It’s difficult to imagine a time before the invention of shoes. Yet what started as a practical venture 40,000 years ago has evolved into a differentiated, billion-dollar industry just as concerned with art and style as it is with functionality and performance. Shoes allow us to navigate, experience, and take advantage of our natural environment, and they are the principal convergence between our body and physical space. For centuries, shoes have provided signals about a person’s character, social, and cultural status. 

Shoes have also carried religious and symbolic meaning. They remain a unique lens through which to interrogate and understand innovation, manufacturing, and industrial design. And recently, shoes have refocused our attention on issues of ethics and morality. In many ways, shoes are a window into our personal and collective history and future.

Each week, students will summarize readings from history, anthropology, technology, art, business, economics, psychology, and politics. Readings will serve as the foundation for critical discussion. Two short papers and a final group project where students will create an on-campus “shoe drive” and evaluate its success, will constitute the seminar’s assignments. 

The course will also consist of a series of discussions with each other, the instructor, and guest lectures from prominent business leaders, artists and designers, and policymakers.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Several decades ago, a social theorist posited two distinct ways to understand the world: either as “parachutists” who take the long view or as “truffle-hunters” attentive to the minutiae only discernible at close range.

In this course, we reject this binary. Not satisfying ourselves with either the impersonal and general approach on the one hand or the quotidian perspective of the hyper-local on the other, we insist on a dialectic: combining the sensibilities of both the truffle hunter and the parachutist.

Close scrutiny of any given locality, community or individual can lay bare the values, interests and structures of power at work in that society and, in doing so, illuminate new avenues for pursuing large-scale change. That is the relatively simple idea that drives our inquiry.

We begin our investigation by taking up the invitation of microhistory, a methodology pioneered by a group of radical Italian scholars in the 1970s. Departing from their predecessors who had occupied themselves chronicling the exploits of rulers and generals, chiefs and monarchs, these iconoclasts shifted their attention to those far removed from the corridors of power. They showed that the experience of these individuals – in hamlets and hovels, tents and tenements – patiently understood, would reveal the currents and shifts, values and norms of the societies they sought to understand.

As we explore the possibilities and limitations of this framework, work of more recent generations of scholars has much to offer: from feminist and queer theorists, critical race scholars and working-class and movement writers, as well as memoirists, poets, critics, filmmakers, graphic artists and other creative producers of knowledge and art.

We will bridge the micro and the macro to tell stories—at once personal and political, local and global, derived from experience and from empirical research and analysis—that evoke the world as it is and also help us imagine it as it might be.

A first assignment might ask students to select an existing text and then add in a perspective on a different scale. What effect is produced by the amalgam of “big” and “small”?

For a final project, submitted as an essay or in a different medium by prior arrangement, students will cast a spotlight on their own life or on the life of someone close to them. What does such an inquiry make manifest about the distant and powerful forces at work in the world we live in? And how, in turn, might any insights gleaned this way advance the movement for human liberation, democracy, justice, equity or care?

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

After a long period of marginalization, the interest in using craft methodologies in contemporary art practices has surged in recent years. This course will provide students with an inclusive framework from which to consider the use of traditional craft techniques in creating art that explores issues relevant to students today. Throughout the term, we will work hands-on with media such as ceramics, metal, glass, paper making/paper sculpture, dyeing with natural materials, soft sculpture/quilting. Students will also learn through research, readings, and slide shows about a variety of craft practices that span a wide transnational and historical range. Theoretical questions concerning craft that are pertinent to contemporary art practices such as questions of authorship, experimentation, symbolism, and ephemerality will be explored.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Food and science are integrated in our everyday lives, and this seminar explores their intersection in the kitchen. Through the preparation and consumption of foods such as humus, falafel, manakish za’atar and learning to make cheese, yogurt, pickles, kombucha, (and much more!) you will discover the fascinating world of molecular biology, microbiology, and biochemistry. Along the way we will answer questions like: How are microorganisms involved in food production? What important discoveries have been made in the kitchen or food industry? How do some naturally produced compounds have anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory properties, yet other compounds can be toxic and kill us?

To come to answers, we will examine proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and micronutrients. We will also explore optimal cooking techniques and recipes using the scientific method. We will learn to understand how our bodies metabolize what they take in for energy.  To do this work, students will be expected to complete weekly reading and short assignments in preparation for class discussions. Instead of a final, they will be required to create and optimize a recipe and present the scientific process of their work.

This course will mostly prepare vegetarian foods and will be taught in a demonstration kitchen in one of the residential colleges. No prior cooking experience is required.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

In the last two decades of the 20th century, a number of brilliant artists and storytellers transformed a popular form of American entertainment, the comic book, into a new literary and artistic form that demanded serious attention from readers and scholars, the graphic novel.  In this seminar, we will explore some of the masterpieces of graphic narrative, paying particular attention to how specific works combine language and visual imagery in ways that enlarge the possibilities of narrative form. We will develop strategies for interpreting and evaluating the cultural significance and aesthetic quality of narratives based on sequential art. 

Our exploration will begin with Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Will Eisner’s To the Heart of the Storm – three recognized masterpieces of graphic narrative that will enable us to define the specific characteristics of the form and its capacity to make us visualize the diversity and complexity of multi-ethnic American life. We move on to the intricate experimentation with autobiographical form confronting political repression that shapes Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and both parts of Art Spiegelman’s Maus. The second half of the course focuses on exemplars of the vitality and variety of graphic narrative in the 21st century.  Craig Thompson’s Blankets vividly portrays an adolescent’s confrontation with love and religion in the midwestern United States. The superhero story receives transformative treatment in the widely acclaimed Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The “funny animal” comic moves into existential territory when the Norwegian artist Jason presents Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Pound as cartoon dogs who try to commit a robbery in The Left Bank Gang.  Mira Jacob’s transformation of the graphic memoir, Good Talk, offers a new way of confronting the political realities of a multi-racial household in the Trump years.  Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Grass provides a moving portrait of the difficult life of a South Korean comfort woman.  We end with the postmodern comedy of Daniel Clowes’s brilliant Ice Haven. These texts provide new ways of looking at race, class, sexuality, gender, and the whole process of growing up and growing older in the United States. By the end of the class, students should discover some new and amazing books and, more importantly, discover new ways of reading the graphic narrative and the culture it both depicts and critiques.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

New Orleans, August 2005: hurricane Katrina caused an estimated 1400 fatalities and some $100 billion in property damage. Houston, August 2017: hurricane Harvey. One hundred deaths, $125 billion in estimated damages. New Jersey, October 2012: superstorm Sandy knocks out the power of two million households, damages or destroys 350,000 homes, and claims the lives of 38 people. Italy, May 2023: fifteen people were killed and fifty-thousand left temporarily homeless due to heavy rainfall and severe flooding. 

