Inquiry Seminar in the Humanities

These courses introduce students to key concepts, knowledge, and principles of the relevant discipline as they relate to the questions being studied in the individual section. They are not intended to be survey courses or broad introductions to the discipline, but should be content-rich, with the content revolving around and connected to the central questions being studied. Each section incorporates the interpretation of primary texts (prose fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction essays and books, historical documents, works of art, film, digital media, speeches, etc.) in relation to their cultural and historical contexts; explores the relationships between language, narratives, thought, and culture; and examines the ways in which important texts and events relate to each other across time.

Essential goals include:

• Introducing students to an important question in the humanities, the relevant content necessary to study that question, and the ways in which the humanities pursue and generate knowledge.
• Preparing students to read and evaluate primary texts in relationship to their contexts, and the use of those texts and interpretations as evidence to construct theses or arguments.

In addition, these courses teach the following skills: academic writing, argument construction/critical thinking, library research, critical reading, and oral presentations.

Sample Sections

Marx, Nietzsche, Freud

Faculty: William H. Kangas

This course will focus on an intellectual history of three of the primary critics of modern Western culture: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. We will be seeking to understand both the economic-social, philosophical and psychoanalytic critiques they developed of modern European culture and the historical contexts out of which these critiques emerged and to which they were responding.

The Discourse of Video Games

Faculty: Chris Paul

Do video games matter? How do they make meaning? We'll explore the ways in which various video games communicate messages to audiences, focusing on their words, design, and play. Addressing matters ranging from console design to specific games and the people who play them, this class will investigate how video games communicate and why that process of media representation is meaningful.

Postmodern Aesthetics

Faculty: Robert Aguirre

Postmodern aesthetics considers how different cultural, political, and social conditions influence the way we perceive and order reality. We will critique how postmodern art, literature, and culture experiments with language and form to re-frame and alter our sense of meaning, truth, existence, and the self. Our inquiry into postmodern aesthetics will encourage us to think about the challenge and responsibility to create a just world, considering cultural, political, economic, and historical contexts. This course will begin by examining the connections between modern values and the Holocaust and move through the second half of the 20th century. We will read diverse texts like Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, considered to be one of the most important books ever written, and Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, a scathing critique of American greed in the 1980s. In between we will immerse ourselves in provocative texts, including a foray into postmodern-punk feminism. I hope you will join me on an adventure that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Songs of Resistance

Faculty: Tara Roth

This inquiry seminar will focus on the questions: How does music act as a catalyst for social change? How does literature offer us a unique lens through which to explore the social and historical implications of this? In this course, we will explore the human condition by studying fiction, drama, and poetry in the context of countercultural music, that is, music that is both daring and modern to the time period in which it was created.