Frederick H. Millham  (Harvard Medical School)
Freshman Seminar 24G       4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 15

The history of surgery begins with the Hippocratic physicians whose principles were based, at least partly, on observation and measurement.  However, surgical thinking for first three quarters of the “modern era” was dominated by Galen of Pergamum...

John Huth (Department of Physics)
Freshman Seminar 50Y        4 credits (fall term)        Enrollment:  Limited to 15

What is space? What is time? How have humans viewed these over...

David R. Armitage (Department of History)
Freshman Seminar 40J     4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

...

Charles M. Stang (Harvard Divinity School)
Freshman Seminar 63F     4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Are you anxious about the dangers of technological innovation, especially artificial intelligence, the...

John M. Doyle (Department of Physics)
Freshman Seminar 23Y 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment: Limited to 8

Some claim that there are 13 ideas or principles that can form the bedrock for a pretty good understanding of our physical and technological world. These are: 1) Boltzmann factor and thermal equilibrium, 2) Turbulence, 3) Reaction rates, 4) Indistinguishable particles, 5) Quantum waves, 6) Linearity, 7) Entropy and information, 8) Discharges, ionization, 9)...

Maxine Isaacs (Department of Government)
Freshman Seminar 41P         4 credits (fall term)      Enrollment: Limited to 16

For two hours each week, students will work to understand the history, forces and politics of American presidential campaigns and elections.  Each student will be “responsible” for one presidential election between 1960 and 2020, and, together, members of the seminar will develop some perspective on dramatic changes as well as enduring factors that have shaped our own times, issues...

Benjamin M. Friedman (Department of Economics)
Freshman Seminar 71G  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Where will the coming generation of Americans (say, today's 18-year-olds) find jobs? And will the jobs be worth having? People have worried about losing their jobs to technology at least since the Luddites 200 years ago. In the aggregate, they have been wrong. The automobile put lots of stable boys and saddle makers out of work, but it created vastly more...

Robin Gottlieb (Department of Mathematics)    
Freshman Seminar 40P    4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Note: This seminar has no prerequisites. An invitation is extended to all students whether or not they are thinking about studying mathematics.

What are the goals of mathematics education at the middle and high school level, and how do these goals impact our evaluation of the success or failure of math education in...

Paola Arlotta (Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology)
Freshman Seminar 26O   4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

We will discuss current theories on brain regeneration in a dynamic setting that combines brainstorming of the literature with virtual experiences in the laboratory. Students will learn experiments that have shaped the field of brain repair and consider the newest theories on ways to regenerate the nervous system. We will also...

Philip J. Fisher (Department of English)
Freshman Seminar 33X 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Is the complexity, the imperfection, the difficulty of interpretation, the unresolved meaning found in certain great and lasting works of literary art a result of technical experimentation? Or is the source of this extreme complexity psychological, metaphysical, or spiritual?  Does it result...

Tyler Giannini (Harvard Law School)
Freshman Seminar 72P  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

How do the seemingly most marginalized take on the most powerful corporations in the world and win? In this seminar, we will delve into this question and what drives...

Jonathan Grindlay (Department of Astronomy)
Freshman Seminar 52M  4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Prerequisites: High school algebra competence and some familiarity with calculus (though we will not require this). Familiarity and comfort with using Excel which will...

Peter Der Manuelian (Department of Anthropology and of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations)
Freshman Seminar 30G  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment: Limited to 12

Note: Circumstances permitting, field trips to the Peabody Museum, the MFA, Harvard’s Visualization Center (Giza Pyramids in 3D), and the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, will bring the HU–MFA Expedition to life.

Elhanan Helpman (Department of Economics
Freshman Seminar 71R     4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Standards of living vary greatly across countries, they rise fast in some and slowly in others. Economic growth has historically been related to the expansion of international commerce as well as industrialization and institutional reforms. How does a country’s well-being and growth depend on its trade partners? Is globalization in the...

Deirdre Barrett (Harvard Medical School)
Freshman Seminar 26F  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Note: The class will normally meet for 2 hours once a week. The time will be a half-hour longer in the weeks with field trips, film screenings, and final student presentations....

