Close-up view of student’s face as they listen during a First-Year Seminar.
First-Year Seminars are designed to intensify the intellectual experience of incoming students by allowing them to work closely with faculty members. They are also the ideal space to explore interests and engage with other First-Years. First-Year seminars are graded SAT/UNS and may not be audited. Only students in their first-year in the College may take a seminar in either or both of the terms. Each seminar is worth 4 units of credit. Enrollment is limited to 12-15 students.
Apply to both Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 First-Year Seminars via the FYSP application system:
July 7 – August 7, 2025 at 11:59PM-midnight.
You may apply to as many seminars each term as you would like, but we recommend you apply to at least six in fall and three in spring.
As part of your application, you must provide a brief statement on why you are interested in each seminar. You will be notified of lottery results for both fall and spring seminars at 10am on Mon, August 11th. If you are unsuccessful in the lottery, you may still join any seminar with open seats. A list of open seminars and instructions on next steps will be available on the First-Year Seminar Program website on August 12th, 10:00am.
Seminar Catalog
Use the “Filter by Semester” drop-down to show Fall 2025 or Spring 2026 seminars.
116 results found.
#Adulting: Social Science Perspectives on the Transition to Adulthood
Nancy Hill (Harvard Graduate School of Education)First-Year Seminar 72U | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 3:00 PM–5:00 PM
Debates about when adolescence ends and adulthood begins often lead to judgements about how long youth today are taking to reach adulthood and uncertainties about what it means to become. . . READ MORE
A Brief History of Surgery
Frederick Millham (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 24G | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 06:00 PM–08:00 PM
Was Surgery practiced in the Stone Age? Twenty six hundred years ago at the dawn of recorded history, Egyptian surgeons operated on patients by the shores of the Nile. What diagnoses. . . READ MORE
A Whale Ship Was My Yale College and My Harvard
Joyce Chaplin (Department of History)First-Year Seminar 72C (Fall Term)| Enrollment limited to 15
Tuesday, 9:45-11:45am CANVAS SITE
Could we curtail fossil fuel emissions by reviving sailing technologies? What would that be like? Would reviving the old technology give new life to the old problems. . . READ MORE
Abortion in Controversy
Stephen E. Sachs (Harvard Law School)First-Year Seminar 73Y (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Tuesday, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM CANVAS SITE
Today the law of abortion in America is more in flux than it has been for decades. Educated citizens should have opportunities to study the issue in detail and to decide what they think. This seminar is designed to help first-year students discuss, in an academic setting,… READ MORE
Against Tech?
Eric Moses Gurevitch (Department of the History of Science)First-Year Seminar 58D (Fall Term) CANVAS SITE
Monday, 3-5:45 CANVAS SITE
Do machines make life easier or more difficult? Do new technologies create jobs or destroy them? Do we lose a part of our humanity when we interact with machines, or do machines help us to understand what it means to be human? … READ MORE
Americans at Work in the Age of Robots and Artificial Intelligence
Benjamin Friedman (Department of Economics)First-Year Seminar 71G | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 03:00 PM–05:00 PM
Where will the coming generation of Americans (say, today’s 18-year-olds) find jobs? And will the jobs be worth having? People have worried about losing their jobs to technology at least. . . READ MORE
Animals in Religion and Mythology
Kimberley Patton (Harvard Divinity School)First-Year Seminar 66E (Spring Term) CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
In the very earliest time, when both people and animals lived on earth, a person could become an animal if he wanted to and an animal could become a human being.. . .
Animation—Getting Your Hands on Time
Ruth Lingford(Department Art, Film, and Visual Studies)First-Year Seminar 33O (Spring Term) CANVAS SITE
Meeting Time TBD
Students in this practice-based seminar will experiment with a variety of animation techniques, gaining new perspectives on time in the process.… READ MORE
Antisemitism, Then and Now
Derek Penslar(Department of History)First-Year Seminar 73V | 4 Credits | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 3-5
Why do people hate each other? Why are some groups of people more likely to be hated than others? … READ MORE
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Myths, Media and Meaning
Anne Arnett (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 52Z | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 03:00 PM–05:00 PM
This first-year seminar will dive into the science and fiction of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) through engagement with multiple sources, including research articles and reports, social media, news media. . . READ MORE
Big Data, Tall Tales
Andrea Foulkes (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)First-Year Seminar 53F | 4 Credits (Fall Term) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 09:45 AM–11:45 AM
Students in this seminar will get their hands dirty playing with data as we explore how to be judicious consumers of it. The huge swaths of data now available allow us to tell stories. . . READ MORE
Black Holes, String Theory and the Fundamental Laws of Nature
Andrew Strominger (Department of Physics)First-Year Seminar 21V | 4 Credits (Fall Term) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 5:30 PM–8:00 PM
The quest to understand the fundamental laws of nature has been ongoing for centuries. This seminar will assess the current status of this quest. In the first five weeks we. . . READ MORE
Broadway Musicals: History and Performance
Carol Oja (Department of Music) First-Year Seminar 34V 4 Credits (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12Tuesday, 9:45-11:45 AM CANVAS SITE
This seminar explores a group of canonical Broadway musicals, pairing historical and musical discussions with staging of individual scenes. . . . READ MORE
Can Art Inspire Justice?
