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2026-2027 Academic Year

Fall 2026

FYSM 100 First-Year Seminar
The First-Year Seminar (FYS) introduces students to Dickinson as a "community of inquiry" by developing habits of mind essential to liberal learning. Through the study of a compelling issue or broad topic chosen by their faculty member, students will: - Critically analyze information and ideas - Examine issues from multiple perspectives - Discuss, debate and defend ideas, including one's own views, with clarity and reason - Develop discernment, facility and ethical responsibility in using information, and - Create clear academic writing The small group seminar format of this course promotes discussion and interaction among students and their professor. In addition, the professor serves as students' initial academic advisor. This course does not duplicate in content any other course in the curriculum and may not be used to fulfill any other graduation requirement.

HIST 151 History of Environment
Examines the interaction between humans and the natural environment in long-term global context. Explores the problem of sustainable human uses of world environments in various societies from prehistory to the present. Also serves as an introduction to the subfield of environmental history, which integrates evidence from various scientific disciplines with traditional documentary and oral sources. Topics include: environmental effects of human occupation, the origins of agriculture, colonial encounters, industrial revolution, water and politics, natural resources frontiers, and diverse perceptions of nature.

HIST 207 History of the Climate Crisis
While we may think of climate change mostly in terms of the futures it threatens, it’s a human-created disaster and so has a human history. So too do the solutions currently underway to respond to it.  In this class we’ll examine the rise of fossil fuels, the building of unequal and vulnerable landscapes, the birth and development of climate science,  the intentional construction of climate denial, and the consequent failures of climate politics.  However, we’ll also look at the histories of renewable energy, soil building, mass forest planting, ocean farming, organic farming, protest, movement-building, regulation, and political action.  In doing so, we’ll help create usable histories for a survivable and ethical future.

Spring 2027

LALC 200 Food & Environ in Caribb Hist
Cross-listed with HIST 218-01. Part of the Grenada Mosaic. Open only to mosaic participants. Environments of the Caribbean have been central to world historical processes and ideas of nature in many cultures since the 1400s. In this course we will study the emergence of these processes and ideas, covering, for example, the links between the origins of capitalism and the Caribbean sugar complex, the emergence and spread and transformation of the plantation form, the use of West African and Indigenous knowledge, the development of both global tourism and agritourism, and the complex sequences and legacies of colonial and post-colonial history. Students will prepare for and process their research trip and broader research project by researching the landscapes and labor histories connected to the cuisines covered in Afro-Caribbean Foodways and Culture, tracing the histories of cassava, rum, nutmeg, chocolate, producing text and image interpretations that can be integrated into and inform their larger research project.

HIST 218 Food & Environ in Caribb Hist
Cross-listed with LALC 200-01. Part of the Grenada Mosaic. Open only to mosaic participants. Environments of the Caribbean have been central to world historical processes and ideas of nature in many cultures since the 1400s. In this course we will study the emergence of these processes and ideas, covering, for example, the links between the origins of capitalism and the Caribbean sugar complex, the emergence and spread and transformation of the plantation form, the use of West African and Indigenous knowledge, the development of both global tourism and agritourism, and the complex sequences and legacies of colonial and post-colonial history. Students will prepare for and process their research trip and broader research project by researching the landscapes and labor histories connected to the cuisines covered in Afro-Caribbean Foodways and Culture, tracing the histories of cassava, rum, nutmeg, chocolate, producing text and image interpretations that can be integrated into and inform their larger research project.