UF Quest

Fall 2024 UF Quest 1 Courses

About UF Quest

UF Quest invites students to consider why the world is the way it is and what they can do about it. Students examine questions that are difficult to answer and hard to ignore in a world that is swiftly changing and becoming increasingly more complex. What makes life worth living? What makes a society a fair one? How do we manage conflicts? Who are we in relation to other people or to the natural world?

The UF Quest 1 Requirement

UF Quest 1 courses fulfill the UF Quest 1 requirement and 3 credits of the General Education requirement in the Humanities (see the UF Quest Requirement page for more information). Some UF Quest 1 courses may also fulfill the International (N) requirement and/or count toward the Writing requirement. 

UF Quest 1 Courses

Click on the links below to learn more about the individual courses and to access course syllabi, which will be posted at least 3 days before the semester begins. Click the Campus, Honors, or UF Online button to filter by program or type in the search field to look for a particular subject, topic, instructor, etc. For the day and periods that the classes meet, please consult the Schedule of Courses.

Campus
Honors
UF Online
Course Themes Culture Built Environment Literature Music Society Art Theater Dance
General Education Requirements Diversity International 2000 words 4000 words

Campus

ARC 1101: Places and Spaces
  • Instructor: John Maze, Architecture
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities 
  • The Essential Question: What does it mean to dwell between the heavens and Earth?
  • Syllabus
CLA 1011: Democracy in Theory and Action
  • Instructor: Ifigeneia Giannadaki, Classics
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is democracy and in what ways has this form of government changed since its birth in ancient Athens? This course offers a comparative approach to democracy (ancient and modern), tackling some of the most pressing issues of our times, illustrating political history and political theory: political thought in action.
  • Syllabus
DAN 1401C: Body, Self, World: Movement through Lived Experience
  • Instructor: Meredith Farnum, Theatre and Dance
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities 
  • The Essential Question: When practicing conscious awareness of mind/body connections, what revelations can be made through an introspective study of how we see the world through our lived experiences?
  • Syllabus- Monday
  • Syllabus- Tuesday
IDS 1114: Ethics and the Public Sphere
  • Instructor: Anna Peterson, Religion
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How can we engage ethical issues in public life?
  • Syllabus
IDS 1307: Writing Life: Art, Drama, Film, Literature, Poetry, and You
  • Instructor: Carolyn Kelley, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: How do humanities-based texts touch and shape our lives by teaching us about our sense of self and our relationships with other people whose intersectionalities of identity differ from our own? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: AI Policy, Policies, and Policing
  • Instructor: Zea Miller, University Writing Program 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: Can AI policies be fair?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Artistic Revelation
  • Instructor: Colleen Beucher, Music
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What power does music have over us and how does it shape our world?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Becoming Black
  • Instructor: Abdoulaye Kane, Anthropology
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How is blackness constructed differently across time and space?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Design for Humanity: Intention, Consquence and Change
  • Instructor: Jason Meneely, Interior Design
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do humans instill values and construct meaning through the design of everyday things? How can the design process become a tool for transformational leadership and social change? What lessons can we learn from the past as we design for humanity's future?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Documentary, Identity & Media
  • Instructor: Ying Xiao, Languages, Literatures and Culture
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 4000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is life? What constitutes identities within society? What roles do media play in shaping and understanding us, our lives, communities around the globe, and the increasingly connected world?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: European Experience
  • Instructor: Chrysostomos Kostopoulos, European Studies
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 words
  • The Essential Question: How does the notion of Europe help you identify yourself as an individual in a complex diversified environment and how does it foster the preservation of your personal identity in the face of a national or transnational context?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Finding Lost Stories
  • Instructor: Jennifer Coenen, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: Why do stories from the past matter?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: For the Culture
  • Instructor: Drew Brown, AAS
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2,000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is Black Popular Culture and how has it changed the world?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Freedom & Equality
