COML 1115 - FWS: On Alienation and Empathy

Fall, Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

First-Year Writing Seminar.

Staff.

Have you ever been frustrated with only existing inside your own mind? In this course we will read what authors and thinkers have written about differences between groups of people – like race and gender – and about the difference between any two people, which makes it hard to feel like we “really know” someone. We will write about how these differences relate to each other, and what we would want to change about them. We will read stories that allow us to reach across distance and know something, but also how, in the information age, they demonstrate what we cannot know.

You will learn how to read deeply and critically (poems, short stories, a novel); and how to write clearly and analytically (analyses, comparisons, argumentation). The reading for class will include work from the United States, Israel, South Africa, and Sudan.