Complex Problem & Enduring Question Courses
First year students are invited to enroll in Boston College鈥檚 innovative Complex Problem and Enduring Question University Core courses. These courses are collaboratively taught by two faculty members from different fields and are designed to engage students in interdisciplinary explorations of topics of critical importance. These include areas such as migration; social inequalities; technological change; compassion and belonging; justice and the common good; and more.
Complex Problem and Enduring Question courses extend inquiry beyond the classroom to labs, Reflection sessions, conversations with outside speakers, and off-campus field visits, creating an intensive shared learning experience for both teachers and students. They exemplify Boston College鈥檚 distinctive approach to Core education by establishing a foundation for students鈥� intellectual development and preparing them to become engaged, effective world citizens.
Spring 2026 Complex Problem and Enduring Question Courses
Complex Problem Courses
Complex Problem courses are six-credit courses, team-taught by two professors from different disciplines. Students meet multiple days each week for lectures and once per week for lab. Students and faculty also gather for weekly Reflection sessions, in which they integrate the content of the course with their lived experiences. Each paired Complex Problem course fulfills two University Core requirements. Some may fill an additional University Core requirement for Cultural Diversity, through either Difference, Justice and the Common Good (DJCG) or Engaging Difference and Justice (EDJ).
If you have any questions about these courses or how to register, e-mail core@bc.edu.
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Moving Matters: Migration and Transformation Across the Americas
HIST1733 + UNAS1741
鈻短鼺ulfills History II + 1 Social Science + Cultural Diversity
Mar铆a de los 脕ngeles Picone, History
Christopher Salas-Wright, School of Social Work
Evan Fern谩ndez, Core Fellow
Movement has shaped the Americas for centuries, especially from 1800 to today. This course examines how people on the move鈥攎igrating for opportunity, fleeing crisis, or seeking new beginnings鈥攊nteract with social landscapes. From the Patagonian Desert to New England cities, we will explore why people uproot, what attracts them to new places, and how they adapt to new cultures. We will trace critical moments of mass movement and their impact on families, communities, and nations. This course is not just about migration; it is about understanding the transformative power of movement over two centuries.
These course lectures meet:
- TTh 3:00 鈥� 4:15 p.m.
You must select one of the following lab selections with your registration:
- M 12:00 鈥� 1:15 p.m.
- W 12:00 鈥� 1:15 p.m.
- F 12:00 鈥� 1:15 p.m.
- F 1:30 鈥� 2:45 p.m.
Reflection will be held:
- T 6:00 鈥� 7:15 p.m.
Exchange and Values: Stories and Measures of Inequality
ECON1503 + ENGL1738
鈻短鼺ulfills 1 Social Science + Literature + Cultural Diversity
Can Erbil, Economics
Kalpana Seshadri, English
Peter Giraudo, Core Fellow
This course explores inequality through a blend of economics and literature, providing a rich, interdisciplinary perspective. By examining real world cases, economic data, and literary narratives, students will understand different forms of inequality in society. The course is organized around five key themes鈥揻ood, housing, health, education, and jobs鈥揳nd includes interactive lectures and labs for in-depth analysis. It is designed to foster critical thinking about social justice, encouraging students to reflect on their values and aspirations in relation to societal inequities. This engaging course aims to deepen students' awareness and understanding of the economic and social aspects of inequality.
These course lectures meet:
- TTh 12:00 鈥� 1:15 p.m.
You must select one of the following lab selections with your registration:
- M 12:00 鈥� 1:15 p.m.
- M 1:30 鈥� 2:45 p.m.
- W 12:00 鈥� 1:15 p.m.
- W 1:30 鈥� 2:45 p.m.
Reflection will be held:
- T 6:00 鈥� 7:15 p.m.
Enduring Question Courses
Enduring Question courses are two linked three-credit courses taught by professors from different disciplines. The same 19 students take both courses. Four times during the semester, students and faculty gather for Reflection sessions, in which they integrate the content of the course with their lived experiences. Each pair of Enduring Question courses fulfills two University Core requirements. Some may fulfill an additional University Core requirement for Cultural Diversity through either Difference, Justice, and the Common Good (DJCG) or Engaging Difference and Justice (EDJ).
