Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Experience (ASURE) students who participate in IFS have the opportunity to complete one ASURE course before the fall semester starts. To learn more about how IFS courses fit your ASURE track, contact asure@iu.edu and ask about IFS.
Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Experience (ASURE)
The ASURE program handles all course placements and enrollments in IFS ASURE courses. If you would like to enroll in, change, or withdraw from an IFS ASURE course placement, you will need to contact the ASURE office.
Some ASURE students may decide to start their ASURE experience in the fall, but would still like to take an Intensive First-Year Seminars course. ASURE students who wish to take a non-ASURE IFS course are eligible to apply.
As an ASURE student in IFS you will:
- Transition to college virtually in a 3-credit course that fulfills part of your ASURE agreement
- Move to campus early for your first immersive on-campus classroom experience
- Connect with one of IU's top professors
- Get to know everything that IU Bloomington has to offer
- Develop a sense of community with other incoming first-year students
2025 IFS ASURE Program Courses (Any GenEd Status)
Marco Arnaudo
Arts of War
Arts of War is an introduction to military history and philosophy, and it encourages students to think critically about the topic of war. The insights from this class apply to the fields of politic
Jonathan Risner
Arts of the Self in the U.S. and Spain: From Home Movies to TikTok / Self Portraits to Selfies
The course centers on four kinds of media (selfies, self-portraits, home movies, and TikTok videos) and how they enable self-representation according to any number of factors: geography, history, race
Jennifer Maher
Blood, Babies, and Chainsaws: Gender in/as Horror
This course will orient students to a variety of critical approaches—literary, anthropological, historical, sociological—on the study of gender in a genre (the modern Horror film) that is enormous
David Pace
Culture and Revolution in Paris, 1850-1900
Paris in the late 19th century was the site of a cultural and political revolution that created the world we live in today. War, bloody battles between the classes, and an on-going struggle over the r
Deborah Christiansen
Fashioning Identity: Art + Artifacts + Fashion Theory
In this course students will explore the communication of identity as it relates to culture, throughout history and today, through the lens of fashion and dress. Readings and discussion will cover top
Andrew Libby
Food for Thought: Food Systems from Local to Global
The essential question of this course is: Why do people eat what they eat? In an effort to answer this question, we will examine a variety of economic, ecological, sociological and political dimension
Andrew Weaver
Human Aggression
Our ultimate goal in this course will be to design successful interventions to reduce harmful aggressive behavior in our society. To accomplish this end goal, we will need to develop a thorough unders
A. Freya Thimsen
LGBTQ+ Public Issues
Queer activism about public issues sometimes strives to persuade audiences in mainstream ways. Sometimes, however, queer activism is more radical about love, family, political organization, and commun
Andrew Goldman
Music and the Mind
Music is pervasive in our lives, and not just for trained musicians. Consider some of the contexts in which we encounter music: ceremonies and rituals, social gatherings, private listening, formal pe
Sergio Ospina-Romero
Popular Music as a History Book: Latin America in the 20th Century
In 2011, the famous Puerto Rican band Calle 13 released the song “Latinoamérica”, an epic piece that not only skyrocketed the transnational popularity of the band, but that became somewhat of
Jacob Emery
Puzzles and Problems
In puzzles, we find pleasure in mental challenges. This course explores the kinds of thinking involved in different varieties of puzzles and how puzzle thinking relates to other kinds of intellectual
Tatiana Saburova
Seeing the Past: History in Photographs
Are you taking pictures? I am sure you have a lot of photos, picturing your life, family, and friends. Are you interested to learn how to work with visual information and get a new experience in visua
David McDonald
Soundtrack to Revolution
Can music change the world? If so, how? What are the dynamics of music, activism, and social justice? How does music facilitate revolution? This course proceeds from the basic idea that music is a pow
Lane Sorensen
Vikings and Sagas: Primary Sources vs. Popular Culture
The past couple of decades have seen a spike in portrayals of Vikings in a variety of media from television and movies to comic books, manga, and video games. But who were the Vikings? Do the images o
Kyle Adams
What Makes Good Music?
We all like music. The goal of this course is to talk about why. My primary objective is to introduce you to the study of music through the fundamental vocabulary of music, outlining the most critica