Second-Year Experience

Ed Cafferty

Humans have lived together in groups for thousands of years. They have had conflicts with other people and groups. They sometimes treat each other as equals but often they don’t. They may dominate others through beliefs, norms, values, violence, and laws. We will explore the many ways people interact with each other and how relationships have change over time. This course will include student group activities, guest speakers, videos, and class discussions.

Ed Cafferty

Humans have lived together in groups for thousands of years. They have had conflicts with other people and groups. They sometimes treat each other as equals but often they don’t. They may dominate others through beliefs, norms, values, violence, and laws. We will explore the many ways people interact with each other and how relationships have change over time. This course will include student group activities, guest speakers, videos, and class discussions.

Veruska Cantelli

What motivated me was curiosity, the only kind of curiosity that is worth acting upon; not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. This semester we will unpack the complexity and dynamic force of post/decolonial identity through an interdisciplinary approach. We will follow the painful journey of a Senegalese woman trapped into a racial web of a white French bourgeois household, dive into the clash and the search for independence in Algeria, unpack women’s voices out of India and follow Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s questioning of the role of the English language as a dominant colonial force. Our guiding force will be non-western lens, we will challenge our assumptions, be inspired, and learn from the giants of postcolonial theory.

Veruska Cantelli

What motivated me was curiosity, the only kind of curiosity that is worth acting upon; not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. This semester we will unpack the complexity and dynamic force of post/decolonial identity through an interdisciplinary approach. We will follow the painful journey of a Senegalese woman trapped into a racial web of a white French bourgeois household, dive into the clash and the search for independence in Algeria, unpack women’s voices out of India and follow Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s questioning of the role of the English language as a dominant colonial force. Our guiding force will be non-western lens, we will challenge our assumptions, be inspired, and learn from the giants of postcolonial theory.

Weiling Deng

From Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma to Build-A-Bear Workshop and Matryoshka Doll, from vintage tin vehicles to drones and VR/AR, toys construct our emotional, cognitive, and intellectual worlds. Toyland is not simply a fairyland insulated from what is otherwise considered “real.” Its materiality is both a built world and a world in the making where humans simultaneously play the roles of customer, player, character, dreamer, maker, and instrument. This course takes a critical view of toys in conversation with cultural and psychological interpretations. In this course, we inquire how toys rehearse real-world geopolitics and biopolitics, ranging from anti-war movements, Black power, feminist and queer critiques within the U.S. to critical studies of kawaii/cuteness, techno-Orientalism and Ornamentalism, post-Soviet nostalgia, and the corporate empires built on contemporary computational machines and algorithms. The learning goal is to gain a wider definition of toys and “read” them as a voluminous interface through which gendered and race-based world-building messages travel between large-scale politics and the intimate sphere of daily life, in the wake and aftermath of the Cold War.

Weiling Deng

From Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma to Build-A-Bear Workshop and Matryoshka Doll, from vintage tin vehicles to drones and VR/AR, toys construct our emotional, cognitive, and intellectual worlds. Toyland is not simply a fairyland insulated from what is otherwise considered “real.” Its materiality is both a built world and a world in the making where humans simultaneously play the roles of customer, player, character, dreamer, maker, and instrument. This course takes a critical view of toys in conversation with cultural and psychological interpretations. In this course, we inquire how toys rehearse real-world geopolitics and biopolitics, ranging from anti-war movements, Black power, feminist and queer critiques within the U.S. to critical studies of kawaii/cuteness, techno-Orientalism and Ornamentalism, post-Soviet nostalgia, and the corporate empires built on contemporary computational machines and algorithms. The learning goal is to gain a wider definition of toys and “read” them as a voluminous interface through which gendered and race-based world-building messages travel between large-scale politics and the intimate sphere of daily life, in the wake and aftermath of the Cold War.

Amy Howe

How do we understand the power of “rural life” in American and global imaginaries? This course will explore the fascinations, realities, multiplicities, and politics of what the term and experiences of “rural” mean. We will look at a range of primary and secondary literary, economic, and social sources that examine the place, history, and politics of rural representation, development, research, and self-determination. Students will have hands-on opportunities to conduct in-depth research on selected case studies in partnership with rural humanities networks in and outside of Vermont and the North Country region.

Amy Howe

How do we understand the power of “rural life” in American and global imaginaries? This course will explore the fascinations, realities, multiplicities, and politics of what the term and experiences of “rural” mean. We will look at a range of primary and secondary literary, economic, and social sources that examine the place, history, and politics of rural representation, development, research, and self-determination. Students will have hands-on opportunities to conduct in-depth research on selected case studies in partnership with rural humanities networks in and outside of Vermont and the North Country region.

