Emily Balch The Emily Balch Seminars
Named for a graduate of Bryn Mawr’s first class, Nobel Laureate Emily Greene Balch, the unique Emily Balch Seminars will introduce you to the academic life of a Bryn Mawr student and to the ways in which this education can and should prepare you for a life of purpose, engagement, and action. As you browse through this brochure, enjoy the intellectual adventures awaiting you, everything from psychology to mathematics to ancient myth to modern cinema, all designed to whet your appetite for the wide array of academic options available to you as a Bryn Mawr student. In her lifetime, Emily Greene Balch witnessed the rapid expansion of global communication by telephone and radio, the birth of aviation, the success of women’s suffrage, two World Wars, Prohibition, the Great Depression, the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism, Indian Independence, the Harlem Renaissance, and the dropping of the atomic bomb. This was a period of history fraught with political unrest, economic uncertainty, social upheaval, and technological innovation. Her training as an economist, an academic, and an activist equipped her for significant contributions in several fields and for an active anticipation of future challenges. Balch’s own experience offers insight into the ways in which a Bryn Mawr education will prepare you for a world defined by increasing globalization, an urgent call for sustainability, and a pressing discussion of human rights. Communication has made the world more interconnected and as societies increasingly intersect, tolerance will be tested. Artists will strive to express the tension and bridge the divisions in media we have yet to discover. The sciences will open vast new possibilities for fostering human well-being. An ever greater appreciation of the globe’s many histories and cultures will frame more sophisticated efforts to promote peace and understanding. At Bryn Mawr, your studies will be both broad and deep, blending factual knowledge and theoretical awareness with diverse modes of inquiry and innovative forms of creativity. Through your academic work and co-curricular activities you will develop the skills in critical thinking, clear and compelling writing, and persuasive speaking that will serve you in all aspects of your adult life. Through research, reflection, and debate you will also develop the quality of intellectual fearlessness that will allow you to face a future of continuous change and to lead that change in ways that will benefit us all.
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she devoted her life to championing humanitarian causes around the world, at the League of Nations and other international organizations.
...face a future of continuous change...
Part of the fun— YO U R F I R S T Y E A R
and perhaps some of the fear—of entering college comes from the sense that you are not just selecting courses, but setting your course for life. In fact, you will soon discover that you can expect to be setting your course over and over again for the rest of your life. Your first year at Bryn Mawr will give you an opportunity to explore the curriculum and look beyond what you’ve always “ Having a class in known, helping you to question some of your own assumptions which you feel about the world as you begin to discover what you are capable comfortable and of achieving. Use your time wisely, investigate a new area of challenged study, reach higher, look more deeply, and develop as a freshman intellectual passions that will sustain you for a lifetime. is a good sign You may surprise yourself.
that you made the right college choice.
The Emily Balch Seminar served as a safe, relaxed space where we could talk openly about anything. Our class—Critical Issues in Education with Professor Lesnick—was very diverse; we came from different countries, states, and nationalities, which added to the richness of our discussion. The seminar also gave us the opportunity to form friendships with one another that transcended the short span of the semester.” — Mary Encabo ’13
“ In my Emily Balch Seminar, I learned to evaluate and revise my writing holistically—to think critically about the meaning and implications of my ideas. Applying the editing process my professor taught me in E-sem makes a big difference in the overall quality of my writing in other classes, too.” — Kristina Kronauer ’13
Emily Balch Seminars The Emily Balch Seminars are organized around fundamental questions in contemporary or classical thought that you will inevitably address in your life, regardless of the major you choose or the profession or career you pursue after graduating. Taught by scholar/teachers of distinction within their fields and across academic disciplines, the Emily Balch Seminars ground every Bryn Mawr student in a liberal arts approach to learning. You’ll engage in critical reading of challenging texts (including books, plays, films, art, music, and science); you’ll hone your critical writing skills with weekly assignments and bi-weekly conferences with your professor; you’ll participate in lively text-centered discussions. Because the seminars are small, you’ll get to know your professor and classmates quite well. The tightly knit, collaborative learning community formed in these seminars will serve as a model for much of your intellectual life at Bryn Mawr, both in and out of the classroom, and you’ll graduate better prepared for a more reflective and critical life in a complex and changing world beyond college.