If you have any questions about these courses or how to register, e-mail core@bc.edu.
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Revolutionary Media: How Books Changed History (HIST1705)
Revolutionary Media: How Reading Changes Us (ENGL1715)
鈻� Fulfills History I + Literature
Virginia Reinburg, History
Mary Crane, English
How have books and reading shaped the modern world?
The printed book has been the most powerful and disruptive medium of communication the world has seen. Today, as new technologies and media also compete for our attention, it is especially important to understand the role books have played in Western culture, and how various modes of reading have shaped our minds. One of these courses traces the revolutionary history of the book in Europe from 1450 to 1800. The other focuses on the ways in which different media have, from 1450 up to the present, demanded different strategies for reading.听
These course lectures meet:
- TTh 12:00 鈥� 1:15 p.m.
- TTh 1:30 鈥� 2:45 p.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
How Sports Explain America: The History of Sports in the United States (HIST1718)
How Sports Explain America: The Sociology of Sports in the United States (SOCY1718)
鈻� Fulfills History II + 1 Social Science + Cultural Diversity
Thomas Mogan, Associate Dean, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
Kyoung-yim Kim, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
How have sports served to define and illustrate the essence of American society and culture throughout history and in contemporary times?
These paired courses will explore the complex relationship between sports and society. Through an interdisciplinary approach to history and sociology, students will analyze the evolution of sports, assess how they mirror the changing dynamics of American society and culture, and investigate the multifaceted roles sports have played and continue to play in shaping our society. By the end of these courses, students will understand how sports serve as a microcosm of American society and a platform for social change, fostering critical thinking and a deep appreciation of the nation's cultural fabric.听
These course lectures meet:
- TTh 3:00 鈥� 4:15 p.m.
- TTh 4:30 鈥� 5:45 p.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
The Value of Work: Significance through Literature (ENGL1728)
The Value of Work: A Philosophical Examination (PHIL1721)
鈻� Fulfills Literature + 1 Philosophy
Aeron Hunt, English
Micah Lott, Philosophy
What role and significance does work have in flourishing lives and good societies?
These paired courses offer students the opportunity to reflect on the meaning and significance of the human activity of work鈥揳n activity that is likely to occupy a large portion of their lives. Around the globe, politicians promise "good jobs," and scholars discuss automation and "the future of work." We will consider what constitutes a good job and what form of value is most central to work as a part of a good life, whether that be financial reward, social purpose, or personal fulfillment. In addition, we will think about how individuals and communities understand and achieve justice and meaning at work.听
These course lectures meet:
- MWF 11:00 鈥� 11:50 a.m.
- TTh 9:00 鈥� 10:15 a.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
Oppression and Change in the Contemporary United States: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives (UNAS1701)
Oppression and Change in the Contemporary United States: Writing as Social Action (ENGL1722)
鈻� Fulfills 1 Social Science + Writing + Cultural Diversity
Lisa Goodman, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
Paula Mathieu, English
How do the dynamics of privilege and oppression shape individual and group experience?
Despite our country鈥檚 democratic ideals, social oppression remains deeply entrenched today. These paired courses will explore privilege and oppression across class, race, gender, and sexual orientation. Students will examine the ways that institutional, ideological, and interpersonal oppression shape individual and community well-being and will use writing to reflect on the roots and manifestations of social inequality and injustice. Together we will explore how we can become more sensitive to our own privileges and aware of inequalities in ways that can lead to positive social transformation.
These course lectures meet:
- TTh 9:00 鈥� 10:15 a.m.
- TTh 10:30 鈥� 11:45 a.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
Shifting Forms: Political Belonging in Song and Film (POLI1033)
Shifting Forms: Sexuality and Belonging in Modern Literature and Film (ENGL1732)
鈻� Fulfills 1 Social Science + Literature
Jonathan Laurence, Political Science
Kevin Ohi, English
How does our relationship to art shape our identities and change our sense of belonging?
