HUM4606 What Does it Mean to Live a Good Life?

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

This advanced liberal arts elective investigates what it might mean to live a 'good life', and how these interpretations might contribute to your own discoveries and thinking as you head out into the 'real world' beyond Babson. Rather than a philosophy or psychology or self-help course (although all of this is intertwined), this course is based around how writers and filmmakers and other creative thinkers have tried to explore this enduring focus of human inquiry. Through a wide range of literature, film, podcasts, and other media, we will examine differing efforts to perceive and live out a 'good life.' How can we define and measure happiness, and whether that should even be our ultimate goal? How important are extrinsic rewards like achievement and money compared to more internal ones like relationships and human connection? How do we avoid being overwhelmed by the news of the world and instead to create stories that matter and move us to positive action? Where can we find value in odysseys and unexpected detours? What is the meaning of work and its relationship to play? How can we better approach mortality and loss? And how can we grasp the simultaneous individuality and immensity of the human condition in ways that strive to make ourselves and the world better? Together, we will wrangle with these and other ongoing life questions.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

SEN1343​ When in Rome: Arts, Literature, and History of Ancient Rome

(Student Instructor: Richard Gwinn) The arts, literature, and history of the Roman Empire are still vibrant in American political institutions, culture, and media. This course seeks to give the history of Roman society, from 753 BCE to 476 CE, a thorough examination. Each section of the course (Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic, and Roman Empire) will analyze primary sources of art and literature produced in the given era. We will read poetry, study battles, and learn about architecture, among other things. Immerse yourself in Roman history without worrying about homework or essays!

Wednesdays 6:30 - 9:00 pm

HIS4682 Women in China
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsCourse considers Chinese history through an emphasis on the social and cultural roles of Chinese women and their changing role over time. Topics include women and the family, and women as shamans, prostitutes, nuns, rulers, writers, revolutionaries, and politicians. Close attention is given to the social-historical context, regional class, and ethnic differences in order to counter the common misconception that pre-modern China is an unchanging monolith. Through this approach and concentration on the roles of women, students gain a more realistic understanding of traditional Chinese society and of the complex legacy of the pre-Communist past in contemporary China.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

WRT1001 Writing Across Contexts
4 Foundation Liberal Arts Credits

This course introduces students to key concepts in meaning-making and helps them develop rhetorically sophisticated approaches to reading, writing, and composing across contexts. Students refine and reflect on their own composing practices and processes past, present, and future as they read, analyze, and create texts for a wide variety of audiences, purposes, and media forms. At the end of the term and with the vocabulary developed in the course, each student articulates in an essay their own working theory of and approach to writing that they can mobilize and adapt for future academic and professional contexts.

ENG4620 Writing Creative Non-Fiction
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsIn this class, you will have the chance to write about moments in your life, and passionate interests, you wish to deeply explore. You will "read like a writer" to learn the elements and forms of creative nonfiction, including memoir, contemplative, nature, and travel essays. We will read creative nonfiction by such writers as Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, and David Foster Wallace, and consider both what the writers say and how they say it. You will write your own personal essays, developing your facility with such elements as conflict, persona, and character development, and, by sharing your work with peers, you will gain a critical understanding of your own writing. You will find, like creative nonfiction writer Dinty Moore, that "the happy by-product" of exploring, expressing the previously unspoken, "is that one has a richer life."

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

ENG4605 Writing Fiction
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsShort-story writer Flannery O'Connor believes that there is _a certain grain of stupidity that the writer of fiction can hardly do without, and this is the quality of having to stare, of not getting the point at once._ This class develops and nurtures close attention to the art and craft of making short stories. We will read excellent practitioners of the short story form in order to understand the elements of fiction: character, dialogue, place/setting, plot, and so on, and we will look for pleasure in our reading. Throughout the semester you will write short stories of varying length, aiming for authority over language, characterization, plot, and more. Your fiction will be received and read by your peers and professor. You will be a willing, open and active participant, prepared to discuss the work of others, and to reflect on responses to your own work. Short-story writer Tobias Wolff suggests that "in the short-story form you sense… that perfection is attainable. That's an amazing invitation to have: here, at last, is something I can control."

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

ENG4604 Writing Poetry
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsA poet is a maker, an architect of words, spaces, and ideas and seeks expression through the use of various poetic techniques. This course challenges students to make original poetry through the study of contemporary American poetry and poetics. In addition to exploring the creative process through the crafting of poems, students read the poetry and essays of a wide variety of modern poets, work collaboratively to respond to peers' poems, attend poetry readings, and pursue independent study in an area of their own choice.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

WRT 4601: Writing with Robots: Authenticity, Ethics, and AI

4 advanced liberal arts credits

This genre-based writing course takes students through the experience of writing different kinds of text with and without the use of AI tools while simultaneously looking at the ethical concerns related to each genre (e.g., one might feel differently about using AI to help write a LinkedIn post vs. a poem) as well as the larger ethical concerns of AI (e.g., data, bias, academic integrity, and so on).

Prerequisites: Any Combination of 2 intermediate liberal arts (HSS, LTA, CSP)

AMS4672 Working in America: Labor in the US Since 1892
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

How has blue, white, and pink collar work changed in the U.S. across the past centuries, and how sustainable are our models of work? This course focuses on the historical experiences of American workers, beginning with the mills of early industrialization and ending with the global corporations and big box chain stores of the contemporary U.S. We will study workers' unions, and also look at how workplaces have changed with the liberation movements of women, people of color, and LBGTQ+ workers. We will use written texts, films, and other rich sources to study how workers have shaped and adapted to the new, global economies of labor.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)