College Catalog

“Italian Fascism and German National Socialism were more than just political parties or regimes; rather, they had many of the characteristics of religious movements. Moreover, these “political” or “secular religions” were not unprecedented, but had deep cultural and intellectual roots in European modernity. In this course we will trace the history of the sacralization of politics from the French Revolution to World War II. We will look at primary sources in a variety of media—drawing examples from France (Rousseau, Maistre, and Sorel), Germany (Wagner, Nietzsche, Jünger, and Riefenstahl), and Italy (Pareto, D’Annunzio, G. Gentile, and Marinetti)—as well as some of the most important scholarly literature on this topic (Benjamin, Voegelin, and Aron). No prerequisites; all texts will be read in English translation.”

“The Tibetan language, with a history going back more than one thousand years, is one of Asia’s major literary languages. At the present time, it is the first language of close to seven million people in Tibet, as well as in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. The textbook is The Manual of Standard Tibetan by Nicolas Tournade and Sangda Dorje. This introductory sequence covers the script and pronunciation, the grammar of the modern Lhasa dialect, as well as basic reading and speaking skills.”

“ This course looks at the reception of Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), whose philosophy, largely neglected at first, eventually came to enjoy far-reaching influence as European thinkers set out on repeated quests for the source of a different “modernity” or “Counter-Enlightenment” in fields as varied as political theory (Romagnosi, Cattaneo, Ferrari), the historical and modernist novel (Cuoco, Manzoni, Joyce), Romantic historiography (Michelet, Gioberti), literary criticism (Auerbach), and intellectual history (Berlin). What is the secret behind the enduring appeal of Vico’s anti-rationalist stance? This seminar, going further than dedicating itself to the legacy of a single thinker, wishes to investigate the “logic” (or lack thereof) that attends posthumous acclaim, eponymity, and etiological myths, and to provide guidelines for a disciplined approach to the history, practice, and theory of reception.”

“The objective of this course is to understand how microorganisms alter the geochemistry of their environment. The course will cover fundamental principles of microbial growth, metabolism, genetics, diversity, and ecology, as well as methods used to study microbial communities and activities. It will emphasize microbial roles in elemental cycling, bioremediation, climate, and ecosystem health in a variety of environments including aquatic, soil, sediment, and engineered systems.”

“ This course is designed to examine the field of child mental health from an interdisciplinary perspective, integrating anthropological, sociological and psychological insights to look at some of the significant questions and controversies present in considerations of children’s health today. Students will also spend significant time on developing individual research papers. We will begin in the first two weeks with an overview of the field of child psychopathology and the diagnostic systems most commonly used in the practice of child psychiatry. We will then spend the next three weeks looking at two of the most common and controversial diagnoses applied to children in the United States: Autism-spectrum disorders and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. In examining these categories we will consider the cultural and historical contexts that have lead to the emergence of these diagnoses and the variety of experiences of those identified as being afflicted with these disorders. The highly public controversy over giving children psychiatric medication and the implications of exporting Western psychiatric knowledge about children to other cultural contexts will also be considered. In the second half of the class we will move away from examinations of psychiatric nosology to think more broadly about the ways in which concepts of the normative treatment and behavior of children vary across time and place, looking particularly at the effects of aggression on children. “

“This course seeks to develop skills in perception, comprehension, and interpretation when dealing with film and other moving image media. It encourages the close analysis of audiovisual forms, their materials and formal attributes, and explores the range of questions and methods appropriate to the explication of a given film or moving image text. It also examines the intellectual structures basic to the systematic study and understanding of moving images. Most importantly, the course aims to foster in students the ability to translate this understanding into verbal expression, both oral and written. Texts and films are drawn from the history of narrative, experimental, animated, and documentary or non-fiction cinema. Screenings are a mandatory course component.”

“This is an introductory course on optimization that will cover the rudiments of unconstrained and constrained optimization of a real-valued multivariate function. The focus is on the settings where this function is, respectively, linear, quadratic, convex, or differentiable. Time permitting, topics such as nonsmooth, integer, vector, and dynamic optimization may be briefly addressed. Materials will include basic duality theory, optimality conditions, and intractability results, as well as algorithms and applications.”