  • Instructor: Jeffrey Collins, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What does it mean to be free and equal?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Globalization Cities in Film
  • Instructor: Vandana Baweja, Architecture
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How is the transformation of architecture and urbanism by globalization processes such as - movement of capital, goods, knowledge, urban paradigms, and people - represented in popular films? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: God and Science
  • Instructor: James Hooks, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2,000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How does belief in God shape the way one views the natural world?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Human Shelter Development
  • Instructor:  Jason von Meding, Construction Management
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International 
  • The Essential Question: Do all humans have the right to safe and healthy shelter?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Immigrants, Refugees and Homelands
  • Instructor: Roy Holler, Jewish Studies
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: Do two wrongs make a right? This question will guide us through the semester as we explore the complexities of homelands, the meaning of displacement, forced migration, and resettlement, with a particular focus on Israel's history as a refugee state. In light of the October 7th events and the resulting Israel-Hamas war, how are these themes further complicated and contextualized?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Immortality
  • Instructor: Mattias Gassman, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is immortality? Can we live forever? What would it mean to live forever, and should we want to? What part of us would live on -- and who, after all, are we?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Is there Culture in Architecture?
  • Instructor: Kole Odutola, Languages, Literatures and Cultures
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How do learners conceptualize the various spaces they
    operate in?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Is There Culture in Dance and Music?
  • Instructor: Augusto Soledade and Kole Odutola, Theatre & Literatures, Languages and Culture
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What does the culture in music and dance tell us about ourselves?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Life Well Played: Digital Games and Arts
  • Instructor: Eamon O'Connor, Digital Worlds
  • Format: 100% Online
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 4000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What does the study of play and games have to teach us about living well?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Life, Liberty, and Happiness
  • Instructor: Max Skjönsberg, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What constitutional arrangements secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Magic and Method in Science
  • Instructor: Patrick Scanlon, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: What effect does the magical have on our thinking and research pursuits?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Magic and the Supernatural: Greece and Rome
  • Instructor: Jennifer Rea, Classics
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: What is the impact of beliefs in magic and the supernatural from antiquity to the present?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Mathematics and the Humanities
  • Instructor: Konstantina Christodoulopoulou, Mathematics and Chrysostomos Kostopoulos, Classics
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How have various mathematical ideas shaped our views about reality, our existence, and knowledge, and how has mathematics fostered human flourishing by encouraging us to find truth, beauty, creativity, and imagination in a variety of human endeavors?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Mathematics in the Arts and Architecture of Renaissance Italy
  • Instructor: Carol Demas, Math
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What makes life worth living? How do we or should we examine a life? What is valuable in life? How is mathematics used in the arts to improve our lives?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Messages, Media, Social Self
  • Instructor: Todd Best, Religion
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: Considering the vast amounts of messaging and information delivered through all forms of media, how might we collectively understand and discuss perceived reality and it’s imprint on our humanity?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Music and Global Politics
  • Instructor: Ido Oren, Political Science
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International 
  • The Essential Question: How do global forces such as war, imperialism, and slavery shape the production, reception, diffusion, and transcultural fusion of music?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Musical Elements of Emotion
  • Instructor: Margaret Clifford, Arts in Medicine
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2,000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is music and how can understanding the musical elements of emotion deepen our appreciation for music and its influence on individual and collective experiences? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Politics and Identity in Contemporary Art
