First-Year Seminar: Short Stories and Contemporary Social Problems

We will read short stories and social science articles that address social problems such as child-rearing; social mobility; mass incarceration and race; the opiate crisis; tradition versus science. Students will explore the different ways in which literature, the humanities and the social sciences construct issues of social relevance, the opportunities and limits of these constructions, and what might be gained by using each to understand and respond to these issues.