First-Year Seminars
During the first year, students take two seminars—one in the fall semester, one in the spring semester—that introduce them to empirical and scholarly research, creative work, and discovery through an intensive look at current work in various disciplines. Seminars give students the chance to explore important contemporary themes and problems in different fields.
This is a historical inventory of Kilachand first-year seminars. Current students should refer to MyBU Student for semester offerings.
KHC AH 103: Experimental Art
Danielle Drees, Kilachand Honors College
This seminar investigates how visual and performance artists have wildly expanded our definition of what art is, including an exploration of new techniques, theories, markets, and political implications of art in the 20th and 21st centuries. How Does Art Happen? Who Is Art For? How Do You Make Art History? We will consider artists that challenged viewers’ and philosophers’ ideas about what makes something a work of art. These experimental artworks brought new people into the story of art history, expanding our understanding of who can be an artist (all of us).
BU Hub: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity & Innovation
KHC AM101: Whose Schools: Power, Equality, and Public Education
Mary Battenfeld, CAS American Studies
How can we fulfill Thomas Jefferson’s promise for public schools “which shall reach every description of our citizens?” The course examines significant eras, debates, and struggles for equality in U.S. education, with a particular focus on current policies in Boston.
BU Hub: Social Inquiry II, The Individual in Community, Research and Information Literacy.
KHC AN102: The Power, Politics, and Ethics of Storytelling
Can Evren, Kilachand Honors College
From fairy tales and legends to political conspiracies and stock-market speculation, humans have always crafted, told, and interpreted stories. Examining diverse aspects of human culture including cooperation, war, sports, medicine, and markets, this course delves into the evolutionary and historical dimensions of storytelling and explores stories’ many functions and pleasures.
BU Hub: Social Inquiry I, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Teamwork and Collaboration
KHC AN103: Animals among Humans
Parker Shipton, CAS Anthropology
Based partly on ancient questions and long-debated ideas, and partly on new observations, experiments, and experiences of humans with animals at home, in institutions like zoos and parks, and in the “wild,” this course examines ways animals seem to experience humans, and ways they interact when under human influence.
Bu Hub: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking
KHC AN104: Wildlife Conservation
Cheryl Knott, CAS Anthropology
Through team-based approaches, students learn about threats to wildlife and natural habitats, identifying community-based root causes. They apply their own disciplinary expertise and passions to develop creative solutions to these problems, culminating in the production of a final conservation video.
BU Hub: Digital/Multimedia Expression, The Individual in Community, Creativity/Innovation.
KHC AN105: Conflict: The Human Condition
Can Evren, Kilachand Honors College
What can we learn about the human condition when we think through conflict? Unlike premodern forms of political authority and social organization, modern sociopolitical forms sanction specific forms of adversarial interaction as positive, regulative forces while banning forms of conflict as unwanted, corrosive influences on sociopolitical order. Students will engage with a rich array of multidisciplinary writings on human conflict as well as theatrical, literary, and cinematic takes on the primacy of adversarial relations for understanding the human condition.
BU Hub: The Individual in Community, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking
KHC AS101: The Pluto Saga: Interactions between Science, Society, Art and Religion
Michael Mendillo, CAS Astronomy
The change in Pluto’s status as a planet generated controversies within the non-science community that far exceeded those among astronomers. This seminar explores the science behind the decision and the varied roles of evidence in reaching conclusions.
BU Hub: Scientific Inquiry II, Quantitative Reasoning II, Critical Thinking
KHC BI104: Conflict and Cooperation
Mario Muscedere, CAS Biology
What binds human and non-human societies together, and what pulls them apart, over the short (historical) and long (evolutionary) terms? This course draws on approaches from the natural and social sciences to address this question.
BU Hub: Scientific Inquiry 1; Social Inquiry I
KHC CH140: The Material World
Linda Doerrer, CAS Chemistry
A discussion of how matter is cycled within the earth’s systems in the context of human use of the earth’s resources and contemporary concerns about sustainability.
BU Hub: Scientific Inquiry I, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking
KHC EC103: Housing Policy: An Economic Perspective
Adam Guren, CAS Economics
An introduction to economic analysis through the study of housing policy. The course covers both microeconomic issues related to housing affordability and macroeconomic issues related to the stabilization of the housing market and the Great Recession.