SEMINAR:
A Medieval Education: The History of the Liberal Arts The university and the bachelor's degree date from the Middle Ages, and the liberal arts curriculum stretches back even further, to classical antiquity. In this course, students investigate the formation of the liberal arts and the evolution of the curriculum as well as the locations of learning—religious institutions and early universities. Additionally, students learn about the medieval production of knowledge, through commentary, annotation, exegesis, and manuscript books. In conjunction with the topics of this course, students will also consider what it means to be engaged in a noble pursuit that stretches back over a thousand years.
Elly R. Truitt
Assistant Professor Department of History
“"The liberal arts" figure prominently in the larger cultural conversation in the US. Are they passé? The path to a rewarding, rich life? Are they "under attack" from preprofessional education programs? I'm interested in helping students to understand that the liberal arts curriculum has a long, complicated history that informs—often in surprising ways—the current debates and conversations. I want to give them the tools to reflect on their own choice to attend a liberal arts college, and to engage deeply with different, even contradictory, ideas about the aims of a liberal education.”
“I was glad to see that there were other firstyear students excited to discuss and learn about the same topic I was interested in. We read scholarly work explaining the educational system of the Middle Ages, read accounts of the lives of medieval scholars, and examined medieval manuscripts. Professor Truitt challenged the class to think argumentatively and to reasonably prove an argument. I became a better writer and a better reader. I thank Professor Truitt for the challenge, the learning opportunity, and the amazing discussions.” — Azalia Sprecher ‘18
SEMINAR:
Performance and Self In this seminar, students examine the ways we perform (as ourselves and at the intersections of gender, race, and class) and the ways artists and writers construct performances that convey these social and political aspects of identity. Texts are drawn from a variety of sources: philosophy, psychology, theater, dance, fiction, poetry, and film. In Performance and Self you’ll write and revise frequently, participate in peer-review groups, and complete creative projects including a short performance around themes and ideas generated by the class.
Linda Caruso-Haviland, Ed.D.
(Temple University), Associate Professor in the Arts and Director of Dance
“Whether as individuals or as members of society, we all deal with difficult issues of class, race, gender, and other social markers. In Performance and Self, we put all of these issues on the table and encourage our students to deal with them in constructive, productive ways. They are not only engaging viscerally with these issues—they are also engaging intellectually with works of literature, art, music, film, and dance. Our students learn to apply a critical lens to these works and to find their deeper meanings, which help us understand who we are as human beings in this world.
“This class enabled me to lean into discomfort when talking about topics such as race and gender … Weekly meetings with the professor were just another layer of the strong support system that defines Emily Balch Seminars. During these meetings, we would go over papers and plan for future ones. These meetings helped me to develop better writing skills.” — Ashley Macina ‘17
"As a dancer and scholar, this seminar is important to me because the Western cultural tradition has emphasized the mind as the only means to understand and communicate knowledge. While this is a valid and productive model, there are other ways of communicating and understanding knowledge, including bodied practices such as creating art or performance.” Linda Caruso-Haviland, founder of Bryn Mawr’s Dance Program, teaches technique, theory, composition, and performance. She has performed in New York City and in Philadelphia, principally with ZEROMOVING CO., and continues to perform her own work and that of independent choreographers. She received the College’s Rosalyn R. Schwartz Teaching Award in 1996.