Rarely a year goes by without the world experiencing another “100-year storm.”  This course introduces students to the modern tools of geodesy in order to explore the ways in which the geosciences can be used to understand and confront this and other natural disasters.  Using quantitative methods of measuring Planet Earth—its shape, its rotation and deformation, its dynamic gravity field—we will introduce  geophysical principles in the context of practical applications and outdoor on-campus field experiments.  

Armed with  these fundamentals, we then dive deeply into the issue of flooding in Rome. The Italian capital flooded multiple times in its 2,500 years of development along the banks of the Tiber—and yet is considered la Città eterna! Some 125 stone plaques in Rome mark highstands and inundations dating back almost 800 years. Using these data, we will trace the history of the rise and fall of the river Tiber. The capstone of this effort will be a mandatory week-long field trip to Italy. In Rome, we will accurately measure and map the elevation of known historical flood markers, placing them in the chronological context of urbanization, and interpreting them in the light of humanity’s attempts of controlling nature, learning lessons for our own parts of the world. While we will focus on making first-hand, primary, contemporary measurements of historical events, we will take a geological, long-term, viewpoint of the processes at work in shaping Earth’s changing surface and climate. When not using instruments to make precise measurements, or learning how to program statistical approaches to data analysis on the computer, we will introduce important concepts shaping the Earth sciences today. We  will engage with the scientific literature and teach the skills to write and report about science in an informed non-specialist manner that is capable of reaching a wide audience.   

This is a science class: students should come prepared with an aptitude for, and a willingness to learn, the quantitative aspects of scientific inquiry. Scientific writing and computer programming are integral parts of this seminar and its assessment. 

Course participants must have a valid passport and travel visa in-hand prior to September 1, 2024.

For further course details, please see: https://geoweb.princeton.edu/people/simons/FRS-RFRF.html. 

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS 

Compost is a complex, nutrient-dense mixture of decayed organic matter teeming with microbial life that naturally fertilizes soils, promoting plant growth.  Composting, one the oldest and most effective methods of food waste management, is now being explored as one of the frontline measures to solve the grand challenge of food waste, in which ~1/3 of global food (and its associated human, economic, and natural resources) is wasted every year. In many countries, most food scraps go to the landfill where conditions favor microbial decomposition of food into the potent greenhouse gas methane.  At the same time, food waste will only become a bigger problem given the predicted doubling of global food production by 2050 necessary to meet the demands of a growing population and dietary shifts. Encouragingly, the past few years have seen a large increase of products and policies to promote composting for household and institutional food waste management, including the transition for single use petroplastics to compostable bioplastics.  Princeton University, which has prioritized composting as part of its sustainability plan with the Sustainable Composing Research at Princeton (SCRAP) Lab, is exploring various methods, from in-vessel biodigestion to more traditional outdoor piles, to optimize the composting process for the campus community. This FRS will provide a scientific overview of composting and its role in promoting food, water, biodiversity, and climate sustainability by introducing fundamental concepts in soil science, nutrient cycling (carbon, nitrogen), microbiology (food webs, ecology), food production, water quality, and climate science using lectures, readings, and applied science labs focused on improving campus sustainability operations.  In collaboration with Princeton’s SCRAP lab, Campus as a Lab, Campus Dining, and the NJ Composting Council, students will evaluate the compostability of campus bioplastics and related alternatives by designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, to produce an actionable presentation and written report.  Students will gain exposure to biogeochemical wet lab methods and the use of analytical equipment, including chromatographic and spectroscopic tools, and to bioinformatics analyses of nucleic acid sequences for characterization of compost composition and activity.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

For those who find reason unequal to the task of understanding human existence, religion has been the traditional place to go. In this course, we will examine a period in the Christian west when tragedy—usually, but not always, dramatic tragedy—took on the burden of exploring doubts about who and what we are, and about how we are supposed to behave. After two introductory classes in which we will consider what tragedy is and isn't with reference to the classical tradition, our texts will range from the Italian Renaissance to the Enlightenment. En route, we will consider tragedies by (amongst others) Marlowe, Shakespeare, Racine, Milton, and Dryden. We will also ponder whether—and if so, how—tragedy began to wane by the beginning of the nineteenth century, and whether tragedy has a place in our twenty-first-century age of confessional transparency, political activism, and hyper-realistic depictions of real and imagined violence.

The course will introduce you to modes and practices in literary studies (ancient, modern, and comparative), performance studies, and intellectual history (including but not limited to the histories of political, religious, and philosophical thought). Just as importantly, it will help you to explore the interconnectedness of the humanistic disciplines, and their power as a lens through which to come to a view of human affairs. Assessment will be based on class participation, a mid-term paper, and a final paper: there will be no exams. All texts not originally written in English will be read in translation.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

A sculpture made of half-chewed lard. A film that stars dancing saucepans and whirling whisks. Music based on recordings of cicada sounds and the flight of bees. A performance in which the artist sits still onstage and invites the audience to make cuts in her clothing. We are familiar with artworks that imitate life through images, sounds and stories. Creative artists may also work more directly with everyday experience, presenting humble, commonplace materials as aesthetic objects and experiences. Artists in various disciplines have long smudged the boundary between art and life, as when Marcel Duchamp (in)famously placed a bicycle wheel on a pedestal in 1913. (It is now held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.) Forty years later, John Cage created an equally disruptive piano piece composed only of silence. In the 1960s, choreographer Yvonne Rainer explored "pedestrian movement," and Yoko Ono instructed performers to make art by eating a tuna sandwich, uttering a cough, or watching snow fall. Earlier generations of experimental artists seemed to revel in mystification and countercultural status, but today we take for granted that everyday experience can be aesthetically invigorating. With ubiquitous digital media and technology, the arts become less distant from ordinary experience, and individual artistic disciplines get mixed up too. Such blurring of boundaries raises questions about aesthetics, authorship, expertise, spectatorship, commodification, and community. This seminar seeks enchantment in everyday experience, considering the allure and the danger of mixing up life and art. In addition to studying and writing about historical artworks, students will research current-day practice and will complete open-ended creative projects. Experience in any artistic discipline is welcome but is by no means required; more important is a spirit of curiosity and exploration. For our purposes, "art" refers not only to visual art but to a wide variety of creative undertakings that result in performances, objects, rituals, stunts, and other possibilities we will discover together.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

With the pressures and frenzied pace of contemporary American life, it might sometimes feel as if there is little time to contemplate the question of what makes for a meaningful life. How does each individual find deeper meaning for him/her/themselves? What is the purpose of my life? What is the relationship of the meaning of my life to some kind of larger purpose? How do our lives fit into the larger world around us? Throughout the ages, writers, thinkers, and religious figures; wise ordinary folks -- the person next door, one's parents and grandparents -- have grappled with these questions. The course explores, from a variety of perspectives, some of the responses to the "big questions" of life. The readings and films are taken from different cultures, different time periods, and different spheres of human endeavor and experience -- for example, from Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" to Kurosawa's "Ikiru" ("To Live"); from "The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi" to "Forrest Gump;" from Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" to A.A. Milne's "Winnie-the-Pooh;" from Taoism to Tolstoy; from Martin Luther King to "Anna Karenina;" from Pablo Casals to "Casablanca; " from Martin Buber's "I and Thou" to Albert Camus' "Myth of Sisyphus" to Albert Schweitzer's "reverence for life." The goals of the seminar will be: (1) to investigate the thoughts that others have had and (2) to examine the students' own questions and responses to the issues raised.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

