New HSS Courses Encourage Curiosity

Each academic year, new postdoctoral scholar teaching fellows join the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) and infuse the curriculum with unique and innovative classes. In 2025–26, six new members of the division will teach 13 novel classes on a variety of subjects.

Tracing Art Across Geographies

Two courses taught by Delanie J. Linden, Anne Rothenberg Postdoctoral Scholar Teaching Fellow in Visual Culture, pose the same foundational question: What underpins beauty?

"I am excited to work with Caltech undergraduates and to fold in their own interests in the classroom—the study of art will only benefit if we bring in more diverse voices from chemists, physicists, anthropologists, computer scientists, artificial intelligence enthusiasts, and more," says Linden, who recently earned her PhD in art history from MIT's History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art program.

Color (Hum/VC 52), in the winter term, will examine color across geographies and cultures in history with a thematic approach, exploring a different facet of color each week as it relates to visual culture, art, and architecture. In a spring class, Extraction! Art, Architecture, and Environmental History (VC 178), students will learn what it took to make objects of art beautiful, from the extraction of resin, lapis lazuli, and marble to the unpaid or low-wage labor that precipitated access through trade.

"I want my students to no longer take the world around them for granted: to stop and observe architecture on campus; to notice a fossil in a limestone or marble feature, and to question this architectural material's origins of extraction and cultural value," Linden says.

Print, Rare Books, and Environmental History

Mateusz Falkowski, Howard E. and Susanne C. Jessen Postdoctoral Scholar Teaching Fellow in Early Modern Literature and the Classical Tradition, studies intellectual and religious history by combining approaches from book history, classical reception studies, and the history of science.

He is teaching Books, Readers, and Science in Early Modern Europe (H 113) during the fall term, which focuses on the representation of knowledge in early modern printed materials across

contemporary disciplines such as natural history, technical arts, and geography. Students will examine how scholars, editors, and printers translated new discoveries in sciences and humanities to text and images and learn about the communication and reception of knowledge in early modern Europe.

"Several sessions will take place in Caltech's Archives and Special Collections and at the Huntington Library, where students—guided by the curators—will study original books from the period and learn about the material and technical aspects of printing in early modern Europe," notes Falkowski, who has a PhD in history from Princeton.

He is also teaching Environment and Environmental Expertise in Premodern World (Hum/H 16) in the spring. Participants will examine people's interactions with climate, forests, waterways, wildlife, natural disasters, and more, and learn about the ways in which knowledge about the environment was collected, processed, and employed in practice across centuries.

"The class will serve as an introduction to environmental history as an academic field, and at the same time, invite a reflection on the deep origins of some of the present-day ecological crises," Falkowski says.

The Polarization of Politics

Raquel Centeno, a postdoctoral scholar teaching fellow in science, society, and policy who recently earned her PhD in political science and international relations from USC, is teaching American Parties, Partisanship, and Polarization (PS129) in the winter term.

"I'm really interested in how people's various group identities shape how they think about the political environment, political institutions, and even other voters, along with the causes and consequences of polarization," says Centeno, who collaborates with faculty in The Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy (LCSSP). "I'd like to provide a launchpad to get students excited about politics by demystifying things for them and giving them more clarity on how to get involved in political reform or other types of civic engagement."

By reading a mix of academic research as well as political and cultural journalism, students will learn more about the history of the modern Democratic and Republican parties; trends in voter behavior and partisanship, including how partisanship varies across different subgroups of voters; and recent research on the causes and consequences of modern partisan polarization.

"My biggest hope is that the class will leave people feeling optimistic that there's something they can do within their capacity is as a private citizen to make their world, and everybody else's world, a little bit better," says Centeno.

Explorations in Literature and Culture

With a teaching focus at the intersection of the environment and culture, Nick Earhart, Weisman Postdoctoral Scholar Teaching Fellow in English and Visual Culture, is teaching three new courses.

His current class, Climate Fiction (Hum/En 42), looks at the role of storytelling in confronting the climate crisis, giving students an opportunity to connect climate science to questions of ethics, rhetoric, and political urgency.

"Hopefully the course will encourage students to explore the social and humanistic dimensions of their rigorous scientific training," says Earhart, who has a PhD in English and a certificate in visual studies from USC. "I'm especially interested in what happens when we read texts from different corners of the academic universe alongside one another—in other words how the evident stakes of climate change encourage creative, interdisciplinary thought."

Graphic Non-Fiction (En/VC 198) in the winter term will examine how comics artists utilize their craft to tell "true stories" and will include drawing and storytelling exercises to show how low-stakes creative exploration can exist alongside scholarly inquiry.

In the spring, Earhart will teach Nature Writing (Hum/En 43), challenging students to trace the changing understandings of the concept of nature in U.S. literature from the 19th century to the present. "We'll draw on canonical figures like Thoreau and Leopold and more contemporary writers like Gloria Anzaldúa and Lauret Savoy who address the roles of race, class, and gender in shaping our imagination of nature," he says.

Plays, Poetry, and Friendship

Tanya Schmidt Morstein, a postdoctoral scholar teaching fellow in English, designed three courses that explore different kinds of writing and strategies for thinking with literature and philosophy.

Her current class, There and Back Again: Ancient and Early Modern Epic Storytelling (En 194) examines a range of epic poems, including Homer's Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Milton's Paradise Lost.

"These complex, narrative poems are such a delight to read, and since the history of epic literature is also a history of responding to epic, they provide an opportunity for us to investigate the art of storytelling both at the level of each poem and at the level of these texts together," says Morstein, who has a PhD in English from New York University.

Over the winter, students in Shakespeare at the Cinema (En/VC 199) will study Shakespeare's playtexts alongside various film adaptations and analyze the choices that directors, actors, and sound editors have made across productions. The Ethics of Friendship (Hum/En 39), also in the second term, will develop critical reading and writing skills through material on friendship.

"We will read theories of friendship by classical and early modern philosophers as well as fiction that puts these theories to the test," explains Morstein. "I hope that students will become stronger readers, writers, and participants in discussion, and that in this process, they will also become more reflective about how they navigate their own friendships."

The History of Inventions

Inspired by the social and cultural history of technological innovation in the long Renaissance, Cristiano Zanetti, Eleanor Searle Postdoctoral Scholar Teaching Fellow in the History of Science and Technology, is teaching two courses looking at how technologies evolve and why history matters.

"In a time of hyperspecialization, drawing inspiration from figures like Vitruvius and the founders of Caltech, we'll see how combining technical knowledge with a broader humanistic perspective can help you think critically, challenge assumptions, and imagine the impact you can have on society," says Zanetti, who holds a PhD in history and civilization from the European University Institute.

Leonardo da Vinci & Co.: How to Understand Technological Invention in the Long Renaissance (Hum/H 38) taught during the winter session will explore major technological achievements across different historical contexts and investigate how technological innovations emerged, circulated, interacted, and shaped societies. Instruments of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Early Modern World (H 115) in the spring will investigate how scientific instruments emerged, interacted, and contributed to evolving scientific paradigms. Both courses will feature opportunities for hands-on learning as students analyze and reconstruct historical instruments using replicas and visit collections, such as those held in the Caltech Archives.

"I am thrilled and honored by the chance to engage with future technological innovators—some of whom may go on to change the world—in conversations about the history of inventions," Zanetti says. "My hope is that these courses will empower students to contextualize phenomena, draw inspiration from their predecessors, and critically challenge established narratives."

For more information on the 2025–2026 course offerings, please visit the HSS course schedule. And you can read more about our newest lecturers, postdocs, students, and staff in the 2025–2026 New Faces publication.