  • Instructor Flounder Lee, Art & Art History
  • Format: Hybrid
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do contemporary artists address issues of identity and what are the political implications of various modes of representation, the right to represent, the influence of artists' identities on interpretation, and the relationship between art and broader fields discussing identity?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Post-Holocaust American Jews
  • Instructor: Yaniv Feller, Religion
  • Format: 100% Online
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How did the Holocaust affect American Jews and American culture, in the decades after World War II?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Religion, Revolution and the Person
  • Instructor: Ana Siljak, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What does it mean to be a ‘person’? How does the person relate to other people, to society, and to God?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Religious Freedom in Historical Perspective
  • Instructor: Jeffrey Collins, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What does religious freedom mean, and how has its definition evolved through history?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Rhetoric and Leadership
  • Instructor: Robert Stone, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How do leaders use rhetoric to persuade others? What role does the art of rhetoric have in the making of politics, art, and community? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Romanticism: The Storm of Feeling
  • Instructor: David Dusenbury, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is the place of feeling in modern life? What is the value of desiring things we can never have, or mourning things we have already lost? Can even positive experiences of love, longing, and awe create a “storm”? And can negative emotions like fear, dread, and confusion have a positive meaning? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Crisis of Liberalism
  • Instructor: Gianna Englert, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What exactly is liberalism, and what is the source of its “crisis”? Is liberalism responsible for its own failures? Does it encourage too much individualism? Does it lead to the dissolution of community, family, and religion? Does it promote exclusion and inequality? Has liberalism led us inevitably toward an illiberal future? What, if anything, can be done to preserve the liberal values of freedom and equality?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The End of Empires: Imperialism to Decolonization
  • Instructor: Barnaby Crowcroft, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How can we explain this transformation? What is the nature of the political world in which we now live? How is it different to those that have come before – and why? What does it mean for a political community to be independent? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Nature, Matter, and Agency of Magic
  • Instructor: Ashley Jones, Art & Art History
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How have people in different societies used the supernatural to try and understand and affect the natural world? What objects, words, rituals, and images have they employed to explain and harness the supernatural?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Politics of Nature
  • Instructor: Amy Chandran, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How does our conception of nature shape our political realities and fortunes?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Posthuman Condition
  • Instructor: Anthony Manganaro, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Questions: What are the possibilities and perils of a posthuman future, and how should we prepare for it?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Search for Meaning in a Secular Age
  • Instructor: David McPherson, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What does it mean to live in a secular age? How does living in a secular age offer new opportunities and challenges for the perennial human quest for meaning? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Visual Meaning & Representation
  • Instructor: Fatimah Tuggar, Art & Art History
  • Format: 100% Classroom 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question:
IDS 2935: What is Democracy?
  • Instructor: Adam Lebovitz, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question:  Does it signify direct rule by the people in a massive assembly? Rule by elected representatives?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: What is the Common Good?
  • Instructor: Carlos Casanova, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What is the common good and how is it harmonized with individual rights?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Why is there Evil in the World?
  • Instructor: Yaniv Feller, Religion
  • Format: 100% Online
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is evil and how have different traditions confronted it in ways that are meaningful for our lives today? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Why Spy?
  • Instructor: Meghan Herwig, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: Why spy?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Wisdom and Heroism
  • Instructor: Karl Gunther, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: 