BU Hub: Social Inquiry II, Quantitative Reasoning II, Research and Information Literacy
KHC EK104: Appreciation of Music in a STEM Context
Robert Kotiuga, ENG Electrical and Computer Engineering
This course leverages the relationship that students, who are not averse to STEM fields, have with music in order to turn them into GEEKS! It uses the electric guitar as a gateway to musical acoustics, electroacoustics, psychoacoustics and hands-on projects. No formal music training is required; the only prerequisites are the ability to appreciate music in some vaguely defined sense, and to try understand this appreciation with precise terms. The course will be supported by field trips, demos and projects.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Quantitative Reasoning II, Creativity & Innovation
Pre-Requisites: High school calculus and physics
KHC EN102: Ancient and Modern Quarrels: Fiction and Philosophy Since 1900
Robert Chodat, CAS English
This course explores the “ancient quarrel” as it was debated by Plato and his student Aristotle, before moving on to several authors who since World War II have updated the quarrel in our own time, usually associated with existentialism, a movement that developed in the first half of the twentieth century and whose exemplary voices were uncommonly sensitive to the relationship between literature and philosophy.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking
KHC EN103: Poetry as Activism / Writing as Resistance
Carrie Preston, CAS English
with guest lecturer, Ismail Khalidi
Do artists have a responsibility to represent and bear witness to their times? To speak truth to power? To resist? This course explores the work of contemporary writers (playwrights, poets, novelists) who directly engage the current moment, who show us that art can strive to engage with politics and even function as political action and resistance to war, to erasure, occupation, oppression, racism, patriarchy and environmental devastation.Through our course texts and students’ own creative work, we will consider the ethics of representation, as well as the use of personal experience and history in writing.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity & Innovation, Individual & Community
KHC EN104: Writing Lives: The Craft and Forms of Literary Biography
Susan Bernstein, CAS English
Literary writers craft characters. Many were characters as well–in their own lifetime and after their deaths. In this course, we explore the character of the writer as portrayed in multiple genres including fiction, essay, biography, autobiography, obituaries, and docudramas. We ask how does our perception of an artist change over time? How might literary biography serve as a lens to discuss changing conceptions of creativity, trends in historiography, and the development of literary canons? Our four case studies focus on Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, Toni Morrison, and Sylvia Plath.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Research and Information Literacy, Creativity/Innovation.
KHC FT102: UnAmerican Cinema
Sean Desilets, CAS Writing Program
This course seeks to understand American film history in light of one set of events: the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings on communism in the film industry and the resulting industry blacklist.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy
KHC FT103: Screenwriting: Doing Justice through Adaptation
Scott Thompson, COM Screenwriting
What are the responsibilities of adapting socially significant source material for the screen? What are the fundamental narrative principals of screenwriting and how do they apply to adaptations? What is the process of developing source material into a viable and impactful screenplay?
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Writing Intensive; Creativity & Innovation
KHC HI102: The Culture of World War I
James Johnson, CAS History
This course approaches this watershed moment in European history through works of literature, music, and art. The course’s three chronological divisions–the lead-up to war, the experience of war, and its aftermath–includes representative works from prominent composers, artists, novelists, and poets.
BU Hub: Historical Consciousness, Aesthetic Exploration
KHC HI104: Urban Youth in the Middle East
Betty Anderson, CAS History
Examines social, economic, political, religious, and gender issues urban youth in the Middle East face in the 21st century given the escalation of violence and the stark economic inequalities impinging upon them, but also the many new opportunities available.
BU Hub: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking
KHC HI105: The Zapatista Rebellion
Jeffrey Rubin, CAS History
This course will study the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico, 1994–2010. Out of what processes and conditions did it grow, with what actions and imaginaries on the part of indigenous activists and communities, as well as their allies and opponents? Studying one major historical event in depth will enable us to consider different ways of seeing and interpreting the event and to consider what it means to undertake wide-ranging social inquiry.