“Poetry can extend the document.”
Muriel Rukeyser

This literature and creative writing-based course considers the rich intersection of poetry, nonfiction, and hybrid creative writing called documentary poetry, which has blossomed over the past 20 years. Like documentary films, documentary poems make use of primary source materials such as interviews, news articles, diaries, letters, photographs, medical reports, and public records. The works we’ll consider “extend the document” by enriching our understanding of historical and current events – with context, with language, with performance, with design, with juxtaposition of other kinds of writing and visual material. The works are contemporary; subject matter spans the 18th through the 21st centuries. These works are designed to move your understanding of public events from knowledge of the facts, however complex, to an understanding of their emotional and philosophical implications and nuances. Public events include the everyday lives of individuals as well as sweeping social movements and injustices.

Course requirements include a final 10-page documentary poetry/hybrid project and an oral presentation of the work to the class. You will also keep a process journal to record the methods, reflections, and progress of your work on your documentary project, from preliminary idea stage to radical revision. Weekly exercises will develop both your critical writing and your creativity with language.

During our seminar:

You’ll gain new perspectives on history: You’ll read about the drowning of 19th century enslaved Africans; a 21st century young Native American gay man’s complicated relationship with nature; the life of 18th century religious leader Ann Lee;  a re-envisioning of Wall Street, and many other topics.

You’ll practice paying close attention to how poems work: We’ll collaborate in understanding the readings, taking everyone’s responses and reactions to make a tapestry of possibilities. We’ll also read poems aloud in class, observing the physical and emotional effects they have on you and noting how the poems achieve those effects. You’ll use this understanding in creating your own documentary works.

You’ll explore your creativity: In-class exercises will help you become comfortable with non-intentional writing, letting you access the wisdom of your unconscious mind. You’ll also practice contemporary modes such as erasure and collage and experiment with the use of visuals to add texture to your writing. Your experiences with generating fresh, affecting, vivid language will energize every type of writing you do throughout your time at Princeton.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CuUmVOlLgb-/

Art has shaped societal views on technology and impacted research in the sciences since at least the age of Leonardo’s study of human anatomy. In an abandoned petri dish, Alexander Fleming fortuitously grew Penicillium fungus, aiding in the discovery of one of the most efficient life-saving drugs in history. Fleming's intuition to recognize the unfamiliar and extraordinary was honed by his artistic practice - painting with live bacteria.

It is in this spirit that students in this seminar explore advances in the life sciences, the interface between materials and living things, and biological inspiration as a generative influence in art and design.  Students will use tools like laser cutting, 3D printing, and machine embroidery to represent applications of biotechnology through artistic practice and consider societal and ethical questions about their use in our world.

The seminar will travel to London, England to engage in a week of bioart practice alongside the exploration of the modern history of medicine.  London offers an ideal cultural landscape for students to explore the intersection of biology, art, and ethics.  London holds tremendous historical significance in the fields of health and medicine.  Students can learn on site about the extraordinary stories that led to modern advancements in medical field with visits to institutions like the Alexander Fleming Laboratory, the Florence Nightingale Museum, and the Welcomme Collection - a museum exploring the connections between medicine, life, and art. 
The course will also visit the Old Operating Theatre Museum and the Francis Crick Institute.  Finally, the city has many practitioners in the field of bioart, among them,  Anna Dumitriu, who has agreed to guide the seminar for two days through tours and workshops.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Researchers use the power of observation to generate questions that have led to some of the most fascinating discoveries in nature. In this seminar, we will explore the process of scientific inquiry by investigating the many ways in which field biologists make observations and study organisms both in their natural environment and in the lab. Each week, we will discuss a variety of methodologies and technologies that researchers use to design thoughtful experiments and gather data. Through hands-on learning experiences in the lab and field, we will use our creativity and problem-solving skills to collect and interpret behavioral, morphological, physiological, and sensory data in living and non-living organisms. We will use the techniques and skills learned in the beginning of the semester to generate our own questions and carry out our own experiments. This independent research project will culminate in the form of an oral presentation and formal paper. Please note that this seminar includes coordinated trips during class time to local sites in the Princeton area. As a student in this class, you will be offered the opportunity to participate in an optional 3-week field experience at Mpala Research Centre located in Laikipia, Kenya during January 2025.  

The seminar is organized in three cycles. We will begin the course by delving into the process of scientific inquiry. Here, we will gain a better understanding of how scientific questions are generated and investigated, and how findings are interpreted and disseminated. We will then explore varying modalities of observation to better understand topics in ecology, evolution, and behavior. We will make the invisible become visible by transforming observational data into workable data that can be analyzed and interpreted. The course will culminate with an independent research project where you will generate your own questions, design your own experiment, write up your findings, and share your discoveries with your peers. Through this approach, we will see that science is an inquiry-based, dynamic, and continuous process rather than one that is stochastic and unchanging.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CuhvEjMLfhr/

This seminar will take students on an astronomical tour of the universe. We will discuss not only what is out there but also how we have figured most of this out using just ground-based observations and, more importantly, how we have determined how big and how far away these astronomical objects are.  The diameter of the observable universe is known to be about 46 billion light years. That’s really big. Not only is 46 billion a huge number but even one light year, the distance a beam of light travels in one year, is a very long distance. How far is it? In this seminar, we will investigate the size of things starting with familiar objects having sizes we can readily grasp and carefully working our way up to the largest most distant objects in the observable universe. We will describe how these sizes and distances were first measured by scientists/philosophers as our understanding of the universe we live in evolved and matured over the years. But, more than that, we will learn, and in some cases demonstrate, how many of these measurements can be done with fairly modest equipment in our modern age. For example, we will see (i) how one can measure the diameter of the Earth from a single picture of a sunset, (ii) how one can measure the distance to the Sun by analyzing pictures of nearby asteroids taken through a small telescope over the course of a few nights, and (iii) how one can measure the distance to nearby stars using a few pictures taken over the course a year or two again through a small telescope. Depending on weather and available resources, we hope to demonstrate with actual nighttime observations some of these fundamental measurements as part of the class. There are two main goals of the seminar. The first is to provide a deep appreciation for the scale of things in the entire visible universe. The second is for students to learn that data collection involves a lot of randomness and extracting meaningful information requires ideas from the fields of statistics, probability, and optimization. By the end of the course the students will know the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

What is the role of sound in film? Music and sound effects are central elements of telling its stories, but they can do much more by establishing pacing, enhancing mood, commenting on, interpreting, or even contradicting and subverting what we see. This seminar explores these questions from the advent of the “talkie” in the late 1920s to the films of today. Over this time the sonic technologies of filmmaking have been transformed from live recording of dialogue and music and the hands-on sound effects of the Foley artist to digital manipulation that allows for ever more sophisticated post-production editing.