Isabella Jeso

Research is about learning how to ask the right kinds of questions and figuring out how to answer those questions through discussion, reflection, and writing. What value can be found in exploring philosophical ways of knowing? What is a way of knowing? We will answer these foundational questions as we explore the intersections of reading, writing, and thinking through perspectives from varying knowledge fields or academic disciplines as we study specific topics. This class explores course texts and digital content, viewing selected learning resources from the perspectives of deconstructionist theory, modern psychoanalytic theory, and new historicism theory. In these procedures, we will also be conscious of what reading can do for how the mind comes to know what it seeks to know. Moreover, we will be self-reflective about what writing on a topic can do for developing your mind. Additionally, we will ask what conferencing/speaking, or the sharing of ideas through discussion and collaboration, can do for the collective and individual knowledge acquisition; looking at why the search for certainty in what is known or in what we come to know, is generally a futile exercise. Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Self-Knowledge provides students opportunities to explore these issues through learning activities, evaluating the impact of such academic/intellectual exercises on the mind’s development and on its own self-preservation. Therefore, students will be guided in further developing their critical thinking skills.

Isabella Jeso

Research is about learning how to ask the right kinds of questions and figuring out how to answer those questions through discussion, reflection, and writing. What value can be found in exploring philosophical ways of knowing? What is a way of knowing? We will answer these foundational questions as we explore the intersections of reading, writing, and thinking through perspectives from varying knowledge fields or academic disciplines as we study specific topics. This class explores course texts and digital content, viewing selected learning resources from the perspectives of deconstructionist theory, modern psychoanalytic theory, and new historicism theory. In these procedures, we will also be conscious of what reading can do for how the mind comes to know what it seeks to know. Moreover, we will be self-reflective about what writing on a topic can do for developing your mind. Additionally, we will ask what conferencing/speaking, or the sharing of ideas through discussion and collaboration, can do for the collective and individual knowledge acquisition; looking at why the search for certainty in what is known or in what we come to know, is generally a futile exercise. Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Self-Knowledge provides students opportunities to explore these issues through learning activities, evaluating the impact of such academic/intellectual exercises on the mind’s development and on its own self-preservation. Therefore, students will be guided in further developing their critical thinking skills.

Isabella Jeso

Research is about learning how to ask the right kinds of questions and figuring out how to answer those questions through discussion, reflection, and writing. What value can be found in exploring philosophical ways of knowing? What is a way of knowing? We will answer these foundational questions as we explore the intersections of reading, writing, and thinking through perspectives from varying knowledge fields or academic disciplines as we study specific topics. This class explores course texts and digital content, viewing selected learning resources from the perspectives of deconstructionist theory, modern psychoanalytic theory, and new historicism theory. In these procedures, we will also be conscious of what reading can do for how the mind comes to know what it seeks to know. Moreover, we will be self-reflective about what writing on a topic can do for developing your mind. Additionally, we will ask what conferencing/speaking, or the sharing of ideas through discussion and collaboration, can do for the collective and individual knowledge acquisition; looking at why the search for certainty in what is known or in what we come to know, is generally a futile exercise. Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Self-Knowledge provides students opportunities to explore these issues through learning activities, evaluating the impact of such academic/intellectual exercises on the mind’s development and on its own self-preservation. Therefore, students will be guided in further developing their critical thinking skills.

Fia Moser-Hardy

How many ways can you describe a color? Can you write a poem about it? Can you explain it through science? Can you express your feelings about it through a dance? Can you research the history of its usage and cultural symbolism? How might people from different disciplines approach this question, and how might they collaborate to create a cohesive, multi-disciplinary response? You have a unique way of viewing the world around you that has the potential to spark advancements through the use of the creative process. Many processes mirror the creative process. In this course, you will explore your own process in creating and expressing new ideas through the intersection and integration of varying subjects such as visual art, dance, creative writing, science, and cultural studies. You will learn how you can develop your own process and merge your process with others’ processes to create new and innovative projects through a collaborative experiment of “ekphrastic” art.

Flavio Rizzo

What motivated me was curiosity, the only kind of curiosity that is worth acting upon; not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. This semester we will unpack the complexity and dynamic force of post/decolonial identity through an interdisciplinary approach. We will follow the painful journey of a Senegalese woman trapped into a racial web of a white French bourgeois household, dive into the clash and the search for independence in Algeria, unpack women’s voices out of India and follow Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s questioning of the role of the English language as a dominant colonial force. Our guiding force will be non-western lens, we will challenge our assumptions, be inspired, and learn from the giants of postcolonial theory.