BU Hub: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking
KHC HI 107: Global History of a Movement
Clinton Williamson, Kilachand Honors College
It is difficult for us in our historical moment to discern the degree to which the social, political, economic, and intellectual life of the world was riven by conflicts between competing ideologies/movements as they imagined the future of the global system. Through careful attention to our shared archives of art, fiction, and primarysource texts, this course will explore movements like communism, feminism, and decolonization across time and space in order to understand these movements as global phenomena that continue to structure the unfolding of history in our present.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy
KHC IR102: Spies and Terrorists of Boston
John Woodward, Pardee School of Global Studies
Using an interdisciplinary approach, this course will examine various important, impactful, and, in some ways, underappreciated espionage activities and terrorist events that germinated, received support, or otherwise occurred in the Boston metropolitan area.
Please note: This course requires students to (1) take a mandatory four-hour field trip of Boston spy sites with the professor on a weekend and (2) participate in three one-hour oral briefing practice sessions with the professor to be scheduled in the evenings outside of class.
BU Hub: Ethical Reasoning, Oral/Signed Communication, Teamwork/Collaboration.
KHC LW102: Marriage, Families and Gender: Contemporary Legal and Social Controversies
Linda McClain, LAW
This seminar will critically examine the family, marriage, and gender by asking several basic questions: What is family? What is marriage? Why do family and marriage matter to individuals and to society? What role does or should law have in supporting and regulating families and marriage? In defining parenthood? How do new technologies that provide new pathways to parenthood (assisted reproductive technology, or “ART”) and new forms of control over reproduction (such as genetic testing and screening) pose ethical and legal challenges and how should law address those challenges?
BU Hub: Social Inquiry II, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking
KHC LW104: Citizenship, Immigration, and the Constitution
In this seminar, we will examine constitutional questions concerning (1) the acquisition and loss of citizenship status, and (2) the privilege or right of entry into the United States. Throughout, we will consider the ethical and constitutional principles that have shaped rules governing national membership and entry into the United States.
BU Hub: Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking
KHC MU104: Race, Gender, Music, and the Making of Latin America
Michael Birenbaum Quintero, CFA, Musicology & Ethnomusicology
Students will examine the relationship between musical practice and ideas of race and gender in Latin America from the 16th century to the present day, with particular focus on the process by which music is enlisted in nationalist projects.
BU Hub: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy
KHC NE102: Reading, Language, and the Brain
Tyler Perrachione, SAR Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
This course explores the scientific study of reading and language development—a richly multidisciplinary effort that bridges psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and education—emphasizing the modern scientific effort to understand “the reading brain”, the coordination of neural systems for vision, hearing, language, and memory.
BU Hub: BU Hub Areas: Scientific Inquiry I, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking
KHC NE104: Vision and Art
Lucia Vaina, ENG Biomedical Engineering
The course will guide students to learn about the neuroscience and neurology of eye and brain functions and dysfunction, and will discuss their relationship to paintings. We will discuss the effect of eye and retinal diseases on the painting of Degas, Monet, El Greco, Georgia O’Keefe, and the blind Turkish painter (E. Armagan) who sees by touch. Impairments of cortical visual functions will be associated with discussion of the paintings of great masters such as Rembrandt, Bacon, and Van Gogh. Virtual and real visits to art museums included.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Scientific Inquiry I, Teamwork/Collaboration
KHC PH103: Seeing Poverty: Understanding and Addressing Poverty in America
Sophie Godley, SPH Community Health
Images of poverty might lead us to believe poverty is exclusively a problem of urban people of color, but what do historic and modern depictions of poverty in popular culture tell us? How is data on poverty calculated and understood? This course will explore the ever-changing and ever-political sociological and public health issues of measuring poverty in America today.
BU Hub: Social Inquiry I, Individual in Community, Critical Thinking
KHC PH104: Planning to Fix Health Problems
Alan Sager, SPH Health Law, Policy & Management
U.S. health care suffers anarchy because market competition and competent government action fail. Costs rise. Coverage and quality fall. You’ll learn to prepare a plan to ameliorate a health problem by analyzing both its real causes and the efficacy/cost/political feasibility of possible remedies.
BU Hub: Social Inquiry I, Quantitative Reasoning I
KHC PH105: Speech and Freedom
Why have we come to understand freedom through the ability to speak without restraints? What does speech have in common with freedom? Taking the phrase ‘free speech’ as a starting point, this course investigates the significance of these two concepts for our modern and contemporary ideas of democracy, globalization, cultural difference, and public ethics. In doing this, the course will cultivate students’ knowledge of notable works in philosophy, literary theory and political science, bringing this proficiency to bear on their analysis of real-world debates and philosophical questions.