SEMINAR:
Travel Tales and Understanding In this seminar, you’ll read a varied group of texts, all involving travel, exposure to new cultures, and the kinds of learning that come with exposure to unfamiliar and often thought-provoking values. Some readings are set in everyday contexts, while others are more unusual: captivity narratives, imaginary travels, a temptation narrative, and even a descent into madness. This rich reading fare guarantees you and your classmates lively discussions, often centering on the social and personal values of different cultures. The readings also provide you with many writing opportunities—chances to look into new values or conflicts among values. This is a seminar without “right answers.” It prizes ongoing explorations above arrival at a final destination.
Peter M. Briggs, Ph.D.
(Yale University), Professor of English
“When we travel to a new place, we open our eyes wide to the experience. Through the readings in this seminar, students travel to other cultures and experience life from other perspectives. For example, reading side-byside memoirs of a 17th-century Massachusetts woman who lived with Native Americans and a Native American woman who attended a school run by white missionaries gets students thinking about values, customs, the value of education, and the roles of women. “In Travel Tales and Understanding, students learn to read critically, and, with each paper they write, they take the next step in the infinite task of becoming good writers. Whether or not they realize it, they are starting a journey: going to college, living with new people, and being exposed to larger ideas and academic perspectives than those they were exposed to in high school. We also give them more independence to choose the topics of their papers, and they find that both liberating and challenging.” Peter Briggs has written extensively about 18th-century British writers, philosophers, commercial advertising, and celebrity culture. He also writes and teaches about the comparative perspectives featured in travel literature and the ways in which they promote crosscultural understanding.
“My classmates were incredibly vocal, which made the class a hundred times more interesting. We had a great discussion reading Zitkala-Sa's essay,"The Great Spirit." The conversation ranged from interpreting religions other than our own to how religion influences cultural interactions. "In my seminar, I really developed skills of discussion and argument, how to make your point concisely, and how to leave room for others to discuss and respond. And, most importantly, I learned how to carefully listen to others' points-of-view. These skills help me in every class at Bryn Mawr!" — Callie Lopshire-Bratt '17
SEMINAR:
Breaking: Creative Disruption in Experience, Knowledge, and Writing While human socialization through institutions such as family, school, and religion often emphasizes connection, we will examine instead the arts of disruption. Through reading and writing in a variety of genres, we will explore the dynamics of breaking— intellectual and emotional, personal and social—and how to use breaking as a lens on two areas of academic and activist work. We will begin by working with The Breaking Project, an online anthology devoted to the exploration of breaking in essay, poetry, video, and artwork. Additional genre-breaking texts (print, visual, and video), including by graphic novelist Alison Bechdel, writer and wire walker Philippe Petit, and mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar (whose Magic Gardens in Philadelphia we will visit), will follow before we undertake a study of education as breaking. In addition to intensive writing, revision, and consultation, frequent informal writing and sustained writing groups will provide a community structure to support students’ growth as writers and thinkers.
Alice Lesnick, Ph.D.
(University of Pennsylvania), Senior Lecturer in Education
“As a scholar of collaboration and collaborative learning, I am passionate about creating vibrant intellectual communities and about working with students to help them gain even greater skill, confidence, and knowledge in the use of writing to think and learn. “This course on breaking is a special joy to me, as it grows out of an anthology I edit that features critical and creative writing by Bryn Mawr people— colleagues and students who have become colleagues. I cherish the experience of working with students on these texts and others to create a community in which we inspire one another as writers and thinkers. To ‘encourage’ is, after all, to give another courage by way of both support and challenge. Bryn Mawr students quickly settle into the work with passion, patience, and I will say, relief at finally finding spaces where they can count on everyone to share their commitment.” Alice Lesnick is Director of the Bryn Mawr/Haverford Education Program and Coordinator of Africana Studies at Bryn Mawr. She was awarded the Rosalyn R. Schwartz Teaching Award in 2004.