Over the semester we will explore the theories behind the practice, study the techniques of pioneering directors such as Fritz Lang (M), Alfred Hitchcock (Blackmail), Orson Welles (A Touch of Evil), Masaki Kobayashi (Kwaidan), and Raven Jackson (All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt) and the contributions of sound designers/composers such as Walter Murch (An English Patient) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (The Revenant). We will watch selected films and scenes to trace this technical and aesthetic evolution and develop a technical and critical vocabulary to describe and assess the multiple visual and aural layers of a still evolving art form in which what we hear is as important as what we see.

The weekly coursework will involve viewing and analyzing music and sound design in selected films or scenes in conjunction with a discussion of pertinent articles, interviews, or chapters by prominent film professionals and critics. Each week these discussions will be jointly led by selected students on a rotating basis. The two shorter papers will focus on the analysis of selected scenes using the analytical tools developed in our discussions. In the final research paper students will apply these skills to an analysis of an entire film of their choosing.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Documentary filmmakers engage with the world by representing it in a myriad of subjective ways. This course will focus on cross-cultural issues surrounding representation in documentary filmmaking, both in front of and behind the camera. Through film productions, screenings, texts, and discussions, this course will explore the central question of “who has the right to tell whose story, and why?” Each student will produce, direct, shoot, and edit two 3-5 minute documentary films.  One film must be set within their own cultural sphere, while the other must be set outside of it. Upon completion of these films, each student will either write an 8-10 page final paper OR prepare a presentation that reflects on their experience making these films. Their films and final essays/presentations will probe the ethical questions of “how should we speak to you about us?” on the one hand, and “how should we speak about them to you?” on the other hand. Students will investigate their own relationship to the role and function of the filmmaker, a mediator of “reality,” and the influence of that mediation on public discourse on local, national and international issues.

On a practical level, each student will learn the basics of how to produce a documentary short using various modes and genres. They will place their experience making these films in the context of contemporary issues surrounding race, ethnicity, gender, age, national and regional identity, social issues, and events. On a more theoretical level, they will write about and discuss ethical issues surrounding ethnography, informed consent, empathy, ideology, authorship, cinematography, editing, and distribution. They will also discuss the cultural contexts for the films they screen, why they were made, what they tell us about the social concerns of the period, and the theoretical questions they raise. By the end of the course, students will have a solid foundation to creatively bring stories from the world we all share to life, as well as a critical and visceral understanding of representation in documentary filmmaking.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Driverless cars have become an exciting topic in recent years. While testing and piloting activities of driverless cars are already on public roads in selected cities around the world, we wonder: How soon will they be available to general consumers? What needs to be done to prepare for their grand rollout into the world? Addressing these questions, this seminar focuses on what it will take for driverless cars to work effectively as well as their impact on everyday life and society at large.

A paradigm shift is occurring in everything from cars, trucks or vans driven by licensed drivers to the very act of driving a vehicle. Examining this paradigm shift, the seminar will address the following:
•    The design and technologies that enable a vehicle to be driverless;
•    The infrastructure needed for the proper functioning of driverless cars;
•    Safety regulations for driverless cars, including National Highway Safety Administration requirements;
•    The effects of driverless cars on the environment, including, but not limited to factors such as reduction in total vehicle volume and parking space needs due to car sharing;
•    The impact of driverless cars on multiple related industries and employment;
•    The impact of driverless cars on consumer purchase and usage behaviors;
•    Customer privacy and data security concerns in the global driverless vehicle market, in which laws and standards are set by individual countries;
•    Current status of driverless cars at various companies; the pros and cons of these products in a fiercely competitive global market;
•    The benefits and challenges of driverless cars.

This seminar will be of interest to students interested in the topic of driverless cars and their social impact. It is also meant to help students see the changing globalized world through the lens of driverless cars.

There are no prerequisites for the class.  Students are expected to actively participate in class discussions of course readings and are encouraged to bring in case studies germane to our topics. Twice in the semester, students form teams and choose topics related to driverless cars for further independent research. Teams will work on group presentations, on the basis of which individual team members can write their own midterm and final papers. These activities will engage students to ask questions and develop critical thinking skills in assessing the readiness of driverless cars and seeing the linkage between products and society in a new light.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

In this transformative time, when politics on the national level is fractured by mistrust and factionalism, local government meetings remain sites of direct democracy and creative possibility. Is Politics a Performance? looks at the theatricality of government meetings, how we participate in them (or don’t) and who plays which roles. The course offers a creative, hands-on introduction to interdisciplinary research, a chance to mix artistic process with ethnographic inquiry, and first-hand experiences of how local democracy works (or doesn’t). 

Our guiding questions include: 

- How do we understand the rules and structures by which our democracy functions (or doesn’t)?

- Why study civic participation and what can we learn from it?

- Why are local government meetings structured the way they are?

- Why are the rooms they take place in designed the way they are and placed where they are?- How can tools of theater help us understand political power and rhetoric?

- How can the tools of sociology, philosophy and history help us make theater?

Using tools from sociology, philosophy, civics and theater, we will visit government meetings in Princeton and surrounding communities, read case studies theory, and create a final project together that asks our peers and colleagues to perform democracy. 

At the end of the course, you will know how to work with Princeton community members to participate more fully in civic life, how to write a better scholarly paper, how to integrate different humanities disciplines into a shared pursuit, and how to work in small and larger group collaborations. You will leave with the ability to deploy this knowledge toward future scholarly and artistic projects. 

This course treats everyone’s experiences of politics, government, live performance, and scholarship as assets to our intellectual growth. Your inventiveness, your civic pride or mistrust, your boredom, your policy experience; all are welcome here. Our goal is to teach each other about creative civic power.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

What’s your Myers-Briggs type? Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Which tragic Greek figure are you? Countless tools are available to us today for defining the self, tools that measure and categorize our character, our behavior, our habits of emotion and thought. And while Buzzfeed personality quizzes might not predate the twenty-first century, the broader phenomenon of self-definition has a long history. Cultures around the world have been developing character typologies for millennia; the impulse to taxonomize people’s personalities is common and enduring. Our course will explore this phenomenon across time, seeking to illuminate some of the origins, the attractions, and the effects of these approaches to defining the self.

Our first unit will focus on the concept of personality types, tracing the contemporary phenomenon of the personality test and similar typologies of self to ancient antecedents ranging from Mesopotamian astrology to Hippocratic humoral theory. Along the way, we will ruminate on the roles such typologies play in not only assessing but creating the self. This line of  questioning will lead us to our second unit, in which we will read Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist in the context of 19th century philosophical debates over whether character is something innate and under our control, or something produced by external influence and circumstance. In our third and final unit, we will study the psychology of group identity, using widely varied examples—from the teen movie Mean Girls to the Black Lives Matter movement and the rise of queer astrology—to explore how group membership impacts the definition of a social self.

