Below are the WAYS 101 Seminars that will be offered in Spring 2026.
Socrates’ last words were about it. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it. But, only recently has the chicken become humanity’s most important single source of protein. This course will explore the fascinating saga of the modern chicken and the wicked problems which arose because of its domestication. We will develop critical thinking skills to tackle such moral quandaries as the commercialized meat industry, humanity’s role as a preserver of other species, and the emergence of zoonotic diseases, like avian influenza.
This course introduces students to the history of the theory and practice of fascism on a global scale. We examine the origins of fascism in fin-de-siècle Europe, its proliferation during the 1920s and 1930s, as well as its unfolding in the Americas and other parts of the world. We will examine the history of fascist ideas and structures in Italy, Germany, and the United States in more detail. Moving beyond the Hollywood cliché of fascism, as a sensationalized and transhistorical metaphor for “evil,” we will explore the specific conditions that incubated past forms of fascism.