CSC 191: Ethics of Emerging Technologies
Instructor: Dr. William B. Cochran
When: Tuesday/Thursday 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
New technologies are on the horizon and quickly becoming part of our lives. Generative AI can write text, produce pictures, and even generate code with a simple prompt. Deepfakes can create increasingly convincing fake videos. Brain-computer interfaces promise new possibilities of thought and perception, and the metaverse could fabricate new realities. What can we do to ensure that these technologies emerge in ways that benefit humanity? Students will develop an ethical toolkit to diagnose the ethical implications of emerging technologies and seek ways to craft a more ethical future. Our ultimate goal will be to chart a path for several technologies that preserves their promise while avoiding their potential pitfalls.
FYS 100 QQ: AI & Humanity: Foundations for Our Future
Instructor: Dr. William B. Cochran(opens in a new tab)
When: Tuesday/Thursday 3:30 p.m. – 4:45 a.m.
This first-year seminar explores the nature of artificial intelligence and its implications for the future of humanity. How should we live and work with AI? Can we contain its risks while harnessing its opportunities? Does AI augment or degrade human capabilities? What sort of society are we creating with AI, and what will it take to thrive in an AI-infused world? In this seminar, participants will practice carefully engaging with multiple perspectives on AI—from the technologists building it, the entrepreneurs deploying it, the philosophers analyzing it, the users interacting with it, and even from the AI systems themselves. By the end, participants should have a strong foundation for navigating our current AI moment and the changes that lie ahead. No coding experience is required—just curiosity, skepticism, and the courage to rethink the future.
HMN 374: Literature and Ethics
Instructor: Dr. Bryan Ellrod
When: Wednesday/Friday 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
What do great authors have to teach us about being good people? The moral life is about more than the blunt application of rules. It is not enough that we do the right thing. We must learn to do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, and for the right reasons. In the care they take with their characters, great authors model virtues like attention, compassion, curiosity, and responsibility. In so doing, they offer us lessons not simply about doing the right thing, but help us to become characters disposed to do the right thing rightly. Under the tutelage of authors including Henry James, Toni Morrison, and Juan Rulfo, we will explore how reading great literature provides more than a pleasant diversion, and helps us to become virtuous people who are “finely aware and richly responsible.”
ENT 303 A and B: Social Impact in Entrepreneurship
Instructor: Dr. Fatima Hamdulay
When: Wednesday/Friday 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. & 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
Being an entrepreneur offers a unique opportunity to creatively conceive alternate, more collectively impactful ways of being successful. In this course, we consider and envision ways of making an impactful contribution to an increasingly broader range of stakeholders-from building great team culture to embodying exemplary altruism – crafting a vision of impact appropriate for your own entrepreneurial ideas and purpose.
ENT 304: Leadership and Character in Entrepreneurship
Instructor: Dr. Fatima Hamdulay
When: Tuesday/Thursday 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
Leadership and character challenges go hand-in-hand with the entrepreneurial journey. In this course, we ask three questions as we traverse the entrepreneur’s path: What are the ways I see the world? How do they shape my views on character, opportunity and value creation? How will I lead the way?
AAS 220 A: African American Cultural Criticism
Instructor: Dr. Dan Henry
When: Wednesday/Friday 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Examines the cultural criticism of significant African American cultural critics and development and evolution of distinctive forms of African American cultural criticism.
AAS 310: Organic Leadership: Lessons from the Black Freedom Struggle
Instructor: Dr. Dan Henry
When: Wednesday/Friday 2:00 a.m. – 3:15 p.m.
This course explores philosophies of citizenship and leadership in traditions of African American political thought, centering on the Civil Rights Movement and its legacies. African American political thinkers have long interrogated America’s democratic self-image and its realities. In doing so, intellectuals, artists, and movements of diverse traditions have considered what it means to live a democratic life in democracy’s absence, as well as what democratic community could mean in the shadow of slavery and Jim Crow. Our class will read works articulating distinct, often contrasting visions of democratic life: its moral bases, foundational principles, and the qualities it demands on the part of its citizens. Our study of African American political thought will offer students a lens through which to reconsider their own political actions, commitments, and hopes as members of a political community.
FYS 100 J: Black Lives Matter and the Academy
Instructor: Dr. Dan Henry
When: Wednesday/Friday 9:30 a.m. – 10:45 p.m.
Black Lives Matter, and the broader Movement for Black Lives, is arguably the most prominent and generative U.S. social movement of the past four decades. It is also in many respects the expression of, and a crucial contribution to, centuries-long African American political and intellectual traditions. We will trace some of the intellectual currents and historical voices informing the BLM movement, as well as its own significance as an intellectual, moral, and political force. Our course centers on these connections, with three complementary aims. First, to understand the roots of the Black Lives Matter movement in the political and philosophical contributions of Black political intellectuals and movements; second, to explore the deep relationship between intellectual work and social movements in Black Studies; and third, to apply these lessons in students’ own research into the struggle for racial justice.
HMN 200 A: Introduction to Humanities: Themes in Literature, Culture, and Film
Instructor: Dr. Eunice Jianping Hu
When: Monday/Wednesday/Friday 11:00 a.m. – 11:50 a.m.
This course is an introduction through literature and film to the history, principles, and concepts of the Humanities, using as its framework an examination of such topics as self and others, the influence of classical principles on contemporary Western and Non-Western cultures, human rights and environmental issues in literature and film, and other topics central to the Humanities. Literary and film analysis will explore how cultural values and beliefs are expressed in media and writing, as well as how these beliefs are manifested in popular culture. The course will include creative narrative exercises that explore various literary tropes and humanistic themes.
FYS 100 SS and T: Harming and Harmonizing: Considering Human Relations to Nature Through Everyday Ecology
Instructor: Dr. Eunice Jianping Hu
When: Wednesday/Friday 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. & 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
What is human being’s role in the world? How do we achieve a harmonious relationship with animals, plants, and the environment? This course examines ideas about the environment through the perspectives of literature, film, art, history, and philosophy and investigates how the values, beliefs, and attitudes that inform our relationship to nature can impact our understanding of various environmental issues that are closely related to our day-to-day practices. Students will critically analyze environmental issues, movements, and leading thinkers through documentaries, short stories, novels, poems, artworks, philosophical articles, and historical writings. Meanwhile, students will be challenged to think about crucial notions such as “moral community,” “sustainable future,” and “harmonious relationship” as well as reflect on the ways in which they can develop virtues that help them lead in an increasingly complex world.
FYS 100 NN: Navigating Differences: Understanding Tolerance and Pluralism
Instructor: Dr. Eranda Jayawickreme
When: Monday/Wednesday 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
This seminar will explore the psychological factors that enable individuals to engage in pluralism, which involves the manifestation of tolerance and other characteristics to foster deep engagement and constructive relationships across religious, cultural, and ethnic differences. Students will examine the interplay of character traits, cognitive processes, and social contexts in shaping the capacity for pluralism. The seminar will also explore the challenges and opportunities for promoting pluralism in diverse societies, including those with limited legal protections for religious freedom (such as Sri Lanka).