FSEM Courses

Welcome! Here you’ll find a full list of all Fall 2024 First-Year Seminar (FSEM) offerings. Browse through the pages of classes, select a course from the first drop down menu, or browse by subject area. Please note that this site shows the FSEMs regardless of whether or not they are full, so there is no guarantee that a course will still be open at the time of your registration


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    FSEM 100 H2 | The Idea of Cool

    What is Cool? Who decides? This first-year seminar studies the elusive but ever-so-attractive idea of Cool by looking at both historical and contemporary ideas of that quality. From its post-WWII emergence from the world of jazz into subgroups like the …

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    FSEM 100C7 | Sexuality in Southern Literature

    This first-year seminar will explore how southern literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries asks you to think about sexuality in both broad terms and regionally-specific contexts. The seminar will: give you a useful critical vocabulary abo …

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    FSEM 100E4 | Cryptology

    Cryptology is the area of mathematics that studies cryptography, the art of encrypting messages, and crypt-analysis, the science of breaking encrypted messages. This first-year seminar studies these ideas broadly through mathematical explorations accessible to the inquisitive student with only basic algebra skills.

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    FSEM 100F | The French New Wave: Cinema and Society

    In this FSEM, we will examine the major directors and films of this movement, as well as the the themes and social issues that animate these works. We will explore how these films revolutionized film production, form, and the portrayal of political and social changes.

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    FSEM 100F7 | No Place Like Home: Housing and Society

    Suburb or city? Single-family home, row house or apartment? Where we live influences our access to schools, jobs, transportation options, safety (or crime), and many other life-altering opportunities. We will also think about how inequality is woven into all of these housing situations; examining how race, class, gender, age, and sexuality may each influence our housing choices, or contribute to our lack of choices.

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    FSEM 100G4 | Race and Revolution

    In this course, we will explore the life and work of James Farmer, an exemplary leader of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement who taught at Mary Washington during the 1990s. We will investigate the history of the concept of race and its impact on how we perceive ourselves and the world.

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    FSEM 100H3 | Holocaust in German and American Culture

    This course begins with the question of how we ought to remember the Holocaust. Some see Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List as kitsch, for example, while others praise it as a monument to humanity. Are the monumental concrete steles of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin an appropriate way to remember the victims? Or do they reduce the victims to an anonymous mass?

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