HUM4605 The Nature, Culture and Future of Work
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis interdisciplinary course examines work from the standpoints of cultural history and organizational behavior. We will explore work as a marker of identity, work as a cultural construct, and work as an ideological and structural apparatus. The course will be organized around weekly film viewings and readings. The films will frame our exploration of work and serve both as cultural artifacts that represent American ideologies and case studies of particular work situations and perspectives. The readings will offer a range of theoretical and historical views from a variety of disciplines: cultural and film history, organizational behavior, economics, management theory, sociology, and others.

Among the questions the course will address are:
- To what extent does what we do professionally define who we are?
- What, if anything, do we expect of our jobs beyond a paycheck?
- What, if anything, do our jobs expect of us beyond our skill and time?
- What is the difference between work as a job, a career and a calling?
- How do American ideologies conflate professional achievement with success?
- In what ways are some organizational structures more conducive than others to contentment at work?
- What does it mean to opt out of or strive not to work?
- What is the past, present and future of work in America?

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

ART4602 The Origins of Modern Art
(Formerly VSA4602 19th Century European Art)
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsExamines the social, economic and political changes in 19th century Europe that led to the creation of Impressionism and early modern art. Explores the meaning of modern art by examining the contexts (social, economic, and artistic) in which pioneering artists lived. The class will look briefly at Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism to understand their contributions to Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Art Nouveau and Expressivism with special focus on major artists, sculptors, and architects such as Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch, Rodin, Claudel, Garnier, and Eiffel who shaped what we now call Modern Art. We will visit local museums with early modern art collections as part of the course in order to see and discuss art "in person".

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

MDS4600 The Rhetoric of Social Media

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

Drawing upon the reading, writing, speaking, and research skills developed in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Foundation and Intermediate Courses, in this intensive seminar students will turn a rhetorical eye towards the ever-evolving world of social media. While our personal uses of various social media platforms will be up for discussion, this course asks students to take a deeper look at the structures of power involved in everything from memes used to brighten someone's day to large campaigns and avenues for cultural and social change.

Through course readings, in-class discussion, and both primary and secondary research, students will critique the rhetorical functions and effectiveness of various issues in social media. We will review key terms from Babson's foundational writing courses (see especially discourse communities, audience, conventions, ethics, circulation), deepen our understanding of how such terms developed, and make connections amongst what we're seeing around us today (think: from Aristotle to Ariana Grande).

In order to achieve a deeper understanding of the rhetoric of social media, this course will be split into four units: (1) Social Media Histories; (2) Social Media Discourse Communities; (3) Social Media and [Fake] News; and (4) and Social Media Futures. Each unit will challenge students both analytically and creatively.

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

LTA2082 The Sexual Renaissance: Forms / Concepts / Cultures
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course offers a bifold introduction to the studies of sex and literature in the English Renaissance. Reading a diverse range of literary and cultural texts, we will explore how writers imagined sex and its meanings, as well as how differences of language, genre, and literary form help to shape erotic possibilities, both in that era and our own. Ranging from pastoral poems to prose narratives, allegorical dramas to personal essays, metaphysical conceits to English and Italian pornography, we will encounter not only a variety of representational forms but of erotic arrangements, scenarios, practices, and fantasies. Situating these works in their own historical and cultural contexts, we will examine the "sexual Renaissance" on its own terms; consider how modern conceptual categories may inform-and inhibit-our capacity to understand the sexual past; and, throughout, discuss the relevance of these works to our understanding of sex today. Readings will focus on primary texts. Assignments will include weekly written responses and quizzes, a group presentation, an exam, and a creative final project. Interested students will allowed to compose short essays in lieu of the exams. No prior experience or knowledge is necessary to enroll.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

LTA2090 The Short Story
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsWhat gives a great short story its undeniable power? Some writers strive to make their stories pack a punch, while others create more reflective works, exploring interiors; in either approach, the impacts of a great story are both immediate and lasting.