Seminar meetings will blend lecture with class discussions. Participants can expect to complete regular reading assignments, discussion posts, two class presentations, and a mix of critical and creative assignments, including developing your own personality tests based on the theories we examine and completing a guided research project. The class will take a field trip to see Wicked on Broadway on Sunday, October 27.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

In this seminar we will study moments of change at seven crucial stages in the life cycle (childhood, adolescence, courtship and marriage, work, maturity and death) in order to discover the conflicts and contradictions, the emotional truth, and the possibilities that such moments hold for us. Our medium will be the short story. Great short stories show us convincingly how change comes about, each one unique and yet ultimately universal. How do moments of revelation occur? What are these changes each of us must discover in a unique way? What pushes us? What show us the way? Or does it result from within?

Each class will begin with a discussion of an illustrative short story, followed by a writing exercise inspired by it, and then discussed in small groups. We will gather again to share what has been written by those who wish to. Each student will be encouraged to produce and thus discover, the imaginative and regenerative potential residing in her/his imagination. The writing submitted will be both shared with the class and discussed in one on one sessions with the professor. In a final paper each student will put their pieces together to reflect the whole. Guest speakers will be invited, both psychiatrists and authors. Dr. William Tucker will talk about Erik Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development, several authors will discuss the . A collection of most of the short stories we will read is available in How People Change: the Short Story as Case History, by William Tucker and all will be found online.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Despite the slew of high-profile scandals exposed over the past two decades, examples of ethical transgressions in financial markets continue to abound.  At the same time, we see well-established as well as innovative ways in which the finance industry is able to assert its credentials as a force for good in society.  
This seminar will explore ethics in the finance industry using a case-based method.  Our approach will be grounded in an understanding of the role of a financial system in an economy and society.  We will frame the discussion by reviewing the economic development and egalitarian arguments in favor of markets and considering their limits.  We will discuss the applicability of Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, and Virtue Ethics as moral approaches to finance.  We will address the seminar’s topic from various angles, drawing on moral philosophy, financial theory and concepts of behavioral ethics, corporate governance, economic development, and public policy. 
In addressing ethical issues, a few themes will be emphasized through-out the semester:
•    A discussion of the underlying assumptions of finance theory, their impact on the practice of finance and on the practical role of morality in the industry, and the applicability of Kantian, Utilitarian, and Virtue Ethics philosophies to finance.  
•    An attempt to distinguish ethical issues that are systemic in nature from those that relate to individual decision-making and character.  
•    For the systemic issues, an overview of how the largest financial firms on Wall Street have evolved over the past several decades creating new conflicts of interests, and the impact of that trend on inequality.
•    A comparison of corporate governance across national financial markets, with particular emphasis on the US, China, Japan, and India, and linkages to the nature of their financial systems. 
•    For the issues related to individual decision-making, case studies to illustrate various patterns observed in markets, from outright deceit, fraud, and manipulation to more nuanced mishandling of conflicts of interest in which cognitive biases play a large role.  
•    An exploration of the economic and social value of investments and which types of investments might create most positive impact beyond financial returns.
•    A discussion of the promise and challenges of fintech, crypto-currencies, and, more broadly, innovative finance.
•    A discussion of role models – some of whom will participate in the seminar.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

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This seminar is an introduction to the study of history, and especially the history of technology, as a discipline studying change in time, using primary sources and concepts from disciplines including engineering, social sciences, philosophy, religion, and the arts.

Students will encounter four of the best-known disasters of the last 125 years: the wreck of the Titanic, the explosion of the Challenger, the collapse of the World Trade Center, and the implosion of the Titan during a dive to the Titanic. In the first week of a three-week cycle, the seminar will consider best practices in the weeks and months before the event and the assumptions and omissions that contributed to each event, and why these seemed reasonable to competent and intelligent people. In the second week, it will analyze the day of the disaster and crucial, still-debated decisions. In the third, it will consider the afterlife of the disaster in new precautions (sometimes resulting in further loss of life), memorials, folklore, and literature and film. Guest experts will help lead discussions.

The final paper will be an investigation of a recent disaster, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Baltimore bridge collapse, using the ideas and events examined in the seminar.

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The fates of Science and Film have been woven together since the invention of film itself. As consumers of popular media, we are inundated with images of scientists in movies and on television—just think of Jurassic Park (1993), Contact (1997), or Oppenheimer (2023). Time-lapse techniques allowed scientists in the 1890s to better understand and communicate to audiences the intricacies of plant development. Slow-motion and microphotography extend our senses, capturing phenomena for analysis that take place too quickly or at too small a scale for our unaided eyes to comprehend. Film was also enabled by the development of new technologies of photography and projection. 

From the perspective of the history of science, this seminar explores the history of Celluloid Science, to see how material practices and ways of thinking about film and science transformed together over the past 130 years: from the 19th-century origins of film as an experimental tool of visualization and scientific research through to 21st-century cinematic depictions of scientific theories and adventure. This allows us to chart the rise of science as a cultural phenomenon in the twentieth century, one that is deeply linked to practices of representing knowledge visually.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

For as long as we have been human, we have been looking up. Nearly every culture around the world has independently created its own cosmological systems to explain the heavens: the day-night cycle, objects seen with the naked eye in the night sky, the changing of the seasons, even supernovae. Much of our modern conception of a "Scientific Method"—making an observation, researching a topic-forming a hypothesis, conducting experiments, analyzing the data, and reporting conclusions—can be traced back to ancient astronomers. We will explore the connection between past and present: what tools did ancient civilizations use to study astronomical phenomena, how did they then explain said phenomena, and how does what they learned compare to what we know now? Knowledge has traditionally been handed down through mythologies, artifacts, and architectural monuments. In addition to readings discussion, we will use class time to collaborate on the creation of artifacts and conduct research. Additionally, we will have excursions to nearby cultural institutions (e.g. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The American Museum of Natural History, The Penn Museum, and Princeton's own collections) to view artifacts associated with the history of astronomy. 

This course will combine the creative and the scientific, exploring different ways of knowing that have been employed throughout history. We will:

- Study and create our own cosmological mythologies

- Research current topics in astrophysics

- Visit museums and cultural institutions to interact with artifacts that are part of the global astronomical tradition

- Learn hands-on crafting techniques and technologies to produce our own "artifacts" that might ostensibly be used to study or interpret astronomical phenomena

- Learn observation techniques, particularly naked-eye astronomy, to study astronomical phenomena 

- Visit cultural and archaeological sites in Peru during Fall Break (international travel during Fall Break required)*

Fall break will be spent in Cusco, Peru, where we will tour Incan astronomical sites and meet with conservators and archaeologists to better understand how observatories and architecture were used to study the night sky. This experience is sure to be an exciting and memorable way to interact with the course material!

