FYS Spring 2026 Course Descriptions

Please note that this schedule may be subject to change. Students are encouraged not only to revisit this page, but also to confirm the course listings and see the scheduled days and times in the online Directory of Classes.

FYS BC1001, FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR AT BARNARD

FYS BC1001.001

BANNED: DANGEROUS ART

Karen Santos da Silva

In this course we will engage with various forms of artistic production (literary, cinematic, pictorial, musical) that have been banned or censored by religious authority, governmental institutions, or by public opinion. While discussing these primary texts we will investigate who gets to censor art, to what ends, and according to which criteria. Who is protected from tasteless, subversive, or obscene art? How do these categories change with time, and from culture to culture?

FYS BC1001.002

A PLACE TO LIVE: FINDING SHELTER IN GLOBAL CINEMA

Daniella Gitin

During your first year of college, this seminar asks you to consider notions of home—being away from home, what makes a home, home's connection to identity, belonging, origins, and more—through film and literature from around the world and across time. Students will explore the visual as well as literary storytelling techniques and the moral questions that filmmakers and authors engage, reading critical texts to inform our discussions. Some questions guiding our conversations will include: What ethical challenges arise when poverty and misery are aestheticized? What are the specific affordances of film, on the one hand, and literature, on the other when it comes to parsing these questions? Is narrative or documentary film better suited to elucidate the stakes of having a place to call home? What are the stories about family and kinship told by these films and texts? Who, if anyone, do we owe for our (sense of) home and what, if anything, do we owe them?

FYS BC1001.003

ARTFUL ADAPTATIONS

Monica Cohen

Can the violent fantasies of a fairytale shape romantic comedy? Can dance tell the same story as classical tragedy? What does Bollywood have to do with Renaissance England? Can ancient mythology animate American slave narrative? As biologists ask why does life appear in such a dazzling array of forms, this class asks why do certain stories get told and retold in such a dazzling array of varieties? Using as possible textual anchors Snow White, Medea, and Romeo and Juliet, this course will explore poems, short stories, plays, novels, paintings, films, musicals, dance, illustration, advertisement, song, memes, and other cultural objects to consider the accretion of meaning that results when stories cross, historical, cultural, and generic borders.

FYS BC1001.004

WITCHES

Wendy Schor-Haim

This course is about witches…but what are witches about? Witches are about gender, sexuality, fear, and authority, among other things. From Mesopotamian goddess worship to the frenzied witch hunts of early modern Europe to the child-devouring crones of folk tales from cultures around the world, we’ll delve into what the witch reveals about deeply-held cultural beliefs, desires, and anxieties.

FYS BC1001.005

PERIODIC TALES OF THE ELEMENTS

Christian Rojas

What is the “cosmic history” of the atoms that compose our bodies and the world around us? How do these elements come together to make us us during life’s fleeting journey? What becomes of our atoms after we die? In examining such questions, we will celebrate chemistry’s Periodic Table of the Elements as one of humanity’s great intellectual achievements and join with poets to sing elemental songs on scales minute and enormous, instantaneous and eternal. Readings to include Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, Oliver Sacks’s Uncle Tungsten, and a selection of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

FYS BC1001.006

ON FRIENDSHIPS BETWEEN WOMEN

Elizabeth Weybright

How do we reﬂect on the intimacies of friendship, and what might be particular to such intimacies between women? What makes a friendship good or bad? What tensions or correspondences might we trace between friendship and adjacent categories of relationality—’frenemies,’ sisterhood, lovers? In this course, we will apply close analytical examinations of literary and cultural texts in order to theorize the various shapes friendship may take. Throughout the semester, we will question how the friendships we encounter are situated within and/or against a variety of cultural and socioeconomic contexts. In doing so, we will explore friendship’s conceptual role in narratives of emotional development, education and intellectual life, work, community, and domesticity. Literary and theoretical texts may include works by Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, Kamila Shamsie, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Jean Chen Ho, bell hooks, Virginia Woolf, Anahit Behrooz, Roxane Gay, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich. Selections from ﬁlm and television may include the tv dramatization of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend and Keira Knightley’s portrayal of Georgiana Cavendish in The Duchess, among others. In discussions and writing assignments both formal and creative, we will consider how the (un)friendly relationships represented in these texts shift, break, and thrive given the conditions under which they are conducted.