    What does it mean to be wise and what does it mean to live heroically?

  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Women Changing Society
  • Instructor: Danielle Vantuinen, Music
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How have women expressed their agency, authorship, worldview, and their power through their contribution to various movements in music and how have women transformed the production and consumption of music?
  • Syllabus​
IDS 2935: Music and Social Engagement with the Environment
  • Instructor: Laura Dallman, Music
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: Who are we in relation to the natural world?
  • Syllabus
ISC 1010C: Secrets of Alchemy
  • Instructor: Ashlyn Hale, Chemistry
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: Who are we in relation to the natural world? How have humans understood their role in their natural world and their responsibility to it? How do portrayals of nature reflect our values or self-understanding? How have we as humans dominated nature and considered ourselves to be part of nature?
  • Syllabus
LIN 1140: Language and Emotion
  • Instructor: Eleonora Rossi, Linguistics
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do we express emotions through language? Starting from studying how we express emotions by means of our language(s), we will understand the processes that are the basis of communication and emotion, from neural processes to facial expressions, bodily expressions, and the human voice. 
  • Syllabus
MUS 1610: An Echo of the Invisible World: Exploring the Relationship between Music & Spirituality
  • Instructor: Charles Pickeral, Music
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International 
  • The Essential Question: How does music move us spiritually? Or, to put it another way: Why do organized sounds have the power to catalyze spiritual experiences? How does music shape our spiritual experience and how do our spiritual beliefs and practices shape our musical taste and aesthetic experiences?
  • Syllabus
PHI 1001: Conflict of Ideas
  • Instructor: Rodrigo Borges, Philosophy
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2,000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How can we pursue our disagreements with each other in a. way that is both fair and productive?
  • Syllabus
PHI 1322: Idea of Happiness
  • Instructor: Nathan Rothschild, Philosophy
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What makes life worth living?
  • Syllabus
PHI 1643: Cultural Animals
  • Instructor: Jonathan Rick, Philosophy
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 words
  • The Essential Question: How do characteristically human practices, like morality, emerge from the complex interplay between biological evolution and cultural development?
PRT 1515: Soccer Explains the World
  • Instructor: Quinn Hansen, Spanish and Portuguese Studies
  • Format: 100% Classroom 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How does soccer exemplify the dynamics of justice and power both on and off the field of play? 
  • Syllabus
REL 1101: Nature, Spirituality, and Popular Culture
  • Instructor: Bron Taylor, Religion 
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous
  •  Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 words
  • The Essential Question: How are cultural creatives involved in popular culture (film, music, novels, museums, etc.) fusing science and spirituality to promote human-nature connections and environmentally sustainable societies - and what do these efforts portend about the planetary future?
  • Syllabus
SPN 1320: Las Américas: Comida y Conflicto
  • Instructor: Paola Uparela, Spanish and Portuguese Studies
  • Format:  Hybrid
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International
  • The Essential Question: Who has a voice and who does not in deciding how natural resources are to be used? What is the process by which decisions are made about how to use natural resources? What are the criteria for deciding how to use natural resources?
  • Syllabus
THE 1431: Autobiography in Literature & Performance
  • Instructor: Manuel Simons, Theater and Dance
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 words
  • Description: The course explores the ways in which modern and contemporary American artists and writers have utilized self-examination as the basis for artistic creation.  Often merging the factual with the theatrical or dramatic, autobiographical performance and literature personalizes the values, incidents and relationships that shape human experience and give life meaning.
  • Syllabus

Honors

IDS 1623: The Anatomy of a Story
  • Instructor: Alison Reynolds, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 4000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How is our understanding of the human condition constructed through and by the stories that we hear and tell, and how can these stories help us understand health, suffering, illness, disability, or disease?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Comedy and Citizenship
  • Instructor: Jill Ingram, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How is comedy an expression of citizenship: that is, how do we use comedy as responsible citizens in a democratic republic?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Human Rights in Latin America
  • Instructor: Maria del Carmen Martinez Novo, Anthropology
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 4000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What are the rights that all humans are expected to share? When, where and how did the idea of human rights start and how did it evolve? How is the concept of human rights applied or neglected in Latin America? What have been the challenges that Latin Americans have confronted to claim and implement human rights?
  •  Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Listening Life
  • Instructor: Lisa Athearn, Dial Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do we see ourselves in relation to others and what role does listening play in shaping those perceptions? How do we listen to the natural world around us? How does listening shape the way we develop and express our values?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: What Is America For?
  • Instructor: Aaron Zubia, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What is America For?
  • Syllabus