*Students must have a passport that is valid until October 2025. Additionally, some non-US students might need to get a visa in a compressed period of time. We will reach out to all accepted students immediately to determine whether they need a visa. Visa costs will be covered by the course.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

The latest entrant in language technology, ChatGPT, has caught the attention of one and all, far above the previous generation of conversational gadgets—Alexa, Siri or Google Now. While impressive in its capabilities, just a few languages can benefit from these advances. Aside from the economic benefits, language technologies have far-reaching impacts on societies—facilitating the study and preservation of languages, access to and management of history and culture, and facilitating deeper understanding across people through shared communication. How can we preserve the richness of languages and the cultures they encode using language technology?

In this cross-disciplinary seminar, students will embark on a journey to understand the need for language technology, the intricacies of the African languages, culminating with the challenges and opportunities of applying language technology to African languages. By examining the evolution of language technology and its limited application to commercially profitable languages, the course will highlight the need for expansion into other languages for cultural and societal benefits. Students will gain an understanding of how language technology impacts daily life, through examples like smart devices and virtual agents.

In the second part of the course, we will explore the typology of African languages, with a specific focus on Swahili covering the basic grammatical and linguistic structure. The third part of the course will introduce language processing using computers covering basic concepts, tools, and applications (search engines, speech processing, machine translation, text classification, machine translation, information extraction, and recommendation system) for processing language with computers and inclusivity in content creation through digital orality, which involves using audiovisual technologies in African languages, helping these languages gain prominence in mainstream spaces.

Students will engage in term projects which will start during the second half of the course, and the project presentations will serve as the bookend for the course. Some sample term projects might include:

● analysis of syntactic phenomena in an African language,

● morpho-syntactic comparison across a pair of African languages,

● implementation of lexical embedding and semantic closeness of words in African languages,

● an index and search tool for documents in an African language,

● machine translation between two African languages,

● speech-to-text system of an African language,

● emotion and sentiment analysis of tweets in an African language.

● emojination of language, its impact on content/culture/inclusivity in global digital spaces for African people

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

This seminar explores the rich tradition of music as a vehicle for social resistance and cultural resilience in the diverse regions of the Americas and the Caribbean.  Students will explore the ways in which music has been used to promote social justice, empower, and inspire collective action. Along the way, they will learn about and analyze a diverse range of traditional musical genres and movements including Folk music, Blues and Jazz, Hip hop, Reggae, Powwow ceremonies as well as other styles. With a diverse array of artists, genres, and themes, notable topics of discussion will also include genres that have emerged from Latin America as a form of cultural resistance as they have persisted and evolved despite societal discrimination and prejudice.  These include: 

• Reggaeton, a genre of urban music that originated in Puerto Rico in the late 1990s; 
• Cumbia Rebajada, originated as a form of cultural resistance and expression within marginalized urban communities, particularly among working-class youth in Colombia and Mexico's northern border regions; 
• Corridos, a traditional form of narrative folk music that originated in Mexico but also have roots in other Latin American countries, particularly along the border regions; 
• Bachata, a genre of music and dance originated from the Dominican Republic which does not have its roots in social resistance in the same explicit way as some other musical styles like reggae or Afrobeat, but its existence and evolution is seen as a testament to the resilience and cultural pride of the Dominican people; and 
• Capoeira, a dance that emerged from Brazil where music plays a crucial role, serving both as a guide for movement and as a means of cultural expression. The songs sung during Capoeira sessions often contain historical narratives and philosophical insights, transmitting the traditions and values of the Capoeira community.

By focusing on the Americas, this course provides students with a deeper understanding of the diverse musical traditions and resistance movements that have shaped the region's history and culture. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, readings, multimedia presentations, and case studies analysis, students will explore the complex intersections between music, politics, culture, and society. In conclusion, the seminar will examine how music reflects, shapes, and responds to social and political contexts, as well as how it mobilizes communities, challenges powers, and amplifies marginalized voices. For songs and genres performed in other languages, no previous knowledge of other languages is required.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

In this course we will explore classic magic ("fairy") tales from around the world, focusing our attention on traditional narrative patterns and their meanings.  We will view magic tales as stories that reflect significant moments and experiences of the life cycle (e.g., coming of age, marriage, etc.) and will explore symbolic journeys (often of initiation, both male and female), representations of the Other World (forests, faraway kingdoms, the land of the dead, etc.), and family relationships (between parents and children, siblings, etc.), to name a few.  Topics we will examine include oral composition, variants and multiforms, storytellers and performance (including storytelling as a revived art form), the major critical approaches that have influenced the study of the genre (oral-traditional, historic-geographic, structuralist, myth-ritual, psychological, symbolic, socio-historical, and feminist), and how magic tales inform other types of narrative (in literature and film).  Most of the seminar (9 weeks) will focus on traditional magic tales and how they function not only in Euro-American but also non-Western cultures; during the last three weeks of the course, we will examine how magic tales are adopted and adapted in Western literature and film.  We will seek to understand how and why magic tales are composed and performed--how and why they resonate so profoundly and evoke such intriguing layers of cultural, social, and psychological meaning.  Our goal in this seminar is to “read” the “texts” of magic tales and to understand how and why they so vividly express the human experience.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

The piledrivers, stunners, and chokeslams pro wrestlers deal out to one another in the ring may be more scripted gesturing than actual fighting, but the bodily engagement is real. In this course, we will study the popular “lowbrow” practice of pro wrestling from different theoretical perspectives. We begin in the global-cultural domain, making the strange familiar and the familiar strange by comparing American pro wrestling with the Senegalese national sport laamb, a traditional grappling contest experiencing revival and expansion. We will then prepare to attend a local pro wrestling match by considering how participants’ and spectators’ bodies are both crucial to a wrestling event. Next, we’ll inquire as to what exactly is being performed by means of these bodily engagements, and with a special emphasis on gender, we’ll investigate how boundaries that matter outside of the ring are negotiated within the squared circle. As preparation for students’ creative projects motivated by pro wrestling, we’ll sample some works of art that challenge highbrow/lowbrow distinctions. We’ll investigate pro wrestlers as workers next, and then turn to roles wrestling has played in politics in recent years. Finally, we’ll look again beyond the U.S. context with studies of Bolivian cholita wrestling, punk lucha libre in the U.K., and other cases of pro wrestling relevant to students’ interests. In their final projects, students will use one or more of the theoretical perspectives addressed in the course in order to examine a case study of their choice. Students will be free to choose what constitutes a case. Examples include: ritual elements in wrestlers’ entrance themes, Kia Stevens’s engagement with stereotyping in the ring and on the screen, or simulated embodiment in wrestling video games.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages worldwide, and is familiar to all college students. It may be surprising to learn that the process of roasting coffee beans and brewing a cup of coffee involves several fundamental engineering principles. This “hands-on” course explores fundamental concepts in chemical engineering, fluid mechanics, physics, chemistry, and colloid science. This freshman seminar is a combination of labs and lectures, including special guest lectures, open to all first-year undergraduate students. There are no prerequisites beyond high school math and science. The experiments draw on science and engineering concepts introduced in the lectures; these are team-based activities, where students work in groups of three for all labs. The course culminates in a design competition where groups work to brew the best tasting cup of coffee with the minimum amount of electrical energy.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

