FSEM Courses

THIS COURSE HAS CURRENTLY FILLED FOR FALL 2025. 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 emergenc …

THIS COURSE HAS CURRENTLY FILLED FOR FALL 2025. Science fiction (or speculative fiction) starts with world making. The social sciences (sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, and geography) focus on understanding and explaining the worl …

This FSEM explores the idea of equality from the perspective of cultural anthropology. You will learn just enough anthropology so that you can acquire this perspective, and then collectively we will try to figure out what equality means in America.

Fairy tales and fantasy novels have their origins in a centuries-old folk traditions that continue to attract twenty-first century readers and cinemagoers. The literary fairy tales that were popular in Italy, France, and Germany centuries ago have found new fans in recent television shows such as Once Upon a Time and films like Shrek, Maleficent, and Frozen.

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.

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.

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.

Positive psychology is a field that developed in the 1990’s to identify and enhance the human strengths and virtues that allow individuals and communities to thrive. This course focus on using the science of positive psychology to gain skills to help you thrive in college and ultimately in life.

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?

Where does evil come from? This FSEM will discuss what evil is and where it comes from, allowing students to study a real-life villain of their choosing.