Sarah E. Lewis (Department of History of Art and Architecture and of African and African American Studies)First-Year Seminar 62M (Spring Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12 Tuesday, 9:45-11:45 CANVAS SITE
How do images—photographs, films, videos—create narratives that shape our definition of national belonging? Social media has changed how we ingest images.…READ MORE
Caravaggio and the Beginning of Modern Art
Peter Burgard (Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures)First-Year Seminar 64R (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 15
Wednesday, 12:30-2:30 CANVAS SITE
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known simply as Caravaggio, in a career of less than two decades at the turn of the 17th century, revolutionized the art of painting…READ MORE
Cartoons, Folklore, and Mythology
Joseph Nagy (Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures)First-Year Seminar 61F (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Thursday, 03:00 PM–05:00 PM CANVAS SITE
The creators of cinematic (and later TV) animation have perennially turned to traditional oral and literary tales about fantastic heroes, villains, tricksters, and settings for their story material. In. . . READ MORE
Catholic Thought for Contemporary Challenges
Karin Öberg (Department of Astronomy)First-Year Seminar 65S | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 12:00 PM – 02:45 PM
Does God exist? If yes, what or who is God? Where does the Universe come from? Are we alone in the Universe? What is a good life? Are there universal. . . READ MORE
Changing Perspectives: The Science of Optics in the Visual Arts
Aravinthan Samuel (Department of Physics)First-Year Seminar 51X Spring Term Enrollment: Limited to 15 CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 12:45-2:45
Renaissance artists began to create stunningly realistic representations of their world. Paintings started to resemble photographs, suggesting that artists had solved technical problems that escaped their forebears.…READ MORE
Climate Action: Mitigation, Adaptation, and Compensation
Jonathan Masin-Peters (Social Students)First-Year Seminar 73N (Fall Term) CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 3:00-5:00 PM
You are part of the so-called “pivotal generation” for preventing the worst effects of climate change. While global carbon emissions continue to rise yearly, there remains a small window of. . . READ MORE
Collecting the Past
Adrian Staehli (Department of the Classics)First-Year Seminar 51X (Spring Term) Enrollment: Limited to 15 CANVAS SITE Wednesday, 3-5
This seminar will explore different historical practices of collecting and displaying Greek and Ro-man art and artefacts from the earliest periods of antiquity through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to most recent times, …READ MORE
Complexity in Works of Art: Ulysses and Hamlet
Philip Fisher (Department of English)First-Year Seminar 33X (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Thursday, 09:45 AM–11:45 AM CANVAS SITE
Is the complexity, the imperfection, the difficulty of interpretation, the unresolved meaning found in certain great and lasting works of literary art a result of technical experimentation? Or is the. . . READ MORE
Corporate Power & Human Rights—Community Resistance and Social Movements
Tyler Giannini (Harvard Law School)First-Year Seminar 72P | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 09:00 AM–11:30 AM
How do the seemingly most marginalized take on the most powerful corporations in the world and win? In this seminar, we will delve into this question and what drives community resistance. . . READ MORE
Crime and Justice in a Changing America
Robert SampsonFirst-Year Seminar 73S (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Monday, 3:00–5:00 PM CANVAS SITE
This seminar examines key changes in crime and the criminal justice system over the last half-century, including the dramatic rise in violence starting in the 1960s, mass incarceration starting in. . . READ MORE
Death and Immortality
Cheryl Chen (Department of Philosophy)First-Year Seminar 30Q | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 12:45 PM–02:45 PM
In this seminar, we will discuss philosophical questions about death and immortality. What is death? Is there a moral difference between brain death and the irreversible loss of consciousness? Is. . . READ MORE
Death: Its Nature and Significance
Jeffrey Behrends (Department of the Philosophy)First-Year Seminar 60S (Spring Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12 Thursday, 12-2 CANVAS SITE
Here’s a hard truth: You are going to die. That’s nothing against you, of course. I’m going to die, too, and so is everyone else ‐ it’s just the way of things for creatures like us.…READ MORE
Deciding What (and Who) to Believe
Zoë Johnson King (Department of Philosophy)First-Year Seminar 65G (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Wednesday, 12:45-2:45 PM CANVAS SITE
Its hard to know what to believe these days. Information or perhaps misinformation bombards us at all times, but assessing the reliability and trustworthiness of our sources is notoriously difficult. . . READ MORE
Declarations of Independence: The Political Philosophy of the American Revolution
CANVAS SITEAs the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence approaches in 2026, this seminar will examine that familiar document in some unfamiliar contexts.…READ MORE
Detention, Deportation, and Due Process: A Look at the Innerworkings of the U.S. Immigration System
Sabrineh Ardalan (Harvard Law School)First-Year Seminar 66D (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Thursday, 9:30-11:30 PM CANVAS SITE
The public discourse on immigration is widespread and divisive. If you have ever wanted to know more about how our immigration system operates, its faults, and potential ways to fix. . . READ MORE
Detention, Deportation, and Due Process: A Look at the Innerworkings of the U.S. Immigration System and How it Can be Changed
Philip Torrey (Harvard Law School)First-Year Seminar 66D (Spring Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Thursday, 9:30-11:30 AM CANVAS SITE
The public discourse on immigration is widespread and divisive. If you have ever wanted to know more about how our immigration system operates, then this seminar is for you.. . . READ MORE
Digging Egypt’s Past: Harvard and Egyptian Archaeology
CANVAS SITEMysterious pyramids, colossal royal statues, tiny gold jewelry, decorated tomb chapels, temples, settlements, fortresses, and hieroglyphic inscriptions. This was the excavation legacy in Egypt and Sudan of the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Expedition.…READ MORE
Dilemmas in the World’s Economy
CANVAS SITEStandards of living vary greatly across countries, they rise fast in some and slowly in others. Economic growth has historically been related to the expansion of international commerce as well as industrialization and institutional reforms.…READ MORE
Does Freud Matter?