John R. Wakeley (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)
Freshman Seminar 21I  4 credits (fall & spring terms) Enrollment: Limited to 12

Evolutionary genetics traces back to Darwin's (1859) idea of natural selection.  Darwin provided a compelling theory about how species change due to competition in reproducing populations, yet it remains difficult to understand, particularly when applied to ourselves.  To enable critical evaluation and discussion of ethical...

W. Hugh Woodin (Department of Mathematics and Department of Philosophy)
Freshman Seminar 23C 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Infinity captivates the imagination. A child stands between two mirrors and sees herself reflected over and over again, smaller and smaller, trailing off to infinity. Does it go on forever? Does anything go on forever?  Does life go on forever?...

David F. Holland (Harvard Divinity School)
Freshman Seminar 60H        4 credits (fall term)        Enrollment:  Limited to 12

This seminar uses key literary works to explore some of the most difficult and demanding questions in the religious history of the United States: Does God have a special relationship with the United States? Is sin an individual responsibility or a social flaw? Why has American...

Nancy Rappaport (Harvard Medical School)
Freshman Seminar 25N       4 credits (fall term)       Enrollment:  Limited to 12

The seminar's challenge will be to deepen our understanding of human development and how individuals cope with serious emotional or social difficulties (neglect, bipolar disorder, autism, depression, schizophrenia)....

Karin Öberg (Department of Astronomy)
Freshman Seminar 50S     4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Prerequisites: None. The course will include scientific concepts and their empirical and theoretical foundations, but no scientific preparation beyond high school physics is required.

It is easy to find controversies at the intersection of...

Phillip Howze (Department of Theater, Dance, and Media)
Freshman Seminar 64Q 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Writing can be fun. By “writing”, we don’t only mean the act of putting pen to paper, or fingers to computer keys to type. Writing is the ancient, conscious act of choosing words or texts or images and composing them in such a way to create an intended effect. Yes, writing is an intentional process… but not one which has to be necessarily painstaking. What if...

Miaki Ishii (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences)
Freshman Seminar 23I 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 14

Note: Students are required to watch the assigned movie prior to class.

Req Prep: Students must be comfortable with high-school level math and science.

Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions can have devastating effects on...

Sanjay Saini (Harvard Medical School)
Freshman Seminar 27I        4 credits (fall term)      Enrollment:  Limited to 15

This interactive seminar will allow students to obtain greater understanding of challenges faced by US healthcare system through critical comparative analysis of healthcare systems of selected countries from the developed, emerging and...

David Stern (Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and of Comparative Literature)
Freshman Seminar 62J  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Have you ever fantasized of turning the pages of a Gutenberg Bible with your own fingers?   Or a medieval illustrated Book of Hours?  Or touching a papyrus fragment of Homer?  Or a First Folio...

Sun Joo Kim (Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations)
Freshman Seminar 43W     4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

This seminar will explore the quandary that faces all historians: To what extent is the understanding of past episodes influenced by current politics and to what extent is current politics influenced by people's understanding of the past? In the study of Korean history, this question is particularly...

Thomas Byrne (Harvard Medical School)
Freshman Seminar 25X     4 credits (fall term)       Enrollment:  Limited to 15

Prerequisite: The course is intended for those who have scored -5- on AP Biology, Chemistry, Physics or Calculus

Is the human mind an “emergent” property...

Jacqueline Bhabha (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
Caroline M. Elkins (Department of History and Department of African and African American Studies)
Freshman Seminar 43C 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

The disparate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global impact of the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd...

Susan H. Farbstein (Harvard Law School)
Freshman Seminar 41K  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12                                       

Mahzarin R. Banaji (Department of Psychology)
Freshman Seminar 72M 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

We coined the term implicit bias in 1995 to capture the idea that bias, i.e., a deviation from...

David J. Roxburgh (Department of History of Art and Architecture)
Freshman Seminar 63J   4 credits  (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Freshman Seminar 40K  4 credits (spring term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 15

"Why does health care cost so much?" Policymakers, employers, and the public share deep frustration at high health expenditures, which are blamed for rising federal...

Andrew E. Strominger (Department of Physics)
Freshman Seminar 21V     4 credits (spring term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

The quest to understand the fundamental laws of nature has been ongoing for centuries. This seminar will assess the current status of this quest. In the first five weeks we will cover the basic pillars of our understanding: Einstein’s theory of general relativity, quantum mechanics and the Standard Model of particle...

