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2025-2026 Academic Year

Fall 2025

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.

PHIL 261 Foucault
Cross-listed with EDST 391-01, LAWP 290-02, SOCI 313-02, and WGSS 302-01. Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, "Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault's work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.

LAWP 290 Foucault
Cross-listed with EDST 391-01, PHIL 261-02, SOCI 313-02, and WGSS 302-01. Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, "Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault's work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.

WGSS 302 Foucault
Cross-listed with EDST 391-01, LAWP 290-02, PHIL 261-02 and SOCI 313-01. Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, "Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault's work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.

SOCI 313 Foucault
Cross-listed with EDST 391-01, LAWP 290-02, PHIL 261-02, and WGSS 302-01. Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, "Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault's work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.

EDST 391 Foucault
Cross-listed with LAWP 290-02, PHIL 261-02, SOCI 313-02, and WGSS 302-01. Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, "Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault's work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.

Spring 2026

PHIL 261 Judith Butler
Cross-listed with SOCI 313-01 and WGSS 302-02. The work of Judith Butler on gender, sexuality, performativity, precarity, ability, grievability, and the self has been influential across the social sciences and humanities for the last 40 years. In this WID course, we seek to follow the development of these ideas in their work, and to think about the ways in which they can inform our understandings of both academic issues and contemporary social reality. The multidisciplinary impact of Butler's work is reflected in the multidisciplinary composition of the student body in this course, and it is my hope that we will learn not only from Butler, but from one another and our different disciplinary ways of knowing.

WGSS 302 Judith Butler
Cross-listed with PHIL 261-04 and SOCI 313-01. The work of Judith Butler on gender, sexuality, performativity, precarity, ability, grievability, and the self has been influential across the social sciences and humanities for the last 40 years. In this WID course, we seek to follow the development of these ideas in their work, and to think about the ways in which they can inform our understandings of both academic issues and contemporary social reality. The multidisciplinary impact of Butler's work is reflected in the multidisciplinary composition of the student body in this course, and it is my hope that we will learn not only from Butler, but from one another and our different disciplinary ways of knowing.

SOCI 313 Judith Butler
Cross-listed with PHIL 261-04 and WGSS 302-02. The work of Judith Butler on gender, sexuality, performativity, precarity, ability, grievability, and the self has been influential across the social sciences and humanities for the last 40 years. In this WID course, we seek to follow the development of these ideas in their work, and to think about the ways in which they can inform our understandings of both academic issues and contemporary social reality. The multidisciplinary impact of Butler's work is reflected in the multidisciplinary composition of the student body in this course, and it is my hope that we will learn not only from Butler, but from one another and our different disciplinary ways of knowing.

SOCI 331 Contemp Sociological Theory
This course will examine alternative ways of understanding the human being, society, and culture as they have been presented in contemporary sociological theory (1925-present). It will focus on the theoretical logic of accounting for simple and complex forms of social life, interactions between social processes and individual and group identities, major and minor changes in society and culture, and the linkages between intimate and large-scale human experience. Prerequisite: 110 and one additional course in sociology, or permission of instructor. Offered every spring.