CANVAS SITEFreud may be dead, but psychoanalysis as a perspective, resource, and—to a lesser degree—practice is very much alive, offering powerful accounts of paradoxical and difficult to understand aspect of human behavior and social relations.…READ MORE
Earth Science Goes to the Movies: Math and Physics of Natural (?) Disasters
Miaki Ishii (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences)First-Year Seminar 23I | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 03:00 PM–05:45 PM
Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions can have devastating effects on society, but are often over-exaggerated for the silver screen. How can we tell. . . READ MORE
Economics of Religion
CANVAS SITEThe social-science approach to religion seeks to explain how religions evolve, make us richer or poorer, and influence the daily lives of people around the world. A controversial, but useful, approach views organized religion as a market in which alternative religions and non-religion compete for customer business. …READ MORE
Everyday I’m Hustlin’: Pop Culture, Youth, and the African City
CANVAS SITECities today face broad challenges ranging from public health emergencies (e.g. Covid-19), to anti-police brutality protests (e.g. #ICan’tBreathe), and unemployment.…READ MORE
Evolution, Buddhism and Ethics
John R. Wakeley> (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)First-Year Seminar 21I | 4 Credits (Fall & Spring Terms)
Enrollment: Limited to 12 Wednesday, 12:45-2:45
FALL CANVAS SITE SPRING CANVAS SITE
Evolutionary genetics traces back to Darwin’s (1859) idea of natural selection. Darwin provided a compelling theory about how species change due to competition in reproducing populations, yet it remains difficult to understand, particularly when applied to ourselves.…READ MORE
Exploring the Infinite
Peter Koellner (Department of Philosophy)First-Year Seminar 23C (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Wednesday, 3:45–5:45 CANVAS SITE
Infinity captivates the imagination. A child stands between two mirrors and sees herself reflected over and over again, smaller and smaller, trailing off to infinity. Does it go on forever?. . . READ MORE
Fanfiction
Anna Wilson (Department of English)First-Year Seminar 66H (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12 Tuesday, 9:45-11:45 CANVAS SITE
Fanfiction is one of the most popular forms of literature today, with fourteen million stories hosted on just the Archive of Our Own (one of the major digital fanfiction archives).…READ MORE
Fat Talk and Thin Ideals: Culture, Social Norms and Weight
Anne Becker (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 71X (Spring Term) CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 09:45 AM–11:45 AM
In 1995, the Fiji Islands were one of the last places on the planet to receive broadcast television. Within just three years, body weight ideals had transformed from large to thin. . . READ MORE
Finding Connections: Perspectives on Psychological Development and Mental Illness
Nancy Rappaport (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 25N (Fall Term)
Tuesday, 3:00–05:00 PM CANVAS SITE
The seminars challenge will be to deepen our understanding of human development and how individuals cope with serious emotional or social difficulties (neglect, bipolar disorder, autism, depression, schizophrenia). We will. . . READ MORE
From Gods to Satire: Artistic Engagements With Political Power
Shai Dromi (Department of Sociology)First-Year Seminar 73H (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 15 Tuesday, 3-5:30 CANVAS SITE
In this seminar, we will explore the fascinating ways in which art has been used to express, critique, and reflect upon political power.…READ MORE
Fun With Writing… or, Writing for Weirdos
Phillip Howze (Department of Theater, Dance & Media)First-Year Seminar 64Q | 4 Credits (Spring Term) | CANVAS SITE
Mtg Time TBD
Writing can be fun. Writing can be weird. By writing, we don’t only mean the act of putting pen to paper, or fingers to computer keys to type. Writing is. . . READ MORE
Gender Politics, Race, and Moral Panics in the World of Sports
Roberto Sirvent( Committee on Degrees in the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 74I (Spring Term) Limited to 12
Monday, 6-8pm CANVAS SITE
What does race have to do with sports gambling and fantasy football? Why do fans and the media get upset when elite athletes wish to take mental health breaks?…READ MORE
Genuinely Hard Problems in Science
Jeff Lichtman(Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology)Logan McCarty (Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology)
First-Year Seminar 58C (Offered in Fall & Spring Terms) Enrollment: Limited to 12 Wednesday, 9:15-11:15 FALL CANVAS SITE SPRING CANVAS SITE
This seminar explores some of science’s most significant unsolved challenges: Genuinely Hard Problems (GHPs) that have stumped researchers despite their best efforts.…READ MORE
Global Capitalism: Past, Present, Future
Sophus Reinert (Harvard Business School)First-Year Seminar 71M (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Wednesday, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM CANVAS SITE
