HISTORY & VISUAL STUDIES 89S / AFRICAN & AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES 89S / ENGLISH 89S
Medusa: Icon, Myth & Nature (ALP, CCI) Medusa and her story have fascinated and terrified people for millennia. She is by turns alluring, monstrous, powerful, and sympathetic, but by most accounts petrifying. Her powerful image, name, and myth have inspired generations of activists, artists, designers, poets, writers, and scientists. This seminar follows the long history of Medusa’s many transformations from 750 BCE to the present: monster, beauty, victim, demon, icon, and force of nature. The course explores these transformations in art, film, folklore, literature, magic, myth, science, and religion. By the end of the course, students will gain an appreciation for the complex dynamics at play in the representation of gender and nature over a long period of time. Students will learn basic art historical and literary approaches to studying the past and will gain an introduction to key academic disciplines, including art history, classics, folklore, religious studies, and sexuality and gender studies.
Professor: Andrew Griebeler
Andrew Griebeler, Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley), is an Instructor of Art and Art History. His research and teaching interests focus on the intersections of art, science, and natural history in the medieval Mediterranean.
Biology 89S
Natural History of Civilization (NS, CCI)
Professor: Clifford Cunningham
CLASSICAL STUDIES 89S / ART, ART HISTORY, AND VISUAL STUDIES 89S
Troy: Excavating an Epic (ALP,CZ, CCI,W) Troy is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world—but to paraphrase the Roman poet Lucan, already by the first century CE, ‘even the ruins were ruined’. The site and the legends that grew up around it nonetheless played a starring role in the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, in the imagination of 19th-century Europeans who pioneered ‘modern’ archaeology, and even in contemporary American culture, with retellings of Homer’s Iliad set in war zones like Iraq. In this course we will work to disentangle the afterlife of Troy and the Trojan War in myth-building exercises, ancient and modern, from the very real life of the city over the millennia. Archaeologists reconstruct nine Troys, built one on top of the other on the hill of Hisarlık (literally “place of fortresses”) in modern Turkey. Which one was Homer’s Troy? When did the ‘real’ Trojan war take place, if ever, and who fought in it? Most of all, why should we, or do we still, care?
Professor: Kathryn R. Morgan
Kathryn R. Morgan, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania), is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies. She is an archaeologist of the ancient Mediterranean who leads excavations in modern Turkey. Her research and teaching interests include political organization, group identity formation, cross-cultural communication, feasting, craft production, ritual performance, and the intersection of material and textual histories.
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 89S
World of Sports (SS, CCI) This course will examine the significant role that sports play in contemporary politics, social change, and culture around the world. We will begin with the longer history of play and games and explore the historical contexts which created structures in which sport could grow. The course will explore the political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions that shape sports, and how various actors within the sporting industry use sport to initiate social change. We will address questions about why people play sports, how they play them, and how they change. Together, we will think through the ways race, gender, sexuality, class, nation, ethnicity, impact sport and representation. As sport serves as a central means through which culture and ideology are shaped, we will consider how sport reflects and initiates social change.
Professor: Orin Starn
Orin Starn, Ph.D. (Stanford University), is a Professor of Cultural Anthropology and History. His research and teaching interests include Latin America, Native North America, social movements and indigenous politics, sports and society, and the history of anthropology.
ENERGY 89S
Energy & Society (SS, EI, STS) Although controversial, nuclear energy promises to contribute to the stability and security of a low-carbon power system. To acquaint you with that key technology, this course explores the history and sociology of commercial nuclear power plants through guided discussions, hand-on activities, and collaborative research. Broadly speaking, it will impart to you three new skills. First, you will learn to explain energy as not only the ability to “make us go” but also a set of dynamic relationships between people. Second, you will learn to interpret large technical systems as not only engineering feats but also social constructs, or creations bound by shared ideas. Third, you will learn to analyze the failures and successes of high-risk technologies as not only individual but also organizational events–that is, the results of culture. Taken altogether, these skills will equip you for meaningful pursuits ranging from advanced social science courses here at Duke to highly sought-after internships abroad.
Professor: Tom Cinq-Mars
Tom J. Cinq-Mars, Ph.D. (Duke University), is Administrative Manager and Assistant Director for Research Development in the Duke Energy Initiative. His research and teaching interests revolve around questions at the intersections of business, energy, and the environment in terms of change over time, especially in terms of links between modern (Soviet) Russia’s oil industry and economic diversity within the former Soviet Bloc.