“My Emily Balch Seminar ignited a passion that I never knew I had; it gave me further confidence and validation in my ideas which encouraged me to be a more active member of my other classes. My experience in my seminar was not only greatly defined by the intriguing material but also by the community and participants in my class. Our group meshed pretty quickly, but our bond was cemented by a field trip we took to Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens. These students were passionate and have become my good friends.” — Pamela Gassman ‘16
SEMINAR:
Race and New Media This seminar explores the central role that “race” plays in our experience of the Internet. How is “race” differently constructed in “old” and “new” media? In what ways have virtual spaces enabled new identities and community formations? How have people of color interacted with these new technologies? Our investigation of race and new media will be guided by the following key terms: access, community, identity, democracy, sexuality, interactivity, and activism. We will read a wide range of texts from different disciplines and fields of study. Our case studies will encompass social networking, video games, artists’ Web projects, YouTube, blogs, film, and video art. Texts include Phillip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep; Greg Pak’s film Robot Stories; the website Blackpeopleloveus.com; Glowpinkstah’s YouTube channel; and Lisa Nakamura’s “The Race in/for Cyberspace.”
“This course really interested me because it blended technology and identity in ways that were both immediate and relevant to my generation. It is still an English course, but the seminar gave us an opportunity to really consider how the web shapes identity. "I also enjoyed the one-on-one meetings with Professor Nguyen. He was a great professor and his input did a lot for my writing. He pushed me, which is what I wanted: to be pushed on my ideas, to foster and develop them. That was my goal going in and I think we both accomplished that."
— Kamyra Edokpolor ‘16
Hoang Nguyen, Ph.D.
(University of California, Berkeley) Assistant Professor in English and Film Studies
“Our everyday life is saturated with, and increasingly determined by, new media technologies: email, cell phones, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Every new technology comes with specific ideological underpinnings. In my Balch seminar, we explore how race, class, gender, and sexuality underline our mediated interactions with other people. I am excited when students interrogate their experiences with these media platforms and make astute connections between them and the various texts (novels, blogs, social networking websites, video games, etc.) we analyze together.” Hoang Tan Nguyen teaches and writes about queer cinema, experimental film, Asian-American visual culture, video production, race, and new media. His experimental videos have screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the National Museum of Modern Art at the Pompidou Center, the Getty Center, and numerous film and media festivals.
The Emily Balch
Speaker Series
Each year, the Emily Balch Speaker Series invites a critically acclaimed author to spend an evening with Bryn Mawr’s first-year students. The format—a formal lecture followed by an informal conversation and an even more informal dessert reception—provides the perfect combination of intellectual engagement, excitement, and fun. Conceived as a complement to the Balch Seminar curriculum, the speaker series brings together the entire freshman class for a conversation with an author whose work they may just have encountered in class. In recent years, the Balch Speaker Series has featured award-winning novelist and essayist Zadie Smith; novelist and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Karen Russell; and graphic novelist Alison Bechdel.
Author Alison Bechdel visited classes and spent an evening talking to first-year students about her work. Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and was also named Time Magazine’s Best Book of 2006.
In 2013, the Balch Speaker Series welcomed the acclaimed novelist Zadie Smith. “The whole audience was mesmerized,” says Bryn Mawr President Kim Cassidy. “We were treated to a glimpse of how this amazing writer thinks about her work, and through her candid answers, we got a glimpse of her as a ‘real person.’"
Karen Russell’s novel Swamplandia! is set in an alligator-wrestling theme park in Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands. To welcome her as the inaugural Emily Balch Seminar Speaker, Bryn Mawr hosted a Swamplandia-themed reception, complete with stuffed alligators, a Ouija-board cake, and Leviathan punch.
At Bryn Mawr your studies will be both broad and deep‌
Expand, engage, explore...
Experimenting early on in your education will broaden your interests and help narrow your options before you declare a major at the end of sophomore year.
Before you arrive, you’ll select your Emily Balch Seminar from an array of intriguing topics and prepare a “wish list” of other courses you’d like to try. Then, during Customs Week (our orientation for first-year and transfer students), you’ll talk to Bryn Mawr professors at an academic fair and meet with your dean or another advisor who will help you to select your courses.