Few forces have shaped the world over the past millennium more than capitalism has, yet few terms remain more elusive and more divisive. Today, less than half of young Americans . . . READ MORE
Global Health: Comparative Analysis of Healthcare Delivery Systems
Sanjay Saini (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 27I (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 15
Monday, 12:00 PM–2:45 PM CANVAS SITE
This interactive seminar will allow students to obtain greater understanding of challenges faced by US healthcare system through critical comparative analysis of healthcare systems of selected countries from the developed. . . READ MORE
Harvard Collects: Exploring History and Culture in Museums, Libraries, and Archives
Chloe Chapin (Department of History)First-Year Seminar 66M (Spring Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12 Tuesday, 12-2:45 PM CANVAS SITE
Harvard’s libraries, museums, and archives are some of the oldest and largest in the world, with more than 2 million museum objects, 20 million books, 22 million specimens, and 400 million manuscript items. Why does Harvard have so many things?…READ MORE
Harvard’s Greatest Hits: The Most Important, Rarest, and Most Valuable Books in Houghton Library
David Stern (Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and of Comparative Literature)First-Year Seminar 62J (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12 Thursday, 3-5:45 CANVAS SITE
Have you ever fantasized of turning the pages of a Gutenberg Bible with your own fingers? Or a medieval illustrated Book of Hours? Or touching a papyrus fragment of Homer? Or a First Folio edition of Shakespeare? Or seeing close-up Copernicus’ diagram of the heliocentric universe?…READ MORE
History, Nationalism, and the World: The Case of Korea
Sun Joo Kim (Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations)First-Year Seminar 43W (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Monday, 3-5:30 CANVAS SITE
This seminar will explore the quandary that faces all historians: To what extent is the understanding of past episodes influenced by current politics and to what extent is current . . . READ MORE
Holding Politicians Accountable
Julie Weaver (Department of Government)First-Year Seminar 72X (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Wednesday, 12:45 PM–02:45 PM CANVAS SITE
Across the world, massive street protests and growing disdain for politics not only suggest high citizen dissatisfaction with politicians performance from poor public services, high corruption, and increasing crime but highlight the. . . READ MORE
How Did I Get Here?”—Appreciating “Normal” Child Development
Laura Prager(Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 24U (Spring Term) Tuesday, 3:45-5:45pm CANVAS SITE
Understanding “normal” growth and development may seem like a relatively easy task at first. We take the nuances of developmental differences for granted because we’re so accustomed to experiencing them. . . READ MORE
How Wars End: The Role of Negotiation
Robert Mnookin (Harvard Law School)First-Year Seminar 73Q (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Tuesday, 3:00-5:00 PM CANVAS SITE
This seminar will explore the role of negotiation in terminating wars. It is commonly thought that wars end after a decisive military battle produces a conclusive victory – one side surrenders. . . READ MORE
Human Learning in the Age of AI
Talia Konkle (Department of Psychology)First-Year Seminar 74F (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12 Mtg Time TBD CANVAS SITE
In what ways can generative AI models, like ChatGPT, be a useful educational tool to accelerate and enhance your learning? We’ll overview how these models work, and the surprisingly simple principles underlying their remarkable capacities.…READ MORE
Human Rights, Law and Advocacy
Susan Farbstein (Harvard Law School)First-Year Seminar 41K (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Wednesday, 12:30–2:30 PM CANVAS SITE
Human rights practitioners confront numerous ethical, strategic, and legal dilemmas in their struggles for social justice. This freshman seminar explores the underlying legal frameworks in which human rights advocates operate. . . READ MORE
Humans at Play
Ekaterina Pirozhenko(Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures)First-Year Seminar 66N (Fall Term) CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 9:45-11:45
We will play with the word “play.” What do we play (an instrument? a game?), who do we play (an enemy? a friend?), where do we play (at home, on stage, in the park?)…READ MORE
Insights from Narratives of Illness
Jerome Groopman (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 23K (Spring Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Thursday, 12:45 PM–02:45 PM CANVAS SITE
A physician occupies a unique perch, regularly witnessing life’s great mysteries: the miracle of birth, the perplexing moment of death, and the struggle to find meaning in suffering. It is no wonder that narratives of illness have been of interest to both physician and non-physician writers. . .READ MORE
Is Being Good Actually Good for the Body?
