Bard Seminar 1 - Fall Semester (2025)

Course Summary/Description

Who am I? Where am I going?


Bard Seminar will focus on the ultimate questions of human existence: What does it mean to be human? What connects us with the people who preceded us? How might our engagement with the past shape our future? To explore these questions this semester, we will be reading three foundational visions of the human experience: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Dracula by Bram Stoker, and Arabian Nights. The goal of ancient philosophy was not the transmission of information, but the formation of the self. In a similar spirit, our goal in this course will be to explore humanity’s cultural heritage as a meaningful opportunity for self-reckoning and self-discovery.

Learning Goals

  • Students will create expressive/analytical writing on foundational works of literature.
  • Students will understand the historical/biographical context of the literature they study.
  • Students will read, annotate, and discuss college-level texts.
  • Students will analyze what these texts are saying about the human experience and make connections between the literature and their lives.
  • Students will debate philosophical/moral dilemmas that emerge from each text.
  • Students will identify thematic throughlines in the literature they study.

Assignments/Grading

  • Expressive/Analytical Writing (50%) - Students will regularly complete writing based on their analysis of the texts we study. These assignments will build off of free-writes that students will do in class.
  • Annotations (20%) - Reading is an active process of constructing meaning and students will be expected to create evidence of the meaning they make in response to the texts we study. Students must have some system of annotation and their annotations will be assessed using a rubric.
  • Tests (20%) - Students will regularly take tests on class readings and concepts.
  • Professionalism (10%) - Students will be expected to comport themselves as college students

Writing Requirements

Seminar is a writing intensive course which will teach students how to write at the college level. We will largely focus on developing a meaningful and effective writing process: brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising, and editing. In addition to homework and in class activities and short writings students will expect to turn in the following: 

  • Writing and Thinking Workshop
    • All HW and assignments
  • UNITS I-IV:
    • Formal Essay First Draft, Peer Critique, and Revision
    • Formal Essay Submission
  • Students will write a minimum of 3 major essays this semester. Each essay will be a minimum of five pages in length.

Course Skills and Requirements

This course is centered around a set of core skills that students will develop over their time in the Sequence. In the First Year Seminar, these include:

  • WRITING is fundamental to this course. Students will be expected to complete daily in-class writing activities, weekly writing challenges, and short papers (1-3 pages). Students will use this shorter written work as a basis for longer writing, including academic essays (at least 5 pages). In working toward this goal, they will practice outlining, drafting, and revising their writing, with the goal of producing at least one major academic essay per semester.
  • READING is expected for every class, and students will be provided with texts that they can annotate in order to study and discuss what they have read. Students will be provided with focus questions and annotation exercises to practice reading, and they will be given frequent reading quizzes to track their progress. Students should expect to read for 30-60 minutes per class.
  • SEMINAR DISCUSSION is the heart of this course: students are expected to come to class prepared and energized to discuss their readings and to take part in class activities to explore the ideas within them.

Course Texts

  • George, Andrew, translator. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. Penguin Classics, 2003.
  • Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Edited by Maurice Hindle, Penguin Classics, 2003.
  • Seale, Yasmine, translator. The Annotated Arabian Nights: Tales from 1001 Nights. Edited by Paulo Lemos Horta, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2021.