More Academic Opportunities The Emily Balch Seminars open the door to the rigorous inquiry that shapes Bryn Mawr’s curriculum. As you choose courses to satisfy our requirements, you’ll explore different approaches to inquiry—including empirical investigation, critical interpretation, cross-cultural analysis, and inquiry into the past—that focus the lens through which you view the world and increase your awareness of the world’s complexity. Still, there are more ways to expand, engage, and explore.
360° 360° is an interdisciplinary experience that engages several aspects of a topic or theme, giving students an opportunity to investigate thoroughly and thoughtfully a multitude of perspectives. A cohort of students takes a cluster of classes over the course of a semester, focusing on the history, economic concerns, cultural intersections, and political impact of an era, decision, event, policy, or important scientific innovation. 360° participants hone their arguments and insights through writing and research, develop strategies for teamwork that push the limits of their talents and creativity, and work with professors and scholars to promote big-picture thinking.
Recent 360° 360°: Performance Across Language and Culture Site-specific performance and expanding theater outreach programming have focused attention on increasingly diverse audiences. For scholars, the emergence of video archives has made it possible to track and study the evolution of specific productions and dramatic works across multiple languages and venues. This 360˚ course traveled to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to take a closer look at these phenomena, asking students to engage in it as performers, audience members, teachers, and scholars—studying and experimenting with multilingual and vernacular stagings.
360°: Perspectives on Sustainability In 360°: Perspectives on Sustainability, students and professors from the mathematics, growth and structure of cities, and education programs looked at the numerous and interrelated challenges to the urban and natural “ The 360° program environment including climate has been my change, population growth, and extreme socioeconomic most rewarding disparities. In the mathematics academic course, students used chaos experience at Bryn theory and nonlinear math as Mawr so far. I feel a framework to understand the evolution of the modern that the future of liberal city while the other courses arts really depends on focused on sustainability and breaking down boundaries developmental issues. between disciplines and
360°: Contemplative Traditions
encouraging students to
explore complex questions Professors and students from from many angles.” chemistry, psychology, and —Sophie Papavisas ’11 East Asian studies examined the cultural history and science of contemplation and mindfulness. Travel for the course included a trip to Japan to explore Eastern traditions. Locally, 360° participants worked with Philadelphia high-school students wrestling with the challenge of growing up in a sound-bite world in which multitasking reigns supreme.
Bi-Co, Tri-Co, and Penn Bi-Co Thanks to the special Bi-College (Bi-Co) relationship between Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, students at the two colleges can live, study, or even major at the neighboring school. While most academic fields are offered at both institutions, a number of disciplines are concentrated on one campus: at Bryn Mawr, those include archaeology, history of art, Russian, and arts programs in dance and theater; at Haverford, they include astronomy, fine arts, music, and religion. In addition, a number of extracurricular activities, such as performing arts clubs, a weekly newspaper, an orchestra, social-action groups, and some intramural sports operate jointly.
Tri-Co Bryn Mawr and Haverford are also part of the Tri-College (Tri-Co) consortium, a fully integrated, cooperative education program with Swarthmore College. The three colleges share an expansive list of resources: students can access nearly 2.5 million volumes in the colleges’ libraries and attend lectures and performances, dances and social events on the three campuses. To facilitate the exchange, a regular shuttle service runs among the colleges. Haverford is one mile from Bryn Mawr; Swarthmore is about 20 minutes away.
Penn The College also offers a unique arrangement with the University of Pennsylvania, expanding the number of classes available to Bryn Mawr undergraduates to about 5,000 and offering the resources—including classes, libraries, and research facilities—of one of the nation’s premier research universities. Penn is 20 minutes away from Bryn Mawr by commuter rail or 25 minutes by car.