Immaculata De Vivo (Harvard Medical School and T.H. Chan School of Public Health)First-Year Seminar 66I (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
Tuesday, 3-5 CANVAS SITE
Did you know that kindness is good for your health? Did you know that happiness is contagious? Did you know that music lowers your cortisol levels? The science is in!…READ MORE
Jews in the Modern Middle East and North Africa, 1800-present
Jessica Marglin (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations)First-Year Seminar 66P (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
Thursday, 9:45-11:45 AMCANVAS SITE
Not so long ago, nearly every corner of the Middle East and North Africa was home to thriving Jewish communities who spoke dialects of Arabic, Persian, and Spanish, among other languages; who professed their loyalty to Ottoman sultans, the beys of Tunis, or the sultans of Morocco; and who thought, dreamed, loved, and died according to the rhythms of Muslim-majority societies.…READ MORE
Lasers in the Maya Jungle: Discovering Lost Cities in Mexico and Central America
William L. Fash (Department of Anthropology)First-Year Seminar 73Z (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
Thursday, 9:45-11:45 CANVAS SITE
Aerial born radar (LIDAR) technology has recently been deployed for discovering, mapping, dating, and assigning ethnic affiliations to major sites and cities heretofore unknown to scholars in the jungles of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.…READ MORE
Law and Social Change: How Reform Movements Leverage the Law
Tomiko Brown-Nagin (Harvard Law School)First-Year Seminar 71C | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Legal realists and critical theorists have long argued that the law is a byproduct of society. “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience,” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote.. . . READ MORE
Learning How to Think Like a Scientist: An Introduction to Scientific Research
Section 1: Sien Verschave (Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology) and Dan Kahne (Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology)Section 2: Venkatesh Murthy (Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology) and Katie Quast (Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology)
First-Year Seminar 52T (Spring Term) Enrollment: each section limited to 15
Both sections meet on Wednesday, 3:00 PM–5:45 PM
Sect 1: CANVAS SITE Sect 2: CANVAS SITE
Science courses are typically structured to teach core concepts about the physical world and the living systems in it. The concepts taught result from decades of scientific research. Research is. . . READ MORE
Life and Death Lessons from the Fossil Record
Javier Ortega-Hernández(Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)First-Year Seminar 52L (Spring Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12 Thursday, 9:45-11:45 CANVAS SITE
The fossil record offers a unique perspective on the history of Life on Earth. Although palaeontology might remind us of grotesque bones, dusty museum cabinets, and quirky scientists who relish both of those things…READ MORE
Literature of Spiritual Crisis
Brian FitzGerald (Medieval Studies)First-Year Seminar 53G | 4 Credits (Fall 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 12:45 PM – 2:45 PM
Some of the most important questions of human existence have emerged out of moments of spiritual crisis: What purpose does suffering have? How does one find meaning in life? What. . . READ MORE
Looking for Clues. Ancient and Medieval Art @ Harvard
Evridiki Georganteli (Department of History of Art & Architecture)First-Year Seminar 64I | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 12:00 PM–02:45 PM
Objects are essential primary sources for the study of the past. They are imbued with tales of their makers, of societies in which they took shape, of customs and beliefs. . . READ MORE
Machine Ecology: Autonomous Robots for Environmental Restoration
Nathan Melenbrink (Department of Physics)First-Year Seminar 58E (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
Tuesday, 9:00-11:45 AM CANVAS SITE
Have you ever wondered how technology and innovation can tackle some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges?…READ MORE
Making Monsters in the Atlantic World
Cécile Fromont (History of Art and Architecture)First-Year Seminar 66J (Spring Term) Enrollment: Limited to 15
Tuesday, 12-2:45 PMCANVAS SITE
How and why are monsters made? What can visualizations of monsters tell us about how Otherness is constructed, contested, and critiqued? What do monsters tell us about human oppression, agency, and cross-cultural encounters?…READ MORE
Making Sense of Health Information in the Digital Age
Rebecca Robbins (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 74C (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
Monday, 12;45-2:45CANVAS SITE
Making sense of – and coping with – the often conflicting and seemingly ever-changing information we receive from various sources on health and medical topics can be hard. This seminar will give you the skills to make sense of health and medical information…READ MORE
Measurements of the Mind: The Creation and Critique of the Psychological Test
Marla Eby (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 49N (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Monday, 9:00–11:00 AM CANVAS SITE
For well over a century, psychologists have worked with schools, corporations, immigration officers, the military, and psychiatrists to sort the American population into groups in order to make a number. . . READ MORE
Medicine in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust—Anatomy as Example for Changes in Medical Science
Sabine Hildebrandt (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 23H | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 3:00 PM–5:00 PM
This seminar introduces students to the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust as an extreme example of antisemitism and racism, and of crimes against humanity and genocide. These included. . . READ MORE
Misinformation, Disinformation, and BS in Science Communication
Daniel L. Hartl (Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (FAS) and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)First-Year Seminar 52N (Spring Term) Enrollment: Limited to 15
Wednesday, 9:45-11:45 AMCANVAS SITE
The world these days is awash in hustlers, frauds, scammers, grifters, and thieves. To which there’s no shortage of easy marks, suckers, dupes, and fools. Old-fashioned cons like three-card monte are history. Nowadays the internet has changed the game.…READ MORE
Morality, Leadership, and Gray-Area Decisions
Joseph Badaracco (Harvard Business School)First-Year Seminar 70K | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 03:45 PM–05:45 PM
Everyone with serious responsibilities, at work and throughout their lives, faces gray area decisions. In organizations, these highly uncertain, high-stakes decisions are delegated upward, to men and women in leadership . . . READ MORE
My Genes and Cancer
Giovanni Parmigiani (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)First-Year Seminar 22H | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 03:45 PM–05:45 PM
The effect of a persons genetic background on whether they will develop cancer, and when, is at the center of scientific and societal dilemmas which will be explored in this seminar. . . READ MORE
Narrative Negotiations: How do Readers and Writers Decide on What are the Most Important Voices and Values Represented in a Narrative?