FYS BC1001.007

STORYTELLING

Michael Shelichach

Why do we tell stories? Why do we feel a need to relate the things that happen to us? Why do writers and artists make things up? In this section of First-Year Seminar, we will explore these questions as well as others connected to the fundamental practice of storytelling. We will read and discuss short stories, novels, and memoirs that reflect on or call into question the narrator’s reasons for telling the story. We will also consider essays by literary critics, psychologists, and scientists on the human impulse to narrate. Literary texts may include works by Henry James, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Shirley Jackson, Haruki Murakami, and Carmen Maria Machado. Critical and theoretical texts may include works by Sigmund Freud, James Baldwin, and Joan Didion.

FYS BC1001.008

POETRY, IDENTITY & WORD SORCERY

Quincy Jones

Poetry is a very complicated series of words found in perpetually dust-covered books written by white men who died a half of century before you were born. Or is it? Poetry is archaic. Poetry is academic. Poetry is hard. Or in the words of Ntozake Shange, it’s “razzamatazz hocus pocus zippity-do-dah.” The magic of poetry is not in its mystery, but in its ability to connect with people, and to connect people with people, even across space and time. In this class we will explore how poetry speaks to identity, speaks to history, and speaks intersections of race, gender, sexuality, tragedy, triumph, and trauma. We will read poetry – mostly contemporary poets, mostly female-identiﬁed poets, mostly poets of color, and mostly poets from the margins – read theories on poetry, and maybe try our hand at a little poetry writing. Readings will include such authors as Tina Chang, Yolanda Wisher, Jillian Weise, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Tracie Morris, Audre Lorde, Laylia Long Soldier, and the word sorceress herself Sonia Sanchez.

FYS BC1001.009

ART AND THE CITY

Dorota Biczel

The modern city is a privileged site for considering the relationship between art, its publics and settings—as much as the source for the reinvention of “art” as a new ground to address and engage different kinds of audiences, far beyond the museum walls. This seminar will allow you to delve into the rich history of the evolving relationship between art and place, and the attendant battles for social justice and a more democratic, inclusive society.

This seminar is built around case studies through the close examination of both textual and visual primary sources (paintings, murals, sculptures, and film), with an emphasis on our own city, New York, and Mexico City. Among our case studies, most notably, we will consider Paris, “the capital of the nineteenth century,” through the writings of Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin, and the visual works of the “painters of modern life.” We will also study the manifesto of the Union of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors of Mexico and the corresponding works of Mexican muralism. We will closely follow with a wide range of projects realized under the Work Progress Administration in NYC, in schools, hospitals, and post offices, including at the Harlem Hospital and the New School. We will return to Mexico City to study the works realized for and around the Olympics of 1968 and the visual materials of the parallel students’ protest movement, vying for a better democracy. We will then once again visit NYC to consider both corporate- and state-sponsored public art in the 1970s and 80s, highlighting the infamous removal of Richar Serra’s Tilted Arc from the Federal Plaza. We will also study the rise and proliferation of graffiti through the film Wild Style (1983).
In this seminar, you will be often asked to visit artworks, sites, and institutions around the city, instead of (or in addition to) traditional homework, like reading. I will encourage you to form study groups to venture out together in small constellations.

FYS BC1001.010

HOT STUFF

Sedelia Rodriguez

Long before humans walked the earth; before dinosaurs were wiped out; before any sign of sentient life on earth; volcanoes were a feature of our planet. With the power to help create life, as well as wreak devastation and destruction, volcanoes inspire awe and terror in equal measure. This seminar will explore the science behind volcanoes, their impact on the environment and societies, as well as our enduring fascination with them through the lenses of history, arts, mythology and religion. Where and why do volcanoes erupt? How do they affect nature, climate and society? How has our understanding of these amazing natural phenomena evolved over time? Why do people stay in close proximity to volcanoes, despite the dangers? Can we predict when the next catastrophic eruption will occur? Can we harness the power of volcanic activity as alternative energy source? These are some of the many questions that students will seek to answer and will serve as a starting point for our deeper investigation into the subject throughout the semester. Students will study historical texts, case studies, current data and methods of analysis, as well as depictions of volcanoes in art and film. Group discussion, independent study and individual and group presentations. Students will research case studies and present their finding to the class.

FYS BC1001.011

AMERICAN UTOPIAS

Ronald Briggs

Can the idea of an imaginary island think us out of the world we know? To what degree are all attempts at world-building doomed to repetition? Can Utopia be separated from its colonial roots? Beatriz Pastor Bodmer has defined utopia as “movement, transformation, incessant change” against the grain of history. We will read and rethink Utopia about and from the Americas. Authors include Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Edward Bellamy, Luisa Capetillo, W. E. B. Du Bois, Magda Portal, Octavia Butler, and Emily St. John Mandel.