Flavio Rizzo

What motivated me was curiosity, the only kind of curiosity that is worth acting upon; not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. This semester we will unpack the complexity and dynamic force of post/decolonial identity through an interdisciplinary approach. We will follow the painful journey of a Senegalese woman trapped into a racial web of a white French bourgeois household, dive into the clash and the search for independence in Algeria, unpack women’s voices out of India and follow Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s questioning of the role of the English language as a dominant colonial force. Our guiding force will be non-western lens, we will challenge our assumptions, be inspired, and learn from the giants of postcolonial theory.

Gary Scudder

We routinely throw around the word “evil” – even if we’re simply grousing about our professors – but what does the concept even mean? In this class we will study different religious, philosophical, psychological, and sociological interpretations, and maybe in the process begin to answer the question: why does evil exist? During the class students will read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Capote’s In Cold Blood, and excerpts from thinkers as varied as St. Augustine, Machiavelli, and Hannah Arendt.

Gary Scudder

We routinely throw around the word “evil” – even if we’re simply grousing about our professors – but what does the concept even mean? In this class we will study different religious, philosophical, psychological, and sociological interpretations, and maybe in the process begin to answer the question: why does evil exist? During the class students will read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Capote’s In Cold Blood, and excerpts from thinkers as varied as St. Augustine, Machiavelli, and Hannah Arendt.

Erik Shonstrom

Who’s in the driver’s seat? We often assume our brain is directing behavior, making decisions. But the science of embodied cognition offers a much more complex picture. Our bodies, evolutionary history, and subjective sensorimotor perception are guiding our daily lives much more than we think. This section is an interdisciplinary exploration of the way in which the body’s interaction with our environment dictates behavior: it makes us who we are. We’ll move, smell, taste, listen, dance (salsa, anyone?) and move our bodies to understand how our bodies aren’t just part of us; they are us.

Erik Shonstrom

Who’s in the driver’s seat? We often assume our brain is directing behavior, making decisions. But the science of embodied cognition offers a much more complex picture. Our bodies, evolutionary history, and subjective sensorimotor perception are guiding our daily lives much more than we think. This section is an interdisciplinary exploration of the way in which the body’s interaction with our environment dictates behavior: it makes us who we are. We’ll move, smell, taste, listen, dance (salsa, anyone?) and move our bodies to understand how our bodies aren’t just part of us; they are us.

Kelly Thomas

How can we best understand sexuality and sexual desire? As humans, we are sexual creatures, yet sexual desire is often viewed by society as taboo and carefully regulated. This section examines potential reasons why, and subsequent repercussions. This is not a how-to course on human sexuality; rather, we will inquire into how we are (or are not) formally educated about sexual desire; how our beliefs about sex and sexuality are formed through religious traditions and cultural expectations; how we encounter representations of sex through visual and performing art, and media; and how industries and laws have formed to sell and regulate sexual content.

Kelly Thomas

How can we best understand sexuality and sexual desire? As humans, we are sexual creatures, yet sexual desire is often viewed by society as taboo and carefully regulated. This section examines potential reasons why, and subsequent repercussions. This is not a how-to course on human sexuality; rather, we will inquire into how we are (or are not) formally educated about sexual desire; how our beliefs about sex and sexuality are formed through religious traditions and cultural expectations; how we encounter representations of sex through visual and performing art, and media; and how industries and laws have formed to sell and regulate sexual content.

Ciaran Buckley

We jump straight in with class conversations on current Supreme Court cases. By looking at a seemingly daunting and divisive topics head on, you will see these topics as challenging, but not intimidating. We will practice the process of finding and making arguments from different perspectives. Some current Supreme Court themes we will look at are: beginning of life, free speech, separation of Church and state, God, second amendment rights, AI. In-class discussions/conversations paired with a series of executive summaries will help you in analyzing and finding solutions to complex issues. We will have conversations about developing our ability to create an environment where each perspective is considered to collaborate around making progress toward common goals.

Amanda Young

What does it mean to follow your passion through a multidisciplinary lens? In this course we explore how different fields of study can help us understand and cultivate our passions. This course encourages you to investigate your interests by integrating insights from psychology, sociology, history, arts, and sciences. By blending these perspectives together, you can gain a deeper understanding of what motivates us, how our passions shape our worldviews, and their impact on our personal and professional lives. In this course, students will engage with a variety of texts, ranging from academic articles to biographies and case studies. They will learn to conduct comprehensive research that reflects the complexity of their interests. Through workshops, collaborative projects, and individual research assignments, students will develop the skills to examine their interests from multiple angles, fostering a deeper appreciation for interdisciplinary inquiry. This course challenges students to think critically about the role of passion in innovation and societal advancement, encouraging them to pursue their interests with both rigor and creativity. By the end of the course, students will have the tools to explore their passions through interdisciplinary research and collaboration. Get ready to embark on an exciting journey that not only deepens your understanding of your passions but also equips you with the necessary skills to pursue them.