Homi Bhabha(English and Comparative Literature),br> First-Year Seminar 63N (Spring Term) Enrollment limited to 12Wednesday, 3:00–5:00 PM CANVAS SITE
Narrative Negotiations explores narrative “voice” in a wide range of literary and cultural texts. Narrative voice is a lively dialogue between the author and the reader as they engage in the experience of determining the value and veracity of the narrative… READ MORE
Natural History Museums and the Anthropocene
Charles Davis (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)First-Year Seminar 51S | 4 Credits (Fall) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 12:00 PM–02:45 PM
Natural history museums have inspired us for centuries and represent our best resources for understanding nature. They have been central to the development of countless scientific principles, including the theory. . . READ MORE
Oil and Empire
Rosie Bsheer (Department of History)First-Year Seminar 72Z | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
THIS SEMINAR HAS BEEN CANCELLED.
What is the relationship between oil and empire? How has control over oilthe single most important commodity in the worldshaped the nature of power, politics, and environmental and social life. . . READ MORE
Paris
Hannah Frydman (Romance Languages and Literatures)First-Year Seminar 66G (Spring Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
Wednesday, 9:45-11:45 AMCANVAS SITE
The world these days is awash in hustlers, frauds, scammers, grifters, and thieves. To which there’s no shortage of easy marks, suckers, dupes, and fools. Old-fashioned cons like three-card monte are history. Nowadays the internet has changed the game.…READ MORE
Physics, Math and Puzzles
Cumrun Vafa (Department of Physics)First-Year Seminar 23P | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 06:00 PM–08:00 PM
This seminar is recommended for students with a strong background in both math and physics and with keen interest in the relation between the two subjects.
Physics is a highly developed branch of science with a broad range of applications. Despite the complexity of the universe the fundamental laws of physics are rather simple, if viewed. . . READ MORE
Preserving Latin America: Archives and the Politics of Memory
Alejandra Vela Martinez (Department of Romance Languages & Literatures)First-Year Seminar 65T | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 12:00 PM–02:00 PM
In the wake of the global reopening post-pandemic around 2021, a video emerged online capturing an incident at the Weltmuseum Wien. A visitor had placed a post-it note on the. . . READ MORE
Quaternions and Finite Projective Planes
Paul Bamberg (Department of Mathematics)First-Year Seminar 53C | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 03:00 PM–05:00 PM
Projective planes were discovered by Renaissance artists who needed to depict tiled floors on canvas. Quaternions, discovered in the nineteenth century, were used by physicists to represent rotations in three. . . READ MORE
Race Science: A History
Alejandro de la Fuente (Department of African and African American Studies)First-Year Seminar 73C | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 09:45 AM–11:45 AM
Race, most social scientists and well-informed people agree, is a social construction with no basis in biology. It is an invention, a political instrument of power and subordination, deployed to. . . READ MORE
Radical Actors: The Role of Public Education in American Social Movements
Nicole Simon (Social Studies)First-Year Seminar 72Y (Spring Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Wednesday, 12:00-2:45 PM CANVAS SITE
In this class, we will explore the role of public schools and educators as catalysts for change in American social movements. How have schools including teachers and students been central to social. . . READ MORE
Reading Indigenous Literatures
Christopher Pexa (Department of English) First-Year Seminar 65O | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITEMonday, 9:45 AM – 11:45 AM
What are Native American and Indigenous literatures, and how might we best understand their/our relationship to U.S. and Canadian national literatures? How may we read Native American and Indigenous literatures . . . READ MORE
Reading the History of Boston
Jason Ur (Anthropology)First-Year Seminar 73U (Spring Term) CANVAS SITE
Monday, 3:00 PM – 5:45 PM
Why do Boston, Cambridge, and the towns in the Greater Boston region look the way they do? How did this urban landscape evolve, from the seasonal home of mobile Indigenous. . . READ MORE
Regulating Online Conduct: Speech, Privacy, and the Use and Sharing of Content
Christopher Bavitz (Harvard Law School)First-Year Seminar 70Z | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 09:00 AM–11:00 AM
In the course of a few short decades, the Internet has become integral to significant swaths of human experience. It has radically altered modes of interpersonal engagement, democratized access to. . . READ MORE
Religion, Neuroscience, and the Human Mind
David Lamberth (Harvard Divinity School)First-Year Seminar 63E | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 03:00 PM–05:30 PM
More than 150 years after Darwins epochal account of evolution, over 85% of the worlds 7 billion people are still religious, and the percentage is growing. What does religion do for. . . READ MORE
Research at the Harvard Forest—Global Change Ecology: Forests, Ecosystem Function, the Future
David Orwig (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)First-Year Seminar 21W | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 9:30 AM – 11:30 AM
The seminar will consist of three weekend field trips (Friday evening through Sunday afternoon) to Harvard Forest and a final mini symposium (Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon) at the Harvard Forest. . . . READ MORE
Rituals and Living the Good Life
Michael Norton (Harvard Business School)First-Year Seminar 71Y (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Thursday, 9:45 AM–11:45 AM CANVAS SITE