Aravinthan D. T. Samuel (Department of Physics)   
Freshman Seminar 51X     4 credits (spring term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 8

Renaissance artists began to create stunningly realistic representations of their world. Paintings started to resemble photographs, suggesting that artists had solved technical problems that escaped their forebears. Our brains effortlessly deduce three-...

William L. Fash (Department of Anthropology)
Freshman Seminar 44J  4 credits (spring term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 15

Note: No...

Stephanie Burt (Department of English)
Freshman Seminar 60C      4 credits (spring term)      Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Comics and graphic novels, or sequential art, are one of the world’s great storytelling media: we’re going to learn how to read them, how to talk about how they get made and how they work, how to understand—and how to enjoy— some of the kinds of comics and graphic novels (that is, some of the genres) that make up the...

Robert B. Willison (Committee on Degrees in Social Studies)
Freshman Seminar 72D    4 credits (spring term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Cheerful illusions and wish fulfillment have dominated both popular and scholarly thought about democracy for two centuries. Democratic theory has sailed along as if no iceberg had struck and the engine room were not taking on water…Our view is that conventional thinking about democracy has collapsed in the face of modern social-scientific research.
(Achen and Bartels, Democracy...

Morgan Grasselli (Department of History of Art and Architecture)
Freshman Seminar 64G 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment: Limited to 12

Prerequisites: No knowledge of the history of art is required; of greater importance are enthusiasm, curiosity, and commitment, coupled with a strong desire to engage closely with fascinating works of art by a wide range of artists, both famous and less well known.

This seminar, taught directly from original drawings in the collections of the Harvard Art Museums, explores a broad range of topics associated with the...

John R. Wakeley (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)
Freshman Seminar 21I  4 credits (fall & spring terms) Enrollment: Limited to 12

Evolutionary genetics traces back to Darwin's (1859) idea of natural selection.  Darwin provided a compelling theory about how species change due to competition in reproducing populations, yet it remains difficult to understand, particularly when applied to ourselves.  To enable critical evaluation and discussion of ethical...

John R. Wakeley (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)
Freshman Seminar 21I     4 credits (spring term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12                    

Evolutionary genetics traces back to Darwin's (1859) idea of natural selection.  Darwin provided...

Johanna Damgaard Liander (Department of Romance Languages and Literatures)
Freshman Seminar 32M       4 credits (spring term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Note: The class will engage in hands-on sessions in the kitchen. No previous knowledge of Spanish language, or travel to any of the countries mentioned, is required. Neither do prospective students need extensive cooking skills. The only pre-requisite is curiosity...

Robin Hopkins (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)
Freshman Seminar 51R    4 credits (spring term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Note: The goal of this seminar is to provide an authentic research experience to students fascinated by biological diversity. Most classes will be held at The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Transportation will be provided at no cost to the student.

What is a species and how do they evolve? How do we, as scientists, study the process of speciation and the...

Sophus A. Reinert (Harvard Business School)
Freshman Seminar 71M  4 credits (spring term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Capitalism has powerfully shaped human history, and continues to shape the world we live in. The opinions of its defenders and defamers saturate our media landscape. But what do we mean by “capitalism”? Since their historical origins, “capitalist” values and practices have been...

Emily Balskus (Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology)
Freshman Seminar 50Q     4 credits (spring term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

The human gut is colonized by trillions of microorganisms that exert a profound influence on our health. Notably, the chemical capabilities of gut microbes extend beyond those found in our own cells, playing...

Laura M. Prager (Harvard Medical School)
Freshman Seminar 24U        4 credits (spring term)        Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Understanding "normal" growth and development may seem like a relatively easy task at first. We take the nuances of developmental differences for...

Jerome E. Groopman (Harvard Medical School)
Freshman Seminar 23K     4 credits (spring term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

A physician occupies a unique perch, regularly witnessing life’s great mysteries: the miracle of birth, the perplexing moment of death, and the struggle to find meaning in suffering. It is no wonder that narratives of illness have been of interest to both physician and non-...

Giovanni Parmigiani (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
Freshman Seminar 52J     4 credits (spring term)       Enrollment:  Limited to 12

In 2021, a special committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) convened to “review and assess NASA's processes for long-term risk assessment and management for currently anticipated...

