Three 360° course clusters will run this spring: Coasts in Transition, Europe from the Margins, and Origins of Freedom. Below are brief summaries of each of them, along with the links to the applications.
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All applications must be submitted by Wednesday, Nov. 8, at noon.
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Students will be notified about admission decisions by Monday, Nov. 13.
Coasts in Transition (Tom Mozdzer, Pedro Marenco)
Coastlines, by definition transitional environments, are naturally dynamic and resilient. But climate change, sea level rise and shifting species distributions are now causing rapid physical and ecological changes to the world’s coasts. Anticipating and addressing these changes requires understanding the physical, chemical and biological processes that interact at the land-sea boundary. This two-course, upper-level science sequence aims to prepare and engage students in meeting these challenges. The cluster includes multiple field research opportunities: an investigation of temperate coastal environments, including barrier islands, estuaries, and saltmarshes of the Mid-Atlantic US coast, from New Jersey to North Carolina; tours and conversation with Smithsonian staff at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (Maryland); week-long travel to Belize to study coral reefs, mangroves, and rainforests on a tropical coast.
Apply
Europe from the Margins (Carol Hager, Anita Kurimay, Qinna Shen)
Established narratives of Europe tend to be Western European and focused on high politics. This cluster changes the focus from structures to stories, using an interdisciplinary approach (incorporating political science, history, and German studies) to critically examine Europe’s past and present from the margins. What does Europe look like from the perspectives of those whose voices are usually missing from mainstream narratives – the disempowered, queers, migrant laborers, artists, refugees, and people from Europe’s eastern and southern peripheries? By inserting and foregrounding perspectives of the historically marginalized along with an examination of their theoretical, cultural, and political contributions to European society, this 360 aims to provide critical analytical tools to not only foster greater understanding of the broader context of modern Europe but to rethink what Europe itself is. The field trip to Berlin will provide an opportunity to examine historical legacies as well as current cultural politics and grassroots initiatives of the marginalized.
Apply
Origins of Freedom (Casey Barrier, Rudy Le Menthéour, Joel Schlosser)
How might human beings live according to nature? Is property natural? Is freedom or unfreedom? How can studying human societies in the past inform collective organization in the present? "Origins of Freedom" examines property, nature, and freedom as concepts for understanding the history of human civilization from the deep past until the present. The courses will converge on a recent magnum opus by anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything. This book recasts the history of humanity, calling into question assumptions dominant since the European Enlightenment about the modern state, human freedom, and the possibility of alternative social orders. Integrating archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, geography, and political theory this cluster investigates the origins of freedom through lenses of individual, social, and political agency as well as the stories we tell (and the evidence we marshal) to support these views.
Apply