These paired courses investigate how the arts help define the 鈥減ublic鈥� in a republic and how passionate relations to aesthetic objects shape minority communities and affect their place in a larger social world. We will examine artists鈥� uses of inherited forms and think about how they illuminate the ways individuals band together into groups. In songs, plays, operas, literature, and other works of art from the late 18th century to the present, we will trace representations of citizenship, political participation, the nation-state, and national identity, on the one hand, and queer identities, sexual expression, and activism, on the other, considering, in both contexts, how art shapes different forms of human belonging.
These course lectures meet:
- TTh 1:30 鈥� 2:45 p.m.
- TTh 3:00 鈥� 4:15 p.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
War and Peace: History and Literary Truths (HIST1727)
War and Peace: Historical and Literary Experiences (UNAS1715)
鈻� Fulfills History II + Literature
Nicole Eaton, History
Thomas Epstein, Classical Studies
How does War and Peace speak through its historical context and as a description of a perennial human situation?
War and Peace is a great and massive novel. Its primary subject, the effect of the Napoleonic Wars on Russia, may seem distant from our contemporary concerns. Yet its fundamental questions鈥揌ow shall I live and what is worth dying for? Is war a necessary evil, or something greater, or different? How does our social-historical experience construct our identity?鈥揳re as relevant today as ever. Approaching these and other questions from two separate disciplines, we will attend both to the historical and literary context in which War and Peace was written and to the ways it speaks to us today.
These course lectures meet:
- TTh 12:00 鈥� 1:15 p.m.
- TTh 1:30 鈥� 2:45 p.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
Creatively Re/Imagining Black Worlds: Black Literature Making Up To Make Real (ENGL1749)
Creatively Re/Imagining Black Worlds: Empathy and the Social Life of Fiction in the African Diaspora (SOCY1233)
鈻� Fulfills Literature + 1 Social Science + Cultural Diversity
Rhonda Frederick, English and African & African Diaspora Studies
C. Shawn McGuffey, Sociology and African & African Diaspora Studies
How does engagement with the humanities鈥搒pecifically popular and prose fictions鈥搃mpact the social world?
These linked courses explore the role of black literature and popular culture in cultivating empathy, imagination, and the joys in resistance. Using the lenses of social science, literature, and black feminism, students will analyze how narratives in multiple literary genres foster compassion and inspire social action. How can fiction reshape societal attitudes? Can literature help readers imagine and create new worlds? By engaging with stories that reimagine race, gender, and identity, students will examine how literature can disrupt normalized social categories and inspire transformative possibilities in the real world.
These course lectures meet:
- TTh 3:00 鈥� 4:15 p.m.
- TTh 4:30 鈥� 5:45 p.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
The Medium Shapes the Message: Materials and Technologies of Visual Communication (ARTH1730)
The Medium Shapes the Message: How Materials Get Meaningful in Human Interaction (FORM1730)
鈻� Fulfills Arts + 1 Social Science + Cultural Diversity
Oliver Wunsch, Art History
Chip Zuckerman, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
How does a medium shape the message that it conveys?
How does a medium shape the message that it conveys? Contemporary technologies have made the question difficult to ignore. When we decide to text rather than call, we make a choice that matters. But these considerations are hardly new. From cave paintings to the printing press, humans have continually grappled with the way every medium affords its own expressive possibilities. By using the tools of art history and linguistic anthropology, and by reflecting on the use of wood, sound, ink, VR technologies, and even the human body, these paired courses explore how media impart meaning.
These course lectures meet:
- TTh 9:00 鈥� 10:15 a.m.
- TTh 10:30 鈥� 11:45 a.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
Urban Paradoxes: Histories of Cities, Power, and Environment in the Americas (HIST1736)
Urban Paradoxes: Theories and Practices of City Infrastructures (UNAS1742)
鈻� Fulfills History II + 1 Social Science + Cultural Diversity
Andrei Guadarrama, Core Fellow
Ethan Tupelo, Core Fellow
What makes urban life possible?
We live in an urban world, yet a majority of humans lived outside of urban areas until 2007. To understand this massive transformation in human experience, these courses will examine the social and material processes that make urban life possible, investigating core contradictions of the city鈥揳 site of economic growth and inequality, political freedom and oppression, environmental justice and disaster. Against interpreting urban growth, infrastructure, and markets as neutral, we will make visible the contingent power relations and systems that create, shape, and constrain human interactions and beliefs. These courses will combine sources from history and political theory, with emphasis on cities in the U.S. and Latin America in the 20th century. Students will engage in deep research of a particular city and think through solutions to ongoing problems of global cities.
These course lectures meet:
Section 01:
- MWF 10:00 鈥� 10:50 a.m.
- MWF 11:00 鈥� 11:50 a.m.
Section 02:
- MWF 11:00 鈥� 11:50 a.m
- MWF 12:00 鈥� 12:50 p.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
Plants and Power: The History of Colonial Science in the English-Speaking World (HIST1735)
Plants and Power: Reimagining Colonial Science through World Literature in English (ENGL1750)
鈻� Fulfills History II + Literature + Cultural Diversity
Kathryn Bruce, Core Fellow
Gayathri Goel, Core Fellow
What does it mean to domesticate the natural world?
These paired courses examine the relationship between people, plants, and power throughThe history and literature of the English-speaking world. We consider how plant knowledge is intertwined with imperialism and defines power relations between communities, and ask how such knowledge is constructed, valued, and deployed. In addition to recognizing how knowledge about the plant world is created and communicated, we will use this knowledge to challenge human-centered perspectives and look more broadly at the non-human actors of the natural world. By examining historical and literary texts in relation to the disciplines of science, botany, horticulture, and agriculture, we seek to understand how humanity has shared our existence with plants, and how we can inhabit the world responsibly in the age of extinction and climate change.
These course lectures meet:
Section 01:
- MWF 12:00 鈥� 12:50 p.m.
- MWF 1:00 鈥� 1:50 p.m.
Section 02:
- MWF 1:00 鈥� 1:50 p.m
- MWF 2:00 鈥� 2:50 p.m.
Reflection will be held four times during the semester:
- Th 6:00 鈥� 7:50 p.m.
Reflection and Formation
Reflection is a central element of student formation at Boston College and a fundamental component of the design of Complex Problem and Enduring Question courses. In Reflection sessions, students connect the content of the course to听 their lives beyond the classroom and to the larger University community. In this way, Reflection is intimately tied to the University Core Curriculum learning goal of teaching students how to 鈥渆xamine their values and experiences and integrate what they learn with the principles that guide their lives.鈥� 听
Hands-On, Project-Based Learning
Weekly, 75-minute labs are a distinctive feature of Complex Problem courses that allow students to develop and synthesize disciplinary skills, integrating lecture material with active learning. Students collaborate in groups on hands-on projects that extend the course beyond the walls of the classroom and into the broader community.
Lab sessions in Complex Problem courses may include:
- A partnership with the City of Boston鈥檚 Environment Department where students developed plans for inexpensive ways that residents of various neighborhoods could reduce carbon emissions
- A collaboration with local anti-violence organizations where students helped to develop programming for survivors
- A podcasting project where students students researched, developed, and recorded a compelling story about climate issues
- A mural project honoring the founders of #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo
- A comprehensive revitalization plan for a Boston neighborhood impacted by various forms of injustice
- An urban walk to learn more about tree equity
- Engineering design projects focused on improved accessibility on the Boston College campus
- Case study research and concept mapping of Marine Protected Areas around the world
- Op-ed writing about ocean and climate change issues
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Students visit Boston鈥檚 Chinatown to reflect on sites built by Asian immigrants and inhabited by Asian Americans
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Students program and evaluate a robot prototype
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Students meditate, pray, and reflect as they walk outside the Burns Library
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Students engage in a yoga practice on the Bapst lawn