This course serves as the introductory offering in Africana Studies. It explores, in an interdisciplinary fashion, salient aspects of the Black experience, both ancient and modern, and at the local, national and international levels. This course provides an overview of many related themes, including slavery, Africanisms, gender, colonialism, civil rights, and pan-African exchange.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Carter-Jackson
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines arguments, claims, and evidence used to justify intervention or non-intervention in key humanitarian crises that have affected Black countries, such as the 1994 Rwandan conflict, 2014 Ebola Outbreak, or the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti. This also questions the role of international organizations that routinely work in such countries and their impacts in local communities. Students interested in global affairs and international relations may be interested in this course, no pre-requisites are needed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Franklin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introductory survey of the political, social, economic, and cultural development of African Americans from their African origins to the present. This course examines the foundations of the discipline of African American history, slavery, Africans in colonial America, migration, Reconstruction, and Harlem Renaissance artistry and scholarship.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Jackson
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is a survey of the first half of African American History and Culture and traces the historical, political, social, and cultural contexts of black Americans from the slave trade to the American Civil War. Thematically, we explore the meaning of freedom, the dynamic between black struggle and white resistance, and the ways in which factors such as gender and geography complicate any notions of a single black experience. Each week we will focus on different events, writings, narratives, debates, and political ideologies. This course combines discussion, lecture, and multimedia. It presents a narrative, interpretation, and analysis of African American history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Carter-Jackson
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is a survey of the second half of African American History and Culture and traces the historical, political, social, and cultural experiences of black Americans from Reconstruction to the modern freedom movement for Black Lives. This course will focus upon a number of specific movements in the history of black Americans. Thematically, we explore the meaning of freedom, the dynamic between black struggle and white resistance, and the ways in which factors such as gender and geography complicate any notions of a single black experience.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Carter-Jackson
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The development of African literature in English and in translation. Although special attention will be paid to the novels of Chinua Achebe, writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Camara Laye, Wole Soynika, Miriama Ba, Nawal El Saadawi, and Buchi Emecheta will also be considered. The influence of oral tradition on these writers' styles as well as the thematic links between them and writers of the Black awakening in America and the West Indies will be discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is designed to examine the meaning of race and ethnicity and the determinants and fluidity of membership in a particular racial or ethnic group. We will also explore different ways to measure ethnic and racial identification and how ethnicity affects attitudes, economic development, social mobilization and migration. We will seek to assess to what extent ethnic and racial identities shape trust and prejudice, and examine the impact of ethnic diversity on development and the provision of public goods. Analyses will be made of ethnic and racial electoral politics and the varying extent and impact of ethnic voting patterns in relation to democratic governance and ethnic conflict.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Dendere
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Through a critical and exhilarating exploration of the life and legacy of dramatist-historian, producer-director, and activist, Val Gray Ward, this course underscores the emancipatory, political, and pedagogical power of Black Arts and Black Life. Known as “The Voice of the Black Writer” and founder of Chicago’s pioneering Kuumba Theatre, Val Gray Ward was born and reared in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, one of the oldest all-Black towns in the U.S. before she migrated to the city of Chicago in the early 1950s. Inspired by her assertion, “Black Art is Black Life,” the course is immersive in nature and will be facilitated by an enriching combination of audio/visual materials such as interactive lectures, discussions, first-person testimonies, interviews, music, poetry, plays, photos, quotes, books, articles, documentaries, library research, and "The HistoryMakers Digital Archive." Further, we will study “Kuumba Theatre’s 12 Principles” and Val Gray Ward’s autobiographical quilt titled "Peace The Way Home" to learn about notable people and moments through her family ties and friendships with Gwendolyn Brooks, Mari Evans, James Baldwin, C.L.R. James, John Henrik Clarke, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Elma Lewis, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Betty Shabazz, John O. Killens, Walter Rodney, Sammy Davis Jr., Lerone Bennett Jr., Abdias do Nascimento, Margaret Burroughs, and Useni Perkins to name a few along with her travels to Africa for the Sixth Pan-African Congress (6PAC) and FESTAC ‘77, Japan, the Caribbean, and other parts of the world. Additionally, we will listen to her tribute CD, "rhapsody in hughes 101," and view the docutainment film "Precious Memories: Strolling 47th Street." Central themes of the course include Blackness, Black consciousness and cosmology, identity, family, community, the arts, language, oral tradition, orality/literacy, Black talk/Black text, ritual theatre, womanism, activism, Civil Rights, Black Power, Black Arts Movement (BAM), FESTAC ‘77, Pan-Africanism, and freedom.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This foundation and team-taught course surveys the history, importance, and core tenets of Black Studies, and its emergence and evolution at Wellesley College. Facilitated by stimulating lectures, discussions, readings, archival research, oral historical testimonies, and invaluable interactions with living alums, faculty, and staff, we explore (1) the dynamic lives and legacies of members of the Black community at the College; (2) the pioneering architects and pillars of the Black Studies department; and (3) the establishment of Black intellectual and cultural organizations, and communal spaces founded by students, faculty, and staff on campus. Students will also learn from the interdisciplinary expertise and experiences of the current Africana Studies faculty in Black studies, literature, history, political science, psychology, cosmology, ontology, religion, and culture. Central themes include Black pedagogy and intellectualism, cultural identity and expression, self-definition and -determination, community consciousness, activism, systemic discrimination, civil rights, political and social movements, Black Power to Black Lives Matter, wellness, and wholeness.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the historical landscape of Ancient Africa, with specific emphasis on its founding civilizations, politics, trade & commerce, culture and cosmologies. It serves to dispel the myth that the African continent was ahistorical, “dark” and primitive before European invasion in the 1400s. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the course encourages students to critically engage Africa from an Afro-centric perspective by examining its ancient kingdoms such as Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Songhay and Great Zimbabwe. It is anticipated that by studying these early civilizations and cultural formations, students will see Africa’s contribution and engagement in the global exchange of ideas and goods. Major themes include the political, economic and social impacts of European imperialism; the Atlantic Slave Trade; ‘Legitimate Trade’ and prelude to colonialism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course focuses on African American Women's history in the United States with certain aspects of black women's activism and leadership covered within the African Diaspora. The course is intended explore the ways in which these women engaged in local, national, and international freedom struggles while simultaneously defining their identities as wives, mothers, leaders, citizens, and workers. The course will pay special attention to the diversity of black women’s experiences and to the dominant images of black women in America from Mumbet (the first enslaved black woman to sue for her freedom and win) to contemporary issues of race, sex, and class in the Age of Obama. We will explore such questions as: What is black Women’s History? How does black women’s history add to our understanding of American history? Where should black women’s history go from here?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Carter-Jackson
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course exposes students to the dynamic forms of Caribbean cultural expressions and the demographic diversity of its peoples. Through a multidisciplinary lens, students shall explore major themes including identity, migration, language, religious expression, cultural expression including festivals, music and cuisine, the role of women, and Caribbean traditions of intellectualism. We will engage in critical examination of the history of slavery, colonialism and emancipation, as well as regional movements toward independence and unification and the contribution of the region to global development.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
During the twentieth century the Anglophone Caribbean produced a rich body of ideas that had an enormous impact upon the colonial and postcolonial worlds. These ideas cover fields such as history, politics, economics, and culture. This course traces the development of these ideas, examines their applicability to the specific circumstances in the Caribbean, and analyzes how they resonated in the larger world of ideas. We will look at the works of writers and thinkers that could include: A.R.F. Webber, Marcus Garvey, Arthur Lewis, Eric Williams, C.L.R James, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Jamaica Kincaid, Patricia Mohammed, Erna Brodber, Cheddi Jagan, Walter Rodney, Maurice Bishop, and Michael Manley.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: One 200-level course of relevance to Africana Studies or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Cudjoe
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will examine the history of black cinema through the lens of American slavery. The institution of slavery has had a profound impact on the United States and Atlantic World. Yet, it has not always been the easiest topic for public discussion. Outside of the classroom much of what we know, or think about American slavery derives often from popular media—particularly through film and television. Classics like Gone with the Wind, the television miniseries Roots, and even lesser known films such as Langston Hughes’ (screenwriter) Way Down South have done much to shape our perspective regarding how we remember and understand the slave system, the enslaved, its participants and politics. This course poses the following question: Can Hollywood do the work of historians?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: AFR 105 or AFR 206. Not open to students who have taken AFR 271.
Instructor: Carter-Jackson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Throughout the African Diaspora, economic change has resulted in the migration of large numbers of people to urban centers. This course explores the causes and consequences of urban growth and development, with special focus on the most disadvantaged cities. The course will draw on examples from the United States, the Caribbean, South America, and Africa.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: One 200-level course of relevance to Africana Studies or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines key themes on the political economy of natural resources and development in sub-Saharan Africa. It considers the following questions: Why are resource-rich African countries often poor? Is the ‘paradox of plenty” real, or there are other alternative explanations that account for this phenomenon? What is the agency of African communities and governments in shaping outcomes with resource endowment? What are the antidotes to the resource curse? The course uses historical and theoretical analyses in African political economy to answer these questions in a holistic, multipronged manner, focusing on themes such as colonialism, post-colonial state-building, the ‘decade of development’, and Africa in the global system. It combines this with analyses of the governance of oil and diamonds, and case studies on how resource endowment has affected producer countries in different ways.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: AFR 263 or POL2 204, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Shingirai Taodzera
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
C. L. R. James is an outstanding intellectual/activist of the 20th century. He has also been described as one of the seminal thinkers of the anti-colonialist struggles in the Third World and is seen as a profound thinker of Marxism. Although James has written on history, politics, culture, philosophy and sports this seminar will examine four areas of his theorising: history (The Black Jacobins); cultural theory (Beyond a Boundary); literary theory (Mariners, Renegades and Castaways); and his novel (Minty Alley). The seminar will also look at his thoughts on other subjects such as Black Studies, Athenian democracy and feminist writings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Open to students who have taken one 200-level literature course in any department, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Cudjoe
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The ongoing global pandemic and elections have revived conversations on race and the marginalization of the Black Diaspora. In this course, we will engage with the various ways in which black people practice politics in Africa and elsewhere in the diaspora. We will pay special attention to the ongoing impact of national politics on the global pandemic. Scholars taking the course will each week respond to a reading by writing public facing work such as blogs, editorials and/or opinion pieces, and other forms of public writing. A primary goal in this course is to learn how to bring academic arguments to the general public.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: At least one Africana Studies or Political Science course.
Instructor: Dendere
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course explores the nature and composition of the African Diaspora and its changing meanings. We will examine the sociocultural connections among diasporic Africans such as the forced migrations of enslaved Africans and voluntary emigration of Africans out of continental Africa. The seminar also explores the historical, religious, and cultural factors that foster distinctive diasporic African identities and how these people constitute and contribute to global citizenry.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200-level course of relevance to Africana Studies or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is intended to explore ways in which enslaved women engaged in local, national and international freedom struggles while simultaneously defining their identities as slaves, mothers, leaders, and workers. This course will pay special attention to the diversity of black women’s experiences and to the dominant images of black women in North America, the Caribbean and Brazil, but greater emphasis will be placed on the American experience. The course asks: What role did gender play in the establishment of slavery and racial hierarchy in the trans-Atlantic World? How did gender shape the experience of slavery for enslaved women and men and their masters?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: AFR 209 or AFR 105
Instructor: Carter-Jackson
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: AFR 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course will examine the role of political violence in the form of riots, rebellions, and revolutions in the black Atlantic world. Together, we grapple with black liberation in the face of chattel slavery and white supremacy. We will spend considerable time examining the unfinished work of the American Revolution, the success of the Haitian Revolution, and the failed rebellions of the French Antilles. From there, we will examine how equality is obtained in post-emancipation societies. This course asks: What is a revolution? What makes revolutions revolutionary? What does failure mean? Is progressive change possible without the tools of war? In the last part of the course, we will focus on some recent and contemporary events that involve political violence and carry the potential to turn into a revolutionary process. In sum, this course reckons with the inseparable ideas of race, violence, and political power.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200-level course of relevance to Africana Studies or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Carter-Jackson
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
American slavery was a national crime. Every state in colonial America enslaved black people. However, the North’s profit from—indeed, dependence on—slavery has mostly been a shameful and well-kept secret. This course reveals the history of the slave trade and slavery in the American North. We grapple with New England in particular as we examine the lives of the enslaved people in places that feel incredibly “close to home.” From there, we will explore how after the Civil War, structural racism and white supremacy manifested in the policy, housing, education, and policing systems of northern cities and states. This course covers the false promises of the Great Migration and the myth of an equal North in the face of Jim Crow South. Ultimately, this class uses history to combat the idea that slavery and racism are regional.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. A course in African American History recommended (AFR 209 or AFR 210).
Instructor: Carter-Jackson
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An interdisciplinary examination of some of the varieties of American experience, aimed at developing a functional vocabulary for further work in American Studies or related fields. Along with a brief review of American history, the course will direct its focus on important moments in that history, including the present, investigating each of them in relation to selected cultural, historical, artistic, and political events, figures, institutions, and texts. Course topics include intersectional ethnic and gender studies, consumption and popular culture, urban and suburban life, racial formation, and contemporary American culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: P. Fisher
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is required of American Studies majors and should be completed before the end of the Junior year.
This course offers an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Ethnic Studies. Ethnic Studies centers the theories, histories, and perspectives of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian American people in the United States, with particular attention to the study of comparative race and ethnic relations in the United States and its empire. We will explore key themes and concepts in Ethnic Studies such as imperialism and colonialism, social movements, migration, and intersectionality using analysis of popular culture, and historical and current events.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rivera-Rideau
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An interdisciplinary introduction to the study of Asian Americans, the fastest-growing ethnic group in North America. Critical examination of different stages of their experience from "coolie labor" and the "yellow peril" to the "model minority" and struggles for identity; roots of Asian stereotypes; myth and reality of Asian women; prejudice against, among, and by Asians; and Asian contributions to a more pluralistic, tolerant, and just American society. Readings, films, lectures, and discussions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Remoquillo
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Latinas/os in the United States have diverse histories, cultures, and identities, yet many people in the U.S. assume a commonality among Latina/o groups. What links exist between various Latina/o groups? What are the main differences or conflicts between them? How do constructions of Latina/o identities contend with the diversity of experiences? In this course, we will examine a variety of topics and theories pertinent to the field of Latina/o Studies, including immigration, language, politics, panethnicity, civil rights, racialization, border studies, media and cultural representation, gender and sexuality, and transnationalism, among other issues.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rivera-Rideau
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What is Korean American Literature and what is the justification for setting it apart from the rest of Asian American literature? The course approaches this question by taking up a range of recent fictional writings, all of which were turned out by Korean Americans, between 1995 and the present day. Films on Korean Americans help us to look beyond literature to a wider cultural perspective. As the semester evolves we will continue to keep an eye on the range of styles, issues, and silences that characterize this field. Finally, we will take up the problem of language: the ways in which English is used to evoke a specifically Korean American idiom and the contrary process through which certain Korean American works reach beyond the "ethnic" designation and into the mainstream.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Widmer (East Asian Languages and Cultures)
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course uses Latin music as a lens through which to examine broader social issues in the United States. We will consider how music industries decide what counts as “Latin,” and how these processes intersect or fail to intersect with ideas of Latinx identity on the ground. We will explore topics such as racial identity, immigration, gender and sexuality, transnationalism, and crossover. We will study genres including, but not limited to, banda, norteña, bachata, reggaetón, and pop, and artists such as Aventura, Daddy Yankee, Jenni Rivera, Selena, and Shakira.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rivera-Rideau
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course analyzes the significance of Asian American pop culture. We will investigate cultural constructions of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality through an examination of various kinds of popular media, including film, music, performance, social media, and art. We will read key works in cultural studies alongside transnational feminist works. Central to this course will be an examination of how popular culture can reproduce and challenge racial, sexual, gender, class, and national identity formations in the United States.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Clutario
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
From the Zumba Fitness Program to Jane the Virgin, salsa night to the ubiquitous taco truck, “Latin” culture is popular. But what do we make of the popularity of “Latin” culture at a time when many Latina/o communities face larger systemic inequalities related to issues such as race, ethnicity, or immigration status? How do organizations and industries represent and market Latinidad to the US public, and how do these forms of popular culture and representation influence our perceptions of Latina/o life in the United States? How do Latina/o consumers view these representations? This course explores these questions through a critical examination of the representation and marketing of Latinidad, or Latina/o identities, in US popular culture. We will pay particular attention to the intersections between Latina/o identities, ideas of “Americanness,” immigration, race, gender, and sexuality in the United States.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rivera-Rideau
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
On January 6th, 2021, a right-wing mob violently attacked the U.S. Capitol using guns, clubs, and fists. But perhaps their most powerful weapon was not physical, but ideological: a white supremacist version of America’s revolutionary past. This course examines the complex interplay between historical memory and present-day social and political realities. We will consider how stories, symbols, and artifacts shape popular understandings of the past, and in turn, how historical memory legitimizes social attitudes and systems. How do narratives about colonization, slavery, and war impact policy decisions? How do they shape racial attitudes and social identities? How do people of different racial groups, political leanings, and generations see the past differently? Students will examine a range of cultural artifacts, including fiction, film, monuments, museum exhibits, speeches, and digital media and create their own sites of memory. These items provide tangible links to the past that will shape the future of democracy in America.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: E. Battat (Writing Program)
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is recommended for students who have some familiarity with American history and critical reading and analytical writing in the humanities.
This course offers an introduction to the history of Asian American labor and immigration from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Using a range of interdisciplinary frameworks and sources, the course will focus on the flow and movement of people to the United States, we will nonetheless pay special attention to the global, transnational and transpacific networks, issues, events and moments that have historically impacted the movement of peoples around the world. This course also spotlights the ways in which labor played a central role in shaping these migratory flows and experiences. As much as possible, this course will aim to look at historical events and moments from the perspective of ordinary people, or “histories from below,” in order to understand how historical narratives may change when you are not looking at histories from the perspective of those in power.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Clutario
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In this course students will explore the interdisciplinary approaches by which Asian American scholars, artists, and activists produce work on and in the Asian American diaspora from the 1960s to present day. This survey of Asian American methodologies will offer students the exciting opportunity to receive hands-on experience in conducting ethnographic interviews, studying archival materials, analyzing films, reading memoirs and more that showcase the interdisciplinary nature of Asian American Studies and identity at large.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: At least one of the following courses - AMST 101, AMST 121, AMST 151, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Remoquillo
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines historical and contemporary contexts and processes of defining Asian/American beauty as well as the ways in which beauty is used to manage bodies, define social hierarchies, and gain or maintain power. Moreover, this course asks how presentations of beauty, especially “beautiful bodies,” could also be used as forms of subversion and resistance. Looking at sites such beauty pageants, cosmetic consumer cultures, drag performances, cosmetic surgery, and the transnational production and consumption of beauty influencers we will investigate how race, gender, sexuality, and class informs definitions of beauty and how definitions of beauty inform constructions of race, gender, sexuality, and class.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: AMST 101 or AMST 151, or permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Year students.
Instructor: Clutario
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This seminar will use food as a lens to explore Asian American history and contemporary political, cultural, and economic issues. We will explore the role of food in histories of immigration; labor in restaurant and service industries; farming and agriculture; and the politics of consumption and circulation of food. We will trace contemporary experiences to larger histories through a critical engagement with interdisciplinary scholarship as well as primary sources like recipe books, food criticism, media, film and television, literature, and memoirs.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One of the following - AMST 151, AMST 121, AMST 232, AMST 264, AMST 101, AMST 116/ENG 116, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Clutario
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Benito Martínez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny, has quickly risen through the ranks to become one of the most significant and impactful global Latin music stars in history. This course explores what analyzing Bad Bunny can teach us in Latinx Studies. We will explore his role in the 2019 protests in Puerto Rico, and what the summer of 2019 teaches us about U.S. empire and Puerto Rican politics. We will also pay particular attention to the politics of race, gender, and queerness in Bad Bunny’s performance. Finally, we will consider Bad Bunny as a Spanish-language “crossover” star in the United States to understand the place of Latinx artists in the U.S. mainstream. Overall, this course will explore these topics by closely situating Bad Bunny’s work in relation to key texts in Latinx Studies regarding race, empire, gender, and queerness.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Previous coursework in Latinx Studies, American Studies, Africana Studies or Latin American Studies preferred. Not open to First-Year students.
Instructor: Rivera-Rideau
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Priority given to American Studies majors, Latinx Studies minors, and Latin American Studies majors
Puerto Rico has been a territory of the United States since 1898, and yet it holds a very different view of race relations. Dominant discourses of Puerto Rican identity represent the island as racially mixed and therefore devoid of racism; but many scholars argue that this is not the case. We will use popular culture, memoir, and political histories as lenses through which to examine the construction of race, and blackness in particular, in Puerto Rico and among Puerto Ricans in the US. We will explore topics such as the role of Puerto Rican activists in social movements for racial equality, performances of blackness and Puerto Ricanness in hip-hop and reggaeton, and migration's influence on ideas of blackness and Latinidad in both Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: AMST 101 or permission of the instructor
Instructor: Rivera-Rideau
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course uses Black and Latina feminist theories to critically examine the performances, personas, and representations of Beyoncé Knowles and Jennifer López. We will begin with an overview of classic Black and Latina feminist theory texts by authors such as Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Cherríe Moraga. We will then read more contemporary Black and Latina feminist academic and popular works that expand, challenge, and complicate these theories. Throughout the course, we will put these texts in conversation with Beyoncé and Jennifer López, as well as other Black and Latina artists. In addition to the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, topics include performance, fashion and beauty, colorism, motherhood, sex and pleasure, and the politics of representation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Previous experience with feminist or race theory helpful.
Instructor: Rivera-Rideau
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This class will look at several pivotal moments in US working class history: slave rebellions, early unionization, Black radical labor formations of the 1960s and 1970s, neoliberal attacks on labor, and 2022’s “Hot Labor Summer.” We will use this series of historical studies to think critically about what and who constitutes the working class in the US, when and how that might change, and about how colonial, racial, and gendered dynamics drive these histories while too often being written out of them. For each moment, we will also look to working class cultural artifacts as their own kind of theoretical and historical texts, including music, pamphlets, poetry, drama, photography, film and video, and memes. Potential authors: Gerald Horne, Charisse Burden-Stelly, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, J. Sakai, Philip Foner, James Yaki Sayles, James Boggs, Grace Lee Boggs, Silvia Frederici, Karl Marx, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Kim Kelly, Joshua Clover, Sarah Jaffe.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 100- or 200-level AMST course (AMST 101 recommended).
Instructor: Alexander
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open by the permission of the director to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
To what extent do contemporary streaming services include queer people and people of color? How do contemporary children's books accommodate progressive ideas in the face of conservative backlash? How have networks like HBO, Netflix, or Amazon promoted or undercut LGBTQ civil rights or racial justice? American Studies often focuses on the appraisal, interpretation, and critique of historical and contemporary popular culture. Designed for juniors and seniors, this seminar will explore how American Studies multidisciplinary perspectives can be adapted to reviews, critiques, opinion pieces, and other forms of journalistic, literary, and public writing. Students will consider a variety of historical and contemporary American cultural products, including television, film, books, literature, websites, exhibitions, performances, and consumer products, in order to enter the public conversation about the cultural meanings, political implications, and social content of such culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: AMST 101 or another AMST 100- or 200-level course.
Instructor: P. Fisher
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the director.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: AMST 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
A comparative approach to the concept of culture and an analysis of how culture structures the worlds we live in. The course examines human societies from their tribal beginnings to the postindustrial age. We will consider the development of various types of social organization and their significance based on family and kinship, economics, politics, and religion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken this course as ANTH 104.
Instructor: Staff, Armstrong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: This course was formerly offered as ANTH 104.
This course will examine the evolutionary foundations of human variability. This theme is approached broadly from the perspectives of anatomy, paleontology, genetics, primatology, and ecology. For this purpose, the course will address the principles of human evolution, fossil evidence, behavior, and morphological characteristics of human and nonhuman primates. Explanation of the interrelationships between biological and sociobehavioral aspects of human evolution, such as the changing social role of sex, are discussed. In addition, human inter-population differences and environmental factors that account for these differences will be evaluated.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Van Arsdale
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will provide an overview of the theoretical ways in which the topic of food can be addressed from an anthropological perspective. We will examine the role food plays in shaping identity, gender construction, and the co-evolution of human food practices and society. The seminar will ask students to engage with food and foodways in their own surroundings and think about the way food is a source of nutrition, a focus of individual life, and a mechanism of labor. This course will draw upon readings from the various sub-fields of Anthropology (socio-cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, biological anthropology) and thus also serve as an introduction to the discipline.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Van Arsdale
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is intended to provide a theoretical framework as to how anthropologists construct questions, design research strategies, and produce anthropological knowledge. Students will discuss and explore major framing questions for anthropological methods while pursuing an independent project of their choice. Working with a faculty advisor, students will engage in independent research, while using the class as a workshop and discussion environment to refine their project. Students will be exposed to issues of positionality, ethical obligations in research, mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, and writing for specific audiences. This course is required of all anthropology majors and will provide a bridge between introductory and advanced courses.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ANTH 101, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff, Ellison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The hominin fossil record provides direct evidence for the evolution of humans and our ancestors through the past 5 million to 7 million years. This course will provide an overview of human evolutionary history from the time of our last common ancestor with the living great apes through the emergence of "modern" humans. Emphasis is placed on evolutionary mechanisms, and context is provided through hands-on examination of the hominin fossil record and its history. The human story begins with origins and the appearance of unique human features such as bipedality, the gradual beginnings of an expanded brain and durable material technology, increased social complexity, and eventually the emergence of a human-like ecology. The emergence of contemporary humans is examined through the interaction of environmental, evolutionary, genetic, fossil, and archaeological evidence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Van Arsdale
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The identification of human remains for criminological and political purposes is widespread. This course explores issues in the identification and interpretation of human bones including methods for determining sex, age, stature, and ancestry as well as for identifying pathologies and anomalies. The course will pay particular attention to those anatomical elements, both soft tissue and bones, that aid in the reconstruction of individuals and their life history. In addition, the course explores search and recovery techniques, crime-scene analysis, the use of DNA in solving crimes, and the role of forensic anthropology in the investigation of mass fatalities from both accidents and human rights violations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 42
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Van Arsdale
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
This course explores major themes in the subfield of political anthropology. How do anthropologists locate “the political” and study it the ethnographically – that is, through the long-term fieldwork they conduct? Throughout this course, we will delve into anthropological approaches to power, authority, and domination; statecraft and transnational governance; everyday forms of resistance and collective action; violence and disorder; and the politics of care and abandonment, among other themes. We will consider the animating questions that helped consolidate the subfield during the 1940s and 1950s, and trace anthropology’s growing concern with (post)colonialism and global capitalism. Finally, we will explore questions of labor restructuring, activism, caregiving, and life itself in an era that is often characterized as “neoliberal.”
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ellison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This is a course about race concepts and human biological variation, viewed from historical and biological perspectives. This course thus has two intertwined emphases. One is placed on the historical connection between science and sociopolitical ideologies and policies. The other is on the evolutionary origin of human biological and cultural diversity. Through lecture and discussion section, topics explored include the role of polygenism, historically and in current scientific thought; biological determinism and scientific racism; the rise of eugenics and other examples of “applied biology”; and the role of the race concept in current scientific and medical debates, such as those over the place of the Neanderthals in human evolution, as well as the importance of race in clinical practice. The course seeks to guide students through a critical exercise in studying the evolutionary origins of contemporary human biological variation and its close relationship with scientific and popular concepts of race.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Van Arsdale
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The Balkan region has been a major trade and cultural crossroads for millennia and encompasses a variety of landscapes, peoples, and cultures. We will read authoritative historical studies and ethnographies as well as short stories, poetry, books of travel, and fiction. We will consider the legacy of the classical world, the impact of Islam, the emergence of European commercial empires, the impact of the European Enlightenment in national movements, the emergence of modernization, and the socialist experiments in the hinterlands. The course offers a critical overview of the politics of historical continuity and the resurgence of Balkan nationalism during the last decade of the twentieth century.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In the course of Europe's road to modernity, the southeastern corner of the continent became known as the Balkans. The Western imagination rendered the peoples and the rich cultures of the area as backward, violent, and underdeveloped. This course examines the imagery of the area and its people through film. We will explore the use of history by filmmakers and the use of films in understanding a number of issues in the history of the Balkans. The course will trace the adoration of ancient Greek antiquity, the legacy of Byzantium and Orthodox Christianity as well as the Ottoman influence and the appearance of Islam. The historical past is (re)constructed and (re)presented in film, as are the national awakenings and liberation movements. The list of films we will watch and the anthropological and historical readings we will do aspire to cover various aspects of Balkan societies as revealed through visual and cinematic representations. Balkan film is politically, socially, and historically engaged, and we will use film narratives and stories to understand the area's diverse landscapes and cultures, religions and identities, love and hatred.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will introduce students to the anthropology of science and the use of anthropological methodology to study the making of science and technology. Through the analysis of case studies of biotechnology, energy, computing, lay and activist science, medicine, genetics, bioethics, the environment and conservation around the world, this class will investigate the global dynamics of science and technology. We will compare and contrast the production and use of scientific knowledge around the globe. What happens when science and technology travel and how do new places emerge as centers of knowledge production? How are culture, identity, technology, and science linked?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Do you ever wonder what your possessions say about you? Our possessions and other things we use lie at the hearts of our everyday lives. We inadvertently generate material culture during our daily activities and interactions. In turn, material culture helps us structure negotiations with one another in our cultured worlds. Archaeology is unique among anthropological endeavors in its reliance on material culture to reconstruct and understand past human behavior. We will learn methodological and theoretical approaches from archaeology and ethnography for understanding material culture. Lecture topics will be explored in hands-on labs. Studying the world of material can help us understand the nature of objects and how humans have interacted with them across time and space. In addition, material culture indicates how humans mobilize objects in their cross-cultural interactions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Minor
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
This course begins with the assumption that the human body is a unit upon which collective categories are engraved. These categories can vary from social values, to religious beliefs, to feelings of national belonging, to standards of sexuality and beauty. Readings in this course will concentrate on the classic and recent attempts in the social and historical sciences to develop ways of understanding this phenomenon of "embodiment." We will begin with an overview of what is considered to be the "construction" of the human body in various societies and investigate how the body has been observed, experienced, classified, modified, and sacralized in different social formations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will provide students with an overview of primatology, with a focus on comparative morphological, behavioral, and ecological aspects of Anthropoid primates. Students will consider the evolutionary relationship among humans and non-human primates and how comparative studies can elucidate shared aspects of social, energetic, and reproductive behaviors, while also pointing to uniquely derived features among these organisms. Readings for the course will focus on primary research derived from a diverse range of primates in addition to theoretical pieces that connect the study of non-human primates to evolutionary understandings of what it means to be human. Students will also be exposed in their assignments to the methods used to understand the behavioral ecology of humans and non-human primates. Finally, the course will introduce students to the complex history of primatology as a field of study situated across anthropology, psychology, and biology, and one in the midst of a shift towards questions of conversation and decolonization.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ANTH 102 or BISC 111, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Van Arsdale
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How biological anthropologists have approached their subject of study has changed substantially since the discipline’s inception. Anthropology has its roots in colonial and racist enterprises of the 19th century. The construction of informed consent, the development of a global research community, and changing notions of evolution have all positively reshaped how researchers approach their work. And yet, in spite of these changes, many practices in scientific anthropology continue to make some narratives visible while silencing others. In this course, we will focus on examples drawn from human skeletal and genetic analyses, relying heavily on Indigenous critique of and within the discipline. How do we produce scientific knowledge about human evolutionary past? Who gets to ask and answer the questions? What role do institutions play in privileging some voices and approaches over others?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Van Arsdale
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ANTH 104 and permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ANTH 104 and permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This course critically examines cancer as a pervasive disease and a metaphor of global modern cultures. Students will be exposed to the ways cancer is perceived as a somatic and social standard within locally constructed cognitive frameworks. They will investigate the scientific and emotional responses to the disease and the ways cancer challenges our faith and spirituality, our ways of life, notions of pollution and cleanliness, and our healing strategies. This approach to cancer is comparative and interdisciplinary and focuses on how specialists in different societies have described the disease, how its victims in different cultures have narrated their experiences, how causality has been perceived, and what interventions (sacred or secular) have been undertaken as therapy and prevention.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An archaeology field school covering the process of research design, site identification, survey, undertaking excavation, basics of conservation, and digital documentation. The Wellesley College Hall Archaeology Project seeks evidence of daily lives of the Wellesley community, circa 1914. The excavation is in areas containing remnants of the 1914 College Hall Fire, which destroyed the original College building overnight, finding fragments of student belongings, classroom equipment, and architecture over 100 years later. Students will identify research questions about experiences of the Wellesley community (daily life, gender, social class), and build a project addressing issues resonating with students today. Community participatory research includes involving the community through interviews, social media, and public outreach. Please note: the Fall 2023 season will be a study season primarily focused on artifact research, analysis, and publication. There will be limited excavation which includes physical exertion, students with disability concerns are encouraged to contact the instructor and accessible fieldwork tasks will be implemented.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: A 100 or 200 level Anthropology course.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
This class will use archaeological methods to explore the practice of human sacrifice in a range of cultural contexts. The act of killing a human has played significant roles in the development and maintenance of socio-political power from ancient times and into the present day. The goal of this course is to move away from a simple model of sacrifice as a ‘barbaric’ act of violence to an understanding of sacrifice as a ritualized political act within systems of legitimization or social coercion. Case studies will draw from worldwide ancient examples, often in comparison to contemporary cases.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Minor
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What can architecture and design tell anthropologists about culture? This seminar addresses this question using a distinctly anthropological approach that focuses on topics as diverse as the ethnographic analysis of vernacular architecture in rural Newfoundland, how the Danish notion of hygge (coziness) informs a culturally distinct design aesthetic, and the ways in which city planning influences cultural identity in Boston. Students engage in themed discussions and participate in case-based workshops that utilize foundational anthropological practices including participant-observation, visual anthropology, and ethnographic writing to form real-world dialogues about the cultural significance of design and architecture. Core anthropological concepts such as cultural relativity, applied ethnography, globalization, and the anthropology of space and place serve as the central themes for the course as we apply contemporary anthropological theory to cross-cultural understandings of architecture and design.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Armstrong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course.This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
Why are myths often tied to geography and why are particular locations charged with powerful cultural meaning? This anthropological field course in Iceland explores the diverse ways that humans interact with their surroundings to create culture. This intensive two-week excursion (followed by two weeks of follow-up assignments) examines the cultural and geographic significance of Iceland's unique landscape and settlements. Glacial lakes, bustling cities, remote fishing villages, and eerie lava fields provide the setting for an introduction to the fascinating field of cultural geography. Students gain hands-on experience with methods of cultural anthropology, including participant-observation, interviewing, writing field notes, photography, and critical analysis. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, this course offers students a rare chance to conduct ethnographic research in one of the most stunning places on Earth!
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 8
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Armstrong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes: Not offered every year. Subject to Provost's Office approval.
This course introduces students to contemporary anthropology by tracing its historical development and its specific application in ethnographic writing. It examines the social context in which each selected model or "paradigm" took hold and the extent of cognitive sharing, by either intellectual borrowing or breakthrough. The development of contemporary theory will be examined both as internal to the discipline and as a response to changing intellectual climates and social milieu. The course will focus on each theory in action, as the theoretical principles and methods apply to ethnographic case studies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ANTH 101 and at least one 200 level ANTH course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Walters (Fall), Ellison (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This seminar will immerse students in current developments in Museum Anthropology through an exploration of the history of museum development, the role of museums in society, and the ethical considerations of preservation and education. Under an anthropological lens, the history of development of museums in the global North can be used to contextualize recent movements to decolonize the collection, curation, and display of ethnographic and archaeological material. After researching up-to-date international exhibitions, students will critically assess museum curation practices and then develop their own outreach projects in small groups. This course will include virtual visits to New England area museums–including the MFA Boston, Harvard Peabody Museum, and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 100-level or 200-level Anthropology course.
Instructor: Norton
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course aspires to familiarize students with the subtleties of national Balkan rifts and cultural divisions, through international study in the Southern Balkans during Wintersession. The overall theme of the course will center on national majorities and ethnic minorities. The cultural diversity of the area will be examined both as a historical and as contemporary phenomenon. Students will be exposed to the legacy of the classical world, the impact of Christianity and Islam, the role of European commercial empires, the impact of the European Enlightenment in national movements, the emergence of modernization, and the socialist experiments in Macedonia and Bulgaria. The course will also offer a critical overview of the politics of historical continuity and the resurgence of Balkan nationalism during the last decade of the twentieth century.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ANTH 217 or ANTH 219, or some familiarity with the area.
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Not offered every year. Subject to Provost's Office approval.
Advances in genetic sequencing technology have dramatically reduced the cost of obtaining genomic data. As a result, personal genomic information is now available and utilized at an ever-increasing pace. As an anthropologist, the arrival of the “genomic age” raises important questions about how we approach and understand the topic of what it means to be human. Never before have individuals had such direct access to the raw data at the core of their own biology. This class will examine personal genomics from a biocultural anthropology perspective, simultaneously dealing with the question of what personal genomics has to offer and what consequences arise given the availability of genomic information. The important distinction between information and knowledge, uncertainty and determinism, and the ethical and legal apparatus around genomics will be examined through the use of genomic case studies focused on issues of health and ancestry.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ANTH 102 or ANTH 214, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Van Arsdale
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar critically examines the use of prehistory and antiquity for the construction of accounts of national origins, historical claims to specific territories, or the biased assessment of specific peoples. The course begins with an examination of the phenomenon of nationalism and the historically recent emergence of contemporary nation-states. It then proceeds comparatively, selectively examining politically motivated appropriations of the remote past that either were popular earlier in this century or have ongoing relevance for some of the ethnic conflicts raging throughout the world today. The course will attempt to develop criteria for distinguishing credible and acceptable reconstructions of the past from those that are unbelievable and/or dangerous.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200-level unit in anthropology, economics, political science, sociology, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
People’s senses—their capabilities to apprehend the world through touch, smell, taste, feeling, and hearing—seem to define human experiences, uniting us in one great common condition. At the same time, many have argued that the senses are understood—and indeed experienced—differently across disparate contexts. What does it mean to consider that what we take to be among the most foundational and universal aspects of human engagement with the world might be culturally, historically and socially constituted? This course introduces students to the scholarship of sensory experience—an interdisciplinary field that we will center on anthropology, but that also involves performance studies, arts and media studies. It explores the basic question of how to produce scholarly knowledge about embodied sensory experience that in many ways seems to defy the descriptive capacities of the written word.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ANTH 101 and two 200-level courses in anthropology or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
From giant, immovable stone currency on the Pacific island of Yap to accumulating 'likes' on social media, we occupy a world of exchange where our everyday lives are mediated through the transfer of objects, ideas, and various forms of capital. This seminar examines the cross-cultural understanding of exchange from an anthropological perspective with particular attention paid to gift-giving, social and cultural capital, money, and the transmission of knowledge across space and time. Drawing on the work of Malinowski, Bourdieu, Marx, Mauss, Derrida and many other anthropologists and philosophers, we will unpack the hidden dimensions of taking, keeping and giving as key elements of culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ANTH 101, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Armstrong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This seminar examines the comparative politics and lived experiences of indigeneity and centers the work of Indigenous scholars, activists, and artists. We cover topics ranging from Spanish reducciones and ideologies of mestizaje in the Americas to debates over the limits of legal recognition under “neoliberal multiculturalism” in Australia and Indonesia, and from Indigenous sovereignty in the U.S. to the rise of Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and his efforts to put a Pro-Pachamama (a vital force often glossed as Mother Earth) platform on the global stage. Further, we will study Indigenous efforts to decolonize knowledge production, including the discipline of anthropology itself. In the process, we will address settler colonialism, struggles over authenticity, political recognition, and citizenship, efforts to decolonize gender and sexuality, and the antecedents of contemporary language revitalization and political movements.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Two 200-level units in anthropology, economics, history, political science, or sociology, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Ellison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
From de-mining countries to rehabilitating child soldiers, from channeling donations for AIDS orphans to coordinating relief efforts in the wake of natural disasters, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are ubiquitous. They provide essential services once thought to be the purview of the state, and increasingly champion entrepreneurial approaches to poverty reduction. NGOs are also subject to heated debate and increased surveillance within the countries where they operate. This seminar brings a critical anthropological lens to bear on the work of NGOs, connecting global trends, donor platforms, and aid workers to the everyday experiences of people targeted by NGO projects.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200-level unit in anthropology, economics, history, political science, or sociology, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Ellison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ANTH 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
An introduction to the Arabic language. The course takes a comprehensive approach to language learning and emphasizes the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Students are introduced to the principles of grammar, taught how to read and write in the Arabic alphabet, and trained in the basics of everyday conversation. Through the use of a variety of written, video, and audio materials, as well as other resources made available through the Web, the course emphasizes authentic materials and stresses the active participation of students in the learning process.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Zitnick
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to the Arabic language. The course takes a comprehensive approach to language learning and emphasizes the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Students are introduced to the principles of grammar, taught how to read and write in the Arabic alphabet, and trained in the basics of everyday conversation. Through the use of a variety of written, video, and audio materials, as well as other resources made available through the Web, the course emphasizes authentic materials and stresses the active participation of students in the learning process.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARAB 101 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Zitnick
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An introduction to the Arabic language in an intensive course. The course takes a comprehensive approach to language learning and emphasizes the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Students are introduced to the principles of grammar, taught how to read and write in the Arabic alphabet, and trained in the basics of everyday conversation. Through the use of a variety of written, video, and audio materials, as well as other resources made available through the Web, the course emphasizes authentic materials and stresses the active participation of students in the learning process. Students who complete this course will be ready and eligible to enroll in ARAB 201.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Zitnick
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes:
A continuation of ARAB 101-ARAB 102. The course takes students to a deeper and more complex level in the study of the Arabic language. While continuing to emphasize the organizing principles of the language, the course also introduces students to a variety of challenging texts, including extracts from newspaper articles, as well as literary and religious materials. Students will be trained to work with longer texts and to gain the necessary communicative skills to prepare them for advanced-level Arabic.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARAB 102, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Aadnani
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A continuation of ARAB 201. The course takes students to a deeper and more complex level in the study of the Arabic language. While continuing to emphasize the organizing principles of the language, the course also introduces students to a variety of challenging texts, including extracts from newspaper articles, as well as literary and religious materials. Students will be trained to work with longer texts and to gain the necessary communicative skills to prepare them for advanced-level Arabic.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARAB 201 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Aadnani
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course further develops students’ listening and speaking skills in Arabic, with special emphasis on achieving familiarity with a variety of Arabic dialects from across the Arab World. The primary focus will be on practicing conversation, as the curriculum will utilize a variety of materials, including videos, short stories, and films for discussion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: ARAB 202 or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Zitnick
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARAB 201-ARAB 202 or equivalent and permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ARAB 201-ARAB 202 or equivalent and permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Continuation of ARAB 201-ARAB 202. Involving further development of students' skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, this course exposes students to a variety of authentic Arabic materials, including print and online sources, incorporating MSA and diglossia. Focus on enhanced communication skills in Arabic and attention to the use of language in its sociocultural context. Appropriate for students who have completed ARAB 201-ARAB 202 at Wellesley or the equivalent in summer courses or international study programs.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARAB 201-ARAB 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Zitnick
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Further development of all linguistic skills with special attention to reading, writing, and discussion. The course also introduces students to modern Arabic literature. Focus on enhanced communication skills in Arabic and attention to the use of language in its sociocultural context. Appropriate for students who have completed ARAB 202 at Wellesley or the equivalent in summer courses or international study programs.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARAB 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Zitnick
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Study of the techniques and problems involved in translating from Arabic into English. Although the focus will be on text-to-text translation of short stories, poems and other types of literary texts, students will also experiment with speech-to-speech translation, text-to-speech translation, and speech-to-text translation. The aim of these varied activities is to help students acquire a deeper understanding of the Arabic language and to further their proficiency in the four linguistic skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Students will also discuss a range of methods and options for tackling and translating challenging linguistic formulations and transferring meaning from the original context to the English-speaking context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARAB 201 - ARAB 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Close readings and study of selected prose and verse from the rich repertoire of Classical Arabic literature. Readings will be selected in part in response to the interests of students enrolled in the course, but are likely to include some of the following: readings from sacred texts and the traditional scholarly traditions, mystical and philosophical writings, historiographical and geographical writings, collections of stories, travelers' accounts, letters and diaries, and various kinds of poetry. All readings will be in Arabic, with discussion and written assignments mostly in English.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: ARAB 201-ARAB 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the directors and advisory committee.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ARCH 360 and permission of the directors and the advisory committee.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Art matters. Because images, buildings, and environments shape our ways of understanding our world and ourselves, learning how to look closely and analyze what you see is a fundamental life skill. Within a global frame, this course provides an introduction to art and its histories through a series of case studies from the ancient world to the present day. Through the case studies, we will explore concepts of gender and race, cultural appropriation, political propaganda, materials and media, questions of cultural ownership and repatriation, and other historical issues relevant to our current art world. Site visits and assignments will engage with the rich art and architectural resources of Wellesley's campus.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu, Oles (Fall); Bedell, Greene, Brey (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: This course is open to all students; it is required for all Art History, Architecture, and Studio Majors.
This first-year seminar examines the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1474-1564). Although he is best known as a sculptor and painter, Michelangelo was also a poet, architect, civil engineer, and diplomat driven by complex artistic, religious, political, and economic motivations. His long career provides a framework for understanding the Italian Renaissance, and the mythology surrounding that career provides insight into changing perceptions of the artist and the individual during that time. We will focus on works of art and contemporary texts, as well as real or virtual visits to Wellesley’s Special Collections, Papermaking Studio, and Book Arts Lab, as well as Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 13
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Jewelry is art made to adorn the human body, and designs from the ancient Mediterranean have inspired artists for thousands of years. This introductory course analyzes the creation and use of jewelry from 2,600 BCE to 800 CE. Case studies drawn from the connected Mediterranean world will compare the traditions of neighboring peoples such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, and Celts. Readings will introduce these communities and the meanings they gave to symbols, metals, and gemstones. Lectures will consider how adornment expressed gender, asserted freedom, and attracted magical protection. Class discussions will critique the history of excavating, collecting, and exhibiting this portable art now held by museums around the world. Assignments will develop the skill of conducting research in museum databases.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 323.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to the study of architecture and the built environment. This course is limited to majors or prospective majors in architecture, art history, studio art, or urban studies, or to those students with a serious interest in theoretical and methodological approaches to those fields.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course explores the rich libraries, splendid palaces, and innovative public monuments that emerged in ancient Iraq between 3,300 BCE and 500 BCE. The royal jewels from the cemetery at Ur, the Law Code of Hammurabi, and the palatial sculptures from Nineveh feature among the case studies. The course also critiques international claims to these and other Iraqi antiquities, with a focus on their excavation by European empires and American universities; their acquisition by “encyclopedic” museums; and the digital colonialism of current replication schemes. We conclude by looking at the work of Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz, who has recreated many antiquities to protest their varied display and ongoing destruction. Students leave the course understanding how Iraq's ancient art and architecture have been used to negotiate power from antiquity to the present day.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Prior coursework in Art History, Classical Civilization, or Middle Eastern Studies recommended.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will explore artistic expression in America from the time of European contact to the mid-twentieth century. Proceeding both thematically and chronologically, the course will highlight the range of diverse practices and media Americans deployed to define, shape, enact, and represent their changing experience. We will explore mapping and the platting of towns during the 17th and 18th centuries; the role of portraiture in colonial society; gender and domestic interiors; landscape painting and national identity; print culture, photography and the industrialized image; utopian societies and reform; World's Fairs, city planning, and urban culture; moving images, advertising, and mass consumption. As much as possible, the class will include site visits to area museums and historic landscapes.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The majestic and powerful Black African empires of Ancient Nubia, located on the Nile to the south of Egypt in present-day Sudan, have either been ignored by mainstream scholarship or subsumed under Egyptian culture. Yet, Ancient Nubia produced more pyramids than Egypt, colossal sculpture, magnificent gold jewelry and monumental architecture that, to date, remains unparalleled. This course will begin with the Nubian Neolithic Period (ca. 6,000 BCE) with its sensational abstract ceramics and human sculpture and end with art of the great cosmopolitan city of Meroe in ca. 350 CE. It will touch on aspects of colonialism, feminism and museology. Conditions permitting, one session will meet at the Museum of Fine Arts, home to the finest collection of Nubian Art outside Sudan.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or ANTH 103/CLCV 103 recommended.
Instructor: Freed
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Beginning in the nineteenth century, the practices of artists, craftsmen, and architects throughout Muslim-majority regions were transformed by industrialization, colonialism, and the emergence of the museum as an institution. Through the study of a variety of visual, spatial, and time-based media, students in this course investigate the local, national, and transnational concepts that shaped the production and reception of modern and contemporary visual cultures throughout the Islamic world. While the Middle East, North Africa, and Iran constitute the geographic focus of the course, case studies may also consider images, objects, and monuments produced in West Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. Key topics include visual responses to colonialism, engagements with global centers of modernism, popular visual cultures, articulations of national and secular identities, and the reuse of prototypes drawn from real or imagined Islamic pasts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will explore the theory and practice of historic preservation. Beginning with a focus on the history of preservation in the United States, we will trace the development of legal, economic, public policy, and cultural frameworks that have shaped attitudes and approaches toward preservation of the built environment. To ground these theoretical discussions, we will use the greater Boston area as a laboratory for understanding the benefits and challenges of historic preservation. Students will engage in both individual and group projects that will emphasize field study of buildings and landscapes, archival research, planning, and advocacy. The course is designed for Architecture and Art History majors, but could also be of interest to students in History, American Studies, Environmental Studies, and Political Science.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: 200-level course in Architectural History preferred. Not open to students who have completed ARTH 317.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as ARTH 317.
An examination of modern art from the 1880s to World War II, including the major movements of the historical avant-garde (such as cubism, expressionism, Dada, and surrealism) as well as alternate practices. Painting, sculpture, photography, cinema, and the functional arts will be discussed. Framing the course are critical issues, including merging technologies, colonialism, global exchange, the art market and gender, national, and cultural identities.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An analysis of art since World War II, examining painting, sculpture, photography, performance, video, film, conceptual practices, social and intermedial practices, and the mass media. Critical issues to be examined include the art market, feminist art practices, the politics of identity, and artistic freedom and censorship.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course introduces students to the visual cultures of the Mediterranean in the centuries of the Crusades. It approaches the distinct local, religious, and imperial visual cultures of the Mediterranean as interlocking units within a larger regional system. Focusing on the mobile networks of patrons, merchants, objects, and artisans that connected centers of artistic and architectural production, it covers a geographical territory that includes Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Italian Peninsula. Readings emphasize the theoretical frameworks of hybridity, appropriation, hegemony, and exoticism through which Medieval Mediterranean art and architecture have been understood. Discussions will highlight the significant connections that existed among the Western Medieval, Byzantine, and Islamic worlds.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course explores modern architecture from the turn of the 20th-century to the present. What makes architecture “modern”? We will consider fluid definitions of modernism and modernity when studying the built environment across cultures and geographic boundaries. Rather than following a linear narrative, we will approach modern architecture thematically by looking at topics that include urban planning, tall buildings, domesticity, race, gender, environmentalism and sustainability. A diverse range of architects, designers, and practitioners will be explored in the context of these themes.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Horowitz
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course introduces students to the central role that the book has played (and continues to play) in the Islamic world. We will study the history of the Islamic book, from manuscripts of the Qur’an, which often feature refined calligraphy but almost never include illustrations, to historical, astrological, and poetic works – like the famous Shahnama (Book of Kings) – that contain images of various types and sizes. Students will learn about the production, collection, and circulation of these books, and ask how and according to which criteria they were conceived, used, and evaluated. In addition to traditional art-historical methods of close-looking and socio-historical analysis, students will learn to use digital approaches to produce new knowledge about the field. Visits to view manuscripts and related materials in local collections will supplement classroom discussion and assigned readings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will present a survey of American architecture and urbanism from prehistory to the late twentieth century. Lectures and discussions will focus particularly on placing the American-built environment in its diverse political, economic, and cultural contexts. We will also explore various themes relating to Americans' shaping of their physical surroundings, including the evolution of domestic architecture, the organization and planning of cities and towns, the relationships among urban, suburban and rural environments, the impact of technology, and Americans' ever-changing relationship with nature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This introductory survey explores Latin American and Latinx art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Through a series of case studies we will investigate how these painters, photographers, muralists and others engaged international currents (from symbolism to conceptual art) while also addressing local themes, such as national and racial identity, class difference, gender inequality, political struggle, and state violence. We will also cover the history of collecting and exhibiting Latin American and Latinx art. This course has no prerequisites; students without an art history background are welcome. Advanced students who enroll in 334 will have additional assignments, including a research essay.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 334.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as ARTH 334.
This course will provide an introduction to the arts of the Ancient Americas from before the Spanish Conquest. Rather than a survey, we will concentrate on courtly ceremonial life in major cities from the Teotihuacan, Maya, Moche, Aztec, and Inca civilizations. We will explore specific artistic forms viewed across time and space, including palace architecture; stone sculpture; luxury arts of gold and feathers; textiles and costume; and manuscript painting. The course will also examine the history of collecting, with attention to legal and ethical concerns. We will consider the roles of archaeologists, curators, collectors, and fakers in creating our image of the Ancient American past. In-class discussion will be combined with the study of original objects and forms of display at the Davis and area museums.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 338.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as ARTH 338.
Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous artists in the world, the subject of a vast bibliography, both academic and popular, accurate and inaccurate. This seminar will explore how Kahlo moved from the margins to the center of art history. We will explore her life and work in detail using a wide variety of methodologies, readings, and assignments, in order to better understand the results of her complex self-invention. We will place her paintings in their historical context, but we will also study how she has been interpreted by feminists, filmmakers, and fakers. We will also use Kahlo as a jumping off point to consider broader topics, from self-portraiture to Chicano/a practice. Finally, whether you are new to art history or an advanced student, the class will help you develop the skills necessary to research, evaluate, and present visual and written information effectively and professionally.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300 level as ARTH 339.
This course is a survey of the art and architecture of China from the Neolithic period to the turn of the twentieth century in two simultaneous approaches: chronologically through time and thematically with art in the tomb, at court, in the temple, in the life of the élite, and in the marketplace. It is designed to introduce students to the major monuments and issues of Chinese art and architecture by exploring the interactions of art, religion, culture, society, and creativity, especially how different artistic styles were tied to different intellectual thoughts, historical events, and geographical locations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is a survey of the major artistic traditions of Asia including India, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan from Neolithic times to the turn of the twentieth century. It introduces students to Asian art and architecture by exploring the interactions of art, religion, culture, and society, especially how different artistic styles were tied to different intellectual thoughts, political events, and geographical locations. Students are expected to acquire visual skills in recognizing artistic styles, analytical skills in connecting art with its historical contexts, and writing skills in expressing ideas about art. Field trips to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Harvard's Art Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and/or the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, depending on available exhibitions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The greater Nile Valley has yielded some of the world's most ancient and compelling monuments. In this course we will first survey the art and architecture of ancient Egypt and then ancient Nubia, Egypt's rival to the south. Two class sessions will meet in the Museum of Fine Arts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Freed
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Romans designed the best houses, full of mosaics and frescoes, fountains and pools, sunlight and air. This course will teach you how to live in an ancient Roman home: where to put the dining room, what to plant in your garden, and how to hold a meeting in your office. We will analyze apartments at Italian Ostia, townhouses at Pompeii, villas around the Bay of Naples, and palaces in Rome. We will consider what mosaics can tell us about the empire’s networks of cultural exchange, we will compare house plans in the flourishing provinces, and we will survey the palaces that emperors built in their hometowns.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Prior college-level coursework in Art History, Architecture, or Classical Studies recommended
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: ARTH 242 focuses on domestic architecture, ARTH 243 focuses on public architecture.
This is a course about the Roman Empire’s buildings; the art that once adorned them; and how these ensembles have been preserved over time. Key themes include the ancient experience of architecture, Mediterranean traditions of design, and the place of this complex heritage in modern politics and cityscapes. Case studies will focus not just on Rome, but also on cities across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, all lands that were once within the empire’s borders. Students will leave the course knowing how to use the Roman Empire’s roads, temples, and amphitheaters and understanding why preserving them matters.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Prior college-level coursework in Art History, Architecture, or Classical Civilization recommended.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: ARTH 242 focuses on domestic architecture, ARTH 243 focuses on public architecture.
This course will examine the so-called High Renaissance and Mannerist periods in Italy. We will focus in particular on papal Rome, ducal Florence, and republican Venice, and the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and their followers in relation to the social and cultural currents of the time. Issues such as private patronage, female artists, contemporary sexuality, and the connections between monumental and decorative art will be examined in light of recent scholarship in the field.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Domestic architecture is perceived as both a setting for private life and a means of public self-expression. This course will explore the duality of "house and home" by paying close attention to the changing nature of domestic environments in North America from 1600 to 1900. Topics will include the gendering of domestic space; the role of architects, designers, and prescriptive literature in shaping domestic environments; technological change; the marketing and mass production of domestic furnishings; the relationship of houses to their natural environments; and visions for alternative, reform, or utopian housing arrangements. Site visits and walking tours are a central component of the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 345.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as ARTH 345.
This course surveys a selection of the arts in Italy from circa 1575 to circa 1750. The works of artists such as the Carracci, Caravaggio, Bernini, Gentileschi, and Longhi will be examined within their political, social, religious, and economic settings. Particular emphasis will be placed on Rome and the impact of the papacy on the arts, but Bologna, Florence, and Venice will also play a part, especially in regard to the growing interest in scientific enquiry and the production of arts in the courts and for the Grand Tour. We will focus on works of art and contemporary texts, as well as real or virtual visits to Wellesley’s Special Collections, Papermaking Studio, Book Arts Lab, and Botanic Gardens, Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What, if anything, makes a work of art or architecture Islamic? Islam has formed an important context for the production and reception of visual and material culture. This course enables students to develop a critical vocabulary in analyzing the arts of the Islamic world. Through the study of a broad range of objects and monuments including mosques, manuscripts, textiles, tiles, and amulets, students learn to hone their formal analysis of both figural and non-figural works of art, as well as their close reading of historical sources that reveal how objects and monuments were made and experienced. As students progress through a chronological and multi-regional overview of works produced from the emergence of Islam in the seventh century to the Early Modern empires, they also gain familiarity with methods for the study of Islamic art and ongoing debates within the field. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on the ways in which cultural frameworks including politics, religion, ethnicity, science, and gender shaped the production and reception of images, objects, and monuments within the Islamic world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines Chinese painting from early times to the turn of the twentieth century. It serves as an introduction to theories, masters, and principles in the practice of Chinese painting. Issues of investigation include major themes, techniques, connoisseurship, and functions of Chinese painting. Special attention is given to (1) imperial patronage, (2) the triangle relationship between painting, calligraphy, and poetry, (3) the tension between representation and expression, (4) between professional and literati, (5) between tradition and creativity, and (6) the impact of the West. Trips to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and other museums.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is a survey of the rich visual arts of Japan from the Neolithic period to the turn of the twentieth century with emphasis on architecture, sculpture, painting, ceramics, and ukiyoe. It examines Japan's close ties to India, China, and Korea and explores the development of a distinct Japanese artistic style and national identity. Special attention is given to the sociopolitical forces, cultural exchanges, religious thoughts, intellectual discourses, and commercial activities that shaped the representation and expression of these arts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This course surveys a selection of the arts in Italy during the period we now call the Renaissance, dating from circa 1260 to 1500. We will examine the rise of the mendicant orders, the devastation of the Black Death, the growth of civic and private patronage, and the connection with art and artists in northern Europe, all of which had a profound impact on the visual arts. The work of major artists and workshops will be examined and contextualized within their political, social, and economic settings by readings and discussions of contemporary texts and recent scholarship.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course examines Chinese art in the socially and politically tumultuous twentieth century,which witnessed the end of imperial China, the founding of the Republic, the rise of the People's Republic, the calamity of Mao's cultural revolution, the impact of the West, and the ongoing social and economic reforms. Critical issues of examination include the encounters of East and West, the tensions of tradition and revolution, the burdens of cultural memory and historical trauma, the interpretations of modernity and modernism, the flowering of avant-garde and experimental art, and the problems of globalization and art markets. The course is designed to develop an understanding of the diverse threads of art and society in twentieth-century China.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In 2015, the British Museum exhibit “Celts: Art and Identity” shocked the public by suggesting that Celtic heritage was a modern invention based on ancient stereotypes. Our course follows the exhibit’s lead by first asking “Who were the Celts?” and exploring competing definitions of this term. We then turn to analyzing the exquisite artifacts that museums and textbooks typically label “Celtic.” Focusing on the period between 600 BCE and 800 CE, our case studies examine princely tombs from Germany, golden necklaces and coins from France, mesmerizing mirrors and shields from England, intricate stone monuments from Scotland, and manuscripts from Ireland. We will use this material to counter ethnic stereotypes developed by the vengeful Greeks and Romans and to assess how modern notions of Celtic identity map onto the reality of the past.
To learn more about these issues, read this response to the exhibition “Celts: Art and Identity”
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Prior coursework in Art History or Classical Civilization recommended.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A survey of Korean arts and architecture from the Neolithic period to the mid-20th century. The first part of the course discusses the religious and cultural transformation of the peninsula and examines selected examples of tomb murals, ceramics, and Buddhist art and architecture from early kingdoms. The latter part of the course will focus on the secular art and material culture of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) and the colonial period (1910-1945). Topics include Neo-Confucianism as a new state ideology and its influence on the aesthetics and tastes of the scholarly elite; the development of vernacular themes and styles of painting; the rise of popular taste; and, the shifting concepts of art and artistic identity during the periods of political transition.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will present a thematic survey of 18th-century European art and architecture from the reign of Louis XIV to the French Revolution (1660-1789). We will examine works of art in relation to the social, political, and cultural debates of the period, and how artistic practice engaged with new approaches to empiricism, secularism, and political philosophy spurred by the Enlightenment. Topics include French art in the service of absolutism, debates between classicism and the Rococo, public and private spaces of social reform, the Grand Tour and the rediscovery of antiquity, collecting, global trade, and imperialism. We will also consider Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment trends in Spain, Austria, and Great Britain.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will study art made by African Americans from early colonial America to the present. We will also examine images of African Americans by artists of diverse cultural backgrounds. Throughout the course we will analyze construction(s) of subjectivity of African-American identity (black, Negro, colored) as it relates to visual worlds. Although the course is outlined chronologically, the readings and class discussions will revolve around specific themes each week. The course is interdisciplinary, incorporating a variety of social and historical issues, media, and disciplines, including music, film, and literary sources.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken this course as a topic of ARTH 316.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
As an introduction to the arts and architecture of Africa, this course explores the meaning and the contexts of production within a variety of religious and political systems found throughout the continent, from Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mali, to name a few. We will consider important topics such as the ancient art outside the Nile Valley sphere, symbols of the power of royalty, and the aesthetic and spiritual differences in masquerade traditions. We will pay special attention to traditional visual representations in relation to contemporary African artists and art institutions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 264
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course surveys European art from the French Revolution of 1789 to the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900. Focusing on such major movements as Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, and Art Nouveau, we will examine the relationship of art to tradition, revolution, empire, social change, technology, and identity. Emphasis is placed on the representation and experience of modern life, in paintings by David, Goya, Turner, Manet, Seurat, and others, and in venues ranging from political festivals to avant-garde art galleries to London's Crystal Palace. Topics include the expanded audience for art, Orientalism, gender and representation, and the aesthetics of leisure.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Frozen in time by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E., Pompeii's grand public baths, theatres, and amphitheater, its seedy bars and businesses, its temples for Roman and foreign gods, and its lavishly decorated townhomes and villas preserve extremely rich evidence for daily life in the Roman Empire. Lecture topics include urbanism in ancient Italy; the structure and rituals of the Roman home; the styles and themes of Pompeian wall paintings and mosaics; and the expression of non-elite identities. We conclude by analyzing Pompeii's rediscovery in the eighteenth century and the city's current popularity in novels, television episodes, and traveling exhibits.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
We will investigate the transmission and transformation of African art and culture and their ongoing significant impact on the continent, in Europe, and in the Americas. This course explores the arts of primarily western and central Africa, including the communities of the Bakongo, Yoruba, and Mande, among many others. The influences of early European contact, the Middle Passage, colonialism, and postcolonialism have affected art production and modes of representation in Africa and the African Diaspora for centuries. Documentary and commercial films will assist in framing these representations. The study of contemporary art and artists throughout the African Diaspora will allow for a particularly intriguing examination of postmodern constructions of African identity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 292
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A survey of the evolution of the book, both as a vessel for the transmission of text and image and as evidence of material culture. Through close examination of rare books in Clapp Library's Special Collections, we will explore the social and political forces that influenced the dissemination and reception of printed texts. Lectures will cover the principle techniques and materials of book production from the ancient scroll to the modern codex, including calligraphy, illumination, format and composition, typography, illustration, papermaking, and bookbinding. Weekly reading, discussion, and analysis of specimens will provide the skills needed to develop a critical vocabulary and an investigative model for individual research. Additional sessions on the hand press in the Book Arts Lab and in the Pendleton paper studio.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rogers (Curator of Special Collections)
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
One of the thorniest issues facing artists, art historians, curators, critics, theorists, city planners, and others who have to negotiate art in public places is the question of competing perceptions and meanings. As soon as a work of art is proposed for or installed in a site in which numerous publics intersect, or a work is destroyed, the question arises of “whose public” is being addressed. This seminar will bring to the table historical and contemporary case studies in public art, in part selected by students, as the subjects of several genres of public writing, among them reviews and Op. Ed. pieces. Students in all areas of art history will have already confronted, and will confront in the future, the question of who has the right to make the art, install the art, or destroy the art, in any geography at any time.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Any 200 or 300 level course in Art History. Open to Senior Art History majors only.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course focuses on case studies representing highlights in the history of 20th and 21st-century interior and furniture design. A variety of building types and uses -- domestic, institutional, entertainment, and mixed-use -- will be considered, with an emphasis on the interpretation of style, new and traditional materials, social and cultural values, historical precedents, and the history of collecting.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 228 or ARTH 231, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Friedman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What were the possibilities and limits of representing foreign lands, cultures, and peoples in the long nineteenth century? How did discourses of empire, race, and power inform or complicate these representations? This course examines Europe's imperial and colonial engagements with India, the Pacific, North Africa, and the West Indies from 1750-1900 and representations of these engagements in the visual realm. Thematically and methodologically driven, a comparative approach will be taken to theories of travel, colonialism, and cross-cultural interactions. Such theories include, but are not limited to, Orientalism, postcolonialism, transnationlism, and their attendant critiques.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or WRIT 107, or permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Years.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
In the first course to explore the biography and legacy of a living Wellesley College alumna, students build and analyze a dynamic monographic study of one of the most important contemporary artist of our time–in real time–Lorraine O’Grady. Coinciding with the Davis Museum opening of Lorraine O’Grady’s retrospective exhibition, Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And, students learn directly from the exhibition and work in the College Archives with O’Grady’s physical and digital archives. Critical topics covered include: art criticism, feminist art, Black art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, performance art, conceptual art, museum studies, among others. Students contribute directly to O’Grady’s ongoing scholarship through interviews of scholars and artists influenced by her writings, artworks, and archival collections. The course is Speaking Intensive.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one 200 level ARTH, or 300 level humanities course.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course considers a history of performance art, a genre that features time-based media, technologies, and the archive. The curriculum covers performance art through a global lens and emphasizes queer artists and artists of African, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous descent. This seminar prepares students to answer critical questions necessary for defining the field: What are the ethical, physical, and psychological quandaries that artists face from theory to practice in performance art? How does using the body as a medium challenge the “object-ness” of performance, and how does that impact its reception? What roles do artists, museums, cultural institutions, and their audiences play? What are the institutions' responsibilities for fundraising, staff support, and conservation of performance art? Students explore these questions along with key topics on ephemerality, experimentation, documentation, and audience reception to develop performance projects of their own.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Years.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course charts past and present artistic mediations of racial, ethnic, and gendered experiences throughout the world, using the rubric of the body. In the struggle to understand the relation between self and other, artists have critically engaged with the images that define our common sense of belonging, ranging from a rejection of stereotypes to their appropriations, from the discovery of alternative histories to the rewriting of dominant narratives, from the concepts of difference to theories of diversity. The ultimate goal of the course is to find ways of adequately imagining and imaging various identities today. We will discuss socio-political discourses, including essentialism, structuralism, postmodernism, and post-colonialism and we will question the validity of such concepts as diaspora, nationalism, transnationalism, and identity in an era of global politics that celebrates the hybrid self.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 316
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or a 200-level ARTH course or a 200-level AFR course or a visual culture course.
Instructor: Greene
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course will explore the theory and practice of historic preservation. Beginning with a focus on the history of preservation in the United States, we will trace the development of legal, economic, public policy, and cultural frameworks that have shaped attitudes and approaches toward the preservation of our built environment. Students will engage in both individual and group projects that will emphasize field study of buildings and landscapes, archival research, planning, and advocacy. The course is designed for Architecture and Art History majors, but could also be of interest to students in History, American Studies, Environmental Studies and Political Science.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prior 200-level coursework in Architecture or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have completed ARTH 217.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is sometimes offered at the 200-level as ARTH 217.
This seminar will introduce students to the visual and material culture of New England from the period of European contact to the end of the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on Boston and environs. Course readings, lectures, and discussion will address the broad range of artistic expression from decorative arts to cultural landscapes, placing them in their social, political, and economic contexts as well as in the larger context of American art and architecture. A major theme of the course will be the question of New England's development as a distinct cultural region and the validity of regionalism as a category of analysis. The course will include a number of required field trips to New England museums and cultural institutions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or WRIT 107, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar will examine the buildings and theories of Frank Lloyd Wright, with a particular focus on two themes: Wright's designs for progressive and feminist clients across the long span of his career; and his relationship to the Modern Movement in Europe and the Americas.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 and one 200-level course in Art History or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Friedman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Focusing on case studies drawn from European and American history and contemporary practice, this discussion seminar will look at the ways in which normative notions of gender and sexuality have shaped the conventions of domestic architecture for specific cultures and time periods. The course will also focus on outliers, anomalies and queer spaces, examining the roles played by unconventional architects, clients, and users of houses in changing notions of public and private space and creating new ways of living. Readings will be drawn from feminist theory, queer studies, and architectural history. Weekly oral reports on key concepts, texts and/or buildings and in-class discussion are required in addition to written research papers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 228 or a 300-level course in architectural history or urban studies or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Friedman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar considers Staatliches Bauhaus, the school of architecture, art, and design that was founded in Weimar Germany at the end of World War I, closed under National Socialism in the mid-30s, reestablished in Chicago in 1937, and whose practices were transmitted through institutions globally. The class considers the historical position of the Bauhaus; examines the school's community, philosophy, and practices; studies contemporaneous developments and contacts in the international art and design world; and examines the legacies of the Bauhaus in the Americas and Asia. We will also consider how Bauhaus products and pedagogies came to be synonymous with mid-century modernity and continue to resonate in contemporary design. The seminar provides an integrative examination of visual arts disciplines, and it brings together interdisciplinary approaches to the historical movement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Preference will be given to senior Art History and Architecture majors and minors.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar will analyze women in Italy from circa 1300 to 1700 through the lens of both art and history. We will examine a variety of sources to understand women's lives and work; with this evidence we will see that women had a much stronger presence than previously recognized, as artists, writers, musicians, patrons, nuns, and a wide range of professions inside and outside their homes. The seminar is linked to an exhibition at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and several sessions will be held on site with museum staff. Other sessions will include visits to Wellesley's Special Collections, Papermaking Studio, and Book Arts Lab.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 13
Prerequisites: Previous courses in European art, history, or literature recommended.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will examine the art and history of the Second Plague Pandemic in Europe. We will trace plague from the arrival of the so-called Black Death in port cities in 1347 through the many outbreaks of varying severity over the next four centuries, focusing on Italy but considering additional case studies across the continent. We will investigate how plague and the ensuing demographic crisis were represented in art and material culture, and how those representations helped people understand, and cope with, the world around them. Readings in primary and secondary sources, interaction with guest speakers, and visits to Wellesley's Special Collections, Book Arts Lab, Botanic Gardens, and Davis Museum will demonstrate the myriad reactions to plague and will give us the tools we need to better understand the COVID-19 pandemic.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Previous courses in European art, history, or literature recommended. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 235/HIST 235.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar will analyze the role of food in the art and life of early modern Italy. We will examine the historic and economic context of food as the basis of our investigation of its representation in paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from circa 1300 to 1800. This will entail a close look at food as subject and symbol, as well as the material culture surrounding its production and consumption. The seminar will investigate illustrated herbals and cookbooks in Special Collections, dining habits and etiquette, and food as sexual metaphor through a wide range of interdisciplinary sources; Wellesley's Botanic Gardens will grow Italian fruits, vegetables, and herbs for us to incorporate in Renaissance-era recipes.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Previous courses in European art, history, or literature recommended but not required.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
During the Italian Renaissance, major family events like childbirth, marriage, and death were marked by both works of art and oftentimes elaborate rituals. In this seminar we will examine childbirth trays, marriage chests, painted and sculpted portraits, and funerary monuments, as well as a wide range of additional domestic objects that surrounded people in their everyday life. These objects will be related to contemporary monumental and public art, literature, account books, and legislation, as well as recent scholarship in art history, social history, and women's studies, to provide insight into Renaissance art and life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Previous courses in European art, history, or literature recommended but not required.
Instructor: Musacchio
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Communicate your art-historical knowledge to the broadest possible public. While focusing on public writing, we will study the history and politics of fashion. Topics will include gender and class performance, cultural appropriation, medicine and the body; technology; and law and society. Weekly meetings will include collaborative editing workshops, guest speakers, and a field trip. Students will build a writing portfolio including a book review, film review, Smarthistory essay, museum labels, and a one-minute radio text, among other projects. The Calderwood seminar model demands firm weekly deadlines, allowing classmates time to reflect and comment on each other’s work. We build a scholarly community that shows the larger world how the history of art intersects with fashion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Intended for Seniors majoring or minoring in Art History Intended for Seniors majoring or minoring in Art History
This introductory survey explores Latin American and Latinx art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Through a series of case studies we will investigate how these painters, photographers, muralists and others engaged international currents (from symbolism to conceptual art) while also addressing local themes, such as national and racial identity, class difference, gender inequality, political struggle, and state violence. We will also cover the history of collecting and exhibiting Latin American and Latinx art. This course has no prerequisites; students without an art history background are welcome. Advanced students who enroll in 334 will have additional assignments, including a research essay.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least two art history courses. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 234.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as ARTH 234.
The visual arts play a critical role in shaping identity and formulating opinion. Recognizing the power of images and performance, participants in social and political movements enlist the arts in support of their work. In this case-study based seminar, we will explore ways in which the visual arts have been central features of social protest movements in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. The class will take a trip to New York. In some meetings, we will work with Studio Art instructors to create and analyze student production.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
The Imperial Painting Academy of the Song Dynasty China (960-1279), founded in 984, was the first of its kind in the history of world art. This seminar investigates the nature of imperial patronage and the institution and achievements of the Painting Academy (comparable to those of the Italian Renaissance art) in relation to the Song Empire. The seminar attempts to identify how exactly a particular imperial commission was initiated and carried out through critical reading of primary sources (in translation) that include artists biographies and case studies. Issues of connoisseurship and the relationship of painting/image and poetry/word are also examined.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to junior and senior students or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course runs in parallel with ARTH 236. It will provide an introduction to the arts of the Ancient Americas from before the Spanish Conquest. Rather than a survey, we will concentrate on courtly ceremonial life in major cities from the Teotihuacan, Maya, Moche, Aztec, and Inca civilizations. We will explore specific artistic forms viewed across time and space, including palace architecture; stone sculpture; luxury arts of gold and feathers; textiles and costume; and manuscript painting. The course will also examine the history of collecting, with attention to legal and ethical concerns. We will consider the roles of archaeologists, curators, collectors, and fakers in creating our image of the Ancient American past. In-class discussion will be combined with the study of original objects and forms of display at the Davis and area museums.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Two 100- or 200-level art history courses. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 236.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as ARTH 236.
Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous artists in the world, the subject of a vast bibliography, both academic and popular, accurate and inaccurate. This seminar will explore how Kahlo moved from the margins to the center of art history. We will explore her life and work in detail using a wide variety of methodologies, readings, and assignments, in order to better understand the results of her complex self-invention. We will place her paintings in their historical context, but we will also study how she has been interpreted by feminists, filmmakers, and fakers. We will also use Kahlo as a jumping off point to consider broader topics, from self-portraiture to Chicano/a practice. Finally, whether you are new to art history or an advanced student, the class will help you develop the skills necessary to research, evaluate, and present visual and written information effectively and professionally.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Two 200 level ARTH courses. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 237.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200 level as ARTH 237.
Landscape painting, or more accurately, shanshui (literally "mountain-and-water/river"), rose as an independent and major art form in the tenth century in East Asia as a great tradition in the history of world art. How did it develop so early? What did it mean? How was it used for? How does its past serve as inspiration for the present? And why does shanshui remain a major subject of significance in modern and contemporary East Asian art? Following the development of shanshui from the early periods to the twentieth century, the course explores such critical issues as shanshui and representation of nature, shanshui and power, shanshui and national development, shanshui and environment, shanshui as images of the mind, the tension of tradition and creativity in painting shanshui. Comparisons will be made with Dutch, English, French, and American landscape painting to provide a global perspective.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prior coursework in art history or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
From triumphal arches to souvenirs, and from tombstones to public portraits, ancient Romans excelled in the art of commemoration. Focusing on a different kind of monument each week, we will explore how Romans negotiated power through designs and dedications. In light of current debates about contested memorials, we will analyze ancient precedents for destroying or rewriting dedications to condemned emperors. We will also ask how modern commissions, such as New York's Washington Square Arch, draw on the authority of antiquity. Students will leave the course with a deeper understanding of how monuments work and how the Roman Empire's monuments still shape how we commemorate today.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prior coursework in Art History or Classical Civilization recommended.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Domestic architecture is perceived as both a setting for private life and a means of public self-expression. This course will explore the duality of "house and home" by paying close attention to the changing nature of domestic environments in North America from 1600 to 1900. Topics will include the gendering of domestic space; the role of architects, designers, and prescriptive literature in shaping domestic environments; technological change; the marketing and mass production of domestic furnishings; the relationship of houses to their natural environments; and visions for alternative, reform, or utopian housing arrangements. Site visits and walking tours are a central component of the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended. Not open to students who have taken ARTH 245.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as ARTH 245.
Poetic painting is a conspicuous visual phenomenon in East Asian art that at its best is technically superlative and deeply moving. This seminar investigates the development of this lyric mode of painting first in China and then in Korea and Japan from the eighth century to the twentieth through the practices of scholar-officials, emperors and empresses, masters in and outside of the Imperial Painting Academy, literati artists, and modern intellectuals. Literary ideals and artistic skills, tradition and creativity, patronage and identity, censorship and freedom of expression, and other tensions between paintings and poetry/poetry theories will be examined.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors with prior coursework in art history, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Liu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The production and use of sacred images has provoked a wide variety of responses within the Islamic world. This class explores how sacred images have been created, viewed, destroyed, and reused within Islamic cultural contexts ranging from the Arab-Muslim conquests of the seventh century to the present day. Rather than progressing chronologically, it examines sacred images from thematic and theoretical perspectives. Topics include iconoclasm and aniconism, depictions of sacred figures and places, talismans and images on objects imbued with divine agency, and articulations of new attitudes towards images at key historical moments.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prior coursework in Art History or Middle Eastern Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In the medieval Islamic world, crafting scientific tools wasn't just practical—it was an art form. Artists and builders used their knowledge of chemistry, metallurgy, geometry, astronomy, and anatomy to produce objects and monuments that were both beautiful and crucial to the discovery of new phenomena. In this seminar, we'll dive into the intertwined practices of artistic creation and scientific exploration, spanning the seventh to the fifteenth centuries. You'll investigate the discoveries behind objects, images, and monuments, such as astrolabes and zoological manuscripts. We'll cover fascinating topics like the secrets of constructing robotic automata, the alchemy of turning plants into vibrant textile dyes, and the geometric principles guiding the design of astronomical observatories and tile patterns. Our field trips to Special Collections and other exhibits will bring these concepts to life. You'll learn to see the world through both an artist's and a scientist's eyes, gaining insights into how medieval Islamic innovations continue to influence our modern world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 227, ARTH 229, ARTH 247, or ARTH 347, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
ARTH 376 is designed for students who are intrigued by direct work with historic artifacts and documents as well as students thinking about pursuing an honors thesis, or those who may need a writing sample for graduate school and fellowship applications. The course provides students with an opportunity to conduct directed, independent research in Boston-area museums, libraries, and historical societies on a topic that appeals to their particular interests. Students’ research will culminate in a project that interprets the material they analyzed and communicates their findings through a final written or digital project. The course will include field trips to local museums and libraries in the Boston area to learn about the diverse nature of historical collections along with hands-on workshops on different types of material and documentary evidence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200-level course in Art History or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: McNamara
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar will offer an overview and critical examination of methodologies used in historical research in the fields of art history and architecture. It will be structured around in-depth examination of case studies and close readings of key writings, highlighting innovative approaches to works of art and architecture dating from 1500 to the present. In many cases, the authors of assigned readings will present and discuss their work, providing students with a unique perspective and analysis of methodologies ranging from cultural and economic histories to material and environmental studies. The course will also examine contemporary strategies for "decolonization of the curriculum" and anti-racist approaches to the art historical canon through analysis of the status of works by women, artists of color, and/or in non-traditional media.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: A minimum of two 200-level courses in Art History.
Instructor: Friedman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Unacknowledged colonial ideologies have for too long promulgated structures and values that reinforce a white Euro-American privilege within the pedagogy of art history. How does one confront the legacy of colonialism within art history—a discipline that has historically focused on and promoted Eurocentric cultural and artistic values? How can we understand artistic movements and institutions relative to colonial legacies? What do decolonial processes look like as they are practiced at the juncture of art history, art practice, and critical theory? Building on postcolonial studies, critical race studies, and critical museum studies, among other theories and methods, this seminar will evaluate the possibilities and limits of decolonizing art history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ARTH 100 or WRIT 107, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Visual images have always been enlisted to influence individual and collective decision-making, action, and identity. However, the rise of the mass media in the nineteenth century, the multiplication of technologies in the twentieth century, and the media spaces of the twenty-first century have created unprecedented opportunities for the diffusion of propaganda and persuasive images. This seminar enlists case studies to examine the uses and functions of visual images in advertising and political propaganda. It also considers the historical interplay between elite and popular arts. The goal of the course is to sharpen our critical understanding and reception of the visual world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one 200-level course in Art or Media Arts and Sciences, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In less than two centuries, the British presence in India transformed from a small company of merchants into a vast, extractive empire ruled by the Crown. This course will critically examine visual culture relating to British colonialism in India from the mid-eighteenth century to Independence. We will consider the role of art in British diplomacy with rival kingdoms and independent territories, photography’s use in colonial surveillance, the impact of industrialization on Indian crafts, colonial patronage and institutions of art education, and architecture and monuments designed to naturalize British presence on the subcontinent. We will equally consider South Asian perspectives such as the role of photography and reproductive prints in the rise of nationalism, the swadeshi movement, and Indian artists’ engagement with or rejection of modernism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one 200-level Art History course or permission of the instructor recommended.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A foundational course that explores observational strategies and theories of perception using a range of drawing tools. Project work is focused on observational drawing methods with attention to the articulation of line, shape, time, form, gesture, perspective, and value. In-class drawing exercises, weekly homework assignments, and group critiques address a variety of approaches to image making and visual expression, with some attention put towards the human figure. Aimed at first years and sophomores and those considering majors in Studio Art or Architecture. Also recommended for those considering majors in Media Arts and Sciences, or Art History.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years, Sophomores, and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Cohn, McGibbon, Rivera
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Required for majors and minors in Studio Art as well as majors in Architecture.
This foundational studio course addresses the issue of composition in two-dimensional media. It focuses on the fundamental elements of visual design (e.g., line, shape, value, space, color) and their compositional impact. Studio projects emphasize visual problem-solving skills as a means of achieving more effective communication, with some attention to the issues of typography. Assignments explore a range of media and encourage creative experimentation with both analog and digital processes.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years, Sophomores, and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Miller
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This introductory, time-based media production course explores motion graphics, performance art, social practice, installation, Internet art, game design, animation, and the expanding digital domain of 'new media.' The focus will be on experimental, artistic practice using various methods of animation, video, and motion graphics. Studio projects will utilize Photoshop, Maya, Animate, and other imaging and audio programs. Aimed for first and second-year students.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years and Sophomores. Juniors and Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This studio course addresses the theoretical and practical aspects of the manufacture, publication, distribution, and survival of the book. Studio projects in Clapp Library's Book Arts Lab explore themes such as the evolution of the book form, the sequencing of image and text, and the relationship between form and content. Class sessions will feature demonstrations, visiting artists, and presentation of Special Collections materials. Readings and studio projects culminate in a book-based studio project. The knowledge base and skills acquired in this course can be applied to advanced coursework in a variety of disciplines.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years, Sophomores, and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Ruffin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
This introductory course explores the basic formal and spatial considerations when working with three-dimensional structure and form. Studio projects incorporate a range of materials and methods of visualization. Outside assignments and class discussions are aimed toward helping students enhance their creativity and spatial awareness while acquiring sensitivity for placement, process, and materials. Required for Architecture majors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Priority given to declared Architecture majors.
Instructor: Mowbray
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
This intermediate level studio course addresses a range of sculptural approaches by way of various materials, including clay, wood, metal, plaster, and cardboard. Each of these materials will be used to explore a specific technique or sculptural method such as carving, modeling, or fabrication. By the end of the semester, emphasis shifts towards the completion of more independent projects and conceptual questions regarding the tangible impact of materials, functions, and histories on sculptural artworks.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course or permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Mowbray
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Strongly recommended for Architecture majors.
An intermediate studio course designed for architecture and studio art majors wishing to strengthen their visual and spatial responsiveness. Class work explores various forms of drawing in two and three dimensions, including basic architectural rendering, fixed viewpoint perspective, mapping, modeling, and some digital work. Following a series of projects and discussions considering issues of space and place, the physicality of space, and our historic relationship to architecture, each student produces a self-directed final project. Strongly recommended for architecture majors before enrolling in the architectural design sequence at MIT.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course or permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Mowbray
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement. Strongly recommended for Architecture majors before enrolling in architectural design sequence at MIT.
Understanding the human form through sustained observational drawing, research, and experimentation. An intensive, mixed media drawing course that balances careful visual analysis with empathetic, gestural response. Tactile, experiential drawing exercises are complemented by shared readings and research addressing questions of representation in art and cultural conceptions of the body.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course.
Instructor: Cohn
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit.
An intermediate studio course centered on the fundamental issues of painting, emphasizing color, composition, and paint manipulation through direct observation and response. Studio assignments, presentations, discussions and critiques help students gain technical skills, visual sophistication, and critical awareness of the medium. Students paint from a variety of subjects, including the self-portrait, nude model, and still life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course or permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Rivera
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit.
This intermediate level studio course centers on planographic ways of printing from stone and plate lithography to screen printing and pochoir. Projects incorporate image/text juxtapositions, color theory, patterning, digital photo processes, and vector graphics using the Dactyl Press facilities. Field trips, readings, and collaborative print exchanges complement the individual studio assignments. Recommended for students interested in drawing, design, architecture, media arts, book studies, and art history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course or permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: McGibbon
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: ARTS 219, ARTS 220, ARTS 222 and ARTS 223 are complementary print media courses that may be elected in any order.
A studio exploration of intaglio and relief printing methods, including copperplate etching, collograph, and woodcut. Students develop visual and graphic flexibility through hands-on projects considering image sequences, pattern, text, and multiples. Several projects address color and typography and/or incorporate digital methods. Students participate in a collaborative print exchange in addition to completing individual projects. ARTS 219, ARTS 220, and ARTS 221 are complementary graphic arts courses and may be elected in any order.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course or permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: McGibbon
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: ARTS 219, ARTS 220, ARTS 222 and ARTS 223 are complementary print media courses and may be elected in any order.
This intermediate studio course is centered on the relationship between text and image through letterpress relief printing techniques and handmade book structures. Studio projects will include the production of limited edition artist's books that focus on the interplay of two and three dimensions in the book form. Emphasis will be placed on creative problem solving within the limitations of technology, and on the importance of the act of revision. Class sessions in the Papermaking Studio and Special Collections will augment intensive studio work in Clapp Library's Book Arts Lab.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course or permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Ruffin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
This intermediate studio course explores new hybrid approaches to graphic thinking, integrating traditional and new print technologies in experimental ways. Students develop greater visual and conceptual range in the Dactyl Press studios while developing iterative projects involving color, text-based art, handmade books, and installations. Some projects explore photo-digital print processes, laser-cutting, and vector graphics. Readings, discussions, critiques, demonstrations, and collaborative exchanges consider the ongoing impact of media culture. Especially recommended for students interested in design, architecture, media arts, and book studies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course or permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: McGibbon
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: ARTS 219, ARTS 220, ARTS 222 and ARTS 223 are complementary print media courses that may be elected in any order.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
An exploration of sculptural concepts utilizing a variety of materials and methods. This course will integrate the constructed and tangible, with process and practice, culminating in the development of independent projects. Emphasis will be placed on conceptual considerations, such as audience, context/location, materials, functionality, and histories.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one 200 level ARTS course completed at Wellesley.
Instructor: Mowbray
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An intensive studio course for juniors and seniors, considering the visual, conceptual, and spatial issues driving contemporary drawing practices. This course explores the act of drawing as a speculative and critical thinking process as well as a visual language. Class work addresses various observational and technical methods as well as reciprocities between sound, drawing, and time, and/or drawing and materiality. In-depth studio critiques, field trips, and interaction with visiting artists and musicians augment the projects. Following a period of intense studio exploration and dialogue, each student develops and hones an independent, cohesive body of work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course and at least one 200-level ARTS course.
Instructor: Rivera
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit.
A project-based course that examines in depth the history and the processes of painting. This studio provides an opportunity for advanced students to share their painting practice and benefit from intensive and well-informed critical dialogue. The group interacts in a seminar fashion, in which topics and problems are presented and students are asked to develop independent projects examining them. Students explore painting as object, painting in space, site specificity, and consider the impact of digital technologies on image making. Each student will continue to explore elements pertaining to the construction of painting while developing an independent vocabulary and a substantial, cohesive body of work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: ARTS 105 and ARTS 218, or permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Rivera
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit.
Part I of a year-long seminar supporting advanced studio students, divided into one half-credit course offered during the Fall semester and one half-credit in the Spring. This methodology-based course functions as an overlay to advanced studio projects underway in the context of 300 level studio classes and thesis projects. Students enrolled in the course will have access to independent workspace for the year and benefit from sustained dialogue and studio critiques with a range of faculty and visiting artists, including those hosted through the Frank Williams Visiting Artist Lecture Series. This course is mandatory for all Studio Art majors and strongly recommended for Studio Art minors and related visual arts majors.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 11
Prerequisites: ARTS 105 and two other 100-level studio courses, and either (at least two 200-level studio art courses; or one 200-level and one 300-level studio art course).
Instructor: Cohn
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Each semester of ARTS 317H and ARTS 318H earns one half unit of credit; however, both semesters must be completed satisfactorily to receive credit for either course. This course may be repeated once for credit, with the permission of the department.
Part II of a year-long seminar supporting advanced students, divided into one half-credit offered during the fall semester and one half-credit course in the spring leading towards the senior exhibition in May. This methodology-based course functions as an overlay to advanced projects underway in the context of advanced studio classes or thesis projects. Students enrolled in the course will have access to independent workspace and benefit from sustained dialogue and studio critiques with a range of faculty and visiting artists, including those hosted through the Frank Williams Visiting Artists Lecture Series. This course is mandatory for all Studio Art majors and strongly recommended for Studio Art minors and related visual arts majors.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 11
Prerequisites: ARTS 317H or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Cohn
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Each semester of ARTS 317H and ARTS 318H earns one half unit of credit; however, both semesters must be completed satisfactorily to receive credit for either course. This course may be repeated once for credit with the permission of the department.
What are graphic conventions and how do print methods inform contemporary artistic inquiry? A conceptually driven studio aimed for juniors and seniors who have successfully completed at least one graphics based studio course course at the 200 level. Readings, discussions, and field trips address sequential imagery, text/image interactions and the use of multiplicity in a range of visual formats, from the artist book to the site-based installation. Following a period of interactive studio experimentation and dialogue, each student develops a comprehensive self-directed project using the Dactyl Press facilities. May be repeated for degree credit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following - ARTS 208/CAMS 238, ARTS 219, ARTS 220, ARTS 221/CAMS 239, ARTS 222, ARTS 223, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: McGibbon
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Normally alternates with ARTS 323 every third semester. This course can be repeated once for credit.
Print studios are packed with metaphors of travel, and for good reason: the movement of an image from here to there is the central narrative guiding all graphic production. This advanced studio course is aimed for juniors and seniors able to work independently in at least one print medium with in-depth print based projects considering notions of travel and transformation. Students interact with visiting artists who address theories of travel, while developing sustained, self-directed projects using the Dactyl Press facilities. Studio work will be complemented by discussions, critiques, readings, and field trips. This course may be used to fulfill the capstone requirement for the MAS major.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: McGibbon
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Normally alternates with ARTS 322 every third semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: ARTS 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a studio faculty member, with assessments from the full studio art faculty. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This conceptually-driven studio seminar uses food as a theoretical and material strategy of investigation and production. It is a multi-disciplinary exploration of project themes spanning a range of creative disciplines (e.g., printmaking, sculpture and new media) that students have expertise in, with the added expectation of collaborating across new fields of inquiry within and outside the Art Department. The conceptual insights from texts will set the foundations for our understandings of literal and ideological consumption of food, as well as inform the implications of those principles on art making and presentation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course and at least one 200-level ARTS course.
Instructor: Nhamo
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the director.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member, sometimes in coordination with an off-site mentor. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ASPH 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course investigates the origin of life on the Earth and the prospects for finding life elsewhere in the cosmos, and begins with an overview of the Earth's place in the solar system and the universe. The course examines the early history of the Earth and the development of life, changes in the sun that affect the Earth, characteristics of the other objects in our solar system and their potential for supporting life, the detection of planets around stars other than the sun, and the search for extraterrestrial life. Our exploration of our place in the universe will include some nighttime observing at our on-campus observatory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 36
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Watters
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course provides an overview of the Universe through the lens of the physical principles that help us to probe it from right here on our puny planetary perch. Topics include stars and their planetary companions, the lives and deaths of stars, black holes, galaxies, and the origin and fate of the Universe. Class meetings include a mix of lecture and daytime laboratory activities. Additional required weekly nighttime sessions (scheduled according to the weather) guide students through their own observations of the sky with both naked eyes and the historic and modern telescopes of Whitin Observatory. This course serves as a gateway to more advanced courses in our astronomy curriculum.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years and Sophomores only. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. High school physics strongly recommended.
Instructor: Mowla
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This course will focus on exoplanets and the stellar systems they inhabit. Topics include exoplanet demographics, techniques of discovery and characterization, models of formation and evolution, and potential for future telescopes to uncover signs of atmospheric chemistry and habitability. Students will practice application of physical principles, build data analysis skills, and be introduced to astronomical literature. Students will also make exoplanet transit observations with our on-campus telescope and will model the resulting light curve to ascertain properties of a real exoplanetary system.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ASTR 107; or ASTR 100 with permission of the instructor.
Instructor: McLeod
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Design your own planetary mission and build your own scientific probe in this project-based course about the practice of planetary exploration! Students will learn about the science and technology of exploring extreme environments through studying the development of a historical planetary mission and by building their own instrumented probe to investigate a challenging environment such as the Earth's lower atmosphere or the bottom of Lake Waban. Depending on their role in the project, students can gain experience with a wide range of new skills, such as how to assemble and test electronic circuits, computer programming, and data analysis.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Any 100-level science course (including CS). High school physics recommended.
Instructor: Watters
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course provides an introduction to modern methods of astronomical observation. Students will learn to use the Whitin Observatory's 0.7m research telescope. Topics include: planning observations, modern instrumentation, and the acquisition and quantitative analysis of astronomical images. This course requires substantial nighttime telescope use and culminates with an independent observing project.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: ASTR 107
Instructor: McLeod
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The 21st-century Universe is weirder than 20th-century astronomers could imagine: its matter is mostly dark, the effects of dark energy dominate its evolution, and it is expanding at an accelerating rate. The galaxies in our Universe come in all shapes, sizes, and colors; they are cocooned in dark matter envelopes and harbor monster black holes at their centers. This class will explore what we think we know about our Universe's makeup, history, and fate. We will develop some of the basic laws of physics necessary to understand theoretical cosmology and galaxy evolution and apply them to the interpretation of modern observations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Either ASTR 107 and MATH 116, or PHYS 107.
Instructor: McLeod, Mowla
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Anomalies are observable phenomena that resist explanation in terms of a prevailing set of scientific beliefs. As such, anomalies sometimes have the effect of driving upheavals in scientific thought, in some cases overturning deeply-entrenched paradigms. Examples include: (a) the discovery that rocks fall to earth from space, and (b) aberrations in the orbit of Mercury that required a new theory of gravity to fully understand. Observations that at first appear anomalous sometimes turn out to be illusory, such as canal-like features reported in early 20th century telescopic observations of Mars. This course will explore the role of anomalies in driving scientific discovery, and in testing our critical thinking faculties, as well as our standards for what kinds of knowledge and inquiry count as "scientific". We will address case studies from this history of astronomy and other sciences, as well as relevant epistemological questions and social critiques of the modern scientific enterprise. We will also examine present-day candidate anomalies from within the scientific mainstream such as dark matter, as well as from the so-called pseudoscientific fringe, such as paranormal phenomena and Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Any 100-level science course taken at Wellesley.
Instructor: Watters
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 5
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member, sometimes in coordination with an off-site mentor. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ASTR 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall; Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Winter; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall; Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Winter; Spring
The first course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research problem, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Biochemistry program. Students will discuss their research progress informally with faculty and student colleagues and gain familiarity with contemporary research through presentations by outside seminar speakers. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open only to Seniors with permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
The second course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research problem, in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Biochemistry program. Students will discuss their research progress informally with faculty and student colleagues and gain familiarity with contemporary research through presentations by outside seminar speakers. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: BIOC 355 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: BIOC 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course will examine the scientific facts behind phenomena portrayed in a variety of Hollywood and foreign movies. We will cover topics ranging from the definition and recreation of life, genetics and behavior to evolution and environmental issues. The course will include weekly screenings of movies outside of class time as well as lectures, assigned readings and discussions. While obtaining an introduction to key concepts in biology, students will also explore misconceptions about science and scientists that are perpetuated by these movies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Königer
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this course we will focus on the cellular, evolutionary, and developmental biology of stem cells, how these cells contribute to development, regeneration, and aging in animals and plants, and how stem cells have been harnessed as novel patient therapies. Questions to be addressed include: How were stem cells discovered? Where do stem cells come from, and how can they be used to study and cure human diseases? What are the similarities and differences between embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and induced pluripotent stem cells? How does the capacity to regenerate vary across the plant and animal kingdom and why? We will also discuss the scientific, bioethical and political controversies associated with regenerative medicine and recent stem cell research. Students will be able to explain how translational research, basic research, science policy, and the layman's perspective all impact how that science is done and where it could lead. In the lab, students will observe and track stem cells in developing embryos, visualize stem cells in a variety of organisms, and design experiments to test the limits of regeneration.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Beers, Laslo
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
What can we learn from plants and ecosystems to sustainably grow food, source energy, and support people in a changing climate? This course will deepen your appreciation of plants and explore how plants grow, respond to change, and create resilient biological communities. We will apply an ecological lens toward understanding how humans can cultivate plants responsibly, whether caring for a houseplant, growing vegetables, or managing forests. Students will learn from diverse plants in the campus greenhouses and gardens, building scientific and horticultural skills through observation, experimentation and collaborative projects.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 32
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Jones, Nickles
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course focuses on human anatomy, physiology, and evolution. Lecture topics will include: human origins and evolution; the structure and function of the major physiological systems; exercise physiology; and human genetics. Laboratories explore human physiology, focusing on the development and application of skills in experimental design, statistical analysis, and scientific writing.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Skow
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A foundation course that focuses on the study of life at the cellular and molecular level, including eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell structure, function of biological macromolecules, molecular genetics, cellular metabolism, and key topics in cell biology. This course will provide the fundamental tools for exploration of cellular and molecular biology with the aim of enhancing conceptual understanding. Laboratories focus on experimental approaches to these topics and are shared with BISC 112. One year of high school chemistry or equivalent is strongly recommended. Either BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116; or BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y may be taken first. Students must attend lab during the first week in order to continue in the course.
When considering swapping labs, please be aware that there is no guarantee you will receive a seat offer in another lab section even if you are already registered for a different section. Therefore, we encourage you to make initial registration choices carefully and wisely.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 32
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
A foundation course that focuses on the study of life at the cellular and molecular level, including eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell structure, function of biological macromolecules, molecular genetics, cellular metabolism, and key topics in cell biology. This course will provide the fundamental tools for exploration of cellular and molecular biology with the aim of enhancing conceptual understanding. Laboratories focus on experimental approaches to these topics. This course is intended for students who, because of their previous biology, chemistry or math preparation, would benefit from additional academic support for the study of introductory biology, or who do not meet the prerequisites to enroll in BISC 110. Includes two additional class meetings per week. Students in BISC 110P must enroll in BISC 110P lab. Students must attend lab during the first week in order to continue in the course.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Open by permission of the instructor to students regardless of high school background or of whether they have already completed the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken (BISC 110, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116).
Instructor: Okumura, Roden
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A study of life, ranging from the physiology of organisms to the structure of ecosystems. The main themes of the course are evolution and biodiversity, form and function in plants and animals, and ecological interactions among organisms. The course provides the fundamental tools for exploration of organismal biology with the aim of enhancing conceptual understanding. Laboratories focus on experimental approaches to these topics and are shared with BISC 113 and BISC 113Y. Either BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116; or BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y may be taken first. Students must attend lab during the first week in order to continue in the course.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory: BISC 111L.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 32
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
BISC 111L is the co-requisite laboratory course for BISC 111.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: BISC 111L is the laboratory course for BISC 111. Students must register for a lab section of BISC 111L when registering for a lecture section of BISC 111.
Introduction to the central questions, concepts, and methods of experimental analysis in selected areas of organismal biology with a focus on tropical island biology. Topics include evolution, ecology, and plant and animal structure and physiology. Lectures and discussions during the Spring semester will prepare students for the field laboratory taught at the Central Caribbean Marine Institute in Little Cayman. Laboratory work will be carried out primarily in the field and includes introductions to the flora and fauna of the island and the coral reefs, as well as group projects. The nine-day field portion of the class will take place in mid-May.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken BISC 111, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y. Contact instructor for the application in early October.
Instructor: Königer, Sequeira
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Seminar-style introduction to life at the cellular and molecular level, designed as an alternative to BISC 110 for students with strong high school preparation (such as AP, IB, or other). The course will include eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell structure, function of biological macromolecules, molecular genetics, cellular metabolism, molecular genetics, and mechanisms of growth and differentiation, with an emphasis on experimental approaches to investigating these topics. This course will aim to develop students' skills in data analysis and scientific writing along with building foundational knowledge in the field. Lab sections are shared with BISC 110. This course differs from BISC 110 in its small class size and discussion-based format; it meets for one discussion and one lab session per week. One year of high school chemistry or equivalent is strongly recommended. BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116; or BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y may be taken first. Students must attend lab during the first week in order to continue in the course.
When considering swapping labs, please be aware that there is no guarantee you will receive a seat offer in another lab section even if you are already registered for a different section. Therefore, we encourage you to make initial registration choices carefully and wisely.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Biology AP score of 4 or 5, or IB HL Biology score of 6 or 7, or permission of the instructor. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112Y or BISC 116.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Seminar-style introduction to life at the cellular and molecular level, designed as an alternative to BISC 110 for students with strong high school preparation (such as AP, IB, or other). The course will include eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell structure, function of biological macromolecules, molecular genetics, cellular metabolism, molecular genetics, and mechanisms of growth and differentiation, with an emphasis on experimental approaches to investigating these topics. This course will aim to develop students' skills in data analysis and scientific writing along with building foundational knowledge in the field. Lab sections are shared with BISC 110. This course differs from BISC 110 in its small class size and discussion-based format; it meets for one discussion and one lab session per week. One year of high school chemistry or equivalent is strongly recommended. BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116; or BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y may be taken first. Students must attend lab during the first week in order to continue in the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Open to First-Year students only. Biology AP score of 4 or 5/IB HL Biology score of 6 or 7, or permission of the instructor. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112 or BISC 116.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An exploration of the central questions, concepts, and methods of experimental analysis in selected areas of organismal biology, designed as an alternative to BISC 111 for students with strong high school preparation (such as AP, IB, or other). Topics include: the evolution and diversification of life, the form and function of plants and animals, and ecological interactions among organisms, with an emphasis on laboratory methods, data analysis, and science writing. Lab sections are shared with BISC 111. This course differs from BISC 111 in its smaller class size, a seminar-style format, and a focus on discussion of landmark scientific studies that shape this field; it meets for one discussion and one lab session per week. Either BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116 or BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y may be taken first. Students must attend lab during the first week in order to continue in the course.
This course has a required co-requisite lab - BISC 113L.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Biology AP score of 4 or 5, or IB HL Biology score of 6 or 7, or permission of the instructor. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken BISC 111, BISC 111T, or BISC 113Y.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course, Fall sections only.
BISC 113L is the co-requisite laboratory course for BISC 113.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An exploration of the central questions, concepts, and methods of experimental analysis in selected areas of organismal biology, designed as an alternative to BISC 111 for students with strong high school preparation (such as AP, IB, or other). Topics include: the evolution and diversification of life, the form and function of plants and animals, and ecological interactions among organisms, with an emphasis on laboratory methods, data analysis, and science writing. Lab sections are shared with BISC 111. This course differs from BISC 111 in its smaller class size, a seminar-style format, and a focus on discussion of landmark scientific studies that shape this field; it meets for one discussion and one lab session per week. Either BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116; or BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y may be taken first. Students must attend lab during the first week in order to continue in the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Open to First-Year students only. Biology AP score of 4 or 5, or IB HL Biology score of 6 or 7, or permission of the instructor. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken BISC 111, BISC 111T, or BISC 113.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A foundation course that provides an integrated introduction to the application of chemical principles to understand biological systems and covers the content of both (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, or BISC 112Y) and CHEM 105. It is designed for students whose interests lie at the interface of chemistry and biology and must be taken concurrently with CHEM 116. Students will learn how structure and function of biological systems are shaped by principles of atomic properties and chemical bonding. Cellular metabolism and molecular genetics are integrated with quantitative introductions to thermodynamics, equilibrium, and kinetics. Other topics motivated by the application of chemistry to biology include nuclear chemistry and cellular growth and differentiation. The laboratory is a hands-on introduction to spectroscopy, microscopy, and other experimental techniques, as well as quantitative analysis, experimental design, and scientific writing. Successful completion of this course enables a student to take any course for which either CHEM105 or (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, or BISC 112Y) is a prerequisite.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 32
Prerequisites: One year of high school chemistry, math equivalent to two years of high school algebra, and fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken BISC 110 , BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, CHEM 105, CHEM 105P, or CHEM 120. Students must attend lab during the first week to continue in the course.
Instructor: A. Matthews (Biological Sciences), J. Woodford (Chemistry)
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: CHEM 116-01 and BISC 116-01 are co-requisite courses and students must register for both sections at the same time. Students must also register simultaneously for a lab section (either BISC 116 L01 or BISC 116 L02). Students must attend the first lab session in order to continue in the course. Students with AP or IB credit in chemistry who elect this course forfeit the AP or IB credit.
This course applies statistical theory to problems in ecology and experimental biology to illustrate some of the more common techniques of experimental design and data analysis. Students will learn how to plan an experiment and consider the observations, measurements, and potential statistical tests before data are collected and analyzed. The course will enable students to work with complex datasets and distill them into meaningful information from which they can draw reasoned conclusions and communicate their findings. Specific topics include best practices in data visualization, probability distributions and their applications, one- and two-way ANOVA and t-tests, regression and correlation, goodness-of-fit tests, and nonparametric alternatives. The course will be run as a studio with combined lecture and hands-on data analysis using the open-source computing software R.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement and one course in biology, chemistry, ES 100 or ES 101.
Instructor: Selden
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An introduction to the scientific study of the interrelationships among organisms and their interactions with the environment. Topics include evolutionary adaptation in dynamic environments, behavioral ecology and life-history strategies, population dynamics, interactions among organisms, and the structure and function of biological communities and ecosystems. Emphasis is placed on the development of quantitative skills and reading the primary scientific literature to address issues such as the stability and resilience of ecosystems with climate change, conservation of endangered species, and the dynamics of infectious disease. Laboratory will focus on applying ecological concepts to observational and experimental field data collection, data organization, and statistical analysis.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites: BISC 108 or (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y) or ES 100 or ES 101 or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Examination of evolution, the central paradigm of biology, at the level of populations, species, and lineages. Topics include the genetics of populations, the definition of species, the roles of natural selection and chance in evolution, the reconstruction of phylogeny, the evolution of sex, the impact of sexual selection, the importance of evolutionary thinking in medicine, and patterns in the origination of diversity, and extinction of species over time. Class work emphasizes collaborative work and reading and interpreting primary literature. Labs include hands-on assessments of genetic variation in populations using DNA and protein based analyses; exploration of computer simulations to understand the effects of genetic drift and student-designed experiments to assess the effects of natural selection in populations.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y) or by permission of the instructor. (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, or BISC 112Y is strongly recommended.)
Instructor: Sequeira, Okumura
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
How do animals work? This course addresses the structure, systems of physiology, and energetics of vertebrate animals, with comparisons of the adaptations of animals of different thermal regime, body size, lifestyle, and environment. The laboratories include projects in diversity, respirometry, digestion, muscle energetics, study of comparative anatomy through dissections of vertebrate specimens, and the use of statistics and graphing.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: BISC 109 or (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y) or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Can we anticipate the effects that genetic variation will have on the future of a species? How can we predict the spread of an impending epidemic? How many fish will be in the ocean next year? Mathematical models liberate biologists from only being able to draw inferences from what we can directly observe, and these models allow us to develop a deeper understanding of complex systems. In this course students will develop skills in conceptualizing, writing, programming, and interpreting results from biological models through theoretical examples and laboratory exercises.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116) or (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y) and MATH 116 (or equivalent); or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An overview of the physiology and development of land plants from the cell/molecular level to the whole organism. Topics include photosynthesis, transport systems, patterns and regulation of growth and development, and interactions with the environment – both biotic (pathogens, animals, other plants) and abiotic (light, water, temperature). Applied aspects including medicinal plants and the potential for biotechnology to increase food production in the face of climate change will be addressed. The investigative, exploratory laboratory sessions will provide an introduction to techniques currently employed in answering research questions ranging from the cellular to the organismal level.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116) or (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y) or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Peterman, Beers
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Comprehensive overview of the microbial world, with emphasis on bacteria. Topics include microbial cell structure and function, diversity, metabolism, evolution, genetics, and ecology. Also covered are applied aspects of microbiology with a focus on the food industry, biotechnology, human health, and the role microbes play in environmental processes. Labs encompass inquiry-based projects exploring microbial ecology, metabolism and interactions between microbes, production of antibiotics, and sequence-based identification of microbes and microbial communities. Students will have the opportunity to design and conduct an experiment on microbes. Students must attend both lecture and lab during the first week in order to continue in the course.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: ((BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, or BISC 112Y) and one unit of college chemistry) or BISC 116.
Instructor: Klepac-Ceraj, Roden
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and are our planet’s primary life support system. This course examines adaptations and interactions of plants and animals in a variety of marine habitats. Focal habitats include the photic zone of the open ocean, the deep-sea, subtidal and intertidal zones, estuaries, and coral reefs. Emphasis is placed on the dominant organisms, food webs, and experimental studies conducted within each habitat. Laboratories will emphasize diversity of species in marine habitats and will highlight local coastal ecosystems. Partnerships with other marine scientists around the country and globe will be leveraged for comparative study. The course will include projects on phase shifts and alternative stable states, harmful algae blooms, coral reef resilience, seabird foraging, deep sea biodiversity, sea level rise, and local seafood markets.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - BISC 210L.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: One of the following (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, BISC 113Y) or ES 101; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Nickels, Selden
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for BISC 210.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: One of the following (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, BISC 113Y) or ES 101; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Nickles
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In meeting the challenges of survival and reproduction, animals have evolved behaviors that can be spectacular and sometimes unpleasant. With the goal of understanding how behaviors ultimately shape an animal's fitness, we will explore the aspects of life that make each animal's strategy unique, including communication, finding mates, parental care, and sociality. Laboratories will expose students to the challenges of experimental design and collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting data on animal behavior.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: BISC 109 or (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y) or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Mattila, Skow
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this course, we will explore animal development beginning with the process of fertilization. We will consider how a single cell gives rise to the many specialized cell types of the adult and how the development of tissues is coordinated. The mechanisms that determine cell fate during embryonic development will be discussed. Topics will include: embryonic induction, pattern formation, organ development, regeneration, stem cells, and aging. Laboratory sessions will focus on experimental approaches to development. This course does not have a waitlist, we know enrollments shift and spaces open up, so check back regularly for spots.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: One of (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, or BISC 116) and one of (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, or BISC 113Y) or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Suzuki, Beers
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The goal of the course is to develop an understanding of the fundamental principles of genetics at the molecular, cellular, organismal, and population levels. The course establishes a link between the generation of genetic variants through mutation and recombination, their patterns of inheritance, interactions between genes to produce complex phenotypes, and the maintenance of such genetic variation in natural populations. The course also explores principles of genome organization and the mechanisms that regulate gene expression. Other topics include: DNA sequencing and the use of genomic data to address questions in genetics, comparing and contrasting genetic regulation strategies across the three domains of life, and exploring experimental approaches for addressing genetic questions. Laboratory investigation will expose students to the fundamentals of genetics including transmission, molecular, and computational techniques for genetic analysis. Students must attend lab during the first week in order to continue in the course. During certain weeks, students are required to come in outside of scheduled lab time for approximately one hour 3-4 days after the scheduled lab. Please plan your schedule accordingly.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory: BIOC 219L/BISC 219L.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 60
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 219,BIOC 219
Prerequisites: BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y or BISC 116. One unit of college chemistry is recommended. Not open to First-Year students.
Instructor: Beers, Biller, Carmell, Okumura, Sequeira
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for BIOC 219/BISC 219.
The grading option chosen for the lecture (BIOC 219/BISC 219) - either Letter Grade or Credit/Non Credit - will apply to the lab as well; the final grade is a single unified grade for both lecture and lab and is based on the grading option you choose for the lecture section.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 219L,BIOC 219L
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Fall
Notes:
Examines structure-function relationships in eukaryotic cells. We will explore the operation and regulation of molecular mechanisms that carry out processes central to life. Considerable emphasis is placed on experimental approaches for investigating the following topics: protein structure and function, biological membranes and transport, cytoskeletal assembly and function, protein biogenesis and trafficking, cell communication and signaling, the cell cycle, and intercellular interactions. Laboratory investigations will provide students with experience in classical and modern approaches to examine and quantify cellular processes. Students must attend lab during the first week in order to continue in the course.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 48
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 220
Prerequisites: One of the following (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, or BISC 112Y) and two units of college chemistry; or BISC 116 and CHEM 116 and one unit of college chemistry. Not open to First-Year students.
Instructor: Darling, Okumura, Roden
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course will provide an introduction into the core concepts of population genetics, with special focus on their application to human and nonhuman primate evolution. Population genetics is the branch of evolutionary biology concerned with how genetic variation is patterned within and between populations and how these patterns change over time. Though the theory is applicable to all organisms, specific examples drawn from the human and nonhuman primate literature will be used as case studies. Topics will also include the genetic basis for disease, pedigree analysis, and personal genomics. The course will be structured around lectures and discussion with regular computer labs to provide firsthand experience working with anthropological genetic topics and analyses of genetic data sets.
Note: This course can fulfill the elective course requirement for the BISC major, but does not fulfill the core 200 level course requirement for the major.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: BISC 274
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Van Arsdale
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course takes an integrated approach to the study of organ system function in humans. We will examine control mechanisms that allow the body to maintain a constant balance in the face of environmental challenges, such as exercise, temperature change, and high altitude. Our particular focus will be recent findings in the areas of neural, cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, and muscle physiology. In the laboratory, students gain experience with the tools of modern physiological research at both the cellular and organismal levels.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, BISC 113Y or NEUR 100) and (BISC 203 or NEUR 200).
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In some countries, 3-5% of births are achieved with assisted reproductive technologies, and this number is projected to grow as societies become increasingly interested in beating the biological clock. This class will introduce the basic biology behind fertility and explore the etiology and diagnosis of infertility. We will cover the latest developments in reproductive science and consider the clinical challenges of translating research findings into medical treatments. We will discuss gonadal stem cells and their use for rejuvenation of fertility, oocyte and embryo cryopreservation, and mouse models with abnormal reproductive phenotypes. This class will highlight open questions in reproductive biology, familiarize students with both tried-and-true and emerging reproductive technologies, and explore the advantages and pitfalls of each. A major goal of the class is to teach students to read and critically evaluate the primary research literature. Student participation in discussions will be emphasized.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, BISC 116) and two of the following three courses (BISC 219/BIOC 219, BIOC 220/BISC 220, BISC 216), or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Carmell
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Tropical forests and coral reefs are among the most fascinating and diverse ecosystems, but unfortunately face an ever increasing number of threats. In this discussion based class, students present and analyze papers that illustrate how these ecosystems function, why they are struggling and what can be done to prevent further decline and to hopefully restore them. We will pay attention to the observational, experimental and analytical approaches that are used in this field of study. The week-long laboratory part takes place at the Central Caribbean Marine Institute in Little Cayman in mid-May. Students will have the opportunity to carry out their own research projects that they designed during the semester. To receive more information including the application form, please reach out to Prof. Königer.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following courses - BISC 201, BISC 202, BISC 207, BISC 210, BISC 214, or permission of the instructors.
Instructor: Königer, Sequeira
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The diversity of organismal forms has fascinated human beings for centuries. How did butterflies get eyespots? What is the evolutionary origin of bird feathers? How did snakes get to be so long? How did humans evolve? The field of evolutionary developmental biology, or evo-devo, integrates the long-separate fields of evolutionary biology and developmental biology to answer these questions. In this course, we will explore topics such as the evolution of novelties, body plan evolution, developmental constraints, convergent evolution, and the role of environmental changes in evolution. Through reading of original papers, we will examine recent advances made in evo-devo and critically analyze the role of evo-devo in biology and the implications beyond biology. Students will have the opportunity to design and conduct an independent research project using molecular tools in arthropods.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: BISC 202, or BISC 216, or BISC 219/BIOC 219, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Suzuki
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Evolution is the foundation for all biology. We have long been able to recognize its contributions to understanding infectious disease and genetics, but we are yet far from realizing its full potential in the medicine field. We often think of the human body as an efficient machine. We view disease as a defect arising in an otherwise perfect device. An evolutionary perspective offers a more realistic view of the body as a product of natural selection: functional and remarkable in many ways, but also flawed in many ways, for good evolutionary reasons. In this course we will explore the premise that the human body and its pathogens are not perfectly designed machines but evolving biological systems shaped by selection under the constraints of tradeoffs that produce specific compromises and vulnerabilities. Through primary literature analysis, group presentations, student designed activities, and collaborative work, we will explore fundamental evolutionary principles such as arms races, maladaptation, evolutionary mismatch, and evolutionary theories of senescence, and their connections to medicine.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following (BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, BISC 113Y) and either (BISC 202 or BISC 219/BIOC 219), or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Sequeira
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course delves into the rapidly evolving field of human microbiome research, an area significantly transformed by the advent of next-generation sequencing technologies. We will learn about microorganisms and microbial ecosystems within the human body and their impact on human health. Key topics include an overview of the human microbiome, advances in technologies, microbial diversity and function and its role in health and disease, the gut-brain axis and microbiome’s impact on neurocognitive development and mental health, microbiome and metabolic disorders, and other topics. Through a combination of lectures, critical analysis of recent research papers, and discussions, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of the human microbiome's complexity and its significance in health and disease. This course aims to equip students with the knowledge to critically evaluate current research and contemplate the future direction of this exciting field, with an emphasis on ethical and responsible scientific practice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CHEM 105 and any of the following - BISC 201, BISC 202, BISC 209, BISC 210, BISC 219/BIOC 219 or BISC 220/ BIOC 220, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Klepac-Ceraj
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The availability of next generation sequencing in the last two decades has revolutionized the field of environmental microbiology. Although most of the microbial world remains to be discovered and explored, we are now starting to find answers to some central ecological questions such as: What microbes are present in various ecosystems? What is the distribution of each type of organism? What are their roles (functions)? How does each role relate to the magnitude of microbial activity? What factors influence microbial activity and interactions? We will explore the questions in the context of the human and fermented foods microbiomes. The topics will include microbial diversity, microbial evolution, phylogeny, physiology, metabolism, community ecology, genomics, metagenomics and proteomics. Through reading of original papers on the human microbiome, we will examine recent advances made in microbial ecology and critically analyze the role of microorganisms on human health and beyond. Students will have the opportunity to design and conduct an independent research project to explore the cheese microbiome.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CHEM 211 and any of the following - BISC 201, BISC 202, BISC 209, BISC 210, BISC 219/BIOC 219 or BISC 220/ BIOC 220, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Klepac-Ceraj
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Molecular genetic techniques, which allow us to identify, analyze and manipulate genes, have revolutionized our understanding of how organisms develop and function. This course focuses on the use of molecular genetic and genomic approaches to dissect and manipulate complex biological systems. In this semester-long project-based course, students will use these approaches to pursue an original research question in a genetic model organism. Seminar-style class sessions will focus on critical analysis, presentation and discussion of the primary literature relevant to the research project. In the laboratory, students will gain experience with a variety of current molecular genetic methods (e.g. DNA cloning and sequencing, PCR, genomic analysis, RNAi, gene knock-outs, mutagenesis, bioinformatics) with an emphasis on experimental design and data analysis.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: BIOC 219/BISC 219 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Peterman
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Animals are found in nearly every habitat on Earth, but not all environments are suitable or hospitable to humans. Unlike people, some animals can live without liquid water, endure being frozen, withstand immense pressure, and even live months in the complete absence of oxygen. Our goal for this course is to address a singular question: What adaptations do animals possess that enable them to survive under conditions lethal to humans? By comparing and contrasting the different ways animals overcome stressors in their biotic and abiotic environment, we will both broaden and deepen our understanding of how animals survive. We will consider the physiology of vertebrate and invertebrate animals, with an emphasis on the basic principles of physiology, and explore how adaptations to extreme environments are conserved or have diverged among phylogenetically diverse groups. The goal of this course is to introduce students to current topical questions in environmental physiology, through a combination of lectures, invited seminars, review of the primary literature, class discussions, individual projects, and oral presentations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following - BISC 201, BISC 202, BISC 203, BIOC 219/BISC 219; or permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Year students.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
CRISPR gene editing is at the center of an ongoing revolution in biology. This system for precise and efficient gene editing has led to numerous applications in medicine, agriculture and the environment. This course will examine the molecular genetic, cellular and biochemical principles that govern CRISPR and its myriad uses. Topics will include the microbial adaptive immune system and its modification for use as a gene editing tool, applications of CRISPR to the study and treatment of cancer and human diseases — both genetic and infectious, the use of CRISPR to engineer food crops that thrive in the face of climate change, CRISPR gene drives as tools to control disease-spreading insects and invasive species in wild populations, and CRISPR as a powerful tool to study model organisms and probe biological functions. We will also evaluate ethical and legal issues surrounding this revolutionary genome engineering system.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: BISC 219/BIOC 219 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Peterman
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to examine how scientists address physiologically significant questions in cell and molecular biology using imaging-based techniques and modalities. We will examine the development and utilization of both qualitative and quantitative optical microscopy techniques, focusing on fluorescent microscopy. Student exploration and analysis of review and primary literature will be integral to this course along with a hands-on fluorescence microscopy project. The course incorporates a combination of introductory lectures, seminar-style discussions, practical experience, and student presentations throughout the semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Two 200-level BISC or BIOC courses, one of which should be BISC 219/BIOC 219 or BISC 220/BIOC 220, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: L. Darling
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Cell biology was born in the microscope, which now allows us to visualize the dynamic processes of life inside cells. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine how scientists address physiologically significant questions using microscopy and imaging approaches. The course’s main goal is to empower students to explore and evaluate the use of microscopy in cell and molecular biology. We study the development and utilization of qualitative and quantitative optical microscopy techniques, focusing on fluorescence microscopy. Theoretical and practical fundamentals are discussed, and student analysis of review and primary literature is integral to this course. Class meetings may include a combination of introductory lectures, literature discussions, student presentations throughout the semester, and hands-on experience in the laboratory where students work with research-grade microscopes. Student-designed investigations will incorporate the expression and assessment of fluorescent protein tags in mammalian cell model systems with an emphasis on experimental design and image analysis. Assignments and activities are designed to help students learn to collaborate successfully to solve problems in an interdisciplinary team.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Two 200-level BISC or BIOC courses, one of which is BISC 219/BIOC 219 or BISC 220/BIOC 220, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken BISC 328.
Instructor: L. Darling
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is a required co-requisite laboratory for BISC 329.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Two 200-level BISC or BIOC courses, one of which is BISC 219/BIOC 219 or BISC 220/BIOC 220, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken BISC 328.
Instructor: L. Darling
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Neurodegeneration affects millions of people in the U.S. Both domestically and internationally, neurodegeneration is increasingly burdening healthcare systems as life expectancies are increasing and populations in many nations are aging. Fortunately, our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of several neurodegenerative diseases is improving. In this course, we will explore the current understanding of several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease, ALS, and Parkinson’s Disease as well as a few rare diseases. We will also explore the molecular mechanisms of emerging therapeutics in these diseases including deep brain stimulation, small molecules, and biologics. We will consider both approved drugs and drugs in the clinical pipeline. All course content will be supported by primary literature. Class sessions will include mini-lectures, student discussions, and group work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Two 200-level BISC/BIOC courses. At least one of these must be BISC 219/BIOC 219 or BISC 220/BIOC 220.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Computational analyses of large-scale datasets have become central to modern biology. In this class, students will learn how 'omics' techniques such as genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics can help to answer questions in diverse fields ranging from cell biology to ecology and evolution. Lectures and discussions of primary literature will utilize examples from microbiology to introduce students to the design, analysis, and interpretation of 'omics'-based studies. We will explore the theory behind key bioinformatic algorithms and gain hands-on experience applying these tools to real datasets. The laboratory will culminate in an original research project utilizing genomic data to study microbial ecosystems. Topics covered include genome sequencing, assembly and interpretation; comparative genomics; metagenomics; transcriptomics; metabolic models; network analysis; and machine learning.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: BISC 219/BIOC 219 or BISC 209; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Biller
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
In this course, we will study stem cells in terms of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology. We will focus on different types of stem cells, particularly embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and induced pluripotent stem cells. More specifically, we will explore how stem cells develop, the criteria by which stem cells are defined, and stem cell characteristics under investigation. Current research in the areas of disease, potential stem cell therapies, and regenerative medicine will also be discussed. Bioethical issues related to stem cell biology will be described. Students will present and discuss original literature throughout the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: BISC 216 or BISC 219/BIOC 219 or BISC 220/BIOC 220.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will explore the underlying mechanisms of a variety of human diseases whose causes have been heavily studied at the cellular and molecular level. We will take a research-oriented approach to the material through critical reading and analysis of primary literature on each topic and we will explore how this knowledge informs the design, development and implementation of treatments. Topics of study may include diseases related to: metabolism, genetics, protein folding, cytoskeleton, membrane trafficking, inflammation, and/or pathogenic infection. This course will utilize a combination of lectures to introduce general concepts, seminar-style discussions of primary literature articles, and student presentations throughout the semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: BIOC 220/BISC 220
Instructor: Goss
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
In this course, we will analyze the molecular, cellular, and biochemical mechanisms involved in the development and function of the immune system. We will also explore the immunological basis of infectious diseases (e.g. influenza and tuberculosis), allergic disorders, autoimmune diseases (e.g. multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis), immunodeficiency syndromes (e.g. AIDS), transplantation, and cancer. This course will utilize a combination of lectures to introduce new material, seminar-style discussions of primary research articles, and student presentations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Two 200-level BISC/BIOC courses. At least one of these 200-level courses must be either BISC 219/ BIOC 219 or BISC 220/ BIOC 220.
Instructor: Matthews
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Maintaining cellular homeostasis in the face of environmental stress is paramount to cell survival. In this course we will examine the cellular and molecular responses of eukaryotic cells to stress at the levels of DNA, RNA, and protein, with consideration of organelle-specific responses. Topics will include heat shock, osmotic stress, hypoxia, starvation, and oxidative stress. This course focuses primarily on conserved and mammalian mechanisms activated in response to macromolecular strain, rather than stress responses unique to organisms adapted to environmental extremes. Throughout the course, we will discuss the evolution and conservation of the cellular stress response, connections to disease, as well as the challenges and future directions of the field. This course will consist of lectures, invited seminars from researchers in the field, and discussion of scientific reviews and primary articles. Articles will showcase classic stress response research as well as new findings and methods in the field.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Two 200-level BISC/BIOC courses. At least one of these must be BISC 219/BIOC 219 or BISC 220/BIOC 220.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Warfare, communication, agriculture, and caring for family are phenomena that are typically attributed to human societies, but social insects do these same things. In this course, we will explore the weird and wonderful world of social insects to discover why sociality is the most successful animal strategy on the planet. We will learn about how conflict and selfishness have shaped the cooperative effort that characterizes these seemingly utopian communities, and why human survival depends on their ecosystem services. Using social insects as a lens for major themes in biology, we will discuss biodiversity, invasions, animal communication and cognition, self-organized systems and the evolution of biological oddities. The course will focus on discussion of classic literature, groundbreaking research, and topical writing for the sciences and general public. Group activities will also include excursions outdoors and a book club.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: BISC 201, BISC 202, or BISC 214 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Mattila
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Scientists have made great progress revealing intricate details of many biological processes. They understand the importance of their work like the back of their hands. The scientific literacy of the general public, however, has not kept pace. This seminar aims to equip students with the writing skills necessary to communicate important ideas from a breadth of biological disciplines in an exciting, clear and relevant manner to a range of audiences. The body of work created in this class will include short pieces on articles from the primary literature, reviews of presentations and magazine articles by experts, as well as op-eds on scientific issues of interest and a profile of a scientist of choice. Peer editing and writing workshops play a large part, aiding students as they write multiple drafts of each assignment.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Any two BISC 200-level courses or permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors and Seniors only.
Instructor: Königer
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Independent research supervised by a member of the faculty of the Department of Biological Sciences or an off-campus director. Off-campus projects require an on-campus advisor from the department. Students will be expected to devote 10-12 hours per week to their research.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Independent research supervised by a member of the faculty of the Department of Biological Sciences or an off-campus director. Off-campus projects require an on-campus advisor from the department. Students will be expected to devote 5-6 hours per week to their research.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
The first course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research problem, in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Department of Biological Sciences. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open only to Seniors with permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester. This route can lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
The second course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research problem, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Department of Biological Sciences. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: BISC 355 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: BISC 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
What makes an informed and engaged citizen of media, culture, and society in the second quarter of the 21st century? This course will equip students with crucial skills for navigating contemporary media environments: how to engage in formal and visual analysis across media, how to be discerning consumers of information, and how to think critically about the political and economic systems that structure our heavily mediated lives. Critical terms for the study of media, such as industry, information, infrastructure, interactivity, networks, publics, screens, will be examined through the analysis of various media artifacts from photography, cinema, broadcast TV and digital platforms.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years and Sophomores, Juniors by permission of instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course introduces students to the study of audio-visual media, including oral, print, photographic, cinematic, broadcast, and digital media forms and practices. Using a case study approach, we will explore the nature of audio-visual communication/representation in historical, cultural, disciplinary, and media-specific contexts, and examine different theoretical and critical perspectives on the role and power of media to influence our social values, political beliefs, identities, and behaviors. We'll also consider how consumers of media representations can and do contest and unsettle their embedded messages. Our emphasis will be on developing the research and analytical tools, modes of reading, and forms of critical practice that can help us to negotiate the increasingly mediated world in which we live.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Required weekly film screening.
In an age of algorithmic automation, mass surveillance, and the commodification of social relations, this course asks the question: is technology evil? Using that provocation as a means to investigate the design, use, and economics of social media and other digital objects, we will read a mix of academic and popular texts that treat new media as a problem—not as an unqualified ill, but as something to be carefully considered in all of its immense power and pervasiveness in everyday life. Through an introduction to the methodologies of visual analysis, and close reading, we will think critically about the role of mass media in the production of consuming subjects, of the representations of race, gender and sexuality in new media, and the nature and role of aesthetics and design in contemporary life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: N. Gutierrez
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This introductory course explores video as an art form. Organized around a series of assignments designed to survey a range of production strategies, the course is a primer to the technical and conceptual aspects of video production and to its historical, critical, and technical discourse. Relationships between video and television, film, installation, and performance art are investigated emphasizing video as a critical intervention in social and visual arts contexts. Weekly readings, screenings, discussions and critique, explore contemporary issues in video and help students develop individual aesthetic and critical skills. Practical knowledge is integrated through lighting, video/sound production and editing workshops.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 135
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years, Sophomores, and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Joskowicz
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Meets the Production requirement for CAMS majors. Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Photo I is a foundational studio course exploring key methods and concepts in photography and visual media. Technical skills will be addressed through camera and darkroom work, lighting, and the discussion of photographic images. Studio assignments, readings, discussions, lectures, gallery visits, and critiques will help students understand photography's broader role in contemporary art, history, and society. Aimed for first year and sophomore students, and those pursuing majors in Studio Art, MAS, or CAMS.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 138
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years and Sophomores. Juniors and Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Landeros
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Meets Production requirement for CAMS major.
This course investigates the technological, economic, and cultural determinants behind forms of media from the last 150 years, including the telephone, the telegraph, photography, and film, as well as new media like virtual reality and interactive media. If photography realized the desire to transcend mortality and early cinema fulfilled the dream to depict the world, their missions have been extended by technologies that seek to invent new worlds as well as material and virtual realities. Relying on a material theory of film and audio-visual media, the course examines both technologies of making and of circulation, exploring the commercial potential of the entertainment industry. The course will employ relevant texts, films, and other audio-visual artifacts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One of the following - CAMS 100, CAMS 101, CAMS 105, ARTS 165/CAMS 135, ARTS 108/CAMS 138, ARTH 100, WRIT 107, any CAMS 200-level course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Examining cinematic forms and styles, this course retraces film's emergence and development as an art and its relations to other artistic, cultural, technological, and socio-economic practices. Analysis of representative films will help understand cinema's relationship to reality, including its reproduction and construction of the "real," the changing terms of spectatorship, and the ways in which film aesthetics have been employed to build ideology and interrogate it. Understanding form as inextricably bound to content, we will appreciate the aesthetic significance of formal choices and innovations within particular films, directorial oeuvres, periods and movements, from classical Hollywood cinema to European New Waves of the 60s and 70s, to the contemporary cinemas of Asia and Latin America.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One of the following - CAMS 101, CAMS 105, ARTS 165/CAMS 135, ARTS 108/CAMS 138, ARTH 100, WRIT 107; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Morari
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Photography is so much a part of our private and public lives, and it plays such an influential role in our environment, that we often forget to examine its aesthetics, meanings, and histories. This course provides an introduction to these analyses by examining the history of photography from the 1830s to the present. Considering fine arts and mass media practices, the class will examine the works of individual practitioners as well as the emergence of technologies, aesthetic directions, markets, and meanings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 20 7
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 strongly recommended.
Instructor: Berman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The standard narrative of digital technologies is that they change the world for the better: they facilitate access to information and create new efficiencies in labor and entertainment. But does this story accurately reflect the impact of technology on global society? In this course, we will undertake a critical investigation of the seminal moments and objects in the history of computing, from cybernetics to social media. Along the way, we will work to focus on perspectives that have too often remained invisible in this history, for instance the gendered role of labor in computer programming and production and the prevalence of social bias in the design and function of technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: N. Gutierrez
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the history and theory of queer cinema through the lens of contemporary media studies. Rather than separating film from other media, we will study the ways in which queer cinema has always trafficked with the broader landscape of queer cultural production, including literature, television, art, and activist speech. The course will thus ultimately examine queerness as a question of aesthetic form: How is queerness be rendered through experiments in filmic color? Or sound and sonics? Does transgender cinema represent a distinct genre of film or has it been part of queer cinema from the beginning?
To better understand these questions, we will situate our study of queer cinema and media within the history of LGBTQIA + political struggle, both in the United States and globally. We will study, for example, film and video production during the American AIDS crisis and examine its relationship to queer activism. We’ll also ask after the political promise of platforms like TikTok and Instagram: Do they have the potential to build queer utopia? Has social media inherited or betrayed the radical political vision of older queer cinemas?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Gyenge
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this course we will investigate the relationship between the individual, the mass, and the medium from the early twentieth century to today. We will begin with the phenomenon of mass media and the idea of popular culture as it has historically been constituted by the film, television, and radio industries. We will then turn our attention to contemporary algorithmic media, from streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify to social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Through an engagement with major theoretical works in media studies and the formal analysis of media objects including films, TV shows, and video games, we will consider the ways that popular media across a range of historical and cultural contexts have been theorized in terms of identity, social control, and spectacle.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Gutierrez
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Why is it that only a limited number of filmmakers and national cinemas figure prominently in histories of cinema? Why do film scholars tend to prioritize artistic direction and ignore the labor of technicians or seasonal employees? Why is Alice Guy-Blaché overshadowed by the “great men” who, it is claimed, “invented” cinema? With such questions in mind, we will re-scan conventional film historiography and claim places for previously overlooked individuals and practices. We seek to create an inclusive canon that acknowledges the work of women, minor cinemas, and indigenous communities. In an endeavor to decolonize film history, this course will take a global approach to cinema’s rich and vastly unsurveyed legacy of more than a century.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Morari
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will consider how documentary film and media have responded to the expansion of digital technology, the birth of social media, and a rapidly evolving media environment to engage with contemporary global concerns like climate change, migration, and rising authoritarian politics. Students will gain a familiarity with issues central to documentary studies like voice, authority, authenticity, and evidence and analyze a variety of non-fiction texts from the past twenty years, in media forms ranging from theatrical film and broadcast television to podcasts and documentary games. Assignments will include response papers, an analytical essay, and a class presentation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course surveys the history, theory, and practice of documentary film, considering the ways its forms and ethics have changed since the beginning of cinema. We study the major modes of the documentary, including cinema verité, direct cinema, investigative documentary, ethnographic film, agit-prop and activist media, and the personal essay, as well as recent forms such as the docudrama, the archival film, “mockumentary,” and Web-based forms. We will examine the “reality effects” of these works, focusing on the ways in which they create their authority. We will ask: How do these films shape notions of truth, reality, and point of view? What are the ethics and politics of representation and who speaks for whom when we watch a documentary? What do documentaries make visible or conceal?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Gyenge
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The history of Chicanxs and Latinnes on the big screen is a long and complicated one. To understand the changes that have occurred in the representation of the Chicanx/Latine community, this course proposes an analysis of films that traces various stereotypes to examine how those images have been perpetuated, altered, and ultimately resisted. From the Anglicizing of names to the erasure of racial backgrounds, the ways in which Chicanxs and Latines are represented has been contingent on ideologies of race, gender, class, and sexuality. We will examine how films have typecast Chicanas/Latinas as criminals or as "exotic" based on their status as women of color, and how filmmakers continue the practice of casting Chicanas/Latinas solely as supporting characters to male protagonists.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 223
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Mata
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How did cinema, originally hailed as a popular entertainment, achieve the social legitimacy that elevated it to the rank of an art form and an industrial force? This course examines the development of cinema as an institution from its origins to its present digital extensions, with a particular focus on the United States and its dominance in the domestic and global markets. Relying on academic scholarship, film criticism, and a selection of films, we will examine the historical, social, and aesthetic conditions that led to the creation of the movie theater, art houses, and multiplexes, as well as cinema's relationship to television and online streaming. The study of the screening technologies and physical spaces will be accompanied by an analysis of how race, gender, and class played in drawing in or keeping out moviegoers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Morari
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Creative exploration of the moving image as it relates to digital methods of animation, video, and motion graphics. Hands-on production of audio, image, text, and time-based media synthesis, with a conceptual emphasis on nonlinear narrative, communication design, and visual expression. Screenings and lectures on historical and contemporary practices, coupled with readings and discussions of the theoretical, artistic, and cultural issues in the moving image.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 230
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course, or ARTS 221/CAMS 239.
Instructor: Olsen
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
This course introduces students to key analytic frameworks through which media and the mediation of culture have been examined. Using an anthropological approach, students will explore how media as representation and as cultural practice have been fundamental to the (trans)formation of modern sensibilities and social relations. We will examine various technologies of mediation-from the Maussian body as “Man's first technical instrument” to print capitalism, radio and cassette cultures, cinematic and televisual publics, war journalism, the digital revolution, and the political milieu of spin and public relations. Themes in this course include: media in the transformation of the senses; media in the production of cultural subjectivities and publics; and the social worlds and cultural logics of media institutions and sites of production.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 232
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An intermediate level studio that guides students through different approaches to film/video production while challenging linear narrative and documentary conventions. Students experiment with non-narrative approaches to content, structure, and technique. Investigations of space and performance are informed by poetry, literature, sound, color, fragmentation, and abstraction. Building upon the historical legacy of the moving image, students incorporate self-exploration, social critique, and manipulation of raw experience into an aesthetic form. Students develop independent or collaborative moving image and/or performance projects and articulate their artistic process through a series of presentations and critiques.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 235
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course and either CAMS 101 or CAMS 201, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Joskowicz
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Meets the Production requirement for CAMS majors. CAMS majors who have taken CAMS 201 are encouraged to register for this class instead of ARTS 165/CAMS 135.
Photo II focuses on digital photography, photographic color theory, studio and location lighting, digital retouching, inkjet printing, and Adobe software. Assignments address contemporary and historic theories of photography as contemporary art and the aesthetic and cultural implications of the ubiquity of digital photography. Studio assignments, readings, discussions, lectures, gallery visits, and critiques will help students prepare for project-based work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 238
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Landeros
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Introduction to artistic production through electronic imaging, manipulation, and output. Emphasis on expression, continuity, and sequential structuring of visuals through the integration of image, text, and motion. Image output for print, screen, and adaptive surfaces are explored in conjunction with production techniques of image capture, lighting, and processing. Lectures and screenings of historic and contemporary uses of technology for artistic and social application of electronic imaging.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 239
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course.
Instructor: Olsen
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This will be a course about the future and how it is made. We will look at multiple modes of speculation, including financial speculation, speculative storytelling through fiction and cinema, and speculative political claims on new futures. Each of these modes of speculation will imagine and predict radically different futures, and each mode will tell us something crucial about economic, cultural, and political life in the US. We will study the rise of futures trading and money as a speculative media technology; read some of Octavia Butler’s fiction and watch sci-fi movies; and look at contemporary movements for debt cancellation, prison abolition, and climate justice. Readings will draw from film and media studies, Black feminism, queer theory, anti-colonialist thought, and Marxism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 245
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Alexander
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Defying repeated prophecies of the “death of cinema,” 21st century filmmaking has shown extraordinary vitality across the globe. In this course, we will explore some of the remarkable cinema produced since the turn of the millennium, from both long-prominent filmmaking nations, such as the United States, Japan, and France, and cinematic domains new to international audiences, such as Romania, Taiwan, and Greece. We will study the complex interplay between aesthetic, ideological, economic, and technological concerns in a range of recent films, exploring how contemporary filmmakers combine traditional cinematic forms and emerging new media technologies, and the ways they are broadening and transforming the possibilities of filmmaking. We will aim to deepen both our appreciation and our understanding of some of the most compelling films made in recent decades, and of the cinematic medium itself.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and director of Cinema and Media Studies required.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and director of Cinema and Media Studies required.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This course will look at representations of prisons, policing, and criminality across US cinema history. We will watch a wide range of movies, from Thomas Edison’s 1901 recreation of Leon Czolgosz’s execution to classic noir, cop procedurals, crime thrillers, horror, and science fiction. Readings will draw from abolitionist, feminist, Marxist, and Black Radical traditions to guide our attention to the ideologies of crime, punishment, policing and incarceration that circulate in and spill out of US cinema. Readings will occasionally invite us to step back and think about the role of cinema in the production of what Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Jordan T. Camp have called “carceral commonsense.” In addition to Gilmore and Camp, authors will include Angela Y. Davis, Khalil Gibran Muhammed, Dylan Rodriguez, W.E.B Du Bois, Assata Shakur, Stuart Hall, Mariame Kaba, Jonathon Finn, Eric A. Stanley, Gina Dent, Simone Browne, and Erin Gray.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 254
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Alexander
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Critical examination of the expanding field of information and interface design for interactive media. Emphasis will be on effective visual communication, information design, and creative content creation for online and digital platforms. Hands-on production will focus on design methods, theory, limitations leading to innovative approaches. Screenings and discussions on contemporary practices, theoretical, artistic, and cultural issues.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 255
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ARTS course and either CS 110 or CS 111.
Instructor: Olsen
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course focuses on cinematic productions made by African filmmakers and shot in Africa. We will critically examine the stakes of a "pan-African" approach to the study of African cinema. We will focus on the way contemporary African filmmakers use innovative experiments in the cinematic medium to create a dynamic and provocative dialogue with important aspects of African reality: on one hand, urbanization, migration, religious extremism, economic disparity, patriarchy; on the other, strong collectivities, indigenous solutions, gender fluidity, traditional and modern environmental awareness. We will follow how the video boom of the 80s and 90s that established Nollywood of Nigeria and Gollywood of Ghana consolidated a robust and faithful spectatorship in Africa and amongst the vast African diaspora. Through the study of specific techniques, we will track the ambition of contemporary African filmmakers to create and expand African cinematic aesthetics, target world audiences, and sustain a local spectatorship.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Prabhu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will examine the history of cinema through the lens of American slavery. Outside of the classroom much of what we know, or think about slavery derives often from popular media-particularly through film and television. Can Hollywood do the work of historians? Does historical interpretation through film serve as useful, beneficial, or detrimental? Can we make an argument for the historical efficacy of films? What is the difference between historical accuracy and historical authenticity? In examining these films, we will take into account the time period, location, and the political and social context in which they were created. We will see how much film tells us about slavery and, most importantly, what film might tell us about ourselves. Through a critical reading of a range of historical works, cultural critiques and primary sources, students will have a better comprehension of how historians and filmmakers both differ or find mutual agreement in their understanding of the past.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 271
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Jackson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A journey through the dark side of the American cinematic imagination. Emerging during World War II and its aftermath, Film Noir presents a pessimistic, morally ambiguous inversion of Hollywood uplift, delivered in glamorous visual style. This course will explore Film Noir from its origins, through the revival of the genre in the early 1970s, to its ongoing influence in contemporary cinema, as noir has expanded beyond Hollywood to become a global form. We'll pay particular attention to noir's transformation of cinematic style, and to its representations of masculinity and femininity. Films that may be studied include Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, Roman Polanski's Chinatown, and David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In 1895, the first movie camera filmed workers leaving a factory. That movie camera has been replaced by a security camera that both protects and monitors those workers. From the early cameras to the latest technologies, the history of cinema and media can be understood as a recurrent series of surveillance techniques. This course examines surveillance technologies and monitoring practices to explore how technology and ideology came to play together in audio-visual forms. We will examine the politics and ethics of security and surveillance, stretching from the first manifestations of voyeuristic photography to such modern forms as drones, GPS and user security on social media. Course materials will include readings as well as features, documentaries and video installations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: CAMS 201 or CAMS 202, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Morari
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will familiarize students with media archaeology as an alternative methodology to the study of film and media. Three major events occurred in 21st-century media that make classical methodologies obsolete: the proliferation of digital technologies; the emergence of new media industries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa; and the loss of cachet of European art film. Instead of insisting on cinema’s uniqueness as an art form, media archaeology examines how cinema’s past has been embedded in other media practices, other technologies and social uses. By foregrounding a media archaeology approach, this course will examine cinema history in interaction and competition with other forms of entertainment, scientific pursuits, practical applications and military uses.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CAMS 201 or CAMS 202.
Instructor: Morari
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What does it mean to be human in the digital age? Where do modern Western ideas of humanity or subjectivity come from, and how are they changing in an age of global commerce and digital technology? In this course, we will explore these questions under the broad rubric of posthumanism, a multi-disciplinary body of literature which is concerned with the ways that the concepts of humanism and identity are manifest with and through modern technology. We will investigate posthumanism and related concepts from multiple perspectives: cultural, historical, philosophical, and aesthetic, with a particular emphasis on representations of identity and labor in popular culture, from film and television to digital media.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CAMS 201 or CAMS 202, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: N. Gutierrez
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar explores ethnographic film as a genre for representing "reality," anthropological knowledge and cultural lives. We will examine how ethnographic film emerged in a particular intellectual and political economic context as well as how subsequent conceptual and formal innovations have shaped the genre. We will also consider social responses to ethnographic film in terms of the contexts for producing and circulating these works; the ethical and political concerns raised by cross-cultural representation; and the development of indigenous media and other practices in conversation with ethnographic film. Throughout the course, we will situate ethnographic film within the larger project for representing "culture," addressing the status of ethnographic film in relation to other documentary practices, including written ethnography, museum exhibitions, and documentary film.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 30 5
Prerequisites: ANTH 301 or two 200-level units in anthropology, cinema and media studies, economics, history, political science, or sociology or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines how the over 4,000 annual film festivals impact the economics, circulation, and aesthetics of cinema. Events like Cannes, Berlin, and Venice may be known for glitzy red carpet premieres but are also important nodes in the global film market; less well-known, local, or niche festivals bring communities together and raise awareness about social issues. Students will learn the history of major A-level festivals and examine their global geopolitical implications. Furthermore, academic texts from the new and burgeoning subfield of festival studies will help us consider film’s role in conversations about human rights, environmentalism, and LGBTQ+ identity. Students will compare festival histories, objectives, and programming to construct arguments about how festivals have impacted global film circulation. Students will also plan a hypothetical festival to think through the practical concerns of programming.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Either CAMS 201 or CAMS 202, and an additional 200-level CAMS course.
Instructor: Morari
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Introduction to the design and production of three-dimensional objects and spaces using industry-standard modeling software. Overview of basic modeling, surface design, and camera techniques. Emphasis on creative application of the media, in relation to architectural, experimental, and time-based forms. Screenings and lectures on traditional and contemporary practices, coupled with readings and discussions of the theoretical, artistic, and cultural issues in the virtual world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 313
Prerequisites: Any ARTS course. Strong computer familiarity needed.
Instructor: Olsen
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What is “real” and what is “reality” in an age of artificial intelligence, photorealistic (but fake) images, and immersive simulations like VR? In this course we will investigate these questions from a historical, theoretical, and aesthetic perspective. We will examine a range of media, from 19th century immersive technologies like the stereoscope to contemporary digital media like video games to VR, in order to situate them both within and against traditions of aesthetic realism, in both Western and Non-Western countries. Through an examination of these and other objects, our goal will be to develop a set of tools for interpreting reality and realism as historical concepts that change over time with and through the evolution of media technologies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CAMS 201 or CAMS 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Gutierrez
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Various topics in New Media are explored through research, creative activity, and theoretical discussion. Topics address historical as well as contemporary issues that bridge art and technology. This is an advanced level New Media course giving students the opportunity to focus on personal projects, explore contemporary and historical new media concepts as well as receive critiques from other students. Topics covered will focus on media history and research, contemporary intermedia artists, designers, thinkers and scientists, along with readings and discussions. Collaboration will be encouraged between Studio Art, Architecture, Music, CAMS, Media Arts, Theater and Computer Science. This course may be used to fulfill the capstone requirement for MAS.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 321
Prerequisites: Two 200-level courses in ARTS, CAMS, or MAS.
Instructor: Olsen
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit.
We constantly describe films with labels like action, horror, rom-com, sci-fi, musical, western, but where do those categories come from, and how do we decide what belongs within them? This course will explore the concept of film genre in terms both theoretical and practical. We’ll examine the antecedents of cinema’s genre system in literary criticism, read key works of film genre theory, and watch films in a wide range of genres. Among the questions we’ll address are: How do ideas about genre help us understand the cinematic experience? How do genre categories influence the production and marketing of films, and the discourse around them? How do ideas about genre connect to social identities, such as race and gender, to create categories like “chick flick” or “Blaxploitation”? What criteria differentiate the genres we value from those we don’t?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Either CAMS 201 or CAMS 202, and an additional 200-level CAMS course.
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will explore a wide range of writing on current film and television, thinking about the forms of contemporary discourse on the moving image and ways our own writing can join the conversation. We will read and write reviews, trend pieces, and star studies, bringing our specialized knowledge as moving image enthusiasts to bear on pieces intended to speak to and engage a broad reading public. Students will develop and present their writing in workshop discussions, and serve as editors to their peers. Readings from classic and contemporary writers on film and television will help us refine our sense of what makes writing on media illuminating, accessible, and compelling.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CAMS 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This advanced-level projects class centers on the production and critique of individual lens-based media, including film/video, photography, and digital time-based media. Students will develop semester-long projects and will articulate their artistic process through a series of presentations and critiques over the semester structured alongside screenings, readings, invited lectures, and discussions that investigate various positions from artists and directors on the dynamics of space on screen. This is a project-based rather than an assignment-based class, and students will be encouraged to try new techniques and exercises as their work progresses over the semester. Students work individually and in groups and will participate in their peers' production exercises.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 335
Prerequisites: One of the following - ARTS 165/CAMS 135, ARTS 208/CAMS 238, ARTS 265/CAMS 235, ARTS 308/CAMS 338, ARTS 221/CAMS 239, ARTS 255/CAMS 255, ARTS 260/CAMS 230, ARTS 313/CAMS 313, ARTS 321/CAMS 321, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Joswkowicz
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Meets the Capstone requirement for MAS majors.
Advanced explorations of aesthetic and content issues through the use of both traditional light-sensitive and digital methodologies. Advanced photographic techniques and equipment will be presented in response to each student's work. Continued emphasis is placed on research into the content and context of the photographic image in contemporary practice through visiting artist events as well as gallery and museum visits.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 338
Prerequisites: One of the following - ARTS 108/CAMS 138, ARTS 208/CAMS 238, ARTS 221/CAMS 239; or permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Nhamo
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the director.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This advanced-level studio class is for students interested in exploring the relationship between architecture, narrative and digital space. The class will begin with research into filmic environments that utilize place, architecture and objects as narrative tools. We will look at the use of interiors and exteriors, circulation between spaces, and the use of props and/or computer generated imagery to create space. Our focus will be on the construction of cinematic space as a formal and conceptual component of storytelling. Using architecture, installation, performance, film, and literature as guides to navigating both constructed and conceptual landscapes, students projects will explore advanced strategies of image and sound manipulation, both technical and conceptual. Students will develop semester-long projects and will articulate their artistic process through a series of presentations and critiques over the semester focusing on a project that integrates digital and physical narrative spaces.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 366
Prerequisites: One of the following - CAMS 101, ARTS165/ CAMS 135, ARTS 265/ CAMS 235, ARTS 216, an MIT Architecture Studio, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Joskowicz
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: CAMS 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course is designed to deepen students' understanding of the skills and topics taught in introductory chemistry. Enrollment is by invitation only and will draw from students concurrently enrolled in CHEM 105. The class will link the skills and concepts covered in CHEM 105 to topics of current interest including food science, environmental pollution and remediation, nuclear power, and alternative fuels. Students will gain a better understanding of the ways the tools they are learning in introductory chemistry can be applied to real world situations.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Students must be simultaneously enrolled in CHEM 105.
Instructor: Miwa
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course is designed for students majoring in the physical and biological sciences as well as those wishing an introduction to modern molecular science. Core principles and applications of chemistry are combined to provide students with a conceptual understanding of chemistry that will help them in both their professional and everyday lives. Topics include principles of nuclear chemistry, atomic and molecular structure, molecular energetics, chemical equilibrium, and chemical kinetics. The laboratory work introduces students to synthesis and structural determination by infrared and other spectroscopic techniques, periodic properties, computational chemistry, statistical analysis, and various quantitative methods of analysis. This course is intended for students who have taken one year of high school chemistry and have a math background equivalent to two years of high school algebra. Students who have AP or IB credit in chemistry, and who elect CHEM 105, forfeit the AP or IB credit.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - CHEM 105L.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites: One year of high school chemistry. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken CHEM 105P, CHEM 116, or CHEM 120.
Instructor: Oakes, Tantama, Verschoor, Doe, Mavros
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for CHEM 105.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: One year of high school chemistry. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken CHEM 105P, CHEM 116, or CHEM 120.
Instructor: Oakes, Tantama, Verschoor, Doe, Mavros
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This course is designed for students interested in pursuing further study in the physical and biological sciences, as well as those wishing an introduction to modern molecular science. Core principles and applications of chemistry are combined to provide students with a conceptual understanding of chemistry that will help them in both their professional and everyday lives. Topics include principles of nuclear chemistry, atomic and molecular structure, thermodynamics, chemical equilibrium, and chemical kinetics. The laboratory work introduces students to synthesis and structural determination by infrared and other spectroscopic techniques, periodic properties, computational chemistry, statistical analysis, and various quantitative methods of analysis. This course is intended for students who do not meet the prerequisites for CHEM 105 or for students who, because of their previous chemistry and math experiences, would appreciate additional academic support for the study of introductory chemistry. Includes two additional class meetings each week. Students in CHEM 105P must enroll in CHEM 105P lab.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Open by permission of the instructor to students regardless of high school background or whether the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement has been fulfilled. Not open to students who have taken CHEM 105, CHEM 116, or CHEM 120
Instructor: Miwa, McCarthy
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This gateway course provides an integrated introduction to the application of chemical principles to understand biological systems and covers the content of both BISC 110/BISC 110P/BISC 112/BISC 112Y and CHEM 105. It is designed for students whose interests lie at the interface of chemistry and biology and must be taken concurrently with BISC 116. Students will learn how structure and function of biological systems are shaped by principles of atomic properties and chemical bonding. Cellular metabolism and molecular genetics are integrated with quantitative introductions to thermodynamics, equilibrium, and kinetics. Other topics motivated by the application of chemistry to biology include nuclear chemistry and cellular growth and differentiation. The laboratory is a hands-on introduction to spectroscopy, microscopy, and other experimental techniques, as well as quantitative analysis, experimental design, and scientific writing. Successful completion of this course enables a student to take any course for which either CHEM105 or BISC 110/BISC 110P/BISC 112/BISC 112Y is a prerequisite.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 32
Prerequisites: One year of high school chemistry, math equivalent to two years of high school algebra, and fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken BISC 110/BISC 110P, BISC 112/BISC 112Y, CHEM 105, CHEM 105P, or CHEM 120. Students must attend lab during the first week to continue in the course.
Instructor: Woodford, Matthews (Biological Sciences)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: CHEM 116-01 and BISC 116-01 are co-requisite courses and students must register for both sections at the same time. Students must also register simultaneously for a lab section (either BISC 116 L01 or BISC 116 L02). Students must attend the first lab session in order to continue in the course. Students with AP or IB credit in chemistry who elect this course forfeit the AP or IB credit.
A one-semester course for students who have completed more than one year of high school chemistry, replacing CHEM 105 and CHEM 205 as a prerequisite for more advanced chemistry courses. It presents the topics of nuclear chemistry, atomic structure and bonding, periodicity, kinetics, thermodynamics, electrochemistry, equilibrium, acid/base chemistry, solubility, and transition metal chemistry. All of these topics are presented in the context of both historical and contemporary applications. The laboratory includes experiments directly related to topics covered in lecture, an introduction of statistical analysis of data, molecular modeling and computational chemistry, instrumental and classical methods of analysis, thermochemistry, and solution equilibria. The course meets for four periods of lecture/discussion and one 3.5-hour laboratory.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 32
Prerequisites: Open to students who have a score of 4 or 5 on the Chemistry AP exam or an IB Chemistry higher level score of 5 or above. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have completed CHEM 105, CHEM 105P, CHEM 116 and/or CHEM 205.
Instructor: Arumainayagam, McCarthy
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course builds on the principles introduced in CHEM 105, with an emphasis on chemical equilibrium and analysis, and their role in the chemistry of the environment. Topics include chemical reactions in aqueous solution with particular emphasis on acids and bases; solubility and complexation; electrochemistry; modeling of complex equilibrium and kinetic systems; statistical analysis of data; and solid state chemistry. The laboratory work includes additional experience with instrumental and noninstrumental methods of analysis, sampling, and solution equilibria.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - CHEM 205L.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites: CHEM 105 or CHEM 105P or CHEM 116 and fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement (formerly QR-Basic Skills). Not open to students who have taken CHEM 120
Instructor: Flynn, M. Hall, Oakes, Stanley, Tantama, Wax
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for CHEM 205.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: CHEM 105 or CHEM 105P or CHEM 116 and fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement (formerly QR-Basic Skills). Not open to students who have taken CHEM 120.
Instructor: Flynn, M. Hall, Oakes, Stanley, Tantama, Wax
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Topics covered include: stereochemistry, synthesis and reactions of alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, alkyl halides, alcohols and ethers, nomenclature of organic functional groups, polarimetry, IR, C-NMR, and GC/MS.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - CHEM 211L.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CHEM 105, CHEM 105P, CHEM 116, or CHEM 120.
Instructor: Miwa, Woodford, Doe, McCarthy, Wenny
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring; Spring; Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for CHEM 211.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CHEM 105, CHEM 105P, CHEM 116, or CHEM 120.
Instructor: Miwa, Woodford, Doe, McCarthy, Wenny
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
A continuation of CHEM 211. Includes NMR spectroscopy, synthesis, reactions of aromatic and carbonyl compounds, amines, and carbohydrates. In addition, students are expected to study the chemical literature and write a short chemistry review paper.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - CHEM 212L
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CHEM 211.
Instructor: McCarthy, Miwa, Vellucci, Woodford, Doe
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for CHEM 212.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CHEM 211.
Instructor: McCarthy, Miwa, Vellucci, Woodford, Doe
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This course brings together the fundamental multidisciplinary concepts governing life at the molecular level and opens a gateway to advanced biochemistry offerings. Grounded in an understanding of aqueous equilibria, thermodynamic, kinetic, and spectroscopic principles, the course will emphasize the structure and function of proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and lipids. The laboratory introduces modern laboratory techniques for the study of biomolecules and develops experimental design and critical data analysis skills. The laboratory component can be of particular value to students planning or engaged in independent research and those considering graduate level work related to biochemistry. This course counts toward Chemistry or Biochemistry major requirements.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 223
Prerequisites: (CHEM 205 or CHEM 120) and CHEM 211 and one of the following (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, BISC 116, CHEM 212), and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Elmore, Hall, Tantama
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
A survey of the chemical foundations of life processes, with focus on theory and applications relevant to medicine. Topics include bioenergetics, metabolism, and macromolecular structure. Essential skills such as data analysis and understanding of the primary literature will be approached through in-class discussions and application to current biomedical problems. This course is suitable for students wanting an overview of biochemistry, but it will not contain the experimental introduction to biochemical methods and laboratory instrumentation required for the Chemistry and Biochemistry majors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 227
Prerequisites: (CHEM 205 or CHEM 120) and CHEM 211 and one of the following (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, BISC 116). Not open to students who have completed BIOC 223/CHEM 223.
Instructor: Kress
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Does not count toward the minimum major in Chemistry.
Research is supervised by a member of the Wellesley College chemistry department. Off-campus research requires active participation of a Wellesley faculty member throughout the research period. Course fulfills the research requirement for the major only upon completion of a paper of 8-10 pages on the research and a presentation to the chemistry department during one of the two research seminar presentation periods. A copy of the paper must be submitted to the chair of the department.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open by permission to students who have taken at least one chemistry course and are not eligible for CHEM 350.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Research is supervised by a member of the Wellesley College Chemistry Department. Students will be expected to devote 10-12 hours per week for CHEM 250 and five to six hours for CHEM 250H.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open by permission to students who have taken at least one chemistry course and are not eligible for CHEM 350 or 350H.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Chemical reactions govern the interactions of molecules in oceans, lakes and rivers and regulate the biogeochemical cycles of many elements including carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and trace metals. This course will enable students to predict and understand chemical reactions occurring in aquatic systems and the fate of environmental pollutants and natural compounds. Topics include the environmental applications of thermodynamics and kinetics, acid-base reactions in natural waters, precipitation-dissolution reactions, and photochemical reactions of organic and inorganic compounds. The course has a heavy emphasis on reading and interpreting primary literature, including both classic and recent papers, and students will write a research proposal on an aquatic chemical topic of their choosing. Additionally, we will interact with current researchers in aquatic chemistry and participate in a field trip to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Instructor: Stanley
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every four years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Photochemistry involves reactions of electronically-excited species that are produced by the absorption of non-ionizing photons. Photochemistry is of tremendous importance in natural processes (e.g., vision, photosynthesis, atmospheric chemistry, synthesis of prebiotic molecules in space) and a myriad of technologies (photography, photolithography to fabricate miniature transistors that are central to cell phones, and photopolymerization). In this course, we will see that gas-phase photochemistry experimental techniques (e.g., velocity map imaging and table-top based attosecond laser sources) may be used to extract exquisite details with unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution across the entire reaction path. However, such detailed information cannot be obtained for condensed-phase photochemistry, which involves greater complexity, including the production of excitons, excimers, and exciplexes. Students will be provided with a qualitative understanding of quantum mechanical principles (e.g., Franck-Condon principle and the Born-Oppenheimer approximation) critical to the molecular-level understanding of photochemistry. The seminar will include guest lectures by experts, group discussions, readings from the primary and review literature, field trip(s), movies, weekly writing assignments, and a final paper.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: One of the following - CHEM 105, CHEM 116, CHEM 120; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Arumainayagam
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
“Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin?” When the physicist Richard Feynman first asked that question a half century ago, the word nanoscience had yet to be used. Today, nanoscience and nanotechnology have created a great deal of interest from scientists and engineers and also from the general public. Questions we will address include: What is the nature of nanoscience and nanotechnology? What are the principles that enable us to predict behavior over nanometer length scales? How are nanomaterials made and organized? How is nanotechnology likely to impact our lives? We will use the primary literature, popular portrayals, and interactions with researchers in nanoscience as avenues to explore the field.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHEM 205 or CHEM 120, and CHEM 211.
Instructor: Flynn
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Computational chemistry now plays a crucial role in both the design and the analysis of molecules and systems across industries including pharmaceuticals, materials, and manufacturing. This course will provide students with a conceptual understanding of computational modeling techniques pertinent to chemistry along with practical experience applying these methods. Specific techniques considered in the course may include quantum mechanical ab initio and semiempirical models, molecular mechanics, molecular dynamics simulations, optimization and sampling frameworks, and machine learning, with case studies coming from current literature. Emphasis will be placed on the trade-offs between model accuracy and efficiency, and fundamental principles in computer programming, numerical methods, hardware, and software will be introduced as they relate to this trade-off. Application of these methods to solve problems in diverse areas, such as protein structure, drug design, organic reactivity, and inorganic systems, will also be emphasized. In addition to regular computer-based exercises, the course will culminate in an independent project utilizing techniques presented in the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: (CHEM 105 and CHEM 205) or (CHEM 116 and CHEM 205) or CHEM 120, and CHEM 211 and MATH 116, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Mavros
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The course will cover the foundations of astrochemistry, a young field at the intersection between chemistry and astronomy. Topics to be discussed include the interstellar medium, atomic and molecular physics, interstellar chemistry, molecular astronomy, and unresolved enigmas in the field, such as the homochirality of amino acids. The seminar will involve guest lectures by experts, group discussions, readings from the primary and review literature, field trip(s), movies (including a science fiction movie), weekly writing assignments, telescopic observations, and one day in a laboratory on earth.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CHEM 105 or CHEM 120.
Instructor: Arumainayagam
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Why are there so many antibiotics and so few medicines to treat viral infections? In this course, students will learn how antiviral drugs are created. We will learn how viral targets are selected, the strategies used to design or discover drug candidates, and the process of optimizing these candidates to produce effective medications. Areas of focus will include HIV, which has been successfully controlled through antiviral medications, as well as Covid-19 and influenza, for which there are few effective drugs. Students will work individually and in teams to read/analyze primary literature and prepare oral presentations and infographics to demonstrate and enhance understanding. The course will culminate in the preparation and presentation of an original research proposal.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CHEM 212.
Instructor: Miwa
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will cover strategies and tactics for assembling complex organic molecules. Considerable emphasis will be placed on stereoselective synthesis, including the stereoselective construction of ring systems, acyclic stereocontrol, and asymmetric catalysis. Reaction mechanisms will also be emphasized throughout the semester. Lecture topics will be accompanied by case studies drawn from the current chemical literature. The course will culminate in an independent project involving pharmaceuticals and other molecules of medicinal importance.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CHEM 212
Instructor: Carrico-Moniz, Miwa
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An intensive laboratory course offering a multiweek independent team research project and training in experimental applications of physical chemistry and biochemistry. Topics will include spectroscopy and chemical thermodynamics of biomolecules. This course will emphasize independent hypothesis development and experimental design skills as well as public presentation of results. Students will read primary literature, construct a research proposal, develop their own laboratory protocols manual, conduct experiments using a variety of instrumentation, and present their research. One class period per week plus one lab and mandatory weekly meetings with instructor.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 320
Prerequisites: BIOC 223/CHEM 223
Instructor: Oakes
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Many critical research advances result from applying basic chemical principles and tools to biological systems. This approach has opened up exciting new areas of study, such as the development of bio-orthogonal reactions, the engineering of cells to incorporate “unnatural” biomolecules, selective modifications to cellular surfaces, and the synthesis of peptidomimetics and other bio-inspired materials. These approaches have allowed for important advances in developing novel therapeutics, engineering modern materials, and the studying biological processes in vivo. In this course, students will explore contemporary research breakthroughs in chemical biology through reading, analysis and discussion of the primary literature. Students will also propose novel research directions through the preparation of independent research proposals.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 323
Prerequisites: BIOC 223/CHEM 223 or BIOC 227/CHEM 227, or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Elmore, Woodford
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Researchers increasingly attempt to harness biochemical approaches as a way to address pressing societal problems. For example, recent work has focused on topics including the effective production of biofuels, remediation of environmental pollutants and developing new treatments for antibiotic resistant pathogens. In this course, juniors and seniors will explore contemporary research aimed at solving these problems through readings in the primary literature, invited lectures, interviewing researchers and developing independent research proposals. Students will analyze and interpret research findings through weekly writing assignments targeted towards broad audiences, such as research summaries for the scientific press, textbook sections, executive summaries and proposals accessible to non-specialists. Class sessions will be structured as workshops to analyze core chemical and biological concepts and provide structured critiques of writing assignments.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 324
Prerequisites: BIOC/CHEM 223 or BIOC/CHEM 227 or BIOC/BISC 220 or (CHEM 205 and CHEM 211 and (BISC 110 or BISC 112 or BISC 116)), or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Elmore
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Biosensors and optogenetics are important tools used to understand the physiology of living systems across the molecular, cellular, tissue, and organismal levels. Luminescent biosensors emit light during a measurement while optogenetics are activated by light to control and manipulate signaling and metabolism in living cells. In this course, students will explore the chemistry and biology of these tools, focusing on the principles of their design, strategies for their construction, and their applications in the life and physical sciences. Students will engage the subject matter with group work, peer-to-peer editing, and individual assignments through a combination of active-learning lectures, current literature analysis, and oral presentations. The course will culminate in the writing and presentation of an NIH-style original research proposal. This course will provide foundations for thinking about protein engineering as well as hypothesis-driven biological questions, and it is appropriate for students across the spectrum of chemical, physical, and biological interests.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 325
Prerequisites: BIOC/CHEM 223 or BIOC/CHEM 227 or BIOC/BISC 220 or (CHEM 205 and CHEM 212 and (BISC 110 or BISC 112 or BISC 116))
Instructor: Tantama
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Molecular basis of chemistry; intensive overview of theories, models, and techniques of physical chemistry; extensive coverage of quantum mechanics; applications of quantum mechanics to atomic and molecular structure, and spectroscopy; introductory statistical mechanics, with an emphasis on connections to thermodynamics; intermediate topics in chemical kinetics and introduction to reaction dynamics. The laboratory work involves learning elementary programming to quantitatively model data collected with various spectroscopies (UV-VIS, IR, NMR, fluorescence) using quantum theory.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - CHEM 330L.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: (CHEM 205 or CHEM 120) and (PHYS 104 or PHYS 107) and (MATH 215 (strongly recommended) or MATH 205). Not open to students who have taken CHEM 331.
Instructor: Radhakrishnan, Wax
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for CHEM 330.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 9
Prerequisites: (CHEM 205 or CHEM 120) and (PHYS 104 or PHYS 107) and (MATH 215 (strongly recommended) or MATH 205). Not open to students who have taken CHEM 331.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Molecular basis of chemistry; intensive overview of theories, models, and techniques of physical chemistry; extensive coverage of quantum mechanics; applications of quantum mechanics to atomic and molecular structure, and spectroscopy; classical thermodynamics of gases and solutions; intermediate topics in chemical kinetics and introduction to reaction dynamics; basic statistical mechanics to calculate thermodynamic variables and equilibrium constants. This course does not count towards the major requirements in chemistry.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: (CHEM 205 or CHEM 120) and (PHYS 104 or PHYS 107) and (MATH 215 (strongly recommended) or MATH 205). Not open to students who have taken CHEM 331.
Instructor: M. Radhakrishnan
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Provides a survey of fundamental principles in physical chemistry and how they relate specifically to the study of biological molecules and processes. Emphasis is placed on empowering students to understand, evaluate, and use models as approximations for the biomolecular world. Models are mathematically represented and provide both qualitative and quantitative insight into biologically relevant systems. Commonly used experimental techniques such as spectroscopy and calorimetry are explained from first principles with quantum mechanical and statistical mechanical models, and computational applications such as protein structure prediction and molecular design are explained through physical models such as molecular mechanics and dynamics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Crosslisted Courses: BIOC 331
Prerequisites: BIOC 223/CHEM 223 and MATH 116 or equivalent.
Instructor: M. Radhakrishnan
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Does not count toward the chemistry major but counts toward the biochemistry major and the chemistry minor. Students are strongly encouraged to complete one course in physics in addition to the stated prerequisites before enrolling;
This course provides an in-depth study of the physical models used in the study of chemical systems, including both first-principle derivations and cutting-edge applications of such models. Topics include statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, computational chemistry, molecular mechanics and dynamics, philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics, time-dependent quantum mechanics, and kinetics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHEM 330 (or CHEM 331 by permission of the instructor) and either (PHYS 106 or PHYS 108) and MATH 215. Not open to students who have taken CHEM 335.
Instructor: Mavros
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course provides an in-depth study of the physical models used in the study of chemical systems, including both first-principle derivations and cutting-edge applications of such models. Topics include probability theory, classical thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, computational chemistry, philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics, time-dependent quantum mechanics, and kinetics. Additionally, there is an emphasis on implementing statistical and numerical models via computer programing, culminating in an independent project.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CHEM 330 and (PHYS 106 or PHYS 108) and MATH 215. Not open to students who have taken CHEM 334.
Instructor: Mavros and Arumainayagam
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course provides an in depth look at inorganic chemistry concentrating on chemical applications of group theory, molecular orbital theory, the chemistry of ionic compounds, transition metal complexes, organometallic chemistry, catalysis, and bioinorganic chemistry. Students will learn theories and models to analyze the structure and bonding of inorganic compounds and to predict and explain reactions of those compounds. The laboratory introduces a number of experimental and computational techniques used in inorganic chemistry.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Required CHEM 205 or CHEM 120, and CHEM 211; Strongly recommended CHEM 212.
Instructor: Stanley, Verschoor, Wenny
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Research is supervised by a member of the Wellesley College chemistry department. Students will be expected to devote (per week) 10-12 hours for CHEM 350 and five to six hours for CHEM 350H. Student projects will be planned accordingly. Off-campus research requires active participation of a Wellesley faculty member throughout the research period. Course fulfills the research requirement for the major only upon the completion of a paper of 8-10 pages on the research and a presentation to the chemistry department during one of the two research seminar presentation periods. A copy of the paper must be submitted to the chair of the department. (Note: Paid internships are not eligible for CHEM 350.)
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open by permission to students who have taken at least three chemistry courses.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Research is supervised by a member of the Wellesley College chemistry department. Students will be expected to devote (per week) 10-12 hours for CHEM 350 and five to six hours for CHEM 350H.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
The first course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research problem, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the chemistry department. Students will participate in a regular weekly seminar program, in which they will discuss their research progress informally with faculty and student colleagues and gain familiarity with contemporary research through presentations by outside seminar speakers. This route does not lead to departmental honors. If the first semester of thesis is used to fulfill the research requirement, the student must complete a paper of 8-10 pages on the research and give a presentation to the chemistry department during one of the two research seminar presentation periods. A copy of the paper must be submitted to the chair of the department. (Note: Paid internships are not eligible for CHEM 355.)
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open only to Seniors with permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
CHEM 360 is the first course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research problem, culminating in departmental honors upon the completion in the second semester of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the chemistry department. Students in 360 and 370 will be expected to attend the weekly departmental honors seminar, listed in the schedule of classes. The seminar provides a forum for students conducting independent research to present their work to fellow students and faculty. (See Academic Distinctions.) If the first semester of thesis is used to fulfill the research requirement, the student must complete a paper of 8-10 pages on the research and give a presentation to the chemistry department during one of the two research seminar presentation periods. A copy of the paper must be submitted to the chair of the department. (Note: Paid internships are not eligible for CHEM 360.)
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Instrumental methods of chemical analysis. Topics include statistical analysis, electronics and circuitry, electrochemistry, spectroscopy, and separations science with special attention to instrument design and function. The course work emphasizes the practical applications of chemical instrumentation and methods to address questions in areas ranging from art history to biochemistry to materials science. The laboratory work focuses on the design, construction, and use of chemical instrumentation along with the interfacing of instruments with computers.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 8
Prerequisites: Either (CHEM 205 and CHEM 211) or (CHEM 120 and CHEM 211). Suggested - PHYS 106 or PHYS 108.
Instructor: Flynn
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The second course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research problem, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the chemistry department. Students will participate in a regular weekly seminar program, in which they will discuss their research progress informally with faculty and student colleagues and gain familiarity with contemporary research through presentations by outside seminar speakers. This route does not lead to departmental honors. Course counts toward the research requirement if the student completes the thesis and the thesis presentation. (Note: Paid internships are not eligible for CHEM 365.)
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHEM 355 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
CHEM 370 is the second course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research problem, culminating in departmental honors upon the completion of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the chemistry department. Students will participate in a regular weekly seminar program, in which they will discuss their research progress informally with faculty and student colleagues and gain familiarity with contemporary research through presentations by outside seminar speakers. Course counts toward the research requirement if the student completes the thesis and the thesis presentation. See Academic Distinctions. (Note: Paid internships are not eligible for CHEM 370.)
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: CHEM 360 and permission of department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
An introductory course that teaches the skills of listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing in Mandarin Chinese. Emphasis is on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and communication. Computer programs for pronunciation, listening comprehension, grammar, and writing Chinese characters will be used extensively.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open only to students with no Chinese language background.
Instructor: M. Chen
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introductory course that teaches the skills of listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing in Mandarin Chinese. Emphasis is on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and communication. Computer programs for pronunciation, listening comprehension, grammar, and writing Chinese characters will be used extensively.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 101 or placement by the department.
Instructor: M. Chen
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An introductory course that teaches the skills of listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing in Mandarin Chinese. Emphasis is on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and communication. Computer programs for pronunciation, listening comprehension, grammar, and writing Chinese characters will be used extensively.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Placement by the department. Open to students who can speak some Chinese (Mandarin or other Chinese dialects), or who have some knowledge in reading and writing Chinese characters.
Instructor: Zhao
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introductory course that teaches the skills of listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing in Mandarin Chinese. Emphasis is on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and communication. Computer programs for pronunciation, listening comprehension, grammar, and writing Chinese characters will be used extensively.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 103 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Tang
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Further training in listening comprehension, oral expression, reading, and writing.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 102 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Tang
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Further training in listening comprehension, oral expression, reading and writing.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 201 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Chen
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Further training in listening comprehension, oral expression, reading, and writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 104 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Chen
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Further training in listening comprehension, oral expression, reading, and writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 203 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Zhao
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Variously known in English as Dream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions, and The Story of the Stone, Honglou meng is the most widely discussed Chinese novel of all time. Written in the mid-eighteenth century, the novel offers telling insight into Chinese culture as it once was and as it remains today. The novel is still wildly popular due to its tragic love story, its sensitive depiction of the plight of the talented woman in late imperial culture, and its narrative intricacies. The goal of the course is to understand the novel both as a literary text and as a cultural phenomenon. Optional extra sessions will accommodate those who wish to read and discuss the novel in Chinese.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CHIN 311.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CHIN 311.
What are emotions? Are they innate and universal, or do they vary across time, societies, and languages? How do humans express and describe emotions? How should individuals and societies relate to the experience and expression of emotions? Such questions sparked an animated debate among early Chinese thinkers (5th c. BCE–220 CE), a debate we will continue in this course. We begin by surveying ancient and modern theories of emotion. The subsequent unit turns to the representations of different emotions in early Chinese literature and philosophical writings, where we explore whether our experiences of love, joy, and grief are comparable across ancient and modern contexts. In the final unit, we evaluate different philosophical proposals—from Confucian, Daoist, and Legalist lineages—for how to cultivate and regulate emotions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Du
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The Ming (1368) was a glorious dynasty, and its fall was “heard round the world." The course approaches its glory and fall through novels (such as The Water Margin and The Plum in a Golden Vase), short stories (by Feng Menglong and others), and dramas like Peach Blossom Fan. Elsewhere in East Asia, too, the Ming was a theme in literature, especially at the time of its fall. Works by Chikamatsu (Japanese) and Ho Kyun (Korean) serve as illustrations. Additionally, dramas from Holland and England provide some measure of the impact of this event in Europe. In the last third of the course we will survey this group of writings by non-Chinese and use them to show how reactions varied, depending on the nationality of the observer. Finally, we will read a Cantonese opera composed in the twentieth century. It is one sign of the topic's continuing currency throughout the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and it highlights south China's longstanding resistance to the Qing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CHIN 320.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CHIN 320.
Of China's six great novels, four (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Outlaws of the Marsh, Journey to the West, and Plum in the Golden Vase) were products of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). What were the reasons for this important new development in Chinese literature? They include new patterns in consumption and publishing, among other factors. And how did this development lead to the emergence of a theory of the novel in the mid-seventeenth century? Here we will seek to understand the approaches of major theorists. Finally, how do the four masterworks contrast with the Chinese short story, which underwent a parallel advance at exactly the same time? The difference between complex and simple plots will be our key to an answer. We will spend two to three weeks on each of the four novels then conclude with a look at some short stories. Readings and discussions will be in English. Optional sessions discussing short selections of each novel in Chinese will be offered intermittently.
Two short papers, one short report, and one final paper are required. No prerequisites for entering the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CHIN 333.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: The course is also offered at the 300-level as CHIN 333.
Confucius in the Analects asserts that “The Master never spoke of the strange, the violent, the disorderly, and the numinous.” Yet “recording the strange” was a thriving literary genre in classical and imperial China—one collection of supernatural tales was in fact entitled What the Master Never Spoke Of. How do we understand this contradiction? This course is a survey of stories and essays on ghosts, spirits, talking animals, and spooky events, beginning from the earliest Chinese writings incised on turtle shells to the twentieth century. We will examine changing worldviews and religious practices during these three millennia, retracing the storylines retold around East Asia and across media ancient and modern.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Du
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the cinematic conventions and experiments employed by Chinese filmmakers over the past hundred years. Unique Chinese film genres such as left-wing melodrama, martial arts films and model play adaptations, as well as the three "new waves" in China's recent avant-garde cinema, will be examined and discussed. Individual filmic visions and techniques experimented with by important directors such as Fei Mu, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Zhang Yimou, and Jia Zhangke will be closely analyzed. Class discussions will aim to help students understand the history, politics, and aesthetics of Chinese cinema. Theoretical aspects of film studies will also be incorporated into class readings and discussions. No prior knowledge of China or film studies is required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 20 3
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: M. Song
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course covers three basic categories of traditional theater in China. It begins with the short form known as zaju of the Yuan Dynasty (thirteenth to the fourteenth centuries), when dramatic works began to be written by identifiable authors. Next come the long and elaborate chuanqi (or kunqu) of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (fourteenth to twentieth centuries), including the still performed Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu. The last category is Peking opera, a form that originated during the second half of the Qing Dynasty, around 1790, and is regularly performed today. Most of our dramas were written by men, but we will also look at a few by women. The interrelation between forms will be discussed, as will the effects of the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 on Peking opera and other opera forms. Lastly such perennial themes as Mulan and The White Snake will be surveyed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CHIN 344.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CHIN 344 with additional assignments.
The period 1850-1950 witnessed five political revolutions in China. Each one had an impact on the status of women. By the end of the hundred years, the stay-at-home, bound-footed gentlewoman was no more, and old-style dreams in which women changed gender to pursue careers or fight wars had faded away. Instead a whole new reality for women had emerged. This course explores these changes through the writings of male sympathizers, western missionaries, and most importantly Chinese women themselves. In bridging the “late imperial” and “modern” eras and in its emphasis on women’s voices, it offers a distinctive take on the period under review. Although the story is Chinese, it is a part of women’s history worldwide.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CHIN 345.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CHIN 345.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This course is designed to further expand students' comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Reading materials will be selected from newspapers, short stories, essays, and films. Students will study Chinese and China from different perspectives. In addition to authentic audio and videotapes, Chinese learning APPs will also be used as study aids. The class is conducted in Chinese.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 202 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Zhao
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Advanced language skills are further developed through reading, writing, and discussions. Reading materials will be selected from a variety of authentic Chinese texts. Students will study Chinese and China from different perspectives. In addition to authentic audio and videotapes, Chinese learning APPs will also be used as study aids. The class is conducted in Chinese.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 301 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Tang
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is designed to further expand and refine students' language skills through intensive reading of authentic Chinese materials, such as novels, short stories, essays, and plays and through viewing of contemporary Chinese films. Particular attention will be paid to increasing levels of literary appreciation and to enriching understanding of the sociocultural contexts from which our readings have emerged.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 204 or CHIN 302 or placement by the department.; students entering the course through CHIN 301 are strongly encouraged to first complete CHIN 302 as well.
Instructor: Chen
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Variously known in English as Dream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions, and The Story of the Stone, Honglou meng is the most widely discussed Chinese novel of all time. Written in the mid-eighteenth century, the novel offers telling insight into Chinese culture as it once was and as it remains today. The novel is still wildly popular due to its tragic love story, its sensitive depiction of the plight of the talented woman in late imperial culture, and its narrative intricacies. The goal of the course is to understand the novel both as a literary text and as a cultural phenomenon. Optional extra sessions will accommodate those who wish to read and discuss the novel in Chinese. This course may be taken as CHIN 211 or, with additional assignments, as CHIN 311.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: One previous course on Chinese history or culture. Not open to students who have taken CHIN 211.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as CHIN 211.
The Ming (1368) was a glorious dynasty, and its fall was “heard round the world." The course approaches its glory and fall through novels (such as The Water Margin and The Plum in a Golden Vase), short stories (by Feng Menglong and others), and dramas like Peach Blossom Fan. Elsewhere in East Asia, too, the Ming was a theme in literature, especially at the time of its fall. Works by Chikamatsu (Japanese) and Ho Kyun (Korean) serve as illustrations. Additionally, dramas from Holland and England provide some measure of the impact of this event in Europe. In the last third of the course we will survey this group of writings by non-Chinese and use them to show how reactions varied, depending on the nationality of the observer. Finally, we will read a Cantonese opera composed in the twentieth century. It is one sign of the topic's continuing currency throughout the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and it highlights south China's longstanding resistance to the Qing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CHIN 220.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as CHIN 220.
Of China's six great novels, four (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Outlaws of the Marsh, Journey to the West, and Plum in the Golden Vase) were products of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). What were the reasons for this important new development in Chinese literature? They include new patterns in consumption and publishing, among other factors. And how did this development lead to the emergence of a theory of the novel in the mid-seventeenth century? Here we will seek to understand the approaches of major theorists. Finally, how do the four masterworks contrast with the Chinese short story, which underwent a parallel advance at exactly the same time? The difference between complex and simple plots will be our key to an answer. We will spend two to three weeks on each of the four novels then conclude with a look at some short stories. Readings and discussions will be in English. Optional sessions discussing short selections of each novel in Chinese will be offered intermittently. Compared to CHIN 233, this course will have one extra paper and one extra report.
Three short papers, two short reports, and one final paper are required. Students should have taken one previous course in Chinese culture or history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken CHIN 233.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: The course is also offered at the 200-level as CHIN 233.
This course guides students to explore Chinese literary modernity through authentic literary texts written by major Chinese writers of the past hundred years. It aims to give students the opportunity to deepen their understanding of modern China in both its historical and cultural practice. Instead of language training, literary and cultural analyses will be emphasized. Class discussions will be conducted in Chinese, and students are expected to offer their critical responses to readings through oral presentations and papers written in Chinese.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 306 and CHIN 307 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Du
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course covers three basic categories of traditional theater in China. It begins with the short form known as zaju of the Yuan Dynasty (thirteenth to the fourteenth centuries), when dramatic works began to be written by identifiable authors. Next come the long and elaborate chuanqi (or kunqu) of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (fourteenth to twentieth centuries), including the still performed performed Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu. The last category is Peking opera, a form that originated during the second half of the Qing Dynasty, around 1790, and is regularly performed today. Most of our dramas were written by men, but we will also look at a few by women. The interrelation between forms will be discussed, as will the effects of the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 on Peking opera and other opera forms. Lastly such perennial themes as Mulan and The White Snake will be surveyed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: One previous course in Chinese history or culture. Not open to students who have taken CHIN 244.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as CHIN 244.
The period 1850-1950 witnessed five political revolutions in China. Each one had an impact on the status of women. By the end of the hundred years, the stay-at-home, bound-footed gentlewoman was no more, and old-style dreams in which women changed gender to pursue careers or fight wars had faded away. Instead a whole new reality for women had emerged. This course explores these changes through the writings of male sympathizers, western missionaries, and most importantly Chinese women themselves. In bridging the “late imperial” and “modern” eras and in its emphasis on women's voices, it offers a distinctive take on the period under review. Although the story is Chinese, it is a part of women's history worldwide. Additional reading and writings will be assigned to students with advanced-level Chinese reading proficiency. This course may be taken as CHIN 245 or, with additional assignments, as CHIN 345.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: One prior course in EALC, EAS or WGST. Not open to student who have taken CHIN 245.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as CHIN 245.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHIN 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This seminar offers an intensive study of the writings of Eileen Chang, one of the most important Chinese writers. Close analysis of her literary style will be combined with discussions on such key concepts of the Chinese literary modernity: gender, nation, cosmopolitanism, affectivity, subjectivity, and diaspora. Her major works will be read in biographical, historical and cultural contexts, with considerations of the classical novels influencing her as well as the modern and postmodern writers and filmmakers working under her influences.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One course at the 200 or 300 level on Chinese literature, history or culture, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: M. Song
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
The first course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research problem, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Departments of Chemistry and Physics. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to Seniors only. Permission of the instructor required.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
The second course in a two-semester investigation of a significant chemistry/physics research problem, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the chemistry and physics departments. This route does not lead to honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHPH 355 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CHPH 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
A survey of the development of archaeology. The methods and techniques of archaeology are presented through an analysis of excavations and prehistoric remains. Materials studied range from the Bronze Age and classical civilizations of the Old World and the Aztec and Inca empires of the New World to the historical archaeology of New England. Students are introduced to techniques for reconstructing the past from material remains. The course includes a field trip to a neighboring archaeological site.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: CLCV 10 3
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Minor
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
Achilles' heel, the Trojan Horse, Pandora's Box, an Oedipal complex, a Herculean task-themes and figures from classical mythology continue to play an important role in our everyday life. We will read the original tales of classical heroes and heroines as depicted by Homer, the Greek tragedians, Vergil, Ovid, and others. Why do these stories continue to engage, entertain, and even shock us? What is the nature and power of myth? Readings from ancient sources in English translation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Visiting Lecturer (Fall); Burns (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This first-year seminar examines the past through direct engagement with objects from ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Working with a diverse collection of artifacts—including pottery, coins, and figurines—students will learn about the societies of the ancient Mediterranean as well as methods of artifact analysis and theories of material culture studies. We will explore the history of the objects now at Wellesley, with attention to ethical and legal aspects of collecting antiquities. We will also consider the presentation of ancient objects as art and artifact in various local museum settings. Students will work collaboratively to design an exhibition of select pieces.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Burns
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; HS - Historical Studies
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Ancient Athens is celebrated as the birthplace of democracy, but participation was limited to a small selection of the city's population: property-holding males. How did the city engage female members of the citizen class, foreign residents, and enslaved people? And how do the political dynamics of this single city compare to those of neighbors such as Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes? This course examines status and identity within and among city-states, including the ancient definitions of ethnicity that informed alliances and rivalries across the Greek world. Our study of material culture and images, alongside written sources, will enable us to understand a broader spectrum of difference and diversity within ancient Greek societies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 300.
Instructor: Burns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CLCV 300.
In the fifth century B.C.E., Athens was home to great intellectual ferment as well as political growth and crisis. This cultural revolution resulted in significant artistic and intellectual accomplishments: Pericles oversaw the building of the Acropolis; citizens saw productions of Oedipus Tyrannos, Medea, and Lysistrata; and Herodotus and Thucydides invented the genre of history as we know it. On the political front, Athens defended itself against the Persian empire, developed into the most powerful city-state in the Mediterranean, and then dramatically fell as the result of failed imperial policy. In the early fourth century, Plato engaged with the political and intellectual conflicts of this period in The Apology and The Symposium. In this course, students will consider works of philosophy, history, tragedy, comedy, rhetoric, and political theory in their cultural and political context. We will examine and interrogate Athenian democracy, its conflicts, and its stunning and influential cultural achievements.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 40
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Gilhuly
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Roman chariot races and gladiatorial combat were not just entertainment for the masses, just as the ancient Olympic games were much more than sporting events. Athletic competitions, theatrical performances, and militaristic parades were all public enactments of political and religious ideology. This course examines the spectacle of competitive performances and rituals of power that helped shape ancient Greek and Roman society. Students will investigate ancient writings alongside art-historical and archaeological evidence to consider how social values and identities were constructed through these shared experiences. We will also consider how the modern performances of ancient texts, the Olympic Games, and cinematic representations have emphasized the splendor, drama, and gore of antiquity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 305.
Instructor: Burns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. This course is also offered at the 300-level as CLCV 305.
The mythic tales of gods and heroes featured in the epic poems, sacred hymns, and tragic theatre of Greece and Rome were also present in material form as votive statues, on painted vessels, and in architectural decoration. This course will focus on the interplay between textual and visual representations of Olympian deities like Zeus, Hera, and Poseidon; legendary figures such as Heracles, Theseus, and the heroes of the Trojan War; and the infamous women of myth: Helen, Clytemnestra, and Medea. We will analyze how visions of the heroic age-replete with legendary battles, divine seductions, and exotic monsters-provided ancient societies with new opportunities to create a shared history, foster ethnic and civic identity, and transmit ideological values about age and gender.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Burns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Do notions of gender change over time? In this course, we will explore how gender was constructed in antiquity and how it functioned as an organizational principle. Through close readings of selections from Greek and Roman epics, lyric poetry and drama, as well as philosophical and historical texts, we will analyze representations of sex and gender exploring how power was shaped through these depictions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 313.
Instructor: Gilhuly
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CLCV 313.
Ancient Greek historians associated the ruins of Bronze Age cities with the legends of the Trojan War, the lost city of Atlantis, and the labyrinth of the Minotaur. This course takes a more archaeological approach, combing the ruins for evidence that allow us to reconstruct complex societies that integrated contributions from diverse participants, including enslaved people and foreigners, as well as heroic adventurers. We will investigate the role of African and Asian cultures in early Greek state formation and collapse, technologies of art and writing, and religious traditions featuring a mother goddess. The course requires no background and offers an introduction to archaeological analysis as well as the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ANTH 215
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Burns
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
War is undoubtedly bad. But human beings have always practiced war. Indeed, war preceded history itself by tens of thousands of years-if by history we mean the written inquiry into the past. But what causes wars? How have wars been justified historically? How are wars won and lost? What are their effects? In this class, we examine a series of case studies in warfare, including the Trojan War, the Peloponnesian War, and the Roman Punic Wars. We will read classic accounts of warfare and theoretical literature about tactics, strategy, and logistics, and also will analyze how war is represented in other media, such as art and film.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to student who have taken CLCV 330.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CLCV 330.
The founders of Western civilization were not monotheists. Rather, from 1750 B.C.E. until 500 C.E., the ancient Greeks and Romans sacrificed daily to a pantheon of immortal gods and goddesses who were expected to help mortals achieve their earthly goals. How did this system of belief develop? Why did it capture the imaginations of so many millions for more than 2,000 years? What impact did the religion of the Greeks and Romans have upon the other religions of the Mediterranean, including Judaism and Christianity? Why did the religion of the Greeks and Romans ultimately disappear?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 336.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CLCV 336.
Ancient Rome’s economy was pre-industrial but highly developed and sophisticated. We will study fundamental large-scale questions such as the labor force with both free and slave labor, raw materials acquisition, start-up capital, transportation by land and sea, state involvement in the economy, banking, production methods, marketing, and retail trade. We will also study how individual businesses and trades operated, such as restaurants, furniture making, agriculture, pottery production, construction, stonework, lodging, sex work, handcrafts, textile and clothing production, dry-cleaning, and professional services (e.g., education). What modern models and approaches, including behavioral economics, help us understand ancient Roman businesses? Possible projects include case studies, consultations with modern craftspeople, and development of business plans.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Starr
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Ancient Roman civil law; its early development, codification, and continuing alteration; its historical and social context (property, family, enslavement); its influence on other legal systems. Extensive use of actual cases from antiquity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Starr
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Roman chariot races and gladiatorial combat were not just entertainment for the masses, just as the ancient Olympic games were much more than sporting events. Athletic competitions, theatrical performances, and militaristic parades were all public enactments of political and religious ideology. This course examines the spectacle of competitive performances and rituals of power that helped shape ancient Greek and Roman society. Students will investigate ancient writings alongside art-historical and archaeological evidence to consider how social values and identities were constructed through these shared experiences. We will also consider how the modern performances of ancient texts, the Olympic Games, and cinematic representations have emphasized the splendor, drama, and gore of antiquity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 205.
Instructor: Burns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. This course is also offered at the 200-level as CLCV 205.
The Athenian playwrights of the Classical period, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, produced brilliant tragedies and comedies that continue to engage us today and to define our notion of drama. At the same time, the Athenian people forged the principles that form the basis for our own political institutions. The element of performance, common to both drama and democracy, provides an important key to understanding this interesting confluence of theater and politics, and this class will combine the close reading (in English) of ancient Greek drama with a consideration of the plays in their original context. We will also address the interplay between Greek tragedy and comedy, assessing each genre's capacity for social and political criticism as well as the subversion of Athenian values and norms.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 210.
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as CLCV 210.
Do notions of gender change over time? In this course, we will explore how gender was constructed in antiquity and how it functioned as an organizational principle. Through close readings of selections from Greek and Roman epics, lyric poetry and drama, as well as philosophical and historical texts, we will analyze representations of sex and gender exploring how power was shaped through these depictions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: 200 level course in CLCV, GRK, or LAT; or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 313.
Instructor: Gilhuly
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as CLCV 213.
War is undoubtedly bad. But human beings have always practiced war. Indeed, war preceded history itself by tens of thousands of years-if by history we mean the written inquiry into the past. But what causes wars? How have wars been justified historically? How are wars won and lost? What are their effects? In this class, we examine a series of case studies in warfare, including the Trojan War, the Peloponnesian War, and the Roman Punic Wars. We will read classic accounts of warfare, theoretical literature about tactics, strategy, and logistics, and also will analyze how war is represented in other media, such as art and film.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 230.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as CLCV 230.
The founders of Western civilization were not monotheists. Rather, from 1750 B.C.E. until 500 C.E., the ancient Greeks and Romans sacrificed daily to a pantheon of immortal gods and goddesses who were expected to help mortals to achieve their earthly goals. How did this system of belief develop? Why did it capture the imaginations of so many millions for over 2,000 years? What impact did the religion of the Greeks and Romans have upon the other religions of the Mediterranean, including Judaism and Christianity? Why did the religion of the Greeks and Romans ultimately disappear?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 236.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as CLCV 236.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department. Does not count toward the minimum major in Classics or Classical Civilization.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: CLCV 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
New technologies that enable the 3D scanning and fabrication of art and architecture have become integral in attempts to combat the decay, destruction, and disputed ownership of ancient works. Our seminar contextualizes the development of these current approaches within the longer history of collecting and replicating artifacts from the ancient Mediterranean. We will think critically about the role that replicated antiquities play in site and object preservation, college and museum education, and the negotiation of international political power. Potential case studies include the Bust of Nefertiti, the Parthenon Marbles, the Venus de Milo, and the Arch of Palmyra, all of which now exist globally in multiple digital and material iterations. The seminar will culminate in a critique of the digitization and replication of Wellesley’s own antiquities collections.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CLCV 373
Prerequisites: Prior college-level coursework in Art History and/or Classical Civilization.
Instructor: Cassibry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to Fiirst-Years and Sophomores, by permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the director.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: CLSC 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.Does not count toward the minimum major in Classics or Classical Civilization.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CLST 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. Does not count toward the minimum major in Classics or Classical Civilization.
"World Literature” views a literary work as the product of local culture, then of regional or national culture, and finally of global culture. Critics of world literature argue that a text's richness may be lost in translation, that too often a privileged Western literary tradition forces “other” literatures into a relationship of belatedness and inferiority, and that world literature leads to the globalization of culture-and as the global language becomes predominantly English, the world of literature will be known through that single language alone. This course offers an opportunity to not only read rich and exciting literary texts from ancient eras to the contemporary moment but also after reading key critical essays that defend and critique “World Literature” to reflect on the cultural politics that directly or indirectly determines who reads what. Range of texts from contemporary Arabic short fiction, science fiction from China and Africa, global gothic fiction, and poetic forms across time and cultures. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The Athenian playwrights of the Classical period, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, produced brilliant tragedies and comedies that continue to engage us today and to define our notion of drama. At the same time, the Athenian people forged the principles that form the basis for our own political institutions. The element of performance, common to both drama and democracy, provides an important key to understanding this interesting confluence of theater and politics, and this class will combine the close reading (in English) of ancient Greek drama with a consideration of the plays in their original context. We will also address the interplay between Greek tragedy and comedy, assessing each genre's capacity for social and political criticism as well as the subversion of Athenian values and norms.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 211
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken CLCV 310.
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CLCV 310.
Every story is a travel story, and this class introduces students to the theme of travel as it appears in a range of literary texts from Homer's Odyssey to Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Toni Morrison's novel Home. We will focus on the ways that mobility, transience, and unsettledness function in these works both to confirm and challenge our ideas of home, identity (both personal and cultural), and the possibilities of return.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 212
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
We tend to place epic and lyric poetry at opposite ends of the spectrum: epic poetry is musty, monumental, and masculine while lyric poems are fresh, exquisite, and feminine. This class will read and discuss the works of those contemporary lyric poets who reach across this divide to embrace Homeric epic -- revising these ancient poems for modern times, for different audiences, in new forms. The class will read the Iliad and Odyssey together with the works of contemporary poets (e.g., Anne Carson, Louise Gluck, Alice Oswald, Adrienne Rich, Derek Walcott) to explore the nature of this contrapuntal conversation about poetic form across time and genre. All readings will be in English.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 221
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course introduces students to the Chinese cultural and literary tradition through the lens of modern reception and cinematic representation. Beginning with Confucius and ending with the last emperor of the imperial period (221 BCE–1911 CE), we will explore key historical turning points, influential philosophical works, and major literary genres. By pairing historical writings (in English translation) with iconic blockbusters and arthouse films, students will analyze in what ways and to what ends film adaptations transform their source materials. We will also delve into the complex and often fraught relationships between the past and present in contemporary Sinophone contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 237
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Du
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A study of translation in theory and in practice, in its literal and many metaphorical senses, and of the vast multilingual world in which translation takes place. Among the possible topics: translation of literary texts, translation of sacred texts, the history and politics of translation, the lives of translators, translation and gender, translation and colonialism, machine translation and Google Translate, endangered languages, the representation of translation in literature and film, invented languages. Students taking the course at the 300 level will do a substantial independent project: a translation, a scholarly inquiry, or a combination of the two.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: One course in literature (in any language) or permission of the instructor. Competence in a language or languages other than English is useful but not necessary.
Instructor: Aadnani, Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as CPLT 375. This course can count towards the English major/minor in consultation with the instructor.
This course examines fictions whose basic reality would be familiar if not for the introduction of a magical element that undermines commonplace notions about what constitutes reality in the first place. The magical element can be a demon, talisman, physical transformation, miraculous transition in space or time, appearance of a second plane of existence, revelation of the unreality of the primary plane of existence, etc. Students will read Kafka's Metamorphosis, Queneau's The Blue Flowers, Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Sokolov's School for Fools, and short stories by Borges, Cortazar, and Nabokov.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 40
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Weiner
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In his Republic Plato described his utopia as a land where people are divided into four classes depending on their intelligence, where a philosopher-king rules over all, and a guardian class spies and protects, where private property is forbidden and where children are taken from their parents to be raised for the state and taught only things that will increase their loyalty to the state. Eugenics is practiced, literature banished. Plato's vision has inspired socialist utopian fantasies and dystopian warnings alike. Students will read Nikolai Chernyshevsky's What's to Be Done?, H.G. Wells' Time Machine and A Modern Utopia, Evgeny Zamyatin's We, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's 1984, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. We will examine the ideas and plans of Plato, Charles Fourier, Jeremy Bentham, Charles Darwin, Cecil Rhodes and others as they take shape on the pages of the novels we read. And we will consider the extent to which the utopias we read are prophesy or proscription.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Weiner
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the director. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the director.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: CPLT 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
A study of translation in theory and in practice, in its literal and metaphorical senses alike, and of the multilingual world in which translation takes place. Topics: translation of literary texts, translation of sacred texts, the history and politics of translation, the lives of translators, translation and gender, machine translation, adaptation as translation. Students taking the course at the 300 level will do a substantial independent project: a translation, a scholarly inquiry, or a combination of the two.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: One course in literature (in any language) or permission of the instructor. Competence in a language or languages other than English is useful but not necessary.
Instructor: Aadnani, Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as CPLT 275. This course can count towards the English major/minor in consultation with the instructor.
This seminar guides students to explore the political, cultural, and epistemological changes represented in Chinese science fiction. It contextualizes the genre’s evolution in the intellectual history of modern China, where imagining the future of China is often the focus of contending ideologies and intellectual trends. The course introduces students to three booms of Chinese science fiction, which all happened when China went through drastic changes. The contemporary new wave of science fiction particularly presents a subversive vision of China’s pursuit of power and wealth, a dystopian counterpart to the government-promoted “Chinese dream.” This course examines the cutting-edge literary experiments that characterize the new wave, and studies the transgression of gender, class, and nation in science fiction that evokes sensations ranging from the uncanny to the sublime, from the corporeal to the virtual, and from the apocalyptic to the transcendent.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 382
Prerequisites: One course at the 200 or 300 level on Chinese literature, history or culture, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: O'Krent
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introduction to problem-solving through computer programming. Students learn how to read, modify, design, debug, and test algorithms that solve problems. Programming concepts include control structures, data structures, abstraction, recursion, and modularity. Students explore these concepts in the context of interactive programs, data processing, and graphics or audio, using the Python programming language.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - CS 111L.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. No prior background with computers is expected.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Does not fulfill the laboratory requirement. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Accompanying required laboratory for CS 111.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
An introduction to problem-solving through computer programming. Students learn how to read, modify, design, debug, and test algorithms that solve problems. Programming concepts include control structures, data structures, abstraction, recursion, and modularity. Students explore these concepts in the context of interactive programs, data processing, and graphics or audio, using the Python programming language.
Students in this section will complete self-directed weekly labs. This section is intended for students who have some previous programming experience, but would benefit from more before taking CS 230. Students unsure about whether to take CS 111, CS 111X, or CS 230 as their first Wellesley CS course should complete the CS placement questionnaire.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 36
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Turbak
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
An introduction to problem-solving through computer programming with special focus on application to problems relevant to physics, chemistry, and biology. Students learn how to read, modify, design, debug, and test algorithms that solve problems. Programming concepts include control structures, problem solving strategies, abstraction, recursion, and modularity. Students explore these concepts in the context of interactive programs, data processing, and graphical and numerical analysis, using the Python programming language. Students are required to attend a 2.5-hour lab where they will apply concepts learned in lecture to study topics at the intersection of chemistry and physics. Topics might include: chemical kinetics, numerical integration, molecular dynamics, computational biology, Monte Carlo techniques, and basic statistical analysis.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 115 and fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning portion of the Quantitative Reasoning and Data Literacy requirement. Prerequisites or Co-requisites - one of the following; ASTR 107, CHEM 105, CHEM 105P, CHEM 116 / BISC 116, CHEM 120, BISC 110, BISC111, BISC 112, BISC 113, GEOS 101, GEOS 102, NEUR 100, PHYS 100, PHYS 104, PHYS 106, PHYS 107, PHYS 108.
Instructor: Sandu, Teich
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
CS200 introduces students to Java, and the Object Oriented Model of programming with hands-on instruction and experience, using active learning pedagogical approaches. Students will gain knowledge and reinforcement in fundamental programming and programming-related skills, including problem decomposition into smaller and more manageable sub-problems, designing in the Object Oriented Model, programming in Java, practicing fundamental constructs like conditionals, looping, usage of basic Data Structures, as well as debugging and testing techniques. In addition, attention will be paid in developing skills around project management, pair and team work, and identifying and evaluating reliable resources for the task at hand. With successful completion of this course, students are expected to be independent programmers and learners, and effective team members.
CS 200 is for students who earned credit in CS 111, and who did not receive a recommendation to continue with CS 230.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Prior background with computers is expected - CS111 or CS112, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Kakavouli, Delcourt
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course introduces modern web development using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. JavaScript is explored in detail, including scoping, closures, objects, classes, object-oriented programming, and modules. The jQuery library is also introduced, and the course covers event handling and Ajax interactions. Students will build web pages that manage data structures using menus and forms, and that save/restore that data from local storage resulting in a persistent, dynamic web application. Designed web pages will be modern, responsive, and accessible. The course also covers Bootstrap and the jQuery UI (User Interface) library.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CS 111 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Anderson
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Human-Computer Interaction is one of the areas that have transformed the way we use computers in the last 30 years. Topics include methodology for designing and testing user interfaces, interaction styles (command line, menus, graphical user interfaces, virtual reality, tangible user interfaces), interaction techniques (including use of voice, gesture, eye movements), design guidelines, and user interface software tools. Students will design a user interface, program a prototype, and test the results for usability.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: One of the following courses - CS 111, CS 115/MAS 115.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
An introduction to techniques and building blocks for organizing large programs. Topics include: modules, abstract data types, recursion, algorithmic efficiency, and the use and implementation of standard data structures and algorithms, such as lists, trees, graphs, stacks, queues, priority queues, tables, sorting, and searching. Students become familiar with these concepts through weekly programming assignments using the Java programming language.
This course has a required co-requisite lab - CS 230L.
A student is required to have confirmation of authorization from the CS 111 faculty that is based on the mastery of the CS 111 concepts in order to enroll in CS 230. Students who did not take CS 111 at Wellesley and who wish to enroll in CS 230 should contact the CS department to take a placement questionnaire.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CS 111 or permission of the instructor
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
Accompanying required laboratory for CS 230.
The grading option chosen for the lecture (CS 230) - either Letter Grade or Credit/Non Credit - will apply to the lab as well; the final grade is a single unified grade for both lecture and lab and is based on the grading option you choose for the lecture.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An introduction to techniques and building blocks for organizing large programs. Topics include: modules, abstract data types, recursion, algorithmic efficiency, and the use and implementation of standard data structures and algorithms, such as lists, trees, graphs, stacks, queues, priority queues, tables, sorting, and searching. Students become familiar with these concepts through *additional self-driven weekly programming practice using the Java programming language.
Students are required to attend an additional two-hour laboratory section each week. CS 230P is open to all students who did not meet the prerequisites for CS 230, or for students who took CS 111 before the last semester, or students who would appreciate additional academic support because of their prior MATH and CS experience. Class meetings are followed by a 30-minutes practice session to provide for extra time to work with the instructor after class.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - CS 230PL.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 36
Prerequisites: CS 111 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Metaxas
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for CS 230P.
The grading option chosen for the lecture (CS 230P) - either Letter Grade or Credit/Non Credit - will apply to the lab as well; the final grade is a single unified grade for both lecture and lab and is based on the grading option you choose for the lecture.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: CS 111 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Metaxas
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to techniques and building blocks for organizing large programs. Topics include: modules, abstract data types, recursion, algorithmic efficiency, and the use and implementation of standard data structures and algorithms, such as lists, trees, graphs, stacks, queues, priority queues, tables, sorting, and searching. Students become familiar with these concepts through weekly programming assignments using the Java programming language.
CS230X is intended for students with significant prior experience in Java programming as demonstrated by a 5 in CS AP A, or equivalent demonstration of experience. Students in this section will complete self-directed weekly labs. If you did not take the CS AP A exam and would like to take this class, you may take the CS placement questionnaire to see if you qualify.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CS 111 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Grevet Delcourt
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to the design and analysis of fundamental algorithms. General techniques covered: divide-and-conquer algorithms, dynamic programming, greediness, probabilistic algorithms. Topics include: sorting, searching, graph algorithms, compression, cryptography, computational geometry, and NP-completeness.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: (CS 230, CS 230P, or CS 230X) and MATH 225, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
What is artificial intelligence (AI) and should humans fear it as one of "our biggest existential threats"? In this course, we will grapple with these difficult questions and investigate them in different ways. We will discuss the development of the field from the symbolic, knowledge-rich approaches of the 20th century AI (e.g., rule-based systems), to statistical approaches that rely on increasingly large amounts of data, including an overview of contemporary deep learning techniques. We will explore how to apply these techniques in several AI application areas, including robotics, computer vision, and natural language processing, and consider ethical issues around AI in society. By the end of the semester, students should be able to answer the starting questions in-depth and with nuance.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CS 111 and CS 230, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: C. Anderson
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
As the number of our digital traces continues to grow, so does the opportunity for discovering meaningful patterns in these traces. In this course, students will initially learn how to collect, clean, format, and store data from digital platforms. By adopting a computational approach to statistical analysis, students will then implement in code different statistical metrics and simulation scenarios for hypothesis testing and estimation. Finally, students will generate meaningful visualizations for data exploration and communicating results. Additionally, we will discuss the ethics of data collection and think critically about current practices of experimenting with online users. Students will work in groups to create their own datasets, ask an interesting question, perform statistical analyses and visualizations, and report the results.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CS 230 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Mustafaraj
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course offers an introduction to the theory of computation. Topics include languages, regular expressions, finite automata, grammars, pushdown automata, and Turing machines. The first part of the course covers the Chomsky hierarchy of languages and their associated computational models. The second part of the course focuses on decidability issues and unsolvable problems. The final part of the course investigates complexity theory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CS 230 (or CS 230P or CS 230X) and MATH 225, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course examines how computers run programs, introducing key software and hardware abstractions and implementations between programming languages and transistors. The course traces representation and translation of data and programs through three broad topics in computer systems: computer hardware implementation, including digital logic, computer arithmetic, and machine organization; the hardware-software interface, including instruction set architecture, assembly code, and the C programming language; and abstractions for practical systems, including the physical memory hierarchy, the operating system process model, virtual memory, and memory management. Students complete extensive hands-on projects in hardware and software systems. Students are required to attend one three-hour laboratory weekly.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: (CS 230 or CS 230P or CS 230X) and MATH 225, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: This course satisfies the laboratory requirement.
Accompanying required laboratory for CS 240.
The grading option chosen for the lecture (CS 240) - either Letter Grade or Credit/Non Credit - will apply to the lab as well; the final grade is a single unified grade for both lecture and lab and is based on the grading option you choose for the lecture.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
A systems-oriented approach to data networks, including a theoretical discussion of common networking problems and an examination of modern networks and protocols. Topics include point-to-point links, packet switching, Internet protocols, end-to-end protocols, congestion control, and security. Projects may include client-server applications and network measurement tools.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: (CS230 or CS230P or CS230X) and Math 225 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Machine learning is the science of teaching computers how to learn from observations. It is ubiquitous in our interactions with society, such as in face recognition, web search, targeted advertising, speech processing, and genetic analysis. It is currently at the forefront of research in artificial intelligence, and has been making rapid strides given the vast availability of data today. This course is a broad introduction to the field, covering the theoretical ideas behind widely used algorithms like decision trees, linear regression, support vector machines, and many more. We will also study practical applications of these algorithms to problems in a variety of domains, including vision, speech, language, medicine, and the social sciences.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: (CS 230 or CS 230P or CS 230X) and MATH 225.
Instructor: Tjaden, Yacoby
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: CS 230 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: CS 230 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
This course introduces the principles underlying the design, semantics, and implementation of modern programming languages in major paradigms including function-oriented, imperative, and object-oriented. The course examines: language dimensions including syntax, naming, state, data, control, types, abstraction, modularity, and extensibility; issues in the runtime representation and implementation of programming languages; and the expression and management of parallelism and concurrency. Students explore course topics via programming exercises in several languages, including the development of programming language interpreters.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CS 230 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Turbak
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course covers principles and practice in the design and implementation of modern compilers and programming language runtime systems. Topics include lexical analysis, parsing, symbols tables, semantic analysis, type checking, intermediate representations, program analysis and optimization, code generation, garbage collection, and other runtime support. As time permits, the course may also survey topics including just-in-time compilation, runtime optimization, concurrent runtime systems, or extended automatic program error detection. Students will construct a full compiler and runtime system for a simple statically-typed programming language over the course of the semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 230 and at least one of CS 240 or CS 251. CS 235 is recommended, but not required.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
CS 304 is a course in full-stack web development. The stack comprises the front-end (typically a web browser), the back-end (a database for storing and retrieving user-contributed data) and the middleware that knits the two together. We will learn how to parse the incoming web request, route the request to the appropriate handler, retrieve data from the database that is relevant to the user's search, combine that data with static templates of web pages, and deliver that data to the browser. We will build endpoints to handle Ajax requests and learn about REST APIs. We will also discuss performance, reliability, concurrency, and security issues. In a semester project, we will create dynamic websites driven by database entries. In the fall, the CS 304 stack will comprise Flask and MySQL. In the spring, the CS 304 stack will comprise Node.js and MongoDB.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: (CS 230 or CS 230P or CS 230X) and MATH 225 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Anderson
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
A survey of topics in computer graphics with an emphasis on fundamental techniques. Topics include: graphics hardware, fundamentals of three-dimensional graphics including modeling, projection, coordinate transformation, synthetic camera specification, color, lighting, shading, hidden surface removal, animation, and texture-mapping. We also cover the mathematical representation and programming specification of lines, planes, curves, and surfaces. Students will build graphics applications using a browser-based platform.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CS 230 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Many elegant computational problems arise naturally in the modern study of molecular biology. This course is an introduction to the design, implementation, and analysis of algorithms with applications in genomics. Topics include bioinformatic algorithms for dynamic programming, tree-building, clustering, hidden Markov models, expectation maximization, Gibbs sampling, and stochastic context-free grammars. Topics will be studied in the context of analyzing DNA sequences and other sources of biological data. Applications include sequence alignment, gene-finding, structure prediction, motif and pattern searches, and phylogenetic inference. Course projects will involve significant computer programming in Java. No biology background is expected.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 230 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Tjaden
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In the past decade, we have experienced the rise of socio-technical systems used by millions of people: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, etc. Such systems are on the one hand computational systems, using sophisticated infrastructure and algorithms to organize huge amounts of data and text, but on the other hand social systems, because they cannot succeed without human participation. How are such systems built? What algorithms underlie their foundations? How does human behavior influence their operation and vice-versa? In this class, we will delve into answering these questions by means of: a) reading current research papers on the inner-workings of such systems; b) implementing algorithms that accomplish tasks such as web crawling, web search, random walks, learning to rank, text classification, topic modeling; and c) critically thinking about the unexamined embrace of techno-solutionism using a humanistic lens.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 230 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Mustafaraj
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Mobile devices have become more popular than desktops or laptops for communicating with others, accessing information, and performing computation. This course covers the principles and practice of developing applications for mobile devices, with an emphasis on features that distinguish them from desktop/laptop applications and web applications. Topics include: the functionality of modern smartphones and tablets, including device sensors, actuators, and communication; an iterative design process for apps that people find both useful and usable; designing and implementing mobile app interfaces and behaviors; and tools for developing software in teams.
In this hands-on and programming-intensive course, groups will build web apps and mobile apps using a process that combines aspects of Human Computer Interaction and software engineering. This course begins by using the React JS framework to build interactive web apps out of modular components. It then transitions to React Native, a cross-platform component-based mobile app development environment for creating mobile apps that run on both iOS and Android devices. The course also explores how apps can leverage cloud databases to store and share information.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 230.
Instructor: Turbak
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Tangible user interfaces emerge as a novel human-computer interaction style that interlinks the physical and digital worlds. Extending beyond the limitations of the computer mouse, keyboard, and monitor, tangible user interfaces allow users to take advantage of their natural spatial skills while supporting collaborative work. Students will be introduced to conceptual frameworks, the latest research, and a variety of techniques for designing and building these interfaces. Developing tangible interfaces requires creativity as well as an interdisciplinary perspective. Hence, students will work in teams to design, prototype, and physically build tangible user interfaces.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 220 or CS 230, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Shaer
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Mixed and Augmented Reality technologies combine virtual content with the physical environment, allowing people to interact with computers and digital content in exciting new ways. These emerging human-computer interaction paradigms have been applied to a variety of fields including medicine, education, design, entertainment, and play. This course introduces fundamental methods, principles, and tools for designing, programming, and testing mixed and augmented reality applications. Topics include the history of virtual and augmented reality, application domains, hardware for 3D input and display, tracking and registration, 3D perception, and societal implications. Students will work individually and in teams to develop novel virtual and augmented reality experiences.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 220 or CS 221 or CS 230.
Instructor: Tynes
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Social Computing systems connect us to our closest friends, and globally to people all over the world. In recent decades, companies like Facebook, Snapchat, and even Amazon, have reshaped our social environments. All of these systems, at their core, are designed to facilitate interactions between people. What design decisions shape these systems? Students will learn the theoretical foundations of Social Computing drawn from the Social Sciences, and will learn software prototyping and design techniques to create new systems. This class will explore topics such as identity, anonymity, reputation, moderation, crowdsourcing, and social algorithms. Students will work in teams to design, prototype, and build social computing systems.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 220 or CS 230.
Instructor: Delcourt
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
As technology increasingly integrates with our lives, how can we ensure that its design is inclusive of users' different abilities? CS 325 expands on the fundamentals of design and qualitative research to explore how technology can be made accessible for diverse users, with an emphasis on people with disabilities. In this course, we will read about and analyze approaches to inclusive technology, study how design intersects with disability justice, learn about the history of accessible and assistive technologies, understand how to create multimodal user experiences, learn accessible web programming, and test state-of-the-art tools. Students will also conduct a semester-long case study project in which they work in groups to identify accessibility issues on the Wellesley campus and work with the community to build appropriate technology solutions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 220 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Gadiraju
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Explore advanced topics in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures. The focus is on expanding your toolkit of problem-solving techniques and considering new settings that model real-world challenges. Topics may include: randomization, approximation algorithms, online and streaming settings, parallel and distributed computing, linear programming and LP rounding, optimization under uncertainty, bias and fairness in algorithms, and algorithmic foundations of data science and machine learning.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 231 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Brubach
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the subfield of CS that focuses on language technology. Because language is one of the most complex human abilities, building computational technologies that involve language is both challenging and important. This course introduces NLP methods and applications. Students will (1) learn core NLP algorithms and models; (2) explore the challenges posed by different aspects of human language; (3) learn to evaluate ethical concerns about language technology; and (4) complete a series of projects to implement and improve NLP models. We will cover a range of techniques, including n-gram models, Bayesian classifiers, neural networks, and deep learning. Applications include parsing, sentiment analysis, machine translation, and language generation, as well as information retrieval tasks like summarization, topic modeling, and question-answering.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: CS 230 and either MATH 206 or MATH 220 or MATH 225.
Instructor: C. Anderson
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course focuses on modeling and specifying computer systems. Students will learn how to reason about the properties and expected behavior of modern software. Topics include designing specifications, property-based testing, model checking, and satisfiability solvers. We will use real-world case studies to motivate the analysis of reliable computer systems. By the end of the course, students will be able to (1) design specifications for the expected behavior of a system, (2) model system behavior using state-of-the-art tools with automated formal methods, and (3) identify and prevent software bugs. While prior experience with algorithm design and analysis is expected, the course will cover any necessary background in systems programming and formal methods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 111 and CS 230, or CS 111 and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: VanHattum
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is designed to provide a solid foundation in the design and implementation of key concepts in existing operating systems. These concepts include process management, scheduling, multitasking, synchronization, deadlocks, memory management, file systems, and I/O operations. Throughout the course, the mechanism design aspects of these concepts will be discussed and assessed from the point of view of a programmer. Moreover, more modern operating systems will be explored, such as virtual operating systems.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 240 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introduction to computer security and privacy. Topics will include privacy, threat modeling, software security, web tracking, web security, usable security, the design of secure and privacy preserving tools, authentication, anonymity, practical and theoretical aspects of cryptography, secure protocols, network security, social engineering, the relationship of the law to security and privacy, and the ethics of hacking. This course will emphasize hands-on experience with technical topics and the ability to communicate security and privacy topics to lay and expert audiences. Assignments will include technical exercises exploring security exploits and tools in a Linux environment; problem sets including exercises and proofs related to theoretical aspects of computer security; and opportunities to research, write, present, and lead discussions on security- and privacy-related topics. Students are required to attend an additional 70-minute discussion section each week.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 230 and CS 240 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Lerner
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What is the “cloud”? What is a distributed system? This course is for students interested in understanding the fundamental concepts and algorithms underlying existing distributed systems. By the end of this course, students will have the basic knowledge needed to work with and build distributed systems, such as peer-to-peer systems and cloud computing systems. Topics include MapReduce, Spark, communication models, synchronization, distributed file systems, coordination algorithms, consensus algorithms, fault-tolerance, and security.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 230 (required); CS 231 or CS 242 (recommended).
Instructor: Bassem
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Deep learning is the study of how computers can learn from data in a manner inspired by neural connections in the human brain. It is revolutionizing how people and machines interact. This course explores the principles and practice of modern deep learning systems. Students will design and implement their own artificial neural networks as well as analyze massive deep learning models at the forefront of the field of machine learning. Deep learning algorithms such as convolutional neural networks and recurrent neural networks will be applied in a variety of domains, including medical diagnosis, self-driving cars, and large-language models. Students will further investigate the societal impacts and ethical considerations of these deep learning systems.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: CS 230 and MATH 225.
Instructor: Tjaden
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In recent years, Artificial Intelligence has enabled applications that were previously not thought possible—from systems that propose novel drugs or generate new art/music, to systems that accurately and reliably predict outcomes of medical interventions in real-time. But what has enabled these developments? Probabilistic Machine Learning, a paradigm that casts recent advances in Machine Learning, like neural networks, into a statistical learning framework. In this course, we introduce the foundational concepts behind this paradigm—statistical model specification, and statistical learning and inference—focusing on connecting theory with real-world applications and hands-on practice. This course lays the foundation for advanced study and research in Machine Learning. Topics include: directed graphical models, deep Bayesian regression/classification, generative models (latent variable models) for clustering, dimensionality reduction, and time-series forecasting. Students will get hands-on experience building models for specific tasks ,most taken from healthcare contexts, using a probabilistic programming language based in Python.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: (CS 230 or CS 230P or CS 230X) and MATH 225, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Yacoby
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors and Seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: CS 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Senior data science majors enroll in this course in order to meet the major’s capstone requirement. The goal is to integrate and solidify the concepts learned in previous major courses. Students will demonstrate the ability to conduct applied projects via the steps in the data science process. Students will complete the capstone with the critical thinking needed to pose and refine questions that can be answered with data in an ethical way; the statistical skills needed to draw meaning from data appropriately; the computational skills needed to tackle practical data challenges; and the ability to collaborate, communicate, and critique in the context of modern data. The course is also a chance to practice and demonstrate key technical skills, such as code sharing on github or a strong command of data science libraries in both Python and R. At the end of the course, students will have created a project or portfolio that can be shared publicly. The course must be taken for a letter grade.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: QR 260/STAT 260 or STAT 318 or QAI Certificate, and at least one 300-level CS course that counts toward the data science major. Permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Joseph, McEwan, Mustafaraj, Pattanayak, W. Wang, Wilmer
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: DS 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
What does it mean to live life to its fullest capacity - personally, socially and ethically? What does it mean to succeed? To fail? To love? To fight? To dream? In search of answers to these questions, we read the classic foundational texts of China, Japan, and Korea from Confucian and Taoist philosophy to romantic tales, harrowing diaries and exquisitely crafted haiku. Bringing our knowledge as a China and a Japan specialist to bear, we formulate critical perspectives on key works with the goal of understanding East Asian culture as a whole and as different regional expressions. Join us as we explore the complexities of East Asian identity while discovering something about the big questions we all confront today wherever - and whomever - we are.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Zimmerman
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: No prior background in the study of East Asia is required; all readings will be in English.
The course begins with a brief introduction to an eleventh-century novel from Japan, Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji. This work shows considerable awareness of Chinese culture, but the design is entirely original and the aesthetics typically Japanese. There is no influence at all between Genji and our next subject, Cao Xueqin's eighteenth-century masterpiece, Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone. However, the similarities point to shared East Asian traditions, and the contrasts can be traced to major differences in the aesthetics of China and Japan. For students who have already studied The Tale of Genjii or Dream of the Red Chamber, alternative reading will be assigned. Later on we will take up three other pieces, two from Korea and one from Vietnam. These two, as well, fit into a larger East Asian syndrome, but exhibit national characteristics at the same time.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken EALC 325.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as EALC 325.
In East Asia, the rise of the girl in literary and popular culture coincides with the appearance of modernity itself. Beginning with the ‘modern girl,' we move chronologically, exploring coming-of-age tropes in East Asian fiction, manga, anime, and film. How does the objectification of the adolescent girl illuminate issues around ethnicity, national identity, sexuality, even globalization? What national anxieties hover around girls' bodies? We read texts in English translation and explore models of female development that might aid us in our exploration of this cultural phenomenon. Secondary readings include works by Sigmund Freud, Julia Kristeva, Marianne Hirsch, Carol Gilligan, Elizabeth Grosz, among others.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 236
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Zimmerman
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the circulation of genre across popular media forms in 20th and 21st century East Asia as part of the legacy of Japanese colonialism. We will look at primary texts/media objects—fiction, films, animation, tv shows, pop music, and video games—from Japan, Korea, and the broader Sinosphere that embody popular genres including action, science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, horror, crime, and romantic comedy. While thinking about definitions of "genre" in a popular context, we will also trace how different genres and forms of media resonate with each other across different national and cultural contexts, with a particular focus on how genre conventions are employed to grapple with imperial or colonial pasts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ward
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The course begins with a brief introduction to an eleventh-century novel from Japan, Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji. This work shows considerable awareness of Chinese culture, but the design is entirely original and the aesthetics typically Japanese. There is no influence at all between Genji and our next subject, Cao Xueqin's eighteenth-century masterpiece, Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone. However, the similarities point to shared East Asian traditions, and the contrasts can be traced to major differences in the aesthetics of China and Japan. For students who have already studied The Tale of Genjii or Dream of the Red Chamber, alternative readings will be assigned. Later on we will take up three other pieces, two from Korea and one from Vietnam. These two, as well, fit into a larger East Asian syndrome, but exhibit national characteristics at the same time.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: One 200-level course in either Chinese or Japanese language and culture required. Not open to students who have taken EALC 225.
Instructor: Widmer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as EALC 225.
The posthuman points to a deep crisis of humanism. Its most powerful critique targets the fundamental malfunction of the existing social order, epistemological paradigm, and modes of governance, production, trade, and culture that have menaced the human conditions and harmed the planetary ecological system. The posthuman thinking in an East Asian context motivates a reevaluation of various modernity projects and reconsiders the position and potentials of humanity in terms of planetary consciousness. In contemporary East Asian culture, posthuman images are particularly applied to reflections concerning the deteriorating ecological system, evolution or devolution enabled by mutations of the political economy, and above all, an awareness of multiplicity that replaces the human-centric singular form of globalization. This seminar guides students to rethink about concepts like gender, sex, class, race, and species in the emerging cultural contexts of the Chthulucene, the Neo-Baroque, virtual reality, digital consciousness, and the metaverse. The course integrates theoretical studies to case analyses of literary works, films, TV dramas, video games, and digital artworks from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and the Asian diaspora across the Pacific.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 328
Prerequisites: One course at the 200 or 300 level on East Asian literature, history, or culture, or CPLT 180 or another CPLT course at the 200 or 300 level.
Instructor: M. Song
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Language constitutes an important marker of social identity at many levels, such as the individual, subcultures, ethnic groups, and nations. Language has contributed to establishing unity, socio-cultural diversity, and nationalism in East Asian Society. This course explores the function of language in forming national, ethnic, and cultural identity and nationalism throughout the modernization process for China, Korea, and Japan. The seminar will discuss how language has been interconnected with the shaping of intra-East Asian literary/cultural practices, modern identity, and globalization. Students will acquire fundamental knowledge of the dynamics of language and socio-cultural changes as well as comparative perspectives on nationalism/colonialism and national identity in East Asian communities. Basic knowledge of and familiarity with a particular language/region (China, Korea, or Japan) and its historical, socio-linguistic backgrounds are required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: One 200-level course in either Chinese, Japanese, or Korean language and culture required.
Instructor: Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course narrates three thousand years of writing practices, with the Chinese script—the shared writing system in premodern East Asian—as a through line. We will focus on the social implications of writing, investigating questions such as how writing transformed political systems and interacted with ordinary people. Units and topics of this course include: mechanics of writing systems, empire formation and writing standardization, reading and writing practices in East Asia, evolving relationships between writings and (local, vernacular, and national) languages, writing as a technology, cross-cultural interactions and receptions, and finally, writing and gender. For the past two millennia, East Asia has been a source of media innovation. As we migrate with the Chinese script from bamboo slips onto paper, from printed books onto computer screens, we will tackle the theoretical toolkit and historical precedents for examining our current age of media disruption.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 346
Prerequisites: One course at the 200 or 300 level on East Asian literature, history or culture; or in Comparative Literature; or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Du
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the director.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: EAS 360 and permission of the director.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This first course in economics provides the fundamental tools for exploration of the field. Microeconomics considers the decisions of households and firms about what to consume and what to produce, and the efficiency and equity of market outcomes. Supply and demand analysis is developed and applied. Policy issues include price controls, competition and monopoly, income inequality , and the role of government in market economies. Students who have AP or IB credit in economics, and who elect ECON 101, forfeit the AP or IB credit. ECON 101P is an alternative course open to students who have not fulfilled the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This first course in economics provides the fundamental tools for exploration of the field. Microeconomics considers the decisions of households and firms about what to consume and what to produce, and the efficiency and equity of market outcomes. Supply and demand analysis is developed and applied. Policy issues include price controls, competition and monopoly, income inequality, and the role of government in market economies.
Econ 101P is open to (but is not limited to) students who do not meet the QR prerequisites for ECON 101 and is also appropriate for students who, because of their previous preparation in economics and mathematics, would benefit from additional academic support for their study of introductory economics. Additional class meeting slots will emphasize fluency with mathematical tools needed for success in economics. Students are normally expected to enroll concurrently in ECON 251H. Students who have AP or IB credit in Economics, and who elect ECON 101P, forfeit the AP or IB credit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. First generation students and students with QR scores below 10 will be sent an explicit invitation to join. Concurrent enrollment in ECON 251H is expected but is not a requirement.
Instructor: Rothschild
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course follows ECON 101 in continuing to build fundamental tools for exploration of the field. The course analyzes the aggregate dimensions of a market-based economy. Topics include the measurement of national income, economic growth, unemployment, inflation, business cycles, the balance of payments, and exchange rates. The impact of government monetary and fiscal policies is considered. Students who have AP or IB credit in economics and who elect ECON 102 forfeit the AP or IB credit. ECON 102P is an alternative course open to students who have not fulfilled the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course follows ECON 101 in continuing to build fundamental tools for exploration of the field. The course analyzes the aggregate dimensions of a market-based economy. Topics include the measurement of national income, economic growth, unemployment, inflation, business cycles, the balance of payments, and exchange rates. The impact of government monetary and fiscal policies is considered.
ECON 102P is open to (but is not limited to) students who do not meet the QR prerequisites for ECON 101 and is also appropriate for students who, because of their previous preparation in economics and mathematics, would benefit from additional academic support for their study of introductory economics. Additional class meeting slots will emphasize fluency with mathematical tools needed for success in economics. Students are normally expected to enroll concurrently in ECON 251H. Students who have AP or IB credit in economics, and who elect 102P, forfeit the AP or IB credit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. First generation students and students with QR scores below 10 will be sent an explicit invitation to join. Concurrent enrollment in ECON 251H is expected but is not a requirement. Students who took ECON 101P will be given priority in admission to ECON 102P.
Instructor: Weerapana
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Intermediate microeconomic theory: analysis of the individual household, firm, industry, and market, and the social implications of resource allocation choices. Emphasis on application of theoretical methodology.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: All of the following -- ECON 101 or ECON 101P, ECON 102 or ECON 102P, and one math course at the level of MATH 115 or higher. The math course must be taken at Wellesley.
Instructor: Abeberese, McKnight, Rothschild, Skeath
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Intermediate macroeconomic theory: analysis of fluctuations in aggregate income and growth and the balance of payments. Analysis of policies to control inflation and unemployment.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: All of the following -- ECON 101 or ECON 101P, ECON 102 or ECON 102P, and one math course at the level of MATH 115 or higher. The math course must be taken at Wellesley.
Instructor: Hilt, Neumuller
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course introduces students to the methods economists use to assess empirical relationships, primarily regression analysis. Issues examined include statistical significance, goodness-of-fit, dummy variables, and model assumptions. Includes an introduction to panel data models, instrumental variables, and randomized and natural experiments. Students learn to apply the concepts to data, read economic research, and write an empirical research paper.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 21
Prerequisites: All of the following -- ECON 101 or ECON 101P, ECON 102 or ECON 102P, and one math course at the level of MATH 115 or higher. The math course must be taken at Wellesley. One course in statistics (ECON 103, PSYC 105, PSYC 205, STAT 160, or STAT 218) is also required.
Instructor: Giles, McKnight, Park, Shastry
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: The Credit/Non Credit grading option is not available for this course. Letter graded only.
Economics is the only social science in which the Nobel prize is awarded, and the list of winners and citations showcases the evolution of the discipline and economic ideas with staying power. This course will use the Nobel Prize as a starting point for students to apply what they have learned in principles of economics courses by exploring how economists have framed, and answered, important empirical and theoretical questions in our field. Topics may include incentives and decision-making; poverty, inequality, and welfare concerns; market design, firm behavior, and competition; externalities; financial markets; economic growth and macroeconomic equilibrium; the application of empirical methods to social problems; and possible future prize-winning ideas.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P and ECON 102 or ECON 102P.
Instructor: Werkema
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course introduces the study of macroeconomics in an open economy. Topics include basic features of foreign exchange markets, the structure of the balance of payments accounts, and the effectiveness of macroeconomic policy under fixed and flexible exchange rates and varying degrees of capital mobility. The course also examines the evolution of the international financial system, the role of the IMF, the creation of the European Monetary Union, and the recent financial crises in East Asia, Russia, and Brazil.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P and ECON 102 or ECON 102P.
Instructor: Weerapana
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
More than half of all the goods and services produced in the world are traded across national boundaries. While economists agree that international trade is beneficial overall, allowing consumers to get more kinds of goods at lower prices, politicians and citizens often see trade as harmful to their interests. This course will examine the economic argument in favor of trade, explore the reasons why nations choose restrictive trade policies and even engage in trade wars, and analyze the consequences of those policies for economic well being. We will also consider the climate consequences of the movement of goods around the world. The course will make significant use of a case discussion format requiring class participation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: (ECON 101 or ECON 101P) and (ECON 102 or ECON 102P).
Instructor: Velenchik
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course considers the role of taxation in the economy. The course studies how taxation affects economic efficiency, income distribution, capital formation, and microeconomic incentives. Major topics include the effects of the individual income tax, the corporate income tax, Social Security taxes, estate taxes, property taxes, green taxes, sales taxes, and the role of international tax incentives in a global economy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P. ECON 102 or ECON 102P recommended.
Instructor: Rothschild
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is an introduction to the study of the key issues affecting economic development in low- and middle-income countries. We will use economic analysis to gain an understanding of these key issues and review policy options. Specific topics will include growth, population, health, education, gender equality, credit markets, trade and foreign aid.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Either ECON 101 or ECON 101P and either ECON 102 or ECON 102P. ECON 103 recommended.
Instructor: Abeberese
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course uses economic theory and empirical analysis to examine the lives of women and their role in the economy. We first discuss the economics of gender and note that the research on the economics of gender tends to fall into three areas: analyses of labor markets, analyses of policies and practices to address issues facing working women and their families, and analyses of the economic status of women across countries. After that introduction, we will discuss women's educational attainment and participation in the labor market, gender segregation and the gender pay gap, discrimination, division of labor within household, and work versus family-life balance. In the second segment we will review government and company policies, like affirmative action, aimed at issues faced by working women and families. The final section will examine international evidence on the economic status of women and their changing role in the world economy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P and ECON 103, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Kerr
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the health care sector and health policy issues from an economic perspective. Topics to be discussed include the demand for health insurance, the supply of health care, health care costs, health outcomes and disparities, and the recent U.S. health care reform law. The course focuses primarily on the U.S., with some discussion of these issues in an international context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P.
Instructor: Coile
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Pandemics like the COVID-19 crisis can exact a heavy toll in the loss of human life. Yet their consequences may also include job losses and business failures, volatility in stock and product markets, and (potentially permanent) changes to global supply chains, work, education, and cities. In this course, we examine pandemics through a microeconomic lens. Topics to be explored include the health costs of pandemics, the economics of vaccines, insuring individuals against pandemic-related risks, racial and socioeconomic disparities in pandemic impacts, the effects of pandemics on firms and markets, and government interventions to combat pandemics. In exploring these topics, we will use standard microeconomic tools including the supply and demand model, models of consumer and firm behavior, cost-benefit analysis, and the expected utility model. We will read current research on COVID-19 as well as research on earlier events like the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P. ECON 103 (or equivalent) recommended. Not open to students who have taken ECON 232 or ECON 332.
Instructor: Coile
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
This course is designed to deepen students' engagement with scholarship in Economics. Enrollment is by invitation only and will draw from students concurrently enrolled in the core required courses for the major or minor. The class will introduce students to current research in Economics, presented by different faculty members, and link that research to skills and concepts covered in core required courses. Students will gain a better understanding of the ways the tools they are learning in their courses can be applied to real world issues.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None. Enrollment is by invitation only.
Instructor: Rothschild, Weerapana
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. The class meets once per week for 75 minutes. It earns 0.5 units and may be repeated once for additional credit.
Further development and application of the tools of analysis developed in ECON 201 (Intermediate Micro). Students will study advanced topics in consumer and producer theory, including strategic models of firm behavior in the presence of market power and many-good models of household behavior. Emphasis on mathematical manipulation of models and effective communication of advanced theoretical reasoning and results.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201. MATH 205 recommended.
Instructor: Skeath
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In this course, students will learn about, and apply, mathematical techniques and econometric tools from doing macroeconomic analysis. In terms of mathematical preparation, students are expected to have a good knowledge of calculus and will be introduced to relevant topics in linear algebra, differential equations, and dynamic optimization. In terms of econometrics, students will learn about time-series econometrics and vector auto-regressions. Economic applications will include economic growth, search models of unemployment, New Keynesian models for macroeconomic policy evaluation, and dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: All of the following - ECON 201, ECON 202, ECON 203, MATH 205.
Instructor: Neumuller
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will develop students' understanding of causal inference in cutting-edge empirical research. Students will develop tools for their own work and enhance their ability to critically evaluate research in the social sciences. How should a researcher approach an empirical question? How should a policymaker evaluate the impact of a program? Topics include randomized experiments, instrumental variables, panel data, regression discontinuity designs and machine learning. Applications will emphasize research on the frontier of applied microeconomics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Either ECON 203 or QR 260/STAT 260, and either ECON 201 or MATH 205.
Instructor: Park
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will use the insights of organization theory to analyze the development of the U.S. economy. The main topics to be examined will include: the evolution of the U.S. banking and financial system and the institutional changes underlying each phase of its development; the contractual foundations of business organizations and the choice between partnerships and the corporate form; the rise of big business and the great merger wave of the 1890s and the legal changes that made these developments possible; and the regulatory innovations of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the 1930s. The course will employ a variety of sophisticated theoretical and empirical methods in analyzing these developments and will present them in comparative international perspective.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201, ECON 202 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Hilt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course explores the reasons for government intervention in the economy and the responses of households and firms to the government's actions. Economic models and empirical research are used to analyze tax policies and spending programs. Topics include the effect of taxes on savings and labor supply, externalities and public goods, and social insurance programs such as social security and unemployment insurance.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Giles
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines the economic causes and consequences of international migration, both historically and in the present, with a focus on the U.S. experience. We explore changes in immigration law over time and the political debates surrounding immigration in the past and present. Topics include: the effect of immigrants on the wages of the native born; immigrants' use of welfare and other social services; and immigrants' involvement in crime and their treatment in the criminal justice system. In each case, students will discuss the popular perception, the theory, and the empirical evidence, with a focus on the public policy alternatives for dealing with each issue.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Butcher
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines the reasons for the integration across borders of the markets in goods and the factors of production, and the consequences of these trends. In the first part of the course we discuss the history of globalization. We then investigate the rationale and record of international trade, the immigration of labor, and global financial flows. We examine issues related to international public goods, and the need for collective solutions to such global problems as pandemics and pollution. We also investigate the records of international governmental organizations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201.
Instructor: Joyce
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course deals with economic activity in an open economy. Students learn basic concepts, including the balance of payments, exchange rates, and capital flows. The impact of government policies in open economies is analyzed. The last section examines financial crises and the role of the IMF.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201, ECON 202 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Joyce
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course analyzes the causes and consequences of international trade. The theory of international trade and the effects of trade policy tools are developed in both perfect and imperfect competition, with reference to the empirical evidence. This framework serves as context for the consideration of several important issues: the effect of trade on income inequality, the relationship between trade and the environment, the importance the World Trade Organization, strategic trade policy, the role of trade in developing countries, and the effects of free trade agreements.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203
Instructor: Abeberese
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course uses economic analysis to evaluate important social policy issues in the United States, focusing on the role of government in shaping social policy and its impact on individuals. Does welfare make people work less or have more children? Why is the teenage birthrate so high, and how might it be lowered? How do fertility patterns respond to changes in abortion policy? Theoretical models and econometric evidence will be used to investigate these and other issues.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203
Instructor: Levine
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This class introduces students to the research field of economic development. We will examine some of the big topics in economic development and how economists study them. For example, we will study key aspects of life for poor households in the developing world, such as fertility, education, and savings, through the lens of economic theory. We will consider interventions and policy options designed to improve outcomes and examine related empirical evidence. Students will study recent research in this area and, for the final project, propose a research project on a question of relevance in development economics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Shastry
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course analyzes the major financial decisions facing firms from the perspective of a manager making choices about what investments to undertake, how to finance these projects, and how best to manage their risks. This course is particularly focused on the underlying economic models that are relevant for making these choices. Topics include capital budgeting, links between real and financial investments, optimal capital structure, dividend policy, and firm valuation. Additional topics may include corporate risk management, corporate governance, corporate restructuring, such as mergers and acquisitions, and start-up/entrepreneurial financing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 103/SOC 190 (or equivalent course) and ECON 201.
Instructor: Neumuller
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
How do individuals and groups make decisions? The core of the course is traditional game theory: the formal study of the choices and outcomes that emerge in multiperson strategic settings. Game theoretic concepts such as Nash equilibrium, rationalizability, backwards induction, sequential equilibrium, and common knowledge are motivated by and critiqued using applications drawn from education policy, macroeconomic policy, business strategy, terrorism risk mitigation, and good old-fashioned parlor games.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 103. MATH 205 recommended.
Instructor: Rothschild
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course provides a rigorous treatment of the fundamentals of finance. Topics include the valuation of distant cash flows, pricing financial instruments such as stocks, bonds and options, portfolio choice, and equilibrium theories of asset pricing. Where possible, modern academic research that relates to these topics will be introduced and discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Hilt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Why do people give to charity? What can be done to convince more people to save money in retirement plans? This course explores these and other questions by introducing psychological phenomena into standard models of economics. Evidence from in-class experiments, real-world examples, and field and laboratory data is used to illustrate the ways in which actual behavior deviates from the classical assumptions of perfect rationality and narrow self-interest.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Shurchkov
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
The course uses microeconomy theory and statistical methods to analyze education policy. What are the private and social returns to investments in schooling, and why do so many students leave school early? What are promising approaches for attracting and motivating good teachers? How should scarce public resources be invested in the quality of public schools, and what role should the private sector play in education policy? Students will learn how to read and critique empirical research, with an emphasis on understanding experimental and quasi-experimental research designs. Students will refine their skills in empirical data analysis, including the replication of classic papers using primary data.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203.
Instructor: McEwan
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course uses an economic framework to explore the persistence of inequality in the U.S. The course will pay special attention to racial inequality. We will use economic theory to analyze the rules governing important societal institutions, like the criminal justice system, to understand their theoretical implications for inequality. After examining the theory, we will closely examine the empirical evidence that tests for discrimination in criminal procedures, school finance, residential choices, media coverage, labor market outcomes, and more.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Park
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will introduce students to economics research and policy analysis related to decisions made in university settings by students, instructors and administrators. The course will emphasize practical, real-world applications of empirical methods to Wellesley College taken from published research. Potential topics include the determinants and consequences of course and major choice; peer and roommate effects on students’ learning; the effects of academic advising; and the impact of grading policies on student and faculty behavior. We plan to invite selected alumnae back to campus to discuss their research and their careers in public policy and data science. The course will require that students complete a project related to institutional research at Wellesley. These projects could include (1) analysis of an existing data set that has been gathered by a campus “client” such as, for example, the Office of Institutional Research, the Office of Residential Life, or Career Services; (2) working with a specific department, program or instructor to help them design and/or carry out a curricular or programmatic innovation and assess its effectiveness; (3) design a proposal for a prospective evaluation of a campus-wide policy (such as a randomized trial). This is an experimental team-taught course supported by ER&D.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201, ECON 203.
Instructor: McEwan, Weerapana
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course applies microeconomics to issues in health, medical care, and health insurance. Emphasis is placed on policy-relevant empirical research. Topics include the impact of health insurance on health, the interaction between health insurance and the labor market, the government's role in health care, the economics of medical provider reimbursement, and the effects of medical malpractice policy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203.
Instructor: McKnight
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
How do practitioners—including policymakers, financial market participants, and economic forecasters—actually use the tools of macroeconomics? This course builds on Intermediate Macro and Econometrics to deepen your understanding of how the macroeconomy and macro policy really work. Key questions include: What challenges and puzzles are raised by recent macro developments? How are textbook macro models implemented empirically and how do they need to be extended to capture recent developments? How have/should monetary and fiscal policymakers respond given the (sometimes) inadequacy of models and other real-world complexities? Course assignments will include both a policy simulation and a macro forecasting exercise. Step beyond Econ 202 to develop a more sophisticated understanding of macroeconomics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 202 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Sichel
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Students will combine their knowledge of economics, including macro, micro, and econometrics, with their skills at exposition, in order to address current economic issues in a journalistic format. Students will conduct independent research to produce bi-weekly articles. Assignments may include coverage of economic lectures by well-known economists, book reviews, economic data releases, and recent journal articles. Students also may write an op-ed and a blog post. Class sessions will be organized as workshops devoted to critiquing the economic content of student work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: All of the following - ECON 201, ECON 202, ECON 203.
Instructor: Sichel
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course uses applied microeconomic theory to study the relationships between firm conduct, market structure, and industry performance. Topics include monopoly power and imperfect competition, price discrimination, product differentiation, firm entry/exit, advertising, and standard setting. The course will introduce the possibility that free markets may not produce the socially optimal set of products. Emphasis will be divided equally between the strategic implications of the models and the policy implications.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ECON 201
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ECON 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
A seminar for senior economics majors engaged in independent research. Students will learn about the use of empirical techniques in economics, including the opportunity to engage with the research of prominent economists, who present their work at the Calderwood and Goldman seminars hosted by the department. Students will also present and discuss their own research at weekly meetings. Students may not accumulate more than 0.5 credit for this course.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Limited to Senior Economics majors doing independent research.
Instructor: Hilt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
From Disney films to Nickelodeon cartoons to Newberry award-winning texts, popular children's media offers us the opportunity to analyze how complex issues of identity are represented in cultural productions aimed at a young audience. This course takes as a site of analysis media aimed at children to investigate the lessons imparted and ideologies circulate in popular films and books. How is class drawn in Lady and the Tramp? What are politics of language at play in Moana? What are the sounds of masculinity in Beauty and the Beast? How does Mulan construct gender, race, and militarism? Using an intersectional frame of analysis, we will trace popular tropes, identify images of resistance, and map out the more popular messages children receive about difference in our world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 10 2Y
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Mata
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. Registration in this section is restricted to students selected for the Wellesley Plus Program. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Schools have historically been a point of public fascination. Consequently, societal debates on inequality, pluralism, and social movements have played out in the TV- and film-inspired hallways and classrooms of K-12 schools. What do these popular portrayals of school and society teach us about our societal values and the role of public education in a pluralistic society? How does Abbott Elementary reinforce and challenge our conceptions of under-resourced urban schools? How does saviorhood lie at the root of teacher heroism in Dangerous Minds? What do documentary films like The Lottery teach us about education policies related to school choice and charter schools? In this course, we will integrate an analysis of popular media representations of education with examinations of education policy, research, and practice to delve into some of the long-running debates about schools and society.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None. Only open to First-Years who are part of the Wellesley Plus program.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course introduces students to the central themes and big questions in education. What is the purpose of education? For whom are schools and teaching methods imagined? What is the role of family and communities in the experience and process of teaching and learning? How should we structure schools and classrooms? What are the political controversies, challenges, and issues of power facing young people and schools? A case study format that focuses on past and current events will allow students to tackle these complex questions in a transdisciplinary way with concrete examples that aid in the development of critical inquiry skills. Together, students will develop informed opinions, make sense of their own educational journeys, and learn the reflexivity necessary to enter the field of education.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: D'Andrea Martínez
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Starting with a broad, historical overview of child development and developmental theories, we will connect ideas about children's learning with teaching practices and current perspectives on early childhood education. We will focus on recognizing changing needs and developmental differences in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers as they grow in all skill areas-motor, cognitive, social emotional, and language and communication. Through readings, observations, writing assignments, and reflective discussion, students will learn to integrate developmental understanding and appropriate curriculum planning in an Early Childhood setting.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Morgan
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Meets one of the course requirements toward Department of Education and Care Teacher Certification.
We will study characteristics of young children with disabilities and examine supportive programs, practices, and services. We will focus on theoretical and applied knowledge about disabilities, including communication disorders, sensory impairments, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders, autism spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities, giftedness, and physical and health related disabilities. We will discuss screening, assessment, early intervention, individualized education programs, inclusive education, community resources, family issues, and the requirements of various state and federal laws that impact children and students with disabilities. Students will learn how programs make accommodations, structure modifications, and differentiate instruction based on young children's needs.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Some coursework in child development or by permission of the instructor. Open to First-Years, Sophomores, and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Morgan
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Rooted in Afro-centric principles, the course explores the foundations of Black Pedagogies and examines the ingenious ways enslaved Africans and their progeny tapped into their sacred cosmologies, wisdom and memories, and devised emancipatory strategies of learning and passing on information during the period of enslavement and its aftermath. Through the enactment of violent slave codes and anti-literacy legislation, enslaved Africans were prohibited to read and/or write in the language of the enslaver-colonizer. Moreover, they were not allowed to freely access or openly express an education that reflected their dynamic history or heritage, which was later enforced by discriminatory Jim Crow and colonial laws. In this way, the course dismantles the intended-ills and history of Western Eurocentric curricula, religious instruction, and media. It unearths and underscores Black pedagogical tools, intellectualism, institutions, and creative expressions as redemptive, remedial, and inclusive pathways for diversifying and humanizing the education curriculum. We will peruse the wide breadth of languages and cultural modes of knowledge production and transmission that emerged during the harrowing passages of the trans-Atlantic trade of captured Africans and their subsequent enslavement and oppression in the Americas. Central themes and areas of study include: the praxis of love, sacred science, oral and literary traditions, memory, storytelling, nature and communal engagement, community, quilt-making, food-ways, dress, art and artifacts, religion, ritual, trauma, resilience, black talk/black text, interjections, body language/gesticulations, theatre, music, dance, genealogy, ancestral reverence, graveyards, schools, and other sites of knowledge creation, expression, and preservation. The course will be aided by a wealth of lively and interactive lectures, discussions, documentaries, literature, works of art, oral tradition and first-hand testimonies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 20 5
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this class, we will look at several forms of knowledge production that have historically emerged behind the walls of U.S. prisons. These have included captivity narratives, disciplinary regimes, formal university-funded humanities education and, most importantly, self-organized political education and study groups. Moments of the latter have caused some political and politicized prisoners to refer to prisons as “universities of revolution.” In today’s prison abolitionist movement, inside-outside study groups serve as social hubs, political workshops and cultural anchors. By looking closely at the history of imprisoned intellectual production (writing, radio, artwork, etc), we will see how imprisoned people and their supporters theorize, understand, and struggle against the prison regime through organic and mutual forms of political education
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 20 6
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Alexander
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This introductory seminar engages students in a series of explorations that illuminate the field of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), which is one of the most exciting areas of teaching and learning in U.S. schools and around the world. Students explore how social, emotional, and academic learning can be interwoven with what we understand about child and youth development, and how these ideas can inform pedagogy (teaching) in k-12 settings. Students also uncover how social and emotional learning is bound together with struggles for youth civic participation, social justice, and efforts to dismantle structural oppression in a range of educational sites and in society. Through a variety of different activities and learning structures the course provides students with multiple opportunities to explore their own social emotional educations and participate in the creation of new ways to engage young people and adults in joyful learning, celebrating identities, emotional and physical thriving, social justice, and healing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Not open to students who have taken EDUC 313.
School-age children and youth are often understood through the complex lives they lead in schools--academic achievers, behavioral misfits, and rebellious adolescents. Beyond the routine analyses of behavior, test scores and curriculum, what else can the lives of youth tell us about educational change? And who has power and agency to be part of educational decision-making? This course seeks to explore education by looking outside of schools: What are the experiences of students’ families and what do they want for their children? How do relationships with peers influence a student’s concept of self and sense of belonging in school? How do historical, political, and social encounters with race, class, and inequality shape families’ interactions with schools? Through an exploration of research, memoir, children’s literature and film as well as interactions with the course’s community-based educators (caregivers, parent organizers, and community leaders), this course seeks to understand young people through their complex relationships and encounters within families, peer groups and community institutions, all the while interrogating the ways schools can integrate the holistic lived experiences of children and youth into theories of educational change.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 22
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years, Sophomores and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Uses a microeconomic framework to analyze important questions in education policy about school finance, organization, efficiency, and equity. Is education a private good? What are the costs and benefits of expanded education for individuals, communities, and countries? What are the consequences of more widespread early childhood education and college attendance? What is the role of teachers, peers, and families in education? Does school choice promote student achievement? Applies concepts such as comparative statics, subsidies, externalities, perfect and imperfect competition, cost-benefit analysis, and welfare analysis to these and other questions. Each semester includes one or two policy discussions on contemporary issues in education.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 226
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P. ECON 102 or ECON 102P and ECON 103 recommended.
Instructor: Werkema
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is designed to examine interdisciplinary theories, methods, and analytical approaches to define and study of Black girlhood. We will explore Black girlhood as a developmental period, a public and private performance, and a source of identity and agency. Students will discuss the duality of Black girlhood, risk versus resilience, to understand how Black girlhood is enacted and evaluated in families, schools, communities, mass media, and the larger society. The cultural, social, psychological, and political constructions of Black girlhood in the U.S. context will be interrogated by analyzing academic texts, film, media, poetry, novels, art, and music focused on Black girls.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 227
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Lindsay-Dennis
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Children’s literature has a transformative effect on student learning. We will examine, review, and critique children’s literature, as well as the theory, research, and application that supports our understanding of its impact on learning. In this course, we will apply criteria for the selection of children’s texts, and analyze them for bias. We will learn how children’s literature can foster the development of empathy and identity by affirming the voices of marginalized and/or under-represented groups and creating windows of awareness for others. We will also learn how children’s literature can strengthen vocabulary, language fluency, comprehension, and higher-order thinking. We will use a variety of texts from children’s picture books to middle-grade chapter books that reflect the developmental range of school-age children.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Tutin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is an examination of education policy in the 20th and 21st century and the social, political, and economic forces that have shaped these policies over the years. We will analyze the different-and sometimes conflicting-goals, motivations, and outcomes of educational policies at the national, local, and school level. Central questions to this course are: who designs educational policy and for whom? Whose interests are served and whose interests are unmet? Using an interdisciplinary approach and case exploration, we examine the ways education policies and practices have responded to or been shaped by social issues such as immigration, poverty, racism and urban development. We will integrate theoretical and conceptual learning with an understanding of cases through both group and individual analysis. In doing so, students will develop critical skills of policy analysis that can allow them to better understand current trends and develop alternative solutions to questions of educational dilemmas and practices.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: One education core course - EDUC 120, EDUC 214, or EDUC 215. Not open to students who have taken EDUC 216.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The United States is multilingual. Since before colonization, many Indigenous languages circulated as well as the languages of the colonizers and the languages brought by enslaved Africans. Today, there is incredible linguistic fluidity and diversity across the country. However, linguistic pluralism in schools has traditionally only been extended to the elite, making language a battleground for anti-Immigration, anti-Indigeneity, and anti-Blackness. In this course, students will unpack the linguistic ideologies that have been operationalized in schools and what these have meant for the experiences of multilingual learners. Students will learn about the history of multilingualism in schools, its current political landscape, and how grassroots efforts have imagined and pushed for linguistic justice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 22
Prerequisites: One education core course - EDUC 214, EDUC 215 or EDUC 216.
Instructor: D'Andrea Martínez
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 5
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 3
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This seminar engages students directly with the exciting work of teaching, curriculum development, and working with youth in middle and high school classrooms. Explorations of vital areas of education are joined with discussions of important contemporary issues facing youth, teachers, and our school systems. The development of engaging and creative learning environments is a central focus, as are teacher practices which support the academic, social, emotional, and identity strengths and needs of youth. A laboratory session allows students to practice teaching lessons and an accompanying carefully chosen field placement involves students in a public school classroom one day a week. This course is designed for seniors in the Wellesley Secondary Teacher Education Program, and for others who do not plan to complete teacher training at Wellesley, but who want to teach after graduation or explore what teaching might be like.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One of EDUC 102, EDUC 117, EDUC 212, EDUC 213, EDUC 214, EDUC 215, EDUC 216, PSYC 248, PSYC 321, or MIT 11.124, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Open to all students, mandatory for those seeking middle school or high school certification; students should contact the instructor either before or soon after registration to plan their field placement.
This course is supervised student teaching, and curriculum development in students' teaching fields throughout the semester. Attendance at an appropriate school placement is required, with regular observations and conferencing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Students seeking teacher certification must apply to the department for admission to this course in the semester before it is taken; other students should contact the instructor either before or soon after registration to plan their field placement.
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Open to students seeking substantial observation and teaching experience in a school, mandatory for students seeking teacher certification. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
In this seminar taught by a team of expert teachers and guided by experienced faculty, students will engage with the work of curriculum development, planning instruction, and assessment in elementary school classrooms through investigations on various topics highly relevant to current teaching practices. Recent studies have included: Methods for Ethnic Studies with children, Social Justice and Antiracist Pedagogy, Science across elementary grades, Classroom Community building, Trauma Informed practice, Design Thinking, Museum Education, Family/School Connections, and the Reading/Writing Connection. Additional laboratory periods for the presentations of lessons engage students in practice teaching and a limited accompanying field placement are required. Remote options will be offered as necessary should COVID interfere. This course is designed for seniors in the Wellesley Elementary Teacher Scholars Program and other juniors and seniors who do not plan to complete teacher training at Wellesley, but want to teach after graduation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Pre/Co-requisite - EDUC 310 or EDUC 314 or by permission of the instructor. Open to all Juniors and Seniors. It is recommended that students who take this course have at least one previous education course. Students should contact Professor Noah Rubin and/or Professor Diane Tutin for registration permission and to plan a field placement.
Instructor: Rubin, Tutin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory only for Seniors seeking elementary education certification through the Wellesley Elementary Scholars Program.
This seminar is taught by a team of expert teachers and guided by experienced faculty, A continuation of EDUC 304, this course engages students in curriculum materials and instructional methods used in elementary school classrooms. Students will learn about Relationship Building and Classroom Management, Special Needs and Disability, Family/School Connections, Social Studies, English Learners and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies, and Classroom Design. An accompanying field placement is required. This course is designed for seniors in the Wellesley Elementary Teacher Education Program and other juniors and seniors who do not plan to complete teacher training at Wellesley, but want to teach after graduation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: EDUC 304 or by permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors, Seniors and post-baccalaureate students. It is recommended that students who take this course have at least one previous education course. Students should contact Professor Noah Rubin and/or Professor Diane Tutin for registration permission and to plan a field placement.
Instructor: Rubin, Tutin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory only for Seniors seeking elementary education certification through the Wellesley Elementary Program.
Students will examine how children acquire reading, writing, listening, and oral language skills, and how this relates to cognition, with a focus on current research and practice in literacy development for elementary-age children. Oral language and reading processes, assessment using a variety of techniques, phonics, and comprehension strategies are addressed and lessons are constructed. Integrated throughout this learning is an exploration of culturally diverse and relevant children's literature. Teaching strategies that address the needs of a diverse population of learners, including at-risk students, English Language Learners, and students with special needs will be studied. A weekly 1.5-hour field placement experience at a nearby elementary school is required. An online option will be available if COVID protocols interfere. This course is structured to support students pursuing elementary education certification, but is open to all students and also highly applicable to students considering teaching abroad or in urban schools. Offered during the spring semester and required for elementary teaching certification, it is strongly recommended that the course be completed before student teaching begins.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to students who have taken at least one education course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Tutin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar engages students in a series of explorations that illuminate the field of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), which is fast becoming one of the most exciting areas of teaching and learning in U.S. schools. Students explore how social, emotional, and academic learning can be interwoven with what we understand about child and youth development, and how these ideas can inform pedagogy (teaching) in k-12 settings. Students also uncover how social and emotional learning is bound together with struggles for civic participation, social justice, and efforts to dismantle structural oppression in a range of educational sites and in society. Through many different activities and learning structures the course provides students with multiple opportunities to explore their own social emotional educations and participate in the creation of new ways to engage young people and adults in joyful learning, celebrating identities, emotional and physical thriving, and justice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200 level education course or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken EDUC 213.
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Students in this course will strengthen their own understanding of the principles and concepts underlying fundamental mathematical content, specifically number and operations, functions and algebra, geometry and measurement, and statistics and probability. At the same time, students will learn to develop meaningful and inviting approaches to teaching mathematics classroom settings, with an emphasis on student-centered learning. This course is team taught by Wellesley College faculty with a background in mathematics and quantitative reasoning and an elementary school teacher and mathematics specialist. Weekly fieldwork of 60 minutes in an elementary classroom is required. This course is structured to support students pursuing elementary education certification, but is open to all students.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One education course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Haskell, Staff
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Making scientific discoveries is clearly important, but it is also vital to be able to communicate science effectively to non-expert audiences. How do people learn? And in particular, how do inquiry-based learning techniques improve the learning experience? This course provides students the opportunities to explore and apply current research on learning and instructional strategies by developing a series of hands-on in-class chemistry activities. Students will read primary literature on pedagogical approaches from a range of sources, including chemical education journals. Students will synthesize and apply numerous chemical concepts that they have learned in-depth in previous chemistry classes in order to design and teach a chemistry lesson at a local elementary school. Additionally, students will communicate and teach chemistry to non-expert audiences at a museum or science cafe. This class will be useful to students considering careers in the medical profession, so that they can clearly explain science to their patients; careers in research science, so they can inform the public of their discoveries; and careers in education, so they can teach science in an exciting and meaningful fashion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 317
Prerequisites: CHEM 205 or CHEM 120.
Instructor: Stanley
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Observation and fieldwork in educational settings. This course may serve to complete the requirement of documented introductory field experiences of satisfactory quality and duration necessary for teacher certification. Arrangements may be made for observation and tutoring in various types of educational programs; at least one urban field experience is required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: EDUC 300 or EDUC 304. Open only to students who plan to student teach. Permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Hawes, Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
Students will examine current research and practice in the teaching of English Language Learners, with a focus on secondary education. Students will explore challenges facing this diverse group of learners and how to build on the assets they bring to their classroom communities. Students will develop skills necessary to plan and promote discussion, engagement, and content mastery while supporting continued language development. Lesson planning will prioritize culturally relevant and responsive teaching while acquiring skills to analyze and adapt required teaching materials. Limited fieldwork observations are required either online or in person; more extensive fieldwork can be arranged. The course is structured to support students pursuing middle school and high school teacher licensure and meets requirements for a MA Department of Education endorsement in Sheltered English Immersion when MA Secondary Education certification requirements are completed. It is also applicable to students considering teaching abroad, teaching in urban schools, or pursuing any other work with emerging bilingual youth.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to students who have taken at least one education course and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Tutin (Fall), Palaia (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: The course is taught at MIT in the Spring semester.
This seminar examines narratives of immigrant youth and families to understand ways in which race, culture, and migration shape educational experiences. Using ethnography as a methodological lens, we will develop in-depth analyses of research on global migration and immigration to the U.S, examining the influence of policy, public perception, xenophobia, and historic racism. We will explore the role of borders—physical, symbolic, or ideological—to understand how our conceptions of the border and our cultural and physical policing of these borders impact the everyday lives of immigrant families as well as the formation of self, identity, and community. Central to these narratives will be the forms of refusal and resistance that have historically shaped immigrants’ encounters with exclusion and marginalization. Students will also design inquiry-based research projects informed by our study of ethnography in education and that contributes to our understanding of the interplay between race, culture, ethnicity, and migration.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for EDUC majors or minors in Junior or Senior year.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
First and foremost, this seminar explores urban schools through an examination of research and practice. We study the educational experiences of students, families, and educators shaped by the social, political and economic contexts of urban communities. Students investigate recent educational policies such as school closures and school desegregation through the political and cultural forces that shape policy creation, implementation, and community impact. Students examine policy and practice as distinct forces that profoundly shape the other and yet often exist in conflict and tension. Voices of traditionally marginalized yet profoundly impacted communities frame course discussion of urban education, and students learn to discuss education policies and practices dynamically through an analysis of power, race, and agency. To complement their study of urban education, students will explore the role of emancipatory educational research and decolonizing research methodologies and will demonstrate their learning through the implementation of an original field-based research project.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for EDUC majors or minors in Junior or Senior year.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Since the 1990s, Critical Race Theory scholars in education have asserted that as long as race remains undertheorized, antiracist change in education will conveniently remain elusive. In this course, students will study texts that theorize race while engaging in their own collective and individual theory-building around the role of race in education. These two activities together will represent student praxis for social change; that is, students will enter a dialogic relationship with existing scholarship while theorizing it forward. Methodologically, this course centers counternarrative/storytelling as an inquiry method for students to explore the role of race in their lives, in their many endeavors (e.g., as researchers, teachers, and policymakers), and to surface new antiracist and liberatory ideas in education.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for EDUC majors or minors in their Junior or Senior year.
Instructor: D'Andrea Martínez
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In education, research plays an important role in identifying problems, understanding how those problems and issues play out in schools, and exploring the possibilities for change. In this course, students will understand the process of qualitative research and explore different approaches to qualitative inquiry in education: narrative inquiry, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case study. Students will also examine the ways in which qualitative research can be designed to interact with communities of practice through action-oriented, community-engaged, and participatory models of inquiry that lead to educational change. Students will design a qualitative research proposal that explores a question in education--from the conceptualization of a problem to the development of research questions and on to the processes of data collection. They will incorporate their learning of key methods such as interviewing, participant observation, document analysis as well as their examination of key dilemmas such as researcher positionality.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One course in education.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar engages a community of students in the study of teaching in all its dimensions. Weekly reflection sessions allow students to explore the role of the teacher, the nuances of classroom interactions, individual and group learning, and building pedagogical relationships with students to support their academic, social, emotional, and identity strengths and needs. Careful examination of curriculum materials and classroom practice in specific teaching fields is included, as are methods for promoting student engagement and social justice in education. Students also learn about teacher research and the process of gathering data and acting to improve learning.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: EDUC 300 or EDUC 304, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Open to students seeking substantial observation and teaching experience in a school, mandatory for students seeking teacher certification; students should contact the instructor either before or soon after registration to plan their field placement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: EDUC 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
In this course, students will pursue a research question that addresses an issue of their interest in education. The course is designed for education studies majors in their senior year who have previously completed one of the education studies capstone courses (EDUC 332, 334, 335, or 338) and are familiar with research methodologies in education such as ethnography, portraiture, participatory/action research, and case study. Students will design and implement an original research project that builds upon previous research in a capstone course or that addresses a new question. The course offers more sophisticated training for data collection methods such as interviewing, participant observation, child study, and narrative inquiry while also introducing students to data analysis skills such as coding through the use of qualitative data analysis software. Students may choose to incorporate fieldwork in a school- or community-based setting. Students will present their research in a senior symposium at the conclusion of the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following education capstone courses - EDUC 332, EDUC 334, EDUC 335 or EDUC 338. Education Majors and Minors only.
Instructor: Hong
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is designed to allow students enrolled in Wellesley’s teacher certification program to finish their teaching pre-practicum and begin their official practicum during the winter session. The course will allow student teachers to begin their five day a week placements in sync with the public school schedule in January. Students will be supervised by the director of secondary teacher education. Students will be expected to put in full school days as well as attend to after-school responsibilities five days a week. Enrolled students will complete weekly reflections and participate in a reading group focused on a text which explores aspects of pedagogy, youth development and teacher development/well-being. This course will lead directly into EDUC 303, the Massachusetts state mandated teacher education practicum and EDUC 339 the weekly reflection seminar that accompanies the state practicum in the spring semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: This course is restricted to members of the teacher education program cohort.
Instructor: Rubin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This course takes a whirlwind world tour through the imaginative literature of writers of color across the globe. Each work will provide a distinct, exhilarating, and sometimes heart-breaking experience of a world culture from the inside. However, a number of overlapping threads will connect the works: generational change and conflict amid cross-cultural globalization; evolving ideas of love, desire and identity amidst cultural traumas; colonialism and its after-effects; the persistence of suffering. The syllabus will include: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart; Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things; Wajdi Mouawad’s family drama set in a war-torn Middle East, Scorched; Han Kang's contemporary novel about gender struggle in Korea, The Vegetarian; the Argentinian Mariana Enriquez’s stunning short story collection, Things We Lost in the Fire; and Yaa Gyasi’s epic novel that traces a family’s history from West Africa to post-slavery America, Homegoing. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Especially designed for the non-major and thus not writing-intensive. Not open to students who have taken this course as a topic of CPLT 113.
Instructor: Ko
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will teach you the basic tools and concepts of narrative theory, a branch of literary theory that focuses on stories and story-telling. Using short stories as our primary examples, we will consider how analyzing narratives can provide deeper insight into questions of social justice and injustice, including racial, class, and gender difference as well as global distributions of inequality.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken WRIT 106.
Instructor: Yoon Sun Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was an anomaly. Ascending to the throne of a country that for centuries had passed royal power from father to son, she was a woman who remained unmarried and childless. Her reign was long and successful, and her era produced a flowering of literary greatness, by Shakespeare and others, unparalleled in English culture. How did she conquer the political odds against her and create a personal mythology that inspired a generation of poets? This course will explore the world of Elizabeth I and the courtiers and artists who adored her. Special attention will be paid to treasures from Wellesley’s rare books and museum collections that illuminate the life and culture of Gloriana, the Virgin Queen.
Wellesley Online courses are designed to be highly interactive and encourage group discussion; they require participation through live online class meetings throughout the semester, as well as work in a collaborative environment.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Notes:
Shakespeare wrote for a popular audience and was immensely successful. Shakespeare is also universally regarded as the greatest playwright in English. In this introduction to his works, we will try to understand both Shakespeare’s popularity and greatness. To help us reach this understanding, we will focus especially on the theatrical nature of Shakespeare’s writing. The syllabus will likely be as follows: Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Othello, King Lear, and The Winter’s Tale.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None. Especially designed for the non-major and thus not writing-intensive. It does not fulfill the Shakespeare requirement for English majors.
Instructor: Ko
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A reading of some of the greatest novels of English, American, and European literature, primarily from the 19th century. We will move carefully together through these extraordinary works, seeking to make their deep acquaintance through attentive, shared reading and to add them to your own life storehouse of important literary experiences. Taught primarily in lecture, this course will not be writing-intensive. Designed especially for first-year students and for non-majors, though all others are welcome. A likely reading list: Jane Austen , Emma; Heinrich von Kleist, The Marquise of O, An Earthquake in Chile; Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary; Charles Dickens, Bleak House; Henry James, Washington Square; Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych, Master and Man, Hadji Murad.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 60
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
At various times over the past century and a half, America has welcomed, expelled, tolerated, interned, ignored, and celebrated immigrants from Asia and their descendants. This course examines the fictions produced in response to these experiences. Irony, humor, history, tragedy and mystery all find a place in Asian American literature. We will see the emergence of a self-conscious Asian American identity, as well as more recent transnational structures of feeling. We will read novels and short stories by writers including Hisaye Yamamoto, John Okada, Mohsin Hamid, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Min Jin Lee. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 116
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course considers racism a hegemonic discourse that permeates many unto all elements of life within our current age. The course considers racism as a discourse that may penetrate to the very spirit of the individual, whether victim or perpetrator, racist or antiracist. Literature that aims to depict elements of real life, capture their spirit, and leave readers feeling fundamentally changed often aims to produce transformation at the level of the reader’s soul. In order to understand the dynamic interactions between literature, racism, and the spirit, this course examines scriptural texts from major religious traditions, philosophical and scholarly traditions germane to racism’s influence on the soul, explicitly white supremacist thought, and critical race theory. Students will focus on meditative practices for reading and analysis. We will use these practices to ask: what happens when literature, racism, and the spirit come together? And how can such knowledge help to fashion a collective life worth living?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Whitaker
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
From the mid-20th century to 2021, women writers have been major players globally in the upsurge of what is now referred to as speculative fiction--a literary supergenre or umbrella term for a spectrum of “what if” fictions: fairy tale, science fiction, horror, dystopian, magic realism, surrealism, fantasy. We will explore together short stories and novels written in the last four decades. Class discussions will aim at interpretation and appreciation of these peculiar and powerful literary texts as well as reflection on their particular historical and cultural context.
In particular, we will be curious about how these authors play with a spectrum of gender - in their own lives and in their writing. The texts include fiction written in English and fiction translated into English; we will address the issue of reading works in translation. Speakers and students of languages other than English, are encouraged to offer their insights into the necessary friction between an original text and its English translation.
Among the authors to be read: Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, N.K. Jemisin, Samanta Schweblin, Ursula Le Guin, Basma Abdel Aziz, Eden Robinson, Vandana Singh. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 40
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 119
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Sides
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
English 120 introduces students to a level of interpretative sophistication and techniques of analysis essential not just in literary study but in all courses that demand advanced engagement with language. In active discussions, sections perform detailed readings of poetry drawn from a range of historical periods, with the aim of developing an understanding of the richness and complexity of poetic language and of connections between form and content, text and cultural and historical context. The reading varies from section to section, but all sections involve learning to read closely and to write persuasively and elegantly.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Required of English majors and minors if you entered the College before Fall 2024. Ordinarily taken in first or sophomore year.
Instructor: Noggle, Whitaker, Brogan
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Students in this course will gain a foundational knowledge of the major texts and developments of English literature from its inception. The course fulfills the 120 requirement for the English major and minor. Starting with Beowulf, we will survey the tradition’s most durably influential figures, including Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Pope, Swift, Blake, Wordsworth, and Tennyson. We will also explore works more recently added to the canon, by Mary Wroth, Aphra Behn, Olaudah Equiano, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Along the way, we will reflect on theories of the canon and on what a literary period is (for instance, the Middle Ages, the Romantic Era), and how periodization continues to shape the study of literature. Like 120, this course emphasizes the close reading of significant texts, in class discussion and essay writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Not open to students who have taken ENG 216.
Instructor: Noggle
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course can substitute ENG 120 as a requirement to the major.
This course will focus on four of Austen’s major novels: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Persuasion. What kind of narrative voice does Austen create? How does she treat major and minor characters? What is the importance of the courtship plot? How does Austen represent time and change?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Yoon Sun Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes:
This course provides an introduction to poetry by focusing one at a time and in detail on thirty poems, from Sappho to Octavio Gonzalez. Each poem will be considered as a unique arrangement of words, images, and metaphors on the page; as a script for vocal performance; as a word game whose rules must be deduced; as an expression of the full range of private emotions, including joy, anguish, passion, remorse, and boredom; as a reflection of, and a contribution to, the historical and cultural frameworks of its time and place. Authors may include: William Shakespeare; Sir Walter Raleigh; George Herbert; Christopher Smart; John Keats; Marianne Moore; Elizabeth Bishop; Sylvia Plath; Lucille Clifton; Jenny Xie; Tarfiah Faizullah.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Chiasson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
We’ll read a selection of the best and most influential American short stories, and trace their influence on subsequent generations of storytellers, in both literature and film. We’ll consider what makes the stories we read effective, how later writers and filmmakers have revised and transformed these narratives, and how those revisions and transformations illuminate the workings of literary influence. We’ll read classic American short fiction like Edgar Allan Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” and Willa Cather’s “Paul’s Case” alongside later works that recall, subvert, and reimagine those narratives, from Alfonson Cuarón’s Gravity to Jennifer Egan’s “Safari” and beyond.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Participants in this seminar will delve into the workings of memory--a term that encompasses several different kinds of remembering and recollecting. What makes something memorable? Can we choose or shape what we remember? Does memory constitute identity? How has technology altered what and how we remember? As we ponder such questions, our primary focus will be on literature (including Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Proust, Woolf, Borges, Nabokov, and Toni Morrison). We'll also draw on philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science and explore creative arts such as drawing, photography, painting, sculpture, book arts, film, and music. Students will write in several genres--creative, critical, and reflective-and experiment with different ways of collecting, curating, and presenting memories in media of their choice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Hickey
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
We live in an age of autobiography, memoir, and personal narrative. We may find the very concept of speaking for others distasteful or immoral: everyone, we reason, should be trusted to tell their own stories. And yet biography is an art: a great biographer can provide insights and contexts into a life, which elude the memoirist. This workshop on the art of biography will study great examples of biographical writing by Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B. Dubois, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Ellmann, and others, along with contemporary examples by Robert Caro, Heather Clark, Langdon Hammer, and others. Students will choose their own biographical subjects early in the course and present, in a workshop format, their ongoing research and writing, culminating in a short biography of 15-20 pages.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Chiasson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Speculative fiction writers enchant audiences with their stories of magic and mayhem. Through strangeness we seek to explain the inexplicable. In this creative writing workshop, we will explore the speculative fiction techniques that will allow us to wield such power for our own stories. We’ll write, discuss and play with a variety of fantasy, Afrofuturism, horror, sci-fi, surrealism, and weird fiction tropes and structures to imagine new and exciting ways of seeing our world. We will pick apart craft essays and interviews from Carmen Maria Machado, George RR Martin, Lesley Nneka Arimah, and others and take a page out of their toolboxes to power our own work. A significant portion of the class will be dedicated to reading and giving feedback to each other’s work. This course welcomes writers of all levels and will culminate with a final portfolio of original work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ndlovu
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A workshop in the writing of short lyrics and the study of the art and craft of poetry.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Chiasson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. This course may be repeated once for credit.
A workshop in the writing of the short story; emphasis on class discussion of student writing, with reference to older and contemporary established examples of the genre.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Cezair-Thompson, Ndlovu (Fall); Ndlovu (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. This course may be repeated once for additional credit.
A creative writing course in a workshop setting for those interested in the theory and practice of writing for film. This course focuses on the full-length feature film, both original screenplays and screen adaptations of literary work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 234
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Cezair-Thompson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. This course may be repeated once for credit.
What makes for excellence in writing for children? When Margaret Wise Brown repeats the word "moon" in two subsequent pages-"Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon"-is this effective or clunky? What makes rhyme and repetition funny and compelling in one picture book (such as Rosemary Wells's Noisy Nora) but vapid in another? How does E.B. White establish Fern's character in the opening chapter of Charlotte's Web? What makes Cynthia Kadohata's Kira-Kira a a novel for children rather than adults-or is it one? In this course, students will study many examples of children's literature from the point of view of writers and will write their own short children's fiction (picture book texts, middle-reader or young adult short stories) and share them in workshops.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Meyer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Topic for Fall 2024: Writing the Travel Essay
Topic for Fall 2024: Writing the Travel Essay
Taken a trip lately—junior year abroad, summer vacation, spring break? Looked back fondly or in horror at a family road trip? Turn your experience into a travel essay. We study both the genre of the literary travel essay as well as the more journalistic travel writing found in newspaper travel sections and travel magazines. And, of course, write our own travel narratives. The course focuses on the essentials of travel writing: evocation of place, a sophisticated appreciation of cultural differences, a considered use of the first person (travel narratives are closely related to the genre of memoir), and basic strong writing/research skills.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Sides
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: ENG 206 is a changing topics writing workshop that will each year take up a particular nonfiction writing genre. Please note that this course is not intended as a substitute for the First-Year Writing requirement. This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
What is the relationship between art and activism when we live in a strange reality of worldwide pandemics, AI that can generate paintings in the style of da Vinci, and ongoing climate disaster? When reality is stranger than fiction, how can magical realism help us render this strange reality or Afrofuturism empower us to transform the present and transgress? In this creative writing workshop, we will experiment with unreality by tapping into storytelling with an undercurrent of magic and discovering how our voices can go beyond the page and change the world. We will read & write fiction where strange things happen: people fly, time collapses, the dead rise, & nature eschews the laws of physics etc. From NoViolet Bulawayo to Octavia Butler, the goal is to see how authors weave activism into their work and try it ourselves.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ndlovu
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
An introduction to writing for television. We’ll read, watch, and discuss pilot episodes of network and cable comedies and dramas. We'll study and practice the basics: script format, episode structure, story and character development, visual description. Each student will develop and write their own original TV pilot, and students will give and receive feedback through the workshop process.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 20 8
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Lu
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. This course may be repeated once for credit.
What is a novel but a collection of sentences? This writing workshop approaches the formation of fiction by addressing the magic and science of its smallest units: lines and sentences. By reading flash fiction (very short stories), novels-in-verses, and poetry, we will explore the potency of short work and literary compression. Throughout the semester, you will write your own poems and flash fiction pieces. How deeply and quickly can you affect readers by working at the line level? What happens within a sentence or between lines? What can poetry and flash fiction do that so speaks to our age? For fiction writers intimidated by poetry and poets intimidated by long-form fiction, this writing workshop takes a gentle approach to the close reading and writing of poetry and fiction. From studying the works of Danez Smith, Safia Elhillo, Ocean Vuong, Jamaica Kincaid, Warsan Shire, and more, we will amass a series of questions useful to our own practice as readers and writers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ndlovu
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
In 1774, an anonymous author wrote of "the perfection, the beauty, the grandeur & sublimity" to which Americans would advance the English language. In this course, we will explore the complex history that allows us to conclude that American English is not perfect and is but one English among many. We will study Old English, later medieval English, the early modern English of Shakespeare's day, and the varying Englishes of the modern British isles as well as those of modern America. We will read linguistic and literary histories along with literary passages from multiple times and places. We will ask, how does the history of the language affect our views of the world and our selves? And how are we continually shaping English's future?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Whitaker
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
What happens to the medieval Christian community when the unity of the Church breaks down? How does a narrative position its author and its characters within contemporary political controversy? Which characters are inside the traditional bounds of community? Which are outside? And how should we interpret the differences between them? In this course, we will examine these and other questions about medieval English literature and culture through the lens of Chaucer's writing. The course focuses on Middle English language and poetics as well as medieval structures of community-political, cultural, religious, and economic. The course will give special attention to how differences and conflicts, including those born of physical disparities and religious heresies, are managed within communities and portrayed in literature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Whitaker
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
How does literature help us understand what it means to be happy? What kinds of happiness do the “happy endings” of fiction propose (and why is happiness associated with endings, not middles or beginnings)? In this course, we’ll survey various ways literature has presented happiness: sometimes as a feeling, either vividly immediate (joy, pleasure, elation) or longer term (contentment, fulfillment); at others, as an objective condition, such as prosperity or flourishing. We’ll start with some ancient Greek-Roman philosophy, then focus on novels and poetry of the Enlightenment, when the pursuit of happiness (with life and liberty) became a political imperative. Readings will include works by Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, and Olaudah Equiano. We’ll conclude with recent texts that consider how happiness may thrive and fail under current class, family, labor, and other social conditions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Noggle
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This changing-topics course encourages students and faculty to pursue special interests in the study of major writers and ideas during the Renaissance, the period of European history between the 14th and 17th centuries.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
We will study representative plays written during the reign of Elizabeth I: Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry IV (Part 1), Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. These plays are chosen not only because they cover a wide range of genres--from savage farce and romantic comedy to tragedy and hybrid varieties in between--but also because they powerfully dramatize such a wide range of human experiences. They also represent masterpieces of storytelling in the medium of theatre that continue their lives in on-going and evolving performances.Viewing and analysis of contemporary performances and films will thus be integrated into the work of the course. At the same time, we will engage with contemporary scholarship by those who grapple, as women, people of color, and as members of the LGTBQ+ community, with Shakespeare's legacy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Cain
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The great tragedies and the redemptive romances from the second half of Shakespeare's career, during the reign of James I, such as Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Winter’s Tale. These plays portray humans pushed to the limit of endurance and raised to the heights of blessedness, and also find Shakespeare challenging the limits of genre. Study of the plays’ language and poetry will be complemented by a survey of their stage histories and an immersion in their present incarnations in performance and in adaptations across the world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. This course is open to all students except first-semester First-Years.
Instructor: Ko
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Milton helped set the standard of literary power for generations of writers after him. His epic Paradise Lost exemplifies poetic inspiration, sublimity, creativity, originality, and unconventionality, offering a richness of meaning and emotion that seems to provoke violently incompatible interpretations, even radical uncertainty about whether his work is good or bad. This course will focus on how this poem challenges and expands our views of God, evil, heroism, Hell, good, Heaven, pain, bliss, sex, sin, and failure in startling ways. We will consider Milton as the prototype of a new kind of poet who pushes meaning to its limit, from his early writings, to Paradise Lost, to Paradise Regain'd at his career's end, and sample the range of critical responses his poetry has elicited.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Noggle
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The period known as the Enlightenment (roughly 1660-1789) promoted individual rights, attacked superstition and advanced science, dramatically expanded literacy and publishing, brought women as readers and writers into a burgeoning literary marketplace, and created the public sphere. Yet the era also massively increased the trans-Atlantic slave trade, devised new forms of racism and anti-feminism, and established European colonialism as a world system. This course will examine British literature that confronts these complexities. We’ll read novels like Behn’s Oroonoko, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels that portray encounters between Europeans and the non-European “Other”; poems by Alexander Pope and Mary Wortley Montagu that explore the nature of women and femininity; and texts that find the limits of Enlightenment reason in uncertainty, strong passions, and madness.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Noggle
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Essential works of a group of poets unsurpassed in poetic achievement and influence: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats. Selected writings of Dorothy Wordsworth, Mary Robinson, Felicia Hemans. We’ll explore and interrogate prominent themes of Romanticism, including imagination, memory, creation; childhood, nature, the self; sympathy, empathy; questions of representation (for example, what issues arise when white, European, and for the most part male writers attempt to represent or “give voice” to “others”?); envisioning social justice; the lure of the unknown or unknowable; inspiration as "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"; dejection and writer's block, bipolar poetry; influence (from opium to "the viewless wings of Poesy"); beauty, truth, fancy, illusion; rebellion, revolution, transgression, exile; the Byronic hero, the femme fatale, the muse; complexity, ambiguity, mystery, doubt; mortality, immortality. Open to majors and non-majors. No poetry background required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Hickey
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Victorian poems stand among the most memorable and best-loved in all of English verse: they're evocative, emotionally powerful, idiosyncratic, psychologically loaded, intellectually engaged, daring, inspiring, and bizarre. We'll study Tennyson, the Brownings, Emily Brontë, the Rossettis, Arnold, Hopkins, and Hardy, with attention to their technique and place in literary history. Themes will include the power and limits of language, tradition and originality, love and sexuality, gender roles, the literary expression of personal crisis, religious faith and doubt, evolution, industrialism, and the role of art. Supplementary prose readings and forays into art history will illuminate literary, aesthetic, and social contexts, particularly those surrounding the Woman Question, female authorship, and representations of female figures.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Hickey
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The Victorian period, spanning roughly eight decades of literary tradition and innovation between Romanticism and Modernism, gave rise to some of the most memorable and best-loved works of literature in the English language: The texts for this course--mostly poems, some essays and short fiction, one play--include writings of Tennyson, Browning, Emily Brontë, the Rossettis and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Arnold, Hopkins, Wilde, Hardy, fin-de-siècle Aesthetes and Decadents, early Yeats, and World War I poet Wilfred Owen. They are evocative, emotionally powerful, idiosyncratic, psychologically loaded, intellectually engaged, sensual, daring, inspiring, harrowing, and bizarre. We'll trace thematic and stylistic connections, analyzing diverse representations of love, longing, loss, the power and limits of words, Medievalism, marriage and its discontents, gender dynamics, the Woman Question, women's authorship, queer eroticism, beauty, art, artifice, aesthetic and sensual pleasures, pain, suffering, sacrifice, the pity of war, repression, depravity, "madness," spiritual crisis, the horrors of war, and fears for the future of civilization. A Book Arts workshop and readings from Pater, Ruskin, Mill, Arnold, and William Morris will further illuminate the role of artists, artisans, and consumers of art.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Hickey
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Sensual and emotionally powerful, American poetry of the body explores living and knowing through physical, bodily experience. From Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” to contemporary spoken word performances, body poems move us through the strangeness and familiarity of embodiment, voicing the manifold discomforts, pains, pleasures, and ecstasies of living in and through bodies. We’ll trace a number of recurring themes: the relationship between body and mind, female embodiment, queer bodies, race, sexuality, disability, illness and medicine, mortality, appetite, and the poem itself as a body. Poets include Whitman, Frank O’Hara, Rita Dove, Thom Gunn, Claudia Rankine, Ocean Vuong, Tyehimba Jess, Jos Charles, Max Ritvo, Laurie Lambeth, Chen Chen, and Danez Smith. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 248
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Brogan
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A study of American poetry in the last two years. Emphasis on poets with one or two books. Students will write short review-essays. Authors may include: Sally Wen Mao, Terrance Hayes, Danez Smith, jos charles, A.E. Stallings, Jenny Xie, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, Shane Macrae, J. Michael Martinez, and Jana Prikryl.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The modernist revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century is one of the most important revolutions in the history of English—writers radically rethought what a poem is, what a novel is, what writing itself is. We are still the heirs of the great innovators who emerged during that time: Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Frost, Moore, Stevens, Williams, Hughes. In this course we will look at what connects their work and the profound divisions among them.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
We will focus on recent American poets who have responded, in a variety of forms and stances, to the demands of social and political action. An important challenge for American poets of the last fifty years has been, as Walt Whitman suggested, to maintain a position “both in and out of the game” - to exist at the seam between private imperatives and public demands, and often to call that very distinction into question. Poets will include: Robert Lowell, Adrienne Rich, June Jordan, A.R. Ammons, James Merrill, Frank Bidart, Lucille Clifton, Wanda Coleman, Natalie Diaz, Claudia Rankine, Tommy Pico, Cathy Park Hong, Terrance Hayes, jos charles, Sumita Chakraborty, Wendy Chen. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: At least one prior class in the English Department.
Instructor: Chiasson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A survey of the great poems and poets of the last 50 years, a period when serious poetry has often had to remind us it even exists. Our poets articulate the inside story of what being an American person feels like in an age of mounting visual spectacle, and in an environment where identities are suddenly, often thrillingly, sometimes distressingly, in question. Poets include: Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, the poets of “The New York School” (John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Barbara Guest, James Schuyler), Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, A.R. Ammons, Louise Glück, Robert Pinsky, Anne Carson, Susan Howe, Frank Bidart, Jorie Graham, D.A. Powell, Terrance Hayes, Tracy K. Smith, and others.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 45
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Working mainly in her bedroom and around her family's home in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson composed nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime. This body of work, composed by hand on stationery or scrap paper, was not widely known in her lifetime; Dickinson circulated it among friends, or kept it in the bottom drawer of her bureau, for her own enjoyment and for the readers of the future to discover. We will consider Emily Dickinson's poems as brilliantly shaped and executed performances of extreme emotions, from elation to despair; as the creation of a richly elaborated personal religion and homemade philosophy; as the decanting of an individual nineteenth-century woman's ordinary life and experiences, within the patriarchal structures and strictures of the day; as marks on paper, made within a material and household culture; as pathways in a distribution network invented by Dickinson, in opposition to conventional publishing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 40
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Chiasson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
From medieval illuminated manuscripts to contemporary graphic novels, genres that combine words and pictures invite us to consider the relationship between what were once called the "Sister Arts" of literature and the visual arts. This course will explore the various, complex, and fascinating interactions between texts and images in "blended" genres: children's picture books, ekphrastic poetry (poetry that describes and responds to visual artwork), concrete poetry (poetry in the shape of images), graphic novels, comics, and illustrated novels. We'll also look at works of visual art that include text.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Brogan
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course examines how that icon of modernity, New York City, has been variously depicted in literature and the arts, from its evolution into the nation’s cultural and financial capital in the nineteenth century to the present. We’ll consider how urban reformers, boosters, long-time residents, immigrants, tourists, newspaper reporters, journalists, poets, novelists, artists, and filmmakers have shaped new and often highly contested meanings of this dynamic and diverse city. We'll also consider how each vision of the city returns us to crucial questions of perspective, identity, and ownership, and helps us to understand the complexity of metropolitan experience. Authors may include Walt Whitman, Edith Wharton, Anzia Yezierska, Paule Marshall, Frank O’Hara, and Colson Whitehead. We’ll look at the art of John Sloan, Georgia O’Keeffe, Helen Levitt, and Berenice Abbott, and others. Filmmakers may include Vincente Minnelli, Martin Scorsese, and Spike Lee.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 258
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Brogan
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A survey of the Afro-American experience as depicted in literature from the eighteenth century through the present. Study of various forms of literary expression including the short story, autobiography, literary criticism, poetry, drama, and essays as they have been used as vehicles of expression for Black writers during and since the slave experience.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 260
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Cudjoe
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Between the breakdown of the studio system and the advent of the blockbuster era, American filmmaking enjoyed a decade of extraordinary achievement. We'll study a range of great films produced in the late 60s and 70s, such as Bonnie and Clyde, Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Chinatown, Annie Hall, Shampoo, Carrie, and Apocalypse Now, exploring their distinctive combination of American genre and European art-film style, and connecting them to the social and political contexts of this turbulent moment in American history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 261
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This is the greatest, most thrilling and inspiring period in American literary history, and the central theme represented and explored in it is freedom, and its relationship to power. Power and freedom—the charged and complex dynamics of these intersecting terms, ideas, and conflicted realities: we will examine this theme in literature, religion, social reform, sexual and racial liberation, and more. Authors to be studied will include Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Douglass, Stowe, Henry James. We will enrich our work by studying films dealing with the period—for example, Edward Zwick’s Glory (1989), about one of the first regiments of African-American troops, and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012).; and we also will consider the visual arts—photography and American landscape painting. The literature that we will read and respond to in this course was written 150 years ago, but the issues that these writers engage are totally relevant to who we are and where we are today. In important ways this is really a course in contemporary American literature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 262
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course traces the life stories of prominent African Americans, which, in their telling, have led to dramatic changes in the lives of African American people. Some were slaves; some were investigative journalists; some were novelists; and one is the president of the United States. We will examine the complex relationship between the community and the individual, the personal and the political and how these elements interact to form a unique African American person. The course also draws on related video presentations to dramatize these life stories. Authors include Linda Brent, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, Malcolm X, and Barack Obama.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 265
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Cudjoe
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This changing-topics course provides students with an opportunity to pursue special interests in the study of major American writers and ideas from the Civil War to the 1930s.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 266
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
A selection of short novels, essays, short stories, memoirs, poems and films ranging, in this special term, from the 1960s to the present. Authors and directors to be studied include James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Maxine Hong Kingston, Philip Roth, Spike Lee, Edward Jones, Denis Johnson, Rachel Kushner and others.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Why are some genres of fiction much more prestigious than others? How do works of fiction get categorized and valued? What accounts for the difference between “genre fiction” and “literary fiction”? This class will read literary-critical debates about genre alongside a survey of 21st century U.S. fiction. We will explore genres ranging from sci-fi to historical fiction to so-called autofiction, and consider how they can help us think about contemporary issues including climate change and the politics of race and gender. Authors may include George Saunders, Colson Whitehead, Jeff Vandermeer, Torrey Peters, Elif Batuman, Jonathan Franzen. Theorists and critics may include Pierre Bourdieu, Seo Young Chu, Theodore Martin, Mark McGurl, and others.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 268
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Winner
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An interdisciplinary exploration of the so-called Gilded Age and the Progressive era in the United States between the Civil War and World War I, emphasizing both the conflicts and achievements of the period. Topics will include Reconstruction and African American experience in the South; technological development and industrial expansion; the exploitation of the West and resistance by Native Americans and Latinos; feminism, "New Women," and divorce; tycoons, workers, and the rich-poor divide; immigration from Europe, Asia, and new American overseas possessions; as well as a vibrant period of American art, architecture, literature, music, and material culture, to be studied by means of the rich cultural resources of the Boston area.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 269
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: P. Fisher
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Fantasy, romance, “true” crime, experimental absurdity, Gothic-early English fiction originates narrative types that energize the novel throughout its history as literature's most popular form. This course begins with Aphra Behn's romance, Oroonoko, set in a South American slavery colony, and Daniel Defoe's tale of a pickpocket and sex worker, Moll Flanders. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift has captivated a world readership with its vertiginous mix of fantasy and satire. Henry Fielding laughs at his readers' class and gender anxieties in Joseph Andrews, while Horace Walpole invents a whole new fictional sensibility with the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. The course concludes with a parody of storytelling itself, Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and Frances Burney's Evelina, which anticipates the courtship comedy of Austen and the humorous characterization of Dickens.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Noggle
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In this course, we will explore the changing relationships of persons to social worlds in selected English novels of the nineteenth century. The English novel’s representation of imperialism and industrialization, its engagement with debates about women's roles, social mobility, class conflict, and its assertion of itself as a moral guide for its readers will be among the themes we will discuss. The assigned novels will probably include Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, and Henry James's Daisy Miller.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rodensky
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This changing-topics course provides students with an opportunity to pursue special interests in the study of major writers and ideas in the Modern Era of British Literature, spanning from 1901-1945, which saw a country affected by two world wars, the end of the Victorian Era, the end of Britain as an empire, and a rapidly diversifying population.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
In this course, you will enhance your creative writing and critical analysis skills by exploring how video games use narrative to captivate and motivate their players. You will uncover the unique aspects that set games apart from other storytelling media and learn how games manipulate narrative elements such as plot, setting, character, and conflict. Through evaluating the logical consistency and emotional complexity of story-driven games, you will produce writing samples showcasing your ability to craft an engaging narrative, whether in collaboration or independently. Apart from analyzing titles like The Last of Us, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and Firewatch, you are required to complete one game of your choice by the end of the semester and participate in the class discussion on various game studies and reviews.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Lu
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
The Black woman writer's efforts to shape images of herself as Black, as women, and as an artist. The problem of literary authority for the Black woman writer, criteria for a Black woman's literary tradition, and the relation of Black feminism or "womanism" to the articulation of a distinctively Black and female literary aesthetic.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 279
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Cudjoe
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A course on the poetry of one of the key figures in American Literature of the past fifty years. Topics include: Bidart as a confessional and post-confessional writer, incorporating the innovations of his mentors, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop; Bidart as experimental poet, extending the high-Modernist line pioneered by Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams; Bidart as a practitioner of the dramatic monologue as channelled from Shakespeare to Robert Frost; as a regional poet of California and New England; as a poet of queer identity; and, crucially, as a poet of unsurpassed formal and rhetorical inventiveness. We will read Bidart's collected volume, Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2016, in its entirety.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Chiasson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Christopher Isherwood’s autofictional Berlin Stories (1945)—featuring Sally Bowles, immortalized by Liza Minelli—inspired John Van Druten’s play I Am a Camera and, later, the film adaptation (1951, 1952). These, in turn, inspired the musical Cabaret (1966). The legendary Bob Fosse directed and choreographed Cabaret for the screen (1972); the rest is cinematic history. On stage or screen, Cabaret departs from novel and play. The famed musical transforms the ‘original,’ taking the Cabaret as motif and theme, a seedy nightclub run by a sinister Master of Ceremonies. Joel Grey was the original Emcee, while Alan Cumming reinterpreted the role in Sam Mendes’ West End and Broadway productions (1998, 2014). Amid these adaptations and revivals, Isherwood published Christopher and His Kind, shedding further light on his nocturnal Berlin years (1976). This memoir was dramatized for the screen, which at last reveals the ‘real’ Sally Bowles, Jean Ross (2011). An intertextual mesh of media, stories, genres, authors, characters, and agendas, the history of Cabaret is an exciting story in itself. In this course, we will analyze most of the works mentioned, while tracing the intertextuality and history of Cabaret. That history includes the ‘divine decadence’ of the Weimar Republic, the rise of Nazism, and the beginnings of the Second World War. But the lives and afterlives of Cabaret also trace a complex queer genealogy, before and after Stonewall, which continues to this day. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 283
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: González
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Everyone loves ghost stories, but why? Do we believe in their truth? Do we see ghosts as something that people from other cultures or other times believe? How might the presence of ghosts be linked to historical developments, including European colonialism? In this course, we will read stories featuring ghosts from across the world and through modern history. We’ll also explore various kinds of literary criticism to see how they can help us become more aware of what we’re doing when we read ghost stories. Stories and novels will include well-known works such as Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Leslie Maron Silko’s Ceremony, Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard, and South Korean novelist Hwang Sok-Yong’s The Guest. The goal is to become more aware of the assumptions behind how we read and interpret these stories. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 285
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course serves as an introduction to contemporary Global Anglophone literatures, as well as a survey of postcolonial and transnational approaches to the field. It asks: What stories do we tell to make sense of our world, and how are these narratives shaped by histories of imperialism and independence? What kinds of critique of empire do these fictions sustain, and what role do they play in establishing a sense of community, language, and place in empire’s wake? The course studies writerly engagements with residual and emergent imperial forms, bringing together key works of postcolonial and U.S. multiethnic literatures. Issues to be discussed include migration and diaspora, cosmopolitanism and globalization, human rights, racial and sexual politics, and transnational kinship.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rich
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Given their slow integration into the social mainstream, queer people have often made do with self-fashioning, a sensibility that identity is a work in progress. Literature and other artistic forms have been integral in sustaining and protecting the stories of queer lives and times. In this course, we will encounter various forms and transformations of queer expression, while focusing on a recent era that saw the dramatic visibility of LGBT folk: the 1990s. But we will not read this period in history in isolation. Instead, we will look backward too, considering early accounts of same-sex longing alongside contemporary representations. The Nineties zeitgeist was self-conscious about the previous “Gay Nineties” (the 1890s) and other queer eras like the Harlem Renaissance. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: González
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How is literature related to capitalism? How can one help us to understand the power of the other? This course examines their shared forms and overlapping histories. We will read literary works, accounts of capitalism as a social system and historical epoch, and criticism focused on the material basis of literature. Fiction will range from Balzac to Ling Ma. That trajectory shows the development of capitalism from the period of the industrial revolution in England to the complex supply chains of global capitalism in the present. Theorists will include Marx, Adorno, Brecht, Eric Williams, and Althusser. Issues will include the commodity form, the role of slavery and empire in the development of capitalism, class consciousness, structuralism, and neo-liberalism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 287
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Y. Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
London started to become a global, multicultural city in the eighteenth century. How has it changed and how has it remained the same? This course examines how London has been experienced and represented in literary works from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. We will explore how the city has been imagined in terms of disease, crime, power and pleasure. We will consider what types of stories London inspires, and who gets to tells them?. Authors will include Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Virginia Woolf, and Zadie Smith.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Through literary and interdisciplinary methods, this course examines the nature of race. While current debates about race often assume it to be an exclusively modern problem, this course uses classical, medieval, early modern, and modern materials to investigate the long history of race and the means by which thinkers have categorized groups of people and investigated the differences between them through the ages. The course examines the development of race through discourses of linguistic, physical, geographic, and religious difference--from the Tower of Babel to Aristotle, from the Crusades to nineteenth-century racial taxonomies, from Chaucer to Toni Morrison. Considering the roles physical appearance has played in each of these arenas, we will thoughtfully consider the question: What Is Racial Difference? Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ENG 391.
Instructor: Whitaker
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300 level as ENG 391.
A journey through the dark side of the American imagination. Where classic Hollywood filmmaking trades in uplift and happy endings, Film Noir inhabits a pessimistic, morally compromised universe, populated by femmes fatales, hard-boiled detectives, criminals and deviants. This course will explore the development of this alternative vision of the American experience, from its origins in the 1940s, through the revival of the genre in the 1970s, to its ongoing influence on contemporary cinema. We’ll pay particular attention to noir’s redefinition of American cinematic style, and to its representations of masculinity and femininity. Films we are likely to watch include Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, Carl Franklin’s Devil in a Blue Dress, and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. We’ll also read a number of the gritty detective novels from which several of these films were adapted.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 292
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This is an exploration of the Harlem Renaissance, a movement of African American literature and culture of the early twentieth century, which encompassed all major art forms, including poetry, fiction, and drama, as well as music, the visual arts, cabaret, and political commentary. This movement corresponds with the publication of The New Negro anthology (1925). Literary authors we will study may include Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, and Richard Bruce Nugent. We will also enter into contemporary debates about “the color line” in this period of American history, reading some earlier work by W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, or James Weldon Johnson, in the context of early Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the Jazz Age, and transatlantic Modernism. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 295
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: González
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the exciting new literature produced by writers transplanted to the United States or by children of recent immigrants. We’ll consider how the perspectives of immigrants redefine what is American by sustaining linkages across national borders, and we’ll examine issues of hybrid identity and multiple allegiances, collective memory, traumatic history, nation, home and homeland, and globalization. Our course materials include novels, essays, memoirs, short fiction, and visual art. We’ll be looking at writers in the United States with cultural connections to India, Pakistan, Viet Nam, Bosnia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Korea, Japan, and Mexico. Some authors to be included: André Aciman, Catherine Chung, Sandra Cisneros, Mohsin Hamid, Aleksandar Hemon, Jumpa Lahiri, Lê Thi Diem Thúy, and Dinaw Mengestu. Artists include Surendra Lawoti, Priya Kambli, Asma Ahmed Shikoh, and the African American mixed-media artist Radcliffe Bailey. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 296
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Brogan
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Transgender rights, gay marriage, and Hollywood and sports figures' media advocacy are only the latest manifestations of the rich queer history of the United States. This course will explore American LGBTQ history and culture from the late nineteenth century to the present, with an emphasis on consequential developments in society, politics, and consciousness since Stonewall in 1969. The course will introduce some elements of gender and queer theory; it will address historical and present-day constructions of sexuality through selected historical readings but primarily through the vibrant cultural forms produced by queer artists and communities. The course will survey significant queer literature, art, film, and popular culture, with an emphasis on the inventive new forms of recent decades. It will also emphasize the rich diversity of queer culture especially through the intersectionality of gender and sexuality with class, ethnicity and race.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 297
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: P. Fisher
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course focuses on the history of Jamaican literature and music with attention to the evolution of Jamaican English. Beginning with early, colonialist writings, we’ll examine tropes used to describe the landscape and the people during the periods of conquest, slavery, rebellion, and plantocracy. We'll proceed through the pre-Independence decades of the twentieth century to analyze the emerging literary and musical traditions and underlying socio-historical influences (nationalism, emigration, the colonial legacy, hybridity, Rastafarian culture, Pan-Africanism). We will study the African roots of Jamaican music and the metamorphosis of popular forms from Mento through Ska to Reggae. We will finally look at postcolonial issues that have influenced writers and musicians from the 1960s to the present (political upheaval, violence, urban poverty, Black consciousness) for Jamaican writers both at home and abroad. Some of the writers to be included: Claude McKay, Louise Bennett, Una Marson, Colin Channer, Kwame Dawes, Lorna Goodison, Marlon James, Andrea Levy, and Bob Marley. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Cezair-Thompson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of the horror film in America, from 1960 to the present, with particular attention to the ways that imaginary monsters embody real terrors, and the impact of social and technological change on the stories through which we provoke and assuage our fears. We'll study classics of the genre, such as Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Exorcist, as well as contemporary films like Get Out and Midsommar, and read some of the most important work in the rich tradition of critical and theoretical
writing on horror.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 299
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A workshop in the techniques of fiction writing together with practice in critical evaluation of student work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ENG 203 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Cezair-Thompson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. This course may be repeated once for credit.
A workshop in intensive practice in the writing of poetry. Students who have taken this course once may register for it one additional time.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ENG 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: González
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
In Advanced Writing for Television, we’ll pick up where Writing for Television left off. Students will continue to practice the skills of writing teleplays—character and story development; structure and arc; tension and conflict; audience, premise, and tone; scenes, description, action, and dialogue; and voice and clarity. We’ll start by studying a range of TV shows: comedies, dramas, web series, and others. Through reading scripts, watching shows, and discussing both in class, students will develop a more advanced and specific understanding of what makes a show work. Through their own writing, students will practice applying the lessons they’ve learned. In the workshop process, we’ll discuss everything that comes up in students’ scripts—what’s working, what’s not, and what we can all learn about TV writing from each example.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 30 8
Prerequisites: CAMS 208/ENG 208
Instructor: Holmes
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
This changing-topics course provides students with the opportunity to pursue special interests in the interdisciplinary study of culture and civilization during the millennium between approximately 500 and 1500 CE. While the Middle Ages traditionally encompasses European literature and history, it is increasingly a multicultural Mediterranean and global field of study, multifaceted by nature and touching on a wide array of subjects.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Whitaker
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
This Calderwood seminar in public writing will show that there is no such thing as dead poetry. In a series of weekly writing and editing exercises ranging from movie reviews to op-eds, we will explore the many ways that the great poetry of centuries past speaks directly to modern experience. We will be taught both by the poets themselves (whose eloquence will rub off on us) and each other, as each student will pick a poet whose writing she will become expert at relaying to a lay audience. By the end of the semester, not only will you be able to persuade a newspaper reader that blank verse matters as much as Twitter; you will also learn how to articulate the value of your English major to a prospective employer--and how to transmit your excitement about the latest discoveries in your field to friends and parents.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken at least two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Lynch
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course takes its title from Duby’s magisterial history The Knight, the Lady, and the Priest, which studies medieval marriage and its implications for marriage and gender relations in modernity. We will build on Duby’s work by considering how medieval romance literature has constructed not only marriage but also race. We will read medieval romances that depict religious differences as physical differences, especially skin color, and we will consider texts in the theological, philosophical, and historical contexts that informed their creation and reception. We will also consider the afterlives of medieval romance in modern love stories that are concerned with race. We will inquire, what do blackness and whiteness mean in chivalric literature and the history of love? And is modern race actually medieval? Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Whitaker
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The term “speculative fiction” has emerged as an inclusive gesture towards the most exciting fiction being written right now. Under its umbrella thrive fiction categories like Gothic, horror, science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, dystopian, and environmental fiction (plus heady blends of all these).
Writers of color, Indigenous writers, LGBTQIA+ writers have figured prominently in the contemporary (post 2000) explosion of speculative fiction—writing about “what if” in the future or in the past has proved liberating as a critique of colonial legacies, an exploration of transcultural and transnational experiences in the lives of immigrants, and a re-imagining of gender.
Entering the world of Anglophone speculative fiction requires, too, reflecting on the particular historical and cultural contexts of these texts and exploring the speculative fiction genre through scholarly essays and online literary magazines. Among the authors: Helen Oyeyemi, Vandana Singh, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Larissa Lai, and Claire Colman.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 319
Prerequisites: A 200-level ENG course, or CPLT 180, or ENG 119, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Sides
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
“Evil be thou my good,” resolves Satan in Paradise Lost. This course will explore literary works that follow Milton’s lead in unleashing radical energies that invert or “transvalue” conventional values, whether their authors endorse such inversions or not. Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Ellison’s Invisible Man all test the claims of darkness against light. We’ll also consider other examples, and theories, of the Gothic, and the sublime, that stage literature as an uncontrollable contest between irreconcilable forces. Theories of intention will suggest how such a lack of authorial control can seem a literary strength. Throughout we will assess the political potential of the Satanic principle—how it might inspire anti-capitalist, feminist, antiracist, and other oppositional modes of reading.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Noggle
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Topic for Spring 2025: Shakespeare in Performance Around the Globe
The globalization of Shakespeare has only accelerated in the past quarter century, generating a trove of new stage productions, films and adaptations that continue to re-imagine, challenge and revitalize Shakespeare. This course will explore some of the more striking examples, in both English and other languages, from a Korean stage version of A Midsummer Night's Dream and a Chinese film adaptation of Hamlet (The Banquet) to Spanish and Indian retellings of Othello. In the process, we will also investigate what concepts like authenticity, translation, and adaptation mean in an intercultural context. The reading list will be finalized at a later date so that local productions can be considered, but will most likely include: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, OR by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Ko
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
This changing-topics course provides students with the opportunity to pursue special interests in the study of major writers and ideas in 16th and 17th century literature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
This changing-topics course provides students with the opportunity to pursue special interests in the study of major writers and ideas that began and flourished from 1660 to 1789, often called the Age of Enlightenment.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
This course reads Jane Austen alongside other women writers of her time, and examines her novels in the context of war and revolution. These revolutions took place not only on battlefields but within British thought, politics, and culture, particularly concerning the boundaries and definitions of gender, race, empire, and class. Comparing Austen’s novels to other authors, such as Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Mary Hays, we will see how Austen shapes a mode of representation responsive to her moment.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Yoon Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How do siblings, sibling relationships, and conceptions of brotherhood and sisterhood figure in Romantic-period authorship and texts? What is particularly Romantic about sisters and brothers? We'll consider such questions from several different angles, looking, for example, at the following: representations of siblings in literary texts; sister-brother writers (but also the importance of non-writing siblings); the relation of genius to genes; the complications of step-siblings, half-siblings, and siblings-in-law; the overlap or conflict of sibling relationships with friendship, marriage, romantic love, and self-love; and brotherhood as metaphor (revolutionary, abolitionist, Christian). Texts by Joanna Baillie, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Charles and Mary Lamb, DeQuincey, Byron, Austen (Sense and Sensibility), M. Shelley (Frankenstein), P. Shelley, Keats.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Hickey
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Study of Romantic poems (and some prose), focusing on the role of love and sex in Romantic conceptions of imagination. Passion, sympathy, sensibility; the lover as Romantic subject; gendering the sublime and the beautiful; sexual/textual ambiguity; gender and genius; the sublime potential of unutterable or unspeakable love; the beloved as muse; enchantresses and demon lovers as figures of imagination; the attractions, dangers, excesses, and failures of idealizing erotic imagination (sentimentalism, narcissism, solipsism, disenchantment); desire as Romantic quest; sexual politics; marriage (and its discontents); non-normative or transgressive sex; (homo)erotics of Romantic literary friendship, rivalry, and collaboration. Texts by Charlotte Smith, Coleridge, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Mary Robinson, 'Sapphic' poets, Caroline Lamb, Byron, Felicia Hemans, P.B. Shelley, Mary Shelley, Keats, and John Clare.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Hickey
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This changing-topics course provides students with an opportunity to pursue special interests in the study of major writers and ideas in 19th century literature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
In August 1872, Benjamin Jowett (the head of Oxford's Balliol College and one of the century's most eminent scholars) wrote George Eliot a fan letter. In it, Jowett not only identified Middlemarch, the novel Eliot published earlier that year, as her “great work,” but also reported that “It is a bond of conversation and friendship everywhere.” And so it has been ever since. In this course, we will explore the great novels of the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. In addition to reading Eliot's novels, we will take up critical responses to them, beginning with those of Eliot's contemporaries. In particular, we will consider readers' objections to her representations of religion, female autonomy, and sexuality. As we ourselves become part of Eliot's readership, we will think about her development as a novelist and critic who reimagined the novel as central to the moral and intellectual lives of the reading public. Eliot wanted her novels to make a deep and lasting impression on her readers, as indeed they do. Novels will include Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, The Lifted Veil, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students. Not open to students who have taken this class as a topic of ENG 345.
Instructor: Rodensky
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
“Reader, I married him,” Jane Eyre tells us as her novel draws to a close. Many nineteenth-century novels end with a marriage. So despite suggestions within the body of the novel that women's traditional role is not a satisfying one, the heroine often seems contented in that role by the novel's end. But what happens if the heroine chooses wrongly? In this course, we will consider novels that look at a heroine's life after a marriage that she comes to regret, as well as some novels in which the bad romantic choices do not result in marriage. What do these novels of romantic mistake have to say about women's lives? Probable authors: Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, James, Austen, Eliot.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken at least two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Meyer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
George Eliot believed that art could teach us how to be better people, and she wrote novels that she hoped would make a difference in the world. That’s Wellesley’s mission too. In this course, we’ll read five of Eliot’s seven major works (Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda) and consider the “difference” Eliot wanted to make in her readers and their communities. We will explore not only the novels themselves but also their contemporary reviews as well as Eliot’s letters and essays. In addition, we will take up the wider questions that Eliot raises about the force and function of literature and examine recent essays about how and whether fiction changes its readers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Rodensky
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
An advanced, intensive writing workshop, open to six students, named for a late Wellesley professor who valued good writing. This is a class in writing non-fiction prose, the kind that might someday land a writer in The New Yorker or The Atlantic. Our genre is often called "literary journalism," and here the special skills -- technical precision, ability for physical description, and psychological insight -- necessary for writing fiction are applied to real-life events and personalities. We will read and emulate authors like Joan Didion, Hilton Als, Janet Malcolm, Robert Mcfarlane, and Terry Castle, and each student will produce a 5,000 word-piece of their own.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 6
Prerequisites: Open to qualified students by permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
An advanced seminar in the poetry of Louise Glück, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. We will read Glück's entire oeuvre, from Firstborn (1968), written partly in late adolescence and expressing the passions and fears of a young person, to Marigold and Rose (2022), written for her infant grandchildren. Glück's subjects were the phases and cycles of ongoing life. She explores the experiences of being a child, wanting a child, having a child, having grandchildren; of being part of relationships and communities--a marriage, a village, friendships, artistic collaboration, a college faculty--and of leaving behind, or being excluded from, those structures; of finding passionate comfort in art, music, poetry, TV, gardening, cooking; of facing illness and disability in a changing body; of being a woman in a patriarchal culture and in an art that favors men. These subjects and others were embodied in changing forms that challenge us by the clarity and complexity of their emotional logic and the sheer force of their beauty.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ENG 120, one English course at the 200 level.
Instructor: Chiasson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This changing-topics course provides students with an opportunity to pursue special interests in the study of major writers and ideas in 20th century literature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
This course will survey Hemingway's literary career: his novels, including The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea; his brilliant short stories from In Our Time and other collections; and his Paris memoir, A Moveable Feast. We will give special attention to the young Hemingway, who survived serious wounds in World War I and who worked hard to establish himself as a writer in the 1920s when he was living in Paris with his wife and child. In addition, we will contextualize our discussion through film, painting, and photography. Our goals will be to understand Hemingway's extraordinary style -- its complexity, emotional power, and depth -- and his charismatic personality as it is displayed in both his life and his writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Cain
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The poems and letters of Emily Dickinson, arguably the most important American poet of the nineteenth century, provide a window into one of the most thrilling and idiosyncratic minds in literature. Dickinson lived her entire adult life in her family's elegant home on the main street of Amherst, Massachusetts, writing in her spacious bedroom through the night. The house and its views, as well as its gardens and paths, are all vivid presences in her work. Dickinson hand-wrote all of her poems on paper she scavenged around the house; scholars are still debating how to read and interpret her hand-done poems. To study Dickinson is to be confronted with questions that seem sometimes more forensic than literary critical. We will explore Dickinson's online archives and visit, several times, her house and gardens in Amherst. This course should appeal not only to lovers of poetry but to lovers of old houses, scrapbooks, ghost stories, and the material history of the New England region.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Chiasson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
This seminar focuses on the rich and strange archive of modern lesbian literature of the twentieth century. We begin with the “mother” of Sapphic Modernism, Sappho herself, and continue through the Interwar Era with the High Modernism of Virginia Woolf, the Black Modernism of Nella Larsen, the Parisian “Lost Generation” of Gertrude Stein, and the Late Modernism of Djuna Barnes. After an interlude during the Second World War, with the poetry of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), we turn to the 1950s and the beginning of the so-called American Century, with the postwar pulp and noir writings of Ann Bannon and Patricia Highsmith. We continue into the 1960s, with the “toward Stonewall” lesbian novel Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule, and end with Adrienne Rich in the post–“Stonewall” Era. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: González
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the rise, the stakes, and the ironies of literary celebrity from the mid-20th century to the present. Beginning with the peculiar case of the Beat author, as exemplified by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, we consider what their uncommon degree of fame meant to literature and vice versa in the post-World War II era—a time when a rapidly changing media ecology, rising consumerism, and intensifying Cold War nationalism made for curious marriages: between avant-garde art and pop culture, between countercultural ambitions and commercial appropriation. We will also examine contemporary texts by authors including David Foster Wallace and Patricia Lockwood that address technology and its importance to self-fashioning. Focusing on celebrity as both a complex sociological process and as a perspective-warping stimulus we experience daily, this course will help us to demystify the products of celebrity culture while cultivating a reasonable appreciation for the power of its aesthetic appeal.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 359
Prerequisites: One course in literature.
Instructor: Winner
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
The course will explore the work of three leading postwar American poets: Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, and James Merrill. We will approach these poets as creators of distinctive poetic styles and voices, as figures within the poetry world of their time, and as queer artists involved in complex negotiations of concealment and disclosure. We’ll situate their work within (and outside) some of the major schools of postwar poetry, and look at the reception of that work by critics in their time and ours. We’ll use letters and other recently available documents to illuminate the poetry. We’ll examine the role in their careers of different forms and locales of expatriation (Bishop in Brazil, Ashbery in France, Merrill in Greece). Most of all, we’ll seek to engage with and understand three compelling bodies of poetic achievement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 367
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ENG 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
A survey of major developments in literary theory and criticism. The emphasis is on breadth of coverage. Discussion will focus on important perspectives and schools of thought from Plato to the present day. We will consider, for instance, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, structuralism, post-colonialism, race theory, and post-humanism as they have contributed to the interpretation of literature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Shetley
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
We will study in depth three great American novels: Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881, rev. 1908); Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900); and Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country (1913). We also will study two film adaptations: The Portrait of a Lady (1996; dir. Jane Campion, starring Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich); and Carrie (1952; dir. William Wyler; starring Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones). In addition: portraits of women by the painters John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins, and Mary Cassatt, and Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs of Georgia O’Keefe.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 383
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Cain
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Willa Cather, Pulitzer-prize winning American woman novelist of the early twentieth century, is best known for her novels about settlers on the Great Plains, My Ántonia, O Pioneers! and, set a generation later, The Song of the Lark. The power of the land and questions about the way humans should best relate to the land are at the center of her work. Cather lived most of her life with her companion, Edith Lewis, and her alternative views on heterosexuality, marriage, and transgressive female sexuality emerge in indirect and interesting ways in her fiction. Other intriguing issues in her work include immigration, inter-racial and inter-ethnic relations, the nature of the body in health and illness, tensions between rural and urban life, the development of the artist, especially the woman artist, and the emotional consequences of war.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 386
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Meyer
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This changing topics course provides an intensive study of major writers. The course will focus on primary texts, but also give attention to the biographical, literary, and historical context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
While literary criticism might seem like an esoteric or unworldly pursuit, it has relevance and consequence beyond the narrow world of academic journals. It shapes reading lists at the high school, college, and graduate level and contributes to cultural conversations about expanding the canon. It also has the potential to create connections between academic scholarship and the larger world it inhabits. In this Calderwood seminar, we will read selected works of contemporary literary criticism (and a few short stories) and consider the place of published criticism in the wider culture. Over the course of the semester, students will produce several short pieces exploring criticism’s significance and present their work to the class as part of our weekly writing workshops. Assignments -- including op-eds, reviews of public talks, memoranda, podcasts, and blog posts -- will target a non-specialist reading audience. This course will give students the opportunity to build on their own experiences as readers of literature and writers of literary criticism as they engage with the questions and controversies that criticism raises.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rodensky
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Through literary and interdisciplinary methods, this course examines the nature of race. While current debates about race often assume it to be an exclusively modern problem, this course uses classical, medieval, early modern, and modern materials to investigate the long history of race and the means by which thinkers have categorized groups of people and investigated the differences between them through the ages. The course examines the development of race through discourses of linguistic, physical, geographic, and religious difference - from the Tower of Babel to Aristotle, from the Crusades to nineteenth-century racial taxonomies, from Chaucer to Toni Morrison. Considering the roles physical appearance has played in each of these arenas, we will thoughtfully consider the questions: How do we discern racializing discourses? What historical discourses have led to modern race? How do we best analyze literary and related materials to understand how racial ideology has impacted texts? And to understand how texts have impacted racial ideology? Through these and other inquiries, we will arrive at some answers for the big question, What Is Racial Difference? Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students. Not open to students who have taken ENG 291.
Instructor: Whitaker
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200 level as ENG 291.
This hands-on class will explore how products are created, including an exploration of ideation and brainstorming, reverse engineering, and the product development process. An emphasis will be placed on the role of human factors engineering, including usability successes and failures of specific products. Students will learn about these topics through two approaches: disassembly and study of existing products and creation of simple product prototypes for specific, local nonprofit organizations serving populations such as those with developmental or physical limitations. By the end of the semester, students will be able to comprehend and independently apply both the product development process and specific human factors engineering approaches used in the design of many everyday objects; they will also have developed their own creativity and better understand how to further develop and apply that skill.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Banzaert
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A project-based exploration of the technical challenges facing under-served communities locally and in developing countries. Technologies are focused primarily at the household level, exploring the benefits and limitations of existing and proposed solutions. Students will learn and apply engineering design skills-including estimation, prototyping, and creativity-to address real problems facing community partners affiliated with the class. Methodologies for participatory development and co-creation will be considered and utilized as appropriate. The necessity for interdisciplinary work when generating solutions will be emphasized.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Banzaert
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Engineering is about combining ideas from mathematics, physics, computer science, and many other fields to design objects and systems that serve human needs. This project-based course introduces the big ideas of engineering and prepares students for taking additional engineering courses at Olin College or MIT. Topics include: the design and construction of mechanisms using rapid prototyping tools such as laser cutters, 3D printers, and computer-aided design software (SolidWorks); modeling and controlling physical systems using the MATLAB programming environments; and feedback and control using digital electronics (Arduino microcontrollers).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Pre- or co-requisite - PHYS 107 or CS 111 or PHYS 120, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Banzaert
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 6
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Banzaert
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 4
Prerequisites: ENGR 250
Instructor: Banzaert
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course introduces environmental science through the lens of systems thinking. Given the staggering level of complexity found around us, a powerful approach in science is to simplify complex systems into key components that influence processes and provide predictive power. But how do we choose which factors to focus on? How disconnected are causes and effects? Although not a laboratory course, students will actively engage in data collection, analysis, and interpretation of systems ranging from energy in ecosystems to environmental toxins and human health. (Note that students may enroll in either ES 100 or ES 101, but not both.)
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ES 101.
Instructor: Davis
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
Environmental problems are some of the most complex issues that we face today, and addressing them requires skills and knowledge from a variety of scientific and non-scientific disciplines. This course seeks to provide the scientific foundation for approaching environmental problems. Using a systems-approach to problem formulation and solving, we will investigate environmental issues including soil degradation, human and natural energy flows, stratospheric ozone depletion, mercury pollution, and the conservation of biodiversity. The combined studio and laboratory format offers diverse approaches for understanding, applying, and constructing models to investigate the behavior of environmental systems as well as testing hypotheses and drawing conclusions.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 13
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Open to First-Years and Sophomores. Juniors and Seniors may only enroll with permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken ES 100.
Instructor: Griffith
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF)
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is a required co-requisite laboratory for ES 101.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 13
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Open to First-Years and Sophomores. Juniors and Seniors may only enroll with permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken ES 100.
Instructor: Griffith
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to Environmental Studies, with a focus on climate change. Major concepts that will be examined include: the state of scientific research, the role of science, politics, and economics in environmental decision-making, and the importance of history, ethics, and justice in approaching climate change. The central aim of the course is to help students develop the interdisciplinary research skills necessary to pose questions, investigate problems, and develop strategies that will help us address our relationship to the environment.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years and Sophomores. Juniors and Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Davis, Turner
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Elements and molecules interact with the environment producing global challenges such as climate change, ozone depletion, and heavy metal pollution. This course is a general introduction to the chemistry of such environmental problems, focusing on the chemical principles that regulate the effect, fate, and transport of chemicals in the environment. It explores how the structure of a chemical relates to its environmental impact and how interactions can be predicted through chemistry. Assignments will include working with real data-sets of elements in the environment, such as records of carbon in forests, oxygen in the ocean, and heavy metals in soils. Chem 103 is intended for students with very little prior chemistry experience. This course does not count towards the chemistry major or minor.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 10 3
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Stanley
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines ecology’s intersection with cinema and media studies. Amidst climate change, ecological theorists have complicated boundaries between nature and technology and between humans and nonhumans. We will focus on the intersection of these ecological conversations with cinema and media studies. This course will consider a range of media, from mushrooms to cyborgs; explore cinematic innovations aimed at depicting nonhuman actors; discuss how media create their own environments; and cover topics like digital waste. Course readings will include a range of contemporary ecological perspectives, including texts from Feminist Science and Technology Studies, Black Studies, and Indigenous Critical Theory. We will apply these ideas in discussions of recent films.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ES 219
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Humans and their environment make up a complex and dynamic system. As with all ecological systems, key components are the availability and use of resources and the interactions with other species - both of which have important impacts on the nature and stability of the system itself. This course investigates these far-reaching concepts by examining topics such as the broad implications of thermodynamics, energy and material flows through human and natural systems, natural resource management, and the conservation of resources and biodiversity. We will also explore the role of science and technology in surmounting previous limits (e.g. energy use and agricultural yields), as well as the implications of inherent limits that may never be broken. Laboratory work will focus on quantitative skills and modeling tools used to examine a range of systems.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following - ES 100, ES 101, GEOS 101, GEOS 102, BISC 108, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Griffith
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course considers the economic aspects of resource and environmental issues. After examining the concepts of externalities, public goods, and common property resources, we will discuss how to measure the cost and benefits of environmental policy in order to estimate the socially optimal level of the environmental good. Applications of these tools will be made to air and water pollution, renewable and nonrenewable resources, and global climate. In addressing each of these problems we will compare various public policy responses such as regulation, marketable permits, and tax incentives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 228
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P.
Instructor: Keskin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course discusses the narrative challenges posed by the Anthropocene, the current era in history in which the impact of humans on the environment imperils the very future of our planet. Reading fictional and critical texts that have emerged in different parts of the world over the course of the last three decades, we will identify the fictional tools and aesthetic strategies that writers are exploring to address the climate catastrophe. We will discuss what the traditions of writing about biocide are to which contemporary authors can turn when creating new narratives adequate to capture the environmental crisis. We will analyze the most prominent genres involved in “green writing” and will pay close attention to the ways authors deal with the tensions between the local and the global in their narratives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 238
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken GER 338.
Instructor: Nolden
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course meets with GER 338, which is intended for advanced German students and which has a third class meeting conducted in German.
From ancient pastoral poets to Amanda Gorman, how have writers made nature their subject? What can literature tell us about the diverse and changing ways in which humans perceive, construct, interact with, inhabit, and alter our environments? How do historical and cultural differences inflect writing about nature? Does the prospect of climate catastrophe impel writers to reimagine traditional genres? We’ll explore such questions through a broad selection of poetry and lyrical prose, countering circumscribed notions of environmental writing as a predominantly white or cis straight male realm and seeking to illuminate the vital connections between environmentalism and social and racial justice.
Readings from the English pastoral tradition and its classical roots; Shakespeare, the Romantics, Gerard Manley Hopkins; foundational American poets Dickinson and Whitman; and a broad selection of 20th- and 21st-century poets such as Robert Frost, Jean Toomer, Richard Wilbur, A.R. Ammons, W.S. Merwin, Audre Lorde, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, Ed Roberson, Seamus Heaney, Lucille Clifton, Pattian Rogers, Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, Carolyn Forché, Joy Harjo, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Forrest Gander, Claudia Rankine, Annie Finch, dg nanouk okpik, Camille T. Dungy, Jennifer Chang, Ada Limón, and Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Prose by Dorothy Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson, Annie Dillard, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Lauret Savoy, and Helen Macdonald.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 242
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Hickey
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is a combination of “What's that wildflower?” and “Why does it grow over there and not here?” We begin by examining large-scale patterns of plant diversity from an evolutionary and phylogenetic perspective and then shift to an ecological perspective. Along the way, we zoom in to specific concepts and processes that help us understand overall patterns. Laboratories will primarily be taught in the field and greenhouses and will include plant identification, observational and experimental studies, and long-term study of forest communities on the Wellesley campus. Laboratories will also include aspects of experimental design and data analysis. The goal of the course is not only to train students in botany and plant ecology, but to engage them in the world of plants every time they step outside.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: BISC 247
Prerequisites: One of the following - ES 100, ES 101, BISC 108, BISC 111, BISC 111T, BISC 113, BISC 113Y; or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken BISC 347/ES 347.
Instructor: Griffith
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: The course is offered at the 300-level as BISC 347/ES 347.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The Environmental Studies program runs a weekly reading group on changing topics. Readings will be chosen based on the interests of the participating students and faculty members. Students who enroll commit to coming to each week's discussion, preparing a set of responses to the week's reading, and, in collaboration with other group members, selecting some of the weekly topics and readings.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Addressing climate change means transitioning to a clean energy future by 2050. This course adopts an interdisciplinary approach to study the prospects for such a transition. What technologies can pave the way to a clean energy future? What policies can hasten this transition and ensure it is advanced equitably? Can such a transition help pull people around the world out of poverty? What policies are necessary to ensure that a clean energy future also promotes energy democracy? Is there enough copper, lithium, and rare earth metals to support such a transition? Could growing dependency on these resources precipitate future conflicts over limited resources?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ES 151H are not allowed to take this course.
Instructor: Turner
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this course we will consider the historical, social, and political life of nature in its many guises and from an anthropological perspective. What is the relationship between resource control and the consolidation of power? How have social movements and development agencies mobilized ideas of participatory conservation to achieve their goals, and how have these same concepts been used to exclude or to reproduce inequality? We will explore themes such as the relationship between race, nature, and security; intellectual property and bioprospecting; and the lived effects of the many “green,” “sustainable,” and “eco-tourism” projects now attracting foreign travelers around the world. Additionally, the course will introduce students unfamiliar with socio-cultural anthropology to ethnographic research methods, ethical dilemmas, and the craft of ethnographic writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: ES 265
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ellison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Exploring the relationship between art and the environment, this course will focus on the land of the United States as it has been shaped into forms ranging from landscape paintings to suburban lawns, national parks, and our own Wellesley College campus. Among the questions we will consider are: What is “nature”? What do we value in a landscape and why? How are artists, architects, and landscape designers responding to environmentalist concerns?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 267
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Bedell
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An interdisciplinary seminar in which students work together in small groups to understand and develop solutions for current environmental problems. Each year, we focus on a given environmental issue of concern to our community, e.g., environmental implications of building design, energy use, or water quality. In particular, we work to understand its scientific background, the political processes that lead to potential solutions, and the ethical and environmental justice implications. Student-led research provides the bulk of the information about the issue and its role in our local environment; lectures and readings provide supplementary information about the local situation and the global context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: A declared major in environmental studies and completion of six courses that count toward the ES major, or permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors and Seniors only.
Instructor: DeSombre
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Environmental activism, from local to global, offers a viable and creative means to address environmental injustice beyond traditional policy strategies. This class will critically examine the range of strategies deployed by nonviolent grassroots environmental movements, drawing on lenses including global environmental justice, intersectionality, and design justice. This course will examine these movements in relation to their geographic, political, and cultural contexts. Case studies will be chosen based on student interests. Potential case studies include the Green Belt Movement, Greenpeace, Earth First!, Movement for Survival of the Ogoni People, World Rainforest Movement, the Chipko Movement, and Bahamas Plastic Movement. Students in this course will develop a theoretical understanding of environmental activist strategies, a comparative framework for analyzing activist campaigns, and an understanding of the political ecology of specific campaigns and the environmental justice issues they aim to resolve. Student work will culminate with the design of an activist campaign.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Any 100-level ES course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hassey
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The emergent structure and function of ecosystems are regulated by feedbacks between biological and physical systems from the microscopic to the global scale. We will study how ecosystems cycle carbon and nutrients and how the energy balance of ecosystems influences climate. We will also examine the role that humans play in managing, creating, and using services from ecosystems in our current era of rapid global change. Synthesizing these concepts, we consider the role of protected areas in preserving ecosystem functioning. Students will develop statistical skills working with authentic long-term ecosystem ecology datasets. Students in this course will develop independent data analysis projects that include scientific communication through presentations, writing, and visual displays of data.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Crosslisted Courses: ES 30 7
Prerequisites: One of the following - BISC 201, BISC 202, BISC 209, BISC 210, BISC 247/ES 247, ES 220; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course.
Tropical forests and coral reefs are among the most fascinating and diverse ecosystems, but unfortunately face multiple threats. In this seminar, brief lectures will provide a baseline understanding of these ecosystems and the key processes that shape them. However, the main focus will be the discussion of important papers in the field. Students will present papers from the primary literature that illustrate how these ecosystems function, why they are struggling and what can be done to preserve and restore them. We will pay particular attention to the observational, experimental and analytical approaches that are used in this field of study, and how the science informs conservation decisions. The final project involves writing a research proposal.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: ES 30 9
Prerequisites: One of the following - BISC 201, BISC 202, BISC 207, BISC 210, o BISC 214.
Instructor: Koniger
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will focus on the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems. As greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased, the oceans have absorbed more than 93% of the excess heat and roughly ¼ of the carbon dioxide. The triple threat of warming temperatures, depletions in oxygen, and drops in ocean pH have led to dramatic effects on ocean ecosystems. Students will analyze the primary literature to examine 1) how these stressors are affecting physiology, demography, phenology, and distributions of marine species separately and when acting together, 2) the potential for adaptation/evolution, 3) what lessons can be learned from the paleorecord, and 4) the impacts on coastal communities and nations. The course incorporates student-led seminar-style discussions, and a final synthetic project where teams will present evidence for the impacts of climate change on a particular marine ecosystem.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: ES 310
Prerequisites: One of the following courses - BISC 201, BISC 202, BISC 209, BISC 210, BISC 214, BIOC 219/BISC 219, ES 201, ES 220, EXTD 225, EXTD 226 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Selden
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Topic for 2023-2024: Biodiversity in the Built Environment
How do other species interact with landscapes and habitats that people have modified or even completely restructured? Which species live in human-dominated environments, and how does the diversity of species in these habitats affect the function and health of these ecosystems? In this course we will build our scientific understanding of biodiversity and its consequences, and explore how this understanding can inform the design and management of spaces we occupy. We will consider habitats from agricultural landscapes to suburban parks to buildings, with special attention to the opportunities afforded by Wellesley’s remarkable campus, including the Global Flora greenhouse.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: ES 327
Prerequisites: Two courses from the following - BISC 201, BISC 202, BISC 204, BISC 207, BISC 209, BISC 210, BISC 214, ES 201, ES 220, or ES 247/BISC 247; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Jones
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
Topic for 2021-22: Biodiversity in the Built Environment
Topic for 2021-22: Biodiversity in the Built Environment
How do other species interact with landscapes and habitats that people have modified or even completely restructured? How does biodiversity in human-dominated habitats affect the function and health of these ecosystems, and resilience with respect to climate change? In this course we will build our understanding of biodiversity and its consequences, and explore how this understanding can inform the design and management of spaces we occupy. We will consider habitats from agricultural landscapes to suburban parks to buildings.
Not open to students who have taken BISC 327/ES 327 with the same topic.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: ES 327H
Prerequisites: Two of the following course - BISC 201, BISC 207, BISC 209, BISC 210, ES 220, BISC 247/ES 247; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Jones
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. Students taking BISC 327H/ES 327H in the academic year 2021-2022 may combine with BISC 150H/ES 150H, BISC 350H or BISC 350 taken any year to fulfill either the 300-level course without lab requirement or the elective course requirement for the BISC major.
Poor sanitation, inadequate waste management, contaminated water supplies and exposure to indoor air pollution affect millions of people in developing countries and pose continuing risks to their health. The objective of this course is to provide students with a set of theoretical, econometric and practical skills to estimate the causal impact of environmental policies and programs with a particular focus on less-developed countries. Examples from the readings will explore the effect of laws, NGO programs or natural experiments on environmental quality and sustainability. Students will learn to critically analyze existing studies and to gauge how convincingly the research identifies a causal impact. Students will use these skills to develop an evaluation plan for a topic of their choice at the end of the term.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: ES 329
Prerequisites: ECON 201 and ECON 203.
Instructor: Keskin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course meets along with BISC 247/ES 247 and offers an opportunity for students to engage more deeply with the material and perform independent research. Students will be expected to more thoroughly review and reference peer-reviewed literature and assist in leading in-class discussions. Additionally, each student will develop and conduct an experiment (or observational study) over the course of the semester that examines mechanisms of plant diversity and coexistence.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: BISC 347
Prerequisites: One of the following - BISC 201, ES 220, BISC 207, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken BISC 247/ES 247.
Instructor: Griffith
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as BISC 247/ES 247.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors and Seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The first course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research project, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Environmental Studies department. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with thesis research (365) in the second semester. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
When we talk about food, we think about personal passions, individual diets and eating behaviors, but we might also think about cultural traditions, consumption disparities and food insecurities, about public health and sustainability, animal rights, deforestation, and genome edited crops. Clearly, the topic challenges us to address difficult questions of intersectionality (of the personal and the political, the local and the global, the human and the non-human). In this seminar we will learn to translate academic discourses into public writing formats that might include op-eds, social media posts, (cook) book reviews, Wikipedia entries, restaurant reviews, and portraits of food activists.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: ES 362
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors, or by permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken GER 362.
Instructor: Nolden
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course meets with GER 362.
The second course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research project, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Environmental Studies department. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ES 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Tax carbon? Label genetically modified crops? Ban endocrine disruptors? In this course, an interdisciplinary capstone experience for the ES major, we will engage with such questions and related environmental sustainability issues as public writers. Students will choose one environmental issue, which will be the focus of their environmental “beat” during the semester. They will draw on an interdisciplinary toolset from environmental studies to analyze and communicate the scientific, economic, political, and ethical dimensions of pressing policy issues. Students will conduct independent research to produce weekly articles, such as op-eds, blog posts, press releases, book reviews, policy memos, and interviews with environmental professionals. Class sessions will be organized as writing workshops focused on the interdisciplinary analysis and content of student work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: A declared major in environmental studies and completion of six courses that count toward the ES major, or permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors and Seniors only.
Instructor: Turner
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This seminar is the beginning, or perhaps a continuation, of a life long journey. You will be learning about yourself, about other students in the class, and about interacting with people in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. Classes will consist of a presentation of theories or ideas, as well as group discussion and exercises, to put these theories into practice in real life applications and situations. Self-reflection, experiential learning, and active participation are integral for this process. Cross-cultural studies can be challenging emotionally as well as intellectually but you will be expected to try new ideas, experiment with new behaviors, and learn from your fellow students. You can use the knowledge and skills you gain from this course to enhance your interactions with others outside of the classroom, and in your daily life.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Maturana Sendoya (Associate Dean of Students for Inclusion and Engagement)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A comprehensive introduction to the economics and ecology of water supply and water pollution control. Topics include watershed management, groundwater and wetlands protection, and wastewater treatment. The inherent difficulty in applying static laws and regulations to a dynamic natural resource such as water is a recurring theme. Offered by the Marine Studies Consortium.
Further details about the course, including past syllabi can be found under the Courses tab at https://www.marinestudiesconsortium.org/
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Interested students can self-register. Any questions about the course can be directed to MSC Liaison Becca Selden. The course will be taught remotely.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course presents a survey of the coastal environment and its physical characteristics, natural systems, economic uses, and development pressures. Lectures examine strategies formulated in the United States for land and water-resource management in the coastal zone. The roles of federal, state, and local governments, environmental groups, and resource users are also explored. Finally, by comparing coastal-zone management problems in the United States to those elsewhere in the world, students gain a global perspective. Offered by the Marine Studies Consortium.
Further details about the course, including past syllabi can be found under the Courses tab at https://www.marinestudiesconsortium.org/
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 5
Prerequisites: Interested students can self-register. Any questions about the course can be directed to MSC Liaison Becca Selden. The course will be taught remotely.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This upper-level survey course covers the evolution, systematics, anatomy, physiology, and behavior of freshwater, marine, and anadromous fishes from temperate to tropical environments. The course also examines the diversity of fish interactions in aquatic communities: predator/prey relationships, host/symbiont interactions, and the various roles of fishes as herbivores. Study of inter- and intra-specific predator-prey relationships among fish populations in aquatic communities integrates principles of ecology. Offered by the Marine Studies Consortium.
Further details about the course, including past syllabi can be found under the Courses tab at https://www.marinestudiesconsortium.org/
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 5
Prerequisites: One year of general biology and two upper-level biology courses. Open to students by permission of the consortium representative, Becca Selden, Department of Biological Sciences. The course will take place at the New England Aquarium.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This upper-level course examines the biology and conservation of cetaceans: whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Topics include physiology, population biology, life history analysis, molecular genetics, morphology, distributional ecology, and social behavior. Early lectures focus on the biology of cetaceans and how they are adapted to the marine environment. Subsequent lectures use case studies to review how biological principles can be applied to the conservation of a wide range of cetacean species. Offered by the Marine Studies Consortium.
Further details about the course, including past syllabi can be found under the Courses tab at https://www.marinestudiesconsortium.org/
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 5
Prerequisites: One year of general biology and two upper-level biology courses. Open to students by permission of the consortium representative, Becca Selden, Department of Biological Sciences.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Systematic training in all the language skills, with special emphasis on communication, self-expression, and cultural insights. Classes are supplemented by regular assignments in a variety of video, audio, print, and Web-based materials to give students practice using authentic French accurately and expressively. Three meetings weekly.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Open to students who do not present French for admission, an equivalent departmental placement score, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bilis, Kippur
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Systematic training in all the language skills, with special emphasis on communication, self-expression, and cultural insights. Classes are supplemented by regular assignments in a variety of video, audio, print, and Web-based materials to give students practice using authentic French accurately and expressively. Three meetings weekly.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: FREN 101, an equivalent departmental placement score, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Kippur, Carr
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Reading, writing, and speaking skills and critical thinking are developed through analysis and discussion of cultural and literary texts. Issues of cultural diversity, globalization, and identity are considered. Thorough grammar review.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: FREN 102, an equivalent departmental placement score, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Carr, Ganne-Schiermeier
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: A student who takes FREN 202 without having completed FREN 201 must elect one of the following courses in order to complete the language requirement - FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209. Completion of FREN 202 allows first-year students to qualify for international study after two further courses in French - a unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, or FREN 209; and a unit of FREN 210 or above.
Reading, writing, and speaking skills and critical thinking are developed through analysis and discussion of cultural and literary texts. Issues of cultural diversity, globalization and identity are considered. Thorough grammar review. Three meetings weekly.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: FREN 201, an equivalent departmental placement score, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Lee, Ganne-Schiermeier, Carr
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: A student takes FREN 202 without having completed FREN 201 must elect one of the following courses in order to complete the language requirement - FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209. Completion of FREN 202 allows first-year students to qualify for international study after two further courses in French - a unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, or FREN 209; and a unit of FREN 210 or above.
Discussion of modern literature and film in their cultural contexts. Training in techniques of literary and cultural analysis. Materials include novels, short stories, poetry, films, screenplays, and videos from France and the Francophone world. Vocabulary building and review of key points of grammar. Frequent written practice. Attention to oral skills and listening comprehension, as needed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: FREN 202, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Datta
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course develops the skills of listening and speaking in French, with special emphasis on pronunciation and attention to the related skills of reading, writing, and grammatical accuracy. Participants will practice conversation through discussion of a wide variety of materials, including websites, magazine articles, short stories and films.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: FREN 202, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Datta, Ganne-Schiermeier
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this introduction to French society and culture, we will examine France's identity crisis in the twenty-first century. From its historical position of political, economic, and intellectual leadership in Europe and the world, France is searching to maintain its difference as a defender of quality over mass appeal and the proud values of its national tradition in the face of increasing globalization. Topics covered include Franco-American relations, the European Union, immigration, the family, and the role of women in French society. Readings are drawn from a variety of sources: historical, sociological, and ethnographic. Magazine and newspaper articles along with television programs and films will provide supplementary information.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: FREN 202, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Datta
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Through the centuries, women's writing has been ignored, criticized and maligned. It was only in the 1970s and 80s that the place of women in literature was recognized and their originality and creativity fully studied. In this course, we will examine how women authors break with social language and literary codes, how they express themselves through familiar genres such as the novel and poetry but also less "mainstream" ones: fairy tales and letters. We will view these women not as the object of desire or discourse, but as subjects thinking and creating independently, expressing their desires, their wishes for themselves and humanity, their vision of society and the world, and their own experience of love, power and powerlessness.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: FREN 202, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Ganne-Schiermeier
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Topic for 2022-2023: The Paris of Poets
Topic for 2022-2023: The Paris of Poets
This course changes topics from year to year. In some years, the course explores the dynamic cross-century interplay between French poetry, the visual arts and an ever changing Parisian landscape. In others, it examines the history of the Cannes Film Festival through a diverse array of published and audio-visual materials. Both topics aim to foster student fluency in writing, reading and speaking in French.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: FREN 202, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Petterson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
Major authors from the Medieval period through the Enlightenment studied in their historical and cultural contexts, with emphasis on close reading, critical analysis, and writing in French. Attention to literary genres, including the constraints and innovations they engender, and study of key notions that will inform students' understanding of French literature and history-galanterie, courtoisie, mimesis, poetics, epistolarity, Salic law, French Wars of Religion, the Edict of Nantes, and Absolutism. We will end with consideration of pre-revolutionary works, anticipating the rise of the French Republic.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Bilis
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Any course FREN 210 or above satisfies the requirement for study abroad. Majors should consult with a member of the French Department to determine which course best suits their needs.
Students in this course will explore works of prose, poetry, fiction and autobiography and acquire the skills and techniques needed to decipher and analyze them in writing. A writing-intensive course, in which participants learn to produce a reaction paper, an essay, a creative narration, textual analysis of a poem, and a sustained argument. Special emphasis on critical thinking and interpretive judgment. Students will learn to construct logical, well thought-out essays, including the dialectical essay (la dissertation) practiced in French universities. An ongoing, intensive review of grammar underlies and anchors the course. Open to first-year students who have taken one of the prerequisite courses.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Tranvouez
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Any course FREN 210 or above satisfies the requirement for study abroad. Majors should consult with a member of the French Department to determine which course best suits their needs.
Major authors from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first, studied in their historical and cultural contexts, with emphasis on close reading, critical analysis, and writing in French. Literary generations and movements, from the philosopher-writers of the Enlightenment through the nineteenth-century innovations of the romantic and realist writers, to groundbreaking twentieth-century experiments in prose, poetry and theater, and the painful disillusionment of the Second World War. A key course for appreciating and understanding the materials in all our courses and one that prepares students to study abroad.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Carr
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Any course FREN 210 or above satisfies the requirement for study abroad. Majors should consult with a member of the French Department to determine which course best suits their needs.
An investigation of the major trends in modern French drama: the reinterpretation of myths, the influence of existentialism, and the theatre of the absurd. Special attention is given to the nature of dramatic conflict and to the relationship between text and performance. Study of plays by Anouilh, Cocteau, Giraudoux, Sartre, Camus, Ionesco, Beckett, and Genet.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This interdisciplinary course investigates the intersections of the nineteenth-century French novel with the artistic innovations of its time, with political and psychological selfhood, and with questions of culture and identity that we are still debating today. It situates the genre in its historical and social contexts, and analyzes the impact of three major nineteenth-century literary movements—Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism—on the esthetic achievement of the writers we read. Recurring themes: the development of narrative form and structure and the novel's role in constructing a French national identity in an era of imperial expansion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Michelle Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Exploring large swathes of the globe that France colonized over the centuries, this course presents writing in French from these areas. It serves as an introduction to postcolonial studies in general and the Francophone world in particular. We will discover Francophone intellectuals from France, Haiti, Martinique, Mauritius, the Congo, Quebec, and Madagascar, crisscrossing the US., Vietnam, Canada, and Gabon. Transposing France’s imperial aspiration to a universal, global Frenchness, Francophone aesthetics envisions a non-hierarchical, equitable world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Prabhu
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course focuses on texts that seek to reveal the reality of the self in the space of a book, including readings of confessional and autobiographical works by the twentieth-century writers Camus, Annie Ernaux, Roland Barthes, and Maryse Condé, and by their literary ancestors Augustine, Abélard, Montaigne, and Rousseau. Themes examined include: the compulsion to confess; secret sharing versus public self-disclosure; love, desire, and language; the search for authenticity; dominant discourse and minority voices; the role of the reader as accomplice, witness, judge, confessor.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Lydgate
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course offers students analytical tools for interpreting French history, society, and culture. The first part of the course focuses on the approaches that social science disciplines (history, anthropology, sociology) and theoretical frameworks (semiotics, Marxism, structuralism, cultural history, queer theory) have used to analyze French social phenomena. Short excerpts of texts by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Pierre Bourdieu, Roland Barthes, Algirdas Julien Greimas, Natalie Zemon-Davis, Michel Foucault, Lynn Hunt, Pierre Nora, Robert Darnton, Joan Scott and others will orient our discussions. In the second part of the course, students use these different approaches to examine the ways in which terms such as “nation,” “class,” “secularism,” and “gender” take on distinct meanings in the French context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Gunther
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
An overview of the themes of love, madness, and death in French poetry from François Villon to the present, with specific attention to the ways these themes are embodied in poetic form. In which ways is poetry most apt to address and express the passions of the human heart and mind?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Petterson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course offers a critical panorama of French cinema while also building essential vocabulary and critical concepts for film analysis. Students will pay specific attention to the various connections between cinema, urban space, and notions of modernity. Close analyses of clips in class will also lead to a deeper appreciation of genre and technical aspects in the history of cinema. Filmmakers studied will include the Lumière Brothers (for the “perspective” model), Georges Méliès (for the cinema of attraction), Jean Renoir (for depth of field), Robert Bresson (for literary adaptation), Jean-Luc Godard (for traveling shots and direct sound), and Chris Marker (for documentary).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Morari
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What makes literature “new”? This course examines the ways in which French writers of the 20th and 21st centuries have radically transformed the field of fiction through playful and experimental techniques. We will study the literary games they played in their efforts to break with tradition and expand the boundaries of language, genre, and form. Through a range of texts and audiovisual materials, we will trace this idea of play across the 20th and 21st centuries, with examples taken from the nouveau roman, the OuLiPo, écriture féminine, autofiction, documentary fiction, photo-texts, and digital literature. In the spirit of the materials studied, course assignments will include traditional essays as well as more experimental writing projects.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Kippur
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Louis XIV sought to present his royal court at Versailles as the ultimate in monarchical splendor and power. Yet writers who frequented the court focus on its dangerous intrigues, moral corruption, and petty rivalries. The course will explore this discrepancy through close study of official and unofficial productions of the court. Royal paintings, medallions, architecture, ceremonies, and official historiography all foreground the Sun King's glory; novels, memoirs, letters, and moral treatises seem to undo the very notions of courtly magnificence put forward by the monarchy. Both elements are crucial to understanding the social, political, religious, and artistic practices that defined the court. Recent films and historical works on Versailles will help us evaluate its legacy for contemporary French culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Bilis
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is designed for students who want to become more familiar with the French media, to keep up with current events, and to know more about the differences between the perspectives of French and American news sources with regard to current issues. The course is also intended to improve students' reading, writing, and speaking skills in French.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Gunther
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A study of contemporary immigrant experience in Paris through a range of media and an historical perspective. Materials will comprise text and still and moving images. What are some of the dominant themes and emotions in the self-representation of immigrants in Paris today? How were Africans (in particular) represented during the colonial period in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and how did Africans represent themselves on the rare occasions they had to do so then? How do we understand France's precarious, and often volatile, positioning of immigrants in its society today?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: One writing class, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Prabhu
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An examination of the rapid modernization and urbanization (haussmannization) of Paris in the Nineteenth Century and the changes it brought to the life of Parisians. Two authors fond of Paris: Balzac, the eternal Parisian wanderer, and Zola, the social scientist, will be the focus of this course. Balzac witnesses the birth of the bourgeoisie and of the power of money; Zola evokes the monsters they engender.
In this class we will discuss the modernization of Paris in the XIX Century and its effects on the life of Parisians. We will study a novel by Balzac, Ferragus, in which the author emphasizes the “monstrosity” of the French Capital, which is a theater of a struggle between the new and the old. In Ferragus, Balzac contrasts the old and dirty streets and neighborhoods of Paris, where shady, destitute characters roam, and the new polished “quartiers” where the bourgeoisie and the Bank have just established their bearings. Inequalities abound and extremes between the social classes become prevalent. We will also study excerpts from César Birotteau, a novel about financial speculation and the evolution of commerce in the early 1830’s.
Advertising and marketing, two factors of success evoked by Balzac in Histoire de la grandeur et décadence de César Birotteau dominate the retail market in Zola‘s Au bonheur des dames. In the latter novel, Zola recalls the birth of the large department stores and explores their successes. The availability of goods, mass consumption and cost cutting are part of the new trade strategies and symbolize the modern activity that Zola describes in Au Bonheur des dames. Zola’s goal in his Histoire naturelle et sociale d’ une famille sous le Second Empire was to portray his century as a century of conquest and action which witnessed the transformation of Paris from an unsanitary medieval town into a modern urban city. In La Curée, he recreates the commercial Paris of the “Grands Boulevards” as well as the bourgeois Paris riddled with speculation and corruption. Gold and pleasure are the two driving forces of the century.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Tranvouez
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The French have long been fascinated by the United States, especially since the end of the Second World War. At times, the United States has been seen as a model to be emulated in France; more often, it has stood out as the antithesis of French culture and values. This course examines French representations of the United States and of Americans through key historical and literary texts-essays, autobiographies, and fiction-as well as films. Topics to be explored include: representations of African Americans in French films (Josephine Baker), French views of Taylorization, the Coca-Cola wars of the 1950s, French-American tensions during the Cold War, especially under de Gaulle, as well as more recent debates about Euro Disney, McDonald's, Hollywood, globalization, and multiculturalism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Datta
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
For more than two hundred years, the experiences of Americans in Paris have exerted an outsized influence on American, French, and global culture. These transnational encounters have included writers and artists as well as diplomats, students, filmmakers, jazz musicians, bohemians and tourists. Drawing on a variety of historical and literary documents, among them novels and essays, along with films and music, we will trace the history of American encounters with Paris from the late eighteenth century to the present day. Through our study, Paris emerges as a long-running site of complex cultural encounters, a creative and dynamic metropolis with special significance to many different groups, among them, African Americans, women, and queer people, who have made this city a hotbed of intellectual innovation and social change.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 231
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Datta, P. Fisher
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Few experiences in recent French history have marked French collective memory as profoundly as World War II. During these years, the French dealt not only with the trauma of defeat and the German Occupation, but also with the divisive legacy of the collaborationist Vichy regime, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, a revered World War I hero. Memories of the war have continued to mark the public imagination to the present day, manifesting themselves in the various arenas of French national life. This course examines the history and memory of the French experience of World War II through historical documents, memoirs, films, literature, and songs.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Datta
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
A close look at how the purposes, contradictions and anxieties of empire building are revealed in four nineteenth-century French-language novels. First, an analysis of the postcolonial cultural critic Edward Said’s method of contrapuntal reading will make clear the uneasy dialectic between metropolitan and colonial histories in literary texts. Armed with this critical reading strategy, we will evaluate the impact of colonial expansion on narrative form, historical consciousness and stylistic choice in Honoré de Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet, Claire de Duras’s Ourika, Victor Hugo’s Bug-Jargal and George Sand’s Indiana. Central to our preoccupations will be the global dimensions of the novel, the gender and racial dimensions of its characters, and the colonial novel’s place in the field of postcolonial studies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course begins with a brief history of European colonization and includes a unit on French expansion as it relates to immigrant communities in Paris. Next, the class will cultivate a broad sense of the period of independences, decolonization, and the formation of new nations as a period in world history, once again contextualizing the different waves of immigration to the city of Paris. Students will use Parisian sites and a variety of materials available locally to study immigration patterns and the recent development of the Parisian cityscape while privileging immigrant perspective. Weekly assignments, which can be done flexibly, will involve visits to museums, monuments, neighborhoods, markets, and cafés. A number of local scholars, artists, and activists will provide guest lectures to guide our study. Each student will devise a project that will involve exploring the city from a viewpoint that falls within their interest, defined through discipline or theme. The latter part of the course will consist of independent work involving exploration of the city through the prism of the student’s project and it will be done in close consultation with the instructor. Interviews and shadowing of individuals (with prior permission) who are living the immigrant experience will inform the final project, which will take the form of a multimedia journal.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: FREN 236
Prerequisites: A special hybrid course offered for Wellesley students studying abroad at American University in Paris.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Court, city, salon: these are the spaces where notions of good taste and sound judgment, still crucial to French identity today, took root, and where the European Republic of Letters emerged. Students will explore the culture and literature of these milieus through the lens of digital humanities' methods and theories, combining study and praxis of such new approaches. The intersection of traditional scholarship with digital humanities applications will enable students to investigate if, and how, DH methods can broaden, confirm, disprove or reinterpret dominant analyses of the influential spaces of early modern Paris.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: At least one unit of FREN 205, FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208, FREN 209 or above, or an equivalent departmental placement score.
Instructor: Bilis
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Long Live the Queen!": Women, Royalty and Power in the Literature of the Ancien Régime. This seminar will examine historical, cultural and literary portrayals of female royalty in seventeenth-century France. An object of exchange in international relations, a physical "carrier" of the future king, a regent who can rule—but not in her own name—the queen poses thorny questions for political and artistic representations of power. An analysis of her social, symbolic, and politically ambiguous status reveals the paradoxes of a woman exercising sovereignty in a time when the king's body comes to define the State. Readings will include Corneille, Racine, Lafayette, Perrault, Saint Simon, and Saint-Réal.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Bilis
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The men-and women-who made up what we refer to today as the “Age of Enlightenment” hailed from a surprising variety of backgrounds ranging from the halls of Versailles, Parisian cafés, provincial Academies, to the literary underground of pornographers and pamphleteers. Starting from the premise that cultural transformations are achieved through social connections, this course will examine Ancien Régime fictional, historical, and political networks as a means of understanding the origins of the French Revolution. This course will introduce students to the concept of social networks as a sociological theory and as a recent digital humanities approach. Through experimentation with, and critique of, existing Digital Humanities projects, students will understand network theory as a means to analyze the social structures of historical actors and literary characters. No previous digital humanities experience required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following - FREN 210, FREN 211 or FREN 212 - and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Bilis, O'Brien
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will examine the confrontation between literature and inhumanity through the French literature, poetry, and film of the early twentieth century. Poetry by Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Desnos, André Breton, Francis Ponge, and René Char, films by Luis Buñuel, and novels by André Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, and André Malraux all serve to illustrate the profound crisis in human values that defined and shaped the twentieth century.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One of the following - FREN 210, FREN 211 or FREN 212 - and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Petterson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In mental landscapes ranging from the personal to the impersonal, and in geographical settings that vary from high-paced urbanism to plodding ruralism, the contemporary French novel invites reassessment of the formal, political, cultural and historical stakes of writing and reading fiction in the twenty-first century. This course explores the subtle pleasure of the text in works by some of France's more brilliant contemporary writers: Marie Redonnet, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, François Bon, Patrick Modiano, Annie Saumont, Laurent Mauvignier, Jean Echenoz.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Petterson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course introduces students to the main theories and practices of translation and it provides a deep understanding of the ways translating can enrich one's own critical reading and writing processes. Practical training in translation between French and English is paired with readings from the major theories of translation from Cicero to the present, with further focus on contemporary applications of translation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One unit of FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212, and one additional unit FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Petterson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Comment dit-on ‘Boston’ en français? This course examines the historical, cultural, and literary ties between the city of Boston and francophone individuals and communities, past and present. We will consider such topics as French, Quebecois, and Haitian immigrations in the 17th, 19th, and 20th centuries; local French-language newspapers and publishing houses committed to printing French books; French immersion programs in Boston-area schools; depictions of Boston's high society and college campuses by major francophone writers (Beauvoir, Sarraute, Tocqueville, and others); and the influence of Julia Child’s Boston-based cooking show The French Chef on French avant-garde theater. Combining a range of readings with site visits and field projects, this course will expose students to local resources for French speakers as well as francophone community leaders. The course will culminate in a research project on a topic that students wish to explore further.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One unit of FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212, and one additional unit FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Kippur
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
France continues to have complex and uneasy relationships with regions of the world that it once dominated. Decolonial thinking examines the lasting effects of colonialism, racial capitalism, and settler colonialism on societies long after colonialism has ended. Our study of policy, literature, film, and art will show how political control in the Caribbean, economic domination by manipulating currency in West and Central Africa, and, in the case of Algeria, extreme violence, cultural and religious discrimination, and immigration policy can reinvigorate the colonial project.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211 or FREN 212, and one additional unit (FREN 213 or above).
Instructor: Prabhu
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Novelist George Sand often stated that it was far more difficult to write plays than novels. In addition to laying bare the dramatic aesthetic of a pivotal 19th-century writer, this course will afford an in-depth understanding of her ideals and ideas. We will examine the evolution of her self-adaptations, specifically her rewriting of stories from novels into plays. We will also discuss her adaptation of dramatic works of other authors from a variety of countries and eras, including works by Shakespeare, Hoffmann, Tirso de Molina, and plays inspired by the commedia dell'arte.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the various ideological turns and patterns in post-World War II France through the study of cinema. Proceeding from the assumption that aesthetics and politics are intertwined, the course will focus on form and content in order to examine the political engagement of filmmakers, overtly militant cinema, propaganda, and the shaping of moral spectatorship, in parallel with specific trends in French intellectual and political history. Our focus will be on the films of Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman, Claude Chabrol, Mathieu Kassovitz, and Abdel Kechiche. Readings will include contemporary political philosophers Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou, and Étienne Balibar.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Morari
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course seeks to open a window onto French literature and culture by exploring the travel writing of key nineteenth-century French authors. We will explore armchair travel narratives, anti-tourism essays, and travelers' real-time journals, as well as literary works that showcase travel. Writers studied include Honoré de Balzac, Chateaubriand, Maxime Du Camp, Gustave Flaubert and George Sand. Our discussions will pay particular attention to how these literary voyagers depict cross-cultural encounters and negotiate cultural differences.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, or FREN 211, or FREN 212, and one additional unit FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An examination of sexualities and genders in France, from the ancien régime to the present, that signifies the ways in which sexuality and gender have been conceptualized differently in France than in places like the United States. At the end of the semester, the course will focus on recent changes in discussions of gender and sexuality and address the issue of whether traditional paradigms for explaining gender and sexuality in France still apply or whether the French might be entering a new sexual era.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Gunther
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The term belle époque (1880-1914) evokes images of Parisian boulevards, bustling cafés, glittering shop windows, and Montmartre cabarets, all symbols of modern consumer culture. No emblem of the era is as iconic as the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the World's Fair of 1889 as a tribute to French technology and progress. During the years preceding World War I, Paris was the center of the European avant-garde-indeed, the capital of modernity. While cultural ebullience is its hallmark, this period also witnessed the definitive establishment of a republican regime, the expansion of an overseas empire, and the integration of the countryside into national life. Drawing on historical documents and literary texts as well as films, posters, and songs, this interdisciplinary course examines French culture, politics, and society during the era that ushered France into the modern age.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Datta
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course approaches contemporary France through its material culture(s), asking what literary and filmic representations of everyday objects and consumer habits tell us about social values. In the decades following World War II, France simultaneously experienced rapid economic growth and the collapse of its colonial empire. Yet in the midst of these sweeping upheavals, many authors and filmmakers made a seemingly paradoxical choice: to focus on the minutiae of daily life—its consumer goods, architectures, and routines. Through close analysis of novels and films, we will consider what such a choice reveals about France’s attempts to define itself in a post-colonial and increasingly post-industrial Europe. For instance: What might a young couple’s frenzied shopping sprees suggest about class mobility? How might a woman’s rote familiarity with her kitchen appliances comment on gender roles? We will also examine how authors and filmmakers from former French colonies have used material culture to critique notions of belonging and citizenship, and how their critiques inform ongoing debates in France.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Carr
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The lushness of the mangroves, the flora and fauna of tropical landscapes, the intricacy of the rhizome, the flow of great rivers, the crashing waves of the Atlantic, the heights of mountainous lands, and expanse of the plateau—the natural world is an important site of Caribbean art in general and, more specifically, the francophone Caribbean novel of the 20th and 21st centuries. Applying eco-criticism to the field of francophone Caribbean literature, the goal of this class is to examine the ways that fiction explores the relationship between human activity and the environment. How does the novel inhabit Caribbean ecologies and topographies? How does it represent nature? In what ways do Caribbean texts meditate on nature and culture together or against one another? As the earthquake in Haiti demonstrated in 2010 with calamitous force, and the cycles of Caribbean hurricanes have shown over the years, natural disaster is also a political crisis. In view of this, we will also consider the legacies of slavery and colonialism in terms of class, gender and race politics. This investigation of the dynamics of natural and cultural phenomena will also have a theoretical frame rooted in critical texts of Caribbean literary and political movements such as Indigénisme, Négritude, Antillanité, and Créolité.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ES 331
Prerequisites: FREN 210 or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the way the French view their past through myths created to inscribe that past into national memory. We will examine modern French history and culture from the perspective of les lieux de mémoire, evaluating both thematically and chronologically the symbolic events (Bastille Day), institutions (the Napoleonic Code), people (Joan of Arc), and places (Sacré-Coeur) that have shaped French national identity. We begin by analyzing such concepts as the nation, the hexagon, and the colonial mission civilisatrice and go on to examine the legacy of key moments in French history, among them the French Revolution and the era of Napoleon, the establishment of the Third Republic and an overseas empire, the two World Wars, the Algerian conflict, and the events of May 1968.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Datta
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of great works of French and Francophone theater from the seventeenth century to the present. Students will read the classical playwrights Molière, Corneille, and Racine, as well as lesser known but worthy early modern women dramatists, Catherine Bernard and Olympe de Gouges; the course will follow the aesthetic and thematic shifts brought on by Marivaux, Beaumarchais, and Hugo, and compare these to the theater of contemporary Francophone playwrights such as Yasmina Réza, Marie N’Diaye, and Wajdi Mouawad. Close attention will be paid to the historical settings and material conditions in which the plays first appeared, and how they have since been adapted and reprised in different political contexts and by troupes with varying objectives. Students will watch performances and grasp the unique position that theater occupies within the French cultural tradition.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211, or FREN 212; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Bilis
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course examines how character is built and how narration occurs in cinema. It covers the study of cinematic techniques in African cinema and explores how this cinematic tradition has responded to specific issues of representation in African history that came to bear upon filmmaking and cinematic language. The larger purpose of the course is to understand filmmaking as an aesthetic and political form of intellectual expression, but also as an industry in Africa, with a place in African cultural and political history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: FREN 210, FREN 211 or FREN 212, and one additional course FREN 213 or above.
Instructor: Prabhu
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A course on the idea of difference in historical perspective, with particular emphasis on ethical aspects of claiming/identifying difference. Study of difference in texts by the Philosophers of the Enlightenment, travel accounts, anthropological writing, ethnographic film, and recent fiction. The course focuses on methods of close reading and the function of grammatical structures such as objects and variations in tenses, on the position of the narrator, and on nuances in vocabulary. Individual assignments will be based on students' wider interests. Themes of difference include gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and differential power in individual or group relationships.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors. Sophomores by permission of the instructor. To have this course count as a course taught in French for purposes of the major, contact the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: FREN 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: FRST 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Geologic processes both rapid (earthquakes and landslides) and slow (mountain building and sea level rise) are intimately linked with sustaining the diversity of life on the planet. This course examines processes linked with the flow of energy and mass between the atmosphere, geosphere, and biosphere. Laboratory exercises, and field work provide authentic experiences to develop the skills needed to observe and model processes shaping our environment. Problem solving during class time fosters critical thinking and classroom debates between larger teams focus on research and communications skills by examining current issues in geosciences such as building and removing dams, and the science surrounding global climate change.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: ES 111
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken ASTR 120 or a 100-level GEOS course.
Instructor: Brabander
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The Earth is a dynamic planet where change is driven by processes that operate within its interior and on its surface. In this course we study these processes as well as interactions between the solid earth, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere that together produce the environment we live in and influence our daily lives. Topics covered include the origin and history of the Earth, plate tectonics, deep time, the materials that make up the solid earth, the distribution of earthquakes and volcanoes, hydrology, landscape evolution, and global climate. Hands-on work in class and laboratory sessions, along with project work, and local field trips, provide opportunities to develop deeper learning of key concepts and to hone observational and analytical skills.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken ASTR 120 or a 100-level GEOS course.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
The geologic record, covering 4.6 billion years, provides us with a long-term perspective of the Earth system and how it operates over time scales much longer than human history. Using Wellesley’s extensive rock and fossil collection, geologic data sets and journal articles, we will reconstruct and interpret Earth's eventful past, including periods of mountain building, dramatic climate changes, and the evolution and extinction of life on our planet. This class should give students an understanding about deep time and that we live on an ever changing planet. The lab component of this class will be entirely in the field. We will visit key geologic outcrops that represent a large part of Earth history. We will explore the regional geology in New England and Upstate New York during three weekends throughout the semester (one half day, one full day and one 2-day trip). The class will conclude with a 5-day field trip to the southwestern United States in mid-May.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open only to Geoscience majors who have taken any 100-level GEOS course, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Monecke
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Problems in environmental, health, and sustainability sciences are inherently transdisciplinary and require a diverse skill set to frame, analyze, and solve. This course will focus on developing a toolbox of skills including systems level thinking, field and analytical methods, biogeochemical analysis (natural waters, soils, and other environmental materials), and modeling with a goal of building a science-based foundation for the analysis of complex issues at the interface between humans and the environment. Students will conduct semester-long research projects and will present their results in a final poster session.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: ES 20 1
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to students majoring in ES and GEOS, other students by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Brabander
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course provides those interested in any aspect of the Earth Sciences with the base necessary to understand the physical and chemical properties of Earth Materials (e.g. minerals and rocks). The primary focus of this course is to understand the concept of optical and chemical mineralogy in the broad context of the geosciences, but the environmental and human health applications of Earth Materials will also be explored. Our primary tools will be field and hand sample observations, petrographic analysis of minerals in thin section, and x-ray and electron beam based analytical techniques.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Any 100-level GEOS course.
Instructor: Castro
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The Earth is an ocean planet. Covering 71 percent of the Earth's surface and holding 97 percent of the Earth's water, the oceans are perhaps our planet's most distinctive feature. This course will address fundamental questions about the oceans such as, why do we have oceans and ocean basins? Why do we have ocean currents? How have the interactions among physical, chemical, and biological processes produced the ocean we have today? Why should we strive to learn more about the oceans, and what are the links between the oceans and Earth's climate? In-class exercises, case studies, and data analysis will emphasize fundamental oceanographic processes and problem solving skills. A mandatory field trip to the coast will allow students to explore coastal processes in action.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Any 100-level GEOS or ES course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Davis
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Clean water supply is a high priority for both developed and underdeveloped communities worldwide. Limits to supply and their implications for an increasing population make a clear understanding essential for citizens. Water sources and movement of water from the atmosphere through the earth's surface and subsurface will be examined. Laboratory will include field and laboratory analyses of physical and chemical properties and pollutant issues of local community supplies including the Wellesley campus, and Towns of Wellesley, Natick, and Norwell.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Any 100-level GEOS course (except GEOS 111), or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The Earth's surface is constantly changing and is controlled by the interaction of topography and climate. In this class we will investigate the major landforms that can be found on Earth's surface, the processes that have shaped them, the delicate balance between landform and process, and the rates of geomorphic change. Among other processes, we will explore glacial activity, coastal processes, landslides, and stream flow. Topographic maps, surveying equipment, and geographic information systems (GIS) will be used to analyze and interpret geomorphic features. A variety of landforms will be studied during outdoor lab exercises and two one-day weekend field trips.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Any 100-level GEOS course.
Instructor: Monecke
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is an introduction to volcanoes and the larger field of volcanology. Volcanism is a fundamental part of the Earth System and provides key insights into the inner workings of our planet as well as exerting a fundamental control on climate and the environment. We will explore the tectonic and magmatic processes that drive volcanism as well as volcanic structures, eruptions, products, and hazards. The course culminates in a final group project where students present and discuss the scientific and societal aspects of a specific eruptive or volcanic event.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Any 100-level GEOS course.
Instructor: Castro
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Have you wondered what Earth's climate was like 3 billion years ago? What about weather patterns on Titan and climate change on Mars? In this course, we'll explore the structure and evolution of atmospheres and the climate on four worlds: the Earth, Mars, Venus, and Saturn's moon Titan. We'll examine the techniques and tools that geologists use to learn about the history of Earth's climate and that planetary scientists use to learn about the atmospheres and surface environments on other worlds. Students will also gain experience simulating the climate system and computing atmospheric properties. Other topics include: the super-rotation of Venus's atmosphere and its Runaway Greenhouse climate, the destruction of atmospheres on low-gravity worlds, and the future of Earth's climate as the Sun grows steadily brighter.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: GEOS 223
Prerequisites: MATH 116 and PHYS 107 and one of the following (ES 101, ASTR 100, ASTR 107, GEOS 101, or GEOS 102), or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Watters
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Sediments and sedimentary rocks cover most of the Earth's present surface. Sedimentology encompasses the study of the origin, transport, deposition, and lithification of sedimentary rocks and is critical to accurate interpretation of the geologic rock record. Observations of modern sedimentary processes illuminate past environments; sedimentary strata record evidence of mountain building and seismic activity, glacial advances and paleoclimate cycles, and preserve the fossil record. Natural resources including groundwater, coal, and petroleum are found in sedimentary rocks. Society is impacted by sedimentary processes in popular human habitats including coastlines and flood plains. Readings and discussions build students' familiarity with topics such as sediment transport, stratigraphy, and modern and ancient depositional environments. A semester-long project, laboratory exercises, and mandatory field trips emphasize field methods, rock identification, and data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: GEOS 200, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Monecke
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Spacecraft observations have revealed a breathtaking diversity of geologic features in the solar system, such as the giant impact basins on Mars, towering thrust fault scarps on Mercury, coronae structures on Venus, and active volcanoes on Io and Enceladus. From a comparative perspective, this course examines the physical processes that drive the evolution of the planets and small bodies in the solar system. Topics include: planetary shape and internal structure, mechanisms of topographic support, tectonics, impacts, volcanism, and tides. Some class sessions are reserved for seminar-style discussions of journal articles. Students will produce a final project that involves researching a topic of their choosing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: GEOS 313
Prerequisites: Any 100-level course in ASTR or GEOS in addition to at least one of the following - PHYS 107, GEOS 203, GEOS 218, or GEOS 220. An introductory course in mechanics (e.g., PHYS 104 or PHYS 107) is not required but is strongly recommended.
Instructor: Watters
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course introduces geochemical approaches, including mass balance, residence time, isotope fractionation, and thermodynamic and kinetic modeling necessary to track the flow of materials in key earth surface reservoirs including water, soil, and plants. This geochemical toolbox will then be used to analyze complex earth systems including the linkages between tectonics and climate change and the fingerprinting of anthropogenic pollutants in the built environment.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Two STEM courses above the 100-level from the following disciplines - geosciences, chemistry, biological sciences, or environmental studies; and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Brabander
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Recent earthquakes and tsunamis dramatically highlight the vulnerability of human populations and infrastructure to seismic hazards. Only a thorough understanding of the frequency and size of such events will enable local communities to prepare for future disasters. The rapidly evolving field of paleoseismology tries to answer such questions as: Where do earthquakes occur? How large might they be? How frequent are they? In this seminar-style class we will discuss primary literature to examine earthquake-induced deformation in various geologic archives and under different stress regimes. Through exercises and a research project students will learn techniques to assess the seismic hazard and to prepare threatened communities. This class includes a visit to the Weston Observatory and one weekend fieldtrip to examine evidence of the 1727 Newbury, MA earthquake.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 13
Prerequisites: Any 200-level GEOS course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Monecke
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The metamorphic and igneous rocks that underlie much of New England record a complicated history of mountain building, subduction, and failed rifting dating back to at least 1.2 Ga. This course will explore this history from the earliest orogeny to the assembly and destruction of Pangea. To guide our exploration, we’ll focus on three key questions:
1. How and why do igneous and metamorphic rocks form, and how are these processes related to plate tectonics?
2. How can we use the geochemistry and structural geology of igneous and metamorphic rocks to reconstruct past tectonic events?
3. How are stable cratons formed and why do they remain stable?
There will be one weekend day trip and one overnight weekend trip.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: (GEOS 101 or GEOS 102) and GEOS 203.
Instructor: Castro
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is an overview of the relationship between plate tectonics and rock deformation. Students will explore and discover the descriptive, kinematic and dynamic analysis of deformed rocks and the theoretical treatment of stress and strain, rock rheology and other factors that control deformation. Classroom learning will be supplemented by mandatory field trips that emphasize fundamental field methods, such as measuring and mapping rock units and geologic structures.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: GEOS 200 or GEOS 203, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Castro
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar-style course will use the primary literature to study state-of-the-art techniques in isotope geochemistry. Radiogenic, cosmogenic, and stable isotope systematics will be explored with applications ranging from geochronology, tectonics, fate and transport of pollutants, and the use of isotopes to trace biogeochemical processes. Each student will have the opportunity to lead a seminar on a topic related to their NSF styled research proposal which is the main course deliverable.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Any 200-level GEOS course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Brabander
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GEOS 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
An introduction to contemporary German with emphasis on communicative fluency. Extensive practice in all four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Videos and Web-based activities introduce the student to topics from contemporary culture in German-speaking countries. Three periods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Hans, Nguyen
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: The department strongly urges all participants to sign up for both semesters in order to achieve the full introduction to the language that both semesters provide.
An introduction to contemporary German with emphasis on communicative fluency. Extensive practice in all four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Videos and Web-based activities introduce the student to topics from contemporary culture in German-speaking countries. Three periods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GER 101 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hans, Nguyen
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This seminar focuses on fairy tales, their history, and their continued impact on contemporary culture. We begin by studying the tales themselves, trying to uncover their original meanings and purposes. Out of what historical moments and psychological needs did the tales arise? Why did the Brothers Grimm collect and compile them in the first place? We then consider the ways in which they have been rescripted and repurposed in everything from poetry to popular film, examining how cultural production appropriates these fairy tale structures, even while radically straying from them. We read these texts against the backdrop of a range of theoretical approaches to childhood and to literary and cultural criticism, in order to uncover their significance in the past and today.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Hans
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Strengthening and expanding of all language skills with special emphasis on idiomatic usage. Thorough grammar review, written, oral, and aural practice. Readings on contemporary cultural topics. Three periods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GER 102 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Nguyen
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Strengthening and expanding of all language skills with special emphasis on idiomatic usage. Thorough grammar review, written, oral, and aural practice. Readings on contemporary cultural topics. Three periods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GER 201 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Nguyen
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Like GER 202 on campus, this course strengthens and expands all language skills including idiomatic grammar review, oral and listening practice, readings on contemporary and historical topics, and practice in composition. This course will be taught as an intensive Wintersession course in Berlin and will feature an important cultural component.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: GER 201 or permission of the instructor. Application required. Not open to students who have taken GER 202.
Instructor: Nolden
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes: Not offered every year. Wintersession offerings are subject to Provost's Office approval. This is a travel course, class will meet on campus prior to departure.
Before Disney, there were the Brothers Grimm: in this course, we will learn about the origins of fairy tales in a tradition of oral folklore, consider the tales' development in literature and culture, and examine their continuing impact today. What were the functions of these often so ‘grim’ tales? Can we find them reappearing today as foundational fictions by which children are taught to understand their world?
Primary readings will be in German. We will practice reading, writing, and discussion in German, and will review select grammar topics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GER 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hans
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
What does it mean to be “different” in Germany and Austria, and, by extension, what does it mean to “be” German or Austrian? In this class, we will consider the reciprocal relationship between those two positions and examine how religion, race, sexual identity, and citizenship is implicated in defining the individual’s position. Throughout history, minority groups have played key roles in shaping and (re)defining what “German” or “Austrian” actually means. By considering the centuries-long roles of the Jewish community and Black communities, the gay rights movement beginning in the late 19th century, and the history of the German-Turkish population and of immigration more broadly, we will examine the ways in which difference was defined at various points in history, trace the deep influence that those who might have been considered “outsiders” played in shaping German-speaking cultures, and look at the ways forward that are currently being sketched out by those working towards a broader and more inclusive society. We will focus on primary sources ranging from literature and journalistic texts to visual works to podcasts, interviews, and talks, and will practice how to understand and analyze these sources critically. The course will develop reading, comprehension, speaking, and writing skills.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: GER 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hans
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course focuses on short prose forms from the post-WWII period. Among the topics we will examine will be how writers grappled with the German historical heritage and the events of the Third Reich, WWII, and the Holocaust; how literature developed in the two Germanies and how certain texts might rescript historical events in service of foundational fictions of resistance; how the women’s, students’, and other movements of the 1960s impacted and found expression in literature; and how literature increasingly makes visible an oft-hidden diversity in German-speaking society and culture. The course is designed to introduce great works of recent German literature and methods of literary analysis, and to practice advanced language skills through targeted grammatical review, analytical writing, and discussion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GER 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hans
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This conversation course will introduce students to important topics of recent German history, beginning with the fall of the wall to present-day concerns about climate change. We will be basing our conversations on graphic novels to learn how authors represent issues of societal concern by addressing primarily younger German audiences. Appreciating the interplay of image and word, we will identify prominent patterns of colloquial speech to inform our own conversational practice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GER 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Nolden
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Intensive practice in oral and written communication and presentation; introduction to rhetorical strategies of conversation and discussion; introduction to elements of German prose style; practice of various forms of writing. Review of selected grammar topics. On the basis of newspaper and magazine articles, essays and stories, television news, film clips, and website materials, we will discuss and write about current events and issues in Germany and Austria. Designed for students who have completed four or five semesters of language training or equivalent.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GER 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hans
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Taught in German.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
This course examines the cinematic output of Nazi Germany as a test case for the development of film as propaganda. We consider the cinematic medium as entertainment and as a cultural event with the potential to influence a population. We trace the forebears of Nazi film, including WWI propaganda produced in Britain, France and Germany and Soviet films made to serve the revolutionary agenda. We examine the ways in which Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda deployed both overtly propagandist films and films that couched Nazi ideals in narratives from melodrama to fantasy, and examine whether films could exceed their official aims and become subversive. And we consider post-WWII developments: the continuing careers of producers of propaganda and the ways that modern media shapes new forms of propaganda.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 286
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Hans
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course discusses the narrative challenges posed by the Anthropocene, the current era in history in which the impact of humans on the environment imperils the very future of our planet. Reading fictional and critical texts that have emerged in different parts of the world over the course of the last three decades, we will identify the fictional tools and aesthetic strategies that writers are exploring to address the climate catastrophe. We will discuss what the traditions of writing about biocide are to which contemporary authors can turn when creating new narratives adequate to capture the environmental crisis. We will analyze the most prominent genres involved in “green writing” and will pay close attention to the ways authors deal with the tensions between the local and the global in their narratives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Two units taught in German above GER 202, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken CPLT 238/ES 238.
Instructor: Nolden
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course meets with CPLT 238/ES 238 for two out of its three meetings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GER 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Greek 101 and 102 will teach you all you need to know to learn to read Plato, Sappho, Sophocles, and Herodotus in their original language, with no previous knowledge required. While learning Greek, you will also learn another amazing language at the same time: English. Students who study Greek also learn English grammar and vocabulary with a level of detail and clarity that you must experience to believe. Students interested in math and the sciences will excel at Greek and benefit enormously from the vocabulary you learn, since 90% of scientific vocabulary comes from classical languages. In Greek 101, you will learn how to pronounce ancient Greek, and we will cover more than half of Greek grammar, so by the end of the year, you will be reading Attic Greek.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Open to students who do not present Greek for admission.
Instructor: Dougherty
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Greek 102 builds on what you learned in Greek 101 in the fall (see the description of Greek 101 for details) and completes your introduction to the ancient Greek language. In the last month or so, we’ll turn from the textbook to reading excerpts from actual Greek authors like Lysias, Euripides and Sappho. Steady review throughout the term will reinforce what you learned in the fall at the same time you’re learning new material. A single year can take you from knowing no Greek at all to being able to read texts that shaped the western literary, philosophical, and political traditions. Studying Greek will also strengthen your English vocabulary, improve your command of English grammar, and enhance your writing skills.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 22
Prerequisites: GRK 101 or equivalent.
Instructor: Gilhuly
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Study of a selected work from Classical Athenian literature, such as a dialogue of Plato or a tragedy of Euripides. Supplementary reading in English translation from other Greek works to illuminate the text in its literary and cultural context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: GRK 101 and GRK 102 or two admission units in Greek, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Study of selected books in Greek from Homer's Iliad or Odyssey with emphasis on the oral style of early epic; further reading in Homer in translation; the historical background of the period.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: GRK 201
Instructor: Gilhuly
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Close reading and discussion of a play (or plays) from the extant works of the Athenian playwright Euripides. Translation and discussion of the Greek text will be supplemented with additional reading of Greek dramas in translation as well as secondary readings on issues relating to the plays and their broader literary, social, political, and cultural contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: GRK 202 or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken GRK 303.
Instructor: Gilhuly
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as GRK 303.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Study of selected books in Greek from Homer's Iliad or Odyssey with emphasis on the oral style of early epic. Translation and discussion of the Greek text will be supplemented with additional reading of the Homeric poems in translation as well as secondary readings on issues relating to the epics and their broader literary, social, political, and cultural contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: GRK 202
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Close reading and discussion of a play (or plays) from the extant works of the Athenian playwright Euripides. Translation and discussion of the Greek text will be supplemented with additional reading of Greek dramas in translation as well as secondary readings on issues relating to the plays and their broader literary, social, political, and cultural contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Any 200 level GRK course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Burns
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as GRK 203.
Close reading and discussion of a play (or plays) from the extant works of the Athenian playwright, Sophocles. Translation and discussion of the Greek text will be supplemented with additional readings of Greek dramas in translation as well as secondary readings on issues relating to the plays and their broader literary, social, political, and cultural contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: GRK 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course
With its emphasis on politics, ritual, and marriage, early Greek comedy revels in bodily humor and exults in taking down the political and social elite, thus giving us access to perspectives including those of women and enslaved people that are not usually depicted in other genres. Close readings of Aristophanes’ Greek plays combined with analysis of both primary and secondary sources. Texts will be considered in their broader social, political, and literary contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: GRK 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Gilhuly
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this course students will read selections from Herodotus' Histories. We will consider the text in light of the historiographical and literary traditions, with a view toward understanding Herodotus' innovations and inheritance.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GRK 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this course, students will study the Homeric Hymns in the context of important Greek poets of the archaic period, such as works by Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Sappho, and Pindar. We will consider the poetry in light of the historical, cultural and literary context of the archaic period, focusing in particular on issues of genre and performance.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Burns
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Close reading and discussion of a play (or plays) from the extant works of the Athenian playwright Aeschylus. Translation and discussion of the Greek text will be supplemented with additional readings of Greek dramas in translation as well as secondary readings on issues relating to the plays and their broader literary, social, political, and cultural contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Dougherty
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Plato's best-known dialogue provides an opportunity to consider the construction of desire in Greek antiquity. Close reading of the text will allow for the analysis of language and rhetoric, as well as the characterization of each speaker. Broader study of the symposium as a social institution will enrich the significance of the text's narrative structure and immediate relevance within classical Athens.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: GRK 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Gilhuly
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this advanced ancient Greek reading course, students will read Longus' Daphnis and Chloe. Study of historical and literary background. Further reading in primary sources in translation and secondary readings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Gilhuly
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester. Does not count toward the minimum major in Classics or Classical Civilization.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: GRK 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. Does not count toward the minimum major in Classics or Classical Civilization.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor: Chalamish
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
The American past is crowded with ghosts. In this seminar, we will trace the evolution of supernatural belief in America and analyze some of its most famous ghost stories. What about the nation’s history makes it such fertile terrain for ghosts? What happens when the dead refuse to stay in the past, relegated to history? Why, in short, is the American historical imagination so haunted? We’ll dig deeply into selected hauntings, drawn from across historical North America, and encounter the spirits of French Detroit, the Gettysburg battlefield, and colonial Jamaica, among others.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
With Russian military forces surging through Ukraine in an unprovoked and catastrophic war that few in Russia or the West had predicted, as President Vladimir Putin threatens the annihilation of Ukraine’s statehood and the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, now is the time to plunge into a study of that authoritarian leader of the world’s largest country. What are the causes and consequences of this catastrophic conflict? How did Putin accumulate so much power? What have been his goals, values and operating principles? A product of Leningrad’s “mean streets,” the young Putin sought glory in the KGB, and after the demise of the Soviet Union—a collapse he rues to this day—moved into the heights of power. We will explore Vladimir Putin’s life path, political strategies and policies, ideas about Russia’s identity and place in the world, and his image as the epitome of both potent masculinity and the devil incarnate. We will also delve into Russian politics and society in the era of this enigmatic, potent, and murderous leader.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Tumarkin
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
In this introductory survey, we will examine how the religious, political, and scientific traditions of Western civilization originated in Mesopotamia and Egypt from 3500 B.C.E. and were developed by Greeks and Romans until the Islamic invasions of the seventh century C.E. The course will help students to understand the emergence of polytheism and the great monotheistic religions, the development of democracy and republicanism, and the birth of Western science and the scientific method.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introduction to American life, politics, and culture, from the colonial period through the aftermath of the Civil War. Surveys the perspectives of the many peoples converging on North America during this era, and explores the shifting fault lines of "liberty" among them. Because Early America was not inevitably bound toward the creation of the "United States of America," we will ask how such an unlikely thing, in fact, happened. How did a nation emerge from such a diverse array of communities? And how did various peoples come to claim citizenship in this new nation? Emphasis, too, on the issues that convulsed the American colonies and early republic: African slavery, revolutionary politics, immigration, westward expansion, and the coming of the Civil War.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The United States' past is one of making and remaking the nation—as a government, a place, and a concept. This course surveys that dynamic process from the Reconstruction period through 9/11. Examining the people, practices, and politics behind U.S. nation building, we will consider questions of how different groups have defined and adopted "American" identities, and how definitions of the nation and citizenship shifted in relation to domestic and global happenings. This will include considering how ideas of gender, race, ethnicity, and citizenship intersected within projects of nation building. We will cover topics that include domestic race relations, U.S. imperialism, mass consumption, globalization, and terrorism, and developments such as legalized segregation, the Depression, World Wars I and II, and modern social progressive and conservative movements.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This foundational course in international history explores the evolution of trade, competition, and cultural interaction among the world's diverse communities, from the Mongol conquests of the late thirteenth century through the end of the twentieth century. Themes include: the centrality of Asia to the earliest global networks of trade and interaction; the rise of European wealth and power in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; empires; imperialism and its impact; the evolution of the nation-state; scientific and industrial revolutions; and "modernization" and the new patterns of globalization during the late twentieth century. Attention to agents of global integration, including trade, technology, migration, dissemination of ideas, conquest, war, and disease.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Osorio (Fall), Giersch (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course examines life in medieval Europe c. 750-1250 in all its manifestations: political, religious, social, cultural, and economic. Topics to be studied include the political life of France, Germany, and Italy, economic structures and their transformations, monks and monastic culture, the growth of papal power, the crusading movement, intellectual life and theological debates, heresy and religious minorities, love and sex, and the varied roles of women in medieval life. Students will learn to analyze and interpret primary sources from the period, as well as to evaluate critically historiographical debates related to medieval history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ramseyer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course deals with the momentous social, political, and cultural transformations that characterized the American, French, Haitian, and Spanish American Revolutions (the "Atlantic Revolutions"). Straddling the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (the "Age of Revolutions"), these social and political movements constituted a watershed of violent change that ushered in the (many) problems and possibilities of the modern world: the birth of the Nation, nationalism, and democracy, among others. We will seek answers to questions such as, How did nationalism and universalism shape the nature and strategies of revolt and counter-revolution? What were the roles of slavery, race, women, religion, and geography in defining citizenship? How did historical writing and revolution work to create the foundational myths of the modern nation?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines Mediterranean history from the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries through the Latin Crusades of the Holy Land in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with a focus on the religious, political, and cultural diversity of the medieval Mediterranean and the relationship between Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities. Topics of discussion include warfare and empire, the emergence and development of Christianity and Islam, asceticism and the relationship between religion and philosophy, Christian and Muslim concepts of holy war, conversion and the status of religious minorities, and the crusades from both a Christian and Muslim perspective.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Ramseyer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course provides an overview of Italian history from the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the fifth century through the rise of urban communes in the thirteenth century. Topics of discussion include the birth and development of the Catholic Church, the volatile relationship between popes and emperors, the history of monasticism and other forms of popular piety, the rise of heresy and dissent, the emergence of a multicultural society in southern Italy, and the development and transformation of cities and commerce in the north that made Italy one of the most economically advanced states in late medieval Europe. This course will also draw attention to the important role of women as both political and religious leaders.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ramseyer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Since their invention in the early nineteenth century, nations and states in Latin America have been conceived of in gendered terms. This has played a key role in producing and reproducing masculine and feminine identities in society. This course examines the powerful relationship between gender and nation in modern Latin America. Topics include patriarchal discourses of state and feminized representations of nation; the national project to define the family as a male-centered nuclear institution; the idealization of motherhood as a national and Christian virtue; the role of military regimes in promoting masculine ideologies; state regulations of sexuality and prostitution; changing definitions of the feminine and masculine in relation to the emergence of "public" and "private" spheres; and struggles over the definition of citizenship and nationality.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In the twentieth century, democracies in Spain and Latin America fell under the authoritarian boot of dictatorial rule. In the 1930s a democratic republican government in Spain led to a devastating civil war and to the long dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975). In Latin America, strong democracies fell to authoritarian rule in Brazil (1964-1985), Chile (1973-1989), and Argentina (1976-1980). By examining the social, political and cultural conditions that led to these dictatorial regimes, this course considers how political ideologies, parties and their agendas aided their rise; the role of Catholicism, the Catholic Church, foreign intervention, and social movements in their rise, consolidation, ultimate end, and resistance to such regimes; the challenges and conditions of their post-dictatorial transitions back to democracy and the lessons for democratic rule more generally.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
We are a nation organized around an ethos of buying things. Throughout the twentieth century, the government, media, big business, and the public increasingly linked politics and consumerism, and the formulation has been a route to empowerment and exclusion. In this course, we study how and why people in the United States theorized about, practiced, and promoted mass material consumption from the turn of the twentieth century into the twenty-first. Topics will include: the rise of consumer culture; the innovations of department stores, malls, freeways, and suburbs; developments in advertising and marketing; the global position of the American consumer in the post-World War II United States; and the political utility of consumption to various agendas, including promoting free enterprise, combating racism, and battling terrorism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This interdisciplinary survey of Europe between 1300 and 1600 focuses on aspects of politics, literature, philosophy, religion, economics, and the arts that have prompted scholars for the past seven hundred years to regard it as an age of cultural rebirth. These include the revival of classical learning; new fashions in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and prose; the politics of the Italian city-states and Europe’s “new monarchies”; religious reform; literacy and printing; the emerging public theater; new modes of representing selfhood; and the contentious history of Renaissance as a concept. Authors include Petrarch, Vasari, Machiavelli, Erasmus, More, Castiglione, Rabelais, Montaigne, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare. Lectures and discussions will be enriched by guest speakers and visits to Wellesley’s art and rare book collections.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 221
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Grote and Wall-Randell (English)
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the Barbarian successor states established in the fifth and sixth centuries after the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the West, including a long discussion about the varying opinions on how and why the western Roman empire fell. It will focus primarily on the Frankish kingdom of Gaul, but will also make forays into Lombard Italy, Visigothic Spain, and Vandal North Africa. In particular, the course will look in depth at the Carolingian empire established c. 800 by Charlemagne, who is often seen as the founder of Europe, and whose empire is often regarded as the precursor of today's European Union. Political, cultural, religious, and economic developments will be given equal time.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ramseyer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Cooking, eating, growing—Food has always been a driving force in American history. Well before the hapless colonists at Jamestown endured 1610’s horrific “starving time,” food—and the drive to eat—had begun shaping the continent’s fate. This course investigates the place of food in American history and culture, from reputed cannibalism in the American colonies to the rise of fast food in the twentieth century. In following the evolution of American foodways, we will visit eighteenth-century coffee houses, antebellum slave quarters, campfires of the American West, the slaughterhouses of the Chicago meat market, and—of course—McDonald’s. Meetings may find us eating, as well as reading; course participants will take turns introducing the group to a particular food or drink, situated historically. Each student will complete an original research project on a topic of their choice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken HIST 320.
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300 level as HIST 320.
Films such as Gladiator, The Passion of the Christ, and 300, documentaries such as The Last Stand of the 300, and Internet courses such as Alexander Online perhaps influence how the majority of people now understand antiquity. But are these visual media historically reliable representations of the past? Or do they rather primarily reflect changing artistic and societal concerns? How have the use of digital backlots, blue screens, and other technical innovations affected how the past is being represented and understood? In this course we will examine the representation of the ancient world in films, documentaries, and online media from the "Sword and Sandal" classics of the past such as Ben-Hur to the present, within the scholarly frameworks of ancient history and modern historiography.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Alexander the Great murdered the man who saved his life, married a Bactrian princess, and dressed like Dionysus. He also conquered the known world by the age of 33, fused the Eastern and Western populations of his empire, and became a god. This course will examine the personality, career, and achievements of the greatest warrior in history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken HIST 329.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as HIST 329 with additional assignments.
The origins, development, and geographical spread of Greek culture from the Bronze Age to the death of Philip II of Macedon. Greek colonization, the Persian Wars, the Athenian democracy, and the rise of Macedon will be examined in relation to the social, economic, and religious history of the Greek polis.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Rome's cultural development from its origins as a small city state in the eighth century B.C.E. to its rule over a vast empire extending from Scotland to Iraq. Topics include the Etruscan influence on the formation of early Rome, the causes of Roman expansion throughout the Mediterranean during the Republic, the Hellenization of Roman society, the urbanization and Romanization of Western Europe, the spread of "mystery" religions, the persecution and expansion of Christianity, and the economy and society of the Empire.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course surveys the transformation of medieval Europe into a powerful civilization whose norms, institutions, and technology reached across the globe. Along the way, we use original sources, including Wellesley's museum collections, to investigate major landmarks in Europe's political, cultural, social, intellectual, and environmental history. These include the Black Death, the Renaissance, the creation of seaborne empires and the discovery of new worlds, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the coming of capitalism, a multitude of devastating wars, and changes in urban and rural landscapes—all set against the backdrop of European people's ongoing efforts to define their relationships to their own medieval and ancient forerunners and to the world's other peoples.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Grote
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
What was the Enlightenment? Of all eras, it has probably the greatest parental claim to the values, politics, and sciences of the modern West. It witnessed the triumph of Newtonian physics and the demise of miracles; devalued the authority of the Bible; legitimized democratic, nationalist, and feminist politics; dealt devastating blows to the political prerogatives of monarchs, aristocrats and the clergy; attacked torture and the death penalty; and powerfully defended religious toleration, freedom of the press, and human rights. To understand these and other alleged accomplishments of the Enlightenment, we will study the works of the greatest luminaries to frequent the coffeehouses, salons, and secret societies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including Kant, Rousseau, Locke, Diderot, Herder, Beccaria, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Spinoza.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Grote
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course traces the tumultuous history of Europe's German lands in the three centuries between the Middle Ages and the modern era, long identified with the origins of twentieth-century German militarism and anti-Semitism. We focus on what makes this fascinating period distinctive: Germany's uniquely persistent political diversity and the religious schism that gave Germany multiple national religions. Topics include the Protestant Reformation, the Great Witch Panic, the devastating Thirty Years War that destroyed 150 years of economic growth, Prussia and Frederick the Great, the Enlightenment, the Napoleonic Wars, and the demise of the extraordinarily complex political system known as the Holy Roman Empire. Sources include treaties, treatises, literature, autobiographical texts, visual art, and music, by, among others, Luther, Bach, Lessing, Mozart, and Goethe.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Grote
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
With its sweeping landscapes, grand myths, and oversized egos, the American West has loomed large within U.S. history. Since the nation's birth, Americans looked toward the horizon and imagined their destinies, a gaze, since copied by historians, novelists, and filmmakers. Nevertheless, the history of this vast region is much more fractured and complex. This course explores the West-as an idea and place-from the early nineteenth century through World War I. While we will engage the ways that Americans conjured and conquered the region, we will also look beyond their gaze toward the varied empires, peoples, and forces that created the West. Topics covered include: Northern New Spain and Mexico; American Indians and U.S. expansionism; transcontinental and trans-Pacific trade and (im)migration; race, gender, and identity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Quintana
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
There is perhaps no better time than the present to study the history of American capitalism, as political leaders, pundits, bank and business executives, and workers across the world struggle to understand our current economic situation. This course will explore the development of American capitalism from its birth in the mercantile world of imperial Great Britain through the financial ruin of the Great Depression. This course will closely examine the relationship between government, business, and society by engaging key moments in nineteenth-century American economic history: the rise of the corporation, transportation and communication innovations, industrialization, American slavery and commodity production, financial speculation and panics, the development of American banking, immigration policy, and labor relations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Quintana
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
A multicultural journey through the turbulent waters of medieval and early modern Russia, from the Viking incursions of the ninth century and the entrance of the East Slavs into the splendid and mighty Byzantine world, to the Mongol overlordship of Russia, the rise of Moscow, and the legendary reign of Ivan the Terrible. We move eastward as the Muscovite state conquers the immense reaches of Siberia by the end of the turbulent seventeenth century, when the young and restless Tsar Peter the Great travels to Western Europe to change Russia forever. We will focus on khans, princes, tsars, nobles, peasants, and monks; social norms and gender roles; icons and church architecture; and a host of Russian saints and sinners.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Tumarkin
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of Imperial Russia over the course of two tumultuous centuries from the astonishing reign of Peter the Great at the start of the eighteenth century, to the implosion of the Russian monarchy under the unfortunate Nicholas II early in the twentieth, as Russia plunged toward revolution. St. Petersburg-the stunning and ghostly birthplace of Russia's modern history and the symbol of Russia's attempt to impose order on a vast, multiethnic empire-is a focus of this course. We will also emphasize the everyday lives of peasants and nobles; the vision and ideology of autocracy; Russia's brilliant intelligentsia; and the glory of her literary canon.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Tumarkin
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The Soviet Union, the most immense empire in the world, hurtled through the twentieth century, shaping major world events. This course will follow the grand, extravagant, and often brutal socialist experiment from its fragile inception in 1917 through the rule of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev, after which the vast Soviet empire broke apart with astonishing speed. We will contrast utopian constructivist visions of the glorious communist future with Soviet reality. Special emphasis on Soviet political culture, the trauma of the Stalin years and World War II, and the travails and triumphs of everyday life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Tumarkin
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The Cold War was an era, a culture, and a set of policies defining U.S. domestic and foreign relations. This course examines Cold War politics, culture, and foreign policies in relation to various national developments—including the rise of social movements, changes in city landscapes, and the “birth of the cool"—and international events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and conflicts concerning Vietnam. Bearing on these developments were opportunities and limitations that accompanied ideological struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union, the rise of new cultural industries, and demographic shifts in the United States. Broad topic areas include: U.S. foreign policies; conformity and deviation along lines of gender, race, and sexuality; and domestic and foreign perceptions of the United States in a Cold War context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years and Sophomores.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years and Sophomores.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
19th Century North American History revolves around the radical, and often violent transformation of space. It is, in other words, the story of infrastructures—roads, canals, and railroads--imagined and built; of borders, between and within nations, mapped and brutally maintained; of urban and rural spaces, conceived and constructed; and, of indigenous lands expropriated and altered into a species of property through violence and the law. This course examines that transformation of space, closely interrogating: the various means by which governments and individuals asserted differential claims to territory; the evolving technologies of property, cartography, construction, and transportation that were deployed to assert and maintain claims to space; and, the various ways that seemingly marginalized peoples participated in, and challenged these spatial claims. The course covers the era between the American Revolution and World War I.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Quintana
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
As popularly narrated, African Americans' modern freedom struggle is a social movement beginning in the mid-1950s and ending in the late-1960s, characterized by the nonviolent protest of southern blacks and facilitated by sympathetic (non-southern) whites. In this course, we explore the multiple ways-beyond protest and resistance-that blacks in the twentieth-century United States struggled for their rights and equality using resources at their disposal. This exploration will take us out of the South and consider actors and activities often neglected in the narrations of the struggle. Throughout, we will return to the following questions: What defines a movement? What constitutes civil rights versus Black Power activity? How and why are people and institutions-then and now-invested in particular narratives of the black freedom struggle?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 252
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introduction to the history of Native American peoples, from precontact to the present. Through a survey of scholarly works, primary documents, objects, films, and Indian autobiographies, students will grapple with enduring questions concerning the Native past. How should we define "Native America"? How interconnected were Native peoples, and when? Can we pinpoint the emergence of "Indian" identity and understand how it developed? This course confronts those questions and other issues in Native American history, through such topics as the "discovery" of Europe and its effects, cultural and commercial exchange with Europeans, removal, the struggle for the West, the "Indian New Deal," and the Red Power movement of the 1970s. Special attention to the Native northeast.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
World War II was a uniquely defining moment in U.S. history, its sweeping influence forever altering the nation's culture, economics, and global position. This course examines events surrounding U.S. involvement in the Second World War from the Depression era through the early Cold War years. Our focus will be political, social, and cultural developments on the "home front," which we will contextualize within broader world dynamics. Topics include: domestic attitudes toward the war, the political and cultural significance of FDR's "four freedoms," shifts in foreign policy, a reshaped workforce ("Rosie the Riveter," Bracero programs, desegregation), sex and sexuality in the military, military personnel's experiences, wartime consumer trends, scientific advances, and the nation's geopolitical concerns and objectives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
"The history of black liberation movements in the United States could be characterized as a struggle over images,” claimed activist and scholar bell hooks. In this course, students study how, throughout U.S. history, Black people – and their allies – have produced images of Black people and Black experiences as part of their liberation and survival campaigns. Inherent to this exercise is the analysis of print materials in which these pictures circulated. Therefore, in addition to learning how to analyze pictures as both images and historical sources, students will draw on book studies practices, which treat books as objects, the physicality of which holds clues to the past. The “books” – or material objects – of this course include newspapers, slave narratives, pamphlets, magazines, photographs, and even iPhone videos. Whenever possible, we will do hands-on analysis, using materials in Wellesley’s special collections and from the instructor’s personal archive. Students will learn to read visuals and print objects for evidence of Black people’s circumstances and resources, and for how existing materials and technologies enabled and limited Black freedom demands.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course considers America's colonial past. It is a bloody but fascinating history, with plenty of twists and turns. We will investigate colonial American culture and ordinary life (including gender, family life, ecology, the material world, religion, and magical belief), as well as the struggles experienced by the earliest colonists and the imperial competition that characterized the colonial period. Between 1607 and 1763, a florid variety of cultures bloomed on the North American continent. We will explore these, with an eye toward understanding how the English colonies emerged from very uncertain beginnings to become-by the mid-eighteenth century-the prevailing power on the continent.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Investigates the origins and aftermath of one of the most improbable events in American history: the American Revolution. What pushed colonists to rebel, rather suddenly, against Britain? And what social struggles followed in the war's wake? We will explore the experiences of ordinary Americans, including women and slaves; examine the material culture of Revolutionary America; trace the intellectual histories of the founders; and witness the creation of a national identity and constitution. Those who lived through the rebellion left behind plenty of material: letters; pamphlets; teapots; runaway slave advertisements; diaries. We will consider these and more. Visits to Boston historic sites will take you back in time and space to the besieged, volatile city that led the colonies into war.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A tour of early American politics and political culture, through the life of Alexander Hamilton. Using Hamilton as our guide, we will study electoral politics, campaigning and electioneering, the politics of finance, social movements and rebellion, federalism, and the rise of the party system. Beginning in the Caribbean, where Hamilton was born, and visiting revolutionary New York and early national Philadelphia, among other places, we will consider how Hamilton’s generation defined an American politics. Special attention to the presidencies of Washington and Adams.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Pre-colonial Africa encompasses ancient agrarian kingdoms (such as Egypt, Merowe, and Ghana), city-states on the shores of sea and desert, and "nations without kings," with their own, unique social and political institutions. Students will learn about the material bases of these societies, as well as their social relations and cultural production, all the while familiarizing themselves with the rich array of written, oral, linguistic, and archeological sources available to the historian of Africa. After 1500, in the era of the European expansion, large parts of Africa were incorporated into the Atlantic tropical plantation complex through the trade in enslaved people. The enormous impact on Africa of this unprecedented forced migration of Africans to the Americas from 1500 to the 1880s will constitute the concluding theme.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Many of Africa's current characteristics are the legacy of colonial domination. We will therefore first study different kinds of colonies, from those settled by White settlers to the "Cinderellas" in which colonial economic intervention was (by comparison) minimal and the struggle for independence less bloody. For the post-independence period, we will focus on the historical roots of such major themes as neocolonialism, economic underdevelopment, ethnic conflict and genocide, HIV/AIDS, and the problems of the African state. However, Africa's enormous natural and human resources, its resilient and youthful population, and its vibrant popular culture-a strong antidote against Afro-pessimism-will help us reflect on the future of this vast continent.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Perhaps no other region in the United States conjures up more powerful imagery than the American South-stately mansions with live oak avenues are juxtaposed with the brutal reality of slavery. Yet this same region gave birth to other, perhaps more powerful, cultural legacies-jazz and the blues, the freedom struggle and Jim Crow-a heritage both uniquely Southern and yet deeply American. To better understand this region that has always seemed to stand apart, this course will examine the early history of the American South from the Revolutionary War through the beginning of the twentieth century. Topics covered will include: African American slavery and emancipation, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the spread of evangelical Christianity, Indian Removal, African American culture, and the rise of Jim Crow segregation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Quintana
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This history of Islamic Africa from the seventh to the twentieth century will focus especially on the Saharan and Sudanic belts stretching across the continent from west to east and on the Swahili coast of East Africa. We will study how Islam inspired religious, legal, and political reform (including state-formation) in the precolonial era and shaped responses (including armed resistance) to the establishment of European colonial rule. Other themes include: how Islam influenced African understandings of gender and race; the agency of women and enslaved people in shaping everyday “lived” Islam; and African Muslim men and women’s contributions to a long tradition of knowledge production as well as their diverse, often passionate and artistically accomplished, expressions of faith.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The Mughal Empire in late seventeenth-century India was recognized as one of the richest and strongest powers in the world. Yet by the early nineteenth-century, the British ruled the subcontinent. This course begins by examining the colonization of India. Colonial rule meant important changes to Indian life, spurred by British attempts to create private property, introduce social reforms, and spread English education. However, colonial rule also led to nationalism and efforts to imagine India as a unified nation-state. The course considers leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi and Mohammed Ali Jinnah's struggles against the British, culminating in Independence but also Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. We consider a wide range of sources including films, literature, and primary documents.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rao
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In 1947, India was partitioned into India and Pakistan. Since then, these countries have wrestled with issues of governance and development, but colonial rule casts a long shadow over their efforts. This course introduces students to the complex politico-economic landscape of the subcontinent by examining how the idea of development changes in modern South Asian history. How are developmental efforts embedded in contexts of politics, society, and culture? How do political systems affect decisions? This course considers these questions by examining themes such as the colonial state's construction of railway and irrigation networks; Gandhi's critique of industrialization; Nehru's vision of an industrial economy; the challenges posed by Partition and militarization of Pakistan; the Green Revolution; and the onset of economic deregulation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rao
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
South Asian cultures posit that food serves to mediate between ourselves and the world around us. This course examines connections between diet and physical activity in South Asia’s modern history. Topics include: the connection between the body and the spiritual world as mediated by diet in pre-modern South Asia; assumptions about food and colonial rule’s underlying opposition between a “manly” Europe and an “effeminate” India; articulations of anti-colonial nationalism in sporting performance and experimentation with diet; connections between anxieties about sexual performance, considerations of what one eats, and conceptualizations of modern South Asian identities; the roles played by food politics and sports play in the international relations of postcolonial South Asia.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rao
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Overview of each political/cultural community and their interactions from ancient times to 1912. Topics from earlier periods include ancient mytho-histories and archaeological records, the rise of China's Han and Tang empires, selective adaptations of Chinese patterns by indigenous polities and societies in Korea and Japan, commercial and technological revolution in China and its international impact, Mongol "globalization," Japan in the age of the samurai, and Korea in the heyday of the yangban. Topics from later periods include the growth of international trade in East Asia and early modern developments in Ming-Qing China, Tokugawa Japan, and Late Joseon Korea. Coverage extends through the first decade of the twentieth century to examine Europe's expansion and the divergent trajectories of modern transformation in each society.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Giersch
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
South Asian society has long been represented by rigid systems of hierarchy. Caste, most famously, has been represented as an inexorable determinant of social possibility. Yet, what are the ways in which people actually identify themselves, and to what extent is hierarchical identification a product of South Asia's modern history? This course explores the problems of social and cultural difference in South Asia. How do modern institutions such as the census and electoral politics shape the way in which these problems are perceived today? What are the effects of the introduction of English education? How does migration and diaspora impinge upon identity? In addition to caste, we also consider religion, class, gender, and migration in seeking to unravel the complex notion of ethnicity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rao
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
South Asian cities are currently undergoing massive demographic and spatial transformations. These cannot be understood without a consideration of both the specific history of South Asia and a broader account of urban change. This course examines these changes in historical perspective and situates urban South Asia within a global context. How did colonial rule transform old cities such as Delhi and Lahore? How were the differing ideologies of India and Pakistan mapped onto new capitals such as Chandigarh and Islamabad? How are ethnic pasts and techno futures reconciled in booming cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai? What are the connections between the urban environment and political mobilization? We consider a range of sources, including scholarly literature, films, and short stories.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rao
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A survey of China's economic, cultural, and political interactions with the United States from 1784 to present with a focus on developments since 1940. Principal themes include: post-imperial China's pursuit of wealth and power, changing international conditions, military strategy, the influence of domestic politics and ideology, and the basic misunderstandings and prejudices that have long plagued this critical relationship. Topics include: trade throughout the centuries; American treatment of Chinese immigrants; World War II and the Chinese Revolution; the Cold War; Taiwan; and the ongoing instability of relations since 1979. Sources include the ever-increasing number of declassified U.S. documents as well as critical materials translated from the Chinese.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Giersch
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
From shattering nineteenth-century rebellions that fragmented the old empire to its emergence as a twenty-first century superpower, few places have experienced tumult and triumph in the same massive measures as modern China. To understand China today, one must come to terms with this turbulent history. This course surveys China's major cultural, political, social, and economic transformations, including failed reforms under the last dynasty; the revolutions of 1911 and 1949; the rise of the Communist Party and Mao's transformation of society and politics; the remarkable market reforms of recent decades; the contentious issue of Taiwan's democratic transition; and China's ongoing effort to define its position within East Asia and the world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Giersch
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course looks at popular religious beliefs and practices in medieval Europe, including martyrdom and asceticism, saints and relics, shrines, miracles, and pilgrimage. It seeks to understand popular religion both on its own terms, as well as in relationship to the church hierarchy. It also examines the varied and changing roles of women in Christianity, Christian ideas regarding gender and asexuality, passionate same sex relations in monastic culture, and saints associated with LGBTQ communities. It ends by examining the growth of religious dissent in the 11th and 12th centuries, which led to religious repression and the emergence of what some historians refer to as a persecuting society in 13th-century Europe.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken HIST 379.
Instructor: Ramseyer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as HIST 379 with additional assignments.
China's stunning economic growth and the increasing visibility of transnational businesses run by entrepreneurs of Chinese descent have produced many efforts to explain the successes of “Chinese capitalism” and the “Chinese model.” Central to many arguments are debatable approaches to culture and history. Is there a uniquely Chinese way of doing business? Has mainland China developed a revolutionary new path of economic development? This course engages these debates through influential works on Chinese business and economic history, from the nineteenth century through the reform period (1978 to the present). Topics include corporate governance and the financing of firms; the role of kinship and networking (guanxi); changing political contexts of development; competition with foreign firms; the impact of globalization; and debates over China's remarkable economic rise.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Giersch
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course provides a survey of Middle Eastern history from c.1900 to the present, with an emphasis on the Arab Middle East. It will focus on the historical developments of the period: the demise of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I; the Armenian genocide; the establishment of European "mandates" in most of the Arab world and the nationalist struggles for independence that ensued; the establishment of Israel and the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948; the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990; the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the rise of Islamist political movements elsewhere; the regime of Saddam Hussein; the occupation of Kuwait and the Gulf War of 1990-1991; the failure of the Oslo peace process, Israeli settlements, and the increasing political power of HAMAS and Hizbullah; the war in Iraq; the challenge of a potentially nuclear Iran, and the impact of the war in Syria.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the relationship between nature and society in American history. The course will consider topics such as the decimation of the bison, the rise of Chicago, the history of natural disasters, and the environmental consequences of war. There are three goals for this course: First, we will examine how humans have interacted with nature over time and how nature, in turn, has shaped human society. Second, we will examine how attitudes toward nature have differed among peoples, places, and times, and we will consider how the meanings people give to nature inform their cultural and political activities. Third, we will study how these historical forces have combined to shape the American landscape and the human and natural communities to which it is home. While this course focuses on the past, an important goal is to understand the ways in which history shapes how we understand and value the environment as we do today.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: HIST 299
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Turner
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
This seminar explores the many ways that victors and vanquished, victims and perpetrators, governments, political groups, and individuals have remembered, celebrated, commemorated, idealized, condemned, condoned, forgotten, ignored, and grappled with the vastly complex history and legacy of World War II in the eight decades since the war's end. Our primary focus is the war in Europe, including Poland and Russia, although we will also consider the United States and Japan. We will investigate the construction of individual and collective memories about World War II and the creation and subsequent transformation of set myths about the war experience. In addition to books and articles, sources will include memoirs, primary documents, and films. We will also study the impact of war memories on international relations and analyze the "monumental politics" of war memorials.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Tumarkin
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In the years between the Revolution and the Civil War the United States experienced dramatic change: rapid geographic expansion, the growth and transformation of the market economy, the extension and evolution of slavery and the movement for abolition, and a Civil War that nearly destroyed the nation. These topics and others are long familiar to students of US history, but we will re-frame our analysis of this period: examining expansion by re-centering Native Americans and competing imperial powers, considering the rise of the state within the broader framework of world history, and re-imagining slavery in the context of global capitalism. In considering these topics and others from a variety of perspectives, we will explore the continued significance of the early national era in American History.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Quintana
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar explores the history of race from the American Revolution through the First World War. In this seminar we will explore what race means in the United States by examining the varied ways that it has shaped-and was shaped by-key moments in nineteenth century American history. Topics covered will include: slavery, the conquest of the American West, immigration, citizenship and the nation-state, Social Darwinism, the Great Migration, and American imperialism. Throughout the course we will seek to understand race in the United States by exploring the following questions: What is "race"? If it is but a concept or idea, how and why has it affected so many lives and dictated so much of our past?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Quintana
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the history of fashion in U.S. social and political movements. How have people used clothing and style to define themselves, demand recognition, challenge power, publicize injustice, and deflect or attract attention? We will examine how ideologies and experiences of race, gender, sexuality, and nationhood shaped uses of and reactions to fashion politics. Topics include the end of slavery, the rise of the “New Woman,” the Second World War, the civil rights movement, the women's liberation movement, the rise of hip hop, and the war on terror. Through these events, we will consider the political significance of hair, uniforms, campaign fashion, and religious dress. We will also consider how authenticity, imitation, appropriation, and commodification figure into this history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This seminar explores the terrors that stalked the inhabitants of colonial and early national America. How did early Americans describe their fears? What did they find frightening? And what roles did fear and violence play in shaping American society? In this seminar, we will first explore the language and psychology of fear, and then study the many ways that terror intruded on early American lives. Topics include: the role of terror in early American warfare; fear of the supernatural; domestic violence and murder; the specter of slave rebellion; and fear and violence as entertainment in public executions and in early American literature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar investigates the place of food in American history and culture, from reputed cannibalism in the American colonies to the rise of fast food in the twentieth century. Through selected episodes and commodities, we will explore the role of taste, competition for food, and capitalism in recasting American lives and identities. Topics include: colonial hunger and violence; the development of taste and "refined" eating; the role of food in defining race, class, and regional culture; the rise of mass production and its environmental effects and the reshaping of American bodies. In following the evolution of American food ways, we will visit eighteenth-century coffeehouses, antebellum slave quarters, campfires of the American West, the slaughterhouses of the Chicago meat market, and, of course, McDonald's.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200 level as HIST 223.
This seminar explores how crime was defined, imagined, and punished, in colonial and early national America. The origins of many current American attitudes and practices, regarding crime, lie here—in the earliest years of settlement and state-making. In readings that visit the cobbled streets and cramped bedrooms of early America, as well as courtrooms and the gallows, we will meet thieves, counterfeiters, murderers, legislators, governors, vigilantes, and even America’s first policemen. Topics include: early theories of violence and criminality; domestic violence and murder; the history of public execution; the role of race and slavery in shaping criminal law; the evolution of American attitudes toward capital punishment; and the rise of the penitentiary.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Grandjean
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
C. Iulius Caesar was descended from the goddess Venus and the Roman King Ancus Marcius. He was one of Rome’s greatest orators and Cicero said that every writer of sense steered clear of the subjects Caesar had written about. His life was both scandalous and unprecedented in Roman History: Curio called him every woman’s man and every man’s woman; Cato remarked that Caesar was the only sober man who tried to wreck the constitution. After conquering Gaul Caesar became Rome’s first dictator for life, and finally a god, after his assassination on the Ides of March of 44 BCE. This 300 level course will examine the life, death, and legacies of the greatest Roman against the backdrop of the destruction of the Res Publica.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Normally open to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Alexander the Great murdered the man who saved his life, married a Bactrian princess, and dressed like Dionysus. He also conquered the known world by the age of 33, fused the Eastern and Western populations of his empire, and became a god. This course will examine the personality, career, and achievements of the greatest warrior in history against the background of the Hellenistic world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken HIST 229.
Instructor: Rogers
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as HIST 229.
This course will examine the revolutionary changes that occurred in all facets of life in twelfth-century Europe. The twelfth century represents one of the most important eras of European history, characterized by many historians as the period that gave birth to Europe as both idea and place. It was a time of economic growth, religious reformation, political and legal reorganization, cultural flowering, intellectual innovation, and outward expansion. Yet the twelfth century had a dark side, too. Crusades and colonization, heresy and religious disputes, town uprisings and mob violence also marked the century. Students will study the internal changes to European society as well as the expansion of Europe into the Mediterranean and beyond, paying close attention to the key people behind the transformations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Ramseyer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores black Americans' relationship to visual culture in the twentieth-century United States. We will examine how African Americans have produced, used, and appeared in the visual media of news, entertainment, and marketing industries, and evaluate the significance of their representation to both black and non-black political and social agendas. Areas of inquiry will include the intersections between U.S. visual culture and race relations, African Americans' use of visual culture as a means of self- and group-expression, and the state's use of black media images. This exploration will take us through a study of Jim Crow politics, black migrations and artistic movement, U.S. foreign relations and conflicts, and the development of marketing and advertising.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
When it comes to the modern black freedom movement, narration of “the struggle” bears heavily on African Americans’ pursuits of civil rights, racial and economic equality, and national belonging. Popularly, the history of “the struggle” is a story of good Americans triumphing over bad racists. The simplicity of this narrative makes it ripe for appropriation; and individuals and institutions have put it to multiple uses, including: elevating certain forms of protest, mobilizing political support, selling material goods, and rolling back civil rights reforms. This seminar explores how historians have complicated the history of African Americans’ freedom campaigns and considers how their interpretations shape perceptions of black activism, past and present. Topics will include: Emmett Till, black funeral homes, the Black Panther Breakfast program, and #BlackLivesMatter.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors or seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Greer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
What is mental health? This seminar examines the diversity of answers to this question across a variety of European cultures and subcultures from the end of the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century. Our focus will be on how particular communities’ conceptions of mental health informed their ethical principles, behavioral norms, and modes of social control. Topics include meditation, confession of sins, journal-keeping, and other spiritual practices; historical representations of mental illness as foolishness, madness, and melancholy; the demise of humoral medicine and the rise of experimental psychology and neuroscience; the emergence of asylums and social engineering; and the history of controversy over psychoanalytic, electric, pharmaceutical, and other therapeutic techniques.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Grote
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Popular fascination with kings and queens is alive and well, but European monarchs once enjoyed a mystical, superhuman prestige far beyond mere celebrity. Why did they lose it? To find an answer, this seminar investigates their enigmatic killers: perpetrators of cosmic cataclysm in the name of liberation from tyranny. After examining the medieval legal foundations and ceremonial glamor of sacred kingship, we will analyze the most sensational modern cases of king-killing: Charles I in the English Civil War and Louis XVI in the French Revolution. Our analyses will encompass political maneuverings by individuals; bitter conflicts of class, religion, and party; the subversive power of satirical literature; utopian yearnings for a more egalitarian society; and the philosophical battles that produced modern concepts of the state.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Grote
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In the sixteenth century for the first time the world became linked through networks of global trade. From Lisbon to Calicut to Macao to Manila to Potosi to Antwerp, peoples and places became increasingly integrated through labor systems, migration, and new economic and political relationships. Through the lens of the trade in pepper, the circulation of silver, and the manufacture of silk from the 1480s to 1700, this course examines the development of these relationships and their political and cultural implications. Rather than focusing on the purely economic aspects of trade, we will examine the new technologies and knowledge(s) that made global integration possible; the social and cultural revolutions fashioned by the production, consumption, and circulation of these commodities; and the political transformations that accompanied such circulations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar examines the role of ruins (as both metaphors and material structures representative of antiquity) in the construction of an urban Modern Spanish World from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. We will look at how architects, urban planners, imperial officials, philosophers, political writers and historians looked to classical and American antiquity (Rome, Inka, Aztec) as sources for the construction and legitimation of imperial and national histories (a deep past) and rule. And how ruins, as physical artifacts, became central in the creation of the modern (a future) Spanish World. The Spanish Philippines will be a test case for understanding the place of classical antiquity in American and Spanish European modernity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: By permission of the department. See Academic Distinctions.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: HIST 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course introduces in-depth study of powerful empires and their legacies. We focus on Qing-era China (1644-1912) asking how its leaders built China’s most expansive, durable, and ethnically diverse empire. We then consider the still incomplete efforts to reconfigure the empire as a Chinese nation, a process challenged by Tibetan, Uyghur, and Hong Kong citizens. Topics include institutions for segregating and representing diverse communities; the role of international commerce and technologies; the challenges of modern nationalism and European colonialism; methods for envisioning a new, multiethnic China led by a Han majority; and ways that Hong Kong, Islam, and Tibetan Buddhism are perceived as challenges. Readings in Ottoman, American, and South Asian history bring comparative perspectives and prepare students for research on world regions of their choice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject. Not open to students who have taken this course as a topic of HIST 395.
Instructor: Giersch
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course traces the rise and fall of the first modern European Empire, the Spanish Empire. This first global empire ca. 1500 ruled over parts of Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Asia. This course provides a historical understanding of early modern ideologies, the institutions and the cultural practices that enabled Spain to rule over such vast territories. To this end we will examine the medieval precedents of early modern imperialism; theories of empire and monarchy; ideologies of conquest and colonization; theories of modernity and empire; models of conquest and colonial exploitation; the role of race and slavery in empire building abroad and at home; the various ways in which the "conquered" colonized Europe and Europeans; and the long-term consequences of these exchanges.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
No one history reflects the multiple paths followed by “Latin American” countries to develop medical and public health national infrastructures. New public health programs in nineteenth-century Latin America transformed debates about national culture, the state, and the role of the environment, race and disease in achieving modernity and progress. Among others, this course examines: the professionalization of medical practices; how foreign immigration and internal migration shaped health-related institutions and understandings of disease, race and modernity; the role of local innovative research in parasitology, herpetology, and tropical disorders in countering assumptions about racial and cultural inferiority; how a foreign funding institution (i.e. Rockefeller Foundation) and U.S. health officials facilitated U.S. intervention; how Cuba’s national health system today exports scientists, doctors, and epidemiologists to a world in crisis.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Urbanity has long been central to Latin American cultures. This seminar examines the historical development of Latin American cities from the Roman principles governing the grid pattern imposed by the Spanish in the sixteenth century through the development of the twentieth-century, postmodern megalopolis. The seminar's three main objectives are to develop a theoretical framework within which to analyze and interpret the history, and historical study of Latin American cities; to provide a basic overview of the historical development of cities in the context of Latin American law, society, and culture; and to subject to critical analysis some of the theoretical "models" (i.e., Baroque, Classical, Dependency, Modernism, and so on) developed to interpret the evolution and workings of Latin American cities.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course looks at popular religious beliefs and practices in medieval Europe, including martyrdom and asceticism, saints and relics, shrines, miracles, and pilgrimage. It seeks to understand popular religion both on its own terms, as well as in relationship to the church hierarchy. It also examines the varied and changing roles of women in Christianity, Christian ideas regarding gender and asexuality, passionate same sex relations in monastic culture, and saints associated with LGBTQ communities. It ends by examining the growth of religious dissent in the 11th and 12th centuries, which led to religious repression and the emergence of what some historians refer to as a persecuting society in 13th-century Europe. This course may be taken as HIST 279 or, with additional assignments, as HIST 379.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Normally open to Juniors or Seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject. Not open to students who have taken HIST 279.
Instructor: Ramseyer
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as HIST 279.
In the years leading to 1947, nationalist activism against the British and tensions between Hindus and Muslims escalated in the Indian subcontinent. This culminated in Partition and the emergence of the nations of India and Pakistan. Independence was marred, however, by the bloodshed accompanying the mass movements of Muslims into Pakistan and Hindus into India. What were the factors leading to this juxtaposition of triumphal Independence with shameful Partition? How have memories of Partition continued to affect powerfully politics and culture in the subcontinent? This seminar investigates such questions using a wide variety of materials, including novels, such as Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India; feature films, such as Deepa Mehta's 1947; and documentary films, such as Sabiha Sumar's Silent Waters.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Rao
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Students who need to fulfill the IR capstone requirement must register in the spring for HIST 369 in place of HIST 395 [not offered in 2024-2025].This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
An introduction to the most widely spoken language in the South Asian subcontinent, which is also used extensively for interregional and international communications. Learning this language provides a linguistic passport to things South Asian. The language-often referred to as "Hindustani"-is written in two different scripts: the Perso-Arabic based Urdu, and the Sanskrit based Devanagari (Hindi). Students will learn to converse in the language and to read and write in both scripts. Conventional teaching materials will be supplemented by popular songs and clips from contemporary Indian cinema and television, the two internationally popular media that use this language.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Delacy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Continuation of the introduction to the most widely spoken language in the South Asian subcontinent, which is also used extensively for interregional and international communications. Learning this language provides a linguistic passport to things South Asian. The language-often referred to as "Hindustani"-is written in two different scripts: the Perso-Arabic based Urdu, and the Sanskrit based Devanagari (Hindi). Students will learn to converse in the language and to read and write in both scripts. Conventional teaching materials will be supplemented by popular songs and clips from contemporary Indian cinema and television, the two internationally popular media that use this language.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: HNUR 101 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Delacy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Intermediate Hindi/Urdu will build on the reading, writing, and speaking skills acquired in Elementary Hindi/Urdu (HNUR 101-HNUR 102). The readings, drawn from simple literary texts as well as from social and journalistic writings, will reinforce the grammar learned in the introductory course and introduce new grammar topics. The writing exercises-mainly in essay formats-will stress usage of idioms and sentence constructions by students. The class will be conducted in Hindi/Urdu with a part of every class dedicated to conversation on the theme of the day in the language.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: HNUR 102 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Delacy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Intermediate Hindi/Urdu will build on the reading, writing, and speaking skills acquired earlier.The readings, drawn from simple literary texts as well as from social and journalistic writings, will reinforce the grammar learned in the introductory course and introduce new grammar topics. The writing exercises-mainly in essay formats-will stress usage of idioms and sentence constructions by students. The class will be conducted in Hindi/Urdu with a part of every class dedicated to conversation on the theme of the day in the language.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: HNUR 201 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Delacy
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: IREC 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: IRPS 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course employs the latest language teaching methodology to provide students with an interactive learning experience. Students will be introduced to the basics of the Italian language, as well as to contemporary Italy and its culture. In class, students will practice the four skills - speaking, listening, reading and writing - through a variety of activities.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Bartalesi-Graf, Laviosa
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Winter
Notes:
This course employs the same language teaching methodology used in ITAS 101. Students will advance their language proficiency and their knowledge of contemporary Italian society through daily practice, both in the classroom and on their own. In addition, they will watch and discuss an Italian contemporary film, and read some short stories in Italian. Oral presentations are also incorporated in the curriculum.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ITAS 101 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Laviosa
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This innovative course is designed for complete beginners who wish to advance fast in their language proficiency, and complete their language requirement in one year. Through the daily practice and reinforcement of all language skills, students will reach an intermediate level mastery of the Italian language and a basic understanding of modern Italian society in one semester, since this course is the equivalent of 101 & 102, and qualifies students for 201 or 203 (201 & 202 combined). ITAS103 employs the latest teaching technology tools to provide students with an interactive learning experience Methods employed include in-class conversation and role-playing activities, as well as the latest technology in blended learning. No textbook necessary: the course employs an online platform that provides free access to all course materials (videos, readings, grammar charts, as well as self-corrected exercises and tests).
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Bartalesi-Graf
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This seminar is dedicated to the representation of Italian cities in Italian literature, art, and cinema from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. By presenting cities as spatial narratives, we will introduce students to some of the most important moments in Italian history and will invite them to examine the representation of urban landscape as a privileged vantage point to understand Italian culture. The seminar is designed to introduce students to the field of Italian Studies and to provide them with a solid background in Italian history and culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
The aim of this course is to develop students' fluency in spoken and written Italian. The reading of short stories, articles from Italian newspapers, and selected texts on Italian culture as well as the writing of compositions are used to promote critical and analytical skills. Listening is practiced through the viewing of Italian films. Both reading and listening activities are followed by in-class discussions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ITAS 101- ITAS 102, or ITAS 103.
Instructor: Laviosa, Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The aim of this course is to develop students' fluency in spoken and written Italian. The reading of short stories, articles from Italian newspapers, and selected texts on Italian culture as well as the writing of compositions are used to promote critical and analytical skills. Listening is practiced through the viewing of Italian films. Both reading and listening activities are followed by in-class discussions. Three periods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ITAS 201
Instructor: Laviosa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This intensive three-week course is a rigorous linguistic and a valuable full-immersion cultural experience in Italy. Like ITAS 202 on campus, the course consists of a fast-paced grammar review with practice of all language skills through readings of literary texts and newspaper articles, oral discussions, presentations on Italian current events, and compositions on cultural topics examined in class. The course includes a rich program of guest speakers, both Italian university professors and artists, and attendance at film screenings and theatre performances.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: ITAS 201. Application required. Not open to students who have taken ITAS 202.
Instructor: Laviosa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes: Not offered every year. Wintersession offerings are subject to Provost's Office approval.
This course is for students who have taken ITAS 103 or both ITAS 101 and ITAS 102. The course covers the same material as ITAS 201 and ITAS 202, and employs an online platform that provides free access to all course materials (videos, films, readings, grammar charts, as well as self-corrected exercises and tests). The aim of the course is to improve and strengthen the skills acquired in Elementary Italian through the study of various themes in contemporary Italian society. This is an intensive course developed especially for students with a strong interest in Italian Studies. No textbook necessary: all materials are available and downloadable online.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Either ITAS 103, or ITAS 101 and ITAS 102.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course examines the films of a number of major Italian women directors across two artistic generations: Cavani and Wertmüller from the 1960s to the 1970s; Archibugi, Comencini, and others from the 1990s to the 2010s. Neither fascist cinema nor neorealism fostered female talents, so it was only with the emergence of feminism and the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s that a space for female voices in Italian cinema was created. The course will explore how women directors give form to their directorial signatures in film, focusing on their films' formal features and narrative themes in the light of their socio-historical context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 224
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Laviosa
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is dedicated to the representation and exploration of landscape in the Italian poetic tradition. By studying how the varied and beautiful Italian landscape found expression in the literary works of major poets, students will be exposed to a rich body of work and the tradition it both follows and renews. In particular, the course will focus on a series of specific themes, giving special attention to language and style. These will include: the opposition between rural and urban landscapes; the tension between dialects and the national language; the complex dynamics of tradition and innovation; issues of sustainability in the representation of Italian landscape. Through initial exposure to selected classical poets, including Dante and Petrarch, students will gain in-depth knowledge of the main formal structures of Italian poetry, from the classical sonnet, going on to free verse. In addition, we will read poems by the Italian greats of the twentieth century, i.e., Ungaretti, Saba and Montale, as well as works by contemporary poets, such as Bassani, Caproni, Sereni, Cavalli and Valduga, which deal with issues of preservation of the Italian natural landscape.
The course will be taught in English.
Students who wish to take the course to fulfill the major or minor in Italian should register for ITAS 320.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ITAS 320.
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as ITAS 320 with an extra weekly meeting in Italian.
The course explores the theme of human rights in Italian society during the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. First, it is designed to discuss the rights of literature, i.e., the role that literature can play in the understanding of human rights. Second, it will provide students with a survey of the discussion of human rights in Italian literature. By presenting literary texts as narratives that have contributed to the debate on human rights, the course will introduce students to the most important moments in the history of human rights in Italy, from the first political organizations which fought for equal rights for factory workers, to the struggle of the feminist movement for women's emancipation throughout the twentieth century, to the approval of laws that legalized divorce and abortion during the 1970s and 80s, up to the new legislation on domestic violence, marriage, and adoption rights for LGBT people, and today’s debate on the issue of citizenship for immigrants.
The course will be taught in English. Students who wish to take the course to fulfill the major or minor in Italian should register for ITAS 324. The course will provide reading and writing assignments in Italian, as well as individual discussion sessions in Italian, for students who are taking the course at the 300-level.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken ITAS 324.
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300 level as ITAS 324, with readings and writing assignments in Italian.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
A survey of the directors and film styles that paved the way for the golden age of Italian cinema, this course examines, first, Italian cinema of the first two decades of the twentieth century, going on to fascist cinema before embarking on an in-depth journey into the genre that made Italian cinema famous, namely, neorealism. We will analyze major films by Rossellini, Visconti, and De Sica (among others) with a view to understanding the ethical, social, political, and philosophical foundations of the neorealist aesthetic.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ward
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The course is designed to introduce students to the literature, film, politics, history and social issues of twenty-first century Italy. In addition to reading and viewing representative texts and films, the course will also pay close attention to contemporary events through on-line newspapers, magazines and TV channels.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ITAS 202 or ITAS 203, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The course aims, first, to give students who wish to continue their study of Italian the chance to practice and refine their skills, and second, to introduce students to one of the major themes of Italian culture, namely, the role played by Italian intellectuals in the construction of Italy as a nation. We will read how Dante, Petrarch, and Machiavelli imagined Italy as a nation before it came into existence in 1860; how the nation came to be unified; and how the experience of unification has come to represent a controversial point of reference for twentieth-century Italy. Other figures to be studied will include Bembo, Castiglione, Foscolo, Gramsci, Tomasi di Lampedusa, D'Annunzio, Visconti, Levi, Blasetti, and Rossellini.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ITAS 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Unlike other European literatures, contemporary Italian literature lacks a major work of fiction representing the nation’s cultural identity. Rather, Italian literature boasts the small book, brief unclassifiable narratives that express the variety and complexity of Italian culture. Realistic novels or philosophical short stories, memoirs or literary essays, these works are a fine balance between a number of literary genres and, as such, are a good entranceway into the multifaceted and contradictory identity of Italy as a nation. The course will combine a survey of contemporary Italian literature with a theoretical analysis of how Italian identity has been represented in works by Calvino, Bassani, Ginzburg, and others. The course will be taught in English.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The 1960s was a period of great change in Italy. The major consequence of the economic boom of the late 1950s was to transform Italy from a predominantly agricultural to an industrialized nation. Through a study of literary and cinematic texts, the course will examine this process in detail. Time will also be given to the consequences of the radical changes that took place: internal immigration, consumerism, the new role of intellectuals, resistance to modernity, neo-fascism, student protest. Authors to be studied will include Italo Calvino, Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ermanno Olmi, Umberto Eco, and authors from the Neo-Avant Garde movement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ITAS 202 or ITAS 203.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is dedicated to the representation of female desire in Italian culture. From Dante's Francesca da Rimini to Pasolini's Medea, passing through renowned literary characters such as Goldoni's Mirandolina, Manzoni's Gertrude, and Verdi's Violetta, the course will explore different and contrasting voices of female desire: unrequited and fulfilled, passionate and spiritual, maternal and destructive, domestic and transgressive. In particular, the varied and beautiful voices of women in love will become privileged viewpoints to understand the changes that occur in Italian culture in the conception of desire and other intimate emotions, as well as in the notion of gender and sexuality. Students will read texts by men and women from a wide variety of literary genres and artistic forms including not only prose and poetry, but also theatre, opera, and cinema. They will also read important theoretical essays on the conception of love in Western cultures by Barthes, de Rougemont, Giddens, and Nussbaum.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ITAS 201 or ITAS 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the two fundamental political and cultural experiences of twentieth-century Italy: the 20-year fascist regime and the resistance to it. We will study the origins of fascism in Italy's participation in World War I and its colonial ambitions, and then follow the development of fascism over the two decades of its existence and ask to what extent it received the consensus of the Italian people. We will go on to examine the various ways in which Italians resisted fascism and the role the ideals that animated antifascist thinking had in the postwar period. Authors to be studied include: Marinetti, D'Annunzio, Pascoli, Croce, Gobetti, Rosselli, Bassani, Ginzburg, Carlo and Primo Levi, and Silone.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ITAS 271, ITAS 272, ITAS 273, or ITAS 274.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Italian Mysteries introduces students to the Italian tradition of mystery and detective writing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with particular attention paid to its philosophical and semiotic dimensions. It also exposes students to some of the political mysteries that have characterized Italy since the end of World War II and which have become the subject of much contemporary mystery writing, films, and documentaries. From an aesthetic standpoint, we will ask why a new generation of young writers has been drawn to these mysteries as subjects of their writings and examine the variety of narrative forms they use to investigate them. Authors to be studied will include Carlo Emilio Gadda, Umberto Eco, Carlo Luccarelli, Dario Fo, Simone Sarasso, Giuseppe Genna, and the writing collectives known as Luther Blisset and Wu Ming.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ITAS 271, ITAS 272, ITAS 273 or ITAS 274.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is dedicated to the representation and exploration of landscape in the Italian poetic tradition. By studying how the varied and beautiful Italian landscape found expression in the literary works of major poets, students will be exposed to a rich body of work and the tradition it both follows and renews. In particular, the course will focus on a series of specific themes, giving special attention to language and style. These will include: the opposition between rural and urban landscapes; the tension between dialects and the national language; the complex dynamics of tradition and innovation; issues of sustainability in the representation of Italian landscape. Through initial exposure to selected classical poets, including Dante and Petrarch, students will gain in-depth knowledge of the main formal structures of Italian poetry, from the classical sonnet, going on to free verse. In addition, we will read poems by the Italian greats of the twentieth century, i.e., Ungaretti, Saba and Montale, as well as works by contemporary poets, such as Bassani, Caproni, Sereni, Cavalli and Valduga, which deal with issues of preservation of the Italian natural landscape.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: ITAS 202 or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken ITAS 220.
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as ITAS 220. The course will meet with ITAS 220 for a portion of the weekly meetings which will be taught in English. ITAS 320 will have an additional weekly discussion session in Italian, and provide reading and writing assignments in Italian. Students who wish to take the course to fulfill the major or minor in Italian should register for ITAS 320.
The course explores the theme of human rights in Italian society during the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. First, it is designed to discuss the rights of literature, i.e., the role that literature can play in the understanding of human rights. Second, it will provide students with a survey of the discussion of human rights in Italian literature. By presenting literary texts as narratives that have contributed to the debate on human rights, the course will introduce students to the most important moments in the history of human rights in Italy, from the first political organizations which fought for equal rights for factory workers, to the struggle of the feminist movement for women's emancipation throughout the twentieth century, to the approval of laws that legalized divorce and abortion during the 1970s and 80s, up to the new legislation on domestic violence, marriage, and adoption rights for LGBT people, and today’s debate on the issue of citizenship for immigrants.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Four semesters of Italian, or equivalent.
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200 level as ITAS 224, in English.
Beginning with Boccaccio and going on to Manzoni, Verga, and beyond, the course introduces students to the major figures of the Italian narrative tradition. We then go on to study twentieth-century narrative texts, all the time seeking answers to the question of why narrative is such a fundamental human need. Why, for example, do we narrate our experience of life and the sense we have of ourselves, even in the form of diaries? Do the stories we tell faithfully reflect reality or do they create it? The course concludes with a reflection on narrative technique in cinema illustrated by the films of Antonioni. Other authors to be studied may include Calvino, Ceresa, Rasy, Pasolini, Celati, and Benni.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: ITAS 271, ITAS 272, ITAS 273, or ITAS 274.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ITAS 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Introduction to the modern standard Japanese language. Emphasis on developing proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, using basic expressions and sentence patterns. Four 75-minute classes plus one blended learning session.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Maeno
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Introduction to the modern standard Japanese language. Emphasis on developing proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, using basic expressions and sentence patterns. Four 75-minute classes plus one blended learning session.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: JPN 101 or equivalent.
Instructor: Maeno
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Continuation of JPN 101-JPN 102. The first semester will emphasize further development of listening and speaking skills with more complex language structures as well as proficiency in reading and writing. The second semester will emphasize reading and writing skills. Four 75-minute classes plus one blended learning session.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: JPN 101-JPN 102 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Torii-Williams
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Continuation of JPN 101-JPN 102. The first semester will emphasize further development of listening and speaking skills with more complex language structures as well as proficiency in reading and writing. The second semester will emphasize reading and writing skills. Four 75-minute classes plus one blended learning session.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: JPN 201 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Torii-Williams
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is designed for the students who have completed the second year of Japanese (JPN 201-JPN 202). Each lesson introduces you to practical vocabulary items, grammatical structures, and cultural orientations that give you the ability to discuss such topics in a more advanced and culturally appropriate manner. Throughout the course, the development of more fluent speech and stronger literacy will be emphasized by studying more complex and idiomatic expressions. Acquisition of an additional few hundred kanji characters will be part of the course. The class will be conducted entirely in Japanese. Three classes per week.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: JPN 201-JPN 202 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Torii-Williams
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A continuation of JPN 231, this course further develops literacy in Japanese. Students focus on intensive reading of various styles of written Japanese, writing on different topics, and development of fluent oral skills. Japanese movies will be used for reinforcement of grammar and for discussion. Class discussion will be conducted entirely in Japanese. Three classes per week.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: JPN 231 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Torii-Williams
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
In 1776, the Japanese writer Ueda Akinari set down a famous collection of ghost stories entitled Tales of Moonlight and Rain. Beginning with this collection, we will explore how representations of the supernatural were both embedded in and transformed by discourses of modernity. Throughout the twentieth century, writers such as Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Izumi Kyoka, and Enchi Fumiko kept the supernatural strand alive. In tales of the fantastic and the strange, they also made trenchant commentary on the state of their society. We read (and contrast) literary and visual texts to explore alternative visions of Japan's rush to modernize.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Zimmerman
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course offers an introduction to modern Japanese literature and media (in translation) from the 1890s to the present, covering materials including poetry, novels, short stories, photography, and film. Through close readings of selected works, we will address social, cultural and philosophical issues in the context of the historical transformations over the past hundred and fifty years. We will trace a variety of responses to questions of identity formation for the self and the nation, modernism and colonialism, communal expression and activism, gender, trauma and memory, nature and the environment, and the transformation of media ecologies in postwar and contemporary Japan. No previous knowledge of Japanese literature, culture, or history is expected or assumed. All readings are presented in English translation. Students with Japanese language ability are, however, encouraged to read original texts if they so wish.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: C. Ward
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Many contemporary Japanese novelists, beginning with Murakami Haruki, have been criticized for writing in language that sounds foreign to a domestic audience—more “translationese” than Japanese. Indeed, many contemporary Japanese authors live outside Japan, write in other languages in addition to Japanese, and/or come from minority backgrounds within Japan that have complicated relationships to standardized Japanese. In this course we will read contemporary works of Japanese literature through the lens of translation as both a readerly and writerly practice, as well as a means by which to think through how we define the boundaries of a given language or national literature. We will engage with short stories, poetry, screenplays, criticism and novels to examine how writers use different linguistic registers, genres, and formal techniques to explore questions of community, identity, gender, and even language itself. In addition, we will look at some theoretical and historical approaches to the study of translation in Japan as necessary background for these discussions. We will also think about how adaptation—across literary traditions or genres—relates to translation. While works examined in this course may themselves be read in English translation, students with advanced Japanese are encouraged to read in the original.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: C. Ward
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A critical exploration of popular culture in Japan from its isolation in the 1600s to its globalization today. Topics include advertising, anime, architecture, art, fashion, film, food, games, literature, magazines, manga, music, performance, sports, television, and travel. Students engage directly with these topics by analyzing cultural phenomena, from geisha to baseball, in light of historical and theoretical perspectives drawn from the disciplines of literary criticism, cultural studies, film studies, and anthropology—all in an effort to understand Japan through patterns of consumption, cultural memory, gender, media, national identity, race, and sexuality. The course demonstrates the complexity and appeal of what is arguably the major alternative to American popular culture. No prior background in Japanese is required; all readings are in English translation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Goree
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Japan enjoyed tremendous political stability under samurai rule for 265 years before opening up to the West in the late 19th century. Far from static, however, this era, known as the Edo period (1603-1868), was one of dynamic economic growth, social change, intellectual ferment, and artistic experimentation, when a vibrant urban culture emerged and spread to cities and villages across the Japanese archipelago. Many of the things we associate with traditional Japanese culture today, including haiku, kabuki, sumo, geisha, sushi, manga, and the samurai ethos, emerged or developed into maturity at this time. This course introduces students to Edo Japan by way of its rich visual and literary cultures, with particular emphasis on the representation of sexuality, gender, violence, honor, and otherworldly phenomena. No knowledge of Japan or Japanese required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Goree
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
In this course, students will read original works of short fiction and essays in Japanese by well-known contemporary authors. We will explore various genres and popular themes in Japanese literature and look at authors' styles and voice. The course will be completely in Japanese except when translation into English takes center stage. In either case, the major emphasis will be on discussion of the works in class. Through these works, students will also be introduced to advanced Japanese grammar, expressions, patterns, kanji, and vocabulary.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: JPN 232 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Goree
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course aims to achieve advanced level fluency through current news articles and broadcast news in Japanese. Students will learn a wide range of vocabulary and expressions through class discussions, presentations and individual writing projects.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: JPN 232 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Maeno
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Students read and discuss contemporary fiction by women in Japanese as they improve reading and speaking skills, and learn how to translate fiction from Japanese to English. Weekly translation exercises and periodic translation workshops build confidence as students develop their own translation style. For the final project, students choose a contemporary short story and translate it in collaboration with the instructor. Class conducted in English. Two weekly meetings plus individual meetings with instructor.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: JPN 232 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Zimmerman
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
With the lifting of state censorship in the postwar period, Japanese writers and artists broke new ground, wrestling with the legacy of the war (Oe Kenzaburo, Mizuki Shigeru), upending gender norms (Kono Taeko, Uchida Shungiku), unveiling less visible aspects of Japanese society (Nakagami Kenji, Yu Miri), or even forging new modes of representation (Murakami Haruki). Drawing on fiction, manga, and film, we embed texts in their historical and social contexts, listening for the "hum of the times." No Japanese required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One course on Japan, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Zimmerman
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The fiction of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has often been described as being closer to “American literature” than to the modern Japanese literary canon. His official website even names Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan as “influences.” In this course, we will test that assumption, holding Murakami’s work up against the mirror of Japanese short fictions from 1900-2022. Moving chronologically, we read broadly, covering half of Murakami’s major novels, as well as a dozen short fictional and non-fictional works. Given that Murakami’s work has been translated into 50 languages, we also explore how translation practices shape reception. From Japanese to Polish to Chinese, we explore the multiple worlds—and world-making practices-- of Haruki Murakami. We also study two films that are based on his work. Taught in English, no knowledge of Japanese is necessary.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: One literature course from English, Comparative Literature, EALC, or any language department. Permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Zimmerman
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: JPN 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course offers an overview of Italian Jewish culture and literature from the Middle Ages to the present. Students will read prose and poetry, essays and articles, as well as watch films that address issues such as religious and cultural identity, the right to difference, anti-Semitism and the Shoah. The course will also give students an overview of the formation and transformation of the Jewish community in Italian society. In addition to well-known Jewish Italian writers like Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani, students will read pertinent works by non-Jewish writers like Rosetta Loy and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 211
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines Jews’ roles in the development of the American mass media and popular culture, as well as representations of Jewishness in a range of media from the turn of the 20th century to the present. We will focus on print, recorded, and broadcast media—including magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, record albums, radio, film, and television—and study some of the crucial figures in the histories of these cultural forms, while considering how Jewishness has been packaged for and presented to American audiences. Cultural productions studied will include Abie the Agent, The Jazz Singer, The Goldbergs, MAD Magazine, Annie Hall, Seinfeld, the New Yorker, and This American Life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 233
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Lambert
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
The roles played by Jews in the development of modern American literature are complex and contradictory. Influential American authors expressed anti-Semitic views in their correspondence and work, and prejudice excluded Jews from many literary and cultural opportunities well into the 20th century. Nonetheless Jewish publishers, editors, critics, and writers were extraordinarily influential in the development of the field, founding leading publishing houses, supporting freedom of expression and movements like modernism and postmodernism, and writing some of the most influential and lasting works in the tradition. In this course, we will explore the ways Jews have been represented in American literature and their roles in modernizing and expanding the field. Fulfills the English Department’s Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 270
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Lambert
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
What was at stake in the production and consumption of literature in the age of television and nuclear proliferation? We will read and analyze U.S. fiction, drama, and poetry produced after 1945, a period during which minority voices, particularly (but not only) those of American Jews, became central in U.S. literary culture. We will explore the tension between literature as just another form of entertainment (or even a pretentious instrument of exclusion) and literature as a privileged site of social analysis, critique, and minority self-expression. Authors considered may include Chester Himes, Saul Bellow, Flannery O’Connor, Lorraine Hansberry, Tillie Olsen, Fran Ross, Thomas Pynchon, Raymond Carver, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, Susan Sontag, Alejandro Morales, Kathy Acker, Shelley Jackson, Tony Kushner, and Lan Samantha Chang. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 274
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Lambert
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What stories do U.S. video games tell us, and whose stories are they to tell? In this course, we will survey the history of narrative video games in the U.S., from the 1980s to the present, paying particular attention to how games represent gender, ethnicity, religion, and class. We will explore the way that games allow for identification across difference; the significant contributions of American Jewish game developers; and the prevalence of exoticism, cultural appropriation, and misogyny in the history of the medium. Games we will consider, in whole or in part, include Silas Warner’s Castle Wolfenstein (1981) and its many sequels, Jordan Mechner’s Karateka (1984) and The Prince of Persia (1989), Freedom! (1993), Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004), Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin’s The Walking Dead (2013), David Cage's Detroit: Become Human (2018); Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross’ The Last of Us, Part 2 (2020), Zak Garriss’ Life Is Strange: True Colors (2021), and Meredith Gran’s Perfect Tides (2022). We will consider game studies scholarship and criticism by Akil Fletcher, Jacob Geller, Cameron Kunzelman, Julian Lucas, Soraya Murray, Gene Park, Amanda Phillips, and Anita Sarkeesian, among others, and students will be expected to write several analytical or research essays. Fulfills the English Department’s Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 275
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Lambert
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels have throughout their history in the United States had a complex relationship with members of minority groups, who have often been represented in racist and dehumanizing ways. Meanwhile, though, American Jews played influential roles in the development of the medium, and African-American, Latinx, Asian-American, and LGBTQ artists have more recently found innovative ways to use this medium to tell their stories. In this course, we will survey the history of comics in the U.S., focusing on the problems and opportunities they present for the representation of racial, ethnic, and sexual difference. Comics we may read include Abie the Agent, Krazy Kat, Torchy Brown, Superman, and Love & Rockets, as well as Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Mira Jacob’s Good Talk.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 290,ENG 290
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Lambert
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the program.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: JWST 360 and permission of the program.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course is designed as a capstone experience for the Jewish Studies major. Each Jewish Studies major will meet with the Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the end of her junior year. Together they will develop a reading list and course of study designed to situate the student's prior coursework within the broader field of Jewish Studies. The Jewish Studies Director will then arrange for appropriate faculty to meet with students during the academic term to supervise their reading and facilitate weekly discussions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to Jewish Studies majors only.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introductory course on standard conversational Korean for students who have little or no knowledge of Korean. The course will provide basic skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing, with a focus on spoken language proficiency. The course will emphasize the development of communication skills in given situations and tasks, and provide an introduction to sociocultural interests and daily life in Korea. Four 75-minute classes with regular individual meetings.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: J. Song
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introductory course on standard conversational Korean for students who have little or no knowledge of Korean. The course will provide basic skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing, with a focus on spoken language proficiency. The course will emphasize the development of communication skills in given situations and tasks, and provide an introduction to sociocultural interests and daily life in Korea. Four 75-minute classes with regular individual meetings.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: KOR 101 or equivalent
Instructor: J. Song
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
A continuation of KOR 101-KOR 102. The first semester will emphasize further development of listening and speaking skills with more complex language structures as well as proficiency in reading and writing. The second semester will emphasize reading and writing skills. Four 75-minute classes with regular individual meetings.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: KOR 101- KOR 102 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Hwang
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A continuation of KOR 101-KOR 102. The first semester will emphasize further development of listening and speaking skills with more complex language structures as well as proficiency in reading and writing. The second semester will emphasize reading and writing skills. Four 75-minute classes with regular individual meetings.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: KOR 201, or placement by the department.
Instructor: Hwang
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students who are placed into KOR 202 must continue at the third-year level (KOR 231 or KOR 232) to complete the Foreign Language requirement.
This three-week-intensive study abroad course is designed to expand the students’ Korean language skills while further developing their sociocultural understanding of Korea by utilizing critical engagement and analytical thinking to communicate effectively with native speakers of Korean. In particular, the course will employ a variety of approaches and methods to develop intercultural and interactional competence at an intermediate level. Students will practice appropriate manners and language use based on the sociocultural awareness and interactional practices they learn in the course. Students will experience Korea through: (i) Language: intensive language training + collaborative work with an individual language buddy, (ii) Culture: hands-on cultural activities + excursions + projects, and (iii) Community: homestay + community service. The course takes a student-centered and project-based approach to language acquisition. Students will become aware of the structural, conceptual, social and cultural aspects associated with language use in both Korean and their own native language(s).
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: KOR 201 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: J. Song
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This third-year Korean course is designed for students to develop an advanced level of language proficiency by focusing on communication and discussion skills, and cross-cultural understanding, and critical and creative thinking ability. Students will improve their linguistic competence through student-led discussions, presentations, debates, and various individual projects. The integrated activities and applications are designed to expand advanced level vocabulary including formal expressions and Hanja, grammar, and cultural knowledge. Media resources and readings using TV drama, movies, broadcasted news and blogs will provide enriched information on contemporary Korean society and lifestyle.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: KOR 201-KOR 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: S. Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course is a continuation of KOR 231. More emphasis will be placed on enhancing students' reading and writing fluency. Students will read various authentic materials including newspaper articles, formal essays, short stories, and business letters. Class activities and assignments will help students learn how to write in formal and academic settings. These include writing analytical papers, critical reviews, resumes, job applications, business correspondence, etc. Under the guidance of the instructor each student will present and write a critical review as a final project. Through this course, students will be able to expand their linguistic capacity to an advanced level. The class will be conducted entirely in Korean.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: KOR 231 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hwang
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Postwar modernization and industrialization have brought dramatic changes in Korean society. In spite of remarkable economic growth and rapid social progress, Korean women still struggle with gender inequality. This course explores the relationship between language use and cultural views of womanhood in modern Korea, using phonetics, semantics, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics. By examining actual language use in myths, movies, ads, and popular culture, we explore how sociolinguistic factors shape gender dichotomies, notions of individual identity, and ethnicity. Substantial evidence of linguistic data will be used to clarify the connection between language and gender as we address the challenges faced by women of East Asia.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: S. Lee
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This advanced Korean language course explores the rich tapestry of modern Korean narratives, including webtoons, dramas, films, and literary stories. Designed to provide students with an immersive experience in Korean language and culture, the course aims to enhance language proficiency in reading, listening, and critical analysis through engagement with authentic materials and creative expressions. Students will engage in critical examination, discussion, and creative projects, focusing on the themes, narratives, and aesthetic innovations characteristic of both digital and traditional Korean storytelling forms. The course seeks to broaden students' understanding of contemporary Korean society and its cultural nuances, as well as the art of storytelling, thereby advancing their Korean language skills to a higher level of fluency. Through this comprehensive approach, students will not only improve their language proficiency but also gain a deep appreciation for the richness and cultural diversity inherent in Modern Korean Narratives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: KOR 232 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Sun-Hee Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course aims at achieving advanced level fluency in reading and writing Korean through the study of various texts and multimedia. Course "texts" include contemporary works of Korean literature, current newspaper articles, broadcast news, and clips of television shows and films. The course will develop sophisticated interpretive and presentational skills in formal contexts while enhancing the student's level of literary appreciation and intellectual analysis. The focus is on mastery of a wide range of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions, individual writing projects, classroom discussion, and presentations on assigned topics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: KOR 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: KOR 309 or permission of the department and instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: KOR 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
An introduction to the study of Latin America from multiple disciplinary perspectives. The course will expose students to contemporary topics in the region and methodologies of study. Topics will include the challenges of democracy and economic development, poverty and income inequality, the environment, popular and urban culture, Afro-descendent and indigenous identities, social movements, religion, U.S.-Latin American relations, and immigration. The course will feature guest lectures from faculty experts at the college.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years and Sophomores. Juniors and Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Contreras
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this problem-centered survey of the contemporary history of Latin America we will critique and go beyond the many stereotypes that have inhibited understandings between Anglo and Latin America, cultivating instead a healthy respect for complexity and contradiction. Over the course of the semester we will examine key themes in current history, including the dilemmas of uneven national development in dependent economies; the emergence of anti-imperialism and various forms of political and cultural nationalism; the richness and variety of revolution; ethnic, religious, feminist, literary, artistic, and social movements; the imposing social problems of the sprawling Latin American megalopolis; the political heterodoxies of leftism, populism, authoritarianism, and neoliberalism; the patterns of peace, violence, and the drug trade; the considerable U.S. influence in the region, and finally, transnational migration and globalization.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 20 7
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The Empire of the Indies or New World was part of the larger Spanish Empire, and comprised the American continent, the Philippine and the Mariana Islands in the Pacific. At the height of its power in the seventeenth century, the Spanish Empire was a global enterprise in which Portuguese, Aztec, Genoese, Chinese, Japanese, Flemish, Inka and Romans played essential roles in its daily functioning and constitution. This course traces the making and consolidation of the Empire of the Indies by examining the resources, peoples, and ideas that it contributed to Spain’s overwhelming power ca. 1500s-1780s. It interrogates evolving meanings and understandings of empire, colonialism, and modernity, and the cultural transformations of native populations and Europeans in historic and geographical context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 211
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Osorio
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
One of the most unique aspects of Cuba is its incredible diversity as a result of a long history of encounters between Europe, Africa and Asia. The hybrid nature of Cuban identity can be manifested through a number of forms, such as art, music, literature and religion. As Cuba begins a new phase in history, a comprehensive understanding of its cultural heritage is more pressing than ever. Rather than focus on political issues, this course will use on-site visits to explore different experiences of cultural intersections or syncretism (known as “transculturation”) on the island. A strong command of Spanish is required as the bulk of the course will be taught in the target language in order to better understand Cuban history and culture. Some of the student activities include preliminary readings, lectures, videos, interviews, and a travel log.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Knowledge of Spanish at the level of one course beyond SPAN 241/SPAN 242 (or 5th semester) is required.
Instructor: Hagimoto
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes: This is a travel course, not offered every year (subject to approval by Provost's Office). Class will meet on campus prior to departure.
The course is a survey of economic development in Latin America, with an emphasis on public policies aimed at reducing poverty and inequality. How can we define and measure development? How did Latin American governments pursue development over the 20th century and into the 21st? How does contemporary social and education policy contribute to the reduction of poverty and inequality? The course introduces students to policy evaluation, with a focus on understanding and writing about field experiments in Latin America.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 241
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P.
Instructor: McEwan
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course explores contemporary issues in Latin America from an anthropological perspective. We will discuss legacies of colonialism and Cold War power struggles, as well as the central role social movements are playing in crafting Latin American futures. We will trace the ways the region is enmeshed in transnational processes and migrations and analyze the intersection of culture, race, gender, and class in shaping urban centers, rural hinterlands, and livelihood strategies within them. In particular, we will discuss how ethnographic research – the long-term fieldwork conducted by anthropologists – can enrich our understanding of hotly debated issues such as statecraft, borders, and shifting meanings of citizenship; in/security, human rights, and democratization; and, illicit economies, extractive industries, and critical approaches to development.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 245
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Ellison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Two units of course work in Latin American studies.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Two units of course work in Latin American studies.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to Latin American Studies and Spanish majors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to Latin American Studies and Spanish majors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department. See Academic Distinctions.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: LAST 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Art and anthropology museums tell stories about the past and its relevance to the present, but what stories they tell, who gets to tell them, and which objects should—or should not—be considered are not always self-evident. In this writing-intensive seminar, you will learn how texts—wall labels, press releases, exhibition reviews—engage audiences within and beyond the museum’s walls. The course consists of writing assignments related to artworks made in the Americas before Independence, from the ancient Maya to colonial Peru, many on exhibit at the Davis Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Through these case studies, we will learn how to convert visual images and academic arguments into appealing, jargon-free prose. In keeping with the structure of the Calderwood seminar, weekly deadlines in this class are firm so as to allow classmates time to reflect on such arguments and comment on each other’s ideas. Take on the role of museum curator and learn how texts help us navigate controversies over the acquisition, provenance, and display of artworks from distant cultures and places.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 378
Prerequisites: At least two 100- or 200-level courses in Art History or Anthropology.
Instructor: Oles
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In a single year that assumes you have not studied Latin before, Latin 101 and 102 will teach you how to read major Latin works in their original language, substantially increase your English vocabulary (thousands of English words come ultimately from Latin), improve your writing skills in English, enhance your command of English grammar, and either build on your knowledge of Spanish, French, or Italian if you’ve already studied one of them or help you learn them if you haven’t (they are called “Romance” languages because they come from Latin, the language of the Romans). You’ll learn how to pronounce Latin out loud so you know how it sounds and you’ll acquire a reading knowledge, but we will not converse in Latin. Latin 101 covers roughly half of the year’s material, and by the end of the semester you’ll be able to read simple stories.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to students who do not present Latin for admission or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Starr
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Latin 102 builds on what you learned in Latin 101 in the fall (see the description of Latin 101 for details) and covers the rest of Latin. In the last month or so, we’ll turn from the textbook to reading actual ancient and medieval Latin texts, such as love poems, letters, and myths. Steady review throughout the term will reinforce what you learned in the fall at the same time you’re learning new material. A single year can take you from knowing no Latin at all to being able to read texts that shaped the western literary, philosophical, and political traditions. Studying Latin will also strengthen your English vocabulary, improve your command of English grammar, and enhance your writing skills.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 42
Prerequisites: LAT 101
Instructor: Freas
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In conjunction with a thorough review of Latin grammar, we will make the transition to Latin literature and Roman culture. Selections in Latin may include Catullus (poetry), Ovid and the other love elegists, the emperor Augustus' The Deeds of the Divine Augustus, Perpetua (one of the earliest known women Latin authors) and the anonymous novella, The Story of Apollonius King of Tyre. Topics to be studied might include social status and identity (What defined you? Might your status/identity change, whether for better or worse?); Rome's relation to Greece, which Rome conquered but which long dominated Roman culture; or the nature and function of literature in Roman life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: LAT 102 or Wellesley's placement questionnaire and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Freas
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Vergil wrote his epic poem the Aeneid as the origin story for Rome, as Aeneas escapes the fall of Troy and eventually reaches Italy, where he establishes what will lead to Rome. Vergil wrote this foundational story of Rome at a time of political upheaval and new beginnings, at the start of the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, who won the civil wars that ended the Roman Republic. The epic responds to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, but also to Augustus and his new vision of Rome. We'll study the Aeneid as what became the Roman national epic and as an exploration of Roman values and what it meant to be Roman. Class sessions will focus on understanding both the Latin and broader questions of duty, love, patriotism, and responsibility though discussion, writing, recitation, Roman coins from Wellesley's collections, and even drawing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: LAT 201 (formerly LAT 200) or Wellesley's placement questionnaire and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Starr
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Romans read Latin as quickly and with as much pleasure as we read English. They looked forward to a new book just as eagerly as we might pre-order a new novel by our favorite novelist. In this non-traditional Latin course you will read a variety of authors (many chosen by the class members), and you will learn to read Latin more like a Roman. Double or triple your reading speed, improve your comprehension, appreciate the language more richly, and simply enjoy it more. This course focuses not on reviewing grammar and forms but on learning concrete, practical reading techniques that go far beyond just looking up every word online or hunting for a verb. The specific interests of the members of the class will help determine what we’ll read, which might include some famous classics but also little-known but fascinating works like Perpetua’s autobiographical account of her own martyrdom (recently transformed into a graphic novel), Sallust’s portrait of scandals, Egeria’s record of her pilgrimmage, the wild adventure/romance novel Apollonius, King of Tyre, or medieval Latin texts. Homework assignments, some of them analogous to problem sets or labs, will help you develop specific reading techniques.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: LAT 202 or a 300-level Latin course, or Wellesley's placement exam and permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How can we read Roman poetry the way a Roman would have read it, knowing what to expect in a poem and a poetry book? An exploration of features common to many Roman poems and books of poetry, with focused attention to the dramatic nature of Roman poetry (speaker, addressee, scene, monologue, dialogue), diction and poetic language, simile and metaphor, point of view, intertextuality (the relationship of one poem to another), ekphrasis, genre and generic composition (e.g., the song before the lover's closed door, the drinking song, the letter), the structure of a poetry book (opening poem, sphragis-or closing-poem, internal balancing), and the resonances of the various popular meters. Readings from major Latin poems in Latin and from various Roman works in translation; focused exercises to build the skills necessary for reading Latin poetry. Course includes hands-on sessions for learning to make papyrus sheets and ancient ink and to practice writing on papyrus with tools like those used in the ancient world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: LAT 202 (or equivalent) or a 300-level Latin course or Wellesley's placement questionnaire and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Starr
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this course, we will study three literary genres—Roman comedy, historiography, and elegy—each with its own characteristic view of women, from comedy’s scolding wives and young lovers, to history’s villains and heroines, to elegy’s mistresses. Taking into account authorial perspective, context, language, and style, we will identify how male authors in different genres construct woman as the imagined “other” in society. From Plautus to Ovid, we examine the ways a literary genre reflects cultural perceptions of women and gender in Roman society from Republic to Empire.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: LAT 202 (or equivalent) - or a 300-level Latin course, or Wellesley's placement exam and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Latin literature flourished in the Imperial period, even though it is referred to as "Silver" instead of "Golden" Latin Literature. We'll explore various authors and genres, including such authors as Seneca (philosophy and drama), Lucan (epic), Tacitus (history), Pliny (letters), Juvenal (satire), and Martial (epigrams). We'll also examine the impact of rhetoric on the writing of Latin prose and poetry.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: LAT 202 (or equivalent) or a 300-level Latin course or Wellesley's placement questionnaire and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Freas
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Romans based their history in myth and made their history into myths. This course includes reading from major authors such as Livy, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Propertius, and Tacitus, focusing on historical myths such as Romulus and Remus, the Rape of the Sabine Women, Tarquinius Superbus, and Hercules and Cacus. We will then examine how later Romans reworked those myths to serve current political purposes and how they transformed historical events into powerful myths.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: LAT 202 (or equivalent) or a 300-level Latin course or Wellesley's placement questionnaire or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Starr
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Petronius' Satyricon and Apuleius' The Golden Ass are two novels from ancient Rome, filled with characters from all walks of life, from aristocrats to professors to poets to former slaves to robbers to ghosts and werewolves and even a human in a donkey's body who returns to his original form and becomes a priest of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Their wild and sometimes preposterous plots range from magic spells and love triangles to an outlandish dinner party to the tale of Cupid and Psyche, the ancestor of the Beauty and the Beast. We'll look at the novel as a literary genre and its relationship to satire, epic, and comedy; its potential audiences in the ancient world; the language of the characters; the real life behind the narratives; and the reception of the Roman novel in modern literature and film, such as Fellini Satyricon.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: LAT 202 (or equivalent) or a 300-level Latin course, or Wellesley's Latin placement questionnaire.
Instructor: Freas
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Ovid is among the most notorious and playful Roman poets, a figure who enjoyed literary success at a young age only to be later exiled by the emperor Augustus before finishing his epic poem The Metamorphoses. In this advanced Latin course, students will study Ovid in his cultural and literary context by reading selections from his works such as the Ars Amatoria, Amores, Met., and Fasti. Students will also learn about the metric conventions and stylistic features of Ovid's poetry. Possible course themes may include gender and sexuality, Roman and Greek myth, or Ovid’s Rome.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: LAT 202 (or equivalent) or a 300-level Latin course, or Wellesley's placement questionnaire and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Freas
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester. Does not count toward the minimum major in Classics or Classical Civilization.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: LAT 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. Does not count toward the minimum major in Classics or Classical Civilization.
Designed to familiarize students with some of the essential concepts of linguistic analysis. Suitable problem sets in English and in other languages will provide opportunities to study the basic systems of language organization-phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Additional topics include introductions to language organization in the brain, child language acquisition, language change, and language in society.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: S. Fisher, Y. Kim
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This seminar explores linguistic tapestry of East Asia, focusing on the distinct features, structures, and variations that characterize Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Through lively discussions and hands-on projects, we will examine the unique linguistic and cultural heritages of these languages. From their intricate writing systems and complex grammar to the diverse range of sociolinguistic patterns and dialects, we will uncover the layers that make each language unique. Central to our exploration will be the role of Confucian ideology, the vibrant influence of pop culture, and the transformative impact of AI technology on communication. Through this exploration, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of how language profoundly influences and mirrors the rich diversity of life and thought in East Asia.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: LING 123Y
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Sun-Hee Lee
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
The application of linguistics to the analysis of sociocultural variation in language. We will examine the way information about age, gender, social class, region, and ethnicity is conveyed by variations in the structural and semantic organization of language. We will also examine language attitude and language planning in multilingual societies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: LING 114 or CLSC 216/PSYC 216, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: S. Fisher
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
What are all the possible linguistically relevant sounds of the human vocal tract? How does each language organize a subset of those sounds into a coherent system? Examination of the sounds of language from the perspective of phonetics and of phonology. Each student will choose a foreign language for intensive study of its phonetic, phonologic, and prosodic characteristics. Includes extensive use of speech analysis and phonetics software.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: LING 114 or CLSC 216/PSYC 216, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Carpenter
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will consider some basic questions about language: What do we actually know when we know a language? How is the structure of language best described? Are there properties which all languages share, and what do those properties tell us about language itself? We will look at specific problems in morphology, syntax, and semantics, and the strengths and weaknesses of different linguistic theories will be considered. While many of the problems considered in this class will involve English, we will also be looking at other languages, both European and non-European.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: LING 114.
Instructor: S. Fisher
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Advances in computer technology have revolutionized the ways linguists can approach their data. By accessing large digital bodies of text (corpora) and searching for phenomena of interest, we can uncover complexities in naturally-occurring data and explore broader issues utilizing linguistic patterns and frequency information. This course presents a practical introduction to corpus linguistics, an extremely versatile methodology of language analysis using computers.
Some of the fundamental questions to explore include; what is a corpus, and what corpora exist? How are corpora constructed and linguistic annotation added? What tools are available for search, annotation, and analysis? Students will also learn how corpora are used in diverse areas such as sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, child language acquisition, and language change as well as language learning and teaching and develop their own research ideas. Students who register for KOR 246 will be expected to do their coursework using Korean language texts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: KOR 246
Prerequisites: LING 114 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Sun-Hee Lee
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An examination of all forms of language change, including sound change, analogical change, semantic and lexical change, and syntactic change. Students will learn and apply the techniques of the comparative method in order to reconstruct earlier stages of various languages and to understand how linguists determine the genetic relationships among languages. Several theories of linguistic change will be explored. Students will also be introduced to the history of the discipline of linguistics, which largely began with the development of the techniques for historical reconstruction.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: LING 114 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Carpenter
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Exploration of the relationship of language to mind and culture through the study of bilingualism. The bilingual individual will be the focus for questions concerning language and mind: The detection of "foreign" accent, the relationship of words to concepts, the organization of the mental lexicon, language specialization of the brain, and the effects of early bilingualism on cognitive functioning. The bilingual nation will be the focus for questions dealing with language and culture: societal conventions governing use of one language over another, effects of extended bilingualism on language development and change, and political and educational impact of a government's establishing official bilingualism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken a related 200-level course in linguistics, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: A. Carpenter
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Over the centuries, invented, or artificial, languages have been devised for many reasons, including a desire to improve existing languages, an effort to unite the world, or a need to explore how languages are learned. The vast majority have failed, but why? Is there a place for invented language? What do invented languages teach us about natural language? We will look at invented languages from a variety of points of view: linguistic, historical, philosophical, psychological, and sociological. We will explore the linguistic underpinnings of various languages, from seventeenth century Real Character to Na'vi, with a look at a successful "reinvented" language, Modern Hebrew. Students will design their own miniature artificial language.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken LING 114 or CLSC/PSYC 216 and a related 200-level course in linguistics, psychology, anthropology, or philosophy, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Y. Kim
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
For thousands of years, humans communicated via the ephemeral spoken word, and then writing was invented. How has the advent of writing affected us, both as individuals and members of cultural groups? To answer this question, we will explore the cognitive, linguistic, and cultural implications of spoken and written forms of communication. We start with an overview of the field of orality and literacy studies, followed by an examination of theories of the origin of human language and the history of the development of writing. We then move to an analysis of how the brain processes the spoken and written word and how these modes of communication affect memory and reasoning. From a cultural perspective, we examine the ways in which certain ancient and current societies differ as a function of their use of oral versus written forms of communication.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Notes:
This course will examine the history, linguistic structure, and sociocultural patterns of use of English as spoken by African Americans in the United States. We will focus on the phonology and morphosyntax that is considered unique to AAE, and discuss lexical and discursive features as well. We will cover the major debates that continue to rage within AAE scholarship, including the debates surrounding its origins and its use in education. Additional topics include AAE and hip hop, appropriation, and crossing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: AFR 338
Prerequisites: Either LING 114 or CLSC 216/PSYC 216 and related coursework at the 200 level or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: S. Fisher
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we work, interact, and make decisions. AI is integrated into applications and devices that are woven into our daily lives. How does AI work? What impact will AI have on individuals, communities, and our global society?
This course aims to provide students with the knowledge and skills to become informed digital citizens in the age of AI, ready to navigate the digital landscape. Students will gain fundamental technical understanding of how computers, the Web, and AI work, and will study three programming languages: HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. Students will also examine and discuss societal and ethical issues related to the Web and AI technologies, and consider responsible and future use of these technologies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 40
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 110
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. No prior background with computers is expected.
Instructor: Shaer
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
CS 110L/MAS 110L is a required co-requisite lab for CS 110/MAS 110.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 13
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 110L
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. No prior background with computers is expected.
Instructor: Melnick
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Video games are a popular form of interactive media that engage players in dynamic experiences through unprecedented combinations of storytelling, visualization, interactivity, and multi-sensory immersion. This course will introduce students to video game production and concepts. We will develop a framework for critically analyzing this medium, learn to identify effective strategies for creating games and describe what elements of design impact the final experience of a game. We’ll also identify the function of user agency in this medium to better understand how players are affected by representation in video games. Throughout the course, students will be asked to apply these concepts while building their own games and become familiar with the fundamentals of video game design.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 121
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years and Sophomores. Juniors and Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Tynes
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
An intermediate studio course addressing a range of contemporary drawing methods, with considerable attention put towards color, graphic sequencing and pictorial space. Project work integrates print and digital design tools with sustained freehand drawing in wet and dry media. Weekly drawing assignments, readings, and studio discussions consider the graphic conventions of reproducible media, such as the hatched mark, halftone screen, and color separation layer. Building on fundamental concepts introduced at the 100 level, this course helps students strengthen and expand their personal drawing practice and connect it to a wider range of creative disciplines and topics. Following a series of coordinated drawing projects, each student assembles a final portfolio and presents an independent final project.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 20 5
Prerequisites: At least one 100-level ARTS course taken at Wellesley.
Instructor: McGibbon
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is repeatable one time for additional credit.
Digital games visualize compelling worlds that can resemble real-life environments and imagine other-worldly spaces. These virtual realms frame our experience of games and their design dramatically impacts our interpretation of their narratives and mechanics. Designers code environments to shape player agency and weave complex relationships between game characters. This course will teach students to create digital worlds and critically assess them as politically rich spaces that convey meaning. Students will build both 2D and 3D digital environments, coding elements such as interactivity and non-player entities, crafting game experiences that tell meaningful stories. CS221 continues to explore the Unity Game Engine and topics introduced by CS121, but enrollment is suitable for any student with 100-level coding experience and an interest in game design.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 221
Prerequisites: Any 100-level CS course.
Instructor: Tynes
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In the past decade, historians of art have increasingly turned to network analysis as a tool to investigate the production and reception of visual and material culture. Combining analytical readings with hands-on tutorials, this course introduces students to the conceptual and technical frameworks of network analysis as they apply to artifacts, works of art, and popular visual culture, as well as the people who made and experienced these images, objects, and monuments. Students will learn to model and analyze networks through the lens of art historical and material culture case studies. Topics may include social networks, geospatial networks, similarity networks, and dynamic networks. Case studies will range from arts of the Ancient Americas to manuscript workshops in Mughal India and Medieval France.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 222
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How can the complexities of Cultural Heritage be captured in digital form? Can advanced media visualizations, such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, give new insights on diverse global cultures? Can public dissemination of research using gamification positively impact our lives in the present? What ethical responsibilities do scholars have when digitizing material from ancient and contemporary communities? How can we ensure that our digital cultural achievements last as long as pyramids built in stone? This course will pair readings on the theory, practice, and ethics of visual and public digital humanities cultural heritage projects. Online archival resources for cultural heritage are at the forefront of developing public digital humanities. The digital archive resources used in class will be used to critique current trends in digital data capture and open access resources. The final project will be the creation of a new digital cultural heritage resource, presenting content created by students through a digital platform: an interactive archive, augmented or virtual reality, location-based games, or a combination thereof. Students will be offered a choice of visual and textual cultural heritage archive data from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, UC Berkeley Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and the National Museum of Sudan, or can identify their own open-access cultural heritage archival source of interest.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 246
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Norton
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
How can we use “Art” to make lemonade life’s proverbial lemons into lemonade? Where do imagination, social justice, and personal expression intersect? What can we invent to transform our lives and those around us? And how can we bring those inventions to fruition when the physics and facts of life test our tenacity at every turn? Using skills from multiple-disciplines we will study/read/view trajectories of invention, test and practice cognitive strategies for overcoming own innate neuro-biological hurdles, and strive to create solutions using our collective powers. Drawing, painting, and writing exercises will strengthen observational muscles, both internal and external; divergent thinking exercises will help with ideation. Each student will produce a tangible or conceptual invention that addresses one of their deepest concerns, be it personal, political, or hybrid. The invention may be delivered as a proposal/blueprint for production; it may be the object itself. The group will collectively decide on parameters for deliverables.
Requirements: Sense of humor, compassion, and an open mind.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Lapp
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Students with a deep personal interest in digital game design and other forms of playable media will work in collaborative units to explore all aspects of the game development process while contributing to a semester-length project of their own devising. This course will require students to explore an ethical approach to game development that will introduce new practices for ideation, pitching, designing, playtesting, and versioning through an iterative process that will result in a finished game. This course is specifically designed for students who have moderate experience with game development through either curricular activities or by working on projects of their own. Students will be expected to have moderate levels of experience with the Unity Game Engine.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 365
Prerequisites: One of the following - CS 321, CS 221/MAS 221, CS 220, CS 320, or (CS 121/MAS 121 and CS 230), or permission of the instructor (portfolio must be able to demonstrate some previous experience with game development).
Instructor: Tynes
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course may be used to fulfill the capstone requirement for the MAS major.
Students with deep interest in interactive media will drive cutting-edge research that shapes and examines novel user experiences with technology. Students will work in small groups to identify a direction of research, explore and iterate over designs, prototype at varying fidelities, build working systems, consider ethical implications, conduct evaluative studies, and report findings. This course is designed for students who have experience in designing and implementing interactive media through either curricular activities or by working on projects. Students will be expected to have moderate levels of experience with front-end web development.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 366
Prerequisites: One of the following - CS204, CS220, CS320 or CS323.
Instructor: Shaer
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course may be used to fulfill the capstone requirement for the MAS major.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 35
Prerequisites: MAS 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Introduction to differential and integral calculus for functions of one variable. The heart of calculus is the study of rates of change. Differential calculus concerns the process of finding the rate at which a quantity is changing (the derivative). Integral calculus reverses this process. Information is given about the derivative, and the process of integration finds the "integral," which measures accumulated change. This course aims to develop a thorough understanding of the concepts of differentiation and integration, and covers techniques and applications of differentiation and integration of algebraic, trigonometric, logarithmic, and exponential functions. MATH 115 is an introductory course designed for students who have not seen calculus before.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Not open to students who have completed MATH 116, MATH 120, MATH 205 or the equivalent. Not open to students whose placement is MATH 205 or MATH 206.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Introduction to differential and integral calculus for functions of one variable. The heart of calculus is the study of rates of change. Differential calculus concerns the process of finding the rate at which a quantity is changing (the derivative). Integral calculus reverses this process. Information is given about the derivative, and the process of integration finds the "integral," which measures accumulated change. This course aims to develop a thorough understanding of the concepts of differentiation and integration, and covers techniques and applications of differentiation and integration of algebraic, trigonometric, logarithmic, and exponential functions. In addition to the material from Math 115, this course spends additional time strengthening students' precalculus skills, covering topics such as proportions and percents, linear and exponential growth, and logarithms. MATH 115P is an introductory course designed for students who have not seen calculus before and who would benefit from extra academic support on precalculus topics.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Diesl
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This class will offer a treatment of first-semester calculus aimed at students interested in the biological and social sciences. The course material is motivated by real-life problems in laboratory and data-driven studies. Students will be expected to work in groups both in and out of class, give presentations at the chalkboard, and submit work in both problem set and project formats. Topics include: functions, limits, continuity, differentiation and an introduction to integration.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Not open to students who have completed MATH 116, MATH 120, MATH 205 or the equivalent. Not open to students whose placement is MATH 205 or MATH 206.
Instructor: Diesl
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The course begins with applications and techniques of integration. It probes notions of limit and convergence and adds techniques for finding limits. Half of the course covers infinite sequences and series, where the basic question is, What meaning can we attach to a sum with infinitely many terms and why might we care? The course can help students improve their ability to reason abstractly and also teaches important computational techniques. Topics include integration techniques, l'Hôpital's rule, improper integrals, geometric and other applications of integration, infinite series, power series, and Taylor series. MATH 116 is the appropriate first course for many students who have had AB calculus in high school.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 115 or Math 115Z, or the equivalent. Not open to students who have completed MATH 120 or MATH 205. Not open to students whose math placement is MATH 206.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course is a variant of MATH 116 for students who have a thorough knowledge of the techniques of differentiation and integration, and familiarity with inverse trigonometric functions and the logarithmic and exponential functions. It includes a rigorous and careful treatment of limits, sequences and series, Taylor's theorem, approximations and numerical methods, Riemann sums, improper integrals, l'Hôpital's rule, and applications of integration.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Open by permission of the department to students who have completed a year of high school calculus. Students who have studied Taylor series should elect MATH 205. Not open to students who have completed MATH 116, MATH 205 or the equivalent.
Instructor: Yacoubou Djima
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is a first-year seminar for students in the Wellesley Plus program. It will introduce students to important basic mathematical concepts as set theory, proof techniques, propositional and predicate calculus, graph theory, combinatorics, probability, and recursion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: S. Chang
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This seminar surveys the work of Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), one of the most influential and prolific mathematicians of all time. It is geared toward students who would like a broad overview of what advanced mathematics (beyond calculus) is about, and how it got that way. Topics are drawn from a wide range of areas in pure and applied mathematics, such as algebra, number theory, analysis, and geometry. Highlights include the Basel problem, complex exponentials, the calculus of variations, the Euler line, and the bridges of Königsberg. The seminar is discussion-based: students retrace Euler's steps by making definitions, proposing conjectures, generating examples, and crafting and critiquing proofs, ever attentive to the balance between intuitive ingenuity and rigorous argument.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is intended for students who are interested in mathematics and its applications in economics and finance. The following topics will be covered: mathematical models in economics, market equilibrium, first and second order recurrences, the cobweb model, profit maximization, derivatives in economics, elements of finance, constrained optimization, Lagrangians and the consumer, microeconomic applications, business cycles, European and American options, call and put options, Black-Scholes analysis.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 116 or the equivalent.
Instructor: Bu
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Most real-world systems that one may want to model, whether in the natural or in the social sciences, have many interdependent parameters. To apply calculus to these systems, we need to extend the ideas and techniques of single-variable Calculus to functions of more than one variable. Topics include vectors, matrices, determinants, polar, cylindrical, and spherical coordinates, curves, partial derivatives, gradients and directional derivatives, Lagrange multipliers, multiple integrals, vector calculus: line integrals, surface integrals, divergence, curl, Green's Theorem, Divergence Theorem, and Stokes’ Theorem.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 116 or MATH 120, or the equivalent.
Instructor: Diesl, Kerr, Hirschhorn (Fall); Kerr, Schultz (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Linear algebra is one of the most beautiful subjects in the undergraduate mathematics curriculum. It is also one of the most important with many possible applications. In this course, students learn computational techniques that have widespread applications in the natural and social sciences as well as in industry, finance, and management. There is also a focus on learning how to understand and write mathematical proofs and an emphasis on improving mathematical style and sophistication. Topics include vector spaces, subspaces, linear independence, bases, dimension, inner products, linear transformations, matrix representations, range and null spaces, inverses, and eigenvalues.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 205 or MATH 215; or, with permission of the instructor, MATH 116, MATH 120, or the equivalent.
Instructor: S. Chang, Lauer (Fall); Trenk, Yacoubou Djima (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
What can we know about the shape of the universe? When is a molecule left- or right-handed and what does that mean? How can an inhabitant of a one- or two- or three-dimensional universe figure out the shape (geometry and topology) of their universe? This course provides an elementary introduction to mathematical topology (sometimes described as rubber-sheet geometry), and the tools to address questions such as these. In this context, the notions of knot invariants and geodesics (shortest paths) arise, and students learn how to use these tools to classify knots, and to classify all closed surfaces. Applications of topology and geometry to chemistry and molecular biology will be discussed.
Students will learn about fundamental topological and geometric ideas and develop their visual intuition, which can provide a valuable framework for MATH 302 and MATH 307.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 116 or the equivalent. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Kerr
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is designed to examine the degree to which a function can be determined by an algebraic relationship it has with its derivative(s) --- a so-called ordinary differential equation (ODE). For instance, can one completely catalog all functions which equal their own derivative? In service of developing techniques for solving certain classes of differential equations, some fundamental notions from linear algebra and complex numbers are presented. Differential equation topics include modeling with and solving first- and second-order ODEs, separable ODEs, and a discussion of higher order and non-linear ODEs; linear algebra topics include solving systems via elementary row operations, bases, dimension, determinants, column space, and eigenvalues/vectors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 116 or MATH 120, or the equivalent.
Instructor: H. Wang (Fall); Fernandez, Yacoubou Djima (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Number theory is the study of the most basic mathematical objects: the natural numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.). It begins by investigating simple patterns: for instance, which numbers can be written as sums of two squares? Do the primes go on forever? How can we be sure? The patterns and structures that emerge from studying the properties of numbers are so elegant, complex, and important that number theory has been called "the Queen of Mathematics." Once studied only for its intrinsic beauty, number theory has practical applications in cryptography and computer science. Topics include the Euclidean algorithm, modular arithmetic, Fermat's and Euler's Theorems, public-key cryptography, quadratic reciprocity. MATH 223 has a focus on learning to understand and write mathematical proofs; it can serve as valuable preparation for MATH 305.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: One of the following - MATH 116, MATH 120, or CS 230 with permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Trenk
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Number theory is the study of the most basic mathematical objects: the natural numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.). It begins by investigating simple patterns: for instance, which numbers can be written as sums of two squares? Do the primes go on forever? How can we be sure? The patterns and structures that emerge from studying the properties of numbers are so elegant, complex, and important that number theory has been called "the Queen of Mathematics." Once studied only for its intrinsic beauty, number theory has practical applications in cryptography and computer science. Topics include the Euclidean algorithm, modular arithmetic, Fermat's and Euler's Theorems, public-key cryptography, quadratic reciprocity. MATH 223 has a focus on learning to understand and write mathematical proofs; it can serve as valuable preparation for MATH 305.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Lange
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Combinatorics is the art of counting possibilities: for instance, how many different ways are there to distribute 20 apples to 10 kids? Graph theory is the study of connected networks of objects. Both have important applications to many areas of mathematics and computer science. The course will be taught emphasizing creative problem-solving as well as methods of proof, such as proof by contradiction and induction. Topics include: selections and arrangements, generating functions, recurrence relations, graph coloring, Hamiltonian and Eulerian circuits, and trees.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 116 or MATH 120, or the equivalent; or CS 230 together with permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Schultz, Trenk (Fall ), C. Chan, Hirschhorn (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Real analysis is the study of the rigorous theory of the real numbers, Euclidean space, and calculus. The goal is to thoroughly understand the familiar concepts of continuity, limits, and sequences. Topics include compactness, completeness, and connectedness; continuous functions; differentiation and integration; limits and sequences; and interchange of limit operations as time permits.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 205 and MATH 206.
Instructor: H. Wang (Fall), S. Chang (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Topic for 2023-2024: PDEs and Geometric Analysis
This course is an introduction to Geometric Analysis through the study of partial differential equations (PDEs). The focus is on studying the properties of solutions. Topics covered include: the Laplace and Heat equation, maximum principles, gradient flows, and the role of non-smoothness in PDEs. In the second half of the course we study geometric PDEs such as the minimal surface equation and curve shortening flow in the plane.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 302.
Instructor: S. Chang
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
In this course, students examine the structural similarities between familiar mathematical objects such as number systems, matrix sets, function spaces, general vector spaces, and mod n arithmetic. Topics include groups, rings, fields, homomorphisms, normal subgroups, quotient spaces, isomorphism theorems, divisibility, and factorization. Many concepts generalize number theoretic notions such as Fermat's little theorem and the Euclidean algorithm. Optional subjects include group actions and applications to combinatorics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 206
Instructor: Schultz (Fall), Lange (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Topic for Spring 24: Galois Theory
Topic for Spring 24: Galois Theory
This course offers a continued study of the algebraic structures introduced in MATH 305, culminating in the Fundamental Theorem of Galois Theory, a beautiful result that depicts the circle of ideas surrounding field extensions, polynomial rings, and automorphism groups. Applications of Galois theory include the unsolvability of the quintic by radicals and geometric impossibility proofs, such as the trisection of angles and duplication of cubes. Cyclotomic extensions and Sylow theory may be included in the syllabus.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 305
Instructor: Diesl
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
This course covers some basic notions of point-set topology, such as topological spaces, metric spaces, connectedness and compactness, Heine-Borel Theorem, quotient spaces, topological groups, groups acting on spaces, homotopy equivalences, separation axioms, Euler characteristic, and classification of surfaces. Additional topics include the study of the fundamental group (time permitting).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 302. Co-requisite - MATH 305.
Instructor: Hirschhorn
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will introduce students to aspects of set theory and formal logic. The notion of set is one of the fundamental notions of modern mathematics. In fact, other mathematical notions, such as function, relation, number, etc., can be represented in terms of purely set theoretical notions, and their basic properties can be proved using purely set theoretic axioms. The course will include the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms for set theory, the Axiom of Choice, transfinite arithmetic, ordinal numbers, and cardinal numbers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 302 or MATH 305.
Instructor: S. Chang
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Complex analysis is the study of the differential and integral calculus of functions of a complex variable. Complex functions have a rich and tightly constrained structure: for example, in contrast with real functions, a complex function that has one derivative has derivatives of all orders and even a convergent power series. This course develops the theory of complex functions, leading up to Cauchy's theorem and its consequences, including the theory of residues. While the primary viewpoint is calculus, many of the essential insights come from geometry and topology, and can be used to prove results such as the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 302
Instructor: Fernandez
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Differential geometry has two aspects. Classical differential geometry, which shares origins with the beginnings of calculus, is the study of local properties of curves and surfaces. Local properties are those properties which depend only on the behavior of the curve or the surface in a neighborhood of a point. The other aspect is global differential geometry: here we see how these local properties influence the behavior of the entire curve or surface. The main idea is that of curvature. What is curvature? It can be intrinsic or extrinsic. What's the difference? What does it mean to have greater or smaller (or positive or negative) curvature? We will answer these questions for surfaces in three-space, as well as for abstract manifolds. Topics include curvature of curves and surfaces, first and second fundamental forms, equations of Gauss and Codazzi, the fundamental theorem of surfaces, geodesics, and surfaces of constant curvature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 302.
Instructor: Tannenhauser
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course examines the number 𝝅 from various points of view in pure and applied mathematics. Topics may include: (1) Geometry: Archimedes’ estimates; volume and surface area of spheres in arbitrary dimensions; Buffon’s needle (and noodle); Galperin’s colliding balls; the isoperimetric inequality; triangles in spherical and hyperbolic geometry; Descartes’s theorem on total angular defect (discrete Gauss-Bonnet). (2) Digit hunting: Viète’s infinite product; Wallis’s product and related ideas (the Gaussian integral and its multidimensional extension, saddle point approximation, Stirling’s approximation); the Leibniz-Gregory formula and Machin-type formulae; spigot algorithms and the Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe formula; elliptic integrals, the arithmetic-geometric mean, and the Brent-Salamin algorithm. (3) Analysis: complex exponentials; Fourier series; the Riemann zeta function, dilogarithms, Bernoulli numbers, and applications to number theory (means of arithmetic functions). (4) Algebra: the irrationality and transcendence of e and 𝝅.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: MATH 302 or MATH 305; open to students with advanced background in physics, computer science, or related fields with permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Tannenhauser
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Geometry is concerned with the properties of rigid shapes (either planar, or in higher dimensions). When confronted with a geometric question (e.g. computing a tangent line to a curve), one often thinks first of using the tools of calculus. However, this is not the only option. Many of the most common geometric objects (e.g. lines, circles, etc.) can be defined by polynomial equations, and can therefore be studied using algebra. In this course, we will explore this connection. Specifically, we will see how one can associate a certain ring to such a geometric object, and how questions about geometry can then be translated into questions about the algebra of this ring. This course will expand upon the material learned in Math 305, with a view toward such connections to geometry. Both computational and theoretical topics will be addressed.
Students can NOT satisfy the presentation requirement in this course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 305.
Instructor: Diesl
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Linear algebra at this more advanced level is a basic tool in many areas of mathematics and other fields. The course begins by revisiting some linear algebra concepts from MATH 206 in a more sophisticated way, making use of the mathematical maturity picked up in MATH 305. Such topics include vector spaces, linear independence, bases, and dimensions, linear transformations, and inner product spaces. Then we will turn to new notions, including dual spaces, reflexivity, annihilators, direct sums and quotients, tensor products, multilinear forms, and modules. One of the main goals of the course is the derivation of canonical forms, including triangular form and Jordan canonical forms. These are methods of analyzing matrices that are more general and powerful than diagonalization (studied in MATH 206). We will also discuss the spectral theorem, the best example of successful diagonalization, and its applications.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 305.
Instructor: S. Chang
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Graph Theory has origins both in recreational mathematics problems (i.e., puzzles and games) and as a tool to solve practical problems in many areas of society. Topics covered will include trees and distance, connectivity and paths, network flow, graph coloring, directed graphs, and tournaments. In addition, students will gain a sense of what it means to do research in graph theory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 225 and either MATH 305 or MATH 302; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Trenk
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Majors can fulfill the major presentation requirement in this course in 2023-24.
This course covers questions of enumerations, existence, and construction in combinatorics, building on the fundamental ideas introduced in MATH 225. Topics include: famous number families, combinatorial and bijective proofs, counting under equivalence, combinatorics on graphs, combinatorial designs, error-correcting codes, and partially ordered sets.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 225. Co-requisite - MATH 305.
Instructor: S. Chang
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Majors can fulfill the major presentation requirement in this course in Spring 2024.
In this course, students will leverage their prior mathematical knowledge to communicate complex mathematical ideas to audiences ranging from the general public to other mathematicians. Each week, students will research a new topic and produce a piece of writing explaining this topic in a specific context. Assignments may include research abstracts, book reviews, interviews with mathematicians, newspaper articles, and technical documentation. Class time will be devoted to discussing the mathematical content behind each assignment as well as workshopping students' writing. This course will give students the opportunity to ground (and expand on) the mathematics they have learned and make connections across the discipline. Moreover, this course's unique format will help students develop their research and independent learning skills.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: MATH 302 and MATH 305, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Lange
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Topic for Fall 2023: Introduction to Applied Harmonic Analysis
Topic for Fall 2023: Introduction to Applied Harmonic Analysis
This course aims to introduce students to harmonic analysis, in particular Fourier series and wavelets, which are the foundations of modern mathematical techniques used in various areas ranging from signal processing in engineering to medicine and finance. We will start from the philosophy of harmonic analysis: analyze a function by decomposing it into a linear combination of elementary, oscillatory building blocks such as sines and cosines. The first part of the course will be dedicated to Fourier analysis: Fourier series, the Discrete Fourier Transform, the Fast Fourier Transform, and continuous Fourier integrals (including convolution, Plancherel’s formula, sampling, and the uncertainty principle). Then, we will introduce other orthogonal sets of functions, particularly wavelets and Haar bases, and the powerful concept of a multiresolution analysis. Next, we will discuss the applications of these orthogonal sets in fields such as approximation theory, signal and image analysis, and differential equations. Finally, time permitting, we will consider machine learning applications in dimensionality reduction and manifold learning.
Two 75-min class sessions + 50 min class for the computational lab. We will use Matlab or Mathematica for biweekly labs.
Topic for Spring 2024: Knot Theory
Topology deals with the properties of an object that no amount of bending, twisting, stretching, or shrinking can change (unlike geometry, which deals with the rigid properties of objects, such as length and angles). Take a piece of string, tie a knot in it, and glue the ends together. The result is a knot. Knot theory is a branch of topology that deals with knots and links in three-dimensional space. Given a knot, how do you decide if it can be untangled? Given two knots, how do you decide if one can be made to look like the other, using only bending, twisting, stretching, or shrinking? The study of knots is over 100 years old, and some of the most exciting results have occurred in the last ten years. Knot theory has evolved from an area in "pure" mathematics to include applications in molecular biology, chemistry, fluid dynamics, and quantum mechanics. This course is an introduction to the theory of knots. Among other topics, we will cover methods of knot tabulation, surfaces applied to knots, polynomials associated to knots, and applications of knot theory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 302 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Yacoubou Djima
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
The first course in a two-semester investigation of a significant research project, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Mathematics department. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with thesis research (365) in the second semester. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the Department. GPA in Mathematics Courses above 100-level must exceed 3.0.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
The second course a two-semester investigation of a significant research project, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Mathematics department. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 355 and permission of the Department.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: MATH 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course will select its monsters, villains, and wives from early English, French, and Anglo-Norman literature, ranging from the giant Grendel (and his mother) in Beowulf to the arch-villain Ganelon in The Song of Roland, from the faithless queen Guinevere to the seductive wife of the enigmatic Green Man in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. We will finish by considering the survival of magical monsters in the modern-day fantasy classic The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, and in The Mere Wife, by Maria Dahvana Headley. We will also trace Tolkien’s career as a medievalist himself and especially as a Beowulf scholar.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MER 212
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken WRIT 143 in Fall 2022.
Instructor: Lynch
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, with their themes of chivalry, magic, friendship, war, adventure, corruption, and nostalgia, as well as romantic love and betrayal, make up one of the most influential and enduring mythologies in our culture. This course will examine literary interpretations of the Arthurian legend, in history, epic, romance, and fiction, from the sixth century through the sixteenth, following the characters and motifs through their evolution. We will also consider some later examples of Arthuriana, in novels, comics, TV and movies, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MER 247,CPLT 247
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Wall-Randell
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is devoted to one of the most important masterpieces of world literature, the Divine Comedy by Florentine poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Designed as a journey across the Christian afterlife, the Comedy has redefined the understanding of morality, political engagement, and the sacred across the centuries. We will analyze and discuss the Comedy in its entirety focusing on Dante’s own dilemmas: What does it mean to love a person, one’s community, or an idea? Is there a logic to the universe? How can we reconcile justice, curiosity, and desire? And why should we care? Our interdisciplinary discussion will explore fields such as literature, history, ethics, and theology. No previous knowledge of Italian literature or medieval studies is required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MER 263
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MER 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This course is a fast paced experiential introduction to the rich cultural and literary history of Morocco. In addition to language classes in Classical Arabic and Moroccan Arabic, students will get a basic introduction to the Amazigh language and its alphabet in order to enable them to read street signs and decipher some of the graffiti art. Students will also attend lectures given by at least a dozen scholars on topics such as: linguistic diversity and national identity, postcolonial literature, gender and women issues, Moroccan Jewish heritage and history, Amazigh activism, and the complexities of contemporary schools of thought within Islam. Students will also have a chance to travel to southern and central Morocco in order to put the texts they are reading in context and engage with local scholars in small discussion seminars.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Three semesters of Arabic or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Aadnani
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes: Not offered every year. Subject to Provost's Office approval.
Intertwined with the political history of the modern Middle East are the dramatic cultural and social changes that have shaped how many Middle Easterners live their lives and imagine their futures. This course explores the historical contexts of the changing constructions of femininity and masculinity in different Middle Eastern settings from World War I to the present. Such contexts include nationalist and Islamist movements; economic, ecological, and demographic change; changing conceptions of modernity and tradition, individual and family, and public and private space; and state violence and civil war. Primary sources will focus on the self-representations of Middle Eastern men and women as they engaged with what they considered the major issues of their times.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MES 293
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An exploration of themes of resistance and dissent in the literatures and cultures of North Africa and the Middle East since the early 1980s. Topics include the rise of democratic movements, such as political parties, associations, and NGOs; the role and importance of Islam to the identity of contemporary nation-states in the region; the status of women and minorities in the ideologies of the movements under study; and the status and implications of dissent. Materials studied include works of fiction and nonfiction, films, speeches, song lyrics, and online publications.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ARAB 310
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Aadnani
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course examines how trailblazing, subversive and iconoclastic writers and directors in North Africa made space in their oeuvre to shed light on the lived experiences of marginalized groups. Focusing on a selection of texts, both literary and cinematic, covering the period from the late 1960s to the present from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia, we will explore how these writers and filmmakers engage with marginalized communities in their societies. The course will focus on questions of decolonization, indigenous rights, gender and sexuality, politics, and artistic expression.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one course in literature or film.
Instructor: Aadnani
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Filmmakers in the modern Middle East and North Africa have been at the forefront of intellectual engagement with their societies’ major challenges. By narrating the lives of individuals caught in historical circumstances not of their choosing, they have addressed issues such as incomplete decolonization and economic exploitation, cultural and political dogmatisms, the politicization and policing of religious, gender and sexual identities, foreign intervention and occupation, and dictatorship, civil war, and displacement. We will engage with the form, content, and historical contexts of a range of films and analyze how they leverage aesthetic, affective, and effective image, speech, and sound to persuade their audiences.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 364,CPLT 364
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructors. At least one course in Middle Eastern Studies (apart from Arabic language) will be required and preference will be given to Seniors and Juniors.
Instructor: Aadnani (Middle Eastern Studies), Kapteijns (History)
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This is a research seminar about the history of “Greater Syria” (modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel/Palestinian Authority) from the perspective of its cities, especially Aleppo, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, Haifa, and Jerusalem. Focus on the impact of the Ottoman Empire's mid-nineteenth-century Tanzimat (or modernization) reforms; the Empire's demise after World War One, and European Mandate rule (French in Lebanon and Syria, and British in Trans-Jordan and Palestine). Themes include: changes in governance and the administration of Islamic law; localism, Arab nationalism, sectarianism, and changes in communal identities and inter-communal relations; migration, urban and demographic growth, and the transformation of urban space; Jewish nationalism and immigration, and the impact of World War Two.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 366
Prerequisites: By permission of the instructor to students with some background in History and the Middle East.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This research seminar purposefully brings Africa north and south of the Sahara into a unified frame of study. It focuses on African cultural expressions such as music, song, literature, fashion, photography and film, digital creations, museums, and architecture in the period 1900 to the present. The themes structuring the syllabus are: colonialism, nationalism, and modernity; constructions of gender; identities, and the changing environment. You will learn about important concepts and themes in African historiography and cultural studies, and a wide range of relevant texts. Explorations of African subjectivities and narrative agency in all their complexity are central to the intellectual trajectory of this class. Research papers will engage with a particular kind of text or form of African culture across regions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 368
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Kapteijns and Aadnani (Middle Eastern Studies)
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A crucial aspect of modern and contemporary international history is the large-scale violence against civilians that has marked recent civil wars throughout the world, from former Yugoslavia to Rwanda, and from Ireland to Sri Lanka and China. Though such violence is often labeled “ethnic” or “religious,” its causes are much broader. This research seminar will focus on: the causes and consequences of both state-perpetrated and communal violence; the scholarly (and legal) debates about how to approach political/social reconstruction in the aftermath of such large-scale violence, and the ethics of the representation of violence by historians and other authors/creators. Drawing on the conceptual readings and case studies of the syllabus, students will design a research paper about a particular conflict chosen by them.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 369
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: For IR-History students, this course will fulfill the HIST 395 capstone requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: MES 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Weekly group lessons in voice, violin and classical guitar.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 100, or exemption by Music Theory Placement Exam; audition required.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Lessons meet once a week for 10 weeks. For further information, including fees, see Performance, Private Instruction in Music. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course is designed to provide an immersion in the world of music to improve listening, reading, and general comprehension skills. The focus is on the fundamentals of music (notation, rhythm, melody, scales, chords, and formal plans) and listening examples will be drawn from a wide variety of genres, styles, and cultural traditions. Individual members of the academic faculty will visit regularly to introduce students to the rich diversity of approaches to the field of music. No prior musical knowledge is expected. Students may choose to take the Music Theory Placement Exam to see if they can exempt MUS 100 and go directly into MUS 200, MUS 201, MUS 202, MUS 122, or MUS 220. A musicianship lab supplements the three class meetings. May be counted toward the major or the minor.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Collins, Russell, Moya
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
In this course we will begin the process of learning the techniques of music composition. Through the writing of exercises, and projects, we will learn the fundamentals of musical syntax and composition. In the process, we will unlock our creativity, learn how to discuss other people’s music, and learn about how music can aid in the telling of a story. By the end of the semester, students will have attained the skills necessary for writing an original piece of music that can be played by other musicians. Students will have learned how to compose their own melodies, how to harmonize these melodies in a variety of ways, and how to create compelling musical textures with many different combinations of musical instruments and timbres. Students will be encouraged to develop their own unique compositional “voice” by drawing upon intensive studies of both musical works they already know and enjoy, and musical works they may never have heard before.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Moya
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
One of the most fundamental ways that music moves us is through rhythm and the emotional highs and lows of musical form. This first year seminar will focus on the musical materials that aid in critically analyzing popular music and world music: rhythm and song form. In this seminar, students will hone their ability to hear the structures that make up the music in our daily lives through group discussion, guided listening journals, and practice with analysis. The semester will culminate in an analysis of a listening experience, such as an album, playlist, DJ set, or concert. Students need no prior experience with formal musical training: they need only to have the means to listen to music in private.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Goldschmitt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
Beginning with a comprehensive review of musical terminology and basic materials, MUS 122 explores the fundamentals of tonal harmony, voice-leading, phrasing, and form. Topics include harmonic functions and phrase structure, cadence formation, voice-leading and figured bass, and tonal analysis. Regular ear-training practice complements written exercises. One musicianship lab per week.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Open to all students who have completed MUS 100 or exempted it by the Music Theory Placement Evaluation.
Instructor: Tang (Fall); Moya (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Normally followed by MUS 252 or MUS 315.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Greenblatt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Brandao
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Jeppesen
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Akahori, Hodgkinson, Shapiro, Tang, Nishikawa
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Duprey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Angelini
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Adams
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Aldrich
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Tengblad, Selig, Lawler
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Kirby
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Starkman, Bossert-King, Diaz
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Bossert-King, Diaz, Starkman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Duprey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Miller
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Huhn
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Weng
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Liddell
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hida-Battaglia
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Washington
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: McNutt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: E. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hoffmann, D. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: E. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Langone
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Matasy
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Henry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Boyd
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Matasy
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Henry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: McGinnis
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Kirby
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester. Prior to registration, students must obtain confirmation from the instructor.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None. Co-requisite - MUS 100; or, if exempted, any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Russell, Thornblade
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M08. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Brandao
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M09. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Aldrich
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M10. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Kirby
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M07. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Boyd
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M02. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: McGinnis
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M01. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Henry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M11. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Kirby
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M03. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Russell, Thornblade
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M04. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Matasy
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M05. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Henry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M06. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Langone
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M13. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Huhn
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M28. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M37. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Angelini
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M27. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Duprey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M26. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Duprey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M25. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M29. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Greenblatt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M30. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Jeppesen
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M34. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M33. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Starkman, Bossert-King, Diaz
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M32. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M31. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Bossert-King, Diaz, Starkman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M24. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilto
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M36. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Adams
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M17. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: E. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M12. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Weng
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M16. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hida-Battaglia
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M15. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Liddell
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M14. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: E. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M18. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: McNutt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M19. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Washington
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M23. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Miller
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M22. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Matasy
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M21. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hoffmann, D. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M20. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Akahori, Hodgkinson, Shapiro, Tang, Nishikawa
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 149-M35. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Tengblad, Selig, Lawler
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Not offered in 2024-2025.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: MUS 100 or exemption from MUS 100.
Instructor: Fontijn
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
Topic for Fall 2024: The Symphony in the World
Topic for Fall 2024: The Symphony in the World
The Austrian composer, Gustav Mahler, argued that “a Symphony must be like the world; it must embrace everything.” This course takes Mahler’s statement as a springboard for examining the rich and varied sounds of the Symphony in the Western European classical tradition. Students will build on their skills in music analysis and criticism through close listening to famous symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler. We will learn about the cultural, stylistic, and aesthetic nuances of these works from a variety of intellectual standpoints (including feminist theory, queer theory, and sound studies). A highlight of this course will be a field trip to a performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. All students are welcome.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: MUS 100 or exemption via the Music Theory Placement Evaluation.
Instructor: Bhogal
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
Topic for Fall 2024: Expressing Race and Gender through New Music
Topic for Fall 2024: Expressing Race and Gender through New Music
This course takes its spark from recent global and on-campus conversations around race and anti-racism in relation to the arts, particularly music composed and created during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Students will become familiar with “canonical works” by (predominantly male, some female, and mostly white Euro-American) composers. However, the primary focus is on the creative achievements of under-represented composers and musicians identifying as Black, Latinx, East Asian, and Native American. This course inverts the balance by privileging the artistic accomplishments of composers and musicians who usually reside at the margins of “central” conversations. Our goal is to understand what the traditional category of “modernism and music” reveals about history and society from typically less represented cultural/racial/gendered perspectives. Students will undertake critical listening/viewing/reading assignments and reflect on live performances through writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: MUS 100 or exemption from MUS 100.
Instructor: Russell
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
The influence of jazz on music in the twentieth century and beyond has been so profound that it has gone from being a feared public scourge to “America's Classical Music.” Ever since its origins among African Americans in the 1910s, jazz has challenged distinctions between “art” and “popular,” at times even playing a key role in social protest. Today, it is an internationally respected art form that is revered by musicians as varied as hip-hop artists and classical composers. This course will cover the history of jazz through critically engaging with recorded performances, source readings and popular reception, and evidence of its broader influence in popular culture. We will also learn about jazz's role in international music scenes, including approaches from Europe, Asia, and throughout the African Diaspora.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken MUS 309.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as MUS 309 with additional work.
Metropolises bring together diverse groups of people in concentrated locations all over the world. Along with heightened crime and poverty, they are also home to an astounding variety of musical innovations. This course offers an exploration of disparate musical cultures in major metropolises of the world. Throughout the semester, we will study major cities, the major musical developments to come from them, and the cultural conflicts and celebrations that emerge in contemporary urban life. In addition to local styles, we will discuss such global styles as hip-hop, punk, pop, dancehall, rock, roots music, “world music,” and electronic dance music, and how they relate to the urban environments where they were developed and where they continue to thrive.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Goldschmitt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course examines the expressive ways in which music and sound function within the medium of video games. The “criticism” component of the course draws on recent scholarship from the fields of music, media studies, sound studies, film, and video games, asking students to interrogate the role of music and sound in relation to play. The “composition” component of the course invites students to create original video game music and sound. Together, these varied approaches will allow students to reflect on their experiences as players whose immersive experience is shaped by sonic cues, and as critics whose intellectual engagement with the act of gaming finds points of intersection with a larger world of ideas and their relationship to the sensory process.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this Wintersession course, which brings together ethnomusicology and anthropology, students will study the folkloric music, dance, and culture of Haiti. During Wintersession, there will be workshops, lectures, discussions, and site visits to multiple locations within the country, including Port-au-Prince, Gonaives, Jacmel, and Saut d'Eau. C-CLAK, a cultural center and school in Mirebalais, will be home base. Students will gain wide-ranging exposure to multiple aspects of Haitian culture in their field research with folkloric artists in different regions, expanding their cultural knowledge and experience of life in Haiti and working on their French and Kreyòl skills. Appropriate readings will be assigned before Wintersession begins and discussed throughout the course. A final paper is expected.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Washington, Professor Emeritus Gerdès Fleurant, Peniel Guerrier (Guest Choreographer)
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This is an adaptation of Wintersession Course MUS 214H, re-envisioned for remote summer session only. We will study the traditional and folkloric music, dance, and culture of Haiti, using the ethnomusicological lenses of bi-musicality and applied ethnomusicology. Students will participate in lectures, discussions, and experiential lab sessions that will reveal the multiple styles and techniques of the folkloric arts of the Central and Southern regions of Haiti: Port-au-Prince, Gonaives, Jacmel, Lascohobas, Saut d’Eau, and Mirebalais, where the Leocardie and Alexandre Kenscoff Cultural Center (C-CLAK), founded by Professor Emeritus Gerdès Fleurant, is located. The work of Professor Fleurant’s C-CLAK will provide for us a case study of applied ethnomusicology. Through virtual engagements with Professor Fleurant, students will gain an understanding of applied ethnomusicology as community engagement, support, promotion, and service in the various projects of the Center, including the Gawou Ginou King Foundation School and Holistic Center, and will be asked to envision their own contributions to C-CLAK, in final projects.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Washington
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is based on an immersion approach, exploring the language of jazz and contemporary music, and fostering a close connection between theory and practice. Learn the basics: scales and modes, chords, forms, rhythmic structures, and jazz styles. You will learn how to listen to jazz and contemporary music, and define and describe what you hear. You will practice improvisation techniques in class. Ear training is a key component: singing bass lines and jazz solos, and practicing harmonic dictation, learning to “hear the changes”. We explore the fundamentals of jazz and popular music harmony, including tune analysis, the II-V progression, secondary dominants, re-harmonization, and jazz piano voicings. We also put these concepts into practice, completing jazz compositions and transcriptions, and using music software to publish assignments. Musicianship lab supplements the class meeting.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MUS 100 (or exempted by the Music Theory Placement Evaluation).
Instructor: Miller
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Throughout its history, the Italian language has expressed itself optimally through song. In this interdisciplinary course, we explore the connections between song and lyrical poetry in works from the Middle Ages through hip-hop. Students will gain an overview of Italian history and culture, and will learn how poetry and music have contributed to the shaping of Italian national identity. In addition to field trips to hear an Italian opera and to work with rare prints and manuscripts in Special Collections, students will analyze poetry and its musical enhancement, and manipulate digital humanities resources. No previous knowledge of music or Italian is required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MUS 223
Prerequisites: No previous knowledge of music or Italian is required. Not open to students who have taken ITAS 123/MUS 123.
Instructor: Parussa, Fontijn
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course charts the history of choral music beginning with Byzantine Chant in the 4th century to present day compositions. We will study developments in style, form, text setting and the musical imagination that defines this art form. Students will become familiar with scores and composers throughout history on a global scale, gaining insight on their relationship to visual art, architecture, social movements, and historical events.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MUS 100 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Graham
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will consist of a survey of the history of music in film from its beginnings in the silent era to modern times. The class will look at a diverse handful of films. This narrower focus will allow a deeper exploration of the techniques of soundtrack, and their evolution throughout the different eras and regions of film production. The course will explore the role of music in storytelling, including its precedents in opera, and ballet. Musical semiotics will be discussed in an effort to understand how meaning is derived in a film through the aid of music. We will also explore the evolution of recording and filming technology for film, and how these changes made an impact on soundtracks. Some of the films studied will be Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Psycho (score composed by Bernard Hermann), Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (score by Toru Takemitsu), Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite (score by: Jung Jae II), Jordan Peele’s Get Out!, Us, and Nope (all scored by Michael Abels), Rosen Martin and John Hubley. Watership Down (score by: Angela Morley), Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (score by Jonny Greenwood), and Amores perros (scored by Gustavo Santoalalla).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. MUS 100 preferred.
Instructor: Moya
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course offers a comprehensive chronological survey of the history and evolution of opera, from 1600 to the present. Lectures will examine historical background, the subgenres of operatic literature (opera seria, opera buffa, music drama), and complete operas by major composers representing a number of periods and styles (including Monteverdi, Mozart, Verdi, and Berg). We will also study librettos, relevant novels, and other source materials in order to establish connections between musical structure and dramatic expression. Two class meetings, with additional sessions required for viewing operas in their entirety.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Bhogal
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
No Topics Offered for AY2024-2025
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: MUS 100 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bhogal
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as MUS 335. This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
This course focuses on the preparation and presentation of opera and musical theater solos and ensembles. Students will receive extensive musical and dramatic coaching to enhance musicality, text expression, and stage savvy. Over the course of the Wintersession, students will learn about complete role preparation and creating a dynamic and genuine characterization. To further deepen our study, we will discuss selected readings and performances. Assigned repertoire will feature a range of styles intended to highlight and amplify the class participants’ skills. The course will culminate in a live performance at the end of January, with a reprisal in the spring semester. Students must be enrolled in voice lessons, and individual coaching outside of class time will take place at a mutually convenient time for student and coach. Permission of the Instructor required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Voice Faculty
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What happens when we study music and sound from an anthropological framework? Ethnomusicology, or the cultural study of music and sound, seeks to do just that. Through a hands-on approach to music research, this course has three aims: 1) to give students the opportunity of doing ethnographic research in a local community; 2) to explore key concepts pertaining to ethnomusicology and the anthropology of sound; 3) to work together to create a good working atmosphere in which students can share ongoing research with each other. Students will gain experience doing fieldwork as participant observers; taking notes and writing up field journals; recording and transcribing interviews; and conducting secondary research online and in the library. Each student will conduct regular visits to a local music group or community of their choice. Past projects have focused on Senegalese drumming, musical healing circles, and hip-hop dance groups. The semester will culminate in a final presentation and paper (8-10 pages) based on the student’s research.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: ANTH 235
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Goldschmitt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M25. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M26. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Duprey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M27. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Duprey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M24. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M23. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Miller
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M21. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hoffmann, D. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M22. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Matasy
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M28. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M20. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Akahori, Hodgkinson, Shapiro, Tang, Nishikawa
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M35. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Tengblad, Selig, Lawler
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M37. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Angelini
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M36. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Adams
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M19. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Washington
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M34. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M33. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Starkman, Bossert-King, Diaz
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M30. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Jeppesen
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M31. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Bossert-King, Diaz, Starkman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M32. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M29. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Greenblatt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M02. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: McGinnis
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M06. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Langone
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M18. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: McNutt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M08. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Brandao
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M05. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Henry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M04. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Matasy
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M01. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Henry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M03. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Russell, Thornblade
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M09. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Aldrich
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M07. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Boyd
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M14. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: E. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M15. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Liddell
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M16. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hida-Battaglia
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M17. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: E. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M10. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Kirby
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M13. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Huhn
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M12. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Weng
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 199-M11. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Kirby
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
The course focuses primarily on melodic writing and the coming together of various strands of musical activity to create a rich texture. Beginning with a grounding in 16th and 18th century contrapuntal music in Europe, the course expands to include explorations of 20th century counterpoint in both Western Classical as well as popular and jazz music. Finally, the course questions and explores the concept of “Polyphony” beyond the Western European construction. We explore ways in which music can have multiple strands occurring simultaneously, such as Indonesian Gamelan, West African Drumming, African hocketing traditions, Eastern European polyphonic singing, Afro-Cuban music, etc.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MUS 122.
Instructor: Moya
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Miller
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is open to qualified students by permission of the individual ensemble director. One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 260 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated once for additional credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Students who continue with performance ensembles may register for MUS 270 in their Junior and/or Senior year. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: This course is open to qualified students by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Hampton
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 260 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated once for additional credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Students who continue with performance ensembles may register for MUS 270 in their Junior and/or Senior year. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: This course is open to qualified students by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Russell and Tang
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 260 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated once for additional credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Students who continue with performance ensembles may register for MUS 270 in their Junior and/or Senior year. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Zeitlin
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is open to qualified students by permission of the individual ensemble director. One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 260 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated once for additional credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Students who continue with performance ensembles may register for MUS 270 in their Junior and/or Senior year. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: This course is open to qualified students by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Graham
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 260 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated once for additional credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Students who continue with performance ensembles may register for MUS 270 in their Junior and/or Senior year. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: This course is open to qualified students by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Washington
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 260 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated once for additional credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Students who continue with performance ensembles may register for MUS 270 in their Junior and/or Senior year. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: This course is open to qualified students by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Angelini
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 260 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated once for additional credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Students who continue with performance ensembles may register for MUS 270 in their Junior and/or Senior year. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: This course is open to qualified students by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Jeppesen
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 260 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated once for additional credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Students who continue with performance ensembles may register for MUS 270 in their Junior and/or Senior year. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: This course is open to qualified students by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Graham
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 260 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated once for additional credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Students who continue with performance ensembles may register for MUS 270 in their Junior and/or Senior year. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 260-M09. Open to Juniors and Seniors (First-Years and Sophomores are eligible to enroll in MUS 260 each Spring). This course is open to qualified students who have completed 2 years of ensemble performance by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Washington
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 270 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated for credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 260-M06. Open to Juniors and Seniors (First-Years and Sophomores are eligible to enroll in MUS 260 each Spring). This course is open to qualified students who have completed 2 years of ensemble performance by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Jeppesen
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 270 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated for credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 260-M07. Open to Juniors and Seniors (First-Years and Sophomores are eligible to enroll in MUS 260 each Spring). This course is open to qualified students who have completed 2 years of ensemble performance by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Angelini
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 270 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated for credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 260-M08. Open to Juniors and Seniors (First-Years and Sophomores are eligible to enroll in MUS 260 each Spring). This course is open to qualified students who have completed 2 years of ensemble performance by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Graham
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 270 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated for credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 260-M05. Open to Juniors and Seniors (First-Years and Sophomores are eligible to enroll in MUS 260 each Spring). This course is open to qualified students who have completed 2 years of ensemble performance by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Graham
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 270 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated for credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 260-M04. Open to Juniors and Seniors (First-Years and Sophomores are eligible to enroll in MUS 260 each Spring). This course is open to qualified students who have completed 2 years of ensemble performance by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Russell and Tang
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 270 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated for credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 260-M02. Open to Juniors and Seniors (First-Years and Sophomores are eligible to enroll in MUS 260 each Spring). This course is open to qualified students who have completed 2 years of ensemble performance by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Zeitlin
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 270 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated for credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 260-M03. Open to Juniors and Seniors (First-Years and Sophomores are eligible to enroll in MUS 260 each Spring). This course is open to qualified students who have completed 2 years of ensemble performance by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Hampton
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 270 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated for credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Ensemble participation gives students (including both Music majors and non-majors) the opportunity to develop their musicality and technical skills in a group setting, prepare and perform repertoire together instead of just on their own. Students will hone their musicianship skills (such as ear training, active listening, intensive study of scores, theoretical analysis, technical abilities for one’s instrument). Active participation will build a student’s confidence in performance settings. Participants are expected to prepare their parts outside of rehearsal and come ready to solve problems together so as to realize a cohesive and unified performance, an experience which fosters a strong bond and sense of community.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 260-M01. Open to Juniors and Seniors (First-Years and Sophomores are eligible to enroll in MUS 260 each Spring). This course is open to qualified students who have completed 2 years of ensemble performance by permission of the individual ensemble director.
Instructor: Miller
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One-half unit of credit is granted for a full year (Fall and Spring semesters) of participation in any one of the department-sponsored ensembles. Students register for MUS 270 in the Spring semester only. This course may be repeated for credit (the course can be taken a total of 2 times). Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
An overview of the fundamental concepts, techniques, and literature of electronic and computer music. Topics include analog and digital electronic instruments, MIDI programming, sound-synthesis techniques, live processing, and the history of electronic music. Students will compose two original pieces (one fixed and one live), and will learn the basics of Logic Pro, Max, and Ableton Live.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
"Popular music" denotes a variety of idioms-including R&B, rock, soul, funk, and hip-hop-linked to the youth culture and social movements that developed in the United States after World War II. With a foundation in African American genres (especially blues and gospel), popular music has also absorbed strong influences from rural white Protestant communities, Latin America, and Europe, and its sounds are indelibly linked to twentieth-century technologies (the electric guitar, multitrack recording, turntables). With an emphasis on the 1940s to the 1970s, our historical survey of American popular music will bring us from the 1800s to the present day. Using close listening as a starting point, we will learn how to decode sounds to reveal their complex social histories as we assess popular music's role in America's tumultuous twentieth century.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A continuation of MUS 275, Introduction to Electronic Music, this course offers intermediate and advanced instruction in digital sound design for live performance, film, or installation work. Students will continue to develop fluency in the digital audio software applications Logic Pro, Ableton Live, and Max and will develop semester-long projects involving either a live musical performance with electronics or a site-specific interactive audio installation. In addition to building individual sound projects, students will also have the opportunity to engage with visiting artists, to read and discuss recent scholarship on multi-media art, and to develop a fundamental understanding of acoustics and critical theories of sound.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M09. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Aldrich
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M10. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Kirby
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M11. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Kirby
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M08. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Brandao
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M22. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Matasy
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M05. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Henry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M12. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Weng
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M07. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Boyd
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M18. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: McNutt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M19. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Washington
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M20. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Akahori, Hodgkinson, Shapiro, Tang, Nishikawa
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M21. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hoffmann, D. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M04. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Matasy
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M17. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: E. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M14. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: E. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M15. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Liddell
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M16. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hida-Battaglia
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M13. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Huhn
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M06. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Langone
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M31. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Bossert-King, Diaz, Starkman
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M30. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Jeppesen
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M26. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Duprey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M33. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Starkman, Bossert-King, Diaz
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M02. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: McGinnis
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M29. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Greenblatt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M24. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M25. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M27. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Duprey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M28. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M03. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Russell, Thornblade
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M34. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M32. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M35. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Tengblad, Selig, Lawler
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M37. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Angelini
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M01. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Henry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M23. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Miller
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Through individual instruction, students will work to develop their musical and technical proficiencies using repertoire and other materials to be determined by the instructor. 5-6 hours of weekly practice is required. Performance evaluations are held each semester.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: MUS 249-M36. Co-requisite - any MUS course earning 1 unit of credit taken in either Fall or Spring of the same academic year (MUS 260 and MUS 270, Performance Ensembles, are excluded).
Instructor: Adams
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: May be repeated once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Topic for Fall 2024: Global Music Industries
Topic for Fall 2024: Global Music Industries
Have you ever wondered how the music you love gets transformed from its inception to a product for eager audiences around the world? Discovering new music is often a combination of personal taste, the influence of our social cohort, and the limitations of what is available through live performance in our neighborhood and online digital music services. This seminar will take a critical exploration of the different routes that we use to find the music we love. We will cover a vast array of topics ranging from the ways musical taste changes in time, the use and abuse of streaming digital media, and the mining of musical ideas from the developing world in recent pop music trends. All students in the seminar will have an opportunity to design a term project on the role of listening among Wellesley students.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MUS 100 or exemption via the Music Theory Placement Evaluation.
Instructor: Goldschmitt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time, with permission from the department.
This course challenges students to think critically about music, and writing about music, in the public sphere. Students explore the relationship between their specialized academic knowledge and their experiences as day-to-day consumers of music. The core material of the course consists of a series of writing and editing exercises for an imagined audience of non-specialists—including reviews of recordings and lectures, program notes for concerts, an interview with a prominent musician—and discussions of controversial issues in academic music. This course addresses a variety of issues, such as how to write about the experience of live performance or how to assess music as a kind of social activism. By translating the technical vocabulary of academic music into a language accessible to the public, students find that they listen and think musically in new and unanticipated ways.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: MUS 100. Open to Juniors and Seniors.
Instructor: Fontijn
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The study of conducting is a synthesis of all skills important to a musician's craft, and the art of communicating a specific musical vision to bring a composer's written intentions to life. The physical gestures are expressive of a full understanding of both the score and the instruments and/or voices performing the work. This course is a study of the techniques that transform written music into sound, including score preparation and reading, baton technique, and rehearsal methods. Development of aural and interpretive ability as well as leadership skills are explored in the process. Students will have the opportunity to take their skills outside the classroom and conduct one of the College's musical ensembles as part of their work in the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Graham
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
The influence of jazz on music in the twentieth century and beyond has been so profound that it has gone from being a feared public scourge to “America's Classical Music.” Ever since its origins among African Americans in the 1910s, jazz has challenged distinctions between “art” and “popular,” at times even playing a key role in social protest. Today, it is an internationally respected art form that is revered by musicians as varied as hip-hop artists and classical composers. This course will cover the history of jazz through critically engaging with recorded performances, source readings and popular reception, and evidence of its broader influence in popular culture. Through leading a class discussion and completing a term paper, students in MUS 309 will learn to connect the technical language of jazz analysis to socio-cultural context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: MUS 122 or MUS 220, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken MUS 209.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as MUS 209.
Beginning with traditional four-part chorale writing, MUS 315 explores the more advanced concepts inherent to tonal harmony, voice-leading, and formal analysis. Topics include diatonic and chromatic modulations, embellishments, mode mixture, variation, development procedures such as diatonic and chromatic sequences, and the relationship between harmony and tonal form. Over the course of the semester, students will be introduced to basic theory terminology and modes of analysis. In addition to listening to and analyzing a number of tonal works inside and outside of the classical canon, students will complete weekly assignments in writing in the tonal idiom and several composition projects. Musicianship lab supplements the class meetings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MUS 122 or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Moya
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
No Topics Offered for AY2024-2025
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: MUS 100 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bhogal
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200 level as MUS 235. This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
This advanced, project-based course is aimed at students able to work independently in one of two broad categories of contemporary art-making: Drawing (including visual art, new media art, architecture, sculpture, and/or art theory) and Sound (composition, performance, analog or digital sound production, and/or sound studies). Together we will explore elements such as rhythm, line, space, and composition from the perspectives of sound studies and drawing, focusing in particular on the graphic mark. Students will interact with several visiting artists, and will visit working artists in their studios and observe relevant art installations and performances. Students will develop semester-long studio projects, which will be supplemented by discussions, critiques, and readings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MUS 336
Prerequisites: Any of the following - ARTS 105, ARTS 109, ARTS 113, MUS 100, MUS 122, ARTH 100, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rivera
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Hamilton
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Hamilton
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Jeppesen
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Duprey
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Tengblad, Selig, Lawler
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Bossert-King, Diaz, Starkman
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Starkman, Bossert-King, Diaz
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Matasy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Hida-Battaglia
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Weng
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Kirby
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Huhn
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: McGinnis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: E. Johnson
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Liddell
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Russell, Thornblade
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Aldrich
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: E. Johnson
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Music 344 offers an exciting opportunity for accomplished performing music students to develop their artistry and performance skills on a high level. Qualified students participate in this weekly performance class in addition to their weekly one-hour lessons (MUS 344-M) with their private instructors, and develop their abilities by performing frequently in class and receiving constructive feedback. Students also grow as musicians by listening to other students perform, by being exposed to the broad range of repertoire presented in class, and by participating in the process of constructive criticism. In conjunction with their in-class performances, students are asked to provide brief, written background information about their repertoire to enhance their understanding of the music and to prepare for writing program notes. Students should plan on a time investment of about 14 hours per week. Students enrolled for the full year, as is strongly encouraged, perform a jury in the Fall and full recital in the Spring. Students who choose Honors in Performance (Honors Program III) must take MUS 344 as part of their MUS 360 and MUS 370 thesis work, the two components counting as 1 unit of credit per semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: A written recommendation from their instructor in Performing Music. Co-requisite - students must complete an additional 200- or 300-level music course during each year they are enrolled in MUS 344. Permission to elect subsequent units is granted only to a student who has fulfilled all co-requisite requirements and whose progress in MUS 344 is judged excellent. A maximum of four units of MUS 344 may be counted toward the degree. Each semester of MUS 344 earns one unit. Two semesters of MUS 344 can be counted toward one unit of the music major.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: This is the only credit course in classical performance that can be counted toward the music major.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Angelini
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Boyd
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Henry
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Akahori, Hodgkinson, Shapiro, Tang, Nishikawa
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Matasy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: Washington
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Private lesson instruction taken in conjunction with MUS 344 (Advanced Performance Seminar). Students invited to enroll in MUS 344 are required to have weekly one-hour lessons with their private instructors.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 100
Prerequisites: Co-requisite - MUS 344.
Instructor: McNutt
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
What happens when we study music and sound from an anthropological framework? Ethnomusicology, or the cultural study of music and sound, seeks to do just that. Through a hands-on approach to music research, this course has three aims: 1) to give students the opportunity of doing ethnographic research in a local community; 2) to explore key concepts pertaining to ethnomusicology and the anthropology of sound; 3) to work together to create a good working atmosphere in which students can share ongoing research with each other. Students will gain experience doing fieldwork as participant observers; taking notes and writing up field journals; recording and transcribing interviews; and conducting secondary research online and in the library. Each student will conduct regular visits to a local music group or community of their choice. Past projects have focused on Senegalese drumming, musical healing circles, and hip-hop dance groups. The semester will culminate in a final presentation and paper (15 pages) based on the student’s research.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: ANTH 345
Prerequisites: MUS 100 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Goldschmitt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Students enrolled in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 99
Prerequisites: MUS 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Adams
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Zeitlin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Greenblatt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Miller
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Kirby
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Brandao
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Langone
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Henry
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Washington
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Hoffmann, D. Johnson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Duprey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A one-hour private lesson per week. Students who have completed at least MUS 199 or MUS 249 or who are advanced players may qualify for this upper-level performance course. MUS 398 incorporates theory and practice of jazz improvisation as well as written repertoire. Students are required to perform a full recital in the Spring. This course can be counted toward the major in music.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the jury panel. Co-requisite - one academic music course must be taken in either semester during enrollment in MUS 398.
Instructor: Hamilton
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course will provide a broad introduction to neuroscience, focusing on examples and approaches from cellular and molecular, cognitive, behavioral, systems, and computational neuroscience. The lecture aspect of the course will be accompanied by a 75-minute practicum in which students will engage directly in experimental neuroscience.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 32
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Bauer, Marshall, Quinan, Wasserman, Tetel
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
How is intelligent behavior produced by the brain and how can it be replicated in machines? What role, if any, does our conscious experience play in producing intelligent behavior? This seminar explores human intelligence through the perspectives of neuroscience, cognitive science, and computer science, integrating studies of the brain, the mind, and the computations needed to create intelligent machines. This interdisciplinary approach has accelerated the pace of research aimed at understanding how intelligent agents use vision to recognize objects and events; navigate through a complex, dynamic environment; use language to communicate; and develop a conscious awareness of the world. Through exploration of current research and hands-on computer activities, students will learn about methods used to probe neural circuits and visualize brain activity; investigate human performance and behavior; and build computer models that capture the remarkable abilities of biological systems.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Wiest
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will build on basic concepts in neuroscience that were introduced in NEUR 100. Current issues will be examined within a broad framework that includes readings in cellular and molecular, cognitive, behavioral, and computational neuroscience. Topics such as sensory systems, learning, memory, and cognition will be covered. The accompanying laboratory is designed to expose students to basic methods and experimental approaches in neuroscience.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: NEUR 100 and one of the following (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, BISC 112Y, BISC 116/CHEM 116). Not open to First-Years.
Instructor: Gobes, Wiest, Quinan
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; EC - Epistemology and Cognition; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
A guided group research project focusing on selected topics from the literature and experimental research methods of neuroscience. Specific topics will vary with each instructor and semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 8
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for First-Years and Sophomores.
Instructor: Gobes
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit.
NEUR 250, NEUR 250H, NEUR 350, and NEUR 350H provide students with an opportunity to engage in research with a faculty member. More information is available on the Research and Internship Opportunities tab on the Neuroscience Department website. Registration takes place via the Registrar's Independent Study App.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
NEUR 250, NEUR 250H, NEUR 350, and NEUR 350H provide students with an opportunity to engage in research with a faculty member. More information is available on the Research and Internship Opportunities tab on the Neuroscience Department website. Registration takes place via the Registrar's Independent Study App.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
In this capstone seminar for neuroscience majors, students will give group presentations of articles on cutting edge areas of neuroscience research. The authors of these articles will be invited to campus to present their research and meet with the class. Potential topics to be discussed include: developmental neuroscience, computational and systems neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, cognitive neuroscience, learning and memory, and neurodegenerative disorders. In addition, students will write a grant on a neuroscience topic of their choice, and careers in neuroscience will be discussed. Neuroscience majors are required to take this course in the fall of their senior year.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 7
Prerequisites: NEUR 200. Open only to senior Neuroscience majors.
Instructor: Gobes, Marshall, Tetel
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is Letter Graded only.
Glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system. In this course, you will become familiar with the functions of glutamate in healthy neurotransmission, plasticity, and disease including stroke, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and drug abuse. In addition, you will continue to improve your ability to critically read scientific literature. This course is designed to be interactive, and lectures will be supplemented by in-class activities and discussions. In the laboratory portion of this course, you will have the opportunity to study the role of glutamate receptor mutations on C. elegans behavior, and study the role of glutamate receptors in long-term potentiation. Through these experiences you will improve your reading, critical thinking, writing, problem solving, and oral presentation skills.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: NEUR 200.
Instructor: Bauer, Quinan
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; EC - Epistemology and Cognition; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
What are the neuronal mechanisms and computations that allow an animal to translate sensory information into appropriate decisions and behavior? Neuroethology seeks to understand how a nervous system translates information from the external and internal environment to behavior by examining the whole animal in its natural state. Topics will be introduced via textbook and primary literature and reviewed in lecture, followed by student-led presentations and discussions. What are the moral and societal implications of gaining a better understanding of how the brain controls behavior? We will end with an introduction to the neuroscience of morality and philosophy. This is a Maurer Public Speaking course and will offer multiple opportunities to learn and practice skills for speaking for a technical and non-technical audience.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: NEUR 200 or permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Years.
Instructor: Wasserman
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall; Fall; Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. No programming experience required.
What are the neuronal mechanisms and computations that allow an animal to translate sensory information into appropriate decisions and behavior? Neuroethology seeks to understand how a nervous system translates information from the external and internal environment to behavior by examining the whole animal in its natural state. Topics will be introduced via textbook and primary literature and reviewed in lecture, followed by student-led presentations and discussions. What are the moral and societal implications of gaining a better understanding of how the brain controls behavior? We will end with an introduction to the neuroscience of morality and philosophy. This is a Maurer Public Speaking course and will offer multiple opportunities to learn and practice skills for speaking for a technical and non-technical audience.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: NEUR 200 or permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Years.
Instructor: Wasserman
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. No programming experience required.
Hormones act throughout the body to coordinate basic biological functions such as development, differentiation, and reproduction. This course will investigate how hormones act in the brain to regulate physiology and behavior. We will study how the major neuroendocrine axes regulate a variety of functions, including brain development, reproductive physiology and behavior, homeostasis, and stress. The regulation of these functions by hormones will be investigated at the molecular, cellular, and behavioral levels.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: BISC 315
Prerequisites: NEUR 200; or one of the following (BISC 110, BISC 110P, BISC 112, or BISC 112Y) and BISC 203; or BISC 116, CHEM 116 and BISC 203; or permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors and Seniors only.
Instructor: Tetel
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will examine primary literature on neurodegenerative diseases. We will discuss primary research articles on various topics including, but not limited to, the underlying pathological mechanisms and clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Throughout the course we will address aberrant protein aggregation, genetic variants, and therapeutic treatments associated with these two neurodegenerative diseases. The course will consist of student-led presentations of primary research articles, in-class discussions, writing assignments, and a video essay. Learning goals for this course include enhancing scientific literacy, critically examining research inequities, building teamwork skills, and practicing self-reflection.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: NEUR 200.
Instructor: Marshall
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; EC - Epistemology and Cognition; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Although we spend a major part of our lives sleeping, we understand surprisingly little about sleep and dreaming. In this course we will discuss recent advances made in the field of neuroscience of sleep. Course topics include basic neurobiology of sleep (what is sleep, how is it regulated) as well as specialized discussions of sleep-related learning and memory investigated in different model systems. You will get familiar with these topics through a combination of in-depth review sessions, in-class activities and student presentations of the primary literature. In the laboratory section of this course, we will design and execute a complete, novel, experiment with a small group. We will investigate sleep, learning and memory in different model organisms. The project groups will write up their results in a research article to be submitted to the undergraduate journal "Impulse". Assignments are given to hone presentation and writing skills and to give students the opportunity to explore their favorite topic in more detail. In this Maurer Public Speaking Intensive course, we will build towards presenting in front of a larger audience through multiple public speaking assignments.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: NEUR 100. Not open to First-Years.
Instructor: Gobes
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; EC - Epistemology and Cognition; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Neuropharmacology is the study of how drugs act on the nervous system. In this course, you will learn the molecular mechanisms of drug action, increase your depth of knowledge of the various neurotransmitter systems, and apply this knowledge to understand how drugs are used to treat disorders of the nervous system including pain, sleep disorders, affective disorders, addiction, schizophrenia, neurodegeneration, seizures, and stroke. You will have the opportunity to discuss primary literature, lead class discussions, and investigate the properties of drugs that appear in the popular press. Through these experiences you will improve your reading, critical thinking, writing, and oral presentation skills.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: NEUR 200 or permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Years.
Instructor: Bauer
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The electrical activities of neurons in the brain underlie all of our thoughts, perceptions, and memories. However, it is difficult to measure these neural activities experimentally, and also difficult to describe them precisely in ordinary language. For these reasons, mathematical models and computer simulations are increasingly used to bridge the gap between experimental measurements and hypothesized network function. This course will focus on the use of mathematical models and computer simulations to describe the functional dynamics of neurons in a variety of animals. Topics will range from single neuron biophysics to the analysis of circuits thought to underlie sensory perception and memory. Topics will be introduced by background lectures, followed by student-led presentations of primary literature and construction of a computer model of the system studied. Lab will introduce students to computer programming of mathematical models in MATLAB and the neuron-simulator NEURON.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: NEUR 200 and calculus at the level of MATH 115, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Wiest
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: No programming experience is required.
A guided group research project focusing on selected topics from the literature and experimental research methods of neuroscience. Specific topics will vary with each instructor and semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 8
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for Juniors and Seniors.
Instructor: Gobes
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit.
NEUR 250, NEUR 250H, NEUR 350, and NEUR 350H provide students with an opportunity to engage in research with a faculty member. More information is available on the Research and Internship Opportunities tab on the Neuroscience Department website. Registration takes place via the Registrar's Independent Study App.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
NEUR 250, NEUR 250H, NEUR 350, and NEUR 350H provide students with an opportunity to engage in research with a faculty member. More information is available on the Research and Internship Opportunities tab on the Neuroscience Department website. Registration takes place via the Registrar's Independent Study App.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This introductory level course is designed for the student who is new to swimming. This class is perfect for those students who are afraid of the water, through those who are comfortable going underwater, can float, or can do some very basic strokes. This course will progress the student through basic breathing techniques and floating skills to basic technique for freestyle and backstroke. The student will learn to survival float or tread water, and swim in deep water for at least 5 yards. The student will also be introduced to the breaststroke and butterfly pull and kick. **Note: For more advanced swimmers, please register for the Intermediate class.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is for students who have basic swim skills, but would like to enhance their technique, learn new strokes, and become more comfortable in the water. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to use each of the following strokes: freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly. They will have a basic understanding of the turns for each stroke and will have a basic front dive into deep water.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 6
Prerequisites: PE100 Beginning Swimming or prior swimming experience.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is for students already proficient in swimming. Students will use swimming as their mode for conditioning/fitness over the semester. The course will progress from workouts designed by the instructor to self-designed practices by the end of the semester. The different energy systems and how to train them will be discussed, and examples given as part of the practice. There will also be an element of stroke technique and drill work as part of the course, including turns.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Proficiency in swimming is necessary.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Dix
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This introductory course introduces students to the basics of sailing. Upon completion of this course, a student will be able to rig and unrig a tech dingy using the proper knots, recognize and define the points of sail, sail a figure-8 course set by the instructor using tacking, and define basic sailing terminology. A student will also demonstrate an understanding of her ability to safely handle weather conditions and be able to set their own course on Lake Waban without the assistance of an instructor.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Swim Test.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This introductory course introduces students to the basics of canoeing. After taking this course, students will be able to execute basic bow and stern strokes, enabling them to effectively steer and maneuver a tandem and solo canoe. Students will also be able to demonstrate basic safety and rescue maneuvers - including capsize recovery & boat over boat rescue.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Swim Test
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: You must pass the swim test to take this course.
The Swimming Games class is a high-energy fitness class using aquatic games to build cardiovascular exercise, delivering full body aerobic exercise. We will play fast paced games like tag, sharks and minnows, relay races, water polo, etc. Students do not need to be advanced swimmers for this class, but do need to be comfortable in the water.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Basic comfort in water.
Instructor: Dix
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Dorm/Class Crew is offered each fall, with six weeks of practice followed by the Dorm Crew Regatta in late October. To participate in Dorm/Class Crew, students must pass the swim test, which is offered during recreational pool hours.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Swim test
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Introduction to springboard diving will provide students an opportunity to learn movement patterns, skills, techniques, and basic dives from the 1- and 3-meter springboard in a safe, progressive manner. Students will learn both forward and backward takeoffs and entries into the water, as well as simple trampoline skills, stretches for flexibility, and exercises related to the sport. Students will also learn diving terminology, scoring, and how a diving meet runs. This class will culminate with a diving competition where students will perform their skills in a mock diving meet in a fun, friendly environment.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Students should be able to swim ten yards and tread water for one minute.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This is an American Red Cross certification course designed to provide you with the entry level knowledge and skills to prevent, recognize and respond to aquatic emergencies and to provide professional level care for breathing and cardiac emergencies, injuries and sudden illness until emergency medical services personnel can take over. This class will be taught in a Blended Learning format which involves 20 hours of in-person class time as well as 8 hours of online learning, and a one hour pre-course skills test. Prerequisite: There is a significant swim prerequisite that includes but is not limited to a 300 yard (12 lengths of the pool) swim without stopping, a two minute tread and a deep water retrieval.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This introductory level course is designed for the student who is new to swimming. This class is perfect for those students who are afraid of the water, through those who are comfortable going underwater, can float, or can do some very basic strokes. This course will progress the student through basic breathing techniques and floating skills to basic technique for freestyle and backstroke. The student will learn to survival float or tread water, and swim in deep water for at least 5 yards. **Note: For more advanced swimmers, please register for the Intermediate class.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Dix
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This introductory level course, designed for the student who has never before been introduced to the art, offers training in the basic skills of ballet technique. Beginning with barre exercises and progressing to simple steps that move across the center floor, students will practice the fundamentals with music. They will learn what brings line to a dancer’s foot and fluidity to a dancer’s arms; they’ll learn to turn and jump with classical form. Upon completion of this course students will have an understanding of what comprises a ballet class and what it takes to execute ballet's most basic movements.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This advanced beginner course is designed for the dancer who has already been introduced to the basics of ballet and wishes to further develop technique. Akin to stringing beads or speaking simple but fluid sentences in a new language recently learned, steps that were introduced in Ballet I will here be combined into simple but fluid dance combinations. Here is where the beginner becomes facile (and the more advanced dancer can enjoy a classical workout). Students will move in traditional fashion through barre and center exercises that are carefully crafted to be fun and strengthening yet not too difficult to remember or perform. Music is integral and artistic expression the ultimate aim, but this course focuses on the physical mastery of ballet’s basic movements.
Prerequisite: PE 120 Ballet I or understanding of the fundamentals. Note: Those who have not taken the prerequisite will need to pass a placement evaluation at the first session (or beforehand) to determine that they understand the fundamentals of ballet and their level is high enough for this course. Feel free to contact the instructor in advance regarding registration.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: PE120 Ballet I or permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This intermediate/advanced level course is designed for the dancer who has fully mastered the basics of ballet and wishes to further develop technique and artistry. At this level much of the discussion/explanation of basic steps drops out and practice of them become rigorous. Combinations at this level become more complex, they are taught relatively quickly, and accompanying tempos are designed to increase difficulty levels. In this course the artist emerges, as execution of steps progresses to performance of them and artistic expression becomes a focus. From pliés to grand allegro, this course keeps a steady (sometimes swift!) pace, allowing the well-trained dancer the opportunity to work out, technically improve, and artistically grow.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Ballet II with full mastery of the fundamentals. Instructor permission is required.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This class is an exploration of movement for anybody wanting to dance. You will learn basic ballet barre, modern dance styles in both the Graham, and Limon techniques, jazz-sass, as styled by Fosse, and Mr. Smooth-Astaire. Through class exploration you come to know and be more at home in and with your body, The joy of moving together, exploring different techniques, and musical styles, releases stress, increases dopamine- the feel good hormone, and strengthens your ‘Emotional Intelligence.’ From the structure of basic ballet skills to free flowing modern moves across the floor, you strengthen, lengthen and integrate body, mind and emotion.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this class we explore, and integrate modern, jazz and ballet techniques with the art of choreography.. Technically, the class covers creating better turns, leaps, contractions, falls, and floor sequences through Graham, Limon, Ailey, and Tharpe styles. Creatively, you are offered the opportunity to develop basic choreographic skills, developing your own vision, and style. This class offers wonderful life-skills including: developing your voice, and creativity, enhancing your Emotional Intelligence, with community-communication and leadership. This is a physical, joyous class where sweat releases stress, increasing your happy hormones of: dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: PE124 Beginning Dance or permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Dance and music are an integral part of daily life and culture all over Africa. In this course we will explore the richness of West African culture through its music and movement. Students will learn traditional dance movements, songs and history. This course will focus on the correlation between the dance and its corresponding rhythm.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Descended from the ancient tradition of dramatic storytelling in India, kathak is a classical performing art that combines dance, drama, music, and rhythm. 21st century kathak is innovative and contemporary, while remaining deeply rooted in the cultural heritage, traditions and philosophies that are its foundation. It is characterized by intricate footwork, refined gestures, elegant stances, swift spins, improvisation, and rhythmic intensity—along with both subtle and dramatic facial expression. Kathak has gained global popularity and can be found worldwide, with practitioners of all ages, nationalities and ethnicities.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Brazil was the largest importer of Africans during the slave trade, in all of the Americas. As a result, its music and dance are heavily African-rooted, but also incorporate European and Native American influences. Brazil boasts one of the most elaborate Carnival celebrations in the world which displays a rich variety of dance and music. This class will focus on learning the history and cultural significance of the dances as well as the movements themselves.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Combining and integrating the art of Yoga with dance invites spirit and emotion to enter the body through movement. Working with conscious breathing, and subtle body layers, we build strong, supple bodies through integrating Yoga skills with dance technique. As the creator of Shaki Yoga Dances, I offer you original choreographies that explore the energies of Shakti Goddesses, relating their energies directly to your life. The movement connects emotion and intellect into a ‘here and now’ physical response. The class is physical, improving your balance, sense of timing, flexibility, and strength as you learn to sequence poses with skill. You release stress, and anxiety, regenerating peace, focus and inspiration.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Graham Floor is the core-centric technique of the iconoclastic modern dancer, Martha Graham. This class will move from her basics into advanced moves, each position evolving from the vitality and force of a contraction. Classes open with floor stretches, especially for hips and groin, along with core work, and breath. Graham technique builds each move on the previous, offering a solid resonance of step by step understanding to advance the body into the next new movement. Both beginning and advanced dancers will deepen the understanding and use of contraction and breath, which sustain all styles of movement. Classes will close with the creation of short ‘floor dances,’ pulling it all together for a satisfying dance end.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The 'Wisdom Body' is created through the healing art of balancing movement (Yoga, dance of all kinds, basic Tai Chi, Chi Gung) and wellness. This class explores and integrates: 'Emotional Intelligence', basics of the nervous system via the vagus nerve, with visualization, breathwork/Pranayama for specific physical healing, Yoga philosophy, music & poetry. Students come to understand energy, and grow aware of how to work with it. This is a course that supports and builds a strong, flexile body while releasing stress, and anxiety. It is creative in Its use of many layers that inform, deepen, and connect body, spirit, brain, and emotion. The student builds a friendship with her senses, learning to identify triggers/signals, how to change them, and what to learn from them. It is about confidence-building, appreciating oneself, honoring the unique gifts of self while sharing and seeing the same in others. In the dance classes I've taught at the college, I began giving the students more time for their own creativity, for connecting with one another, for learning 'the dancer's toolbox' and how they might best use the tools. I observed them grow as dancers, collaborators, leaders, and creatives. In learning to synthesize different components to create a singular harmony, the body relaxes, and stress flows out with the exhale, a deeper awareness enters, and there is a lot of laughter in this collaborative creativity!
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Cameron
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will teach the fundamentals of walking for fitness, health, and well-being. Participants will learn how to use a treadmill for walking workouts, as well as basic walking for fitness techniques to achieve health and wellness goals. Some of the course will be outside, weather permitted.This course is designed for beginners (e.g., those new to working out) or those who want to learn more about using walking as a fitness activity. We will engage in other components of walking such as mindfulness, hill workouts, and trail walking (on campus).
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Zumba is a fusion of Latin and international dance stylings combined with fitness elements and movements. By taking this course, students will experience a cardiovascular and total body strength and conditioning workout. Improved endurance, coordination and balance are additional benefits of Zumba. Upon completion, students will have a basic understanding of dance and music sequencing, transitions, and phrasing, and will perform the choreography learned.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Upon completion of this course, students will have increased their cardiovascular capacity while developing a comprehensive understanding of how to design and carry out a personal fitness program. Students will be introduced to variety of workout routines through training modules. Workouts will be tailored to each student's cardiovascular capacity and will progress from a low intensity workout module to a high impact interval training module. The class will primarily utilize aerobic equipment including- ellipticals, treadmills, bicycles, and 'stairmasters.' Weather permitting, the class will go outdoors to engage in cardiovascular based activities that may include team based games. Spaces used on these days can include our sports fields, track, or walking trails. Finally, most classes will incorporate a social element allowing students to make personal connections with classmates and promote a sense of camaraderie while getting in shape!
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course engages students in traditional Pilates movements to improve strength, flexibility, and balance. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to perform exercises that strengthen the core muscle groups (abdomen, hip and gluteal muscles). Students will also demonstrate their knowledge of muscle conditioning specificity by creating a Pilates routine that encompasses all the major core muscle groups.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course engages students in the traditional Pilates movements to improve strength, flexibility, and balance. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to perform exercises that strengthen the core muscle groups (abdomen, hip and gluteal muscles). Students will also demonstrate their knowledge of muscle conditioning specificity by creating a Pilates routine that encompasses all the major core muscle groups.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Upon completion of this course students will be able to design and execute individualized cardiovascular-core strength fitness programs incorporating pilates core strengthening exercises, meditation and relaxation techniques, and alternative strength training exercises. Students will incorporate a wide variety of current physiological and mind-body principles that will lead to improved core strength, endurance, cardiovascular fitness, and enhanced self-awareness and relaxation.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is for students with an established running background. By the end of the course, students will understand the various energy systems involved in running and how to train each system. The class will focus on running as a method for conditioning, but will use a combination of variety of cross-training methods, including flexibility and strength training. The goal for each student is to complete a 10K run at the completion of the course.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Students should have an established running background
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course introduces students to the principles of strength training. Students will learn how to safely use the Cybex weight machines, free weights, and other training equipment to increase muscular strength and endurance. Upon completion of the course, students will know the major muscle groups and will be able to implement sound training principles into their individualized strength program. Additionally, students will be able to create their own training regimen.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course is designed to provide students with the fundamental knowledge and skills involved in resistance training. Students will learn the proper techniques of various forms of resistance training including: barbells, free weights, resistance bands, physioballs, medicine balls, and body weight exercises. Students will also learn how to properly warm up and cool down through dynamic and passive movements. Students will follow a periodized resistance program throughout the semester aimed at making gains in strength and power. At the completion of this course, students will be able to create a personalized resistance training routine.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Students will increase their aerobic capacity and learn about various training strategies and the impact of physical conditioning on the body while training to run a 5k. Each class will progress through a variety of distances, time intervals, and levels of exertion, along with learning the physiological rationale for such progressions. Various training techniques, including interval training and cross training (e.g., bike, elliptical, etc.), will be used throughout the course. The eventual goal is for the student to be able to continuously run for over 30 minutes. Students will track individual goals and progress throughout the semester.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course will help students get into shape, reduce stress, increase energy, and build confidence. Students will learn how to properly warm up and cool down, exercise at high intensity using calisthenics, strength workouts, dumbbells, medicine balls, agility ladders, obstacle courses and much more. Upon completion of Boot Camp Fitness, students will be able to design and execute their own fun and challenging fitness programs using high intensity interval training (HIIT).
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course is an introduction to indoor cycling. Students will learn bike setup and safety, proper riding technique and movements, and how to monitor heart rate in conjunction with effort. The class will offer energizing, cycling-inspired rides that combine sound training principles, inspirational music, and a unique mind/body philosophy. Students will exercise at moderate to high intensity levels using the spinning bikes, while incorporating different spinning movements. Upon completion of this course students will be able to design and execute their own individualized spin program. This course will help you get into shape, reduce stress, and increase energy.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The class is a continuation of Beginning Spinning with more rigorous rides focusing on higher and more challenging rotations per minute (RPM). It will offer energizing rides that combine sound training principles, including regulating tension, intensity, and cadence throughout each workout. Students will be able to transform their beginning spin skill set into a performance training tool. This course will enhance students' cardiovascular fitness level and reduce stress.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: PE 150 Spinning I or permission of the instructor
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Barre is a full body workout that incorporates body weight strength, pilates and ballet exercises. Workouts are set to fun and high-energy music. The exercises are designed to exhaust your muscle groups then stretch targeted areas to build strength and flexibility. Over the course of the semester we will deconstruct a Barre workout to teach students proper form, mind and body awareness and build strength. Upon completion, students will have the strength and endurance to complete an entire 60 minute Barre class.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Spin & Strength will combine the benefits of a workout on the bike and a workout off the bike. Each class, we will challenge and increase overall cardiovascular fitness level through cycling and challenge and increase overall strength level through a bodyweight circuit off the bike. In the spin portion of this course, students will learn proper bike setup and safety, techniques to enhance the mind-body connection, and spinning specific movements and positions. In the strength portion, students will learn different ways to format a training session that includes upper body, lower body, core, and flexibility movements. We will exercise at varying intensity levels on the bike that allow us to travel through the 6 different spinning movements over 2 types of terrains, flats and hills, and two basic positions on the bike, seated and standing. We will manipulate both speed and resistance to create a full ride that will challenge the body. Off the bike workouts will focus on all body weight movements allowing students to understand and use their bodies as the sole form of resistance. Classes will hit all major muscle groups in combination with cardio based movements to keep heart rate up. With the progression of movements, reps, and interval based training, students will build power and stamina. The course will combine energizing and rigorous cycling-inspired rides and strength circuits with upbeat music and a focus on growth, breath and connection. A typical class will include a warm-up, ride portion, strength portion and cool down. This course will help students elevate their fitness level and strength, reduce stress, increase energy, and build confidence while also preparing them to create their own workouts moving forward.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Lekas
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Advanced Barre builds on the skills gained in Barre Fitness, incorporating bodyweight strength, pilates, and ballet exercises. Students will build on the strength, technique, and body awareness that they formed in Barre Fitness. Workouts are set to fun and high-energy music and the intensity is high. Upon completion of the course, students will have a deeper understanding of proper form and will be able to create their own Barre workout.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Advanced Barre builds on the skills gained in Barre Fitness, incorporating bodyweight strength, pilates, and ballet exercises. Students will build on the strength, technique, and body awareness that they formed in Barre Fitness. Workouts are set to fun and high-energy music and the intensity is high. Upon completion of the course, students will have a deeper understanding of proper form and will be able to create their own Barre workout.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: PE153 Barre Fitness or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Upon completion of this practical self-defense course, students will learn basic avoidance tactics, awareness skills and physical self-defense maneuvers. The student will be able to demonstrate effective escape skills, verbal responses, and offensive counter attacks (including elbow strikes, heel/palm hits, kicks and fighting from the ground). Safety equipment will be used in class, and physical contact is a part of every session.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Tai Chi is the ancient Chinese art of meditation achieved through low-impact movements and postures. Weaponry (sabre) is an important aspect of this training and will be included in the course. By learning postures from the Wu Chien-Chuan competition form and the fundamentals of the tai chi saber, students will achieve proper spinal alignment and muscle relaxation.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is a relaxed and enjoyable experience for the new student as well as a former practitioner of martial arts. The course focuses on the fundamentals of Traditional Hung Kuen, a southern style of kung fu. Basics include how to punch, kick, block, footwork and stances. Postures in the forms will be covered, along with learning how to develop a form sequence. This is achieved by linking the postures together to create a routine classified as the form. We will cover the process, the discovery, and the understanding from learning and training with postures. The health and wellness benefits of the practice of form sequences and how breath and movement are essential to life.
The instructor will be in a room with mirrors so students can follow the form sequences from different perspectives. For instructional purposes, I will share the screen with pre-recorded video for viewing and following the content that will be covered in classes. Recorded meetings will be shared for additional review of content and improved understanding.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The practice of Taekwon-Do is geared toward self-defense, as well as physical and mental health. Taekwon-Do is a modern martial art that combines thousands of years of ancient methods of self-defense with scientific concepts from physics making it one of the most powerful martial arts in existence. Students will develop strength, coordination, and flexibility by practicing applications of hand and foot techniques (the “Taekwon” part of the name). Students will also develop confidence and gain understanding of some aspects of Korean philosophy and culture (the “Do” or the “way” part of the name), focused on the core tenets of Taekwon-Do: courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Taekwon-Do II is a course designed as a continuation of Taekwon-Do I curriculum. Pre-requisites for this course include having taken Taekwon-Do I or other prior experience with Taekwon-Do, subject to an assessment by the instructor. The practice of Taekwon-Do is geared toward self-defense, as well as physical and mental health. Taekwon-Do is a modern martial art that combines thousands of years of ancient methods of self-defense with scientific concepts from physics making it one of the most powerful martial arts in existence. Students will continue to develop strength, coordination, and flexibility by practicing applications of hand and foot techniques (the "Taekwon" part of the name). Students will also develop confidence and gain an understanding of some aspects of Korean philosophy and culture (the "Do" or the "way" part of the name), focused on the core tenets of Taekwon-Do: courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit. This course would allow a student to test and advance one level in Taekwon-Do rank. Prerequisites: PE 163
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: PE 163 Taekwon-Do
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Learning the basics of American football in a cooperative and fun environment. The nature of American football with lots of running, sprints and agility exercises makes it a perfect activity to get some great cardio work done in a fast-paced and entertaining environment. Students will learn the rules and strategy of the game, basic offensive and defensive strategies. Early on the essential terminology and concepts would be taught and students would then start to run plays, diagram routes, call defenses, and play in small scrimmages. The emphasis of the class will be on quality physical fitness while learning a game that may be new to some.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Charlton
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Upon completion of the course, a student will be able to execute the fundamental steps of target shooting and attain an intermediate level of skill. Students will have the opportunity to test their archery skills and sights in a variety of archery games and contests, shooting from 15, 20, and 25 yards.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Upon completion of the course, a student will be able to execute the fundamental steps of target shooting and attain an intermediate level of skill. Videotaping will help students analyze their errors to improve overall shooting. Students will have the opportunity to test their archery skills and sights in a variety of archery games, such as tic tac toe, dartboard, and balloon shoot. Students will shoot from 15, 20, and 25 yards.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This is a beginning badminton course in which students will develop the basic skills necessary to play the game of badminton. Technical skills include the overhead and underhand clears, the short and long serves, drop shots, the smash, proper grip, and footwork. Instruction will include an emphasis on the fundamental strategies and rules used in both singles and doubles play. As a result of taking this class, students will be able to demonstrate the basic strokes in badminton, play and score in single and double competition, and articulate the rules and etiquette of the game. A fitness component will be part of each class aimed to improve agility, flexibility, and strength.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course is an introduction to the sport of fencing. Students will learn basic skills, including advance, retreat, attack and defense, with an emphasis on correct execution of these fundamental skills. Students will also learn bouting strategies and scoring. At the end of this course, a student will be familiar with fencing history, rules, equipment and basic skills. Opportunity for electric foil fencing, with equipment provided, will be included.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course teaches the fundamentals of golf, including different strokes as well as the rules of the game. After taking this class, the student will be able to execute the basic golf strokes, including full swing, pitching, chipping and putting. The student will have an understanding of the rules in order to engage in course play. Equipment provided.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Upon the completion of this course students will have a basic knowledge of belayer/climber communication, rock climbing terms, knots, and movement on rock. Students will focus on personal goal setting and intrinsic motivation in the sport of rock climbing. This is an introductory course and no previous rock climbing experience is needed.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
A continuation of the introduction to fencing course, this course will review the footwork, bladework, and tactics from the introductory class. The emphasis will be on expanding to competitive bouting and electric fencing. (Equipment provided.)
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Klinkov
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: The credits earned in this course count toward your Physical Education graduation requirement; they do not count toward the 32 academic units required for your degree.
Pickleball is a paddle sport accessible to all ages and skill levels. Students will learn the rules of the game and basics of play, with greater technique incorporated as the class progresses. Through drills and live play, students will gain confidence and proficiency in this life-long wellness activity.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Notes:
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is an introduction to the game of tennis for students with limited or no experience. As a result of taking this class, students will be able to execute the basic shots of tennis, including forehand and backhand ground strokes, volleys, and serves. Students will become familiar with fundamental concepts related to each of the basic strokes including correct grips, footwork, and contact points, and will learn how to play points and games. Upon completion of this class, students will be able to take part in a friendly match using official rules and scoring, and appropriate terminology and etiquette.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course builds on the skills learned in Elementary Tennis, introducing more advanced tennis skills and strategy. As a result of participation in Intermediate Tennis, students will improve the consistency of their basic tennis skills including the groundstrokes, volley and serves. With emphasis on footwork, positioning, and ball placement, students will be able to execute strategies for singles and doubles play. Students will also become familiar with the use of varied grips and spins, as well as specialty shots such as the overhead, lob and dropshot. Students will be able to implement their developing skills and strategies into match play.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: PE 182 Elementary Tennis or permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This class is designed for students of every ability level interested in improving their volleyball skills. By the end of the class, students will be able to pass, set, dig, serve, and attack. Students will also have a basic knowledge of offensive and defensive strategies. Principles of physical fitness including proper warm-up/cool down, cardiovascular and strength training, and stretching will also be addressed.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The downhill ski and snowboarding program is conducted at Nashoba Valley Ski Area, a 45-minute ride from the College. The Nashoba Valley Ski School provides lessons at all levels, from beginning to expert. Attire: Ski pants/warm slacks, ski parka, warm mittens/ gloves, heavy socks, warm hat. PE Credit: Students must attend at least four lessons to earn credit. If weather conditions reduce the number of trips to Nashoba, students might not be eligible to receive credit. Students are responsible for lift tickets, lesson fees, and equipment rental.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 45
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course introduces the footwork, bladework, and tactics of fencing, developing proper technique and form. With a particular emphasis on competitive bouting and electric fencing, with equipment provided, students will develop a sound foundation of the fencing basics through regular practice. Students will also learn the rules of the game, including scoring. Equipment provided.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Yoga focuses on the integration of the breath and mindfulness with postures or asanas. The postures may be linked in a flowing manner or may be held for several breaths. Upon completion of the class, a student will be able to execute many postures and breathing techniques that work together with alignment, clarity of mind and relaxation. Increased student awareness of their physical strengths and challenges will be identified to achieve improved balance, stability, flexibility, strength and focus.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course builds on the practice learned in Beginning Yoga, diving deeper into the study of yoga. Students in this Iyengar style class will perform intermediate yoga postures, including inverted poses, arm balances and back bends. Upon completion of the class, students will be able to execute more advanced postures and breathing techniques, with a focus on alignment and clarity of mind. Students will improve their balance, stability, flexibility, strength, and focus. Prerequisites: PE190 Beginning Yoga or permission of the instructor.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The aim of this course is to help students develop mindfulness skills that will help relax, refresh, and focus the mind and body. Mindfulness, sensory awareness, and basic mindful movement techniques will be learned and experienced through guided seated, walking, standing, and lying down meditation. Upon completion of the course, which includes short daily requirements, and maintenance of a brief log/journal to be handed in each week, students will be able to integrate mindful awareness practices into their lives.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course teaches students the practice of mindfulness. Through guided meditative exercises, students will improve their abilities to relax, refresh, and focus the mind and body. Upon completion of the course, which includes short independent daily exercises, and maintaining a journal, students will be able to effectively integrate mindfulness into their lives.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: None
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The practice of mindfulness is geared toward developing awareness in the present moment with intention, attention, curiosity, acceptance and kindness. This course focuses on developing mindfulness skills. Classes will consist of a combination of quiet sitting meditations with focus on the breath and body, body scans, positional yoga, and mindful movement/activities such as walking and will conclude with individual written reflections in a mindfulness journal to track progress and development. At the end of the course, students will be able to incorporate their own mindfulness practice into their daily lives.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The practice of yoga is well-demonstrated to release stored stress and reduce the physical and emotional effects of stress on the body and the mind. This class combines restorative yoga poses, gentle stretches and breathwork, to create a calming, stress-reducing experience. By taking this class, students will build a toolbox of simple techniques that can be used on and off the mat, at any time of the day, to soothe the nervous system and change emotions.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Students will increase their aerobic capacity and learn about various training strategies and the impact of physical conditioning on the body while training to run a 3k. Each class will progress through a variety of distances, time intervals, and levels of exertion, along with learning the physiological rationale for such progressions. Various training techniques, including interval training and cross training (e.g., bike, elliptical, etc.), will be used throughout the course. The eventual goal is for the student to be able to continuously run for over 20 minutes. Students will track individual goals and progress throughout the semester.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The practice of stretching and building flexibility is integral to personal health and wellness. Whether training for a sport or recovering from sedentary work (classes, homework, sitting at a desk), stretching can prevent injury, improve range of motion, increase blood flow, boost energy, help to correct imbalances in the body, and aid in recovery. Each class will consist of a brief warmup, followed by guided stretches focused on various muscle groups and areas of the body, and will conclude with individual written reflections in a stretching log to track progress and development throughout the course. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to safely and independently incorporate their own stretching routines into their daily lives.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course focuses on movements that build muscle strength and stretch. Students will learn ways to increase mobility and stability of different muscle groups as they master workouts that combine aspects of building strong muscles while maintaining flexibility. Classes will begin with a warm-up, proceed through a variety of exercises, and end with cool-down. The goal is for students to improve strength and flexibility as the movements increase in both intensity and length throughout the course. All exercises will use students' body weight as the sole form of resistance. Through this course, students will have the opportunity to learn movements and ultimately create their own workouts that will increase their strength, power, flexibility, mobility, coordination, and balance.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
In this course, students will learn about the different muscles that make up the core and learn a variety of exercises designed to train and strengthen those muscles. Students will also learn methods of designing core workouts in order to train different energy systems and muscle groups, complement other strength programs, or in order to improve every-day fitness. Each class will begin with a warm up, run through a series of core exercises and conclude with a cool down. The goal of this course is for students to improve their own core strength, and to develop the skills to design their own core strength workouts. No equipment will be necessary for this course.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Total Body Training is designed to build strength and fitness through a variety of types of bodyweight exercises. This course will help students increase cardiovascular fitness and overall strength while also elevating energy levels, mood, and confidence. Sessions will work all the major muscle groups including core and will also be a great cardio workout. A focus on all bodyweight movements will allow students to use their own bodyweight as the sole form of resistance. Throughout the course, movements and intensity will progress to increase students' strength, mobility, stability, and overall fitness. Students will learn the proper way to warm up and cool down and upon completion of the course will be able to create their own fun and challenging workout with a full body focus.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In eighty years, your heart will beat approximately 3.2 trillion times—an engine that doesn't stop, almost never requires maintenance, and adapts itself to varied demand. Our engineers have not yet begun to touch that brilliance of evolution. This course will explore the concept of HR training zones—the idea that the HR at which you train is the ultimate arbiter of your results. We'll learn how to estimate and then measure our maximum heart rates, and we'll use those data to create training plans suited to our goals. We'll learn the tradeoffs of various training intensities and debate what constitutes fitness; we'll even experiment with heart rate reduction, used rarely in sports like biathlon. This course will not mandate what physical activity you use to achieve the HR goals set forth; requirements will be based around intensity and volume. Note: a wearable HR monitor of some type is required.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Which risks are "worth it?" Can we live without risk? These are always vital questions, but they have become even more salient in the covid era. This course will NOT ask you to take new risks—but it will require you to analyze risks that you are already taking, possibly without due consideration. Through regular physical activity (we’ll focus on running, hiking and biking, but it will be partially dependent on what is available to whom) and classroom discussion, we will tackle the concept of physical risk. We'll learn to calculate the risk of a variety of activities and compare what we find to how we perceive those risks; we'll also learn to assess risk even when few data are available. We'll learn to distinguish between subjective and objective hazards, and we'll consider what benefits might stem from seeking physical risk. As we train our bodies, we will also discuss the risks of inactivity. Ultimately, we will strive to become more thoughtful in our approach to risk: able to mitigate it when possible and seek it when appropriate.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Designed to help students achieve wellness through exercise, nutrition, and mindfulness education. Students are taught to recognize components of their lifestyles that are detrimental to their health while developing a personal wellness program. This class will explore current fitness, health, and nutrition topics. Each class will begin with discussion/dialogue between instructor and students, followed by physical activity. The goal is to incorporate physical activity and wellness practices to improve overall health and well-being. Each term this course is offered new activities will be introduced focusing on improving coordination, strength, flexibility and aerobic capacity, along with mindfulness practices such as meditation, self compassion, values, and a growth mindset.
Units: 2
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This class takes the floor physically, emotionally, and mentally to connect bodies into a joyous physicality. Technique includes great jazz and modern American originals: Fosse, Tharpe, Ailey, Cole, Luigi, and Giordano. Plus today’s influencers: Kyle Hanagami. WildaBeast Adams, Dytto, Urban Dance Camp, Tricia Miranda, Mega Jam, and Mandy Jiroux,
Classes begin with a 15-20 minute warm up, focusing on legs and feet, stretch & alignment. We then move across the floor in short combinations, emphasizing locomotor movement, turns, isolations, and leaps. The last 20 minutes is devoted to choreographing short dances. To add strength and flexibility, class includes basic ballet for legs and feet,, modern from inspired Broadway choreographers, and African for the rhythm of the heart.
OBJECTIVE:
To enjoy greater body awareness; To share creatively; To refine technical skill; To learn how to use choreographic tools of time, space, sequencing, rhythm, and attitude. By the end of the semester you have grown a new point of view about yourself and how you choose to move, and you will be more willing to take risks. It’s a proven scientific fact, dance increases brain cells, and happiness makes them expand. Come join the dance, point your toes/expand your brain, and have a wonderful time with new ‘jazzyfriends'!
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Samantha Cameron
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A high energy dance form that encourages self-expression, personal growth and cultural awareness. Come dance with us for fun and find joy through movement and music. Students will learn the fundamental principles of partnering, dance floor etiquette, timing, basic footwork, full and half turns, ‘cross body lead’, and useful salsa dance patterns.
Units: 4
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An interdisciplinary introduction to the study of conflict, justice, and peace. The course engages students in developing an analytical and theoretical framework for examining the dynamics of conflict, violence, and injustice and the strategies that have been employed to attain peace and justice, including balance of power, cooperation, diplomacy and conflict resolution, law, human rights, social movements, social justice (economic, environmental, and race/class/gender), interpersonal communication, and religiously inspired social transformation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years, Sophomores, and Juniors.