UF Online

DAN 1391: Dance, Race, Gender
  • Instructor:  Rachel Carrico, Theater & Dance
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: When we see dance - from ballet to Beyoncé - how does it inform our ideas about race, ethnicity, and/or gender?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Finding Lost Stories
  • Instructor: Jennifer Coenen, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: Why do stories from the past matter?
  • Syllabus
LIN 1140: Language and Emotion
  • Instructor: Eleonora Rossi, Linguistics
  • Format: 100% Online
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do we express emotions through language? Starting from studying how we express emotions by means of our language(s) we will understand the processes that are the basis of communication and emotion, from neural processes to facial expressions, bodily expressions, and the human voice.
  • Syllabus
REL 1101: Nature, Spirituality, and Popular Culture
  • Instructor: Bron Taylor, Religion 
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous
  •  Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 words
  • The Essential Question: How are cultural creatives involved in popular culture (film, music, novels, museums, etc.) fusing science and spirituality to promote human-nature connections and environmentally sustainable societies - and what do these efforts portend about the planetary future?
  • Syllabus
ARC 1101: Places and Spaces
  • Instructor: John Maze, Architecture
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities 
  • The Essential Question: What does it mean to dwell between the heavens and Earth?
  • Syllabus
DAN 1391: Dance, Race, Gender
  • Instructor:  Rachel Carrico, Theater & Dance
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: When we see dance - from ballet to Beyoncé - how does it inform our ideas about race, ethnicity, and/or gender?
  • Syllabus
DAN 1401C: Body, Self, World: Movement through Lived Experience
  • Instructor: Meredith Farnum, Theatre and Dance
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities 
  • The Essential Question: When practicing conscious awareness of mind/body connections, what revelations can be made through an introspective study of how we see the world through our lived experiences?
  • Syllabus- Monday
  • Syllabus- Tuesday
IDS 1114: Ethics and the Public Sphere
  • Instructor: Anna Peterson, Religion
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How can we engage ethical issues in public life?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Artistic Revelation
  • Instructor: Colleen Beucher, Music
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What power does music have over us and how does it shape our world?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Magic and the Supernatural: Greece and Rome
  • Instructor: Jennifer Rea, Classics
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: What is the impact of beliefs in magic and the supernatural from antiquity to the present?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Musical Elements of Emotion
  • Instructor: Margaret Clifford, Arts in Medicine
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2,000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is music and how can understanding the musical elements of emotion deepen our appreciation for music and its influence on individual and collective experiences? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Mathematics and the Humanities
  • Instructor: Konstantina Christodoulopoulou, Mathematics and Chrysostomos Kostopoulos, Classics
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How have various mathematical ideas shaped our views about reality, our existence, and knowledge, and how has mathematics fostered human flourishing by encouraging us to find truth, beauty, creativity, and imagination in a variety of human endeavors?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Mathematics in the Arts and Architecture of Renaissance Italy
  • Instructor: Carol Demas, Math
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What makes life worth living? How do we or should we examine a life? What is valuable in life? How is mathematics used in the arts to improve our lives?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Post-Holocaust American Jews
  • Instructor: Yaniv Feller, Religion
  • Format: 100% Online
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How did the Holocaust affect American Jews and American culture, in the decades after World War II?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Search for Meaning in a Secular Age
  • Instructor: David McPherson, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What does it mean to live in a secular age? How does living in a secular age offer new opportunities and challenges for the perennial human quest for meaning? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Design for Humanity: Intention, Consquence and Change
  • Instructor: Jason Meneely, Interior Design
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do humans instill values and construct meaning through the design of everyday things? How can the design process become a tool for transformational leadership and social change? What lessons can we learn from the past as we design for humanity's future?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Life Well Played: Digital Games and Arts
  • Instructor: Eamon O'Connor, Digital Worlds
  • Format: 100% Online
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 4000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What does the study of play and games have to teach us about living well?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Visual Meaning & Representation
  • Instructor: Fatimah Tuggar, Art & Art History
  • Format: 100% Classroom 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question:
IDS 2935: What Is America For?
  • Instructor: Aaron Zubia, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What is America For?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Listening Life
  • Instructor: Lisa Athearn, Dial Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do we see ourselves in relation to others and what role does listening play in shaping those perceptions? How do we listen to the natural world around us? How does listening shape the way we develop and express our values?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Politics and Identity in Contemporary Art
  • Instructor Flounder Lee, Art & Art History
  • Format: Hybrid
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do contemporary artists address issues of identity and what are the political implications of various modes of representation, the right to represent, the influence of artists' identities on interpretation, and the relationship between art and broader fields discussing identity?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Globalization Cities in Film
