FWS: Alone in the Crowd: Self and Society in American Thought

Catalog description

Is the United States a nation of freedom-loving individualists or club-joining conformists? Both, obviously. How, then, have Americans reconciled their enthusiasm for personal independence and individual conscience with their need for mutual aid and collective harmony? From the early days of the republic to our own digitally-mediated age, clergy, activists, psychologists, feminists, and social scientists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, bell hooks, Betty Friedan have grappled with this question. In this First-Year Writing Seminar, we will study their essays, sermons, and manifestos in both content and form, responding with our own reflective, comparative, and persuasive essays.