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 (2026-2027), it is “Dreams and Nightmares.” Six faculty from different departments teach a portion of the course, introducing students to faculty from across the humanities and humanistic social sciences at UW. Meet the Humanities 101 team:

Monday/Wednesday Lecturing Faculty:

Joseph Bringman of Classics | I am a lifelong Seattleite captivated by history; I study revolutions in Ancient Rome and write fiction set in the distant past. This Fall, we’ll think about dreams and nightmares—the kind you wake up from, the kind people construct and believe in, and the kind that trap you inside. From the cosmic to the deeply personal, we’ll explore how dreams shape reality—and what happens when there's no waking up.

Sam Hushagen of English | I grew up in Seattle during the now-idealized 90s: dial-up internet, record stores, basic cable and no streaming, social media, or AI chat buddies. In my section we’ll read fiction looking at how the tech dreams of the 90s became the AI nightmares of today, and the way loneliness and dread drive the profit margins of our biggest corporations.

Ian Schnee of Philosophy | I grew up in Bozeman, Montana, and spent much of my childhood outdoors in the mountains or indoors on an Atari and Nintendo, occasionally wandering into stranger worlds than I understood. Now I study video games as works of philosophy, and together we will descend into the ruined dreamscape of Disco Elysium to explore the meaning of dreams, nightmares, and the fractured selves that inhabit them.

Friday Section Faculty:

Marie La Fond of Classics | I'm from the Seattle area, where gray, drizzly days are perfect for spending in the reveries of literature and other media. This quarter I'm excited to traverse with you the strange, beautiful, terrifying terrain of our own psyches as refracted through the prism of dreams and nightmares. I'll be the instructor for Section C!

Alex McCauley of English | I grew up in Thailand and now study all the nineteenth-century novels that I skipped in high school. Dreams and nightmares are all over those books. Everyone sleeps poorly, but everyone is also thinking about what the world could be, grappling with their inconvenient desires, and digging up hidden things only to wish they'd stay buried. So what I'm bringing in the Fall isn't specific material, just tools to analyze whatever dreams we find. I'm the instructor for Section A!

Zhifan Sheng of Asian Languages and Literature | I grew up in Anhui, China, and lived in Hong Kong for three years before coming to Seattle for my Ph.D. at UW. Moving between these places has made me interested in how people dream of elsewhere and imagine other possible worlds. In my Friday section, I look forward to working with students as we explore how different forms of dreams and nightmares unfold across the Monday and Wednesday lectures.

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;
• Collaborative public digital projects spanning the course of the term, produced for an audience no one knows better than you—your peers