In this course, you will read a range of forms, from early tales to modern experiments. You will compare the intentions and effects of short stories that create entire worlds and those that are more elliptical and fragmentary, though they hint at more. You will learn the formal elements of the short story, such as characterization and point-of-view, and also trace the development of literary theories, those critical lenses that will increase your understanding and enrich your appreciation. Reading writers from several continents - from the famous, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Alice Munro, to the lesser-known, like Lucia Berlin and Edward P. Jones - you will follow stories of a family murdered senselessly by the side of the road, a bishop languishing in his final illness, and many more; you will even encounter a talking cat who proves to be careless in spilling the family's secrets.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring

LTA2022 The Speculative Genres: Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy Literature and Film
4 credit intermediate liberal artsIn this class, we examine the speculative genres, stories containing science fictional, gothic/horror, or fantastic qualities that are particularly invested in socio-political questions. Rather than resolutely celebrating a techno-scientific future, these stories engage audiences in difficult ethical and philosophical discussions: What does it mean to be human? What is the cost of progress? What does it take to imagine (and then create) a more equitable world? We discuss a range of texts, including essays by J. R. R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin; novels by Mary Shelley, Octavia Butler, Karen Tei Yamashita, Cormac McCarthy, and Margaret Atwood; short fiction by Keri Hulme, Carmen Maria Machado, W. E. B. Du Bois, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Ted Chiang; films such as Get Out, The Hunger Games, Black Panther, and Blade Runner; and tv such as Station 11 and The Rings of Power

Prerequisites: (AHS1000 or FCI1000) and (WRT1001 or RHT1000)

PRF1120 Theater Production Workshop
2 Free Elective CreditsThis course will center on a major collaborative project undertaken jointly by all enrolled students (as well as some students involved in an extra-curricular capacity): the rehearsal and performance of a full-length play. In the professional theater world, every production is a considerable undertaking, requiring deep collaboration among a diverse ensemble, each bringing distinctive expertise to the project. Creating a theater production is not only a rigorous intellectual and aesthetic undertaking but also one that demands the development of leadership and collaboration skills. Whether you intend to pursue a career in the arts or not, the core skills developed through this experience will be highly relevant to any professional path.

Prerequisites: None

LTA2079 Theories of Love
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsWhat is love? Where does it come from, what does it ask of us, and how does it alter our minds, bodies, values, and relations? Are sex, friendship, and marriage necessary for love, or do they inhibit love's fullest expression? In this course, we will examine how influential writers have conceived and contested love's meanings across a range of cultural contexts. Focusing primarily on erotic love (erôs), we will consider how such meanings relate to notions of art, beauty, conjugality, legality, pleasure, sexuality, spirituality, and transgression, both in their original era and our own. Particular attention will be paid to differences of race, class, age, gender, and authority as incitements to, and/or impediments of, relations of love and eroticism.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

HUM4607: Trauma, Culture, Transformation

4 Advanced Liberal Arts credits

What is trauma and how does it impact individuals and societies? The word comes to us from the Greek "wound," and so it has come to mean a lasting injury made by a violent or startling event that penetrates a person's psychic boundary system. The difference between a wound and a traumatic wound is that the latter does not heal; rather, it results in post-traumatic stress, which in turn creates cycles of repetition of uncannily similar events until the event has been "worked through." While the term is largely attributed to Sigmund Freud's 19th and early 20th century work, in fact many of his sources came from classical Greek texts, meaning the concept and experience of trauma have been around for centuries.

In the past, knowledge about trauma came predominantly from psychoanalysis; to a lesser extent, literary theory has explored how cultural texts reflect phenomena related to trauma such as repetition, disruptions of time and temporality, and fragmented points of view. Post-Traumatic Stress was a chronic, cyclical dis-ease with devastating consequences. In the past decade, however, neuroscientists have exponentially advanced our understanding of trauma and its relation to our bodies, not just our minds, and theorists have shown how trauma is also a cultural phenomenon, transmitted from one generation to the next. Most importantly, this new research also shows proven pathways to transformation and healing-pathways that also correspond to collective movements for healing our world.

Starting with Freud's foundational work and the classical texts that inspired him, we will study how cultural texts have represented both traumatic stress and methods for its healing. From there, we move quickly to study new developments in the understanding of trauma and post-traumatic stress, including methods of healing and transcending traumatic repetition that have gained traction in broader change-making contexts. We will conclude our study by exploring the concept of Transformational Literacy operating at the MIT Presencing Institute, and how the notion of collective trauma invites collective healing responses as together we bring "the emergent future" into being.

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