"This undergraduate course examines the cinematic representation of modern Korean history, politics, and gender in South Korean films, aiming to establish a comprehensive understanding of Korean film history from its early stage to its contemporary global recognition. While proceeding chronologically, we will interrogate key problematic subjects in South Korean cinema such as gender politics, the discourse of modernity, the representation of historical and political events, and practices of film culture and industry. The film texts examined in this course include not only break-though masterpieces of prominent film auteurs but also popular genre films that enjoyed box-office success. Through these examples, we will examine how the most influential art form in South Korea has recognized, interpreted, and resolved current societal issues through creative endeavor. The course also seeks to establish a balance between understanding Korean cinema as both a reservoir of historical memory and as an example of evolving world cinema. Being presented with methodological issues from film studies in each week’s film reading, including the question of archives, national cinema discourse, feminist film theory, auteurism, and genre studies, students in this course will learn to analyze Korean filmic texts not only as a way to understand the particularity of Korean cinema and history but also as a frontier of cinematic language in the broader film history."

"The relationship to ones partners is the single most predictably generative asset we have on stage. How can we use this reliable relationship to create work that is truthful and grounded in the real, so that we can forge experience with audiences rather than asking them to "suspend disbelief." In this class we will explore action and liveness in theater performance and creation. At the very core of the theatrical act is the live interaction between the actor and her/his partners. We will look at improvisation, action art, and 500 Clown technique as ways of finding ourselves present on stage. There will be writing (creative and papers) and reading (you know...books), but this class is mostly a time to acquire knowledge with the body. We will be stretching physically and emotionally each class period. Journaling will be required, as will clothes that allow for free movement with no flashiness or logos. (Burlap sack not required). Performance experience not required. If you're not interested in performance though, why are still reading this? 500 Clown is a Clown-theater company founded in 1999. The core members of which have developed a way of teaching performance which produces visceral and accessible theater. Adrian Danzig is the founding Artistic Director of 500 Clown."

"Topics include electrostatics, magnetostatics, electromagnetic induction, electric and magnetic fields in matter, plane electromagnetic waves, reflection and refraction of electromagnetic waves, and electromagnetic radiation."

"This course is designed to introduce Biological Sciences majors to a wide range of subdisciplines within biology.  Lecture topics include ecology, evolution, organismal biology, biodiversity, molecular biology, development, and structural biology.  Students will gain experience with integrative approaches to science as they read and dissect the primary literature and complete a quarter-long group project organized around a big question in biology."

"This course is the entry point into an integrated biology sequence designed to prepare non-science majors for application to medical school.  We explore topics in human cell biology within the context of evolutionary biology, chemistry, microbiology, and medicine.  We pay special attention to the influence of prokaryotes on the history of life and to the ecological interactions between humans and their microbiota, which have major implications for human health and disease.  Students read and discuss papers from the scientific literature, attend discussions led by physicians and other medical professionals, and gain experience with microbiological and basic microscopy techniques and vertebrate dissection in lab."

"This course focuses on learning spoken Japanese that is aimed at native speakers. Our goals are to get students accustomed to that sort of authentic Japanese and to enable them to speak with high fluency. To keep the balance, writing and reading materials are provided. Students are encouraged to watch videos and practice their speaking."

"Scientific visualization combines computer graphics, numerical methods, and mathematical models of the physical world to create a visual framework for understanding and solving scientific problems. The mathematical and algorithmic foundations of scientific visualization (for scalar, vector, and tensor fields) will be explained in the context of real-world data from scientific and biomedical domains. The course is also intended for students outside computer science who are experienced with programming and scientific computing on scientific data. Programming projects will be in C."

"This course covers classification of second-order equations in two variables, wave motion and Fourier series, heat flow and Fourier integral, Laplace's equation and complex variables, second-order equations in more than two variables, Laplace operators, spherical harmonics, and associated special functions of mathematical physics."

"This course is required for the neuroscience specialization. This course is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to the structure and function of the mammalian brain."

"This course is designed to introduce students to a range of qualitative research methods and to help determine which method would fit a research project of their own design in the field of race and ethnic studies. It functions as a research workshop in which students identify a research topic, develop a research question, and explore a range of methods that may or may not be appropriate for the research project. Students read each other's work and work through ideas that can serve as the proposal for a BA project."