First-Year Seminar: Hudson Valley Arts and Culture

Catalog description

An interactive first-year seminar that explores place and storytelling. Using the Hudson Valley as our case study, students will explore its stories through arts and culture. Guided walks, site visits, place-based writing, research, and conversations with artists, writers, curators, and scholars will provide windows into the region’s identities and communities. Students will be introduced to a diverse range of texts, as well rhetorical and cultural studies theories and practices as ways to engage with our subject (the Hudson Valley) and to expand our understanding of culture in shifting social contexts. Using these frameworks, we will consider how locations, objects, art, people, and everyday practices shape, reflect, connect, and challenge evolving identities and communities. Through writing, research, and creative projects, students will uncover both visible and hidden narratives and become active contributors to the region’s arts and culture community.