This seminar will study the history and nature of myths —- traditional as well as urban myths —- particularly in regard to the way that myths, legends, and superstitions reflect the concerns and fears of all cultures. We will examine the ways in which each genre differs, and the means by which communities, seized with conviction for generations, disseminate and fortify them. The collective unconscious is often manifested in metaphor, particularly in literature and film, and the legitimate anxieties, fears (and guilt) that it reflects will be the subject of our study. We will discuss urban myths through history (witchcraft; alchemy and the philosopher’s stone; prophecies of the end of the world, conspiracies) as well as contemporary myths (post-truth beliefs), and the technological, religious and cultural shifts that cause them.

Students will read from a collection of relevant essays and papers as well as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, The Fairy Tales of Perrault, The Uses of Enchantment, as well as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and The Road. We will watch the films ‘Walkabout;’ ‘Moonlight;” ‘Let the Right One In;’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (Cocteau).

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is only the most recent expression of Americans’ fascination with “the founders” and the history of the early republic.  This seminar will equip you to think deeply about that phenomenon.  

It will do so by digging deeply into American history during the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries.  You’ll learn a lot about this crucial timespan, one in which the ideals of the recent Revolution met the realities of statecraft, when the social institutions of British America were strained through a new national American idiom, and when many of the issues that would prove vital to subsequent American history first cropped up.  This was a period of violent political divisions, of explosive rhetoric, of bruising politics, and of contested elections.  In a time of wide-ranging international conflict, it was a period when the newly United States sought to position itself in the world.  It was a time when ideals were hotly contested—when, in different ways, elites, enslaved and free people of color, laborers, and women of all stations pushed and pulled at notions such as liberty, freedom, and equality to find their limits.  

The course will also give students a chance to do history, in the active sense.  Our investigations will stream through readings and discussions about “the founders” and will deploy records left by and about these figures to get at the dynamism of the period.  We will also use them, however, as jumping off places to get at the lives and ideas of less prominent people.  While we will steep ourselves in the politics of the period, we will also think deeply about social, cultural, and intellectual developments.  By making these moves, and, crucially, by thinking about how we make them, the course will teeter constantly between its express content and larger lessons about historical methodology and practice.

Over the term, we will visit numerous repositories on and around campus, to include the Rare Books room, the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, the Digital Humanities Center, and Morven Museum.  These visits (and the use of Firestone’s database subscriptions) will facilitate a series of weekly short research assignments. The course will culminate with a trip to see Miranda’s Hamilton, which the class will attend, discuss, and analyze.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

This course looks at the “political lives” of Angela Davis as an activist, organizer, intellectual, and writer whose work has been in the public eye for more than fifty years. Davis is often seen as an cultural and political icon of 1960s but that characterization has done little to illuminate the ways that her political ideas and writing have influenced public debates and insights into the most pressing political issues within contemporary society.

Davis’s ideas animate how we think about a range of crucial issues—from questions concerning  free speech, reproductive rights, and the rights of prisoners, to concerns about the criminal legal system, and most fundamentally, to how we view freedoms. The course will be organized around readings of Davis’s robust body of her life’s work including essays written while she was imprisoned and books that have become foundational in feminist scholarship. We will examine the development of her political thought over time while she was jailed, as a public intellectual, and as a philosopher and scholar. This course should allow students to better understand the political debates and tensions animating late twentieth century and early twenty-first century issues concerning race, gender, class, sexuality and the possibility of political coalition and solidarity in an age of identity politics and intense social polarization.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

When is it moral to violate the law? When is it immoral to follow it? This seminar uses canonical texts, alongside little known primary sources and works of historical analysis, to examine the origins of Civil Disobedience theory and practice. Starting with the Ancient Greeks and ending in the 20th century, the course will travel through a series of episodes where people debated the righteousness of following  or disobeying man-made laws. We will discuss Civil Disobedience in the context of Ancient Athens, the American Revolution, the fugitive slave law, labor organizers occupying factories, Gandhi's struggle for Indian Independence, the Holocaust, and, of course, the American Civil Rights Movement. We examine both arguments for and against disobedience. Among the thinkers and activists we will study are Socrates, John Locke, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Abraham Lincoln,  Mahatma Gandhi, Alice Paul, Leo Tolstoy, Hannah Arendt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Students will write short papers analyzing assigned texts and produce one lengthier research paper on a movement of their choice that deployed Civil Disobedience. 

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

In Western society, we’re not great at endings. We try to prolong a venture at all costs. We avoid planning for or merely talking about death. We can’t even let our movie franchises conclude, even after the “End Game.” Yet new initiatives often cannot begin without antecedents coming to a close. Pinpointing a true end point, however, can be tricky. Is the COVID-19 pandemic over yet? Who has authority to declare the end of a political dynasty, artistic movement, trend, your childhood? Even when some “official” definition exists for endings—recessions, wars, human life itself—questions can still linger as to whether it’s really over.

This course explores the complexities of our relationship to endings and uncovers ways that behavioral science and other disciplines might inform a new approach to policy decisions by helping us keep the end in mind.

We start by asking the fundamental question of how we know when something is over, considering theological and philosophical conceptions of endings. We use our individual experiences as a guide, along with disciplinary tools from economics, public health, arts, and other fields. We look at psychological underpinnings of our resistance to endings and sociological implications of our current approaches.

We meet actors as diverse as mountain climbers, Trappist monks, Broadway producers, and those tackling America’s “digital divide” to illustrate how endings are anticipated (or not) and how new approach could have led to more optimal outcomes. We even look at cases in which finales were anticipated but never came—failed apocalyptic prophecies and death row reprieves—to observe the ways that belief and identity further complicate our relationship with the end.

Reading academic and popular writings and interacting with in-class guests help us consider endings in existential, narrative, and strategic contexts. Students will react to class themes in discussion and through written reflections. To culminate the experience, they will analyze societal challenges that could benefit from an endings-first policy approach and will either craft a case study turned podcast episode on a real-life ending scenario or design an intentional end to something in their own lives.

