• Finales and Codas: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Endings

• ASC110

• A re-imagining of the popular Freshman Seminar “Endings, Before and After,” this course explores the complexities of our relationship to endings and the ways that the tools and insights from a variety of disciplines—from philosophy and theology to psychology and sociology—might help us form new perspectives on the end of things. It is also designed to augment the Princeton University Concerts 2025-26 Music & Healing series, which will center on how music helps us navigate endings—shaping artistic memory, offering solace in times of loss, and sustaining cultural heritage.

  We start by asking the fundamental question of how we know when something is over, considering theological and philosophical conceptions of endings. Who has authority to declare the end of a political dynasty, artistic movement, global pandemic, cultural trend, your childhood? Even when some “official” definition exists for endings—recessions, wars, human life itself—questions can still linger as to whether it’s really over.

  We use our individual experiences as a guide, along with disciplinary tools from economics, public health, art, military strategy, and other fields. We look at the psychological underpinnings of our resistance to endings and also consider the sociological implications of our current approaches.

  We will learn from actors as diverse as mountain climbers, Trappist monks, Broadway producers, death doulas, and those tackling America’s “digital divide” to illustrate endings that were unexpected, how some could have been anticipated, and when a new approach could have led to more optimal outcomes. We even look at cases in which finales were anticipated but never came—failed apocalyptic prophecies and death row reprieves—to reflect on the ways that belief and identity further complicate our relationship with the end. While the scope is broad and all types of endings will be on the table, human mortality will no doubt come into the conversation. Across the weeks we will touch on loss and grief but also legacy and opportunity. 

  Endings happen, even if we may not want them to. This seminar will help students unpack what endings signify and in what contexts reframing could be beneficial. The class will come to a close with students having considered how to look at endings in a more nuanced way and how this embrace may lead to time better spent before the end comes.

  Schedule: October 7, 21, November 4, 18, 2025, Tuesday's

  Related Concerts: Community auditors registered in the Finales and Codas: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Endings Auditor Only course will receive a discount code to purchase tickets for the Princeton University Concerts Music & Healing Programs related to the theme of endings on October 8, 2025; December 3, 2025; March 26, 2026; and April 29, 2026. Learn more

  October 8, 2025, 7:30 PM W – Choreographer Mark Morris, “The Dance Lives On: Contemplating Artistic Legacy” 

  December 3, 2025, 7:30 PM W – Director Peter Sellars, “Mourning Through Music” 

  March 26, 2026, 7:30 PM TH - Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, “Dies Irae”

  April 29, 2026, 7:30 PM W - Violinist Lisa Batiashvili, “Sounding Defiance: Georgia & Ukraine”

• Fee: $150.00

• Instructor: Leslie Rowley (she/her/hers) 

• Capacity Remaining: 9

• Semester Dates: 10/7/2025 - 11/18/2025 

• Times: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

• Sessions: 4 

• Days: Tu

• Building: Andlinger Center

• Room: Maeder Hall

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(1) you are signed in, (2) it is your registration day, or (3) perhaps you have already exceeded your one course limit on Day 1 or Day 2.

• Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Other Masterpieces of 1925

• ASC108

• An exploration of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby one hundred years after its publication in the context of some of the other literary masterpieces that make 1925 arguably the greatest year in the history of American fiction.  In that same year, major books appeared by Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein, Ellen Glasgow, and Anzia Yezierska. All these works attempt to extend and expand the American novel into a form capable of probing the meaning of American identity in the modern world, a world marked by rapid change and social turmoil, the growth of urban life, and the dissolution of some of the certainties that seemed to define American civilization.

  Sept. 26:    F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 

  Oct.    3:   Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time  

  Oct.  24:     Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith

  Oct.  31:     Willa Cather, The Professor's House

  Our examination will emphasize each book’s distinctive artistry and the historical, social, and cultural contexts that shaped the literature of this remarkable year.  Our analysis will explore the negotiated merging of American literary realism and high modernism, noting the experiments with narrative structure and point of view as well as mastery of characterization and style.

  We begin with Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, tracing its complex development into the work of art that seemed to both define and challenge the idea of the American dream.  The rise and fall of Gatsby embody the crucial aspirations and anxieties of that dream in a novel that is a high modernist fusion of love story, social realism, and crime novel.  The short-story cycle, In Our Time, by Fitzgerald’s friend and rival, Ernest Hemingway combines modernist formal experimentation with the traditional coming of age story in its portrayal of both Nick Adams and the larger wasteland world.  Sinclair Lewis won and declined the Pulitzer Prize in 1925 for his novel, Arrowsmith, which places the themes of this course into the context of American medicine and science. (The science writer, Paul de Kruif, received 25 percent of the royalties for providing the crucial technical background). We end with Willa Cather’s The Professor's House, which contrasts an elderly professor’s sense of a declining and shrinking world with the embedded tale of Tom Outland who represents the hopes and possibilities of the American experience.  Reading these books together should enable us to understand how the authors of 1925 delineated the possibilities and limitations of American life in the early 20^th Century.

  Schedule: September 26, October 3, 24 and 31, 2025 

• Fee: $150.00

• Instructor: Alfred Bendixen 

• Capacity Remaining: 8

• Semester Dates: 9/26/2025 - 10/31/2025 

• Times: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

• Sessions: 4 

• Days: F

• Building:

• Room:

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• From Rebellion to Revolution: The Making of American Independence

• ASC109

• In April 1775, when redcoats and minutemen exchanged fire at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, American colonists considered themselves proud subjects of the Crown and still hoped that Parliament would recognize their rights as loyal members of the British empire. A mere fifteen months later, they declared themselves an independent republic and claimed equal status “among the powers of the earth.” 

  This auditor-only mini-course examines how and why American colonists made the radical choice for independence, transforming a colonial rebellion into a revolution. In four lectures and discussion of assigned readings, we will examine the dramatic events of 1775 and early 1776, including the creation of the Continental Army, Dunmore’s Proclamation, the publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and the drafting of the Declaration. Lectures will pay special attention to historical documents that will be included in next year’s exhibition at Firestone Library commemorating the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.

  Schedule: October 24, 31, November 7, 14, 2025

• Fee: $150.00

• Instructor: Michael Blaakman 

• Capacity Remaining: 7

• Semester Dates: 10/24/2025 - 11/14/2025 

• Times: 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM

• Sessions: 4 

• Days: F

• Building:

• Room:

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• TEST COURSE: Just Meditate: Falling Asleep in Class

• REGISTRATION FOR THIS CLASS IS CLOSED. This class is already in session.
• THIS COURSE IS FOR ADMINISTRATIVE TESTING PURPOSES ONLY. DO NOT REGISTER FOR THIS COURSE.

   

• Fee: $1.00

• Instructor:

• Capacity Remaining: 2

• Semester Dates: 9/23/2025 - 9/25/2025 

• Times: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

• Sessions: 2

• Days: Tu Th

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