Story of Evolution and Evolution of Stories course

Academically, I am a senior English major, cities minor and environmental studies concentrator at Bryn Mawr. Why choose between science and humanities when you don’t have to? They work together quite nicely, combining and talking to one another in fascinating ways. Non-academically, I am a sabre and foil fencer, a Scottish dancer and a creative writer. In terms of both spheres, I have a bit of an obsession with Sherlock Holmes and some aspect or another ends up in conversation academic or otherwise (including my thesis).

      My Name is Vivien Chen and I am currently a Freshman at Bryn Mawr. I am thinking of becoming an English Major and am still currently deciding on a minor. Even though science was never necessarily one of my "strengths" in high school, I absolutely love Biology and think it is really fascinating. So, this class really makes it easy for me to enjoy by combining the two subjects together. Questions about evolution and existence are topics that particularly interest me because they raise so many questions and also don't have any right or wrong answers. I would like to learn if evolution is a random process and if the genetic variation of the "fit species" is a random, kind of trial and error process of natural selection.

I'm Katherine, and I am an undeclared freshwoman at BMC. Outside of class, I like to play soccer, write and I'm involved in Shakespeare Performance Troupe. I'm a dual Australian-American citizen who finds the weather pretty challenging at the moment, and wears two coats most of the time. I went to three high schools, two Australian and one American, and two colleges so far, both American, so I'm pretty used to being the new (foreign-ish) kid. I would like to major in English and evolution was my favourite topic in high school biology so I'm really psyched for this class because I hope that it will expand my way of thinking.

 I'm a junior English major and psychology minor at BMC, headed toward a post-bac program upon graduation. I run XC in the fall and live for skiing and ski racing in the winter. I like to say that I'm a fact-based English major in that most of my English papers involve a lot of outside research (usually of a psychological nature), which I combine with whatever we're reading or doing in class. I also like to say that I'm on a "need to know" basis with the world; I'm constantly curious, always intrigued, always looking for a good conversation.

 My name is Erin Washburn (obviously). I'm a sophomore English major at Bryn Mawr College, working on declaring a theater and classics double-minor. Classes that I've taken and enjoyed during my time in the Tri-Co include Culture and Crisis in the Golden Age of Athens (at Haverford); Tolkein, Pullman and their Literary Roots (at Swarthmore); and Women Poets: Giving Eurydice a Voice (at Bryn Mawr). Though these course listings may seem like I've used my college experience to reject all science-y things, I've always had an interest in biological evolution, and have been interested in taking this class since I was a senior in high school. With regards to what questions I bring to this class, I am most interested in the interplay between evolutionary imperatives and our personalities.