First-Year Seminar Program

Robert Geitz, Associate Professor; Director

The First-Year Seminar Program (FYSP) is a unique opportunity for in-coming students to begin their Oberlin educational experience in a small seminar setting. The topics and academic approaches of seminars are very diverse, but they are all designed to help students hone their critical thinking and their discussion and writing skills. Moreover, first-year seminars provide important opportunities for students to get to know a faculty member well and to reflect upon the personal value and social relevance of a liberal arts education. Seminars are either Writing Intensive (WRi) or Writing Certification (WR) and Quantitative Proficiency-Half (QPh) courses. The Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences strongly urges all College first-year students to enroll in a first-year seminar; students should note that the vast majority of first-year seminars are offered in the fall semester. For up-to-date information, as well as expanded descriptions of seminars for 2011-2012, please consult the First-Year Seminar Program Course Catalog or visit the First-Year Seminar Program’s web site for students at www.oberlin.edu/fys.

First-Year Seminars for 2012-13

FYSP 073 - Radical Reading & Writing: Imagination in the World Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 076 - The Privileged and the Marginalized: History and Culture of American Colleges and Universities Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 074 - Race and Place: Reading the Rez, the Holler, and the Cul-de-Sac Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 075 - Hitler and Stalin: A Comparative Study Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 077 - ”Big History” and the Human Condition Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 078 - Atomic Histories and Nuclear Nightmares Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 079 - Conversations with Chekhov Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 080 - The 2012 Campaign and Election Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 082 - Sex, Gender, and Power Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 086 - Contemporary East Asian Cinema Semester Offered: Second Semester 2013-2014
FYSP 087 - Psychological Mythbusters: What do we believe, why do we believe it, and is it true? Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 092 - Foodways and Foodscapes: Cultural Knowledge Through Culinary Practices Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 093 - Disability Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 094 - Das Kapital Semester Offered: Second Semester
FYSP 098 - Automatons: From Moving Statues to Dreaming Androids Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 103 - Bridging the Body/Mind Divide Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 105 - Staying Sane in a Crazy World Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 108 - The Uses of Literature Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 109 - Odysseys and Identities Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 113 - Re-envisioning Russia Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 118 - Through the Looking Glass: The Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender with Social Class in Contemporary America Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 129 - Coming of Age in African Literature Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 131 - How Early Jews and Christians Rewrote the Bible Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 134 - Crossing Borders: The Mysteries of Identity Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 136 - Ways of Seeing, Ways of Knowing Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 139 - Political Leadership Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 140 - Pakistan: A New Nation’s Identities Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 141 - Manga Genji Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 143 - Deconstructing Technology Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 146 - HIV/AIDS in America Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 149 - International and Domestic Non-profits and Democratic Movements Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 153 - Worldview and History: Approaches to the History of the World Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 154 - Freud’s Vienna: Artists, Intellectuals, and Anti-Semites at the Fin de Siecle Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 158 - Daoism Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 162 - Cold War in Asia Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 165 - Feeding the World Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 172 - Religious Thought of Mohandas Gandhi Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 173 - The French Revolution and the Making of the Modern World Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 182 - The Body in Health and Disease Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 183 - Literature of War, Resistance, and Reconciliation Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 187 - Ars Moriendi: Death and the Art of Dying Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 190 - Rationality, Objectivity and Truth in Science Semester Offered: First Semester
FYSP 199 - Designer Babies and Other Possibilities Semester Offered: First Semester