Praxis Bryn Mawr’s Praxis program allows students to mix rigorous scholarship and civic engagement. Praxis courses—taught across the curriculum—integrate fieldwork in the community with traditional coursework. In the classroom, students and their peers and professors discuss current theories and urgent questions; in their Praxis placements, students work with members of local schools and community-based organizations under the supervision of a field-placement supervisor and coordinator. Each kind of work informs the other; each experience addresses the same concerns, one through serious thought, and the other through active community participation.
Independent Study Hands-on experience is critical to a Bryn Mawr education. In a typical year, Bryn Mawr students collaborate with faculty on more than 500 independent study projects. Research at Bryn Mawr is defined broadly, conducted rigorously, and supported and supervised by the College’s professors. Students might work side-byside with a professor in a lab, developing experiments in the genetic regulation of cellular processes; or write a novel, meeting frequently with a professor to talk about its progress and the work of other writers; or join a team of students and faculty working at an archaeological field site. The result is a tangible, textured understanding of a subject—and of the practice of scholarship.
Study Abroad Bryn Mawr believes that study abroad is a rewarding academic endeavor that, when carefully incorporated into students’ academic careers, can enhance students’ language skills, broaden their academic preparation, introduce them to new cultures, and enhance their personal growth and independence. Nearly 40 percent of Bryn Mawr students opt to study abroad, some through the traditional Junior Year Abroad program, others through internships or summer study options.
Focus Courses Focus Courses are half-credit courses that provide students with an opportunity to sample a wider variety of fields and topics as they explore the curriculum. In addition, some departments offer Focus Courses at the upper level for topics that lend themselves to a more targeted, shorter experience. Alternatively, some full-semester introductory courses function like Focus Courses by allowing students to exit or enter halfway through the semester, for a half-semester experience. These courses run for seven weeks on a normal class schedule. Focus Courses are as in-depth and fast-paced as full-semester courses.
Past Emily Balch Seminars Travel Tales and Understanding with Peter Briggs, Professor of English
Landscape with Christiane Hertel, Professor of the History of Art
Culture Shock: Stories of Division, Change and Reconciliation Across Social and Ethnic Boundaries with Sharon Bain, Lecturer in Russian
Meditations on Mortality with Jennefer Callaghan, Director of the Writing Center
Performance and Self with Linda Caruso-Haviland, Associate Professor of Dance, and Gail Hemmeter, Senior Lecturer in English Autocracy, Democracy, and Development with Michael Rock, Professor of Economics Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Ours with Jane Hedley, Professor of English Clash of Cultures (?): East and West in European and Middle Literatures with David Kenosian, Lecturer in German Reading Cultures: Poverty in the United States with Matthew Ruben, Lecturer The Race for Cyberspace with Hoang Nguyen, Assistant Professor of English The Journey: Act and Metaphor with J.C. Todd, Lecturer in Creative Writing Stranger Than Fiction: From Realism to the Fantastic with Daniel Torday, Director and Visiting Assistant Professor of the Creative Writing Program Representations of Classical Myths with Astrid Lindenlauf, Assistant Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology
Greek Myth with Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Associate Professor of Classics Food for Nine Billion: What Does The Future Hold? with Peter Brodfuehrer, Professor of Biology, and Gregory Davis, Assistant Professor of Biology Innumeracy with Amy Mayer, Lecturer in Mathematics Storytelling and Myth Making: Searching for Joan of Arc and Amelia Earhart with Linda-Susan Beard, Associate Professor of English Education Within and Beyond Classrooms: Problems and Possibilities with Alice Lesnick, Senior Lecturer in the Education Program Drugs, Brain and Culture: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with Earl Thomas, Professor of Psychology The Wandering “I”: Being as/and Passing with Pim Higginson, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies Anxious Masculinity with Raymond J. Ricketts, Lecturer in English Volcanoes and Society with Lynne Elkins, Lecturer in Geology
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Emily Balch The Emily Balch Seminars