Below are the WAYS 102 Seminars that will be offered in Spring 2026.
This course examines city life in Africa since 1900ce. Africa is the world's fastest-urbanizing continent, which means the western world's tendency to focus on rural villages, safaris, or lions is missing what's really happening, from malls to traffic jams to middle class suburbs. We'll look at the evolution of cities, portrayals of urban life, and examine issues some of Africa's biggest cities (including Lagos, Johannesburg, and Cairo) have been facing.
The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, the Mothman---these are the names of just some of the elusive creatures that stalk through humanity’s imagination. The uncanny, the unknown, the misunderstood creatures of myth have fascinated and inspired scientists, artists, and authors alike for centuries. This course will explore the role cryptids and mythical creatures play in the human consciousness, the similarities that link some of our greatest fears across cultures, and the biology upon which many of these monsters are based. We will develop skills to research, analyze, and construct written arguments about cryptids from a variety of habitats around the world. We will also explore the numerous techniques writers employ to capture ideas and thoughts into organized prose and implement those skills to create written works of our own.
This course introduces you to critical analysis of fandoms and how to write about them in an academic context. We will consider how fans use media to highlight racism, sexism, transphobia, and other oppressive systems. We will also examine fan practices of composition as a model for public writing.
This course will investigate some of the weird, the wild, the mysterious, the unusual, the too-good-to-be-true occurrences that, at least, some people have believed for a time. You'll develop reading, writing, and critical thinking skills as we reveal the facts behind a number of famous, infamous, and less-famous frauds and hoaxes. The topics for the course will largely come from the realms of archaeology and anthropology, but, from time to time, we will draw upon examples from other related academic disciplines.
In Language and the Human mind, as we learn about the writing process we will also learn about the fascinating relationship between language, thought, and worldview. Does the language you speak impact how you perceive and interact with the world? Does the language you speak affect how you experience time, physical features such as color, or even your ability to save money for the future? What is special about human languages, and how are these different from other animal communication systems? How are language, worldview, and culture intertwined, and what do we lose when a language dies? How important is language preservation to maintain cultural and linguistic diversity in the world?
Why do women write science fiction? Ursula LeGuin, author of The Left Hand of Darkness, suggests that science fiction is really a thought experiment about the present, and the writers we will study tackle such relevant issues as gender identity, reproduction, and the environment.
Why do we “watch” birds? Many years ago, we identified a bird after shooting it and examining it on a table in a lab. Eventually someone asked: do we have to kill the birds first? Then we started to identify birds in the field, which led to field guides that provided systematic ways to identify birds. Then, birdwatching became birding. What's the difference? When and how did this happen? Finally, birders became citizen scientists, providing their observations to scientists, such as those at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology via eBird, who then use these data to study birds. Does this really help the birds? Or could it sometimes harm them if word got out about a particularly vulnerable bird?