BU Hub: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Critical Thinking
KHC PO102: How to Change the World
Jeremy Menchik, Pardee School of International Studies
Under what conditions do groups of individuals come together to effect political and social change in global politics? How do digital technologies alter the strategies that people use to effect political change? What strategies remain the same, even in our digital age? Drawing on classic works of political anthropology, as well as more recent examples of transnational and digital activism, this course seeks to understand the deployment of power by everyday people.
BU Hub: Historical Consciousness, Oral/Signed Communication, Research and Information Literacy
KHC PO103: Democracy and Capitalism in the United States
Gavin Benke, CAS Writing Program
In this class, we will look at the relationship between capitalism and democracy in the United States. In what ways are capitalism and democracy complementary? In what ways are they in contraction? To address these questions, we will explore some of the philosophical and historical roots of both concepts through a series of case studies.
BU Hub: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Teamwork and Collaboration
KHC PO 104: War and Memory in the American Experience
Rosella Cappella Zielinski, CAS Political Science
This seminar examines three questions: How do we remember (and forget) war? Who does the remembering? What is the relationship between war memory and war making? The relationship between war and memory is explored via the American experience.
BU Hub: Historical Consciousness, Individual in the Community, Creativity & Innovation
KHC PY102: Chance and Life
William Klein, CAS Physics
Randomness is ubiquitous in our lives, from attending an outdoor concert when there is a 40% chance of rain to understanding the role of chance in income inequality. The purpose of this course is to introduce concepts and methods that will foster an understanding of chance and to provide the tools to draw informed conclusions from incomplete information.
BU Hub: Scientific Inquiry I, Quantitative Reasoning II, Critical Thinking
KHC PY104: Energy & Society
Richard (Sam) Deese, CGS Social Sciences
“Energy powers the world.” This seminar explores that pithy statement, beginning with basic concepts and definitions. Students examine the history of human uses of energy, how energy arises in different realms (physical, chemical, biological), the primary sources of energy, how to transmit and store energy, and the politics of energy, seeking to answer the ultimate question: “What should be the path forward to a sustainable, environmentally sound, equitable energy future?” Students will demonstrate their understanding through problem sets/short essays, a mid-term exam, and a final project.
BU Hub: Scientific Inquiry II, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking
Prerequisites: Familiarity with high-school algebra is recommended, as is experience with any combination of high-school physics, chemistry, and/or biology. Previous college-level course knowledge is not required and is not expected.
KHC RH101: Serious Comics: Graphic Narrative and the Representation of History
Davida Pines, CGS Rhetoric
This course explores the use of nonfiction comics (also known as graphic narrative) to represent catastrophic history. Throughout, students consider the impact of the comics form on our understanding of devastating history.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Oral/Signed Communication, Creativity and Innovation
KHC RH102: A Nation Riven: Turbulence and Transformation in 1960s America and Today
Charles Henebry, CGS Rhetoric
What can the social and political ferment of the Sixties teach us about the issues of the present day? Do the ideals of 1960s radicals still ring true? Why did the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965 lead to racial unrest rather than reconciliation, and how does this history resonate in the rhetoric of Black Lives Matter? Why did foundational American beliefs like Free Speech place idealists at odds with mainstream American society, and what lessons does the campus free speech movement of the 1960s have for student activists today?
BU Hub: Historical Consciousness, Individual in Community, Critical Thinking
KHC RH103: A Rexamination of Childhood through Children's Literature and Community-Based Learning
Shelia Cordner, CGS Rhetoric
How have authors of classic works of children’s literature addressed the liminal space between childhood and adulthood? How might this study give us insight into our own experiences?
By studying childhood at the intersection of children’s literature and community-based learning, students will deepen their understanding of how individuals are shaped by the stories that define their childhood. The course traces the development of children’s literature in Western culture from classic fairy tales to the development of the novel and short story to today’s picture books.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Interpretation, Individual in Community, Critical Thinking
KHC RH104: The Pursuit of Happiness
Matthew Parfitt, CGS Rhetoric
What is happiness? Can we hope to achieve it and how should we pursue it? We will study how happiness has been understood by different cultures over time, and students will engage with diverse authors and genres from scripture, philosophy, and social science. Students will write three essays, and keep a reading journal.