ENGLISH 89S / ETHICS 89S
LAWS OF LOVE AND OBEDIENCE (ALP, CCI, W) How should a person be? Why, how, and for whom should we live? What do we owe our parents, and should such a sense of debt influence whether to become a parent oneself? How does one make the decision to have children, and are there situations when such an idea might not be morally defensible? In this seminar, we will read and discuss novels, memoirs, poems and art that “come out of one’s own burning” – as Friedrich Nietzsche might say – that is, from one’s own life experiences and the precious little wisdom they yield. These are books about parents, children, and the bonds that connect them; about the difficulties of responsible love and the intimate tug-of-war between what we owe ourselves and what we might owe others; about the fraught choice of staying true to oneself, about the awkwardness of certain familial conversations, about fears and doubts acknowledged candidly or passed over in silence. Why is becoming a parent so intimately tied to vulnerability and the awareness of finitude? Can time, or perhaps art, redeem loss?
Professor: Corina Stan
Corina Stan teaches comparative literature in the English Department. She is the author of The Art of Distances (2018) and co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of European Migration in Literature and Culture (with Charlotte Sussman, 2023).
GERMAN 89S
Monsters, Vampires, and Ghosts: Supernatural Horror in Film and Literature (ALP, CCI)
Why do we experience pleasure in reading horror stories? How can we interpret these fantasies of terror? Why do we keep dreaming about unexpected and incomprehensible threats to our lives? In this course, we will examine a wide array of texts and films that combine elements of the supernatural with the feelings of dread and anxiety in order to investigate what tales about monsters, ghosts, doubles and imaginary enemies within our very selves can teach us about the human psyche, history and aesthetics. We will interpret the readings and the films in their historical context and will compare diverse approaches including genre theory, biographical, media-historical, political, and psychoanalytic perspectives. Readings include Stoker, Hoffmann, Lovecraft, Kafka, Wilde, and others.
Professor: Mert Reisoğlu
Mert Bahadır Reisoğlu, Ph.D. (New York University), is an Assistant Professor of German Studies. His research and teaching interests include Turkish German Studies, media theory and history, and 20th- and 21st-century literature, film and theater.
GERMAN STUDIES 89S / PHILOSOPHY 89S / SCIENCE & SOCIETY 89S
You, Me, and the Machine: Philosophy and the Idea of AI (CZ, STS) The idea of artificial or machine intelligence raises fundamental epistemological questions about the nature of mind and mental activities. What does it mean to claim that a machine thinks and understands? After a brief introduction to current conceptions of artificial intelligence, we will read seminal articles and excerpts from classical thinkers with the idea that, in better understanding some epistemological puzzles about artificial intelligence, we will better understand puzzles about our knowledge of others, and ultimately knowledge of ourselves. Topics may include: symbolic and connectionist AI, strong and weak AI, the computational theory of mind, intentionality, mental content, embodied cognition, functionalism, behaviorism, consciousness, and self-knowledge. Authors may include: Descartes, Turing, Searle, Dennett, Putnam, Strawson, Nagel, Dreyfus, Kant, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. Students will also gain familiarity and practice with philosophy as an activity by interpreting, evaluating, and constructing arguments. No background in computer science is expected.
Professor: Henry Pickford
Henry Pickford, Ph.D. (Yale University), is Professor of German Studies and Philosophy. His research interests focus on modern philosophy from Kant to Critical Theory, and literature in German and Russian. Before his graduate studies he worked as an artificial intelligence software engineer.
GENDER, SEXUALITY & FEMINIST STUDIES 89S
Gender and Science (SS, CCI, STS) This seminar provides an overview of research that puts science and scientists themselves under the lens to be studied in relation to gender, sexuality, race, and colonialism. We consider questions such as: How does inequality affect scientific practice and knowledge? Do colonial, racist, or sexist contexts matter for the science produced? Does the identity of the scientist matter? In addition to scientific papers, our readings center on an interdisciplinary field known as Feminist Science Studies, that draws on sociological, ethnographic, historical and literary approaches to science. We also consider how scientists themselves are creating feminist and decolonial approaches to their research. This course is designed for those interested in combining feminist and other social justice perspectives with careers in STEM as well as students curious about feminist humanities and social-science approaches in general. As a seminar, classes will focus on discussions of readings and participation is required as well as some regular written work.
Professor: Ara Wilson
Ara Wilson, Ph.D. (City University of New York), is an Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies. Her research and teaching interests include the feminist study of globalization and queer political economy (QPE), Science & Technology Studies (STS) approaches with materialist theories, and empirical research, especially ethnographically informed depictions of life under global capitalism.
HISTORY 89S
The End of the World: A History (CZ, EI, W) Students will examine current threats to human survival within the broader contexts of western vocabularies about the end of history and the efforts of individuals and communities to keep hope alive in the face of impending disaster. Students will evaluate both apocalyptic ideas in Jewish and Christian thought as well as ideas of progress in modern secular thought, seeking to understand how these two, competing visions have done much to shape the course of history in Europe and the US. Readings will provide historical background but also emphasize essays by contemporary writers (Atwood, Franzen, Solnit, Wallace-Wells, Kolbert, for example) as they attempt to come to terms with the challenges we currently face.
Professor: John Martin
John Martin, Ph.D. (Harvard University), is a Professor of History. His research and teaching interests include early modern Europe, with particular interests in the social, cultural, and intellectual history of Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
ITALIAN 89S / LIT 89S / ROMST 89S
EPIC OTHERWORLDS (ALP, CCI)
In this seminar we will explore how famous works of literature have articulated notions about death and its aftermath while engaging with/subverting the epic tradition. Beginning with the homeric epics (Iliad, Odyssey) and Virgil’s Aeneid, as well as extracts from Sappho, Herodotus, Aeschylus, and Ovid among others, students will acquire a solid foundation in the literary traditions that inspired and provoked later authors. We will then turn to Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost before approaching two influential and subversive 20th century novels set during WW1 and WW2 (To the Lighthouse and Survival in Auschwitz). Texts will be read chronologically but recurring themes will emerge over the semester including war with its implication of death and grief on a grand scale, power and the invention of the past, the unsung/unremembered hero, and the interaction between storytelling and collective trauma. Students will practice close-reading in this seminar - a key skill for the study of all disciplines - by examining texts at a granular level, individually and in groups, and building text-based arguments with surgical precision. One of the objectives of this class is to encourage students to re-imagine their own unique relationship to literature, especially ancient literature, while sharing the experience of close-reading with their peers.
Professor: Nassime Chida-Madiwale
Nassime Chida, Ph.D. (Columbia University), is a Postdoctoral Associate in the department of Romance Studies. Her research and teaching interests include the relationship between history and literature, Dante Studies, medieval Italian literature and Political Science. She has previously taught Core surveys of literature, French and Italian language, Dante and Machiavelli.
Math 89S
Math and Medicine (QS, R) Data science and mathematical modeling are playing an increasingly central role in biomedical research. In this course, we undertake an excursion into the fascinating world of modern medicine and explore how (big) data are essential for effective prevention, detection, and treatment of disease. Based on a series of concrete research topics, ranging from precision oncology and cardiology to infectious disease control, we will learn how mathematical and statistical approaches can be harnessed to improve human health. This course is very interactive and hands-on, preparing students for future research endeavors in the health sciences.
Professor: Marc Ryser
Marc D. Ryser, PhD, is Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences and Mathematics, a member of the Duke Cancer Institute, and faculty in the Computational Biology & Bioinformatics program. His research interests are primarily in cancer early detection, with a focus on breast cancer overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
Physical Education 89S
Special Topics in Nutrition: Analysis of Dietary Trends In this course you will get an overview of the basic components of nutrition as well as skills to evaluate your own eating patterns in addition to current popular dietary trends. You will also be introduced to several current topics in nutrition in order to develop a deeper awareness of dietary patterns.
Professor: Sheri Branson
Sheri Branson, M.A. (Meredith College) is a full-time Instructor. Her teaching interests include Promotion of lifelong fitness and wellness; Exercise performance, recovery, and restoration; and Sports Nutrition.
