SEEDS Clusters
What is a Cluster?
Throughout the academic year, select SEEDS Clusters are offered providing structured, theme-based pathways through the SEEDS General Education Curriculum, enabling students to complete requirements while exploring areas of interest in greater depth. By focusing on a common topic, students will appreciate how different disciplinary lenses analyze a common idea and be part of a community of students and faculty exploring together. Faculty members in each cluster work together to create coherence and meaning. Students will appreciate how different classes speak to each other, reinforce or even reinterpret different ideas.
Contact the SEEDS Co-Directors
The SEEDS Curriculum is led by two faculty co-directors elected to serve for 2026-2029.
Please direct any questions about the SEEDS Curriculum to either co-director.
- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor
SEEDS Clusters
American Identities and Cultures
What does it mean to be American right now? This SEEDS cluster explores American identity through culture, creativity, and everyday life. You’ll examine music, media, art, ideas, and social movements to understand how race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and power shape who we are and how we connect. Learn to question what’s familiar, listen across differences, and see your own story as part of a larger American conversation. Being American is not a fixed state, but a vibrant and diverse way of living together. Don’t just live in America—learn how to read it.
Fall 2026
- SEED 109-01 Selected Topics: Analyzing Cultures and Societies:Writing New Jersey
- PHIL 221 Reconstructing American Liberty (Political and Civic Life)
Spring 2027
- AMSD 340 Representing the American West (Historical Thinking)
- SEED 110 Selected Topics: Creative Expression: Hip Hop and American Theater (Creative Expression)
- AMSD 380 Shakespeare and the Frontiers of American Identity (Literary and Artistic Analysis)
Packaging Nature
Air, water, food, and energy shape everything from what we wear to how societies survive crises. This cluster challenges students to rethink these everyday natural resources by examining how humans have used, valued, and transformed resources across time and cultures. Through discussion-based classes, case studies, field trips, and community-engaged projects, students explore the environmental, social, and ethical dimensions of resource use from multiple perspectives, including science, history, literature, and the arts.
Fall 2026
- SEED 111-02 SEEDS Selected Topics: Ethical Inquiry: Fashion, Resources, and Environmental Impact.
- SEED 102-01 SEEDS Selected Topics: Effective Writing II: Health Tourism.
Spring 2027
- SEED 113 SEEDS Selected Topics: Scientific Reasoning: Climate and Society.
- SEEDS 114 SEEDS Selected Topics: Historical Thinking: Food in Wartime.
Health, Justice and Story Telling
Explores how health, justice, and storytelling shape people’s lives and the systems that care for them. These courses examine real questions about inequality in healthcare, disability representation, and access to care. We explore how stories matter in medicine and justice; how cultural images influence public understanding; and how ethical and policy decisions affect individuals and communities. Furthermore, by listening closely to others, we learn how paying attention to social context can lead to more just and inclusive ways of caring for one another.
Fall 2026
- MEDH 230 Your Story Matters (Interactive Communication)
- SEED 111-01 SEEDS Special Topics: Ethical Inquiry: Healthcare approaches to Justice
Language Diversity and Rights
Why does the idea of speaking multiple languages make some people so uncomfortable—and what are we losing when languages disappear? At a moment when English dominance collides with AI's promise to "solve" translation and preservation, courses in this cluster invite you to explore what's truly at stake when languages are lived, embodied, and passed down through communities. You'll examine language rights, dive into the art and ethics of translation, and engage directly with linguistic diversity—including documenting oral histories in languages spoken right here on campus. Whether languages need bodies to live or algorithms to survive, you'll discover how to respect, reclaim, and champion the voices that make our world richer.
Fall 2026
- ANTH 230 Indigenous Languages and Lifeways (Political and Civic Life)
- ITAL 230 Living in Translation (Interactive Communication)
Spring 2027
- LNGN 240 Languages of the World (Analyzing Cultures and Societies)
- SEED 111 SEEDS Special Topics: Ethical Inquiry: Linguistic Justice
Propaganda
In an era of nonstop media influence, political spin, and viral persuasion, we will investigate how influence works. Courses in the Propaganda cluster will uncover how propaganda shapes politics, culture, and everyday life across film, literature, and contemporary media. From George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm to the cinematic machinery of Nazi propaganda, we will unpack the fundamentals of propaganda and persuasion, learning to dissect political discourse, spot manipulation, and critically evaluate information in a media landscape where clarity is increasingly hard to find.
Fall 2026
- CMST / POLS 220: Introduction to Political Communication (Political and Civic Life).
- LGNG 255 Language of Propaganda (Political and Civic Life).
Spring 2027
- SEED 112 SEEDS Selected Topics: Literary and Artistic Analysis: George Orwell and the Politics of Language.
- SEEDS 109 SEEDS Selected Topics: Analyzing Cultures and Societies: Nazi Cinema and Propaganda.
Wicked Women: Women's Power, Persecution and Resistance
Throughout history, women who claimed knowledge or authority were often labeled as dangerous. Healers became witches. Mystics became heretics. Midwives became criminals. Women in politics were dangerous, deceitful, or even diabolical. Why did some women draw suspicion from authorities, and how did they resist and survive? We will study trial records of accused witches, folktales and other sources to recognize patterns in how societies govern women’s bodies and speech. These struggles are not just historical: we will examine ongoing conflicts over who gets to hold power and who is tarnished as “wicked.”
Fall 2026
- SEED 109-02 Selected Topics: Analyzing Cultures and Societies: Witches, Healers and Folk Magic in Italy.
- SEED 114-01 SEEDS Selected Topics: Historical Thinking: Suspicious Women: Witches, Mystics, Heretics and other crimes.
