Scribner Seminar Program
Course Description
Human Origins: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry
Instructor(s): Phyllis Roth, English
This course will focus on questions stemming from universal human efforts to understand who/what we are. Were we created on the sixth day, or have we evolved over hundreds of thousands of years? How has thinking about these questions changed over time? What can archaeology tell us?What, more recently, genetics?What have been the difficulties in gaining persuasive answers to these questions? In addition to the option of having their own DNA analyzed by the Genographic Project under the aegis of National Geographic, students will engage in reading, laboratory work, field trips, focused discussions, and several and varied writing assignments to gain informed perspectives on disciplinary differences in posing and answering such questions, as well as a clearer sense of how we imagine and understand ourselves to be.
Course Offered