BU Hub: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Digitial/Multimedia Expression, Critical Thinking
KHC RH105: The Lived City
Stephanie Byttebier, CGS Rhetoric
What makes cities thrive? How do cities foster community or how do they fail to do so? How does the way a city is built and designed inform these questions? Readings by some of the great urban thinkers and planners of the 20th century (Baudelaire, Benjamin, Wirth, Gehl, Whyte, Chakrabarti), case studies of urban activists and innovators (Riis, Olmsted, Jacobs), guided group walks of the city, and lessons in close observation, culminating in a creative map making project.
BU Hub: Digital/Multimedia Expression, The Individual in Community, Creativity/Innovation
KHC RN102: Sacred Spaces
David Frankfurter, CAS Religion
Comparative approach to sacred space in world religions, examining pilgrimage, shrine architecture, literary and artistic representations, living saints, and violent incidents
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thikning
KHC RN103: Islam in the Eyes of the West
Teena Purohit, CAS Religion
An introduction to how and why Islam came to be viewed as a static, essentialized tradition opposed to the West. This course covers Orientalist and neo-Orientalist debates about Islam and provides a historical survey of the texts, practices, and beliefs of the Islamic tradition, from the 7th century to the present, in the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa, and the U.S. through a study of the Quran, poetry, philosophy, and political treatises.
BU Hub: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
KHC SO101: Social Networks and Culture
Neha Gondal, CAS Sociology
Even before Facebook and Twitter, sociologists have found that human beings are enmeshed in multiple types of social networks including friends, family, colleagues, romantic entanglements, formal institutional ties, etc. that significantly shape many aspects of our lives including motivations, identity, social mobility, group organization and mobilization, resource distributions, decision-making, patterns of innovation, and the organization of belief systems. This seminar focuses on culture as it relates to social networks.
BU Hub: BU Hub Areas: Social Inquiry, Quantitative Reasoning
KHC SO 102: Health Justice
Joseph Harris, CAS Sociology
This course puts five pressing social problems related to human, animal, and planetary health under a microscope, examining the dynamics that led to these problems and innovative policies and practices that are being developed to address them.
BU Hub: Social Inquiry II, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Research and Information Literacy
KHC UC104: The Ethics of Food
Susanne Sreedhar, CAS Philosophy
Choices about what food to eat pervade our everyday lives. This course explores the ethics of such choices by examining arguments for vegetarian and vegan diets, for eating organic, for eating local, and for restricting oneself to only humanely raised and slaughtered meat.
BU Hub: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking
KHC UC105: Liberty, Fanaticism, & Censorship
David DeCosimo, School of Theology
From Socrates’s execution for speech that ‘corrupted the youth’ and Jesus’s crucifixion for claims that threatened empire to today’s debates about cancel culture, disinformation, and social media censorship, questions about free speech and its political, ethical, and religious consequences have been central to western history. This course examines some of the enduring issues animating these questions with an eye to their ongoing significance.
BU Hub: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking
KHC UC106: Biomedical Enhancement and the Future of Human Nature
Rachell Powell, CAS Philosophy
This course will survey the ethics of biomedical enhancements carried out through the administration of drugs, genetic modifications, and human-machine interfaces.
BU Hub: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking
KHC VA104: More than a Face: What Masks Reveal
Felice Amato, CFA Art Education
Other faces, frames, transformations and disguises, masks speak to what it is to be human among other humans, unifying the body and the psyche in ways few objects do. Participants study the complexity of masks as a cross- disciplinary nexus.
BU Hub: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation.
KHC XL101: Global Shakespeares: Text, Culture, Appropriation
Danielle Drees, Kilachand Honors College
Why do contemporary writers parrot and parody “Shakespeare,” and how much of this activity is about Shakespeare at all? This seminar provides an introduction to reading and writing about Shakespeare’s plays. But it also takes a step back to consider Shakespeare as a phenomenon, making sure one never reads a “Great Book” the same way again.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Creativity/Innovation
KHC XL103: Problems in Propaganda and Persuasion
Peter Schwartz, CAS World Languages and Literatures
Beginning with theoretical accounts and case studies of mass propaganda and aspects of its psychology this course inspects the dynamics and iconography of totalitarian ruler-cult, compare strategies of mobilization for total war, and look at the ways in which changing media technologies inform propaganda techniques.
BU Hub: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking