This is the first half of a two-semester course designed for students who need guided experience in writing before entering English and/or other Liberal Arts courses. Students improve their ability to write well by learning and practicing the process of writing and by investigating ways that ideas can be generated, developed, and organized in writing. Students develop confidence and competence in their skills through a variety of activities: writing papers, analyzing other students' writing, and analyzing professional writing.

A continuation of the two-semester Writing Skills sequence, designed for students who need guided experience in writing, this course emphasizes students' achievement of greater depth and significance in their writing through practice. Students continue to analyze the work of both student and professional writers and learn to apply various strategies for the advancement of ideas in writing. Writing assignments include more demanding forms such as formal and comparative analyses. Research skills are also addressed.

A continuation of the two-semester Writing Skills sequence, designed for students who need guided experience in writing, this course emphasizes students' achievement of greater depth and significance in their writing through practice. Students continue to analyze the work of both student and professional writers and learn to apply various strategies for the advancement of ideas in writing. Writing assignments include more demanding forms such as formal and comparative analyses. Research skills are also addressed.

A continuation of the two-semester Writing Skills sequence, designed for students who need guided experience in writing, this course emphasizes students' achievement of greater depth and significance in their writing through practice. Students continue to analyze the work of both student and professional writers and learn to apply various strategies for the advancement of ideas in writing. Writing assignments include more demanding forms such as formal and comparative analyses. Research skills are also addressed.

A continuation of the two-semester Writing Skills sequence, designed for students who need guided experience in writing, this course emphasizes students' achievement of greater depth and significance in their writing through practice. Students continue to analyze the work of both student and professional writers and learn to apply various strategies for the advancement of ideas in writing. Writing assignments include more demanding forms such as formal and comparative analyses. Research skills are also addressed.

This is the first semester of a two-semester course designed to strengthen students' reading comprehension and critical thinking skills to meet the demands of art historical and other academic texts. Students improve their ability to analyze and retain information by employing a variety of active learning strategies, including a schematic note-taking system, while they investigate the formal and contextual elements of artworks. The semester culminates in the writing of a paper that synthesizes information about a particular artwork from a number of sources.

In this second half of the two-course sequence, students apply more extensively those strategies learned in Reading College Texts I, as well as investigate alternative approaches to analyzing texts which complement their own learning styles. The course emphasizes the ongoing advancement and demonstration of higher/critical thinking skills through presentations and projects, including the writing of an end-of-term comparative analysis of two artworks that synthesizes information from a number of sources.

In this second half of the two-course sequence, students apply more extensively those strategies learned in Reading College Texts I, as well as investigate alternative approaches to analyzing texts which complement their own learning styles. The course emphasizes the ongoing advancement and demonstration of higher/critical thinking skills through presentations and projects, including the writing of an end-of-term comparative analysis of two artworks that synthesizes information from a number of sources.

In this second half of the two-course sequence, students apply more extensively those strategies learned in Reading College Texts I, as well as investigate alternative approaches to analyzing texts which complement their own learning styles. The course emphasizes the ongoing advancement and demonstration of higher/critical thinking skills through presentations and projects, including the writing of an end-of-term comparative analysis of two artworks that synthesizes information from a number of sources.

In this second half of the two-course sequence, students apply more extensively those strategies learned in Reading College Texts I, as well as investigate alternative approaches to analyzing texts which complement their own learning styles. The course emphasizes the ongoing advancement and demonstration of higher/critical thinking skills through presentations and projects, including the writing of an end-of-term comparative analysis of two artworks that synthesizes information from a number of sources.

This is the first half of a two-semester course designed for students who need guided experience in writing before entering English and/or other Liberal Arts courses. Students improve their ability to write well by learning and practicing the process of writing and by investigating ways that ideas can be generated, developed, and organized in writing. Students develop confidence and competence in their skills through a variety of activities: writing papers, analyzing other students' writing, and analyzing professional writing.

This is the first half of a two-semester course designed for students who need guided experience in writing before entering English and/or other Liberal Arts courses. Students improve their ability to write well by learning and practicing the process of writing and by investigating ways that ideas can be generated, developed, and organized in writing. Students develop confidence and competence in their skills through a variety of activities: writing papers, analyzing other students' writing, and analyzing professional writing.

This is the first half of a two-semester course designed for students who need guided experience in writing before entering English and/or other Liberal Arts courses. Students improve their ability to write well by learning and practicing the process of writing and by investigating ways that ideas can be generated, developed, and organized in writing. Students develop confidence and competence in their skills through a variety of activities: writing papers, analyzing other students' writing, and analyzing professional writing.

This is the first half of a two-semester course designed for students who need guided experience in writing before entering English and/or other Liberal Arts courses. Students improve their ability to write well by learning and practicing the process of writing and by investigating ways that ideas can be generated, developed, and organized in writing. Students develop confidence and competence in their skills through a variety of activities: writing papers, analyzing other students' writing, and analyzing professional writing.

This is the first half of a two-semester course designed for students who need guided experience in writing before entering English and/or other Liberal Arts courses. Students improve their ability to write well by learning and practicing the process of writing and by investigating ways that ideas can be generated, developed, and organized in writing. Students develop confidence and competence in their skills through a variety of activities: writing papers, analyzing other students' writing, and analyzing professional writing.

A continuation of the two-semester Writing Skills sequence, designed for students who need guided experience in writing, this course emphasizes students' achievement of greater depth and significance in their writing through practice. Students continue to analyze the work of both student and professional writers and learn to apply various strategies for the advancement of ideas in writing. Writing assignments include more demanding forms such as formal and comparative analyses. Research skills are also addressed.

This is the first semester of a two-semester course designed to strengthen students' reading comprehension and critical thinking skills to meet the demands of art historical and other academic texts. Students improve their ability to analyze and retain information by employing a variety of active learning strategies, including a schematic note-taking system, while they investigate the formal and contextual elements of artworks. The semester culminates in the writing of a paper that synthesizes information about a particular artwork from a number of sources.

This is the first semester of a two-semester course designed to strengthen students' reading comprehension and critical thinking skills to meet the demands of art historical and other academic texts. Students improve their ability to analyze and retain information by employing a variety of active learning strategies, including a schematic note-taking system, while they investigate the formal and contextual elements of artworks. The semester culminates in the writing of a paper that synthesizes information about a particular artwork from a number of sources.

This is the first semester of a two-semester course designed to strengthen students' reading comprehension and critical thinking skills to meet the demands of art historical and other academic texts. Students improve their ability to analyze and retain information by employing a variety of active learning strategies, including a schematic note-taking system, while they investigate the formal and contextual elements of artworks. The semester culminates in the writing of a paper that synthesizes information about a particular artwork from a number of sources.

This is the first semester of a two-semester course designed to strengthen students' reading comprehension and critical thinking skills to meet the demands of art historical and other academic texts. Students improve their ability to analyze and retain information by employing a variety of active learning strategies, including a schematic note-taking system, while they investigate the formal and contextual elements of artworks. The semester culminates in the writing of a paper that synthesizes information about a particular artwork from a number of sources.

This is the first semester of a two-semester course designed to strengthen students' reading comprehension and critical thinking skills to meet the demands of art historical and other academic texts. Students improve their ability to analyze and retain information by employing a variety of active learning strategies, including a schematic note-taking system, while they investigate the formal and contextual elements of artworks. The semester culminates in the writing of a paper that synthesizes information about a particular artwork from a number of sources.

In this second half of the two-course sequence, students apply more extensively those strategies learned in Reading College Texts I, as well as investigate alternative approaches to analyzing texts which complement their own learning styles. The course emphasizes the ongoing advancement and demonstration of higher/critical thinking skills through presentations and projects, including the writing of an end-of-term comparative analysis of two artworks that synthesizes information from a number of sources.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the third of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the fourth of four English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students investigate modern and contemporary art movements by reading across a variety of art history texts, art reviews and newspaper/magazine articles. Definitions are extracted and used to evaluate works in galleries and museums as well as to critique works by new artists and classmates. Students write about abstract concepts and theories in analytical, expository, and evaluative essays with an emphasis on self-editing. Topics may include analyzing popular visual culture or media as well as fine art. In addition, students continue to develop their proficiency in academic English through listening to lectures, participating in and leading class discussions, and giving presentations.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This is the first of two critique courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students build competence in giving critiques, participating in class discussions, and giving presentations. Students make artwork to present to the class. They learn and practice the vocabulary of visual and design elements and use these to analyze and critique their own and their classmates? works. Students practice a variety of critique formats by using formal, social-cultural, and expressive theories of art criticism. They discuss and critique works both verbally and in writing.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

Painting, sculpture, music, architecture, literature. In this course students will use both their own and the creative works of others as the starting point for their papers. Through critical reading as well as trips to the library and museum, students will learn the craft of essay writing. Readings include Jeanette Winterson, John Cage, and Honore de Balzac.

FYS I: Identity, Privacy and Politics in Contemporary Social Media This class explores issues of identity, community, privacy, globalism and censorship that have arisen in the past five years around social media platforms. Each class includes an in-depth exploration of social media sites like Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, as well as assigned readings. Students will be expected to produce critical analyses of their experiences using social media, as well as the theoretical and political issues that make it such a contentious communication tool.

Alternately horrific and thoughtful, detective fiction can be summed up in a few words: ?Something's happened. Why and how?? Depending on the detective, the answers to these questions come about in different ways--some detectives use force, some use wit, others use mystical means or drugs. In this class, we take a historical approach to understand why (and how!) the genre is able to constantly re-invent itself while staying familiar. Authors include but are not limited to: Sophocles, Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, Megan Abbott, and more

Using Lars von Trier's film The Five Obstructions as our guide, we explore the value of repetition as both a tool for generating novel arguments, as well as repetition as a mode of thought in itself. In addition to von Trier's film, we look at Harold Ramis' filmGroundhog Day, as well as Francois Girard's Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. Additionally, we consider some musical works: Steve Reich's 'Three Tales,' J.S. Bach's 'Goldberg Variations,' and John Coletrane's 'A Love Supreme.' Furthermore, we consider works by Sigmund Freud, Mircea Eliade, Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickinson, Joe Brainard, John Tipton, Ben Lerner, Shakespeare, and the Bible.

As first created by Montaigne, the essay form has long been a medium of exploration and experiment, shaping prose into a mirror of individual observation, thought and feeling. In this course, based on Philip Lopate?s anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay, we read and analyze modern as well as classic practitioners of the form, and write a series of personal essays modeled on their various approaches. This course stresses prose writing as an analytical tool, a means of self discovery, and a life-time skill.

Berlin first rose to prominence in 1871 as the capital city of the newly unified Germany. It rapidly acquired the status of Weltstadt or 'Worldcity' embodying potential and progress on the one hand and rootlessness and lack of tradition on the other. The impersonal machinery of the modern city gave rise to Modernist literature which reflected the themes of decay and growing alienation of the individual in the modern world. In this course we will explore Berlin as metaphor for modernity by turning to the works of such diverse authors as Walter Benjamin, who wrote about his childhood in Berlin in the late 1900s, and Christopher Isherwood's depiction the Berlin pre-war cabaret culture in the 1920's, ending with Peter Schneider's account of post war Berlin as a divided city in the 1980s.

And the Rest is Drag: Perspectives on Gender Performance This class explores the possibilities and limitations of gender performance through a variety of lenses: as comedy, as necessity, as art, and as power. We examine drag's expansive history, and establish a critical framework for conversation as we discuss Judith Butler's theories on gender performativity. Most importantly, we consider drag's application in creative work through the analysis of a selection of texts and films, and synthesize our discoveries into academic and creative responses.

Humanistic psychology adopts a holistic approach to studying the human existence and emphasizes human potential, personal responsibility, and self-actualization. The humanistic theories are considered modern compared to the developmental and behavioral psychological theories. After 50 years of development, what do the contemporary humanistic scholars and psychologists think about human potential? Earlier works and studies of Carl Rogers, Martin Buber, and Eugene Gendlin are explored as a historic overview of humanistic psychology. The course quickly shifts to examining the works of scholars and psychologists such as Peter Schmid, LesGreenberg, Jim Iberg, and Margaret Witty.

What do William Butler Yeats, W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, and Sylvia Plath havein common? They come from Ireland, England, Wales, and America, so it?s not nationality. Not gender. Not sexual orientation. Not the level of fame achieved while they were living. What they have in common is their ability to deal with the complexities of the modern world, using craftsmanship and artistry to produce poems that intrigue, challenge, delight--even dazzle--us today. This seminar explores exactly how they achieved such power and beauty.

Ernest Hemingway's 'iceberg' theory of fiction argues that a story's narrative should only reveal the visible part above the water, and that a much greater mass lies invisible underneath the water. The iceberg theory is essentially a theory of where meaning exists in fiction. But what does it really mean? Is it a theory of minimalism, a less is more philosophy? In this class we examine how Hemingway and other writers use a variety of narrative strategies and techniques to create that significant mass of meaning. We will arrive at a complex understanding of how meaning is infused or insinuated in fiction when the narrator is not explicitly 'telling' us what we should be thinking. Course activities will include discussions and student writing aimed at analyzing, codifying, and evaluating various narrative strategies employed by a wide range of short fiction authors such as Hemingway, Ralph Ellison, Henry James, and Flannery O'Connor.

This is a course about writing on visual art that stresses writings by the artists themselves. We will view art in Chicago, make at least one architecture-viewing field trip within Chicago, and view films (mostly as out-of-class assignments). We will carefully read writings by artists, architects, and filmmakers on their art, as well as a few examples of criticism. It is my belief that certain artists' writings can deeply illuminate assumptions about art, media, the individual, and the world that underlie the greatest art. Five to six short papers and one longer research paper will be required. The short papers will ask that you identify the core assumptions in an essay or statements by an artist, and try to show how they illuminate, or are contradicted by, art made by the author, using specific examples from the writing and the art to construct your argument. For the longer paper, you will choose with the instructor's approval an artist whose writing or other statements bear complex and interesting relationships to her or his art, and then describe and analyze relationships between the writing and the art, again using specific examples from both. Artists likely to be included are certain ancient Chinese painters, Paul Cezanne, Gerhard Richter, Robert Smithson, Louis Sullivan, Paul Strand, Dziga Vertov, Robert Bresson, Roberto Rossellini, Maya Deren, and Stan Brakhage.

FYS II: Death and Turmoil in 20th Century Drama This course covers a range of twentieth-century plays from across the globe. The twentieth-century was an interesting time and we look at how the culture influenced the literature. Death and turmoil are common threads in most twentieth-century works. Often the concepts of death and turmoil are transformed from play to play; we examine and track this transformation alongside our individual analysis of the texts and the concepts in the text.

The idea of the self often seems self-evident in everyday experience, and yet it is common to speak of the need to find or know oneself. In this course, we look at constructions of the self in philosophical and literary works through focusing on ways they have variously depicted the process of self-understanding as a movement of ascent or descent. We draw comparisons between different literary forms and between Western and Buddhist cultural traditions, paying special attention to motifs of ascent and descent, exterior and interior, and to the tensions produced at the limits of self-knowledge. Readings are drawn from Plato, Augustine, Dante, Freud, and Buddhist sources, among others. This class works to develop the interrelated skills of reading, writing, and speaking critically about philosophical and literary texts. Students are required to actively participate in class discussions, give one prepared oral presentation, write regular short papers analyzing the reading, and write two formal essays of 4-6 pages.

This course is a reading of the art of short story fiction writing. Narrative, stylistic, thematic, philosophical, socio-political, historical, and psychoanalytical characteristics of modern short stories are analyzed. Literary motifs are elaborated. Readings include Poe, Hemingway, Kafka, Borges, Cortazar, Zweig, Patricia Highsmith, Zora Neale Hurston, O. Henry, Joyce, Kate Chopin.

This course introduces students to a range of critical voices and approaches to theater, performance, film, and related media, while continuing to develop their own analytical and critical skills. Readings include both classic works (Aristotle's Poetics), modern and post-modern theorists (Brecht, Cage, Debord), and recent perspectives on the arts, technology, globalism, and the environment. Students write a series of shorter essays on suggested topics, and one in-depth paper requiring independent research and documentation of sources.

Utopian thought has been pervasive throughout history, as expressed in myth, philosophy, and politics-as well as in fiction, art, and design. Both the dream of a perfect human community, and the potential nightmare of its realization, have taken on increased urgency in contemporary post-millennial culture-as witnessed by the rise of dystopian novels for young adults, like Lois Lowry's The Giver. In this course, students read and discuss a selection of significant utopian and dystopian works, from Plato's Republic to Ursula K. Le Guin's Lathe of Heaven. Coursework includes weekly impromptu essays in response to the readings, a class presentation on an aspect of the course topic, and a paper requiring original thought and independent research.

We consider a tradition of skepticism--not about this or that philosophical theory, but--about philosophy itself: the idea that it is somehow misguided to ask philosophical questions, and worse to try to answer them. We also consider what, if anything, philosophy has to say to its enemies. Readings will be drawn from Plato, Montaigne, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Frankfurt, among others.

This course targets two aesthetic and philosophical phenomena: the critical and the fine. Consider, for example, the following distinction: The active voice lends crispness to your writing?but the passive voice works well when the action is more relevant than the person or thing doing the action. To make and appreciate such a distinction requires a heightened criticality and a heightened sense of the fine. More fundamentally, however, is to consider the following poetic line: Because I could not stop for death?he kindly stopped for me?. It takes the fine and critical touch of a master poet to insert kindly; why, after all, kindly? Do not humans tend to flee death? Is not death a topic to be avoided? Do not many of us rather wish, sometimes idly and sometimes fervently, that we could live forever, or at least longer than we do? Or, has the poet revealed an ambiguity in how one might really feel, and think, about one?s mortality?

This course examines the history of 'class warfare' in the United States from the 18th century to the present. In particular, we examine moments at which conflicts over capitalism and inequality dominate the political, social, and economic landscapes of the nation. These moments include the Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s, the 1860 Draft Riot, late 19th century labor conflicts and populism, the 1930s 'cultural front,' the international struggles of 1968, the 1999 WTO protests, and the recent Occupy Wall Street movement, among others. The course utilizes both primary and secondary historical materials.

'Allusion,' 'reference,' 'sample,' -- these words are often used when discussing art, music, and literature. But what do they really mean? Although sampling is a term specific to contemporary music, using existing works to create new ones is not a new idea. Through reading, writing essays, and presentations students probe the meanings of these words in relationship to their own work, while exploring the ways in which artists, musicians, and writers have mined the cultural archive. Readings include Gertrude Stein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Paul D Miller (a.k.a. DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid).

In this course, we address both conceptual and evaluative questions about romantic love. Conceptual questions include: What is romantic love? Is at an emotion or something else, such as a desire or a way of looking at the world? How do we distinguish it from other forms of love, such as parental and friendship love? Must it be exclusive to one person at a time? How long must it last for it to be love? What connections, if any, does it have to sex and marriage? Evaluative questions include: Is romantic love good for us? Is it wise for us to fall in love? Does it make our lives happier or, more generally, better? Finally, how does romantic love fare when looked at through the stern eyes of morality? We read some philosophers (and some non-philosophers) of the past, such Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Euripides, Schopenhauer, and Freud, and some contemporary ones, such as Robert Nozick and Alan Soble.

How have foundational myths of world literature shaped our consciousness? Do myths, ancient and/or modern, continue to frame our intellect, imagination, and perception? How are mythologies ingrained in processes of creation, artistic or otherwise? We address the nature of mythic thought and its relevance to production and creation in the broad. We read thinkers on the formation and impact of myths on all areas of human endeavor as well as chosen ancient mythologies. Readings include selections from the work of Marcel Griaule, Jean Pierre-Vernant, Joseph Campbell, Roland Barthes, James Frazer, Mircea Eliade, Freud, and Jung. Selections from the Middle-eastern creation stories such as the Eridu Genesis, the myths of the Dogons of Mali, those of the Hopi Indians and those of the Vedantic school of India are read.

This course first explores the myths and folktales of pre-Christian Ireland. We read about dolmen and druids, Maeve, Queen of Connacht, Finn MacCool, Deirdre, and Cuichulain. How do battle-hungry, sexually-charged Celts compare to characters in James Joyce's Dubliners? Historical texts (including How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill) examine how the status of women changed after the arrival of Roman (vs. Celtic) Catholicism, the Book of Kells, and the long-term effects of the Great Famine on the Irish character. Contemporary fiction writers studied include, W.B. Yeats, Eavan Boland, Rosemary Mahoney, and postmodern favorite Flann O'Brien, among others, with a focus on the influence of Celtic myths on contemporary Irish life and writing.

Henry O. Tanner, Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker. Lois Mailou Jones, Romare Bearden, Barbara Chase-Rimboud. Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Chester Himes. Since the late 19th century African American visual, literary, and performing artists have journeyed to Paris for a few months, a year, or a lifetime to seek what they could not find in the United States?a space in which to fully explore and develop their identities as artists. This course examines the history of African American artists in Paris, exploring the cultural, political, social, and artistic forces that drew them to the city of light. In addition to reading and research on the topic, students take quizzes, present an oral report, and write a research paper.

It has been said that all stories are either about a stranger coming to town or a man or woman going on an adventure. In this course we take to the road as we explore stories and poems that travel, all the while allowing that sometimes the road is a waterway. We wend our way through some of the greatest road trips ever taken. Readings include Homer's Odyssey, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Whitman's Selected Poems, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Keroac's On the Road, Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Elizabeth Bishop's Geography III, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

This seminar is an intensive reading course which examines the classic, pre-Modern Period texts that have shaped contemporary Western Christianity. We will cover Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages (c. 1300s). Topics include faith and conversion, sin, mysticism, knowledge, rationality, illumination, revitalization and heretic movements, temporal vs. divine power, and the role of aesthetics in religion. Among others, we will read selections by early Christian converts, the Desert Fathers, Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi, and the Scholastics including Thomas Aquinas. Emphasis will be placed on examining the ways in these thinkers were impacted by, and reacted to, the history, culture and society at the time; how new understandings of the world shaped their theology; and how they constructed socially appealing literary works that are still read today.

Does the self possess a moral or spiritual center? Does the cosmos possess an axis mundi? How to conceive of such a spiritual center, how feel it or find it? (And what are the risks to such spiritual quests, can we get lost along the way, lose our moral sense, our rationality, or even our sanity? Our journey into the literature of spirituality traverses diverse genres and traditions. Readings include The Bhagavad Gita, The Poetic Edda, Theresa of Avila?s The Autobiography, Saint John of the Cross?s The Dark Night of the Soul, Jules Verne?s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Jean Genet?s Our Lady of the Flowers, and Haldor Laxness?s Under the Glacier. Complimenting and complicating our close readings of these primary texts are critical reflections from religious theory as well as pertinent political history.

In this course, we read everything from myths and fairy-tales to absurdist plays and fan-fiction, all in service of one goal: to understand the act of retelling, and critically examine how these ancient stories truly effect us, as well as each other. Students learn the basic structures that underlie all myths, discover and compare multiple tellings of the same tale, and ultimately retell a myth of their choosing. Along the way, we tell each other stories, play a game of bardic telephone, and learn what Buffy the Vampire Slayer has to do with Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Why do we dream? Can dreams be interpreted? How have dreams been used by artists and writers? In this class, we investigate a wide range of 'dream logics,' asking how artists, writers, philosophers, prophets, and scientists have attempted to express dreams, and how they have discerned and articulated their meanings. We also discuss techniques for inducing, recalling, and controlling dreams. A variety of dream expressions--in visual art, music, film, literature, and graphic novels--are examined as we ask how the medium in which dreams are rendered shapes our understanding of their meanings. Readings range across mythology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, surrealism, and scientific literature. The dream-thinkers studied may include Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Breton and the surrealists, Borges, Bachelard, and Burroughs; we also examine movies by directors that may include Bu?uel and Dali, Hitchcock, Lynch, Linklater, Nolan, and Gondry. Students learn to recall, record, and interpret their own dreams, maintaining a dream journal for accounts, analyses, sketches, and reflections.

In this course we examine the limits of human nature as they have been historically shaped and defined. Readings range from the sixteenth century debate of Las Casas and Sepulveda over the humanity of the Native American Indians, Montaigne's writings on cannibalism, Foucault's writings on the history of perversion and madness, to encounters with monstrosity and other questions of abnormality. The course asks what it means to stake out the grounds of human nature and to exclude its others: the thesis that we follow throughout the course is that human nature is often shaped and defined by the very limits it establishes in processes of exclusion or expulsion.

Students should expect to write between three and five essays, totaling 15-25 pages. Re-writes of essays may be required by individual teachers. The course emphasizes, as above, critical thinking, close reading of texts, and the analysis of problems arising in whatever discipline (history, philosophy, etc.) to which a particular First Year Seminar is addressed . As is normal in seminars, in First Year Seminar II presentations of essays, materials and/or projects by students occupies a significant amount of class time. In-class writing may be included, exams as well as papers may be required, and projects may include a research component. These courses follow FYS I in a developmental sequence; mastery of skill addressed in FYS I is required, and the student is expected to meet new challenges in reading and writing.

This course takes as its archive a wave of feminist and queer science fiction written in the late twentieth century. The selected texts each have their own way of embedding gender construction in new and/or futuristic technologies, and we scrutinize the imbrication of utopian possibilities for queered gender with the products of corporate control and ask where threads of dystopia and utopia may actually align. Coinciding with a wave of feminism in America, our texts have each taken as their building blocks for new possibilities of gender the very stereotypes, caricatures, and dehumanizing structures of subjectivity forced on them by dominant cultures. In other words, the writers we are studying inhabit and animate the very images constructed to degrade and suppress their gender: think of Anne McCaffrey turning her female protagonist into a literal mothership, indentured to her creators for the cost of her creation. Or Alice Sheldon's ?Delphi,? a beautiful, literally empty-headed product of a corporation who is literally puppeted by another, very ugly woman. Throughout the semester we ask what it means to inhabit and control from the inside degrading stereotypes. Perhaps most importantly, this survey wrestles with the commonly held belief that science fiction is a man?s genre written by men. How did the genre obtain this identity? How was James Tiptree able to pass for a male writer for so long? Why do courses on science fiction still continue to feature overwhelmingly male, heterosexual writers?

In this course we examine the relationship between art and truth, and its implications with regards to the political role of art. We ask questions such as: as artists do we seek truth as we craft our artwork? What is the political bearing of our artistic creation? We address these questions through the reading of some classical texts in the history of Western philosophy. We begin our discussion in classical Athens, with readings by Plato and Aristotle. In this phase our leading question will be whether the ?make believe? ability of art is a hindrance or a benefit for good political practices. Then we jump ahead in Western history, to see how the ?old quarrel? about art is revived and reinterpreted in 19th and 20th century art history and philosophy. We conclude our semester considering two 20th century approaches regarding the truth and political status of art, phenomenology and critical theory. Readings include texts by Nietzsche, Gombrich and Heidegger, among others. Students are required to write two essays, one research paper and several short written assignments.

This course examines a broad set of social processes and structures surrounding the emergence of charismatic individuals (prophets) in times of extreme socio-cultural tension, the ?routinization? of their charisma into movements that mobilizes often large and disparate groups of people, and their ultimate ?consecration? as the object of veneration in a cult or sect. Particular attention will be paid to competing notions of charisma, prophesy, sanctity, and what it is to ?move? crowds of people physical, mentally and emotionally (?affect?); emphasis will be placed on the writings of Weber, Bourdeau, Wallace, Linton, and others. Case studies will range from nativistic movements and the ?invention of tradition? to revivals and revitalization movements, from cargo cults to the cult of saints and holy people in various religious traditions, and to the modern-day cult of celebrity in contemporary pop culture. Students will also conduct independent research on a movement or cult (historical or contemporary).

The course examines the history of the Nazi state from its origins in the Weimar Republic to its collapse in 1945. Readings will consist of works by professional historians, as well as other forms of primary historical sources such as posters, films, and literature. Key themes will include the social, political, and economic conditions that facilitated the Nazi rise to power; the formation of the Nazi racial state; gender, culture, and everyday life; collaboration and resistance; the radicalizing dynamics of total war and occupation in Eastern Europe; the Holocaust; and the legacies of Nazism in postwar Europe.

Why do we crave chocolate? What are some of the different cultural attitudes toward kissing? Toward sweat? What are the limits of sound? Is there something physically different about the artist?s eye? Find the answers to these questions and others like them in this seminar, which focuses on Diana Ackerman?s masterpiece, A Natural History of the Senses. In a series of short essays, Ackerman takes the reader on a grand tour of the realm of the senses, drawing on psychology, anthropology, art, science, and history. As we enjoy Ackerman's wealth of engaging information and thoughtful insights, we will also analyze the beauty and craft of her writing. Students will write a series of short papers; class activities will include viewing videotapes, discussing the book, and critiquing early drafts of papers.

What does it mean to have myths at the foundation of our culture and thought? What makes myths such rich narratives through which to examine meaning in our world, our selves? This class studies the Oedipus myth, the myth of the Holy Grail, the myth of Superman, and the story of 'Star Wars.' With each myth, a theoretical element of myth is explored, such as basic Freudian psychology, conspiracy theories (for the Grail stories), theories of race/ideology in Superman (from Nietzsche back into 19th century invention of the Aryan super-race, as mythic progenitors), and psychological archetypes transmuted into political ideas (as in the profoundly influential 'Star Wars'). By exploring these myths, students begin the process of learning to think critically about familiar material, using myth to generate new, unusual ideas in their writing.

This course is an exploration of apocalypse as a trope in literature from Ezekiel to the Book of Revelation to The Road and in its representation in films since film began. We look into the history of the very idea of the end of the world and look at what the representation of that end tells us about a culture, people or time, but then also explore what the fad of end times novels, movies and prophecies means in contemporary America. We view The War of the World, Mad Max, Children of Men, Armageddon, among other classic end times films, and we try to articulate the basic features of the genre.

What do the unsettling fictions of Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, and J.G. Ballard have in common? What does the realm of 'The Fantastic' share with the marvelous and the uncanny, and how is it distinct from both mainstream realism and the alternate universes of science fiction and epic fantasy? This class attempts to define the Fantastic and its special place in the literary imagination, through a selection of primary and critical readings. Students write a series of shorter essays on suggested topics, and one in-depth paper requiring independent research.

Based on, inspired by, adapted from-these are words we're used to seeing at the start of a movie, but what do they really mean? Must a film be faithful to its source to be good? What about filmmakers who take liberties with the text, even change the ending? In this class, students explore the adaptation. Students read both short stories and novels, then watch their movie counterparts. Assignments include four essays comparing text and film, as well as a final paper in which students attempt to answer the question, 'What can be gained or lost when translating from one medium to another?' Readings include Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (Smoke Signals), Colette's Gigi, and Philip K. Dick's 'The Minority Report.'

Romanticism in literature is one of the foundational movements of aesthetic experience and inquiry. In this course we read the literary and theoretical texts of mainly the English and also German Romantics to understand how romanticism has been a model for aesthetic production in studio and liberal arts of the late 1700s to1800s. Readings include: Mary and Percy Shelly, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, William Blake, Friedrich Schiller, and Friedrich Schelling. Class is comprised of lectures, group discussions, workshop presentations, and significant amount of writing and revision of written work.

This course introduces students to a wide range of critical voices and approaches, while honing their own skills of analysis, appraisal, and expression. Readings include classic critical essays by writers such as T.S. Eliot and John Crowe Ransom, as well as more recent writings in the fields of critical theory and cultural studies. Students are expected to write a series of short essays on suggested topics, and one in-depth paper requiring independent research and documentation of sources.

As an undergraduate working toward your BA degree, it?s not too early to begin learning and implementing sound strategies of your practice as a professional artist. This course provides a detailed investigation of the development of the necessary elements that should be fine-tuned and readied in support of your art career. Topics include writing artist statements, grant proposals, and exhibition proposals, issues of collaboration, presenting your work to an audience, networking and online resource sites, self-promotion and aspects of maintaining a studio. We will consider the career paths of well-known artists from a range of genre through readings and films. Their methods of making work and making that work known will be a focus of class discussion and writing assignments as response essays and research-based papers. Additional assignments will require critical writing in response to particular local exhibitions and development of an annotated bibliography relating to concepts, themes, methods of your own art making.

The lure and threat, the prize and peril of knowledge are incendiary themes in the Western imagination. Is the acquisition of knowledge an illumination or a theft? Is the quest for insight and meaning a psychic refinement or a diabolical compromise? In this seminar, we?ll set blaze to the spark in the tinder of knowing in the company of two archetypal arsonists: Prometheus & Faustus. Our fellow firestarters will be Hesiod, Aeschylus, the Shelleys (Percy & Mary), Christopher Marlowe, Goethe, Baudelaire, Hart Crane, and Robert Duncan, among others.

Philosophers since Plato have described the body and the soul as distinct principles of human nature, but no one has ever been quite sure what the difference is or how the two principles relate to one other. More recently, the whole idea of a soul has come into disrepute (though -- perhaps surprisingly -- the idea of the body has not). We'll consider why, and whether there might still be something to be said for the old way of looking at things. Readings will be drawn from Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Wittgenstein and Sartre, as well as more contemporary thinkers.

How much is our success or happiness determined by luck? Can meaningful patterns be discerned behind seemingly random events? Can chance be used as a constraint for fostering creativity? Readings will include Sophocles's 'Oedipus the King', Aristotle's Poetics, Lucretius's The Nature of Things, Machiavelli's The Prince, Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet,' The I Ching, Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Foucault's The Order of Things, as well as George Perec 'Species of Spaces.'

What does it mean to leave your home? What does it mean to return after a long absence? In this class, we will explore notions of home and homeland that range in scope from the intimate to the public, the domestic to the national. From Homer's The Odyssey to Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, we will partake in global journeys and homecomings, together with subsequent culture shock, misunderstandings, and miscommunications. We will traverse what it means to be an outsider and what it means to belong, and the complications, contradictions, and struggles inherent in our ideas of home. Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis II tells the story of her return to Iran after school abroad. Homer's epic poem The Odyssey pulls us through Odysseus?s twenty years of trials on his journey home to Ithaca. Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead takes the form of an autobiography of a pastor, facing his own death, written to his young son. In his memoir Travels with Herodotus, Ryszard Kapuscinski relates his own adventures as a young journalist setting off beyond the borders of Poland. Through these four full-length texts, three essays, and one research paper, we will develop our own notions of home that will open outwards and connect to the world around us.

What does it mean to be an Outsider? What do writers/artists gain by documenting migrant labor in Gulf sheikhdoms, sketching communities ravaged by war, or examining destitution/corruption on the African continent? Especially when these writers/artists are unfamiliar with the cities they are examining, its people . By dividing The Outsider into four different guises - Artist, Filmmaker, Journalist, Activist - we will explore different incarnations. We will read fiction, dissect genre-bending graphic text, watch films. Then we will ask ourselves - who exploits whom?

This course explores the history and development of narrative forms that use the marriage of picture and text in sequence to tell stories. We will look at historical precedents in Western art and worldwide, and trace the development of the art form from its origins in periodicals and other print media to its current status as a discrete and highly influential means of telling stories. Considering the relationship of the graphic novel to other media -- particularly literature and cinema -- we will attempt to discern the ways in which the synergy between text and image creates an art form capable of complex meaning and subtle beauty. We will examine the work of Winsor McCay, George Herriman, Herge, R. Crumb, Daniel Clowes, and Chris Ware, among others.

Postmodernism rejects the concept of originality and, instead, accepts that artists create on the backs of other artists, mixing ideas from diverse sources and, at times, directly referencing past works. Intertextuality refers to such relationships in literature. Why and how do authors reread, retell, and revise works from the past? How does a novel published last year adapt a myth from ancient Greece? What does a character named Snow White in a 1967 comedic novella have in common with the Snow White we know from the Grimm's Fairy Tales? How does the story of Mrs. Dalloway continue to influence contemporary authors? And what does it mean to approach writing, and creating in general, as an act of revision, or an attempt to right wrongs inherent in preexisting works? We will investigate these questions through readings, discussions, and analytical essays. Becoming familiar with intertextual theories through literature allows the recognition of postmodern techniques across disciplines, and perhaps sheds light on students? own modes of creating. Authors include: Homer, Madeline Miller, Brothers Grimm, Donald Barthelme, Virginia Woolf, Michael Cunningham, David Mitchell, Adrienne Rich, and others.

The Harlem Renaissance was an American cultural and social revolution that spanned the 1920s and 30s. Although often marginalized to the 'African American' genre, at its core we find several mediums of art and literature that impacted the world. In this class we will explore the basic principles of the Harlem Renaissance, what it established and what it sought to reject. We will dissect its Abolitionist roots, the reconstruction of the South and the aftermath of World War I continue on to the birth of jazz and the blues, musicians such as: Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Florence Mills and Billie Holiday; the sultriness of Josephine Baker as she performed the Charleston and burlesque; Siren of the Tropics among other films and, of course, the literature: Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, Nella Larsen, Ida B. Wells, Zora Neale Hurston, and more. We?ll end our journey by considering our own artistry, our own practice, and how we?re all products of this American renaissance. See you soon.

This course studies 'meaning' in short fiction as it relates to Hemingway's 'iceberg' theory of fiction. The iceberg theory states that a story should only reveal the visible part above the water, and that a much greater mass should exist invisible underneath the water. We practice careful reading-connecting the invisible mass to the elements of a story that we can see. We also compare Hemingway to a number of authors such as Sherwood Anderson, Flannery O'Connor, Ralph Ellison, James Joyce, Raymond Carver, Anton Chekhov, and Nathaniel Hawthorne who are both stylistically similar and dissimilar to identify a variety of strategies that authors use to imply the invisible space in their text-to create meaning.

Rap, and arguably hip-hop in general, may be the most poorly critically evaluated human endeavor of all time. We are going to listen to a tremendous amount of rap music and collaboratively identify a critical vocabulary of hip-hop (a more refined one, I should say). Students are asked to identify the ?genres? of rap music such as ?gansta rap? or ?political rap? and explore the assumptions associated with each genre. We then examine landmark rap albums, and explore their manipulation of these genres in an attempt to refine our understanding of rap?s many voices. Finally, students are asked to examine the social function of some of rap?s more troubling narratives: violence, subjugation of women, and examine how or whether they can be justified in any artform.

When Sherlock Holmes made his debut in 1887, no one, especially not his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle could have predicted the success of the first consulting detective. Sherlock Holmes has been adapted on the stage, to film, television, comic books, board games, video games, and by other authors into their own detective novels. Even today, we are surrounded by new versions of this favorite character. But beyond contemporary retellings, the Holmes and Watson archetype permeates modern police procedurals. In this course, students will consider the role Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson play in contemporary crime narratives.

Based on, inspired by, adapted from-these are words we're used to seeing at the start of a movie, but what do they really mean? Must a film be faithful to its source to be good? What about filmmakers who take liberties with the text, even change the ending? In this class, students explore the adaptation. Students read both short stories and novels, then watch their movie counterparts. Assignments include four essays comparing text and film, as well as a final paper in which students attempt to answer the question, 'What can be gained or lost when translating from one medium to another?' Readings include Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (Smoke Signals), Colette's Gigi, and Philip K. Dick's 'The Minority Report.'

Though a perennial inspiration to artists, writers, and thinkers, the importance of conceptualizing nature has become even more pronounced in contemporary thought due to current fears about ecological disaster. In this class we study how our conceptions of nature--as farmers, industrialists, romantic youths, hearty individualists, and more--have shifted over time and how we might think about our future relationship to nature. Artists include: Virgil, Shelley, Shakespeare, Thoreau, Whitman, Woolf, Rebecca Solnit, Sebald, Matta-Clark, Smithson, and more.

The ancient Greeks so enjoyed philosophy that their conversations are regularly described as nightlong celebrations. Today this is hard to imagine -- and we find Wittgenstein, for example, saying that 'The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to. -- The one that gives philosophy peace...' What happened? We'll investigate, with a view to rediscovering philosophy?s particular pleasure. Readings will be drawn from Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Hume, Kant, Carlyle, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, among others.

Our class will be an exploration of the conversion story beginning in the classical world with the stories of Ovid (Metamorphoses) and the first spiritual autobiography (Augustine?s Confessions), progressing quickly to the modern world in which cultural productions as different as Fight Club and Twilight both enlist themes of transformation from the genre as foundations for their stories. We will write about these themes of transformation and the new self, as well as entering the conversation with cultural productions (writings and art) of our own.

Our course is an exploration of the literature of 'techno-dystopia,' an understanding of the world in which technology has destroyed all that is best in humanity. In this class we read and write about the anxieties of technology that begin not with computers, but instead go as far back as Plato's concern with language and especially writing as a technology. Our survey of fear about technology will include 19th century American authors Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson and 20th century figures like Theodore Kaczynski and Neil Postman. In addition to works of social theory, we also read contemporary Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives in which technology destroys the world (I am Legend, Fight Club, and Children of Men, for example), including the scientific cautionary stories Frankenstein and 'The Birthmark.' We will finish in the 20th and 21st century reading works like Nicholas Carr's 2010, hotly contested essay 'Is Google making us stupid?' and watching films such as 2001 A Space Odyssey and The Matrix. Themes of the course may also include bioethics and cloning, consumerism and industrialization, and social and cultural consequences of increased digitization.

This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds, which may include critical, analytical and personal essays, and must include the research paper. Students should expect to write between three and five essays, totaling (including re-writes) between 20 and 30 pages. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. Some in-class writing may be included, and it is a policy of the department that at least one essay be a research paper which involves searching for sources in a library or online, and learning to make citations and to prepare a bibliography. First Year Seminar I classes are designed by individual teachers, and are taught 'across the curriculum.' This means that a particular course may focus on reading and writing essays, while another course may study a historical, or philosophical, or literary topic. In that case students' writing would consist of critical, analytical essays on the texts which are the basis of the course. In both cases emphasis is on development of the intellectual skills of reading critically, and writing responsively, which forms the basis of each student's career at the School. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, and skills in thesis development are explored, and class workshopping of student papers, or individual meetings to discuss each student's papers, should be expected.

Stuck between past and present, being and non-being, return and inauguration, the image of the ghost is only able to suggest, never to define. In this course, we become hauntologists--a term coined by Derrida in Spectres of Marx--and investigate works that (a) take the ambiguous spectre as a starting point and/or (b) blur time periods to suggest the haunting of the present by the past. Through this, we hope to respond to Hamlet's frustration with being visited by his Father's ghost: 'The time is out of joint; O cursed spite!/That ever I was born to set it right!' In addition to reading the ghastly works of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Octavia Butler, Derrida, and Kurt Vonnegut, we also look to music (Robert Johnson, Animal Collective, Burial, Ariel Pink, the writings of David Toop) and film (The Shining, Bladerunner [director Guy Maddin]) to help us bust some ghosts.

Change takes many forms. Frequently, the complexities of change give rise to contested zones in which some might identify change as a mark of advancement while others understand the very same change as anything but progress. The course is used to dissect the dimensions of social, political, historical, and technological change, especially as these dynamics are shaped by context and perspective. Topics include: transgender histories and identities, Islam and the veil in the Middle East and North America, the politics of Barack Obama, coming of age in contemporary South Africa, and what might be done with massive information flows ('big data').

The urban metropolis of 19th century Paris envisioned by the city planner Baron Haussmann during the Second French Empire has come to represent modernity. In this course we read the urban experience of the modern inhabitants of Paris such as the dandy, the bohemian, the bourgeois, the prostitute, etc. through the literature of Baudelaire, Maupassant, Balzac, and Zola. Readings are complemented by the images of the cityscape.

This course confronts death, along with related phenomena such as aging, dying, grieving, and bereavement, in both interdisciplinary and intercultural manners. The direction of study will move from death as a biomedical event thru religious, spiritual, and existential events, and conclude with post-modern possibilities such as cyronics and mind-uploading. A key concern is whether, and to what extent, one's attitude and approach to death informs one's attitude and approach to life.

This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds. The topic of the seminar is Hollywood movies and American history. We will analyze eleven feature films to identify the main questions that professional historians ask when they interpret movies as primary sources, and, to practice the conventions of academic writing. Each class member will prepare a series of interpretive essays in which they relate the various films to the course readings in particular, and the historical theme under study in general.

Why do we dream? Can dreams be interpreted? How have dreams been used by artists and writers? In this class, we investigate a wide range of 'dream logics,' asking how artists, writers, philosophers, prophets, and scientists have attempted to express dreams, and how they have discerned and articulated their meanings. We also discuss techniques for inducing, recalling, and controlling dreams. A variety of dream expressions--in visual art, music, film, literature, and graphic novels--are examined as we ask how the medium in which dreams are rendered shapes our understanding of their meanings. Readings range across mythology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, surrealism, and scientific literature. The dream-thinkers studied may include Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Breton and the surrealists, Borges, Bachelard, and Burroughs; we also examine movies by directors that may include Bu?uel and Dali, Hitchcock, Lynch, Linklater, Nolan, and Gondry. Students learn to recall, record, and interpret their own dreams, maintaining a dream journal for accounts, analyses, sketches, and reflections.

As a growing body of data challenges human uniqueness, self-awareness seems to distinguish humans from the rest of the natural world. In this course, we examine how human groups make meaning of their own existence through origin stories. We study origin myths from around the globe, as well as classic and contemporary anthropological approaches to these myths, and we examine the emergence and development of the Western scientific narrative of human origins.

Charles Darwin argued that all mammals show emotions in their faces, as written in The Expression of the Emotions of Man and Animals. Studies on nonverbal communication range across many fields, including linguistics, anthropology and social psychology. Current social psychology terms such as emotional intelligence, power positions, and the human-animal bond rely on the study, facilitation, and interpretation of non-verbal cues.Students will discover the primary modes of human nonverbal communication including: proxemics, haptics, kinesics, paralanguage and appearance of the physical environment. Similarities and differences between human, equine and canine species will be explored from research conducted by E.O. Wilson, Patricia McConnell, Kirstin Brandt and C.R. Sanders. Video and qualitative reports of equine-human interaction will also be utilized.

In this course we investigate the relationship between Western civilization and individuals within it. Specifically, we consider whether Western civilization truly fosters individual nature. Through the reading of Plato, Nietzsche, Freud and Marcuse among others, we consider initially what is the true nature of an individual human being, then we move on to examining whether Western society enhances or restricts basic human desires and intellectual human aspirations. In order to understand how different conceptions of the individual human being may influence the political structure of a civilization, we posit questions concerning the emergence of civilization, the distinctively human psychological abilities on which a civilization depends and, finally, how we could achieve a humanizing and fulfilling civilization. For this course students will write two essays, one research paper and several short written assignments.

This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds, which may include critical, analytical and personal essays, and must include the research paper. Students should expect to write between three and five essays, totaling (including re-writes) between 20 and 30 pages. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. Some in-class writing may be included, and it is a policy of the department that at least one essay be a research paper which involves searching for sources in a library or online, and learning to make citations and to prepare a bibliography. First Year Seminar I classes are designed by individual teachers, and are taught 'across the curriculum.' This means that a particular course may focus on reading and writing essays, while another course may study a historical, or philosophical, or literary topic. In that case students' writing would consist of critical, analytical essays on the texts which are the basis of the course. In both cases emphasis is on development of the intellectual skills of reading critically, and writing responsively, which forms the basis of each student's career at the School. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, and skills in thesis development are explored, and class workshopping of student papers, or individual meetings to discuss each student's papers, should be expected.

History is often told from the perspective of the victors. In Latin America, military heroes and Euro-centric elites dominate the historical narrative, and stories of everyday citizens are often obscured or omitted from understandings of the region. This course analyzes how the 'underclasses' of Latin America -- Indians, peasants, women, and former slaves -- shaped the historical trajectories of modern South and Central America, as well as Mexico. Among other case studies, we examine poverty and race in shantytowns of 20th century Rio de Janeiro; rural political participation during the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic; and student protests in 1960s Mexico City. The course draws upon various sources, including historical scholarship, literature, journalistic accounts, and film. Through reading, discussion, and critical writing assignments, students explore how peoples' daily struggles helped to foment Latin America.

This course will be an opportunity to engage in the process of interpreting works of visual art, literature, film, and music through the lens of social theories of culture. Weekly readings will include excerpts from major social thinkers on the topic of 'meaning,' including Marx, Durkheim, Goffman, and Foucault, as well as examples of interpretation by current scholars. Each class member will have the opportunity to present an aesthetic object, classic or contemporary, and we will discuss the range of meanings that can be found in the context of the week?s readings. Building on these discussions, we will engage in critical writing, editing, and revision, incorporating our own understandings of the works as well as the perspectives of the authors. We will engage the topic of meaning from the highest levels of society (such as norms, beliefs, institutions, and political economy), through categories of identity (such as race, class, gender, and sexuality), to the depths of the individual mind. This process of reading, discussion, and writing will allow us to look not only at the meanings themselves but also at the processes we employ to share them.

Urban Politics: Gentrification and Art in the Global City Is gentrification a positive or a negative force in the life of a city? What drives redevelopment, and how are these processes similar to other processes at work in contemporary global cities? This course explores the role of art districts, culture, and local government in the redevelopment of urban neighborhoods, with a particular focus on Chicago. But in order to understand urban redevelopment, students will also explore how global economic processes work to transform politics and communities at the local level.

This course introduces students to important aspects of anthropological and sociological theory in relation to modern ethnographic texts. Through a close reading of ethnographies and supplemental texts grounded in an analytical framework of the senses, students will examine the notion of perception as more than a purely physical act, and learn how the senses are deeply related to history and culture. Course assignments include writing critical papers about the assigned texts in addition to conducting individual ethnographic research projects, recording observations and interpreting and analyzing data. A portion of each class will be devoted to the presentation and discussion of these student projects.

This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds, which may include critical, analytical and personal essays, and must include the research paper. Students should expect to write between three and five essays, totaling (including re-writes) between 20 and 30 pages. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. Some in-class writing may be included, and it is a policy of the department that at least one essay be a research paper which involves searching for sources in a library or online, and learning to make citations and to prepare a bibliography. First Year Seminar I classes are designed by individual teachers, and are taught 'across the curriculum.' This means that a particular course may focus on reading and writing essays, while another course may study a historical, or philosophical, or literary topic. In that case students' writing would consist of critical, analytical essays on the texts which are the basis of the course. In both cases emphasis is on development of the intellectual skills of reading critically, and writing responsively, which forms the basis of each student's career at the School. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, and skills in thesis development are explored, and class workshopping of student papers, or individual meetings to discuss each student's papers, should be expected.

This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds, which may include critical, analytical and personal essays, and must include the research paper. Students should expect to write between three and five essays, totaling (including re-writes) between 20 and 30 pages. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. Some in-class writing may be included, and it is a policy of the department that at least one essay be a research paper which involves searching for sources in a library or online, and learning to make citations and to prepare a bibliography. First Year Seminar I classes are designed by individual teachers, and are taught 'across the curriculum.' This means that a particular course may focus on reading and writing essays, while another course may study a historical, or philosophical, or literary topic. In that case students' writing would consist of critical, analytical essays on the texts which are the basis of the course. In both cases emphasis is on development of the intellectual skills of reading critically, and writing responsively, which forms the basis of each student's career at the School. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, and skills in thesis development are explored, and class workshopping of student papers, or individual meetings to discuss each student's papers, should be expected.

This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds, which may include critical, analytical and personal essays, and must include the research paper. Students should expect to write between three and five essays, totaling (including re-writes) between 20 and 30 pages. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. Some in-class writing may be included, and it is a policy of the department that at least one essay be a research paper which involves searching for sources in a library or online, and learning to make citations and to prepare a bibliography. First Year Seminar I classes are designed by individual teachers, and are taught 'across the curriculum.' This means that a particular course may focus on reading and writing essays, while another course may study a historical, or philosophical, or literary topic. In that case students' writing would consist of critical, analytical essays on the texts which are the basis of the course. In both cases emphasis is on development of the intellectual skills of reading critically, and writing responsively, which forms the basis of each student's career at the School. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, and skills in thesis development are explored, and class workshopping of student papers, or individual meetings to discuss each student's papers, should be expected.

This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds, which may include critical, analytical and personal essays, and must include the research paper. Students should expect to write between three and five essays, totaling (including re-writes) between 20 and 30 pages. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. Some in-class writing may be included, and it is a policy of the department that at least one essay be a research paper which involves searching for sources in a library or online, and learning to make citations and to prepare a bibliography. First Year Seminar I classes are designed by individual teachers, and are taught 'across the curriculum.' This means that a particular course may focus on reading and writing essays, while another course may study a historical, or philosophical, or literary topic. In that case students' writing would consist of critical, analytical essays on the texts which are the basis of the course. In both cases emphasis is on development of the intellectual skills of reading critically, and writing responsively, which forms the basis of each student's career at the School. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, and skills in thesis development are explored, and class workshopping of student papers, or individual meetings to discuss each student's papers, should be expected.

This course provides guided experience in writing college-level essays of various kinds, which may include critical, analytical and personal essays, and must include the research paper. Students should expect to write between three and five essays, totaling (including re-writes) between 20 and 30 pages. A significant amount of time may be devoted to re-writing essays, so as to develop first drafts into final versions. Some in-class writing may be included, and it is a policy of the department that at least one essay be a research paper which involves searching for sources in a library or online, and learning to make citations and to prepare a bibliography. First Year Seminar I classes are designed by individual teachers, and are taught 'across the curriculum.' This means that a particular course may focus on reading and writing essays, while another course may study a historical, or philosophical, or literary topic. In that case students' writing would consist of critical, analytical essays on the texts which are the basis of the course. In both cases emphasis is on development of the intellectual skills of reading critically, and writing responsively, which forms the basis of each student's career at the School. A significant amount of time is devoted to the craft of writing. Grammatical and organizational strategies, and skills in thesis development are explored, and class workshopping of student papers, or individual meetings to discuss each student's papers, should be expected.

Unlike traditional folk fairy tales, intended primarily for children, the German Romantic Kunstmarchen (literary fairy tales) were written for an audience of adults. German Romantic philosophers, who believed in Nature as an ideal and in the primacy of the individual creative of imagination, saw the fairy tale as the perfect medium for the expression of these ideas. The timeless, mythical qualities of the fairy tale were seen by these thinkers as a way to bring the realm of the supernatural to earth, making the irrational and the magical part of our everyday existence. Unlike the traditional fairy tales in which everyone lives happily ever after, the Marchen emphasizes the struggle between negative and positive forces in which death and disaster often prevail and man is caught in the tragic dichotomy between the real and the ideal. We explore these and other themes by reading the works by such authors as Novalis, L. Tieck, H.von Kleist, E.T.A Hoffman and T. Mann.

Utopian thought has been pervasive throughout history, as expressed in myth, philosophy, and politics-as well as in fiction, art, and design. Both the dream of a perfect human community, and the potential nightmare of its realization, have taken on increased urgency in contemporary post-millennial culture-as witnessed by the rise of dystopian novels for young adults, like Lois Lowry's The Giver. In this course, students read and discuss a selection of significant utopian and dystopian works, from Plato's Republic to Ursula K. Le Guin's Lathe of Heaven. Coursework includes weekly impromptu essays in response to the readings, a class presentation on an aspect of the course topic, and a paper requiring original thought and independent research.

What is the subject matter of literature written by women? Is it restricted to the home and hearth? Are the characters only other women and children? What makes literature written by women distinctly female? How do we even define what female is? This course explores the questions is there a difference between literature written by men and literature written by women and if there is a difference, what is it? A brief review of literature written in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries offers one context for discussion; the primary focus of the course, however, will be on twentieth-century literature. Among the writers to be considered are Phillis Wheatley, Mary Shelley, Kate Chopin, Henry James, Sandra Cisneros, Zora Neale Hurston, Leslie Silko, and Tobias Wolff.

In this course we examine the limits of human nature as they have been historically shaped and defined. Readings range from the sixteenth century debate of Las Casas and Sepulveda over the humanity of the Native American Indians, Montaigne's writings on cannibalism, Foucault's writings on the history of perversion and madness, to encounters with monstrosity and other questions of abnormality. The course asks what it means to stake out the grounds of human nature and to exclude its others: the thesis that we follow throughout the course is that human nature is often shaped and defined by the very limits it establishes in processes of exclusion or expulsion.

Is there any good that can be made of madness or disease or accident? How does the artistic mind handle malady and impairment? This course is an survey of selected poets, writers, and artists who have produced brilliant work despite--or is it because of?-- struggles with physical or mental impairments. Traversing a wide range of history, we?ll consider work by Blake, Woolf, van Gogh, Hemingway, Arbus, Plath, Kahlo, Sexton, Pollock, O?Keeffe, and Basquiat to probe questions related to genius, balance, illness, and health as evidenced in selected pieces. Class time will be divided between reading, viewing, discussion, writing critical responses, and engaging in related research.

In this class we explore how some of the best modern writers have handled events and experiences that take place within a 24-hour period. We ask questions about how the frame of a day is utilized to deepen investigations into a larger history: What pressure does a single day exert on a narrative? How does a writer subvert the confines of a day? How does the character of a day end up taking on a primary role in these works of literature? We begin by looking at a few defining notions of dramatic time through the work of Aristotle and Sophocles and then move to novels by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Saul Bellow, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner. We also read plays by Edward Albee and David Mamet; poems by Charles Olson, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, and Anne Carson; and comics by Will Eisner and Chris Ware.

We read poems because, like other forms of literature, they express meaning and emotion in an artful way. Unlike those other forms of literature, poetry distills and compresses language, concentrating meaning and emotion. Poems characteristically work through images and implication rather than outright statements. This can make them seem difficult at first, but once a reader has found ways to navigate poems, the difficulty is replaced by delight. Students in this seminar examine various elements of poetry and write about poems by men and women from the distant past to our own day.

Students should expect to write between three and five essays, totaling 15-25 pages. Re-writes of essays may be required by individual teachers. The course emphasizes, as above, critical thinking, close reading of texts, and the analysis of problems arising in whatever discipline (history, philosophy, etc.) to which a particular First Year Seminar is addressed . As is normal in seminars, in First Year Seminar II presentations of essays, materials and/or projects by students occupies a significant amount of class time. In-class writing may be included, exams as well as papers may be required, and projects may include a research component. These courses follow FYS I in a developmental sequence; mastery of skill addressed in FYS I is required, and the student is expected to meet new challenges in reading and writing.

Study of epic creation myths, the Mayan Popol Vuh, and the Navajo Dine Bahane, to explore the world views, rituals, and social values of these very different ancient cultures. The conquest of chaos-monsters, the lore of the great mother goddess of the earth, the deep powers of men and women, the necessity of human sacrifice, the journey to hell and the battle with Death, the transformational power of shamanic kings; underneath all this, we find the universal human struggle for identity, human connection, and a unifying vision of life.

Like motion pictures today, the opera stage was the dominant art form of its time and it displayed and inspired many of the innovations in fashion, visual arts, dance and music in the 19th century. This course may include the late 18th century operas of Mozart, such as Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute; the 'gesamtkunstwerk' operas of Wagner such as The Ring of the Nibelungen and Parsifal; examples of the French 'Opera Comique' such as Bizet's Carmen and Delibes; Lakme; the Italian opera of Verdi, La Traviata and Il Trouvatore; the 'verisimo' operas of Puccini, La Boheme, Trittico, and Madame Butterfly; and Strauss' radical operas Salome and Elektra. The operas studied are viewed in class and optional field trips to local opera productions will be planned.

What is a woman? Is there a distinctly womanly way of seeing the world and acting in it? If so, is it of any normative value? This course is designed to introduce students to core issues of feminist philosophy through thinking about these very basic but complex questions. Topics include: the connection between gender, femininity, and sexuality; the ethics of care; and the vexed relationship between feminism and other identity politics.

Is ?Beam me up, Scotty!? a transcendental mantra? Is The Force a binding cosmic principle? Is Gandalf Christ in wizard?s robes? Is the Spice melange a catalyst of divine Vision? Does cyberspace occupy the same imaginal space as the Sacred? This course explores some of the basic concepts of the study of religion, using works such as The Lord of the Rings, Dune, A Wizard of Earthsea, Count Zero, and Hyperion, and films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Blade Runner. Engage!

This course focuses on works of short fiction written in English during the twentieth century. We read stories by Hemingway, Saunders, Paley, Nabokov, Salinger, Barthelme, Joyce, O'Connor, and Hannah, amongst others. We posit that stories are machines obliged to create and release tension in their readers; we clarify, via close-reading, the means by which these machines succeed. In the course of this clarification, various notions about plot, internality, convention, experimentation, and justice are explored.

The hypothesis of this course is that consciousness of ethnicity forces an artist to experiment to find ways of expressing this same consciousness. Being between nations, races, cultures, etc., being either 'liminal' or 'subaltern' naturally leads to aesthetics that are formally risky, ahead of the rest, innovative, avant-garde. We explore works of modern and contemporary poetry, fiction, and drama, each in some way formally innovative relative to the extent that ethnicity informs their contents. Authors students are likely to encounter include Aime Cesaire, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Pedro Pietri, Melvin Tolson, Ethel Adnan, Pamela Lu, Dolores Dorantes, Barbara Jane Reyes, and Tan Lin.

Students read recent short stories and novellas by writers such as Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, Denis Johnson, Lorrie Moore, Per Petterson, Stuart Dybek, ZZ Packer, David Bezmozgis, J.M. Coetzee, and Cormac McCarthy. In-class participation and a variety of written responses are required for credit.

This course examines the tradition of writing by women from the 17th century to the present. Students will be introduced to a variety of literary genres, including semi-private forms, such as diaries, journals, and letters; captivity narratives; pulp novels; melodrama; suffragist writings; poetry; avant-garde fiction; drama; feminist theory and criticism, and more. The course incorporates texts from a range of multi-cultural contexts and stresses close readings and research in the final projects. Authors include, Anne Bradstreet, Mary Rowlandson, Phillis Wheatley, Louisa May Alcott, Kate Chopin, Lydia Maria Child, Frances Harper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edith Wharton, Nella Larsen, Willa Cather, Djuna Barnes, Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein, Flannery O?Connor, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Maxine Hong Kingston, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Gloria Anzaldua, and Toni Morrison.

Before the Greeks had thought of themselves, the Mesopotamians in Ur and in Babylon were dancing parades and singing great songs to the goddess Ishtar, goddess of war and lust, who appears rejoicing in the sky over the field of battle, and who throws her rejected lovers into the pit of Hell. This course introduces the mythology and literature of this, the world's first civilization, which lasted for 3000 years, and which was a model and a dream of glamour to the founders of the West. In addition to the mythology and ritual of Ishtar, we read the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Enuma Elish (the Babylonian poem of creation), and numerous shorter poems, songs and magical incantations. Halfway through the semester, we turn to India, to myths of Shiva, Brahma, and Indra, to the ecstatic trance-songs of the Rig Veda, and to Bhagavata Purana, which tells the wonder-tales of the fabulous child-god Krishna. We end with a version of the epic called the Mahabharata, and with its mystic centerpiece, the Bhagavad-Gita.

In just two dozen years at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a few young poets living in England helped cause an imaginative revolution. This course will explore the lives and work of four of these English Romantic poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. All four viewed the world in a radically new way, valuing an intuitive, emotional understanding of experience over a purely logical one, exalting the organic beauty of nature, and distrusting the conventions, limitations, and restraints of society. The outer circumstances of their lives were filled with drama: a separation from a lover and infant child because of war, drug addiction, expulsion from college, elopement, falling 'desperately, unwillingly, helplessly' in love, dying at 29, dying at 25. The real drama, however?and the focus of this course?is the poetry itself and in how these poets responded not only to the individual circumstances of their lives, but to the political, social, intellectual, and artistic climate surrounding them.

Baudelaire, in his scandalous Flowers of Evil, creates a poetic persona that attempts to re-define middle class French society as one primarily of destruction and rot. In Balzac's Pere Goriot and Flaubert's Madame Bovary the authors, with increasing amounts of both wit and pity, meticulously describe French society's inhuman and tragic control over its participants. How do the ironic voices and literary realism of Balzac and Flaubert lead to the destructive Romanticism of Baudelaire? Readings include: Balzac's Pere Goriot, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Baudelaire?s Flowers of Evil and Painter of Modern Life.

Transnational Modernisms looks at the relationship between high modernism in Europe and the US first then relates this literature to the Boom novel of South America, magical realism, and to African and southeast Asian fiction from the 1960s to the present. We read fiction and poems by Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Cather, Stein, Pound, Eliot, Moore, and other American authors, as well as British authors like Ford, Greene, Woolf, and Auden, followed by Borges, Marquez, Neruda, Achebe, Ousmane, and others. We will discuss themes including personal and national identity, the autonomy of the art object (especially the ontology of the text), poetic invention and innovation (stream of consciousness for example), and the role of modernizing in the cultural economy of postcolonial communities.

This course examines some of the most important writers and literary movements that have emerged in Latin American literature since the 20th century. Writers we may study include Juan Rulfo, Moacyr Scliar, Clarice Lispector, Daniel Alarcon, Cristina Garcia, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Cecilia Vicuna, Roberto Bolano, and Ariel Dorfman, among others. We will read texts that explore the Mexican and Cuban Revolutions; the Jewish diaspora and the favelas of Brazil; and issues of memory, testimony and human rights abuse from Chile, Argentina and El Salvador. We will also look at writers who have fused their literary work with visual modes and public performance in order to demonstrate art's capacity to change and influence their worlds.

When James Joyce used The Odyssey as a framing device for his novel Ulysses, he wasn't just mobilizing a classic epic story for his own modernist ends. The sea itself, as a space of global circulation, defined Joyce's world in the early twentieth century as much as it does ours now (as well as the world of the Greeks when Homer composed The Odyssey). The ocean has often provided Western civilization with a space on which to imagine the experience of the world's transformation. And this may be one of the reasons the sea narrative has endured for so long. Class readings include Homer's The Odyssey, accounts of slavery and slave ships, classic sea stories by Melville and Joseph Conrad, and selections from James Joyce's Ulysses, the work of Rachel Carson, and others.

A survey of Western music from Beethoven to Romantic Expressionism with emphasis on musical style, form, and nationalistic tendencies in historical, cultural, and social contexts. Chamber and vocal music, symphonic forms, and operas are among the genres explored.

A survey of new music from 1950 to the present with an emphasis on North American and European composers. The course investigates the literature from several viewpoints?compositional approach, examining techniques of postserialism, indeterminacy, stochastic music, minimalism, and the new tonalism; experimental and computer music; various uses of text and/or sound in relation to new opera, theatrical pieces, mixed media, socio-political work, installations, art rock; experimental jazz and improvisational techniques. The course includes reading and listening assignments as well as some experimental creative work.

This course includes a historical overview of this uniquely urban art form, and explores its impact on American and world culture over the last thirty years. Students study artists as diverse as Public Enemy, 50 Cent, and Kanye West, and attain an in-depth analysis of Chicago's Hip Hop subculture and its many derivative forms. Connections are drawn between rap music and earlier musical forms to place rap within a historical context. Students will explore these issues through listening, discussion, and critical writing.

A survey of the first half of the history of jazz in America starting from its roots in blues, spirituals, minstrelsy, and European band music, to the beginning of the Free Jazz movement in the early 60's. Topics include: early piano and instrumental ragtime; early New Orleans jazz; early New York and Kansas City jazz; the Swing era; Bebop and Hard Bop; the 50's West Coast style, the 50's Third Stream and experimental jazz; and early Free Jazz.

Students examines this fascinating segment of popular music, from early rock and roll, 60s folk and psychedelia to 90s indie- rock, hip-hop, house, techno and everything in between. Threads of discussion include the influences of technology on the music and its context in society, the influence of electronics, synthesizers, and computers on sound and musical aesthetics, and the cross-pollinating influences of popular music, contemporary composers and the art scenes during this period. The class focuses mainly on popular music, but direct and indirect connections with other genres is also investigated, such as the relationship of Warhol to the Velvet Underground, Stockhausen to the Beatles, or Cage to Brian Eno. Students become thoroughly familiar with the music and its historical/cultural background through listening, discussion, and critical writing.

This class will provide an overview of music from diverse cultures in Latin America & the Caribbean. This global perspective on music fabrication will be examined as a phenomenon of world cultural evolution in order to perceive, understand, and identify cultural similarities and differences, as well as to identify aspects that characterize particular traditional musical practices. Music from Jamaica, Cuba, Trinidad, Brazil, Africa and Europe will be examined and specifically how its connections to religious, political, and social systems of each country has had greater ramifications upon the musical traditions within and beyond each country's culture. This course serves as an introduction to the many styles and traditions which grew out of pre- and postcolonial Latin America and European-African-Caribbean developments.

A study of the basic kinds of music and musical instruments found in the major Asian civilizations and island cultures of the Eastern Hemisphere. This vast range includes music from Australia, the Pacific Islands, Indonesia, the Middle East, India, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, China, Japan, Korea, and others. Some investigation into the anthropology of this music is necessary to bring the musical and instrumental traditions to light.

Like motion pictures today, the opera stage was the dominant art form of its time and it displayed and inspired many of the innovations in fashion, visual arts, dance and music in the 19th century. This course may include the late 18th century operas of Mozart, such as Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute; the 'gesamtkunstwerk' operas of Wagner such as The Ring of the Nibelungen and Parsifal; examples of the French 'Opera Comique' such as Bizet's Carmen and Delibes; Lakme; the Italian opera of Verdi, La Traviata and Il Trouvatore; the 'verisimo' operas of Puccini, La Boheme, Trittico, and Madame Butterfly; and Strauss' radical operas Salome and Elektra. The operas studied are viewed in class and optional field trips to local opera productions will be planned.

An introduction to some of the basic themes of existentialist thought from Kierkegaard to Sartre. Topics to be discussed include the relation of the individual to mass society, conformism, nihilism, the death of God, and the priority of existence over essence, anguish, responsibility, and freedom of choice.

We address the following questions: Does life have meaning? If yes, what is it? What does the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' even mean? Is death bad for us? If yes, should we fear it? If no, should we welcome it? And is suicide morally wrong? Why or why not? Is existence a good thing? If yes, does this mean that immortality is a good thing, too? If no, should we stop procreating and allow the human race to become extinct? And what general attitude should we have towards life, pessimism or optimism? In addition to historical philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Hume, and Kant, we read contemporary philosophers such as Thomas Nagel, Bernard Williams, and Derek Parfit.

Over the past century there has been increasing western interest in Zen philosophy. Recently, the western intellectual community, including the art world, has recognized Zen Buddhism?s importance and creative power. Zen is the outgrowth of both Indian philosophy (Buddhism) and Chinese philosophical thought (Taoism). Accordingly, the first part of this course focuses on understanding philosophical Buddhism and Taoist philosophy. The second part focuses on the principles and practice of Zen philosophy as it is shaped by (and, in turn, shapes) Japanese culture. Finally, the course considers ways in which Zen philosophy is relevant to the study of the humanities, fine arts, and science.

The course examines conceptual and ethical questions surrounding sexual desire and behavior. The questions we address include: Is there such a thing as sexual perversion and what is it? Are prostitution, adultery, casual sex, promiscuity, and pornography morally wrong? If yes, why? What is objectification and is it wrong? What is sexual harassment and why is it wrong? Most of the readings are by contemporary authors, though some are by important historical figures, such as Immanuel Kant.

This course examines a number of issues connected to religious beliefs and practices. The issues include, but need not be confined to, the following: arguments for and against the existence of God (including the problem of evil), the nature and justification of religious experiences, the possibility of miracles, the nature of God's attributes and their compatibility with each other, the connections between faith and reason, connections between religion and ethics, and religious pluralism and whether truth claims from different religions can be jointly true.

Literary works are taken as a starting point for discussion of a range of philosophical problems. The course may focus on works of a particular philosophical orientation (for example, existentialist literature from Dostoevsky to Kundera) or a particular genre (for example, tragedy).

The twentieth century saw the emergence of the study of religion as a discipline unto itself, blending elements of history, theology, psychology, sociology, even political science into a new way of studying and understanding religious beliefs and practices. The purpose of this course is to engage the study of religion by becoming familiar with some of its basic premises and practitioners. We explore theories by pioneers in the field such as Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, and Rudolf Otto; historians of religion Mircea Eliade, J.Z. Smith, Wendy Doniger, and Bruce Lincoln; sociologist of religion Max Weber; anthropologists Claude Levi-Strauss, Clifford Geertz, and Talal Asad; psychologists William James and Carl Jung; and feminist historians Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza and Amy Hollywood.

Over the centuries the Middle East has produced three major scriptures: the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament), the New Testament, and the Koran. Following a brief examination of the notion of 'scripture' in general and of the origins and histories of these three scriptures in particular, this seminar course will focus on reading and discussing the core of each. Our goals will be to begin to understand each text in its own right, in comparison with the others, and as a starting point for understanding the larger scriptures of which they are the central parts. (If time permits, we will supplement our reading by screening three classic films: The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and The Message.)

This course focuses on the encounter between religious faith and classical philosophy, beginning with the mystical speculations of Plotinus, then turning to the perspectives of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Some of the questions we raise are: Can ancient philosophy, which seeks timeless, universal principles, co-exist with revelation, through which God's will is made known through miracles and visions? Can the self be a philosophical principle that bridges this gap? How can the goals of philosophy and of Divine Law be thought of as identical? And why has the tension between faith and reason produced some of the greatest, most beautiful works in the history of philosophy? Then we turn to the Renaissance and the advent of humanism, which represents a richer conception of religious life imbued with love and passion, an artistic 'this-worldly religion of the imagination.' We examine the renaissance's longing for the 'true gold' of the past, and its interest in magic and the occult, in folly and insanity. We close with the last man burned at the stake by the Inquisition, G. Bruno, a great theorist of meaning, magic and hidden signs. Some authors include Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Averroes, Maimonedes, Cusa, Machiavelli, and Montaigne.

Should science serve as a model for philosophical knowledge or is philosophy an expression of culture that is closer, as a model, to fiction and literary criticism? Is philosophical truth to be found in our beliefs or in the objects of those beliefs? Should philosophy focus on analyzing particular problems like the meaning of beauty or should it trace the historical development of the existence of beauty in order to uncover deeper philosophical truths? This course studies the philosophical Continental tradition represented by Hegel and Nietzsche, among others, and contrasts it with the contemporary practice of Anglo-American philosophy represented by thinkers like Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore.

This course is designed to provide students with an overview of research methods in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Students are introduced to ways in which faculty in history, philosophy, anthropology, biology, and English approach research questions and conduct empirical studies. Faculty from different disciplines in Liberal Arts visit the class to share techniques. Short research projects are conducted using each disciplinary approach. The class is designed to help students develop new methodological tools and critical thinking skills to use in their own practices.

He was called by some a tyrant, demon, madman, and vagrant. Others characterized him as crass, impulsive, compulsive, petulant, neurotic, and paranoid. But, to everyone Ludwig Van Beethoven was indisputably a Teutonic genius--so much so that he bridged the musical gap between Classicism and Romanticism. His works defined the standards of Western music for the next hundred years. The Transcendentalists of late 19th-century New England idolized him. Biographers garbled the facts of his life for over a century as his persona was further mystified by his deafness. In the 1970s, an exaggerated account of his shortcomings as a guardian was depicted in Paul Morrisey's 'Beethoven?s Nephew.' A '90s Hollywood movie romanticized his life and distorted relationships in 'Immortal Beloved.' This course studies the life and music of Beethoven with an eye towards his positioning in the political and cultural milieu of Vienna during the post-enlightenment and Napoleonic Era, and an ear towards the rupture of European musical style as he left classical form bulging at its seams. Class lectures elucidate Beethoven?s works and historical significance to students as everyone analyzes and evaluates the composer?s oeuvre through listening and readings.

Students are familiarized with basic philosophical skills: clear reasoning, examination of the soundness and validity of arguments, and development of consistent positions on certain philosophical issues. The course may be organized historically by studying the thought of major philosophers, beginning with Plato, and ending with the modern era (examples of figures studied: Plato, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke and Nietzche), thematically (studying major themes in philosophy such as free will and determinism, the existence of God, and the mind-body problem), or by school of thought (studying major trends in philosophy such as pragmatism, analytical philosophy, Marxism, existentialism, and phenomenology).

Like motion pictures today, the opera stage was the dominant art form of its time and it displayed and inspired many of the innovations in fashion, visual arts, dance and music in the 19th century. This course may include the late 18th century operas of Mozart, such as Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute; the 'gesamtkunstwerk' operas of Wagner such as The Ring of the Nibelungen and Parsifal; examples of the French 'Opera Comique' such as Bizet's Carmen and Delibes; Lakme; the Italian opera of Verdi, La Traviata and Il Trouvatore; the 'verisimo' operas of Puccini, La Boheme, Trittico, and Madame Butterfly; and Strauss' radical operas Salome and Elektra. The operas studied are viewed in class and optional field trips to local opera productions will be planned.

An introduction to some of the basic themes of existentialist thought from Kierkegaard to Sartre. Topics to be discussed include the relation of the individual to mass society, conformism, nihilism, the death of God, and the priority of existence over essence, anguish, responsibility, and freedom of choice.

Masterworks: Rama, Shiva, Kali: Mythology and Ancient Literature of India Beginning from the ancient sacrificial songs of the Rig Veda, the oldest Hindu text, we move through the puranic mythologies of such central figures as Kali, Krishna, and Shiva, to the Epic Ramayana, and the devotional, mystic Krishna text from the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita.

This class explores the transformation of the English language as a medium for expression and persuasion through ten centuries of literary history. English literature grew in richness and variety as its island of origin changed from a remote former colony of imperial Rome to the earth?s greatest sea-faring empire. The variousness of its idioms and the diversity of its forms reflects its many influences as much as its native genius. Each class is devoted to reading closely choice selections, touching on such themes as courage, justice, liberty, piety, love, loyalty, power, pleasure, and creativity. A common thread through all our readings is the theme of otherness, from the extraordinary otherness of imaginary monsters to the implicitly but ubiquitously neglected otherness of women. Readings include Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, selections from The King James Bible as well as Hobbes?s Leviathan, Shakespeare?s ?Tempest,? Milton?s Paradise Lost, Dr. Johnson?s Dictionary, and Mary Shelley?s Frankenstein.

This course examines a selection of classic novels and short fiction written in English, French, German, and Russian over two centuries. Through careful analysis of formal and thematic elements, we will study the changing means and ends of narrative in modern European literature. Particular attention will be paid to the possible relations between language, aesthetics, and ethics as developed in these works. While the course is reading intensive, there will be the opportunity to write two short essays (5-pages) and a final research paper (10-pages). The writing component will allow you to explore secondary literature and criticism as you elaborate your own readings of the texts studied in class. Active and informed participation in discussion is required.

'I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Mans / I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create': so exclaims Los to the Spectre, Los the blacksmith of man, the Eternal Prophet, the creative impulse throughout history, Time itself, the Sun of Imagination, and stand in for William Blake himself. From Blake's lyric, through his satiric, and into his great prophetic poetry, in this seminar, you will become a seminarian in the church of Blake, reading the work, attending to the visual art, and disputing its outrageous claims.

In this course we delve into literary works that capture microcosms, miniatures, and close-ups. We?ll wield our microscopes and investigate the small worlds of Walser, Albee, Swift, Ponge, and Borges. We?ll squint at the short poems of Dickinson, Niedecker, Armantrout, Rehm, and Ammons. We?ll also be the masters of the cartoon rooms of McCay and Ware, and bounce off the walls of Hemingway and Kafka. While testing theories on the miniature by Bachelard, Stewart, and Baudrillard, we?ll question how constraints in size and perspective might give us insight into the expansive environments beyond these wee kingdoms.

This course deals with poetry written by poets of the 20th and 21st centuries in response to war. There are many war poems whose value is primarily as historical documents; we will deal only with poems of enduring literary value. We will examine the work of two Irish poets who won the Nobel Prize: William Butler Yeats, who lived long enough to respond to battles both local and worldwide; and Seamus Heaney, who continues to write about The Troubles in Northern Ireland that began in the 1960?s. We will also read the poetry of three English poets writing about World War I: Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, and Ivor Gurney.

The course examines American fiction since 1990. Students will read a set of short stories, as well as a couple short novels, by writers such as Lydia Davis, David Foster Wallace, Rebecca Curtis, George Saunders, Ben Fountain, Ben Lerner, Colson Whitehead, Padgett Powell, Mary Gaitskill, Junot Diaz, and Tim O?Brien. Students will gain a familiarity with the variety of approaches to narrative fiction these writers employ to represent the range of histories and identities constituting contemporary America. In-class participation and numerous written responses are required for credit.

Gertrude Stein was perhaps the most spectacular of modernist celebrities. She was Pablo Picasso's best friend. She was a radical avant-garde poet with a best-seller and adoring popular following. She was at various points a writer of lesbian erotica, a patron of and influence upon cubism, a fascist sympathizer, and literary and philosophical experimentalist whose influence is pervasive even today. Her work was so idiosyncratic that it spawned imitators and hecklers in equal measure; it requires an almost complete adjustment of what it means to read, much like cubism changes what it means to view. This course is an introduction to the Stein mode of reading. Prepare to immerse yourself in her pages. You will be rewarded if you do.

Berlin first rose to prominence in 1871 as the capital city of the newly unified Germany. It rapidly acquired the status of Weltstadt or 'Worldcity' embodying potential and progress on the one hand and rootlessness and lack of tradition on the other. The impersonal machinery of the modern city gave rise to Modernist literature which reflected the themes of decay and growing alienation of the individual in the modern world. In this course we will explore Berlin as metaphor for modernity by turning to the works of such diverse authors as Walter Benjamin, who wrote about his childhood in Berlin in the late 1900s, and Christopher Isherwood's depiction the Berlin pre-war cabaret culture in the 1920's, ending with Peter Schneider's account of post war Berlin as a divided city in the 1980s.

This class will examine the intersecting genres of crime, mystery, and detective fiction. We will pay particularly close attention to the ways in which various arts of detection, and their corresponding forensic practices, attempt to 'solve' political, social, and psychological antagonisms. We will also investigate the different ways in which these detections produce pleasure and knowledge. Readings will range widely within these genres, with particular emphasis on British and American examples from the nineteenth century to the present. Authors include Poe, Doyle, Highsmith, Greene, Christie, Twain, Himes, Moore, and others.

Over 1,000 years of music in Western civilization is surveyed. Historical, cultural, and social contexts are studied as they pertain to the music. After a brief introduction to the Greeks, work from early chant and minstrels through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical periods to Mozart (ca. 1800) is studied through extensive reading and listening. Students learn to develop a macro-level music vocabulary for the understanding of musical forms, styles, tonal hierarchies, and texture.

A survey of European and American music from Debussy to early Cage. Developments in Impressionism, Expressionism, Neo-Classicism, and Serialism, and the early American and French experimentalists are explored. New compositional tools such as electronics, found sounds, and extended instrumental techniques are identified through musical examples of this period. Composers studied include Debussy, Satie, Ives, Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Cowell, Varese, and early Cage.

This is a seminar on contemporary music, its history, philosophy, performance techniques, improvisation, indeterminacy, and interdisciplinary worlds. The class is designed to accommodate novice and experienced students of sound and/or music. Its aim is to enjoy, explore, analyze, critique, expose, and learn about music from the turn of the century to the present. The focus is on experimental music, composers, musicians, and conceptualists. Race, class, and privilege are also explored as it pertains to the career of the professional artist. Twentieth and twenty-first century music is examined through seminar discussions, research, recordings, scores, films and/or videotape, exploration via the internet, and other resource materials. Composers and musicians such as Sun Ra, John Cage, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Toru Takemutsu, Billie Holiday, Mia Masaoka, Mariann Amerchay, Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and others are explored.

This course examines the historical roots of America's numerous, yet disparate, colloquial musical styles, the socio-economic context in which each ethnic musical style developed, the role of religion and geography, the instrumentation used, the interrelationships between styles and how they influenced one another, what distinguishes one from another, and the importance of regional music in 20th Century movements such as the Civil Rights movement, the Labor movement, and the Anti-war movement of the 1960s. We study the music of early recording artists such as Robert Johnson, Bill Monroe, Bessie Smith, The Stanley Brothers, The Blind Boys of Alabama and Woody Guthrie, discuss the origins of their style and the effect their music had on other musicians, look at the role the spiritual and early string bands had on the development of gospel, blues, country, Cajun and bluegrass, among others, and finally, discuss the roots of contemporary popular American styles such as R&B, Rock & Roll, and Hip Hop.

This class will provide an overview of music from diverse cultures in Latin America & the Caribbean. This global perspective on music fabrication will be examined as a phenomenon of world cultural evolution in order to perceive, understand, and identify cultural similarities and differences, as well as to identify aspects that characterize particular traditional musical practices. Music from Jamaica, Cuba, Trinidad, Brazil, Africa and Europe will be examined and specifically how its connections to religious, political, and social systems of each country has had greater ramifications upon the musical traditions within and beyond each country's culture. This course serves as an introduction to the many styles and traditions which grew out of pre- and postcolonial Latin America and European-African-Caribbean developments.

This course explores relationships of power and influence that classical and popular music have with social and political institutions in Western culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Our goal is to learn about ways in which music and politics interact, studying their range of relationships, from music as a supporter of the political milieu to music as a vehicle of dissent. The composers and performers we study include Sousa, Berg, Shostakovich, Brecht and Weill, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Cornelius Cardew, Pauline Oliveros, John Adams, Jimi Hendrix and other rock performers, Bob Dylan, Oscar Brown, Jr., Queen Latifah and other hip hop performers, and various blues and folk artists.

Regarded as the great synthesizer of the many musical styles at play in the period we call Baroque, as well as one of the greatest composers of all times, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote over one thousand compositions. His music encompasses almost all the genres and forms of his day. Whether lengthy, solemn, and monumental, or minute, virtuosic and intimate, his works exemplify a marriage between intricate counterpoint and beautifully memorable melodic lines. Each class is devoted to one of Bach's major compositions and supplemented by selected readings. Among others, works such as the Mass in B Minor, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Branderburg Concertos, Cello Suites and St. Matthew Passion, are analyzed and discussed. The last class focuses on Bach's legacy, as seen through his influence on later generations of composers, even into the 20th century, such as Sofia Gubaidulina, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

From fin-de-siecle decadence to recent popular music, this course explores issues and representations of sexuality in twentieth-century opera, musical theater, art song, film scoring, and popular music. Themes include modernist thought, sounds of sexuality, and gendered roles in music. Drawing from gender theory, the course will also address aspects of composer and artist identity through authorship, expression, and performance. Particular goals of the course include building strong listening skills and acquiring the vocabulary to discuss and write about music effectively.

Students are familiarized with basic philosophical skills: clear reasoning, examination of the soundness and validity of arguments, and development of consistent positions on certain philosophical issues. The course may be organized historically by studying the thought of major philosophers, beginning with Plato, and ending with the modern era (examples of figures studied: Plato, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke and Nietzche), thematically (studying major themes in philosophy such as free will and determinism, the existence of God, and the mind-body problem), or by school of thought (studying major trends in philosophy such as pragmatism, analytical philosophy, Marxism, existentialism, and phenomenology).

This courses serves as a basic introduction to the major philosophical traditions of Asia, specifically South and East Asia. Reading consist mainly of primary sources from the Hindu Jahi, Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist traditions, but also include secondary introductory materials in order to familiarize the student with the cultural and historical contexts from which the primary texts emerge. In addition to the historical development of each of the major Asian philosophical traditions in their places of origin, topics covered in this course include the relevance of these traditions to issues of more universal concern, such as the relationship between reason and faith, mind and matter, the individual and society, ethics and metaphysics, and conceptions of the afterlife. The aim of the course is to develop both a critical and appreciative understanding of Asian philosophical traditions on the part of the student sand an awareness of the diverse forms that the philosophical quest has taken beyond the boundaries of European and American traditions of thought.

This course examines classical ethical theories such as virtue ethics, utilitarian ethics, and deontological ethics, either as advocated by contemporary philosophers (MacIntyre, Anscombe, Ross, Hare, Moore, Rawls, and Habermas), or as advocated by historical philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Mill, Kant, and Hume). Other ethical theories, such as the feminist ethics of care, may also be covered. Contemporary ethical issues such as euthanasia, abortion, the environment, the treatment of animals, affirmative action, and sexual harassment may also be examined.

An introduction to such topics as art and beauty, aesthetic judgement, aesthetic value, and interpretation. The course focuses on particular thinkers, historical periods, or problems such as the relationship between art and scientific inquiry. Readings from contemporary and historical texts are included.

This course examines both the explanation and justification of central concepts and ideas in political thought. These include, but are not limited to, nature and scope of political (governmental) authority in its various forms (e.g., democracy, monarchy, and dictatorship), social contract theories, citizenship, nationalism, cultural pluralism, political obligations, civil disobedience, revolutions, and terrorism. Readings range from historical to contemporary sources.

This course examines a number of issues connected to religious beliefs and practices. The issues include, but need not be confined to, the following: arguments for and against the existence of God (including the problem of evil), the nature and justification of religious experiences, the possibility of miracles, the nature of God's attributes and their compatibility with each other, the connections between faith and reason, connections between religion and ethics, and religious pluralism and whether truth claims from different religions can be jointly true.

Though many people think of God as something fixed and unchanging, a careful study of scripture reveals that this is not so. Rather, it seems that the Western conception of God - and indeed the very notion that there is only a single God - has evolved over the millennia. This course will introduce students to some of the varying conceptions of God found in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Koran through careful reading and discussion of primary materials in English translation. Readings will be drawn primarily from the Torah (especially Genesis and Exodus), Book of Job, the Gospels, and key suras (chapters) of the Koran, though we will begin by looking at Mesopotamian and Greek conceptions of the gods as manifested in the epic of Gilgamesh and Hesiod's Theogeny. Students will be responsible for doing close, thoughtful reading of each assignment and actively participating in each class discussion. In addition, students will be asked to write three papers (about 4-6 pages in length) on topics to be mutually-agreed upon, and to either write a fourth paper of similar length or to submit an art project related to the themes of the course. The first essay is to be revised based on class and instructor feedback, and future essays may need to be revised as well. Prerequisite: First year English requirement.

Literary works are taken as a starting point for discussion of a range of philosophical problems. The course may focus on works of a particular philosophical orientation (for example, existentialist literature from Dostoevsky to Kundera) or a particular genre (for example, tragedy).

This course makes reference to James Baldwin, Jack Kerouac, Langston Hughes, Jackson Pollock, Stuart Davis, Romare Bearden, Twyla Tharp, etc. One of the textbooks is the catalogue from a landmark exhibit held in Washington D.C. entitled The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism. Students also listen to jazz and blues and try to discern the basic assumptions behind the music.

In this course we survey the history of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, studying works from the archaic, classical, and Hellenistic periods. Some of these works may include Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Republic; Aristotle's Politics and Physics; Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods; and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Some questions we explore are: What is the nature of the universe? What is virtue and is it teachable? What is 'Platonic love'? How do we acquire knowledge and how do we become good? How should we understand the role of pleasure and pain in our lives? What is the relationship between reason and emotion? Can we live in a world where knowledge is unattainable?

This course examines works by rationalist and empiricist philosophers and culminates in a study of Kant. Here are sample topics: After all these years in school, what do I really know? (Descartes). Can mathematical deduction demonstrate the nature of God? (Spinoza). Can I really know everything by really knowing just one thing? (Leibniz). Do we start out life as blank slates? (Locke). Do I exist apart from perception? (Berkeley). Where does the idea that knowledge comes from experience lead to? (Hume). What can I know? What ought I do? What may I hope? (Kant).

An introductory course in reading, writing, and conversational Spanish.

An introductory course in reading, writing, and conversational Spanish.

An introductory course in reading, writing and conversational French.

This course is a basic introduction to American Sign Language (ASL), with an emphasis on conversational fluency. The course combines work in both expressive and receptive skills; students learn to recognize and produce signs in ASL with appropriate non-manual behaviors and grammatical features. Additionally, they explore the social and cultural contexts of ASL through readings and discussions.

This class provides an introduction to the Chinese language, including reading, writing, and conversational skills for basic communication. This class also contains cultural and linguistic information about the Chinese-speaking world.

This is a continuing course in reading, writing, and speaking Spanish. Prerequisite: LANGUAGE 2001 Spanish I.

This course is a continuing course in reading, writing, and speaking French.

American Sign Language (ASL) II is designed to further develop students' proficiency in frequently used signs, and introduces complex grammatical structures and vocabulary. As a result, students continue to develop expressive, receptive, conversational, and basic translation skills in ASL while gaining competence in using some complex grammatical rules of the language. This course also familiarizes students with some cultural aspects of the Deaf community.

Using an audio-lingual approach, this course teaches pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar fundamentals as essential elements in reading, writing, and understanding elementary Chinese. The course also covers necessary culture, customs, philosophy, and history which serve as keys to studying the Chinese language.

This intermediate level course expands on the material presented in French 2, elaborating the students' knowledge of spoken and written French through the intensive study of French grammar. This course makes use of authentic video and audio recordings, newspaper articles as well as conversational pratice and role-play. Please note: you must take a placement exam in order to be considered for this course.

An introductory course in reading, writing, and conversational Spanish.

An introductory course in reading, writing, and conversational Spanish.

An introductory course in reading, writing and conversational French.

An introductory course in reading, writing and conversational French.

An introductory course in reading, writing and conversational French.

This course is a basic introduction to American Sign Language (ASL), with an emphasis on conversational fluency. The course combines work in both expressive and receptive skills; students learn to recognize and produce signs in ASL with appropriate non-manual behaviors and grammatical features. Additionally, they explore the social and cultural contexts of ASL through readings and discussions.

This course is a basic introduction to American Sign Language (ASL), with an emphasis on conversational fluency. The course combines work in both expressive and receptive skills; students learn to recognize and produce signs in ASL with appropriate non-manual behaviors and grammatical features. Additionally, they explore the social and cultural contexts of ASL through readings and discussions.

This class provides an introduction to the Chinese language, including reading, writing, and conversational skills for basic communication. This class also contains cultural and linguistic information about the Chinese-speaking world.

This class provides an introduction to the Chinese language, including reading, writing, and conversational skills for basic communication. This class also contains cultural and linguistic information about the Chinese-speaking world.

This is a continuing course in reading, writing, and speaking Spanish. Prerequisite: LANGUAGE 2001 Spanish I.

This course is a continuing course in reading, writing, and speaking French.

This course provides a link between VCS 2001 Issues in Visual and Critical Studies, required of all first-year B.A. students, and the Thesis Seminar required in their final year. Typically take at the end of the second year of full-time study, students read material that suggests the range of possibilities for visual and critical studies. Then each student undertakes a project that focuses on some aspect of visual and critical studies of particular interest to her or him. The project must include a substantial written component, although it might also make use of other media. Student presentation of projects, as works in progress and then completed work, provide opportunity for discussion of how they might give coherence to their final semesters of study. This includes suggestions for connections they might make among different aspects of their education, and serves as an early stage in the process of developing a senior thesis project. The instructor of the senior thesis seminar visits the class for one session and give students some guidelines for developing thesis projects.

This course provides a link between VCS 2001 Issues in Visual and Critical Studies, required of all first-year B.A. students, and the Thesis Seminar required in their final year. Typically take at the end of the second year of full-time study, students read material that suggests the range of possibilities for visual and critical studies. Then each student undertakes a project that focuses on some aspect of visual and critical studies of particular interest to her or him. The project must include a substantial written component, although it might also make use of other media. Student presentation of projects, as works in progress and then completed work, provide opportunity for discussion of how they might give coherence to their final semesters of study. This includes suggestions for connections they might make among different aspects of their education, and serves as an early stage in the process of developing a senior thesis project. The instructor of the senior thesis seminar visits the class for one session and give students some guidelines for developing thesis projects.

This course is a continuation of Undergraduate Thesis: Research and Writing. Students continue to work on the drafts developed during the first semester and meet at times as a group and at times individually with the instructor. By the end of the semester, each student has a 20?0 paged superbly written paper, which will most likely (although it is not required) has visual content. Students also are encouraged to develop their essays for the publication Research Writing and Culture, which is released annually by the Liberal Arts Department, the Visual and Critical Studies Program, and the Office of Publications and Graphic Design Services. Students who elect to participate in the publication learn the final stages of publishing; checking sources, seeking copyright permissions, and developing the images for publication. Class meetings are used to discuss readings, share research methods and techniques, discuss research and writing problems and ideas for critique. Guest speakers and group visits to university libraries, bookstores, and writers' readings are also part of the class. Students are required to attend all meetings.

This course is a continuation of Undergraduate Thesis: Research and Writing. Students continue to work on the drafts developed during the first semester and meet at times as a group and at times individually with the instructor. By the end of the semester, each student has a 20?0 paged superbly written paper, which will most likely (although it is not required) has visual content. Students also are encouraged to develop their essays for the publication Research Writing and Culture, which is released annually by the Liberal Arts Department, the Visual and Critical Studies Program, and the Office of Publications and Graphic Design Services. Students who elect to participate in the publication learn the final stages of publishing; checking sources, seeking copyright permissions, and developing the images for publication. Class meetings are used to discuss readings, share research methods and techniques, discuss research and writing problems and ideas for critique. Guest speakers and group visits to university libraries, bookstores, and writers' readings are also part of the class. Students are required to attend all meetings.

This course enables upper-level students to develop a well-researched thesis project on a topic of their choice. Such a thesis project may be linked to their final BFA thesis or studio project, and may be useful for students considering graduate school in a field in which research and writing expertise is required. Students may choose to enlist innovative formats and incorporate a variety of media. Topics as diverse as 'Gay Cinema,' 'Culture as Industry,' 'Is Rap Subversive?,' 'The Art and Science of Fragrance,' and 'The Morphology of the Toy Soldier Body' have been explored. Class meetings are used to share research methods, discuss the given challenges of various projects, and present works-in-progress for critique.

This course enables upper-level students to develop a well-researched thesis project on a topic of their choice. Such a thesis project may be linked to their final BFA thesis or studio project, and may be useful for students considering graduate school in a field in which research and writing expertise is required. Students may choose to enlist innovative formats and incorporate a variety of media. Topics as diverse as 'Gay Cinema,' 'Culture as Industry,' 'Is Rap Subversive?,' 'The Art and Science of Fragrance,' and 'The Morphology of the Toy Soldier Body' have been explored. Class meetings are used to share research methods, discuss the given challenges of various projects, and present works-in-progress for critique.

An introduction to the principles of ecology, emphasizing detailed field investigations of natural communities. Among the topics explored are the dynamics of lake ecosystems, forest succession, trophic structure in streams, dune ecology, and territorial behavior in breeding birds. Lectures examine major themes in modern ecology, including energy flow, nutrient cycling, and species diversity. Selections from nineteenth- and twentieth-century American naturalists (Thoreau, Muir, Burroughs, and Leopold) provide perspective on the relationship of humanity to nature.

This survey course emphasizes a conceptual approach to mathematics and problem solving over routine computation. We utilize computer graphics to demonstrate and visualize various mathematical concepts. Topics include set theory, logic, probability, statistics, geometry, mathematical systems and number theory. Students should have a minimum of one year of high school algebra or its equivalent prior to taking this course.

Early mathematics can best be defined as a chaos of empirical data, from which, eventually, emerges a singular note of reason. In this course, we explore the nascent stages of mathematical aesthetics, the role played by the Classical schools in the transformation of mathematics from an empirical method to a philosophical system, and derive classic mathematical proofs in their historical context. We also investigate the secret Cult of Pythagoras, the works of Plato and Euclid, the influences of the Middle East, and the decline of the Golden Age of Mathematics.

This course involves an in-depth exploration of selected geometry topics relevant to art. Students apply geometrical and mathematical methods to develop vanishing-point perspective from one-point through multi-point. We discuss fractal geometry as a tool for understanding natural phenomena with examples and applications, developing various methods for generating fractals. Other topics include elements of projective geometry, topology, and geometric illusions.

In this course, we explore the creation of art, literature, and media by applying the process of mathematical thought. This includes examining creative works through the application of mathematical logic, truth tables, paradoxical forms, proofs, and game theory. We also explore the creation of visual arts when applying topological forms, and non-Euclidean geometry. We apply these structures through creation, experimentation, and research.

Few questions have inspired us throughout the ages as much as 'Are we alone?' This course provides an opportunity to explore in-depth the science involved in the search for life in the universe. The course covers the biochemical nature and origin of life on Earth, the transition from molecules to minds, the early history of our solar system, the past and present searches for life on Venus and Mars, the giant planets and their satellites, the discovery of extrasolar planets, estimates of how many intelligent civilizations are present in the Galaxy (Drake equation), the physics of interstellar flight, and broadcasts of radio and TV messages into space.

Few questions have inspired us throughout the ages as much as 'Are we alone?' This course provides an opportunity to explore in-depth the science involved in the search for life in the universe. The course covers the biochemical nature and origin of life on Earth, the transition from molecules to minds, the early history of our solar system, the past and present searches for life on Venus and Mars, the giant planets and their satellites, the discovery of extrasolar planets, estimates of how many intelligent civilizations are present in the Galaxy (Drake equation), the physics of interstellar flight, and broadcasts of radio and TV messages into space.

Have you ever found it hard to get your head around both the vast and the tiny scales of the cosmos and the microscopic world? Or, found it hard to relate to statistics involving 'millions,' 'billions,' and 'trillions' in the news? Would you like to be able to cross-check random facts that politicians (or your friends) say on a regular basis, without having to resort to Wikipedia? This class is designed to draw on high-school math as well as some basic concepts from physics to give you the skills to answer questions about the real world. Students gain better intuition about large and small numbers, learn to estimate quantities without looking them up, and become comfortable answering questions that initially seem impossible. Examples of the kinds of 'back-of-the-envelope' calculations we consider are: What does it cost to cool a six pack in your fridge? How much oxygen would you need to run a moon colony for a year? How large would a wind farm have to be to power Chicago? Learning to think like a physicist will let you confidently answer--and ask--questions from all walks of life.

This course focuses on the meteorological processes that lead to severe and unusual weather events and patterns. Topics include thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, flash floods, drought and winter storms. Whenever possible, real-time weather data is incorporated and severe weather events that occur in the United States during the semester are examined. The societal impact of severe and unusual weather is also studied.

This course provides an introduction to the dynamics and methods of forecasting weather. Topics include theories of the Earth's climate, hydrology, the effects of polution on the weather, application to marine and aviation agencies and careers in meteorology. Activities include graphing, weather forecasting and maintenance of a weather log.

The oceans and the animals that dwell there are a key resource to planet earth, providing food, medicine, the bases for sacred cultural customs, and much more. However, they are in trouble. This course is a survey of marine ecosystems and the organisms that make them up from diatoms and dinaflagellates, to seahorses and great white sharks. We will discuss the abysmal forecast for the future of the planetary sea and how we can change the outcome now.

What makes Earth unique? In this course, we place the study of the Earth in the context of other Solar System bodies, comparing aspects such as composition, atmosphere, cratering, and volcanism. We investigate the planets' formation process as an explanation for some of their differences. Finally, we examine what makes Earth suitable for life, and we consider whether life might exist elsewhere in the Solar System.

This course presents the science behind climate change in the context of our understanding of past climate change, present human influence on climate, and future predictions of climate change. Students learn what the greenhouse effect is and how earth's temperature is modulated by the carbon cycle. Lab activities highlight how we observe and measure past and present climate change, and how to make and evaluate predictions for the future. We also evaluate predictions of the possible environmental changes associated with global warming such as rising sea level, vegetation shifts, and modified weather patterns. Readings will include current newspaper articles, and we will discuss how scientists and the public perceive global climate change. Students will learn to identify what is science and what is opinion. At the end of the course we will evaluate potential 'solutions' to some of the problems of global climate change.

Ever wonder about what lives in the soil, how nutrients are cycled through it, how to be successful at organic gardening, or even what makes for a good mud-pie for a kid? Have you ever wondered why certain plants thrive in some soil types and not others, or wondered about different kinds of earthworms? In this course, we explore the biotic and abiotic characteristics of soil and its formation as well as how people affect soil, policies, and perspectives regarding the ground beneath our feet. Special emphasis is given to the biodiversity and function of soil organisms and the valuation of ecosystem services. Readings will come from various sources including current topics in science media and environmental thought.

Fungi are members of a kingdom of organisms that is distinct from plants and animals. They are exceptionally enigmatic, not just to everyday people, but to scientists as well. This course serves as a primer to the world of fungi, defining what fungi are and what they are not, and providing a conceptual understanding of these organisms. We explore the taxonomic diversity of fungi before considering their diversity from an ecological perspective. Students learn to identify different forms of fungi, grow them in the lab, and perform experiments to understand how they function. Finally, this course evaluates the importance of fungi from a practical human standpoint (food, medicine, art, spirituality), and discuss important questions to be addressed in the scientific field of mycology.

Today's news is filled with stories about the negative effects humans have on the environment. To better understand problems such as water pollution, air pollution, and global warming, we need to understand the chemistry of the natural world, and how it is affected by human activities. Through discussion, readings, and case studies we explore the chemistry of our environment, and apply this science to current debates and issues of local concern.

Chemistry is the study of what things are made of and how they interact. Why is chemistry important to other sciences, technology, and society in solving real problems? In this course, students are introduced to the interdisciplinary nature of science with chemistry as a framework for our exploration of the natural world. Students learn to think and talk like a chemist. Basic chemical principles will be used to explore the chemistry in you (biochemistry), the chemistry of the things you use (material science), the chemistry of our planet (environmental geochemistry), and the chemistry of the universe (astrobiology). Individual and group work guides us through the course using scientific processes as you think critically, read and write, and present your ideas. No prior knowledge of chemistry is necessary for this course.

In this course, we ask how we come to see the world around us. First, we study light: what characteristics it has, and how it interacts in the physical world to produce phenomena such as blue skies, rainbows, and mirages. Next, we study the workings of the human eye, from the lens to the rods and cones. Finally, we explore visual perception in the brain. We talk about how the brain is able to make sense of color, contrast, motion and depth, and we end by discussing a question that still perplexes neuroscientists: how can the brain learn to recognize what it sees?

In this course, we ask how we come to see the world around us. First, we study light: what characteristics it has, and how it interacts in the physical world to produce phenomena such as blue skies, rainbows, and mirages. Next, we study the workings of the human eye, from the lens to the rods and cones. Finally, we explore visual perception in the brain. We talk about how the brain is able to make sense of color, contrast, motion and depth, and we end by discussing a question that still perplexes neuroscientists: how can the brain learn to recognize what it sees?

This course serves as a basic introduction to human and mammalian anatomy. The skeletal, muscular, digestive, circulatory, nervous, and reproductive systems are covered, with special emphasis on the skeletal system in reference to other mammals. The physiological processes of the aforementioned systems are examined. Laboratories include the use of plastic human and mammal models and trips to the Field Museum. Student investigations in the laboratory are an important component of this course.

Have you ever heard that we use only 10% of our brains, or read that Mozart makes you smarter, and wondered if that was actually true? Ever wonder how scientists know that in the first place? This course will explore the form, function, and dysfunction of the brain. We examine the neuroscience of the senses, memory, emotion, creativity, and identity through the study and discussion of experiments, demonstrations, and medical case studies. Special emphasis is given to the epistemology of science.

Why do birds migrate? When do whales sing? What does a bee's dance mean? Animals have fascinating behaviors that have both puzzled and amazed observers. Find out current theories behind these actions. The lecture and discussion aspects of this course will focus on theories while the lab component will focus on collecting observational data on local fauna. This data will then be discussed and new or additional theories proposed.

It is estimated that more kinds of creatures are alive right now than at any other time in the earth's 4.5 billion-year history. What accounts for the remarkable array of forms and habits we see in organisms, and how did it come about? This is an introduction to how mutation, environmental variation, natural selection, and extinction work to generate incredible bio-diversity (e.g. tulips, kangaroos, bacteria, blue whales) in the context of life's shared evolutionary history. The role of various cooperative and competitive interactions in evolution is a key theme, as is the ongoing debate over 'Intelligent Design.'

It is estimated that more kinds of creatures are alive right now than at any other time in the earth's 4.5 billion-year history. What accounts for the remarkable array of forms and habits we see in organisms, and how did it come about? This is an introduction to how mutation, environmental variation, natural selection, and extinction work to generate incredible bio-diversity (e.g. tulips, kangaroos, bacteria, blue whales) in the context of life's shared evolutionary history. The role of various cooperative and competitive interactions in evolution is a key theme, as is the ongoing debate over 'Intelligent Design.'

The study of ecology focuses on understanding how organisms interact with their environment. The natural world is in constant flux; the function and organization of biological organisms are determined through their interactions with one another as well as the environment. This general ecology course provides a foundation in ecology and prompts the student to further explore the interactions between humans and the natural environment. The beginning emphasis on ecological philosophy and history will transition into classic ecological theory and experimentation. We will apply this to environmental science, question the role of people within the natural environment, and consider the definition of nature itself. Field trip(s) and class project(s) will provide hands-on experience in ecological experimentation and scientific inquiry.

Forensic science has gained visibility lately in television shows and in the movies. Take a look into the real world of forensic science and learn what it takes to gather evidence and follow clues for a case. In this class students learn how to recognize a crime scene, how to process it, and how to collect the evidence left behind. We then step into the lab and analyze the evidence and data collected to determine exactly what kind of story it tells us about the possible crime that was committed. Learn how science can be the best witness to a crime, and how, if used correctly, it can have the biggest voice in determining someone's guilt or innocence.

This course concerns the evolution of the solid earth, from its formation out of the solar nebula, through its early days of continental crust formation, to the earth we know today of drifting continents, linear mountain ranges, and newly formed oceans. In tandem with this sequence, the history of life on earth will be examined, with special attention to the roles of natural selection, meteorite impact, and extinction events.

Why do birds migrate? When do whales sing? What does a bee's dance mean? Animals have fascinating behaviors that have both puzzled and amazed observers. Find out current theories behind these actions. The lecture and discussion aspects of this course will focus on theories while the lab component will focus on collecting observational data on local fauna. This data will then be discussed and new or additional theories proposed.

This course concerns the evolution of the solid earth, from its formation out of the solar nebula, through its early days of continental crust formation, to the earth we know today of drifting continents, linear mountain ranges, and newly formed oceans. In tandem with this sequence, the history of life on earth will be examined, with special attention to the roles of natural selection, meteorite impact, and extinction events.

This course is designed to inspire the understanding of the significance of plants to human life. The beauty and diversity of nature is expressed most vividly in the flora of the Earth. Plants are essential for the survival of all living animals, and form a dynamic relationship with them in the environment. As well as a source of wonder, plants provide food, energy, medicine, and innumerable commercial products. The course will explore plant biology, the form and function of plant types, modes of growth and reproduction, and genetics and genetic engineering.

Early mathematics can best be defined as a chaos of empirical data, from which, eventually, emerges a singular note of reason. In this course, we explore the nascent stages of mathematical aesthetics, the role played by the Classical schools in the transformation of mathematics from an empirical method to a philosophical system, and derive classic mathematical proofs in their historical context. We also investigate the secret Cult of Pythagoras, the works of Plato and Euclid, the influences of the Middle East, and the decline of the Golden Age of Mathematics.

This course provides an introduction to the dynamics and methods of forecasting weather. Topics include theories of the Earth's climate, hydrology, the effects of polution on the weather, application to marine and aviation agencies and careers in meteorology. Activities include graphing, weather forecasting and maintenance of a weather log.

Ever wonder about what lives in the soil, how nutrients are cycled through it, how to be successful at organic gardening, or even what makes for a good mud-pie for a kid? Have you ever wondered why certain plants thrive in some soil types and not others, or wondered about different kinds of earthworms? In this course, we explore the biotic and abiotic characteristics of soil and its formation as well as how people affect soil, policies, and perspectives regarding the ground beneath our feet. Special emphasis is given to the biodiversity and function of soil organisms and the valuation of ecosystem services. Readings will come from various sources including current topics in science media and environmental thought.

The oceans and the animals that dwell there are a key resource to planet earth, providing food, medicine, the bases for sacred cultural customs, and much more. However, they are in trouble. This course is a survey of marine ecosystems and the organisms that make them up from diatoms and dinaflagellates, to seahorses and great white sharks. We will discuss the abysmal forecast for the future of the planetary sea and how we can change the outcome now.

Data Viz Collaborative is a new class that will be team taught in the summer of 2013 by a group of interdisciplinary faculty based at both the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and Northwestern University (NU). The course has two primary goals: (1) to establish a critical dialogue about information visualization across multiple disciplines and (2) to engage students in collaborative research on information visualization using existing data sets. The first goal will be accomplished by engaging students in a series of short lectures delivered by both the science and studio faculty that discuss how images that picture complex data sets help move their own research projects forward or how images might enhance/problematize/critique/promote new knowledge acquisition in science, art, and/or design. The second goal is addressed by inviting students to join one of three research teams, which meet weekly to collectively work on a large data set to experiment with translation of numeric information into various forms. Open to both undergraduate and graduate students from either institution, the course will meet for six weeks and culminate in a group exhibition. (Note: Students taking the course for science credit in Liberal Arts will be grouped together on the same research team).

This course is an introduction to the mathematics of patterns found in nature and art. Topics of study include the Golden Mean, Fibonacci Series, spirals, division of the plane, tilling the plane, symmetry, fractals, platonic solids, and special rectangles and triangles.

This survey course emphasizes a conceptual approach to mathematics and problem solving over routine computation. We utilize computer graphics to demonstrate and visualize various mathematical concepts. Topics include set theory, logic, probability, statistics, geometry, mathematical systems and number theory. Students should have a minimum of one year of high school algebra or its equivalent prior to taking this course.

Early mathematics can best be defined as a chaos of empirical data, from which, eventually, emerges a singular note of reason. In this course, we explore the nascent stages of mathematical aesthetics, the role played by the Classical schools in the transformation of mathematics from an empirical method to a philosophical system, and derive classic mathematical proofs in their historical context. We also investigate the secret Cult of Pythagoras, the works of Plato and Euclid, the influences of the Middle East, and the decline of the Golden Age of Mathematics.

In this course, we explore the creation of art, literature, and media by applying the process of mathematical thought. This includes examining creative works through the application of mathematical logic, truth tables, paradoxical forms, proofs, and game theory. We also explore the creation of visual arts when applying topological forms, and non-Euclidean geometry. We apply these structures through creation, experimentation, and research.

In recent discussions of energy policy, nuclear energy has been gaining popularity due to its relatively small 'carbon footprint'. Meanwhile, new and urgent debates are taking place about the development of nuclear weapons by yet more nations. In this class we study the science behind the intertwined technologies of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, drawing from current events for class discussions and projects. We also discuss the role of radiation and radioactivity in nature, and in everyday technologies.

This is an introduction to the study of astronomy through a combination of observation and classroom instruction. Topics include the appearance of the night sky, seasonal constellations, the moon and planetary motions, the seasons, astronomical telescopes, stellar astronomy and evolution, and cosmology. One or two classes at the Adler Planetarium are planned.

This is an introduction to the study of astronomy through a combination of observation and classroom instruction. Topics include the appearance of the night sky, seasonal constellations, the moon and planetary motions, the seasons, astronomical telescopes, stellar astronomy and evolution, and cosmology. One or two classes at the Adler Planetarium are planned.

This course provides an introduction to the physics of sound and how it is percieved by the ear. We produce and store sound in many different ways, using it in medicine, environmental studies and even in new methods of refrigeration. This course covers the concepts and application of acoustics, including sound wave theory, sound in music and musical instruments, recognition of musical sound qualities, auditorium acoustics and electronic reproduction of sound.

This class provides a basic introduction to the conceptual and quantitative framework necessary to understand the physics of the dynamical world around us. Developing skills in pre-calculus mathematics as we go, we cover Newton?s laws and the analysis of physical systems in terms of forces and energy. Laboratory explorations help us develop important physical concepts and scientific reasoning skills. Applications are drawn from everyday phenomena as well as topics in architecture and design.

This course examines global environmental change and the mechanisms by which it occurs. Our examination combines global history of glaciers, ocean currents, tropical storms and hurricanes, drought, and heat waves with surface temperature of both land and ocean. We also explore the debate of human-induced environmental change versus natural variability. How have these changes, whether natural or human-induced, altered the biological environment of animals and plants? How have these changes affected the large cities or small villages where we live and work? What are the benefits? We will draw on the scientific studies of various countries as well as the IPCC 4th Assessment Report to consider all sides of the scientific theory objectively.

This course focuses on the meteorological processes that lead to severe and unusual weather events and patterns. Topics include thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, flash floods, drought and winter storms. Whenever possible, real-time weather data is incorporated and severe weather events that occur in the United States during the semester are examined. The societal impact of severe and unusual weather is also studied.

The oceans and the animals that dwell there are a key resource to planet earth, providing food, medicine, the bases for sacred cultural customs, and much more. However, they are in trouble. This course is a survey of marine ecosystems and the organisms that make them up from diatoms and dinaflagellates, to seahorses and great white sharks. We will discuss the abysmal forecast for the future of the planetary sea and how we can change the outcome now.

This course presents the science behind climate change in the context of our understanding of past climate change, present human influence on climate, and future predictions of climate change. Students learn what the greenhouse effect is and how earth's temperature is modulated by the carbon cycle. Lab activities highlight how we observe and measure past and present climate change, and how to make and evaluate predictions for the future. We also evaluate predictions of the possible environmental changes associated with global warming such as rising sea level, vegetation shifts, and modified weather patterns. Readings will include current newspaper articles, and we will discuss how scientists and the public perceive global climate change. Students will learn to identify what is science and what is opinion. At the end of the course we will evaluate potential 'solutions' to some of the problems of global climate change.

Fungi are members of a kingdom of organisms that is distinct from plants and animals. They are exceptionally enigmatic, not just to everyday people, but to scientists as well. This course serves as a primer to the world of fungi, defining what fungi are and what they are not, and providing a conceptual understanding of these organisms. We explore the taxonomic diversity of fungi before considering their diversity from an ecological perspective. Students learn to identify different forms of fungi, grow them in the lab, and perform experiments to understand how they function. Finally, this course evaluates the importance of fungi from a practical human standpoint (food, medicine, art, spirituality), and discuss important questions to be addressed in the scientific field of mycology.

Today's news is filled with stories about the negative effects humans have on the environment. To better understand problems such as water pollution, air pollution, and global warming, we need to understand the chemistry of the natural world, and how it is affected by human activities. Through discussion, readings, and case studies we explore the chemistry of our environment, and apply this science to current debates and issues of local concern.

Chemistry is the study of what things are made of and how they interact. Why is chemistry important to other sciences, technology, and society in solving real problems? In this course, students are introduced to the interdisciplinary nature of science with chemistry as a framework for our exploration of the natural world. Students learn to think and talk like a chemist. Basic chemical principles will be used to explore the chemistry in you (biochemistry), the chemistry of the things you use (material science), the chemistry of our planet (environmental geochemistry), and the chemistry of the universe (astrobiology). Individual and group work guides us through the course using scientific processes as you think critically, read and write, and present your ideas. No prior knowledge of chemistry is necessary for this course.

In this course, we ask how we come to see the world around us. First, we study light: what characteristics it has, and how it interacts in the physical world to produce phenomena such as blue skies, rainbows, and mirages. Next, we study the workings of the human eye, from the lens to the rods and cones. Finally, we explore visual perception in the brain. We talk about how the brain is able to make sense of color, contrast, motion and depth, and we end by discussing a question that still perplexes neuroscientists: how can the brain learn to recognize what it sees?

This course covers the science behind the biologic systems that allow us to gather information about the world around us collected through our five major senses (sight, sound, hearing, taste, smell, and touch). Each sense is examined individually. In addition, we discuss how our bodies constantly monitor internal data on biologic functions such as digestion, respiration, pain and position. We explore ways in which animals and plants sense the world differently than humans and what we can learn from them. Finally, this course considers how our brains serve as the final arbitrator in our integration of this data and how we bring meaning to it.

Beginning with a brief historical overview of the study of the physiology and visual illustration of the brain, the course will survey some recent developments in the fields of brain science, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence, and look briefly at the linguistic field of cognitive grammar. Lectures will be supplemented with graphic materials including historical and contemporary medical illustrations, visual and aural illusions of various types, and video tapes of animated EEGs and MRI scans. Topics addressed will include: the senses and perception; the unconscious; memory; dreams; mental representations and categories of thought; the structure of thought and the body; hemispherical specialization (left brain and right brain); emotion; and synthesis. This course can be taken for Liberal Arts elective credit.

Have you ever heard that we use only 10% of our brains, or read that Mozart makes you smarter, and wondered if that was actually true? Ever wonder how scientists know that in the first place? This course will explore the form, function, and dysfunction of the brain. We examine the neuroscience of the senses, memory, emotion, creativity, and identity through the study and discussion of experiments, demonstrations, and medical case studies. Special emphasis is given to the epistemology of science.

Why do birds migrate? When do whales sing? What does a bee's dance mean? Animals have fascinating behaviors that have both puzzled and amazed observers. Find out current theories behind these actions. The lecture and discussion aspects of this course will focus on theories while the lab component will focus on collecting observational data on local fauna. This data will then be discussed and new or additional theories proposed.

This introductory class concentrates on mammalian classification and general structural features. Skeletal and other anatomical comparisons are made as the more 'primitive' mammals are compared to the more 'advanced' mammals. The survey portion of the course begins with egg-laying and pouched mammals, then examines shrews, bats, hooved mammals, rodents, rabbits, carnivores, and primates. Unusual mammals such as pangolins, aardvarks, whales, and tapirs provide insight into evolutionary and ecological processes. This liberal science class includes both lecture and laboratory components. Some labs take place at the Lincoln Park Zoo and/or the Shedd Aquarium.

In this course students learn about the scientific roots and complexities of diagnosing the most pressing environmental crises of the twenty-first century, their ethical and legal impacts on society, and the potential to achieve sustainability for the future. We raise stimulating ethical and legal debates about topics such as depletion of oceanic resources, loss of biodiversity, habitat destruction, depletion of topsoil, degradation of groundwater and more. This class is about critical thinking and incorporates team projects, debate, class discussion, and independent research to investigate the current state of the global condition and potential for a sustainable future.

The study of ecology focuses on understanding how organisms interact with their environment. The natural world is in constant flux; the function and organization of biological organisms are determined through their interactions with one another as well as the environment. This general ecology course provides a foundation in ecology and prompts the student to further explore the interactions between humans and the natural environment. The beginning emphasis on ecological philosophy and history will transition into classic ecological theory and experimentation. We will apply this to environmental science, question the role of people within the natural environment, and consider the definition of nature itself. Field trip(s) and class project(s) will provide hands-on experience in ecological experimentation and scientific inquiry.

Many phenomena in physics have a wavelike nature, including most notably light and sound. In this course we use laboratory experiments to develop an understanding of the mechanics of wave motion and to discover the mathematical relationships that govern wave behavior. This understanding leads to deep insights into optics, acoustics, and even the fundamental physical theory known as quantum mechanics.

Forensic science has gained visibility lately in television shows and in the movies. Take a look into the real world of forensic science and learn what it takes to gather evidence and follow clues for a case. In this class students learn how to recognize a crime scene, how to process it, and how to collect the evidence left behind. We then step into the lab and analyze the evidence and data collected to determine exactly what kind of story it tells us about the possible crime that was committed. Learn how science can be the best witness to a crime, and how, if used correctly, it can have the biggest voice in determining someone's guilt or innocence.

We read ethnographic works published this century, set in regions as various as the Trobriand Islands, Brazil, and the U.S. to understand how anthropologists have studied sex, sexuality, and gender. We explore the intersections of gender and sexuality with race and class, and the course is biased towards readings that provide historical, political-economic context for their findings. Class time is utilized for lecture and in-depth-discussion, with several field trips. Three brief projects, and a final research paper are required.

This course shows how ideas from contemporary cognitive psychology (perception, grouping, memory and emotion) can be used to understand musical organization and can be related to aspects of music such as rhythm, melody, and musical form. The course uses examples from various musical cultures. This involves a consideration of which aspects of music are culturally determined, and which are 'natural.' In relation to this, the course looks at music from a biological perspective, examining the possible roots of musical behavior in animal calls and vocalizations, including human language.

This course is an exploration of major issues in the history of the United States from the end of World War I to the end of World War II. The main course theme is 'freedom' in Interwar America; that is, how different groups of Americans interpreted the concept of freedom, and, how they identified those entitled to it. Following the lead of the historian Eric Foner's The Story of American Freedom (1998), we will focus on five types of 'freedom: political, civil, moral, personal and economic. Studying the five types of freedom will mean concentrating on the significance of the U.S. as a global actor, the rise and fall of social and political movements, the development of American consumer culture as well as changes in the U.S. economy.

The course is a general introduction to politics in the United States, closely examining several current policy debates. Significant attention is given to the ways that the critical engagement and intervention of artists, writers, and other creators contribute to and shape these debates. Topics include but are not confined to Iraq and the politics of war, globalization and economic change, immigration 'reform,' global warming and environmental politics, cultural policymaking.

This course explores American cultural history, from 1890 to the present. Topics include the rise of a 'highbrow/lowbrow' distinction in American culture; consumption and consumers in national life; 'American' music (particularly rock and roll and hip-hop), television, film and food; globalization; and theories of cultural history. Readings consist of works by professional historians including Lawrence Levine; music and film critics; as well as other kinds of primary historical sources such as advertisements and photographs.

We are all aware of the sensational newspaper headlines concerning Mexico's illegal drug-related violence and the often hysterical political responses to the immigration question. The objective of this course is to offer an historical background and framework that provides a context for such pressing issues. This includes an examination of some of the most dramatic moments of Mexico's past expressed through its diverse ethnicities, fascinating cultures and enticing landscapes. In so many ways Mexico remains a study in contrast.

Sexuality in Modern America: Desire, Demands, Utopian Dreams This course examines a range of groups and figures from post-WWII America who have proposed ideal or preferred social structures that place great emphasis upon sexual relationships and theorizations of sexuality. Mormon fundamentalist polygamists, neopagan polyamorists, Jesus Freak communists, Roman Catholic monastics, and others are studied through sources that include the television show 'Sister Wives', the Robert Heinlein scifi novel Stranger in a Strange Land, Miriam Williams' memoir Heaven's Harlots, and documents from the Second Vatican Council.

This course examines the development of concepts and practices of leisure, free time, and recreation in relationship to transformations in work in the United States from the early nineteenth century to the present. We study the transformation from pre-industrial to industrial work and leisure regimes; the commercialization of leisure and the emergence of 'mass society'; the growth of Fordism and industrial recreation; the rise of consumer society; postwar landscapes of leisure and consumption; entertainment and music industries; changing leisure technologies; and the rise of the 'creative class.' In particular, we attempt to analyze the relationship between leisure/work practices and the politics or race, class, gender, and sexuality.

In this course we survey some of the ways that Western Europeans perceived, experienced and made sense of the transformative events of the 19th and 20th centuries: industrialization and political revolutions, nationalism and democracy, urbanization, modern warfare, economic and state collapse and unparalleled prosperity. As part of this, we learn how to interpret such sources historically, by placing cultural expressions from poems to films and blogs in their respective contexts.

This course examines contemporary ways of rethinking the privilege accorded to vision in the organization of thought and social life in the West. The aim of the course is both to diagnose the ways in which society and the subject are dominated by various forms of visibility, and to find resources that can be harnessed in aesthetics, phenomenology, architecture, and everyday practices which might redirect the ends of visibility. Readings include Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Ranciere, and others.

A survey of selected social movements in the twentieth-century United States, this course explores the different forms social and political activism have taken in these movements, focusing on why participants became active, why the movements began and ended when they did, explanations of their success and failure, and the responses of activists to the fate of their movements. The course supplements readings with film and video and classroom appearances of veterans of the movements. Movements chosen include the industrial movement of the '30s, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement of the '60s, and the welfare rights movement.

Ideas of Africa and Africans have been powerfully constructed in a variety of ways throughout time and across continents. The many 'Africas' which have been invoked by a multitude of participants with very different relationships to the continent have become a significant lens through which Africa and people of African descent are imagined and understood. Inspired by Malian scholar Manthia Diawara's quest 'In Search of Africa,' this course traces the ways in which Africa and 'Africans' have been (and continue to be) powerfully 'invented,' imagined, and negotiated in historical accounts, academic scholarship, performance, film, fiction, news reporting, globalization and development discourse, popular art and literature, and religious practice. We travel through ancient Egypt and Greece, India during the transatlantic slave trade, South Carolina at the turn-of-the-century, colonial Algeria and Mexico, a newly-independent Gambia, postcolonial Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia, and contemporary Haiti and New York.

How are messages created to sway public opinion, instill desires for products, or motivate the masses? This course is an investigation of how media communicate messages and how we interpret them. From political propaganda to advertisements, television news to infomercials, we examine a process of critically 'reading' the any messages that bombard us on a daily basis. Through readings, class discussions, presentations and writing assignments we come to grip with what critic Stuart Ewen has called a world of 'all consuming images.' Readings include works by Plato, Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, Noam Chomsky, Stuart and Elizabeth Ewen, and Henry Jenkins.

This introductory course is used to historicize globalization as well as to understand its contemporary dimensions. Emphasis is placed upon analyzing the rationales underlying globalization, the emergence of institutions making globalization possible, manifestations of globalization in culture (especially art and popular culture), and resistance to globalization as shaped by race, nation, gender, class, and their intersections. Possible authors and texts include Saskia Sassen, Deciphering the Global: Its Spaces, Scales and Subjects; Anita Chan, et. al., Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization; Ann Marie Stock, On Location in Cuba: Street Filmmaking During Times of Transition; Valentine Moghadam, Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks; and McKenzie Wark, A Hacker Manifesto.

This course is an intensive examination of one icon of America's consumption-oriented society: the supermarket. Through readings and films, class members consider how the rise and development of large, self-service grocery stores ('supermarkets') both reflected and influenced changes in the U.S. economy, gender roles, sexuality, popular culture, the consumer movement, and the 'Americanization' of cultures around the globe. Readings consist of historical documents produced by advertisers, consumer advocates and retailers; portrayals of supermarkets in fiction (Don DeLillo's White Noise [1985], John Updike's 'A&P' [1961]); and selections from works in American consumer history including William Leach's Land of Desire (1993) and Lizabeth Cohen's A Consumers' Republic (2003). Films include Double Indemnity (1944); The Stepford Wives (1975); and The Atomic Cafe (1982).

What is the nature of capitalism as an economic and social system, including its capacity to adapt to change? What alternatives does socialism offer? With a foundation in the ideas of Adam Smith and classical economics and of Karl Marx, these questions are examined by combining an understanding of economic theory and its evolution with the actual historical development of free market capitalism and of various alternatives. The human prospect is seen as dependent upon an interaction of economic systems, the stage of economic development, and society's values.

Have we reached a situation on planet Earth where traditional responses and forms of organization are inadequate to sustain our societies into the future? In this course, we explore how economic systems for making decisions about the use of scarce resources, especially the market system, affect the natural environment. We ask what role in the process is played by our view of our relationship to that environment and to each other. We look at the necessity of incorporating a longer time horizon into our decisions and also a greater understanding of how those decisions affect our environment. We examine the roles that human beings and economic growth can play in the destruction or preservation of our natural world. We evaluate ways that have been tried or suggested to direct the forces of self-interest toward community goals such as the prevention of pollution, the preservation of species, and the encouragement of whole ecological systems. And we discuss the importance of increasing appreciation of shared community interests, of incorporating that appreciation into our decisions, and of broadening the definition of community.

An introduction to the study of human behavior, including, for example, personality development, abnormal psychology, social psychology, biological psychology, and research methodology.

An introduction to human psychological development from infancy through old age.

An introduction to the psychology of sensation, perception, and attention. Perceptual processes of behavior, including attention, are studied in addition to the basic neurobiology of sensation. Traditional and current topics including color, space, and motion perception, attentional selection, sensory memory, perceptual organization (Gestalt groupings), pattern recognition, and the cognitive and social aspects of perception may be reviewed.

A study of the phenomenon variously referred to as madness, insanity, or psychosis. Several psychological theories are offered; case histories are included and historical, sociological, legal, and philosophical aspects are examined.

Patterns of abnormal behavior are defined and explored in the context of contemporary psychology. Students are introduced to the best current understanding of the origins and nature of the major varieties of psychopathology.

This course is a study of the history and main developed systems of psychology, beginning with attention to the influences on psychology from early studies of the brain and from philosophy, and the nineteenth century foundations of psychology as a separate discipline. Structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, gestalt psychology, and contemporary movements are discussed. Authors may include William James, B. F. Skinner, Wolfgang Koehler, Kurt Lewin, Sigmund Freud, Karen Horney, Melanie Klein, George Miller, and Howard Gardner.

This course examines human cultures from around the world in a cross cultural perspective. A number of cultures are studied in depth including various ethnic groups in the United States. Anthropological theories are discussed in their own right and as they relate to the case studies.

What does it mean to 'have a language'? This course begins to ask that question, using translatability as a notion to explore attendant questions of border crossings, constructions of nationalisms and genealogies.Thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, Regine Robin and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha will be among our guides. The relationship between national and linguistic delineations will provide a space from which to consider genre delineations as well.

This course is designed to provide students with an overview of research methods in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Students are introduced to ways in which faculty in history, philosophy, anthropology, biology, and English approach research questions and conduct empirical studies. Faculty from different disciplines in Liberal Arts visit the class to share techniques. Short research projects are conducted using each disciplinary approach. The class is designed to help students develop new methodological tools and critical thinking skills to use in their own practices.

Ritual treatment of the dead is both unique to humans and a human universal. This course is a global exploration of mortuary archaeology, extending from evidence through the first ritual burials (perhaps 300,000 years ago or more), through historic slave cemeteries. Using a biocultural approach, we will examine the information that archaeologists and bioarchaeologists glean from human remains, grave and cemetery architecture, and portable material culture, including ceramics, textiles, metalwork, and so on.

This course explores American cultural history, from 1890 to the present. Topics include the rise of a 'highbrow/lowbrow' distinction in American culture; consumption and consumers in national life; 'American' music (particularly rock and roll and hip-hop), television, film and food; globalization; and theories of cultural history. Readings consist of works by professional historians including Lawrence Levine; music and film critics; as well as other kinds of primary historical sources such as advertisements and photographs.

This course explores major themes in the history of the United States since the Second World War. The themes include ones that most Americans know something about (such as the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War) and developments that many people take for granted (like the rise of the supermarket and the diner). Readings include historical documents produced by individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences?Harry Truman, Betty Friedan, and Fidel Castro, for instance?as well as scholarship written by professional historians. The goal of the course is to help students understand the rough and varied texture of U.S. history and how scholars use evidence to make judgments about the past.

This course investigates food and eating as a lens into diverse cultural processes including socialization, performances of identity, and economic transformation. We will examine global food systems with Mintz?s Sweetness and Power and Bestor's 'Supply-Side Sushi' as well as ethnographic analyses of everyday meals, including Ochs, Pontecorvo, and Fasulo's 'Socializing Taste,' and Karrebaek's 'What's in Your Lunch Box Today?' Through lecture and discussion, we will consider how individuals reproduce and transform social relations and hierarchies through food practices.

This course is an exploration of major issues in the history of the United States from the end of World War I to the end of World War II. The main course theme is 'freedom' in Interwar America; that is, how different groups of Americans interpreted the concept of freedom, and, how they identified those entitled to it. Following the lead of the historian Eric Foner's The Story of American Freedom (1998), we will focus on five types of 'freedom: political, civil, moral, personal and economic. Studying the five types of freedom will mean concentrating on the significance of the U.S. as a global actor, the rise and fall of social and political movements, the development of American consumer culture as well as changes in the U.S. economy.

The course is a general introduction to politics in the United States, closely examining several current policy debates. Significant attention is given to the ways that the critical engagement and intervention of artists, writers, and other creators contribute to and shape these debates. Topics include but are not confined to Iraq and the politics of war, globalization and economic change, immigration 'reform,' global warming and environmental politics, cultural policymaking.

Despite the fact that most Americans now regard the Constitution of the United States as the blueprint for the best governmental system on earth, this document has rather shady origins. Written by wealthy, white men in a radical clandestine venture, the Constitution deserves intense scrutiny. This course covers the issues of separation of church and state, the right to privacy, and the right of free expression, both in broad discussions and in analysis of specific historical moments of crisis. Throughout the semester, students enhance their understanding of the Constitution as a living document, one that is open to varied interpretations, and one that has had to meet changing circumstances-with more and less success-for two centuries. The course is organized as a seminar with emphasis placed on short, written assignments and on informed participation in class discussion.

This course offers a critical overview of the origins and politics of the Arab-Israeli conflict through the use of dual narratives. It examines the roots of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism, the deterioration of Jewish-Arab relations during the late Ottoman and Mandate periods, the role of Arab states, the establishment of the state of Israel and subsequent dispersion of Palestinians, the Arab-Israeli wars, the Intifadas, and the possibility of a negotiated peace agreement.

The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991 Whether as a socialist utopia and or an evil empire, the Soviet Union has long served as a source of fascination. This course explores the strange, sublime history of this ?exceptional? nation, from policy decisions to daily life. We will read and discuss a variety of primary documents and artistic productions, including literature, music, art, fashion, film and television, to gain insight into the challenges, triumphs, and failures facing the Soviet Union throughout its development.

This course examines urban history in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. Using a variety of sources and cities, we will investigate major themes in urban history including industrialization and economic shifts, transportation, architecture, urban policy and reform, migration, suburbanization, deindustrialization, postindustrial urban culture, and the roles of race, gender, and class in shaping urban geography. This course utilizes both primary and secondary sources to illuminate and interrogate ideological, spatial, social, and political transformations in American cities and suburbs.

Some social theories of culture emphasize the self-consciously cultural objects of literature, visual art, music, and film. Others describe everyday cultural processes evident in material artifacts, language conventions, and ritual behavior. In this course, students will choose an object from either realm of experience and consider it through the lens of classic social theories by Berger and Luckmann, Durkheim, Geertz, Adorno, Benjamin, Jameson, Bourdieu, and Hebdige, as well as their own subjectivities as cultural producers.

This interdisciplinary course approaches the topic of gender and medicine from cultural, historical, and scientific perspectives. We consider hysteria (purported to be caused by a 'wandering uterus') and other mental afflictions associated with sex and gender, the foundation of U.S. gynecology and its dependence on slave women's bodies, medical textbook illustration, the Women's Health Movement and its legacy, queer health issues, and new reproductive technologies. Readings include works by Audre Lourde, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Elaine Showalter, Rachel Maines and classic health texts such as Our Bodies, Ourselves. We will also consider the ways in which artists have addressed issues of gender and medicine in their work. Assignments include an interview project, written reflections, and a final research-based project.

What should every citizen know about media and their relation to contemporary society? What approaches can best prepare us to function effectively as critics, activists, scholars, teachers, artists, managers, and producers in an increasingly global, digital, and competitive landscape? What critical issues and questions should we grapple with? What resources are required and available for social action? These are some of the questions that we address in this seminar and laboratory that examines media and their relationships to society and culture. Students are encouraged to design new media based initiatives and to share projects already in progress.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, nearly every newscast dealing with Cuba seems to recite the same theme: 'Castro's Cuba: The End of the Dream,' 'Cuba Alone,' and 'Cuba: Forbidden Paradise.' However, Americans have been predicting the fall of this charismatic leader for over three decades and over eight American presidencies. Yet Castro has remained in power and the drama continues. The Cuban Revolution is one of the most remarkable examples on record of the ability of one individual to make history. To misunderstand Fidel Castro is to misunderstand the revolution. This course will seek to explain the Cuban Revolution by examining such topics as the Bay of Pigs, the 1962 Missile Crisis, the Russian connection, the Social/Cultural Revolution, and the New World Order through a Cuban perspective. Resource materials for this course include films, novels, music, contemporary news accounts, and guest speakers.

This introductory course is used to historicize globalization as well as to understand its contemporary dimensions. Emphasis is placed upon analyzing the rationales underlying globalization, the emergence of institutions making globalization possible, manifestations of globalization in culture (especially art and popular culture), and resistance to globalization as shaped by race, nation, gender, class, and their intersections. Possible authors and texts include Saskia Sassen, Deciphering the Global: Its Spaces, Scales and Subjects; Anita Chan, et. al., Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization; Ann Marie Stock, On Location in Cuba: Street Filmmaking During Times of Transition; Valentine Moghadam, Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks; and McKenzie Wark, A Hacker Manifesto.

What forces are propelling the current rapid economic globalization? Can those forces be controlled? Should they be controlled? What are the material and cultural gains and losses of globalization and how are they distributed among individuals and communities? Is free trade always desirable? Can the profit-seeking of private firms serve broader social goals? Do international institutions such as the I.M.F. and the WTO serve both rich and poor? The course focuses first on understanding the causes of the current growth in the international flows of people, capital and products (everything from agriculture to art), then takes a critical look at the consequences, and discusses what conditions might achieve the preferred outcomes.

Cultural Economics is a relatively new but thriving area of specialization within the field of economics. After a substantial introduction to the basic concepts of economics, this course will use that conceptual framework to look at various aspects of culture. Specific topics include, among others, theories of value, cultural capital and sustainability, culture in economic development, economic aspects of cultural heritage, the economics of creativity, cultural industries, and cultural policy.

An introduction to the study of human behavior, including, for example, personality development, abnormal psychology, social psychology, biological psychology, and research methodology.

An introduction to human psychological development from infancy through old age.

An exploration of historical and contemporary psychological approaches to understanding art, artists, and the art world.

An introduction to the psychology of sensation, perception, and attention. Perceptual processes of behavior, including attention, are studied in addition to the basic neurobiology of sensation. Traditional and current topics including color, space, and motion perception, attentional selection, sensory memory, perceptual organization (Gestalt groupings), pattern recognition, and the cognitive and social aspects of perception may be reviewed.

An in-depth study of directions in psychological research beginning with Freud.

Patterns of abnormal behavior are defined and explored in the context of contemporary psychology. Students are introduced to the best current understanding of the origins and nature of the major varieties of psychopathology.

Next to breathing and eating, communication is arguably the most important activity of daily life. This course explores the world of communication and the study of culture through language. The material centers around the major theoretical and epistemological developments throughout the history of linguistic inquiry (Wittgenstein, Sapir, Pierce), specifically focusing on the contributions of linguistic anthropology (Boas and Hymes) and ethnographies of language (Basso, Carr, Fox, Mendoza-Denton). We will also explore semiotics (Agha)? the study of signs and the micro-level methods of basic social interaction and conduct independent language fieldwork projects to learn the basics of transcription and discourse analysis.

This course examines human cultures from around the world in a cross cultural perspective. A number of cultures are studied in depth including various ethnic groups in the United States. Anthropological theories are discussed in their own right and as they relate to the case studies.

This course investigates food and eating as a lens into diverse cultural processes including socialization, performances of identity, and economic transformation. We will examine global food systems with Mintz?s Sweetness and Power and Bestor's 'Supply-Side Sushi' as well as ethnographic analyses of everyday meals, including Ochs, Pontecorvo, and Fasulo's 'Socializing Taste,' and Karrebaek's 'What's in Your Lunch Box Today?' Through lecture and discussion, we will consider how individuals reproduce and transform social relations and hierarchies through food practices.

In the 1960s, Jane Goodall?s work among the Gobme Chimpanzees revolutionized ethology and had a profound impact on how humans view themselves. Since then studies of orangutans, gorillas, and bonobos have challenged our uniqueness and tendency to 'naturalize' behaviors driving 21st century capitalist societies. In this seminar course, focusing on the work and writings of Goodall, Fossey, Galdikas, and deWaal, we examine what it means to be human via the lens of our closest relatives.