  • Instructor: Vandana Baweja, Architecture
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How is the transformation of architecture and urbanism by globalization processes such as - movement of capital, goods, knowledge, urban paradigms, and people - represented in popular films? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Immigrants, Refugees and Homelands
  • Instructor: Roy Holler, Jewish Studies
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: Do two wrongs make a right? This question will guide us through the semester as we explore the complexities of homelands, the meaning of displacement, forced migration, and resettlement, with a particular focus on Israel's history as a refugee state. In light of the October 7th events and the resulting Israel-Hamas war, how are these themes further complicated and contextualized?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Becoming Black
  • Instructor: Abdoulaye Kane, Anthropology
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How is blackness constructed differently across time and space?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: European Experience
  • Instructor: Chrysostomos Kostopoulos, European Studies
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 words
  • The Essential Question: How does the notion of Europe help you identify yourself as an individual in a complex diversified environment and how does it foster the preservation of your personal identity in the face of a national or transnational context?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Posthuman Condition
  • Instructor: Anthony Manganaro, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Questions: What are the possibilities and perils of a posthuman future, and how should we prepare for it?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Is there Culture in Architecture?
  • Instructor: Kole Odutola, Languages, Literatures and Cultures
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How do learners conceptualize the various spaces they
    operate in?
  • Syllabus
IDS 1623: The Anatomy of a Story
  • Instructor: Alison Reynolds, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 4000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How is our understanding of the human condition constructed through and by the stories that we hear and tell, and how can these stories help us understand health, suffering, illness, disability, or disease?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Is There Culture in Dance and Music?
  • Instructor: Augusto Soledade and Kole Odutola, Theatre & Literatures, Languages and Culture
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What does the culture in music and dance tell us about ourselves?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Women Changing Society
  • Instructor: Danielle Vantuinen, Music
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How have women expressed their agency, authorship, worldview, and their power through their contribution to various movements in music and how have women transformed the production and consumption of music?
  • Syllabus​
IDS 2935: Documentary, Identity & Media
  • Instructor: Ying Xiao, Languages, Literatures and Culture
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 4000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is life? What constitutes identities within society? What roles do media play in shaping and understanding us, our lives, communities around the globe, and the increasingly connected world?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Freedom & Equality
  • Instructor: Jeffrey Collins, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What does it mean to be free and equal?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Human Rights in Latin America
  • Instructor: Maria del Carmen Martinez Novo, Anthropology
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 4000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What are the rights that all humans are expected to share? When, where and how did the idea of human rights start and how did it evolve? How is the concept of human rights applied or neglected in Latin America? What have been the challenges that Latin Americans have confronted to claim and implement human rights?
  •  Syllabus
IDS 2935: AI Policy, Policies, and Policing
  • Instructor: Zea Miller, University Writing Program 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: Can AI policies be fair?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Life, Liberty, and Happiness
  • Instructor: Max Skjönsberg, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What constitutional arrangements secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Comedy and Citizenship
  • Instructor: Jill Ingram, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How is comedy an expression of citizenship: that is, how do we use comedy as responsible citizens in a democratic republic?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Human Shelter Development
  • Instructor:  Jason von Meding, Construction Management
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International 
  • The Essential Question: Do all humans have the right to safe and healthy shelter?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Music and Social Engagement with the Environment
  • Instructor: Laura Dallman, Music
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: Who are we in relation to the natural world?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Music and Global Politics
  • Instructor: Ido Oren, Political Science
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International 
  • The Essential Question: How do global forces such as war, imperialism, and slavery shape the production, reception, diffusion, and transcultural fusion of music?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Why is there Evil in the World?
  • Instructor: Yaniv Feller, Religion
  • Format: 100% Online
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is evil and how have different traditions confronted it in ways that are meaningful for our lives today? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Messages, Media, Social Self
  • Instructor: Todd Best, Religion
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: Considering the vast amounts of messaging and information delivered through all forms of media, how might we collectively understand and discuss perceived reality and it’s imprint on our humanity?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Magic and Method in Science
  • Instructor: Patrick Scanlon, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: What effect does the magical have on our thinking and research pursuits?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Finding Lost Stories
