First-Year Seminar/Sophomore Year Seminar
The NCC-First-Year Seminar/Sophomore-Year Seminar is a yearlong course that introduces students to explore and examine philosophical, historical, and foundational texts across various genres, cultural contexts, and literary traditions. Shared core readings include Immanuel Kant's What is Enlightenment, Plato's Crito, Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and other significant works that challenge students to question familiar ideas and encounter ways of understanding the world. Through seminar discussions, collaborative activities, close reading, and writing, students will learn with and from their peers from other campuses. Rather than simply receiving interpretations of common texts, students will craft their questions, perspectives, and arguments – and engage collaboratively and thoughtfully with ideas that may challenge their conventional assumptions and beliefs.
As part of the Strengthening the Core initiative, the course provides students across participating GHEA21 institutions with a shared intellectual foundation and experience while allowing each classroom to develop its own dialogues, interpretations, and questions.
This course counts towards the Global Humanities certificate.
American University of Central Asia
- Christopher Henderson, American University of Afghanistan
- Kamilya Kadyrova, American University of Central Asia
- Mary Bernadette Conde, American University of Central Asia