FYS BC1001.012

THE END OF THE WORLD

According to the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” What, then, is the world? Is it an object? An interpretation? An inheritance? A point of view? Is the world a social and linguistic construct? If so, how many worlds are there? If Wittgenstein is right and every world ends at the limits of its language, then what lies beyond? What happens after the end? This course will consider these questions by investigating the end of the world in a variety of texts and contexts from the fourteenth century to the present: as a recurrent literary theme, religious fixation, philosophical conundrum, source of endless entertainment, and spring of existential anxiety. Contrary to what the phrase portends, we will find that there is no singular “end” of the world. Worlds end all the time. We therefore will approach the idea of the end as a question of ruins and remnants, an encounter with the void at the end of history, but also as a site of new beginnings, of futures we have yet to imagine—or can only imagine, if this means to glimpse what might be beyond the patterns of thought, belief, and action, the terms and conditions, the very language of the decaying world we inhabit. Authors, texts, and other materials will include fiction by Giovanni Boccaccio, Daniel Defoe, and Jeff VanderMeer; plays by Samuel Beckett; films including Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Aniara, Melancholia, and Manufactured Landscapes; and studies in cultural anthropology, environmental humanities and radical ecologies.

FYS BC1001.013

THE END OF THE WORLD

FYS BC1001.014

CULTURAL MEMORY

Lili Xia

Remembering is always intertwined with forgetting, and the collective and selective process of engineering memory gives rise to the current shape of our history. The concept of cultural memory helps us navigate the blurred boundaries between subjective and objective, individual and communal, memory and history. This first-year seminar explores these tensions through topics such as the art of memory, memory theories, and cultural manifestations including amnesia, trauma, nostalgia, and the reinvention of plural histories. Eventually, cultural memory embodies a constructive force that “futures the past.” Readings will feature theoretical essays, literary works, historical writings, and case studies by scholars.

FYS BC1001.015

REACTING TO THE PAST

Kate Glasner

In these seminars, students play complex historical role-playing games informed by classic texts. After an initial set-up phase, class sessions are run by students. These seminars are speaking- and writing-intensive, as students pursue their assigned roles objectives by convincing classmates of their views. Examples of games played in First-Year Seminar Reacting class include: 1) The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C. explores a pivotal moment following the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War, when democrats sought to restore democracy while critics, including the supporters of Socrates, proposed alternatives. The key text is Plato's Republic. 2) Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor examines a dispute between Confucian purists and pragmatists within the Hanlin Academy, the highest echelon of the Ming bureaucracy, taking Analects of Confucius as the central text. 3) The Trial of Anne Hutchinson revisits a conflict that pitted Puritan dissenter Anne Hutchinson and her supporters against Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop and the orthodox ministers of New England. Students work with testimony from Hutchinsons trial as well as the Bible and other texts. 4) Greenwich Village, 1913: Suffrage, Labor and the New Woman investigates the struggle between radical labor activists and woman suffragists for the hearts and minds of Bohemians, drawing on foundational works by Marx, Freud, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others.

FYS BC1001.016

REACTING TO THE PAST

Laurie Postlewate

FYS BC1001.017

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Ideology and the Self

Samuel Davis

How does culture create and codify beliefs and norms so that they appear natural and difficult to identify without close analysis? In this course, we will explore aspects of our society that are hidden in plain sight through the forces of ideology. We will study works that challenge us to look closely at the things we think we already know. We will probe the aspects of society which seem to be true, natural, and common sense, and learn to unpack them. In doing so, we will dive into pop cultural moments (such as brat summer and the like) and probe their power relations and identity formations which otherwise remain hidden. We will analyze music videos, songs, poems, short stories, as well as popular phrases. We will learn about structures of power through theories on race, gender, sexuality, identity, and culture itself. We will ask how we were given our genders, races, and other aspects of ourselves, and think critically about how that process works at both the granular and societal level.

FYS BC1001.018

HOW WE LEARN

Anamaria Alexandrescu

How we learn is shaped by a complex interaction of cognitive processes, including memory, attention, motivation, and sleep. This first-year seminar takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on insights from neuroscience, clinical psychology, evolution, education, and technology. Students will engage with these concepts and connect them to their own lived experiences as learners through discussions, journaling, critical analysis of multimedia materials, and a group project. The course is designed to empower students by teaching them how to leverage the science of learning to strengthen their metacognitive skills in college and beyond.