  • Instructor: Jennifer Coenen, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: Why do stories from the past matter?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Nature, Matter, and Agency of Magic
  • Instructor: Ashley Jones, Art & Art History
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How have people in different societies used the supernatural to try and understand and affect the natural world? What objects, words, rituals, and images have they employed to explain and harness the supernatural?
  • Syllabus
ISC 1010C: Secrets of Alchemy
  • Instructor: Ashlyn Hale, Chemistry
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: Who are we in relation to the natural world? How have humans understood their role in their natural world and their responsibility to it? How do portrayals of nature reflect our values or self-understanding? How have we as humans dominated nature and considered ourselves to be part of nature?
  • Syllabus
LIN 1140: Language and Emotion
  • Instructor: Eleonora Rossi, Linguistics
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do we express emotions through language? Starting from studying how we express emotions by means of our language(s), we will understand the processes that are the basis of communication and emotion, from neural processes to facial expressions, bodily expressions, and the human voice. 
  • Syllabus
MUS 1610: An Echo of the Invisible World: Exploring the Relationship between Music & Spirituality
  • Instructor: Charles Pickeral, Music
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International 
  • The Essential Question: How does music move us spiritually? Or, to put it another way: Why do organized sounds have the power to catalyze spiritual experiences? How does music shape our spiritual experience and how do our spiritual beliefs and practices shape our musical taste and aesthetic experiences?
  • Syllabus
PHI 1322: Idea of Happiness
  • Instructor: Nathan Rothschild, Philosophy
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What makes life worth living?
  • Syllabus
PHI 1643: Cultural Animals
  • Instructor: Jonathan Rick, Philosophy
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 words
  • The Essential Question: How do characteristically human practices, like morality, emerge from the complex interplay between biological evolution and cultural development?
PRT 1515: Soccer Explains the World
  • Instructor: Quinn Hansen, Spanish and Portuguese Studies
  • Format: 100% Classroom 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How does soccer exemplify the dynamics of justice and power both on and off the field of play? 
  • Syllabus
REL 1101: Nature, Spirituality, and Popular Culture
  • Instructor: Bron Taylor, Religion 
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous
  •  Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 words
  • The Essential Question: How are cultural creatives involved in popular culture (film, music, novels, museums, etc.) fusing science and spirituality to promote human-nature connections and environmentally sustainable societies - and what do these efforts portend about the planetary future?
  • Syllabus
SPN 1320: Las Américas: Comida y Conflicto
  • Instructor: Paola Uparela, Spanish and Portuguese Studies
  • Format:  Hybrid
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, International
  • The Essential Question: Who has a voice and who does not in deciding how natural resources are to be used? What is the process by which decisions are made about how to use natural resources? What are the criteria for deciding how to use natural resources?
  • Syllabus
THE 1431: Autobiography in Literature & Performance
  • Instructor: Manuel Simons, Theater and Dance
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 words
  • Description: The course explores the ways in which modern and contemporary American artists and writers have utilized self-examination as the basis for artistic creation.  Often merging the factual with the theatrical or dramatic, autobiographical performance and literature personalizes the values, incidents and relationships that shape human experience and give life meaning.
  • Syllabus
CLA 1011: Democracy in Theory and Action
  • Instructor: Ifigeneia Giannadaki, Classics
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is democracy and in what ways has this form of government changed since its birth in ancient Athens? This course offers a comparative approach to democracy (ancient and modern), tackling some of the most pressing issues of our times, illustrating political history and political theory: political thought in action.
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Finding Lost Stories
  • Instructor: Jennifer Coenen, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous 
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: Why do stories from the past matter?
  • Syllabus
LIN 1140: Language and Emotion
  • Instructor: Eleonora Rossi, Linguistics
  • Format: 100% Online
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: How do we express emotions through language? Starting from studying how we express emotions by means of our language(s) we will understand the processes that are the basis of communication and emotion, from neural processes to facial expressions, bodily expressions, and the human voice.
  • Syllabus
REL 1101: Nature, Spirituality, and Popular Culture
  • Instructor: Bron Taylor, Religion 
  • Format: 100% Online, Asynchronous
  •  Gen Ed: Humanities, International, 2000 words
  • The Essential Question: How are cultural creatives involved in popular culture (film, music, novels, museums, etc.) fusing science and spirituality to promote human-nature connections and environmentally sustainable societies - and what do these efforts portend about the planetary future?
  • Syllabus
IDS 1307: Writing Life: Art, Drama, Film, Literature, Poetry, and You
  • Instructor: Carolyn Kelley, University Writing Program
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words 
  • The Essential Question: How do humanities-based texts touch and shape our lives by teaching us about our sense of self and our relationships with other people whose intersectionalities of identity differ from our own? 
  • Syllabus
PHI 1001: Conflict of Ideas
  • Instructor: Rodrigo Borges, Philosophy
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2,000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How can we pursue our disagreements with each other in a. way that is both fair and productive?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: For the Culture
  • Instructor: Drew Brown, AAS
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2,000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is Black Popular Culture and how has it changed the world?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Wisdom and Heroism
  • Instructor: Karl Gunther, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: 