Ofrit Liviatan (Department of Government)
Freshman Seminar 40E    4 credits (spring term)    Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Eurydice Georganteli (Department of History of Art and Architecture)
Freshman Seminar 64I 4 credits (spring term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Objects are essential primary sources for the study of the past. They are imbued with tales of their makers, of societies in which they took shape, of customs and beliefs that lent them meaning, and of routes that facilitated their dissemination. In this interdisciplinary and highly interactive Freshman Seminar...

Cumrun Vafa (Department of Physics)
Freshman Seminar 23P     4 credits (fall term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 15

Physics is a highly developed branch of science with a broad range of applications. Despite the complexity of the universe the fundamental laws of physics are rather simple, if viewed properly. This seminar will focus on intuitive as well as mathematical underpinnings of some of the fundamental laws of nature. The seminar will use...

Arthur I. Applbaum (Harvard Kennedy School)
Freshman Seminar 48K    4 credits (fall term)   Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Note: All required reading will be in English.

After Henri of Navarre’s brilliant defeat of a Catholic army at the Battle of Coutras, the presumptive but contested Protestant heir to the French throne spent the night at the chateau of...

Amsale Alemu (Committee on the Social Studies)
Freshman Seminar 72N 4 credits (spring term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Activists and historians both ask of the world, “how is history made?” This seminar will be examining accounts of social movements, investigating both the content of the history and the method by which it is presented. In addition to discussing histories of social, political, and cultural activism—from Harvard’s movement for Afro-American Studies, to Berlin 1989, to Stonewall, to the...

David C. Lamberth (Harvard Divinity School)_
Freshman Seminar 63E    4 credits (spring term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

More than 150 years after Darwin’s epochal account of evolution, over 85% of the world’s 7 billion people are still religious, and the percentage is...

Hongkun Park (Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Department of Physics)
Freshman Seminar 52E 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment:  Limited to 12

We live in a world that is shaped by science and technology. As a modern citizen who will lead the U.S. and the world in the coming generation, we should be aware of the rapidly changing landscape of science and technology and be ready to participate in the decision-making processes for deploying these life-...

Alex A. Csiszar (Department of the History of Science)
Freshman Seminar 51Y  4 credits (spring term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

How do members of the public decide when to trust scientists? Are new digital and social media revolutionizing how we know the world? How is the very idea of scientific expertise changing as researchers take to social media to communicate and debate new findings? Questions about how science becomes news, hotly debated now as climate change and the...

John E. Dowling (Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology)
Freshman Seminar 22M  4 credits (spring term  Enrollment:  Limited to 15

Prerequisite:  High school science.

Note: The class will run only 2 hours within the time block. Professor Dowling especially invites those students who are not planning to concentrate in neurobiology or a...

George D. Demetri (Harvard Medical School)
Freshman Seminar 26W  4 credits (moved to the spring term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 15

“Cancer” represents hundreds of different diseases with a wide variety of causative mechanisms, as well as enormous social impact. This seminar aims to provide an introduction to the biology of cancer and what makes a normal cell become a cancerous one, delving into acquired and inherited genetic abnormalities and effects of environmental factors, such...

N. Gregory Mankiw (Department of Economics)
Freshman Seminar 43J     4 credits (spring term)     Enrollment:  Limited to 12

This seminar's goal is to probe how economists of various perspectives view human behavior and the proper role of government in society. Each week, seminar participants will read a brief, nontechnical, policy-oriented book by a prominent economist. The participants will then discuss the work's strengths and weaknesses, exploring the positive scientific...

Carrie Lambert-Beatty (Department of History of Art and Architecture and of Visual and Environmental Studies)
Freshman Seminar 30X  4 credits (spring term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12                                    

Note: This seminar is for anyone interested in...

Daniel L. Schacter (Department of Psychology)
Freshman Seminar 23S 4 credits (spring term)      Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Lauren K. Williams (Department of Mathematics)
Freshman Seminar 51E  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Prerequisites: This seminar is recommended for students with a strong background in mathematics, including some familiarity with proofs. It would be helpful to have some exposure to combinatorics (permutations, binomial coefficients) and linear algebra (matrix multiplication and determinants of n by n matrices).

This seminar is...