Humanities Residential College

2023-24 Foundation Seminars

• COURSE REF #15481: The Bad Place: Hell and the History of Incarceration

  This course explores the history of hell by tracing its beginnings in Greek & Roman mythology, its development within the Hebrew Bible and later literature of Judaism, and its forceful expression in the traditions of Christianity and Islam. We will also analyze the enduring legacy of hell in the American imagination and, especially, its relationship to the history of incarceration. Our goal is not to debate the existence of hell but rather to understand the role that the idea of hell has played in shaping human beliefs, cultures and politics about punishment and moral or spiritual reformation from the past to the present. We will read primary sources from the ancient world and academic analysis of religious histories, and we will watch films and analyze artwork that depicts hell. Students will consider how religious attitudes to hell have contributed to the modern crisis of mass incarceration.

  Instructor: Professor John Penniman, religious studies

   

• COURSE REF #15425: Gender Revolutionaries

  This writing-centered first-year seminar focuses on embodied revolutions and gendered revolutionaries. As part of the Humanities Residential College, the course emphasizes textual and artistic portrayals of characters and events — some fictional, some not — that challenge the gender, sex and sexuality status quo. From Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness to Chanel Miller’s Know My Name, the course material examines why and how people revolt against normative expectations surrounding gender, sex and sexuality, often altering their bodies and lives in significant ways and risking their safety, all in service of seeking authenticity, autonomy and justice. At the heart of the course is a meditation on the power of social construction to shape identity and the determination of individuals to challenge expectations, discover their true selves and bring their desires to fruition.

  Instructor: Professor Erica Delsandro, women's & gender studies

   

• COURSE REF #15687: Speech, Harm, University

  The United States is currently in the grip of an extended national conversation about the limits and contours of free expression. Questions about the first amendment, academic freedom, cancel culture, hate speech, and the power of words to harm are front and center. From controversial campus speakers to student performances to everyday interactions, campus life is filled with the interplay of free expression and the potential for harm. What is the relationship between speech and harm? How does that relationship develop on a university campus? And how do we — as members of both Bucknell and society at large, and as students, faculty and staff — navigate that relationship? In this course, we will think about those questions, along with who gets to speak, who is listened to, how to understand the meaning of words and actions, and what it all says about community. While these issues often understandably provoke intense and passionate responses, they can also benefit from the sort of reflection that the classroom setting enables. They also, of course, are issues of longstanding concern. We will discuss classic defenses of free expression like John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty in addition to thinking about how words are more than they might seem at first, in that they can actually do things in addition to expressing ideas. We will also look at some of the legal precedents surrounding free speech and free expression, protection and belonging, as well as a sampling of the many articles written in the past few years on cancel culture and the freedom of expression in popular media. Over the course of the semester, we will work together on constructing a workable guide to free expression that could be put to use at Bucknell.

  Instructor: Professor Adam Burgos, philosophy