POLSCI 89S
CAPITALISM, FOR AND AGAINST (CZ, EI) Capitalism is a formidable and durable social system worthy of scientific, objective study. Only three centuries old, it has both proponents and opponents, each wielding strong and weak arguments. In this seminar we investigate, analyze, and debate the nature of capitalism and assess the validity (or not) of various pro-con claims. Our discussion will be informed not only by history but by competing theories in ethics, politics, and economics. The main proponents to be examined are conservatives, libertarians, and objectivists; the main opponents to be examined are socialists, environmentalists, and feminists. We’ll also assess the pros and cons pertinent to select topics and controversies relating to capitalism.
Professor: Richard Salsman
POLSCI 89S / PUBPOL 89S
THE DANGEROUS 21ST CENTURY (SS) The 21st century began in a period of global calm, with the Cold War having ended and the United States facing mainly manageable security threats. However, the first quarter of the 21st century has proven to be quite dangerous, with a series of security, economic, and health crises including 9/11, the Great Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Great power rivalries between the United States, China and Russia have reemerged, resulting in war, conflict, tension, and competition between these nuclear armed states. The 21st century has also witnessed a decline in democracy, with some formerly democratic states backsliding into authoritarianism and stable democracies experiencing erosion of democratic norms. New technologies like drones and AI have destabilized our international system and complicated the information environment. Hot wars have emerged in Central Europe and the Middle East. This course will explore the roots of the problems that have arisen in the 21st century and strategies for maintaining peace and stability in our turbulent world.
Professor: David Schanzer
David Schanzer, J.D. (Harvard Law School) is a Professor of the Practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy. He has been teaching at Duke and writing about national security, counterterrorism, homeland security, and violent extremism since 2005. Prior to coming to Duke, he was a lawyer in the Department of Justice, counsel to three United States senators, a special assistant in the Department of Defense Office of General Counsel, and the staff director of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.
PSY 89S
EMPATHY AND IDENTITY (Codes Forthcoming) Leadership in the knowledge-based, global, economy of the 21st century requires that students develop their abilities to constructively engage ethnic, religious, and political differences and generate and apply knowledge in the service of society. Developing the capacity for critical reasoning is necessary but not sufficient. Students must also develop a personal epistemology, their capacity for empathy, and an integrated identity. This seminar takes a developmental science approach to synthesizing and applying understandings generated across the biological and social sciences and humanities about the nature, development, and enhancement of these personal attributes. Seminar discussions and Forum posts focus on selected readings and Ted Talks. As a writing course, the focus is on both learning-to-write and writing-to-learn through feedback and revision. Students write three, 3-8 page, synthesis/reflection papers based on the assigned readings and a 15-20 page research review paper. Feedback is provided on the first draft of each paper and students submit revised papers as their final product. Grade is based on the quality of papers and participation in class discussion. Each synthesis/reflection paper accounts for 15% of the grade, the research paper accounts for 40%; and class participation accounts for 15%.
Professor: Robert J Thompson
SOCIOLOGY 89S
Educational Inequality within the United States (SS) Education is becoming increasingly important for upward social mobility in the U.S. and abroad. Education has been linked to societal inequalities in health, income, and other life-chance measures. Thus, schools play a central role in social and economic well-being, particularly for women and minority groups. Given that the minority population within the U.S. has been steadily increasing and is projected to comprise 40 percent of the U.S. population within the next 20 years, understanding racial differences in achievement is important for scholars, educators, and policy makers. This course will engage both quantitative and qualitative studies to help you gain 1) knowledge of the historical trends and understanding of racial differences in achievement, and 2) a broad understanding of the current issues/debates in the literature.
Professor: Angel Harris
Angel Harris, Ph.D. (University of Michigan), is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the program for Research on Education and Development of Youth. His research interests include social inequality, policy, and education, focusing on the social psychological determinants of the racial achievement gap.
THEATRST 89S
INVESTIGATING ADAPTATION (ALP) This investigative and creative course explores how medium, target audience, and language impact the success of adaptations of all kinds: fable to screenplay, video game to TV show, movie to stage musical, and beyond. Students will write and present pitches for their own adaptations and will have an inside look at Professor Rebecca Wahls’s process of adapting Bertolt Brecht’s 1943 play The Good Woman of Setzuan for performance at Duke this spring.
Professor: Rebecca Wahls
Rebecca Wahls, M.F.A. (Carnegie Mellon University) is a Visiting Artist in the Department of Theatre Studies. Her research and teaching interests include adaptation, filmmaking, and acting for the stage and screen.