Endings happen, even if we may not want them to. This seminar will help students unpack what endings signify and in what contexts reframing could be beneficial. The class will come to a close with students having considered how to proactively craft endings and how this embrace may lead to time better spent before the end comes.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

The poetic report of a visionary journey through the realm of the dead, Dante's Comedy takes  readers on a ride through a gruesome hell, where impenitent sinners are eternally chastised by the most imaginative torments; the serene airs of purgatory, where souls of the repented purify and ready themselves for paradise; and a final vertiginous, poetically exhilarating, ascent through the heavens toward the direct vision of God. Along the way, Dante encounters souls from all ages of mankind and from the most diverse walks of life. These meetings punctuate and propel the poem's plot and also present readers with larger cultural questions: Where should we draw the line between advancing religious convictions and struggling for power in politics? How should we choose from among competing philosophies of life? What is the nature of art? And more fundamentally, how do we read a poetic text? 
In this course, we will use the Inferno as a starting point to become better readers of literary texts. The seminar consists of a collaborative, close reading of Dante's text. Short introductory lectures will alternate with student-led class discussions, film screenings, and presentations on Dante's reception in contemporary arts. We will use a bilingual edition to access the text easily, while availing ourselves of opportunities to observe nuances of meaning or style preserved in the original language. 
We will also experiment with active-learning techniques. Students should expect to work in small, fluidly forming, discussion groups to tackle key issues in the readings and report to the class. They will be asked to prepare one-word lectures on select cantos of the Inferno, defend them and eventually agree on one to be adopted as mnemonic aid for the class. Emulating professional Dante scholars, they will be given the opportunity to become the class leading experts on one facet of Dante’s culture. In sum, they will become directly responsible for an informed, meditated, and collaborative interpretation of the poem, so that our reading will constantly be refracted through the lens of everyone's curiosity and competence. 
At the end of the seminar we will have acquired a wealth of techniques of interpretation that will prepare us to perceive and decode meaning in other literary texts beyond the Inferno. A strong reader of classical and biblical poetry himself, Dante will help us develop and train our sensibilities for interpreting other poetry beyond his own.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

Why do we believe in what we believe in? Is life in society even possible without some form of faith? Should that faith be of a religious nature? These questions remain as pressing as ever, especially in what is usually referred to as “secularized” societies, where they are often either taken for granted or dismissed as irrelevant. Yet determining the reasons for personal beliefs remains vital in these societies, precisely because the traditional contours of faith become less discernible.

The historical record offers useful context in such uncertain times. This freshman seminar will thus examine the complex relationship between belief and modern spirituality by going back to the source of secularization. In eighteenth-century Europe, Enlightenment philosophers relentlessly questioned one of the most common human moral and social phenomena: religion.

In order to explore this problem, we will read texts by a range of authors from different religious backgrounds and opinions, countering the mainstream and simplistic view that Enlightenment philosophy unilaterally broke free from religious domination. Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Locke, Lessing, and Moses Mendelsohn, to name just a few, pursued different paths, resorting to a variety of genres in their spiritual inquiry and fight for toleration. The course will examine the multiple notions they devised to apprehend it—faith, ritual, deism, atheism, fanaticism, superstition, natural religion. Roughly following a chronological path, the course will span the eighteenth-century to conclude on Marx’s famous definition of religion as “opium of the masses” contrasted with Raymond Aron’s definition of ideology as the “opium of the intellectuals.” We will thus be enabled to examine whether these oft-forgotten concepts may still inform today’s public debate and our lived experiences.

While close reading is the groundwork for this course, it will be enhanced by in-class debates, discussions, and outside activities. Participants in this seminar will thus be expected to read thoroughly the readings assigned for each meeting (ca. 100 pages per week), to participate actively in class discussion, and to introduce and lead one discussion session. Written assignments will consist of weekly handwritten responses, a short midterm paper, an in-class presentation, and a final in-person exam.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

In the wake of Trump’s presidential win, calls for the creation of “sanctuary” spaces swept across politically liberal areas of the U.S. as a number of states and localities adopted practices designed to protect immigrants from harassment and deportation. In turn, conservatives countered with legislation, lawsuits, and other actions to restrict or prevent those spaces.  As attention to the U.S./Mexico border has heightened, politicians such as Texas Governor Abbott have assumed an assertive anti-sanctuary stance, sending busloads of immigrants from the border to so-called sanctuaries such as Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia in an effort to shift responsibility for the care and integration of immigrants into the hands of these jurisdictions.   

But what does sanctuary mean in the daily lives of affected immigrants and their families? Does it promote legal rights and protection from family separation? Can it make a difference for the socioeconomic well-being of immigrants’ households and the communities of which they are a part? Does it have any effect on the lives of allies who embrace and operationalize the concept in their towns, houses of worship, schools, and other institutions? How do its historical roots influence its contemporary practice? What are practical tools that come out of sanctuary, such as accompaniment, that can be used to shape welcoming communities in the U.S., and how can they evolve to account for new realities? 

Using a variety of texts including scholarly writings, first-person accounts, gray literature like community organizations’ newsletters, policy briefs, press clippings, and multimedia resources, we will examine sanctuary to interrogate its salience and utility in current political debates, social movements, and community practice. We will also encounter theorists and practitioners engaged in the conceptualization and application of sanctuary in Princeton and Philadelphia, two sites of relatively recent upticks in immigration among working class immigrants. 

The seminar places community wisdom and expertise at its core by integrating the knowledge and perspectives of community actors into key learning opportunities of the course. Guest speakers who represent grassroots organizations, policy and advocacy agencies, faith-based communities, public entities, and the business sector will interact with students during class excursions, campus visits, and Zoom sessions. They will also prepare students for listening sessions with community actors and members engaged in immigrant rights initiatives. These community-engaged learning opportunities will be conducted in concert with course readings and exercises that center accompaniment practices and active listening as essential components of community-based partnership.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

This seminar examines science fiction in Anglo-American literature and film with special emphasis on its dialogue with the Russian and Eastern European tradition and their mutual influences.  We will follow the evolutionary trajectory of the genre: from time-travel to dystopias; from alien invasions to interplanetary encounters; from the outer space to robots; from human-machine hybrids to questions of gender and ethnicity. We will discuss foundational literary texts and films by such authors as H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Evgenii Zamiatin, Isaac Asimov, Stanisław Lem, Andrei Tarkovskii, Stanley Kubrick, Arkadii and Boris Strugatsky, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, Victor Pelevin, and more, with particular attention to the historical and cultural milieu in which these works were produced and to cross-media adaptations. We will analyze the questions, hopes and anxieties that these narratives address and articulate, the imagery they employ, and the features of the story-worlds they construct. We will investigate how questions of authorship and agency, of narrative time and space, and the definitions of the self, the other, the human and the posthuman are framed and negotiated.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS

This seminar explores prints as a distinct form of art making and reproduction. The course will consider the design, material, artistic, economic, political, and social aspects of print culture in a variety of contexts and geographical locations, from the early modern period to the present. The class will focus on different techniques of printing, while considering thematic questions related to the function and significance of prints, their reproduction, and circulation. In each class, the instructors will provide historical context, but classes will be anchored by student-led discussions focused on visual analysis and assigned readings, museum visits, and a hands-on workshop.

For more information please visit: https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings?term=1252&subject=FRS