FYS BC1001.019

HOW WE LEARN

Anamaria Alexandrescu

FYS BC1001.020

MONSTERS AND MONSTROSITIES

Dale Booth

Who or what are monsters? What role do these monsters play in our society and culture? Who determines the parameters of monstrosity? And are monsters a stand-in for our greatest fears or our sincerest desires? In this course, we will analyze questions such as these, in both a historical and contemporary context. We will look to a range of sources – literature, film, artwork, folklore, scientific treatises, bestiaries, ballads, modern pop culture, and the like – to understand what monsters and monstrosity can teach us about ourselves, our culture, and our communities. We will pay specific attention to how themes of monstrosity intersect with and inform discussion around gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, class, and various other analytical categories. In doing so, we will ground our understanding about monsters in the dynamics of power and the limits of the human.

FYS BC1001.021

SYSTEMS OF CARE

Clare Casey

Care is often understood through its asymmetry—an imbalance between the care receiver’s need and the caregiver’s sacrifice. This course complicates this notion of care through readings in anthropology, political theory, and philosophy, engaging new debates about care systems in nonprofit social services, welfare provision, healthcare technologies, and humanitarian aid. Students examine the intimacies of care at home and map care bureaucracies at local and global scales.

FYS BC1001.022

SYSTEMS OF CARE

Clare Casey

FYS BC1001.023

OTHER WORLDS

Emily Austin

Narnia. Oz. Middle-earth. Wakanda. Our stories are full of imagined worlds. Why? What is this desire to visit other worlds? How do they cast their spell? And what do they reveal to us about our own flawed world? In this class, we will visit portal, alternate, and multiverse worlds, space operas, magical worlds, and the worlds of the gods. We will examine their histories, politics, cultures, technologies, speculative inventions, natural and built environments, and who lives there. We will explore how these worlds illuminate, challenge, and interrogate our own world. And we will ask: how do these other worlds ultimately reimagine what is possible? In response to our investigations, students will embark on a semester-long world-building project of their own. Readings may include Homer, Lucian, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Edwin Abbott, Lewis Carroll, Stanislaw Lem, Ursula K Le Guin, Samuel R Delany, NK Jemisin, Sofia Samatar, RF Kuang, Ted Chiang, Malka Older, and others. Visual media may include work by Hayao Miyazaki, Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman, Moebius, and films and shows such as Arcane, Dune, The Witcher, Severance, Altered Carbon, One Piece, Andor, Snowpiercer, The Owl House, and Everything Everywhere All at Once.

FYS BC1002, FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR WORKSHOP

FYS BC1001.001

BORDER STORIES (WKSHOP)

Francesca E. Austin Ochoa

The topic of this Seminar course takes an interdisciplinary approach to thinking about, and traversing, the constructs of the border. The U.S.- Mexico border delimits more than nations; it is both a political and a social geography, marked by bodies of water, mountains, walls, ideologies, repression, and resistance. The crisis currently taking place at the border is an unfolding story with many narrators. We will study literary texts: fiction, poetry, and memoir written by those who know the border, and borderlands, intimately. We will also engage histories, social movement doctrine, and media coverage to mine the stories they tell.

NOTE: This 4-credit version of First-Year Seminar (FYS)—FYS “Workshop”—is specially designed for students who believe they would benefit from extra support with their critical reading and academic writing skills. In addition to regular seminar meetings twice per week, students are assigned a Writing Fellow who they meet with for one hour every other week. APPLICATION IS REQUIRED BY 11/5 @ 5PM -- please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/RQq9jny3KHLYoet4A

FYS BC1001.002

DEAD AND UNDEAD (WKSHOP)

Penelope Usher

What does it mean to be dead? Why the fascination—across time and culture—with conceiving of ways in which the dead can become un-dead? And how is being undead different from being alive? To investigate and trouble the boundaries between life and death (and un-death), we will analyze works from various genres and media, discussing near-death experiences, beating-heart cadavers, and a range of figures including zombies, ghosts, and other revenants. Objects of study include texts by Zora Neale Hurston, Ovid, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Nalo Hopkinson, and Mary Shelley; music by Camille Saint-Saëns; artwork by Hans Holbein and Breughel; television and film (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie); and more.