Humanities 101 is the first course in the UW’s premier undergraduate humanities experience. A 3-credit course that is reserved exclusively for first-year students, Humanities 101 is offered only in Autumn quarter. This course will count towards your “Arts & Humanities” general education requirement.
Humanities 101 is open to all incoming students interested in learning more about what the humanities are, what they consist of, and how they function in nearly every aspect of our everyday lives. Further, Humanities 101 students develop skills that are distinctive to a humanities education, including the ability to ask critical questions and tackle problems from a variety of perspectives—including perspectives widely different from your own. Learning to think from different perspectives is a powerful and marketable skill central to effective communication, and in this course you will practice addressing different audiences through individual and collaborative projects.
Every year Humanities 101 focuses on a theme. This year (2025-2026), it is “Gods and Monsters.” Six faculty from different departments teach a portion of the course, introducing students to faculty from across the humanities at UW. Meet the Humanities 101 team:
Colin Connors of Scandinavian Studies | I was raised in rural California, but I have spent periods of my adult life in Iceland, Norway, and Wisconsin, where I have studied medieval Norse literature and worked with Indigenous neighbors to revive traditional arts and sports in reservation schools. These interests are united under folklore studies, which sees traditional and everyday art forms as a key to cultural studies.
Sam Hushagen of English | I was born and raised in Seattle, and did my undergraduate and graduate degrees at the UW. I enjoy cooking and gardening, and have eight chickens, two children, and a small dog called Daisy on my urban homestead in Shoreline. I read and write about poetry, and have been thinking a lot about attention - how we spend it, who profits from it, and how it defines our lives.
Alex McCauley of English | I was raised in the Pacific Northwest and lived in Thailand during middle and high school [is this correct?]. This coming Fall I want to look at horror. Most horror involves happy youth slaughtered for fun, monsters eventually contained and purged, and curiosity about forbidden topics punished. We’ll go at it from a different angle, looking at how horror mediates social and environmental problems, reading some H.P. Lovecraft and Lavalle’s The Ballad of Black Tom.
Annegret Oehme of German Studies | I was born and raised in Germany and did my schooling there all the way through college. I’m really interested in how monsters are portrayed in Old Yiddish literature, and this Autumn, we’ll focus on the depictions of monstrous races—and encounters with the monstrous—in Medieval German literature. Together we’ll uncover how these texts explore questions of identity, and what these monsters tell us about their human audiences... including ourselves.
Ian Schnee of Philosophy | I grew up in Bozeman, Montana, and spent much of my childhood adventuring on rocky mountains or on 8-bit pixels via the newly released NES. I would occasionally fall down holes to the underground and encounter gods and monsters, metaphorical or real. Now I study how video games can be works of philosophy, and together we will fall into the underground and explore the significance of gods and monsters in the indie game Undertale.
Student Workload:
- Three short reflective essays based on the readings for this class, produced for an audience you are just getting to know—your professors;
- The creation of a personal website that presents your first-year journey, produced for an audience that will be new to you—future employers and internship directors;
- Collaborative public digital projects spanning the course of the term, produced for an audience no one knows better than you—your peers