Why do we knock on wood for good luck? Why do we put birthday candles on cakes? Why do some cultures use black at funerals while others use only white? Why do. . . READ MORE
Roots & Routes: The Biogeochemistry of Food, From Soil to Plate
Ann Pearson (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences)First-Year Seminar 52Q | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 09:00 AM–11:45 AM
How do we acquire food? As consumers, we depend on the Earth and its biological and chemical networks to generate our food, which in turn influences our cultures and societies. . . READ MORE
Science and Technology Primer for Future Leaders
Hongkun Park (Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology)First-Year Seminar 52E | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 03:00 PM–05:00 PM
We live in a world that is shaped by science and technology. As modern citizens who will lead the U.S. and the world in the coming generation, we should be aware. . .READ MORE
Science in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Brendan Meade (Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences)First-Year Seminar 51C | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 03:00 PM–05:45 PM
Science is focused on discovering and explaining the world around and within us. This has been its goal for hundreds of years and has produced astonishing breakthroughs from population genetics. . . READ MORE
Seeing and Being Scene: Photography, Power, and Liberation in Africa
Marius Kothor (Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality)First-Year Seminar 66L (Fall Term) CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 3:00-5:15
Our world is saturated with photographs. We are photographers, photographed people, and participants in the “event of photography.” But what are photographs exactly?…READ MORE
Shared Prosperity in a Fractured Global Economy
Dani Rodrik(Harvard Kennedy School)First-Year Seminar 73W (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Monday, 12:45-2:45 CANVAS SITE
Can we build a global economic order that promotes equity, poverty reduction, and climate sustainability, all at once?…READ MORE
Skepticism and Knowledge
Catherine Elgin (Harvard Graduate School of Education)First-Year Seminar 31J | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 03:00 PM–05:00 PM
Descartes wrote his Meditations because he realized that, although he had received the best education in the world, much of what he had learned was false or unfounded. This led. . . READ MORE
Skin, Our Largest, Hottest, and Coolest Organ: From Cancer to Cosmetics
David Fisher (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 51M (Fall Term) CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 03:00 PM–05:45 PM
Skin provides a protective barrier that is vital to survival of all multicellular organisms. Its physical properties have been exploited for centuries, from clothing to footballs, and yet skin is. . . READ MORE
Socialism
Stephen Marglin (Department of Economics)First-Year Seminar 73F | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 12:00 PM–02:15 PM
Does socialism have a future?After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the embrace of the market by China, and the definitive turn of the Western European Left towards accommodation with. . . READ MORE
The Art and Craft of Acting
Remo Airaldi (Department of Theater, Dance, and Media)First-Year Seminar 35N | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 03:00 PM–05:30 PM
We’ve all watched a great performance and wondered, How did that actor do that? Acting is undoubtedly the most popular, most widely experienced of the performing arts, and yet, in. . . READ MORE
The Built Environment in the 21st Century
Arthur Segel (Harvard Business School)First-Year Seminar 70P | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 9:45 AM–11:45 AM
The built environment has profound effects on both our daily lives as well as the human condition at large. It determines where and how we live, work, play, and dream. . . READ MORE
The Individual and the Social
Quyen Pham (Department of Philosophy)First-Year Seminar 66F (Spring Term) Enrollment limited to 15
Tuesday, 3:00-5:00 PM CANVAS SITE
How are we related to the groups that we are part of? How do we keep our individuality while sharing a common identity? What opportunities and challenges arise as people come together to form something greater. . . READ MORE
The Physics of Floating: A Collaborative Boat Building Experience
Nathan Melenbrink (Physics)First-Year Seminar 53J (Spring Term) CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 9:00 AM – 11:45 AM
Have you ever wanted to learn how to transform a concept into a functional product using both traditional craftsmanship and advanced digital fabrication techniques? This seminar is designed as an. . . READ MORE
The Quantum Revolution: from Computing to Time Crystals
Norman Yao (Department of Physics)First-Year Seminar 52R | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 12:00 PM–02:00 PM
Quantum mechanics is one of the most precisely tested theories in the history of science. Advances in the laboratory are ushering in a so-called second quantum revolution, making it possible. . . READ MORE
The Role of Government
Oliver Hart (Department of Economics)First-Year Seminar 42C | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 03:00 PM–05:00 PM
Economists have a very positive view of the role of markets. The intellectual foundations of this are the first and second theorems of welfare economics. The purpose of the seminar. . . READ MORE
The Science of Sailing
Jeremy Bloxham (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences)First-Year Seminar 22I | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 06:00 PM–08:00 PM
Explores the application of simple physics to various natural phenomena associated with sailing. Topics addressed range from hydrostatics (e.g. why do boats float?) to meteorology (e.g. why do sea breezes. . . READ MORE