    What does it mean to be wise and what does it mean to live heroically?

  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: What is the Common Good?
  • Instructor: Carlos Casanova, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities
  • The Essential Question: What is the common good and how is it harmonized with individual rights?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Why Spy?
  • Instructor: Meghan Herwig, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: Why spy?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Rhetoric and Leadership
  • Instructor: Robert Stone, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How do leaders use rhetoric to persuade others? What role does the art of rhetoric have in the making of politics, art, and community? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Religious Freedom in Historical Perspective
  • Instructor: Jeffrey Collins, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What does religious freedom mean, and how has its definition evolved through history?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Religion, Revolution and the Person
  • Instructor: Ana Siljak, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What does it mean to be a ‘person’? How does the person relate to other people, to society, and to God?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Politics of Nature
  • Instructor: Amy Chandran, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How does our conception of nature shape our political realities and fortunes?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Immortality
  • Instructor: Mattias Gassman, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is immortality? Can we live forever? What would it mean to live forever, and should we want to? What part of us would live on -- and who, after all, are we?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The End of Empires: Imperialism to Decolonization
  • Instructor: Barnaby Crowcroft, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How can we explain this transformation? What is the nature of the political world in which we now live? How is it different to those that have come before – and why? What does it mean for a political community to be independent? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: What is Democracy?
  • Instructor: Adam Lebovitz, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question:  Does it signify direct rule by the people in a massive assembly? Rule by elected representatives?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: The Crisis of Liberalism
  • Instructor: Gianna Englert, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What exactly is liberalism, and what is the source of its “crisis”? Is liberalism responsible for its own failures? Does it encourage too much individualism? Does it lead to the dissolution of community, family, and religion? Does it promote exclusion and inequality? Has liberalism led us inevitably toward an illiberal future? What, if anything, can be done to preserve the liberal values of freedom and equality?
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: Romanticism: The Storm of Feeling
  • Instructor: David Dusenbury, Hamilton Center 
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2000 Words
  • The Essential Question: What is the place of feeling in modern life? What is the value of desiring things we can never have, or mourning things we have already lost? Can even positive experiences of love, longing, and awe create a “storm”? And can negative emotions like fear, dread, and confusion have a positive meaning? 
  • Syllabus
IDS 2935: God and Science
  • Instructor: James Hooks, Hamilton Center
  • Format: 100% Classroom
  • Gen Ed: Humanities, 2,000 Words
  • The Essential Question: How does belief in God shape the way one views the natural world?
  • Syllabus

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