FYSP 129 - Great Lakes and Rust Belt States

FC ARHU WINT

4 credits
Where is Oberlin College and Conservatory located? Possible answers include: in Northeast Ohio, near Cleveland, south of Lake Erie, and in the city of Oberlin; each is correct but incomplete on its own. In this place-based first-year seminar we will explore texts and cultural objects from Ohio and neighboring states, in order to think deeply about the Great Lakes ecosystem and the sociocultural history of the Rust Belt, in addition to grappling with the question of how we come to know and understand place. Together we will examine our relationship to the community and region of which we are now a part, primarily through reading, discussing, and writing about literary texts in a range of genres.