The Scientific Study of Wants and Well-Being
Matthew Rabin (Department of Economics)First-Year Seminar 73R (Term TBD) Enrollment limited to 12
Wednesday, 9:45-11:45 AM CANVAS SITE
This seminar explores what existing research tells us about the determinants of well-being, how they relate to the choices that people make, and how researchers (especially economists) go about quantifying. . . READ MORE
The Story of the Alternating Sign Matrix Conjecture
Lauren K. Williams (Department of Mathematics)First-Year Seminar 51E (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
Thursday, 3:00-5:15 CANVAS SITE
This seminar is intended to illustrate how research in mathematics actually progresses, using recent examples from the field of algebraic combinatorics.…READ MORE
The Transformation of Marketing
Elie Ofek (Harvard Business School)First-Year Seminar 40D | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 3:45 PM–5:45 PM
Marketing, as you will find in this seminar, refers to the set of activities needed to form and sustain a healthy business by fostering meaningful exchanges between the organization and. . . READ MORE
The United States and China
William Kirby (Harvard Business School)First-Year Seminar 73K | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Tuesday, 9:45 AM – 11:45 AM
The United States and China are heirs to a rich history of mutual friendship, alliance, antagonism, and rivalry. Both countries have been shaped and re-shaped by the nature of their. . . READ MORE
The Universe’s Hidden Dimensions
Lisa Randall (Department of Physics)First-Year Seminar 26J (Fall Term)
Monday, 3:00-5:00 PM CANVAS SITE
This seminar will give an overview and introduction to modern physics and cosmology. As with the books, Warped Passages, Knocking on Heavens Door, Higgs Discovery, and Dark Matter and . . . READ MORE
This Is Epic! The World’s Oldest Literature, Then and Now
Céline Debourse (Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations)First-Year Seminar 65Q | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Wednesday, 03:00 PM–05:45 PM
Stories shape the way we make sense of the world. They also offer windows onto worlds unknown, bringing us closer to people and experiences that are far removed from us. In this. . . READ MORE
U.S. Climate Change Policy and the Energy Transition
James H. Stock (Department of Economics)First-Year Seminar 42H | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 06:00 PM–08:00 PM
Burning fossil fuels powered 150 years of unprecedented economic growth but left a legacy of ever-increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Those gases are changing our climate and. . . READ MORE
Understanding the Seemingly Impossible: A Revolution in Biology
Craig Hunter (Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology)First-Year Seminar 51F | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Occasionally a scientific discovery is so unexpected that it is seemingly unexplainable.This seminar will revisit one such event, the discovery of RNA interference and how modern experimental molecular genetics cracked. . . READ MORE
Unequal Origins: Pregnancy, Poverty and Child Health
Margaret McConnell (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)First-Year Seminar 73L (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12 br> Thursday, 03:00 PM–05:00 PM CANVAS SITE
The US has worse pregnancy and child outcomes than any other high-income country in the world. Is this because we spend less providing direct income support to families than other high-income. . . READ MORE
Unlocking the Power of Immunology – From Fundamental Principles to Innovative Research Routes
Kazuki Nagashima (Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology) First-Year Seminar 57Z | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITEMondays, 03:00–05:00 PM
Immunology stands at the forefront of cutting-edge science, offering game-changing solutions like mRNA vaccines for COVID-19. In today’s world, where global challenges demand innovative responses, researchers are eager to delve. . . READ MORE
What Is Beauty?
Francesco Erspamer (Department of Romance Languages & Literatures)First-Year Seminar 35E | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 12:00 PM–02:00 PM
Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder but neither is it a property of things; it is a device for realizing that there are not just individuality and. . . READ MORE
What is it Like to Not Be Human? Metamorphosis in Myth & Poetry
Daniel Carranza(Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures)First-Year Seminar 64S (Fall Term) Enrollment limited to 12
Wednesday, 3:00-5:00 CANVAS SITE
If trees could speak, what would they say? How does that annoying fly buzzing around perceive the room you both inhabit-perceive you?…READ MORE
When Bad things Happen Early in Life: The Effects of Early Adversity on Brain and Behavioral
Charles Nelson (Harvard Medical School)First-Year Seminar 43F | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 12:00 PM–02:45 PM
Decades of research tell us that the foundations of healthy development are built early in life. Genes provide the basic blueprint for brain architecture, but experiences shape the activity of the genome and thus determine how the circuitry is wired. Significant adversity can derail developmental processes and distort brain maturation, leading to limited economic and social mobility. . . . READ MORE
Why We Animals Sing
Brian Farrell (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)First-Year Seminar 22T | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 09:45 AM–11:45 AM
We do not sing alone. On land, four kinds of animals produce songs or calls: birds, frogs, mammals, and insects. Some of these (and fish) also do so underwater. The . . . READ MORE
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