Instructor: Confortini, Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
How can a candidate in a political race win the majority of votes yet lose the election? How can two competing candidates interpret the same statistic as being in their favor? How can the geometry of the voting district disenfranchise entire groups of voters? Can we quantify the power the President of the United States has? In this course, we will look at the mathematics behind these and related questions that arise in politics. We will study topics such as fairness, voting paradoxes, social choice, game theory, apportionment, gerrymandering, and data interpretation. The goal of the class will be to illustrate the importance of rigorous reasoning in various social and political processes while providing an introduction to some fascinating mathematics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 123,MATH 123
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Volic
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences are indispensable to understanding the climate crisis. Drawing on perspectives from across the liberal arts, the course instructors will plumb the depths of the climate crisis and imagine the possible ways of responding to it. What can the role of climate in human history reveal about our uncertain future? How do social constructions, including race and gender, shape our understanding of this problem? How have diverse cultures of the world related to nature and climate and how can our own relationships to nature and climate inform our responses? Can the arts help us to reconceive the crisis? How can the sciences help us assess and adapt to our future climate? Can we leverage psychological processes to change individual attitudes toward the environment? By examining such questions, we aim for deeper knowledge, both of the climate crisis and of the power of liberal arts education.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 80
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 125H
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Banzaert, Brabander, Kulik-Johnson, Morari, Shukla-Bhatt, Turner
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course provides the student with an in-depth study of conflict and its resolution. We will explore the basic theoretical concepts of the field and apply this knowledge as we learn and practice skills for analyzing and resolving conflicts. The course seeks to answer the following questions at both the theoretical level and the level of engaged action: What are the causes and consequences of conflict? How do we come to know and understand conflict? How do our assumptions about conflict affect our strategies for management, resolution, or transformation? What methods are available for waging and resolving conflicts productively rather than destructively?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: PEAC 104 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Considered since the Renaissance as a homoerotic haven, Italy was for a long time the favorite destination of many gay writers in flight from the rigid sexual mores of their home countries. In Italy’s warmer Mediterranean climate, rich and sensuous figurative arts, and ancient costumes, they found a culture that seemed more at ease with a nuanced idea of human sexuality. After all, Italy is the country that gave birth to famous artists who became icons of LGBTQ+ culture, such as the painter Caravaggio and the poet Pasolini, and that, unlike other Western nations, never had laws criminalizing homoeroticism. Today, paradoxically, Italy is the Western European country which is most lagging behind in passing legislation in support of LGBTQ+ rights. From the lack of a full legal recognition of gay marriage and adoption rights to the failure to approve a hate-crime bill for the protection of LGBTQ+ individuals, Italian society still shows great reluctance to grant full equal rights to LGBTQ Italians. With these historical contradictions in the background, this course will retrace the steps of the rich, complex, and often tortuous path of LGBTQ+ culture in Italy from the early representations of sodomy, during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, in works by Dante and Poliziano, to the shaping of a political and social discourse around homosexuality in literary texts by twentieth century writers, such as Saba, Bassani, Ginzburg, and Morante, to the emergence of a political debate on current LGBTQ+ issues, such as AIDS, homophobia, transgender and transexual rights, in works by contemporary artists, such as Tondelli, Bazzi, and Lavagna.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 210
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Parussa
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In this course students will engage with a spectrum of historic and contemporary school reform efforts across different contexts in the United States. Making use of a diverse array of texts from articles to podcasts and videos, students will struggle with both the promise of education as a tool for remedying race- and class-based inequalities and the stubborn reality that too often schools reflect and reproduce injustice. The structure of the course session and activities prompts students to learn about and experience alternative educational possibilities. Working in groups, pairs, and as individuals, students will explore scholarship and cases in educational anthropology, sociology, history, and critical theory, while questioning the purposes, processes, and products of schooling. Central to the course is the community students create with the instructor for mutual learning support and debate. All members of the course are engaged in a learning stance that centers a discipline of hope and engages with the proposition that communities can organize their own struggle to define and demand a humanizing and liberatory education. Students also have multiple opportunities to explore their own educational experiences and design their own research or educational initiatives to act on their learning.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 22
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 215
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years, Sophomores and Juniors. Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: D'Andrea Martinez
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The course will examine epidemics and pandemics and how they shape society and culture. It will explore catastrophic disease events such as the 4th century BC Ancient Greek plague, the Black Death of Medieval Europe, the European infectious diseases that killed native populations of the Americas, the Spanish flu of 1918, the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the late 20th century, and the present-day coronavirus pandemic. Key questions that will guide the course are: 1. Who holds the bio-political power to guide the population through the danger of widespread morbidity, and how is this power used and/or abused? 2. What kind of socioeconomic, gender, ethnic ,and racial disparities are perpetuated and constructed in times of disease? 3. How do individual political entities cooperate and coordinate in their efforts to curtail disease? 4. How is the rhetoric of “war” employed to describe epidemic and pandemic diseases? 5. What are the effects of actual war, violence, and genocide that often follow epidemics? 6. What are the uses and the limitations of international public health organizations in addressing pandemics?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 220
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Karakasidou
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Should you sell your house at an auction where the highest bidder gets the house, but only pays the second-highest bid? Should the U.S. government institute a policy of never negotiating with terrorists? The effects of decisions in such situations often depend on how others react to them. This course introduces some basic concepts and insights from the theory of games that can be used to understand any situation in which strategic decisions are made. The course will emphasize applications rather than formal theory. Extensive use is made of in-class experiments, examples, and cases drawn from business, economics, politics, movies, and current events.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 21
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 222
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P. Open to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.
Instructor: Skeath
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Is the digital dream darkening? This course examines social justice movements and digital technologies in the age of surveillance capitalism. We will focus on the early promises and contemporary perils of the digital age by examining social movements and struggles for social justice around the world. Are inequalities based on race, ethnicity, gender, and class being exacerbated by digital technologies? Could new technologies create opportunities for advancing social justice?
We will first analyze the early cyber manifestos and imagined techno futures with the advent of the digital world. The second part of the course will focus on contemporary surveillance pressures on individuals and social movements by governments and private corporations with examples from around the world. We will also discuss cyber crimes. The final part of this course will discuss the possibilities and methods of building alternative futures of social justice by employing digital technologies. Our topics will include border surveillance, digital colonialism, platform-based labor, algorithmic biases, data justice, pharmaceutical patents, copyright restrictions, pirate parties, and green technologies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
South Africa’s new constitution and dynamic forms of social activism and cultural expression represent powerful forces for democracy and equality. However, the legacy of Apartheid and the constraints on the transition to majority rule in 1991-1994 still negatively affect people’s living conditions along the lines of race, class, and gender. This course traces South Africa’s history from 1652 to the present, with themes including: the establishment of colonial rule; the destruction of pre-colonial polities; slavery and emancipation; White nationalism and the establishment of Apartheid; African nationalist movements and other forms of resistance; the fraught transition to majority rule, including the Truth and Reconciliation process; South Africa’s dynamic popular and public culture, and ongoing efforts to counter poverty, public corruption, HIV-AIDS, gender-based violence, and “xenophobia”.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 224
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course serves as an introduction to urban anthropology. It is organized around four particular places on the cityscape that stand as symbolic markers for larger anthropological questions we will examine throughout the course: the market stall, the gated community, the barricade, and the levee. We will explore the rise of global cities, including the role of labor migration, squatter settlements, and institutions of global capitalism, and interrogate the aesthetic practices that inscribe social exclusion onto the urban built environment. We will approach the city as contested space, a stage on which social, economic, and political struggles are waged. And, we will ask how those experiences shape our understanding of contemporary forms of social, political, and economic inequality, and how people “made do” and make claims to their right to the city.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 231
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Ellison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the development of antislavery thought in French literature from the end of the eighteenth century through the first half of the nineteenth century. We will analyze the imagery, narratives and presuppositions on which authors relied and in turn reproduced to express antislavery sentiment. We will pay attention to how the Haitian Revolution; French abolition of the slave trade and other models of abolition shaped a culture of moral repugnance at France’s ongoing economic dependence on the practice of chattel slavery. Referring to this context, we will consider the particular voice of antislavery literature in producing abolitionist arguments. On what grounds did French authors understand and denounce colonial slavery? How did antislavery texts participate in a movement towards abolition? How did authors depict enslaved individuals and how did these texts contribute to nineteenth-century discourses on gender and race in France? These questions will lead students to confront the ambiguous and complicitous intersections between abolition, antislavery literature, imperial expansion and racism prior to the definitive abolition of slavery in 1848 and the establishment of France’s Second Empire.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 235
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Lee
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the development of the Black Church and the complexities of black religious life in the United States. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this course explores the religious life of African Americans from twin perspectives: 1) historical, theological dimensions, and 2) the cultural expression, particularly music and art. Special emphasis will be placed on gospel music, Womanist and Black Liberation theologies as forms of political action and responses to interpretations of race in the context of American religious pluralism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 243
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This course explores the role of written and cinematic narratives along with photography in response to traumatic historic events, focusing on select regions of Africa and on African Diaspora societies in the U.S. and Caribbean. We’ll explore the roles of (and relationships between) narrator, witness, audience and victim, both historically and in light of new social media, and discuss how these relationships give rise to particular representations of perpetrators, victims and saviors. Topics to be considered in relation to such narratives might include: colonization, genocide, apartheid, the continuing impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and systemic racism on African-American and Caribbean societies. Works might include Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart or No Longer at Ease; Chimamanda Adiche, Half of a Yellow Sun; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; short fiction of the Apartheid Era; short fiction/essays by James Baldwin; Films: Fruitvale Station, 13th, Kinyarwanda, Lumumba. Students will be introduced to postcolonial literary theory and trauma narrative theory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 259
Prerequisites: Not open to student who have taken ENG 388/PEAC 388.
Instructor: Cezair-Thompson
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the American Civil War, one of the central conflicts in US history, by placing it within the broader context of the making of the modern world. The course will explore the roots, consequences, and experiences of the war—the long history of slavery and emancipation, territorial expansion and industrialization, and the everyday experience of modern warfare. The class will do so by considering those events through the lens of global history. We scrutinize the political upheavals around the world that gave broader meaning to the Civil War; the emergence of modern weaponry and tactics and their consequences; and the development of the nation-state and colonialism, which resulted in new forms of governance and coercion that emerged in the wake of emancipation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 261
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Quintana
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
As author Viet Thanh Nguyen notes, “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” The ways armed conflicts are represented play a determining factor not only our collective memory of them, but also in the way we conduct ourselves. This course will explore a range of approaches to representing war in the twentieth century. Among the questions we will ask are: When does war begin, and when does it end? At what distance do we sense war, and at what scale does it become legible? What are the stakes of writing, filming, or recording war, or for that matter, studying its representations? We will address these issues through units on violence, trauma, apocalypse, mourning, repair, visuality, and speed. Texts will include novels, short stories, Supreme Court cases, poetry, graphic novels, films, journalism, and theory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 277
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rich
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course examines the experiences and cultures of Afro-Latinas/os, people of both African and Latin American descent, in the United States. We will consider how blackness intersects with Latina/o identity, using social movements, politics, popular culture, and literature as the bases of our analysis. This course addresses these questions transnationally, taking into account not only racial dynamics within the United States, but also the influence of dominant Latin American understandings of race and national identity. We will consider the social constructions of blackness and Latinidad; the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the Latina/o community; immigration and racial politics; representations of Afro-Latinas/os in film, music, and literature; and African American-Latino relations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 290
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rivera-Rideau
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course explores the intersections between social justice, conflict, and engineering using an interdisciplinary, hands-on, case study approach. We will explore four technologies (drones, cell phones, cookstoves and water pumps), exploring in each case both the embodied engineering concepts and the ethical and political implications of using the technology. The case studies will inform our discussions of the following big ideas: technology is directly linked to social justice and can have both highly beneficial and? highly problematic results for the development and transformation of conflicts; understanding technology at a deeper level is critical to understanding the justice impact on communities and people; media communication about technology and technological innovations' benefits can be hyperbolic and requires a critical lens. Peace and Justice Studies majors must register for PEAC 305. Students in other majors may register for either PEAC 305 or ENGR 305 depending on their preparation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ENGR 30 5
Prerequisites: For PEAC 305 - PEAC 104 and PEAC 204, or permission of the instructor (Confortini). For ENGR 305 - one ENGR course, or a comparable course at another institution, or permission of the instructor (Banzaert).
Instructor: Confortini, Banzaert
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
A vital peaceful society depends on the active participation of its people. What does it take for people to engage productively as informed, skilled, and effective members in communities across the world? Whether we are scientists, doctors, engineers, advocates, public servants, or anything else, we are all members of pluralistic communities. Who is able and motivated to engage (much less lead), however, is often limited- leading to significant challenges for the practice of a just and peaceful society. Moreover, translating the people’s engagement into power is a strategic dilemma. This class seeks to overcome some of the limits to participation by combining theory and practice in a reflection of students’ experiential learning. First, the class examines theories of civic engagement, community organizing, monitoring and evaluation, service, and humanitarianism using real world cases and data. Next, the class examines practical hurdles and opportunities for the effective translation of participation into power and action. Then the class provides a framework, using Patti Clayton’s DEAL matrix, for a critical reflection and assessment of student’s real-world engagement. Finally, the class concludes with an exportable blueprint for making a more just and peaceful society. This class is the Senior Capstone course for all P&J majors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: PEAC 104 and PEAC 204.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: The experiential learning position may be completed prior to or in tandem with enrollment in the course. The experiential position should be discussed with the student’s P&J major or minor advisor and may include Wintersession programs, summer or yearlong internships, course-related experiential education programs, or community service projects. This class is the senior capstone class for all Peace and Justice Studies majors and minors.
This course explores the complex relationship between literature and law, focusing on how each represents and responds to violence and its aftermath, especially in terms of memory and repair. Our goal will not be to judge the efficacy of literary and legal projects, but rather to study how they imagine and enact issues of testimony, commemoration, apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation. We will seek to understand how different forms of life correspond to the various legal theories and codes we’ll encounter, and how literature challenges or corroborates these specifically legal subjects, life worlds, and behaviors. We will also ask whether there are cases in which literature intervenes in jurisprudence, imagining or demanding its own model of law. The class will explore these issues in relation to existing twentieth-century juridical paradigms such as postwar military trials, human rights, reparations, and reconciliation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 334
Prerequisites: At least one literature course in any department or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Rich
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: PEAC 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course explores the role of narratives in response to mass trauma, focusing on regions of Africa and African Diaspora societies. Drawing on the emerging fields of trauma narrative, we will examine the effectiveness of oral, written and cinematic narratives in overcoming legacies of suffering and building peace. Topics include: violence in colonial and postcolonial Central Africa, the Biafran war, South Africa during and after Apartheid and Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. We will also explore the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its impact on African-American and Caribbean societies. Types of narrative include novels, memoirs, films, plays, and data from truth and reconciliation commissions. Students will be exposed to trauma narrative not only as text but as a social and political instrument for post-conflict reconstruction.
Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: ENG 388
Prerequisites: At least one literature course in any department or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Instructor: Cezair-Thompson (English)
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course introduces basic philosophical methods and concepts by exploring a variety of approaches to some central philosophical problems. Topics covered may include the existence of God, the relation between reason and faith, skepticism and certainty, personal identity and the nature of time, and the compatibility of free will and causal determinism. Readings are drawn from historical and contemporary texts. Discussions and assignments encourage the development of the student's own critical perspective on the problems discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: McGowan (Fall); Wearing (Spring);
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
A study of central issues in moral philosophy, with readings drawn from historical and contemporary texts. Topics include the nature of morality, conceptions of justice, views of human nature and their bearing on questions of value, competing accounts of the bases of moral judgment, and questions in contemporary applied ethics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Gartner
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is an introduction to moral philosophy. Our discussion will be split between normative ethics, applied ethics, and metaethics. When we talk about normative ethics we talk about moral values and ideals in an effort to guide human behavior. When we talk about applied ethics, we want to identify the particular values, rights, duties, and assumptions that are in play in a specific kind of situation, like: “Should we eat animals?” or “Is watching football immoral?” When we talk about metaethics, we engage with the question of whether “right” and “wrong” exist and whether “right” and “wrong” are the same for everyone, at all times, everywhere. This course will engage these topics across three themes: (1) Autonomy, Personhood, and Freedom; (2) Values and Relativism; (3) Justice and Oppression.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Walsh
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this course we will explore the philosophical underpinnings and ramifications of the social structures which shape our lives. Among the topics we will consider are racism, gender, disability, and incarceration and prisons. For each topic, we will investigate different accounts of what the phenomenon at issue is. Among the thinkers we will engage are Sally Haslanger, Charles Mills, and Robin Dembroff. Questions for discussion include: What are the implications of endorsing one account of an oppressive structure over another? How are oppressive social structures, e.g. ableism, transphobia, etc., mutually reinforcing? Does oppression manifest differently in different contexts? If so, how? When are the oppressed unduly burdened with explaining or combatting their oppression?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Watkins
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This seminar undertakes a philosophical examination of the nature and value of friendship. Two questions will animate the course: What is a friend? And, why are friends valuable? Drawing examples from literature and films, we will examine different types of friendships and the features that characterize and sustain them. Many philosophers have argued that the best kind of friendship is one in which the friend is loved for her own sake; we will consider whether this is truly possible or whether all friendships are ultimately instrumental. We'll also examine how the partiality inherent in friendship conflicts with the demands of standard moral theories. Finally, we will compare the love that characterizes friendship with the feelings that sustain relationships with parents, children, and lovers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Gartner
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Registration in this section is restricted to students selected for the Wellesley Plus Program. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A study of the philosophical, social, cultural, and political beliefs that led to the belief in witchcraft in early modern Western Europe and North America, and how these beliefs led to the violent persecution of over 100,000 people between 1400 and 1700. The analysis of this historical event engages several different areas of philosophy: metaphysics, morals, epistemology, standards of evidence, and gender theory. Topics include: magic and religion, the nature of evil, sexual politics, the politics of torture, skepticism, and contemporary witches.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Walsh
Distribution Requirements: EC or REP - Epistemology and Cognition or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introduction to the work of Plato, Aristotle, and select Hellenistic philosophers that aims to develop students' skills in analyzing and constructing philosophical arguments with attention to historical context. Focusing on the ways in which various ancient philosophical views formed internally consistent systems, we will address a range of central topics in ancient thought, including issues in ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, and epistemology. The course will deal primarily with Plato and Aristotle and end with a briefer treatment of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Gartner
Distribution Requirements: EC or REP - Epistemology and Cognition or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In this course, we will examine a broad set of philosophical questions about art. What is art? Why does it matter? Are there objective standards of taste, or is beauty in the eye of the beholder? What is the relationship between aesthetics and ethics? In addition to these general questions, we will consider specific philosophical puzzles posed by other issues in the arts, which may include forgery, authenticity, restoration, testimony, and the paradox of horror. Cases will range from public sculpture to popular music to film and television.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: E. Matthes
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The focus of this course will be the art of comedy and humor. We will approach them from a variety of angles: philosophical attempts to define humor, scientific investigations of the origin and meaning of laughter, moral examinations of the limits of comedy and its political power, and the theological question of the place of humor in a meaningful life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Deen
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes:
This course will explore a variety of philosophical issues concerning language: the different ways in which spoken language functions and conveys information, the alleged difference between speech and action and how it relates to freedom of speech issues (e.g., pornography and hate speech), the general problem of how words get attached to their referents, and criticisms of traditional conceptions of meaning and reference.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: McGowan
Distribution Requirements: EC or REP - Epistemology and Cognition or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What's the purpose of government? Are there limits to what the state may demand of us? Does social justice require equality? Is taxation - or wage labor - theft? This course addresses these and other questions of political morality, through the lens of the major theories of Western philosophy. We'll also consider critiques of those theories, including the claim that they are sexist and racist. Topics will include Mill on the general welfare and the importance of liberty, Nozick on individual rights, Rawls and Dworkin on distributive justice and Marx and Cohen on equality. We'll aim to understand the principles and values underlying these accounts and apply them to contemporary debates over issues such as hate speech, sex work, public health insurance and poverty relief.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: de Bres
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What is a mind? How is it related to a person's brain and body? These two questions have driven centuries of work in the philosophy of mind, and we will take them as our starting point. After considering a variety of answers, we will pursue several topics that challenge our best accounts of the mind: consciousness, mental representation, the emotions, free will, and the possibility of thinking machines. Our goal will be to connect central philosophical perspectives on these issues with contributions from psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: One course in philosophy, psychology, or cognitive science, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Wearing
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Logic studies the principles of valid, or correct, reasoning. It does this by looking for ways to regiment the relationship between a conclusion and the claims that support it. In this course, we will learn how to translate sentences of English into a symbolic language that brings out their logically relevant properties, and we will study formal methods - methods sensitive only to the form of the arguments, as opposed to their content - that allow us to determine whether the conclusions of arguments follow from their premises. Some consideration is given to the limits of the system itself as well as to the relationship between logic and ordinary language.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Wearing (Fall); McGowan (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The world is a strange place, and understanding what is going on around us is no easy matter. Nowadays, awash in charges of 'fake news' and attacks on the credibility of scientists and other experts, it's getting ever harder to figure out what is true. But what is truth, anyway? Is anything objectively true? Who counts as an expert? How do we resist propaganda, misinformation, and outright lies as we negotiate competing world views? How can we proceed when faced with deep disagreements? What roles should values play in our enquiries? What constitutes genuine progress in our understanding of the world? In this course, we will examine these challenges to our attempts to understand and explain reality.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: Wearing
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This class will consider philosophical questions concerning the nature, appreciation and value of literary works, including: What is literature? What distinguishes fiction from creative nonfiction? Do fictional characters exist? Do emotional responses to fiction make sense? Are an author’s intentions relevant to interpreting their work? Can there be more than one correct interpretation of a literary work? Are some works of literature objectively better than others? What, if anything, can we learn from literature? Does reading literature make us morally better people? Is it wrong for non-minority writers to write from the perspective of members of minority groups? The course will cover these and other topics in metaphysics, value theory, philosophy of language and mind and include work by philosophers, literary theorists and creative writers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: de Bres
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A study of central themes in seventeenth and eighteenth-century philosophy. We will engage with questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and morals. Authors include Amo, Astell, Cavendish, Conway, Descartes, Princess Elisabeth, Heywat, Hume, Locke, Kant, and Wang Yangming. Among the topics: the nature of substance, the relationship between mind and body, the limits of reason, determinism and freedom, and the good life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Walsh
Distribution Requirements: EC or HS - Epistemology and Cognition or Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
How do we educate the next generation of data scientists, software engineers, and user experience designers to think of their work as not just technical but also ethical? What moral responsibilities come with the design, adoption, use, and consumption of digital technology? The way that these questions are interrogated, discussed, and the sort of answers we might propose will be informed by a thoroughgoing interdisciplinary lens. Students will learn theoretical frameworks from both Philosophy and Computational and Data Sciences and work together to see how knowledge of frameworks from both disciplines serves to enrich our understanding of the ethical issues that face the development and employment of digital technologies, as well as empower us to find creative solutions. This course includes a sustained, semester-long research project, hence the additional meeting time.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CS 299
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Walsh (Philosophy), Mustafaraj (Computer Science)
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course provides a systematic consideration of fundamental issues in the conception and practice of law. We will first consider the nature of law. Is law derived from moral principles or created by legislative fiat? Is international “law” law? We will then discuss moral limits on the law. Which principles should guide the state’s restriction of citizens’ liberties? Is refusal to obey the law ever justified? Next we will consider the ethics of criminal punishment. What, if anything, justifies punishment by the state? In what ways are policing and incarceration in the contemporary United States racially discriminatory? We will finish by considering questions of constitutional law and legal reasoning. Why have a constitution? When judges interpret the law, do they discover it or, in effect, make it up as they go along? Readings will include selections from philosophy, legal theory and court decisions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: de Bres
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Not open to students who have taken PHIL 326.
This course will explore free speech issues using the tools of analytic philosophy. Questions to be considered include: what makes speech so valuable that we protect it against regulation? Is any regulation of speech compatible with a commitment to free speech? Can expressing a sincere political opinion ever be a crime? How and why does hate speech regulation vary across countries, even ones committed to free speech? Does respect for the value of free speech require a speaker's community to provide a platform? a civil audience? comprehension?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to students who have taken one previous course in philosophy (other than PHIL 216) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: McGowan
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Christine Blasey Ford, Anita Hill, Rachel Jeantel, and Amber Heard each testified to having witnessed or experienced violence or harassment at the hands of a man. Despite their informed testimony, each was met with skepticism and disbelief by the public. What might explain the mismatch between the expertise of Ford, Hill, Jeantel, and Heard and the skeptical reception of their reports? We might think that their identities, particularly their gender and race, play some role. In this course, we will investigate how aspects of identity affect how we share and receive knowledge. Particularly, we will explore epistemic harms which uniquely or disproportionately affect marginalized knowers. These topics include epistemic injustice, epistemic exploitation, gaslighting, epistemic oppression, and microaggressions. Questions we will consider include: what is it for a person to be harmed in her capacity as a knower? Can institutions gaslight; can groups be gaslighted? What avenues of epistemic resistance are available to targets of microaggressions, epistemic exploitation, etc.? Are certain epistemic privileges available to marginalized knowers? We will read authors such as Kristie Dotson, José Medina, and Miranda Fricker.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: One previous course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Watkins
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This is a team-taught Babson-Olin-Wellesley course. This course investigates the ethics of biological science, technology, and innovation. Topics include: the costs and benefits of scientific progress, recombinant DNA and DNA sequencing, the ethics of clinical trials, trust relationships between scientists and their communities, and the intersections between science and non-human animals/the environment. We will examine these topics through both biological and philosophical lenses, develop an understanding of core principles of biology in context, and use the concepts of agency, trust, and progress to shape our discussions. Our guiding questions include: What is the relationship between a scientific innovation being technically feasible and morally permissible? What if anything do scientists owe the public? Is a person’s tissue still theirs even if it has been removed from their body? How much modification of our genetic code is morally permissible? Is the suffering and death of non-human animals an acceptable cost of doing scientific research? What are the moral responsibilities of the scientists and engineers who develop and build new technologies?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: BISC 232
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Walsh, Jean Huang (Olin, Biology)
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course can fulfill the elective course requirement for the BISC major, but does not fulfill the core 200 level course requirement for the major.
This course will train students to use philosophical methods to engage in rigorous investigation of ethical issues concerning the environment. Topics may include animal rights, climate justice, the rights of ecological refugees, obligations to future generations, and the ethics of environmental activism.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 233
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: E. Matthes (Philosophy)
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course concerns a range of ethical and aesthetic questions about places, whether of natural or cultural significance. How should we understand the value of nature? Is it relative to human interests, or independent of them? What is nature in the first place, and how is it distinguished from culture? Is scientific or cultural knowledge relevant to the aesthetic experience of nature? Does “natural beauty” have a role to play in guiding environmental preservation? When we seek to preserve an ecosystem or a building, what exactly should we be aiming to preserve? Should the history of a place guide our interactions with it? How should we navigate conflicts between environmental and cultural preservation, especially as they intersect with issues of race and class? How should a changing climate affect our environmental values? We will investigate these questions, among others, in contexts from wilderness to parks, cities to ruins.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 234
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: E. Matthes
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement.
The world around us is rich with aesthetic qualities. It is beautiful, awesome, enchanting, and sublime. Places have moods, vibes, atmospheres, and ambiances. How can we think rigorously and systematically about the aesthetics of the natural and built environment? What role, if any, should aesthetics play in environmentalism, environmental policy, and our relationship with the world we live in? This course will focus on contemporary philosophical work that seeks to answer these questions. Themes may include the place of science, imagination, history, and culture in aesthetic judgment, the role of aesthetics in conservation, and the relationship between aesthetics and climate change.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 235
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Matthes
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An introduction to recent work in political philosophy on the ethics of international relations. The course will discuss some of the main theoretical approaches to the topic: realism, cosmopolitan egalitarianism, political liberalism, utilitarianism, and nationalism. We will also consider how these different approaches might be applied to some central moral controversies in international politics, including those relating to global poverty, human rights and humanitarian intervention, immigration, climate change, and fair trade.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy or political science, and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: de Bres
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course engages with writings, both historical and contemporary, on the topic of the value of marriage. We begin in the medieval period, with the correspondence between Héloïse and Abelard and progress chronologically, discussing Saint Teresa of Avila (16th century), Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mary Astell, and Mary Wollstonecraft, (17th century), Anna Julia Cooper and early Wellesley women (19th century), and contemporary 20th and 21st century thinkers like Elizabeth Brake, Claudia Card, and Chesire Calhoun. The questions that will motivate our discussion include: What is marriage? Who gets to decide the definition of marriage? How did women throughout history view the institution of marriage? Is marriage as an institution fundamentally flawed? Should feminists reject the institution of marriage? Can marriage be reformed? Should marriage fall under the purview of church or state? Should marriage be for everyone or no one?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Walsh
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course concerns our commonplace but sometimes puzzling ability to alter our moral relationship with other people through our will, what some philosophers have called “moral powers.” For instance, we can make a promise and create a moral obligation, give our consent and create a moral permission, offer forgiveness and repair a moral rupture. How should we understand these powers? How do they work and how do they shape our moral lives? We will pay particular attention to the moral powers involved in promising, consent, trust, and forgiveness.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: One prior course in philosophy.
Instructor: Matthes
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
When we strive to act rationally and to avoid irrationality in our thoughts and actions, what exactly are we trying to do? And how successful can we be? We will begin by analyzing self-deception and weakness of will, phenomena widely regarded as irrational, in order to explore different conceptions of practical rationality. Then we will consider whether pursuing self-interest is always rational; whether it is irrational to make promises, like marriage vows, that one might not be able to keep; and whether it can be irrational to seek the optimal option when we could "satisfice" instead. We will end by considering the implications of research that identifies implicit biases and evaluative tendencies that persist even when we disavow their content.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years who have taken one course in philosophy and to Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors without prerequisite.
Instructor: McIntyre
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This applied ethics course will examine some central problems at the interface of medicine and ethics and explore some of the social and ethical implications of current advances in biomedical research and technology. Topics discussed will include: drawing the distinction between genetic therapy and genetic enhancement; the permissibility of the practice of genetic screening and selective abortion; the status and interests of individuals at the margins of agency, such as infants, children and dementia patients; decisions about prolonging life and hastening death; and controversies about the use of memory-dampening drugs. Throughout, several key ethical themes will unify the course, including: the conditions for personhood and what we owe to persons; the value of autonomy and the right to make decisions about one's own body; and the importance of well-being and the purpose of medicine.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Open to all students without prerequisite.
Instructor: Gartner
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: At least one course in philosophy and permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: At least one course in philosophy and permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
What counts as philosophy? Who counts as a philosopher? The traditional answers to these questions exclude many texts and many thinkers from the category of "the philosophical." In this course, we will challenge the traditional answers and seek to expand our understanding of the vehicles for philosophical expression, and the kinds of people who count as philosophers. The central philosophical question that will be our focus is: what is human nature? Treating this question will involve discussions of gender, class, education, and freedom. We will engage with the writings of women and non-Western thinkers, and study non-traditional philosophical texts like personal essays, poetry, and novels. Authors include Murasaki Shikibu, Christine de Pisan, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mulla Sadra, Michel de Montaigne, and Margaret Cavendish.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: One previous course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Walsh
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will examine some fundamental philosophical questions that arise about death. After comparing differing conceptions of death and differing views about whether we continue to exist after we die, we will consider whether death is bad for the person who dies. We intuitively think that our deaths are bad for us, but, as Lucretius famously points out, most of us do not lament that we were not born sooner. Is it problematic that we tend to hold inconsistent attitudes towards prenatal versus postmortem nonexistence? Is immortality desirable or valuable? How might our thinking about these issues surrounding mortality and immortality inform our thinking about the value of human existence and what makes a life worth living?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: PHIL 201 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Watkins
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this seminar, we will closely examine the relationship between immorality and aesthetics, especially as it arises in the arts. Are morally objectionable artworks made aesthetically worse by their moral defects? Is it morally permissible to enjoy the work of artists who have done terrible things? How should we respond to the perceived immorality we might encounter in the arts, whether we are fans or critics? Cases may include museum art, documentary work, film and television, video games, etc.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: One prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: E. Matthes
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What is justice? Is it better to be just than unjust? Plato tackled these perennial questions in his masterpiece, the Republic. This seminar will undertake an in-depth examination of Plato's classic, with a focus on understanding how the metaphysical and epistemological arguments of the dialogue’s middle books relate to the ethical and political questions that frame the treatise. We will also investigate and evaluate Plato's views about the nature and constitution of the soul, human motivation and action (especially the relationship between reason and non-rational desires), the purpose and importance of education, and the role of women in the ideal society.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: One previous course in Philosophy.
Instructor: Gartner
Distribution Requirements: EC or REP - Epistemology and Cognition or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
We all have friends and we tend to regard friendship as an important good. This seminar undertakes a philosophical examination of the nature and value of friendship. Two main questions will animate the course: What is a friend? And, why are friends valuable? We will examine different types of friendships and the features that characterize and sustain them. Many philosophers have argued that the best kind of friendship is one in which the friend is loved for her own sake; we will investigate whether this is truly possible or whether all friendships are ultimately instrumental. We'll also examine how the partiality inherent in friendship conflicts with the demands of standard moral theories. Finally, drawing on examples from literature and film, we will consider whether one has to be a good person in order to be a good friend.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: One prior course in Philosophy.
Instructor: Gartner
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The world around us is rich with aesthetic qualities. It is beautiful, awesome, enchanting, and sublime. Places have moods, vibes, atmospheres, and ambiances. How can we think rigorously and systematically about the aesthetics of the natural and built environment? What role, if any, should aesthetics play in environmentalism, environmental policy, and our relationship with the world we live in? This course will focus on contemporary philosophical work that seeks to answer these questions. Themes may include the place of science, imagination, history, and culture in aesthetic judgment, the role of aesthetics in conservation, and the relationship between aesthetics and climate change.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: ES 30 8
Prerequisites: Open to Majors and Minors in Philosophy and Environmental Studies, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: E. Matthes
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The human imagination is a powerful creative tool. In this course, we will examine the imagination's nature, uses, and limits. Questions to be discussed include: What role do mental images play in imagining? What is the imagination's role in creativity? If fictional entities aren't real, why do we often have such powerful emotional responses to them? Are some things too bizarre or repellent to be imaginable?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: One prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Wearing
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Our ability to communicate is a fundamentally important human capacity but this capacity can be impaired. Might womens' orders or refusals be systematically undermined in some contexts? Might some speakers unjustly count as less credible simply due to their social identity? Might some people decide against speaking because they realize that their audience believes negative stereotypes about them? These are just some of the ways that a person's ability to communicate can be interfered with. With an emphasis on the pragmatics of language use, this course will explore many others.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors without prerequisite and to Sophomores who have taken one course in philosophy.
Instructor: McGowan
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How do we educate the next generation of data scientists and software engineers to think of their work as not just technical but also ethical? How do we get them to see that the social impact of their work requires that it be driven by sound ethical principles? The way that these questions are interrogated, discussed, and the sort of answers we might propose will be informed by a thoroughgoing interdisciplinary lens. Students will learn theoretical frameworks from both Philosophy and Computational and Data Sciences and work together to see how knowledge of frameworks from both disciplines serves to enrich our understanding of the ethical issues that face digital technologies, as well as empower us to find creative solutions.
Central questions include: What kinds of ethical considerations are part of the everyday jobs of graduates working in digital technology, either in non-profit or for-profit organizations? What parts of the current liberal arts curriculum, if any, are preparing our graduates for the kinds of ethical decision-making they need to engage in? How to expand the reach of ethical reasoning within the liberal arts curriculum, in order to strengthen the ethical decision-making preparation? A key component in our collective efforts to engage with these questions will involve a sustained semester-long research project with Wellesley alums working in the field of digital tech.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: CS 334
Prerequisites: One course in Philosophy, Computer Science, MAS, or Statistics, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Walsh (Philosophy), Mustafaraj (Computer Science)
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will explore a variety of philosophical issues about language use in the social world. What makes an utterance a lie? Is lying morally worse than other forms of verbal deception? Most of what we believe we learn from others, but how do we decide when to believe what other people say? Might a person's social identity affect how credible they are judged to be? Should it? Can we really consent to medical procedures if we do not have the relevant medical expertise to understand our options? What makes an utterance a threat? If speaking indirectly is more polite, might members of marginalized groups be expected to speak indirectly, and as a result, might that further disadvantage them socially, legally, or communicatively? These are just some of the questions we will explore.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least two courses in Philosophy.
Instructor: McGowan
Distribution Requirements: EC or REP - Epistemology and Cognition or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The scale of the meat industry and its adverse environmental and climate impacts alongside burgeoning scientific understandings of non-human intelligence require urgent reevaluation of our relationship to animals as food: How has visual culture (historical and contemporary), both in advertising and in popular culture, separated meat as a food from the process of animal slaughter that produces it? How do we negotiate between our food traditions and ethical obligation to move away from practices rooted in violence? Why do we value some animals as companions while commodifying others as food? What is speciesism and in what ways can it shape our understanding of animal oppression? We engage these questions and more using visual culture and ethical frameworks to critique the prevailing political and cultural norms that desensitize us to the implications of meat consumption.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: PHIL 324
Prerequisites: One course in either Philosophy or Art History.
Instructor: Oliver and Walsh
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Do we ever act with freedom of the will? To address this question, philosophers typically start by analyzing the concept of free will. Some conclude that a choice that is caused by antecedent states or is causally determined could not be an instance of free will. This approach can lead to skepticism about whether free will actually exists. Others start with the assumption that free will must exist because it is the trait that explains and justifies our practice of holding people responsible for what they do. This approach leaves open what free will might turn out to be. We will study variations on these two strategies in the work of historical and contemporary philosophers. We will also consider what feminist philosophers say about socio-political contexts that may impede or obstruct the exercise of free will.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: At least one course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Walsh
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Philosophical writing is often thought to be impersonal and abstract, focused on rigorous argument and high theory to the exclusion of personal narrative, voice, humor, and literary style. But not all philosophy takes that form. This seminar explores the alternative mode of more personal philosophical writing, as it appears in contemporary personal essays on philosophical themes and pieces of public philosophy with a personal slant philosophy (in, e.g., The New York Times, The Point, Aeon, and The New Yorker.) The course is structured as a writing workshop, and centrally aims to develop students’ confidence and skill in writing their own pieces of autobiographical philosophy. Students will create a portfolio of writing and workshop it closely with their peers and professor throughout the semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Intended for Philosophy majors and minors, but students with at least two courses in Philosophy will be considered.
Instructor: de Bres
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Language issues permeate the criminal justice system. If a police officer says, "You wouldn't mind if I looked inside your trunk, now would you?" is that statement only a question or is it also a request or even an order? Committing perjury requires uttering something false; can a misleading but true utterance constitute perjury? This seminar will explore various linguistic issues related to the law (and the criminal justice system more generally). Tools from the philosophy of language and linguistics will be explored and then applied to legal questions. Topics covered include: perjury, consent, Miranda warnings, verbal crimes (e.g., solicitation, bribes), threats and cross-burning, invoking the right to counsel, sedition, and free speech.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Two previous Philosophy courses or permission of the instructor. Not open to First-Year students.
Instructor: McGowan
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this course, we will examine a range of moral and political questions surrounding cultural heritage. We will employ an interdisciplinary array of sources in order to investigate key concepts including cultural and natural heritage, value, identity, colonialism, cultural property and landscapes, stewardship, and preservation. We will use these conceptual foundations to address practical questions, such as whether cultural artifacts in Western museums should be repatriated to their countries of origin; how we should resolve value conflicts between archaeologists and Indigenous communities; and whether institutions (such as governments or colleges) should continue to honor historical figures who perpetrated injustices. The course will involve a substantial independent research project on a topic of each student’s own choosing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: One prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: E. Matthes
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar will explore a range of questions concerning life's meaning. Is meaning possible in a world without God? What is the difference between a happy life and a meaningful one? What is the role of love, achievement, knowledge, beauty, virtue and authenticity in a meaningful life? Do the stories we tell about our lives contribute to their meaning? Is life, in the end, absurd - or just kind of awful? Does meaning now depend on death later? We will discuss answers to these and related questions, using readings from both philosophy and literature.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Open to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors who have taken one course in Philosophy, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: de Bres
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Many people think of morality as primarily concerned with promoting the good of others and view moral motivation as based on altruistic motives, a capacity for empathy, and the ability to understand the perspectives of others. And yet, just as important to morality are the duties that require us to comply with social norms based on conventions that promote various forms of cooperation. Do people have a moral motive to comply with such norms? We will begin with David Hume’s account of the motives for the natural virtues of “benevolence” and the quite different motives for compliance with the “artificial” (i.e. socially constructed) virtues of justice. We will branch out from there with readings from moral philosophy, developmental psychology, behavioral economics, and anthropology that will help us understand how social norms are inculcated and enforced - and how they are revised.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: At least one course in Philosophy, Psychology, Neuroscience, or Cognitive and Linguistic Science.
Instructor: McIntyre
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Why does severe racial inequality exist in democratic societies committed to the equality of persons? How is liberalism as a political philosophy implicated in racial injustice? What are the rights and duties of the racially oppressed? This seminar considers various answers to these questions in recent political philosophy on racial injustice. First, we will examine how Enlightenment and liberal political philosophy has been and continues to be influenced by racial ideology and assess some of liberalism's central ideas. Next, we will investigate different ways of conceptualizing, explaining, and alleviating racial inequality and oppression. Finally, we will focus on the rights and responsibilities of those who live in racially segregated neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage. We will discuss, for example, welfare entitlements, parental obligations, duties to obey the law, and permissible forms of political resistance.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: One philosophy course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Landau
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: At least two courses in philosophy and permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: At least two courses in philosophy and permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: PHIL 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course is the entry point for students interested in exploring physics as a possible major or as a foundation for other sciences. It presents, at an introductory level, two fundamental developments at the heart of contemporary physics: quantum physics and Einstein’s theories of relativity. Relativity profoundly alters our understanding of the nature of space and time; quantum physics revolutionizes our knowledge of the world at the smallest scales. We will introduce and develop the core principles of these two theories, and explore their implications and practical consequences. No prior experience with physics is required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Open to First-Year and Sophomore students. Juniors and Seniors by permission of the instructor. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Pre/co-requisite - MATH 115 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Wetter, Belisle
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Many of the grand challenges facing the modern world have an underlying scientific and technological component. What basic physics should all future leaders know? And what science should all citizens understand? Stressing conceptual understanding and critical reasoning, this course aims to give students the physics background and habits of mind that will help them make informed decisions and cogent arguments on matters of public concern. Topics include: the physics of energy, climate change, the threat of nuclear materials and weapons, space exploration, and driverless cars and other emerging technologies. We will make use of basic high school level mathematics in our work. Not to be counted toward the major or to fulfill the entrance requirement for medical school.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course is a systematic introduction to Newtonian mechanics, which governs the motion of objects ranging from biological cells to galaxies. Primary concepts such as mass, force, energy, and momentum are introduced and discussed in depth. We will place emphasis on the conceptual framework and on using fundamental principles to analyze the everyday world. Topics include: Newton's Laws, conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, rotations, waves, and fluids. Concepts from calculus will be developed and used as needed. This course is taught in studio-style, which blends lecture with group problem solving and hands-on experimental activities. Students with a strong background in mathematics or previous experience in physics should consider PHYS 107.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Prerequisite or Co-requisite - calculus at the level of MATH 115. Not open to students who have taken PHYS 107.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: In some cases this course can be used in place of PHYS 107 for the Physics major.
This continuation of classical physics concentrates on the fundamental forces of electricity and magnetism. The electric and magnetic forces are entirely responsible for the structures and interactions of atoms and molecules, the properties of all solids, and the structure and function of biological material. Our technological society is largely dependent on the myriad applications of the physics of electricity and magnetism, e.g., motors and generators, communications systems, and the architecture of computers. After developing quantitative descriptions of electricity and magnetism, we explore the relations between them, leading us to an understanding of light as an electromagnetic phenomenon. The course will consider both ray-optics and wave-optics descriptions of light. This course is taught in studio-style, which blends lecture with group problem solving and hands-on experimental activities.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - PHYS 106.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: PHYS 104 or PHYS 107, and calculus at the level of MATH 115. This course does not normally fulfill Physics major requirements.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for PHYS 106.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: PHYS 104 or PHYS 107, and calculus at the level of MATH 115. This course does not normally fulfill Physics major requirements.
Instructor:
Notes:
Newtonian mechanics governs the motion of objects ranging from biological cells to galaxies. The fundamental principles of mechanics allow us to begin to analyze and understand the physical world. In this introductory calculus-based course, we will systematically study the laws underlying how and why objects move, and develop analysis techniques for applying these laws to everyday situations. Broadly applicable problem-solving skills will be developed and stressed. Topics include forces, energy, momentum, rotations, gravity, and waves, and a wide range of applications. This course is taught in studio-style, which blends lecture with group problem solving and hands-on experimental activities.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - PHYS 107L.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Calculus at the level of MATH 115. Not open to students who have taken PHYS 104.
Instructor: McAskill, Addison
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for PHYS 107.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Calculus at the level of MATH 115. Not open to students who have taken PHYS 104.
Instructor: McAskill, Addison
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The electromagnetic force, one of the fundamental interactions in nature, is responsible for a remarkably wide range of phenomena and technologies, from the structures of atoms and molecules to the transmission of nerve impulses and the characteristics of integrated circuits. This introductory course begins with the study of Coulomb's law of electrostatics and progresses through investigations of electric fields, electric potential energy, magnetic fields, and Faraday's law of magnetic induction. The course culminates in the study of light, where the deep connections between electricity and magnetism are highlighted. Interference effects caused by the electromagnetic wave nature of light are introduced.
Because this course does not have a lab, it does not typically satisfy the pre-health requirements.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: PHYS 107 (or PHYS 104 with permission of the instructor) and calculus at the level of MATH 116, or MATH 120, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken PHYS 106.
Instructor: Lewis
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
When studying macroscopic systems consisting of enormous number of individual particles, new physics concepts, such as temperature, pressure, heat, and entropy, become essential. In this course, we will explore these concepts in the context of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, at both macroscopic and microscopic levels. These topics will be paired with computational modeling, including the introduction of basic numerical methods used across the sciences. No prior programming experience is required. This new course will be offered for the first time in Fall 2023, and replaces PHYS120H and PHYS205H.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - PHYS 205L.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: PHYS 107 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Teich
Distribution Requirements: LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory; MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for PHYS 205.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: PHYS 107 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Teich
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Newtonian mechanics is revisited using more sophisticated mathematical tools such as differential equations, linear algebra, and Fourier analysis. Topics include driven and coupled oscillators, central forces, and conservation laws. Particular attention is paid to wave phenomena and how the mathematics that describes mechanical waves can be extended to the realms of electromagnetism and quantum mechanics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PHYS 108 and MATH 215, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: J. Battat
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course builds on the foundations of electricity and magnetism developed in PHYS 108. After a review of the basics of electrostatics and magnetostatics, a more mathematically rich description of electromagnetic phenomena is developed. The vector operators div, grad, and curl are used to re-express the integral formulations of PHYS 108 (e.g., Gauss’ Law, Ampere’s Law, Faraday’s Law); the necessary mathematics is presented in parallel with the physics. This treatment culminates in the differential forms of Maxwell’s equations, which then lead to the electromagnetic wave equation. Properties of electromagnetic waves, including polarization and energy and momentum transport, are introduced.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PHYS 108 and MATH 205.
Instructor: Lewis
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Through hands-on exploration, students will learn about analog and digital electronics, optical systems, and foundational techniques in the modern physics laboratory. A framework for data analysis will be developed, with a focus on model-data comparison, model selection and statistical inference. This course helps prepare students for independent research and internships in physics and related fields.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Crosslisted Courses: ENGR 210
Prerequisites: PHYS 108.
Instructor: Belisle, Hall
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences; MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; LAB - Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF)
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
For students interested in current best practices in active learning and inclusive teaching, this course provides a unique experience to learn, teach, and change the physics curriculum at Wellesley. Students will read and discuss current literature in physics education, gain practice in supporting inclusive group work, refine their own physics knowledge, and do hands-on projects to improve the studio physics experience at Wellesley College. Students must complete this course prior to working as Physics Learning Assistants.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 239H
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hue
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course provides a comprehensive development of the principles of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, the fundamental theory of electrons, atoms, and molecules. Quantum mechanics governs the building blocks of all matter, and yet fundamentally challenges our physical intuition, which is based on the behavior of everyday macroscopic objects. Topics include the postulates of quantum mechanics, the Schrödinger equation, operator theory, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the hydrogen atom, and spin.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: PHYS 100 and PHYS 207 and MATH 215, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Addison
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course builds upon the foundations of quantum mechanics presented in PHYS 302. Topics include: the quantum mechanics of identical particles, addition of spin and angular momentum, Dirac notation, time dependent and independent perturbative approaches, and scattering. These topics will be presented using a combination of the Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and interaction formulation of quantum mechanics. This course is strongly recommended for students planning to attend graduate school in physics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PHYS 302 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Addison
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
In this course students will learn advanced techniques for experimental astronomy and planetary science. Students will carry out term-long projects involving acquisition and analysis of data. In some cases these data will be derived from observations performed with telescopes or instruments built by the students themselves. In other cases students will build projects around data from space missions or ground or space-based telescopes. Techniques may include spectroscopy, photometry, multiwavelength astronomy, remote sensing of planetary surfaces, particle astrophysics, and gravitational wave astronomy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 8
Crosslisted Courses: PHYS 30 4
Prerequisites: ASTR 202, ASTR 206, PHYS 210 or prior experience with instrumentation with permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Not offered every year.
Modern statistical mechanics builds from the quantum nature of individual particles to describe the behavior of large and small systems of such particles. In this course, we will derive the fundamental laws of thermodynamics using basic principles of statistics and investigate applications to such systems as ideal and real atomic and molecular gases, radiating bodies, magnetic spins, and solids. We will study Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics and learn about exciting new developments, such as Bose-Einstein condensation and ultra-cold Fermi gases. We will cover additional applications of statistical mechanics in the fields of biology, chemistry, and astrophysics. This course is strongly recommended for students planning to attend graduate school in physics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: (PHYS 205 or PHYS 205H) and (PHYS 207 or PHYS 208) and MATH 205; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Teich
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course continues, from PHYS 208, the study of the classical theory of electromagnetic fields and waves as developed by Maxwell. Topics include electric and magnetic fields in matter, boundary value problems, electromagnetic radiation, and the connection between electrodynamics and special relativity. This course is strongly recommended for students planning to attend graduate school in physics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PHYS 208 and MATH 215, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: J. Battat
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Modern experimental physics draws on a wide range of laboratory skills, design strategies, and analysis techniques. The experimentalist approaches each measurement with an array of tools, from the effective use of sophisticated instrumentation and the construction of home-built equipment to the evaluation of experimental uncertainties. This course offers a comprehensive introduction to experimental physics as it is carried out in research settings. The experiments illustrate the use of electronic, mechanical, and optical instruments to investigate fundamental physical phenomena in nuclear, atomic, molecular, and condensed matter systems. Scientific writing skills and oral presentation skills receive focused attention. An emphasis on independent work is gradually developed throughout the semester. This course is strongly recommended for students planning to attend graduate school in physics.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: PHYS 207 and PHYS 210, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: J. Battat, K. Hall
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Astrophysics is the application of physics to the study of the Universe. We will use elements of mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, special relativity, and nuclear physics to investigate selected topics such as planetary dynamics, the life stories of stars and galaxies, the interstellar medium, high-energy processes, and large scale structure in the Universe. Our goals will be to develop insight into the physical underpinnings of the natural world and to construct a "universal toolkit" of practical astrophysical techniques that can be applied to the entire celestial menagerie.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: PHYS 311
Prerequisites: PHYS 205; pre or co-requisite PHYS 207.
Instructor: Mowla
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Einstein's general theory of relativity conceives of gravity as a manifestation of the geometry of spacetime. In John Archibald Wheeler's summary: "Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve." Differential geometry supplies the mathematical language for describing curvature. We begin by defining and building up the relevant mathematical ideas: manifolds, tensors, covariant derivatives, geodesics, and the Riemann tensor. We then apply these ideas to the physics, developing the Einstein field equation and some of its consequences, including the Schwarzschild solution and black holes, cosmology, and gravitational waves.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: PHYS 313
Prerequisites: At least one 300-level course in mathematics or physics, or permission of the instructor. MATH 302 or MATH 305 is recommended. Students can receive major credit for both MATH 312 and MATH 313.
Instructor: Tannenhauser
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is a continuation of the development of tools to analyze classical systems; it builds on the knowledge gained in Physics 207. New techniques developed include the calculus of variations, which gives rise to the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian treatment of systems, physics in non-inertial reference frames, and rotational dynamics. The course is appropriate for any student wishing to explore advanced topics in classical mechanics; it is strongly recommended for students planning to attend graduate school in physics.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PHYS 207.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
While Physics 302 focuses on quantum systems that can be solved exactly, Physics 323H develops techniques that can be applied to systems that are too complex mathematically to be solved in closed form. This course explores time-independent and time-dependent perturbation theory and applies these techniques to a variety of atomic, molecular, and solid-state systems. Quantum entanglement and its emerging applications are also covered. This course is strongly recommended for students planning to attend graduate school in physics.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PHYS 302.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Optical and electronic materials, ranging from solar cells to superconductors, are central to our modern lives and will be crucial in solving the technological challenges of our future. For students interested in engineering applications of fundamental physics phenomena, this interdisciplinary course will introduce the science behind the development of modern materials and devices. Through hands-on projects, students will explore the development of optical and electronic materials from their atomic origins, to their implementation in semiconductor devices, and finally their long term environmental impact. This course connects topics often covered in separate physics, chemistry, and engineering courses. Previous experience with concepts from introductory physics is strongly recommended.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CHEM 30 5
Prerequisites: PHYS 108 and either PHYS 210 or CHEM 361, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Belisle
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course explores aspects of relativistic quantum mechanics. Beginning with a review of special relativity and the foundations of quantum mechanics, two of the most fundamental equations in particle physics will be introduced: the Klein-Gordon equation and the Dirac equation. Students will also learn intrinsic properties of fundamental particles and how to represent these ideas through Feynman diagrams with the focus being on quantum electrodynamics and weak interactions. From there, a variety of topics will be explored, including Lagrangians, symmetry breaking, and the Higgs mechanism, as well as neutrinos and their current role in particle physics research. If time permits, concepts of field theory will be introduced.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: PHYS 208 and PHYS 302 and exposure to special relativity.
Instructor: McAskill
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The physics of nuclei and radiation underpins much of modern experimental physics and has important connections to areas of chemistry, medicine, and engineering. In this course, students will learn the fundamentals of nuclear physics theory and connect those concepts to real-world applications. Topics will include: models of nuclear structure, nuclear states and energy levels, the physics of radiation and radioactive decay, nuclear reactions, interactions of radiation with matter, and radiation detection. The course will survey multiple application areas including energy production and nuclear medicine, with the opportunity to expand topics based on student interest. This course is ideal both for students interested in graduate school and those interested in careers in industry. Previous experience with concepts from introductory physics is strongly recommended.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: MATH 215 and either (PHYS 108 and PHYS 100) or one of the following - CHEM 105, CHEM 105P, CHEM 116, CHEM 120), or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Lewis
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
The first course in a two-semester investigation (355/365) of a significant research problem, culminating in the preparation of a thesis. This route does not lead to departmental honors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Open only to Seniors with permission of the department.
Instructor:
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The first course in a two-semester investigation (360/370) of a significant research problem, culminating in the preparation of a thesis and defense (oral examination) of that thesis before a committee of faculty from the Department of Physics. Required for honors in the major.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PHYS 355. Open only to Seniors with permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The second course of the 360/370 sequence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: PHYS 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Designed to sharpen judgment about current political claims, the course uses classical logic and rhetoric to examine processes of thinking and methods of persuasion. We learn the use of independent observation, logical reasoning, forms of deductive inference, and kinds of experimentation. We examine theories related to discovery and the nature of truth. We subject political oratory and reporting to critical scrutiny. Most attention is paid to techniques of persuasion involving logical fallacies such as the 'genetic fallacy,' appeals to emotions such as indignation, and biases such as chauvinism. Reading focuses on studies and stories of detection and discovery.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Candland
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to the process of conducting research in political science. Students will develop an intuition for problem-driven research in the social sciences, gaining specific insight into the range of methodological tools employed by political scientists. In this course, students will design and analyze a research question, formulate and test hypotheses about politics, evaluate techniques to measuring political phenomena, and assess methods of empirical analysis and interpretation. The course has a particular focus on quantitative analysis and students will gain fluency in statistical software. The course provides a foundation for conducting empirical research and is strongly recommended for students interested in independent research, a senior honors thesis, and/or graduate school.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: One course in political science. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken or are taking POL 199, MATH 101, MATH 101Z, ECON 103/SOC 190, PSYC 105, PSYC 205, or STAT 160.
Instructor: Staff (Fall), Chudy (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POLS 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
The institutions, processes, and values that shape American politics. The origins and evolution of the U.S. Constitution and the institutions it created: Congress, the executive branch, the presidency, the federal court system, and federalism. Analysis of "intermediary" institutions including political parties, interest groups, elections, and the media. Study of enduring debates over values in American politics, with particular attention to conflicts over civil rights and civil liberties.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Arora, Chudy, Hosam, Sklar
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The U.S. holds more elections than just about any other democratic nation, but voter turnout rates are relatively low. Elections in the U.S. have among the longest campaign seasons, yet it is unclear that campaigns even influence election results. How do we explain these seeming contradictions? We will engage with academic scholarship as well as the experiences of campaign organizers and activists to understand the role of campaigns in the United States. We will examine institutional factors such as political parties, redistricting, and access to participation in campaigns and elections. We will also explore the roles of personal identities and socioeconomic conditions, including race, gender, and class. The impact of voter apathy, civic education, and the interplay of national and local politics on the health of American democracy will also be analyzed. Students will participate in a hands-on project to understand more deeply the complexity of election campaigns.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL1 200 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Arora
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to basic elements of the American legal system, including courts, judges, juries, policing and imprisonment, the processes of criminal and civil justice, and legal reasoning. Students will not only read about these aspects of the legal system, but study them directly through field observations of local courtrooms and interviews with judges, cops, and lawyers. In their research, students will address fundamental questions about the relationship of law and politics. First, what makes law legitimate, that is, worthy of obedience? Second, if, in practice, law is selectively mobilized, can we truly say that we live in a society with "the rule of law"? In sum, what makes "the rule of law" different from "the rule of the powerful"?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL1 200.
Instructor: Burke
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is a survey of landmark decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court throughout American history. The course covers both cases about the structure of our government and cases interpreting the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. Topics include executive powers, congressional authority under the Commerce Clause, nation-state relations, economic liberties, freedom of the press, the right to privacy, the rights of the criminally accused, and the civil rights of women and minorities.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL1 200.
Instructor: Curi
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Examine the complex web of public health, politics, and social movements that has shaped American health outcomes. Explore the evolution of public health interventions, from groundbreaking disease control initiatives to transformative social justice movements. Analyze the political dynamics shaping public health policy, including the influence of power structures, interest groups, and public opinion. Critically assess the effectiveness of various public health policies in the face of changing times. Gain insights into the complexities of promoting population health and well-being amidst environmental hazards, infectious diseases, and health disparities. This course is designed for a broad range of majors/minors, including those interested in politics, policy making, social change, public health, and medicine.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Curi
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes:
This course examines how public policy on a wide range of issues, from reproductive rights to education, environment, and immigration, is made in the United States. The battle over these issues involves many institutions-the president, the executive branch, Congress, the courts, state and local governments-who compete, and sometimes cooperate, over public policy. Students will analyze current policy struggles to better understand the interactions among these institutions and the resulting shape of American public policy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL1 200 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Burke
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The American system of health care is distinctive. Financing is provided through voluntary employer contributions, tax subsidies, individual payments and an array of public programs, principally Medicare and Medicaid-but despite the variety of funding sources, Americans, unlike citizens of other affluent democracies, are not guaranteed health care coverage. How did the American approach to health care develop? How is it different from that of other affluent nations? What explains the differences? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the American health care system? Issues of cost containment, technological innovation, quality of care, and disparities in health outcomes are explored.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL1 200 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Burke
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The United States is in the middle of an increasingly hostile and polarizing national debate over immigration policy and the outcomes of immigrant incorporation. This course situates the debate by exploring the history of immigration in the U.S., public policy that has been aimed at immigration flows or immigrants, and the resulting political consequences. This course will grapple with notions of citizenship and ‘illegality’ while examining the ways that demographic change has influenced opinions, behaviors, partisanship, and values of the broader public. We will critically analyze recent immigration policy proposals, paying close attention to the effects of these proposals on immigration flows, immigrant rights, and the broader political and societal ramifications of policy action and inaction. Finally, we will turn our attention to the dynamics of immigration policy-making and examine how race, gender, sexuality, and class both affect and are affected by immigration laws.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL1 200 and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Arora
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course provides an overview of the growing literature on political psychology. We will focus on psychological theories that help us to understand how voters think and feel about politics. The primary goal of this course is to acquaint you with various ways in which psychological theory contributes to our understanding of politics and vice versa. For example, does prejudice influence citizens' voting decisions? Is opposition to gay marriage rooted in ideological concerns, or rather in emotions like disgust or fear? Why do many voters dismiss seemingly objective information and vote "against their interests"? Topics include cognition, emotion, prejudice, identity, personality, authority and obedience, and motivated reasoning all with applications to American politics in particular, but we will also consider the relevance of these topics to other countries as well.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL1 200
Instructor: Chudy
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will teach students to effectively communicate to the public political science research on American politics. This will require students to step back from the details of their coursework to examine how political science has shaped their understandings of political phenomena. How are the perspectives of political scientists different from those of practitioners and the public? How can these perspectives contribute to public debates on politics? Through a series of writing assignments--for example Op/eds, book reviews and interviews--students will learn how to translate expert knowledge and perspectives into everyday language, but perhaps even more importantly, how to draw on that knowledge to address the concerns of citizens about the political world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: At least one POL1 course or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Burke
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar examines race and ethnicity in American politics, with special attention to the modern civil rights era of the 1960s and beyond. We will consider the definition and political meaning of racial and ethnic identities, the role of racial identity and attitudes in structuring Americans' political opinions and behaviors, how redistricting shapes the representation of non-white groups, the political implications of intersections among race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality, and the role of race in recent national elections.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One course in American Politics.
Instructor: Chudy
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines the history and contemporary role of Latinos in American politics, including the emergence of “Latino” as a pan-ethnic identity and demographic profiles of the group; the “Americanization” and “racialization” of Latinos; and the relationship between Latinos and non-Latinos as they relate to political institutions, representation, and voting coalitions. The class will also focus on the development of Latino public opinion and partisanship, how these manifest in Latinos’ political participation, and their importance in recent presidential and midterm elections (2008-2022). The course also examines U.S. immigration policy as context to understand current debates that shape the Latino community now and in the future.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL1 200.
Instructor: Gomez
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course serves as an overview of the interdisciplinary field of political communication, integrating research from political science, communication, and psychology. We will examine the evolution of the media, including the rise of partisan media, the ways in which campaigns seek to influence voters, and the effects of media messaging on public opinion and political behavior. You will learn how to critically interpret academic research on these topics and so better understand your own use of the media and political behavior.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL1 200 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Emotions have always played an important role in politics, but recent developments have highlighted their significance. This course explores how emotions affect contemporary American politics. We consider competing theories of how individuals form judgments and make decisions, and the ways in which emotions affect those processes. We end the course by examining how politicians, campaign professionals and journalists elicit emotions in the public.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor (if interested in the course, contact Tom Burke or Maura Cahn)
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The United States is by some measures more politically polarized today than at any time since the late 19th century. Meanwhile, economic inequality has risen to levels not seen since the early 20th century. The convergence of these two trends have left the United States vulnerable to political instability, violence, and democratic decline. Citizens are increasingly willing to call into question the legitimacy of this country’s core electoral and governing institutions. How did the U.S. get to this point? What can be done about it? In this course we will examine the rise of both political polarization and economic inequality and the consequences for American democracy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL1 200 or coursework in American politics. Enrollment is limited; interested students must fill out a seminar application via the political science department.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the politics of environmental issues in the United States. The course has two primary goals: First, to introduce students to the institutions, stakeholders, and political processes important to debates over environmental policy at the federal level. Second, to develop and practice skills of analyzing and making decisions relevant to environmental politics and policy. Drawing on the literature of environmental politics and policy, this course will consider how environmental issues are framed in political discourse, various approaches to environmental advocacy and reform, and the contested role of science in environmental politics. The course will be organized around environmental case studies, including endangered species conservation, public lands management, air and water pollution, and toxics regulation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: POL 1381
Prerequisites: A 200-level ES course or POL1 200 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Turner
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Legal researchers often examine the legal system through books that tell the story of important cases. In this course students will work in teams to write papers on lawsuits, legal controversies and law-related subjects related to such a book. To support their research, students will be introduced to fundamental aspects of the American legal system, legal research, and legal writing. For the spring 2024 edition of the course, we will be researching and writing about the 1994 Supreme Court case Farmer v. Brennan, in which a transgendered prisoner argued that she had been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment by prison officials.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: POL1 200, POL1 215, POL1 247 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Burke
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The fight for inclusion into American society and culture created new opportunities and dynamics for American politics but how might we understand if and how these political battles translated into material gains for marginalized groups? This course will look at the ways in which representation became a political demand in ways both tied and untied from other goals like anti-poverty and human rights, the economic and judicial processes that shaped the demand for political representation, the ways that representational politics plays out specifically in the realm of Black politics, and the dialectical relationship between politics and popular culture in the 21st Century. Can representation save us? Should it?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL1 200 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hosam
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Introduction to the major principles, theories, and debates in the field of comparative politics. We explore critical questions such as: How are states created? What is the difference between state and nation? Why do states adopt different political and economic systems? How are democratic and authoritarian regimes different? What are the institutional designs of presidential versus parliamentary systems, and what are the trade-offs related to governance and people’s participation within those systems? How do societal organizations and identities based on geography, region, ethnicity, religion, class, and gender interact with one another and the state? We will study political systems, institutions, economic programs, political processes, and non-state actors as they affect change within countries and across different regions of the world. We will also examine the methods that scholars of comparative politics use to study politics and test hypotheses.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Candland, Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Overview of development studies with attention to major schools of political economy, their intellectual origins and centrality to contemporary debates about economic development. Topics include: capitalism, colonialism, dependency, nationalism, slavery, and independence; economic development models, policies, and strategies; perspectives on gender and development; changing conceptions and measures of poverty, development, and underdevelopment; contemporary debates in development studies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Candland
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Despite significant differences in the political and economic development of countries across Latin America and the Caribbean region, important commonalities include colonial legacies, revolutions and revolutionary movements, military rule, the rise of populism, import-substituting industrialization, neoliberal economic reform, as well as democratic transition, consolidation, and backsliding. This course offers an introductory understanding of such trends. We will analyze political and economic changes through theoretical perspectives such as political culture, dependency, and institutionalism. We will also examine contemporary forces shaping politics in the region today, such as citizenship, intersectional identities, sexual and reproductive rights, the environment, and the changing role of external forces.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 217
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Contreras
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introduction to the political history of modern China and politics in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Topics covered include: the decline and fall of Imperial China; the revolution that brought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to power; Chinese Communist ideology; development and disaster under Mao Zedong (1949-76); reform and repression under Deng Xiaoping and his successors (1977-present); the political and legal system of the PRC; China's domestic and international political economy; change and contention in rural and urban China; case studies of significant areas of public policy in the PRC; China's ethnic minorities; and the political future of the PRC.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Joseph
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An introduction to the politics of South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bhutan) from historical and contemporary, national and comparative perspectives. Examines the relationship of political institutions to patterns of development. Comparative themes include: colonial experiences and nationalist ideologies; politicization of religions and rise of religious conflict; government and political processes; economic policies initiative for conflict transformation; women's empowerment; and obstacles to and prospects for human development.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Candland
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course focuses on the social science explanations for why environmental problems are created, the impacts they have, the difficulties of addressing them, and the regulatory and other actions that succeed in mitigating them. Topics include: externalities and the politics of unpriced costs and benefits; collective action problems and interest-group theory; time horizons in decision-making; the politics of science, risk, and uncertainty; comparative political structures; and cooperation theory. Also addressed are different strategies for changing environmental behavior, including command and control measures, taxes, fees, and other market instruments, and voluntary approaches. These will all be examined across multiple countries and levels of governance.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: POL 2214
Prerequisites: ES 102 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: DeSombre
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
How do Arab-Islamic history and culture shape politics in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa? Why is the Arab world-despite its tremendous oil-wealth-still characterized by economic underdevelopment and acute gaps between rich and poor? How have the events of September 11 and the U.S.-led "war on terror" affected the prospects for greater freedom and prosperity in the Middle East in the future? What do the 2011 revolts mean for the existing regimes and prospects for democracy? These are some of the questions we will examine in this course. In readings, lectures, and class discussions, the analysis of general themes and trends will be integrated with case studies of individual Arab states.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 35
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 217
Prerequisites: One unit in Political Science.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This is an introductory course for students interested in using qualitative methods in their research and studies. By qualitative methods, I mean methods that involve small numbers of intensive observations, and that do not rely on statistical tests for drawing causal inference. The course is designed to help students develop proficiency in the use of qualitative methods in two respects. The first is to understand and be able to articulate assumptions about empirical reality and arguments about knowledge production. Next, the course will address practical considerations by helping students develop basic knowledge of principal techniques used by qualitative researchers like: navigating the IRB process and ethics of research, conducting in depth interviews, engaging in participant observation, and tracing archival and historical research.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: POL 2220
Prerequisites: One other course that satisfies the Social/Behavioral Analysis requirement.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course offers an introduction to contemporary African politics. The primary goal is to introduce students to the diversity of challenges and development issues facing African countries since independence. Questions motivating the course include: (1) Why state institutions weaker in African than in other developing regions? (2) What explains Africa's slow economic growth? (3) What can be done to improve political accountability on the continent? (4) Why have some African countries been plagued by high levels of political violence while others have not?
In answering these questions, we will examine Africa’s historical experiences, its economic heritage, and the international context in which it is embedded. At the same time, we will explore how Africans have responded to unique circumstances to shape their own political and economic situations.
As we address the core themes of the course, we will draw on a wide range of academic disciplines, including political science, history, economics and anthropology. We will study particular events in particular African countries, but we will also examine broad patterns across countries and use social science concepts and methods to try to explain them.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: POL 2231
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Dendere
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines policies in Latin America governing public health, education, housing, pensions, employment, and wealth transfers. Beginning in the 2000s, Latin American nations vastly expanded their welfare programs and extreme poverty decreased in the region, but large variations in the extent and effectiveness of social policy across nations remains. We will study the different types of social policy in Latin America, the factors drive their design and adoption, and why policies differ considerably across countries with similar sociopolitical institutions and levels of development. We will also examine how populations that lack formal access to public goods secure basic welfare. Finally we will evaluate the impact of COVID on social policy design, implementation, and effectiveness in the region.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Contreras
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What does decolonization mean? How can colonialism be undone? This course will focus on what is commonly known as the “era of decolonization,” or the period during the middle of the 20th Century during which European empires contracted and newly independent states emerged in their wake. Beginning our inquiry in the decades before decolonization, when ideas and organizing for anticolonial struggle were incubating, we will examine how a range of liberation movements formed, mobilized against alien rule, and worked to build futures beyond colonialism. Our inquiry will be both comparative and transnational. We will not only compare cases but consider how these movements cooperated, learned from each other, formed transnational networks, and fought among themselves when their different projects of “worldmaking” came into conflict. Alongside academic texts, we will read a variety of primary sources that illustrate how leading anticolonial thinkers conceived of liberation and decolonization, which generally carried far more expansive meanings than control over the institutions of a sovereign state (never seen as an end in of itself). Towards the end of the course, we will examine the legacies of these ideas and the experiences of the 20th C. How do they inform contemporary social movements? How have “second generation” liberation movements, which seek to break free from the colonial rule of “postcolonial” states, understood their own predicaments and projects in relation to the history of decolonization? What happened in places where liberation movements failed, like Kurdistan or Palestine? Why did most anticolonial projects fall apart far short of their aspirations?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the intersection of politics and the environment in Africa. We will explore historical contexts such as the environmental aftereffects of colonialism and highlight ‘wicked’ environmental problems such as increased vulnerability to climate change. Using case examples from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Congo, and Egypt, we will analyze issues such as the water politics of the Nile River, the role of women in environmental movements, and the United Nations and other international organizations’ roles in addressing environmental issues. Finally, students will have the opportunity to engage in ongoing debates in African environmental politics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: POL 2255
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Gatonye
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The façade of European culture expresses enlightenment, progressive politics, and a sense of freedom amongst scenic beauty. However, did you know that a review of the 2017-2019 mortality cases showed that Black women are four times more likely than White women to die during pregnancy or childbirth in the U.K? This is despite the country’s well known universal healthcare services, The NHS. Or, did you know that it is illegal in France to collect statistics on racial, ethnic, or religious demographics, thus making it harder to track problems such as housing or employment discrimination? Or that for the first time in Ireland and Finland, hate crimes are rising, and yet, these countries do not have any legislations on hate crimes. This course examines the implications of ethnic and racial identities in Western Europe through a comparative politics lens. It is designed to learn the history, dynamics, and salience of ethnic and racial inequality and political cleavage. It would appeal to students in Africana studies, humanities, and social sciences. No prerequisites are required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 27
Crosslisted Courses: POL 2270
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Franklin
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A wide-ranging study of nonviolent direct action, in theory and in practice, as a technique and as a way of life. It begins with discussion of some classic and modern theories of nonviolent direct action but also some modern critiques of it. It then turns to a selection of classic case studies, among them labor movements, women's rights movements, India and Gandhi, the American Civil Rights Movement, campaigns in Europe and Latin America against authoritarian regimes. It then expands its range, looking at how nonviolent direct action has been deployed in campaigns of environmental justice and economic justice, and making space to consider whatever campaigns of nonviolent direct action are going on at the moment at which the course is being taught (e.g., in the United States today the work of Black Lives Matter).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 230 1
Prerequisites: PEAC 104 or permission of the instructor. Open to Juniors and Seniors only.
Instructor: Confortini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
A comparative analysis of the theory and practice of revolution from the seventeenth century to the present, with an emphasis on revolutions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Questions to be considered include: the meaning and causes of revolution, why people join revolutionary movements, the international dimensions of internal war, strategies of insurgency and counterinsurgency, and the changing nature of revolution over the last 350 years. Case studies will include the French, Russian, Chinese, Cuban, and Iranian revolutions, as well as more contemporary events in East Central Europe and the Middle East and North Africa.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One unit in POL2 (Comparative Politics) or POL3 (international Relations).
Instructor: Joseph
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Focuses on strategies for poverty alleviation, employment generation, promotion of social opportunity, and empowerment. Emphasis is on development in Asia (especially South and Southeast Asia), Africa, and Latin America. Considers women's leadership in social change, local control of resources, faith-based activism, and collaboration between activists and researchers. Examines activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their relations with funders, governments, and other NGOs. Specific NGOs and development programs will be closely examined.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. POL2 204 is recommended. Open to non-majors and non-seniors.
Instructor: Candland
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Focuses both on how to make and how to study environmental policy. Examines issues essential in understanding how environmental policy works and explores these topics in depth through case studies of current environmental policy issues. Students will also undertake an original research project and work in groups on influencing or creating local environmental policy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: POL 2312
Prerequisites: Either ES 214 or a 200-level course in political science. Permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: DeSombre
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
How have national governments across the world responded to the Covid pandemic? Why did they respond as differently as they did, and at such varying times? How did national political institutions, such as federalism and separation of powers, influence executive and legislative public policy? What are the best practices for future outbreaks and pandemics? How likely – given what we can learn about political constraints and opportunities – are governments to implement those practices? These important questions are well addressed using comparative political analysis. At the same time, studying pandemic responses by national governments gives students a common subject matter with which to assess the principle comparative methods, including analysis of variation (e.g., regression), case studies, historical institutions, political cultures, public policies, leadership and decision-making. We will focus on Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, and the United States, permitting several interesting comparative pairings and sets.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Two units of SBA completed. POL2 202 and POL2 area studies courses recommended. Admission is by application, as with all POLS senior seminars.
Instructor: Candland
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course provides an in-depth exploration of the Palestinian Israeli conflict from a comparative and social justice perspective. Our goal is to provide an analysis of events to engage in constructive academic debates. The class begins by contextualizing the study of the Middle East within the broader scope of comparative politics and Peace and Justice studies. Next, we focus on the origins of the conflict: the debate about 1948, the consolidation of the Israeli state, and the development of Palestinian and Israeli political and military organizations. The course then delves into different dimensions of the conflict: regional geopolitics, international relations, environmental debates, gender activism, terrorism, and the “Wall.” The last portion of the class considers peace negotiations, conflict mediation, compromise, and solutions: the refugee question, Jerusalem, TRCs, and the role of the United States.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 358,POL 2359
Prerequisites: PEAC 104 or PEAC 217/POL2 217 or PEAC 204 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The recent erosion of democracy in countries like Zambia, Venezuela, and Poland shows that consolidated democracies do not necessarily endure. Some might backslide toward authoritarianism. How and under what conditions do democracies consolidate or break down and even “die”? How does the process of democratic consolidation affect stability or erosion? We will examine case studies around the world to analyze different paths toward and away from democracy and assess existing theories of regime change and democratic consolidation. We will study the underlying drivers of democratization and consolidation, including institutional arrangements, representation and accountability, economic determinants, as well as protest and social movements. We will also consider threats to democracy, including populist politics, corruption, clientelism, structural reforms, and democracy promotion by external forces.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL2 202 or POL2 204, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Contreras
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Recent decades have seen unprecedented growth of scholarship on settler colonialism and indigenous politics alongside new waves of political activism for indigenous rights around the world. This resurgence is evident in transnational solidarity movements, amplified demands for collective indigenous rights, and the movement of indigenous politics into the realm of international law. This seminar will survey this new scholarship and examine these political phenomena in historical and comparative perspective that is global in scope. Although the course is designed to leverage comparative methods that have been developed in comparative politics, our inquiry will range across all the subfields of political science and beyond the discipline’s boundaries. Thematically, our focus will be on questions of sovereignty, self-determination, land, and settler-native/indigenous relations. Among the questions that will guide our inquiry are: What is settler colonialism and what, if anything, makes it distinct from other forms of colonialization? Who counts as a “settler”? What makes a group indigenous? Can refugees be settlers? What role has settler colonialism played in state building projects around the world? What has driven settlers to settle and what fates have met the political projects they have undertaken or in which they were involved? Are there distinct types of institutions and regimes that develop in polities built through settlement? How are different forms of inequality entrenched within them? In what ways have indigenous peoples resisted settlement and dispossession? How and why have indigenous-settler relations developed differently across cases? Cases we may consider include a variety from the Americas, South Africa, Australia, Western Sahara, Palestine, Ireland, Algeria, Russia, and Japan. In addition to our thematic and topical inquiry, this course is designed to cultivate critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. Students will craft their own research questions and take each of the writing projects through multiple stages of production: drafts, peer review workshops, and then revisions prior to final submission.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL2 202 or POL3 221.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will delve into the complex interrelationship between migration and the environment. We will examine how environmental changes influence migration patterns and, conversely, how migration contributes to environmental changes. Through a combination of theoretical discourse and real-world case studies, participants will develop critical thinking abilities and the capability to propose sustainable solutions for pressing issues at the intersection of migration and the environment.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ES 395
Prerequisites: ES 214 or POL3 221.
Instructor: Ssekajja
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course will examine the role of leadership in global cooperation, with a particular emphasis on U.S. foreign policy. For decades, the United States appeared to champion a “liberal international order,” creating and supporting institutions of global governance in economic, security, and other issue areas. But since 2000, geopolitical challenges, economic shocks, and political divisions within the U.S. have reduced U.S. ability to lead. In the Trump era, the U.S. has disengaged in global cooperation. In this course, we will examine both active U.S. leadership and its absence and ask how the decline in US leadership has affected global cooperation. Could a change in US leadership lead to a revival of institutional leadership? Can the international community—not only states, but non-government organizations and transnational actors—build alternative institutions better suited to a post-U.S. world? The course will analyze these issues across a number of issue areas, including climate change, international security, international trade and finance, and public health.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Goddard
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course aims to help students understand the links between international relations theory and practice. The course will begin by outlining the unique features of global politics, especially the challenge of creating order and governance among diverse and sovereign political communities. The course will then examine how diverse leaders—from local leaders to heads of state—are necessary to mobilize collective action in order to address global challenges. The course will use case studies ranging from nuclear non-proliferation, global economic development, to environment in order to highlight the role of leadership in creating change.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Goddard
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
An introduction to the international system with emphasis on contemporary theory and practice. Analysis of the bases of power and influence, the sources of tension and conflict, and the modes of accommodation and conflict resolution. This course serves as an introduction to the international relations subfield in the political science department, and also as a means of fulfilling the political science core requirement of the international relations major.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Goddard, Torres, Beall
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Investigates relations between governments and states in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan) and with governments and states beyond the region (principally with China, Russia, and the United States). Focuses on wars between India and Pakistan; rival claims over Kashmir; the break-up of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh; conflicts in Afghanistan since 1978; nuclear proliferation; India's and Pakistan's competing relations with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States; and Bhutan's and Nepal's relations with each other and China.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Candland
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course provides an introduction to international security, a field that is fundamentally about how states and non-state actors use violence to achieve their political and economic objectives. We will seek answers to questions such as: when do states threaten to use force and for what purposes? Do alliances and multilateral institutions such as the United Nations help promote peace? Does the spread of nuclear weapons make the world a safer or more dangerous place? How do terrorists use violence to realize their objectives and when is it effective? Can intervention in civil wars prevent bloodshed and bring stability to failed states? How will “non-traditional threats” such as environmental scarcity, migration, and climate change shape international security in the twenty-first century? Throughout this course, students will be encouraged to consider the normative question of who should provide security in international politics and who should benefit from this protection.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites: One course in political science or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: MacDonald
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The shadow of Afghanistan will loom large over this course, which is an examination of the origins, development, and consequences of the Vietnam War. Topics to be considered include: the impact of French colonialism on traditional Vietnamese society; the role of World War II in shaping nationalism and communism in Vietnam; the motives, stages, and strategies of American intervention in Vietnam; leadership, organization, and tactics of the Vietnamese revolutionary movement; the expansion of the conflict to Cambodia and Laos; the antiwar movement in the United States; lessons and legacies of the Vietnam War; and political and economic development in Vietnam since the end of the war in 1975.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 35
Prerequisites: One unit in social sciences or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This interdisciplinary course investigates the role of international organizations, governments, nongovernmental organizations, the media, advocacy groups, and individuals, to consider how and under what circumstances the international community comes together to address transnational health issues. Questions we will address include: What role should different actors play? What should be the ethical bases for promoting health? To what extent do global actors’ interventions promote health equity? Focusing on a set of health challenges that have particular impact upon the poor (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, TB, maternal mortality, mental health, and NCDs), we will disentangle the relationships between health, politics, ethics, and the international community, and consider some of the fundamental difficulties in health governance, including expanding health coverage, governing global health, and setting global health priorities.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 3232
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Confortini
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this course we explore the gendered dimensions of war and peace, including how gender as a symbolic construct configures how we makes sense of war making and peacebuilding; how differently gendered people experience war and peace; and how peace and war are co-constitutive with gender relations. We pay particular attention to the “continuum of violence”, from the “private” to the “public” sphere, from militarization of everyday living to overt violent conflict. We address issues such as the political economy of war, sexualized violence, the militarization of gendered bodies, and gendered political activism. Finally, we reflect on the implications of gendered wars for the building of peace, looking at the gendered aspects of “post-conflict” peacebuilding and gendered forms of resistance to political violence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 3236
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Confortini
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is designed to offer an inside look into the processes of globalization in Sub Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. This course will focus on the ways that international forces, the political economy and new technologies are affecting citizens and countries on the continent, as well as the way that African and Caribbean countries and actors are influencing the rest of the world. We will explore a diverse set of topics including changing political landscapes, digital & technological change and development, immigration, art and culture, foreign aid, and China’s role in Africa and the Caribbean. The course will attempt to highlight the new opportunities for citizens as well as the challenges that remain for African and Caribbean countries in the globalized world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: POL 3245
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Dendere
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course examines how politics affects the international economy and vice-versa. The course will apply theories and tools of political economy to explore some of the following questions: who wins and loses from international trade and finance? How does globalization affect domestic politics (e.g., elections, regulations, inequality, the environment) in developed and developing countries? Who sets the “rules” under which the global economy operates? How influential are international organizations like the WTO and the IMF? These issues are explored with reference to economic and political theories, history, and contemporary events.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL3 221 is recommended.
Instructor: Ahmed
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Why is it that although the majority of cocoa is grown in Africa the most expensive chocolate is made in Europe? Why is it that the average cocoa farmer lives in poverty or earns just $2,000/year when the wealthiest chocolate and candy families are worth more than $10 billion? During the course of this semester, we will study the supply chain from natural resource extraction to final project and investigate the politics that allow for inequalities as well as the progress that has been made. Therefore, this course will examine the sociohistorical legacy of chocolate, with a delicious emphasis on the eating and appreciation of the so-called “food of the gods.” Interdisciplinary course readings will introduce the history of cacao cultivation, the present-day state of the global chocolate industry, the diverse cultural constructions surrounding chocolate, and the implications for chocolate’s future in terms of scientific study, international politics, alternative trade models, and the food movement. Assignments will address pressing real-world questions related to chocolate consumption, social justice, responsible development, honesty and the politics of representation in production and marketing, hierarchies of quality, and myths of purity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 330 2
Prerequisites: At least one Africana Studies or Political Science course.
Instructor: Dendere
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is part of the ongoing debate on how to understand the explanatory role of race in global politics as well as the impact of global politics on structural racism. We will seek answers to the following questions: Does global politics look different through the raced lens? How does race interact with other categories of analysis in international relations, and how does a focus on race differ from mainstream IR paradigms? What makes certain ideas and issues (e.g., regime types, humanitarian interventions, refugees and migration) raced issues? How do the study, and practice, of international relations perpetuate global racial hierarchies across issue areas? We start with theoretical perspectives, examine raced issues, and consider the effects of global politics on racial inequalities.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL3 221.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Is globalization over? Are we witnessing a resurgence of protectionist economic policies with looming trade wars? Will China take over the world economy? Finding answers to these questions requires an investigation of how politics and economics intersect and work together on a global scale. This course analyzes how international economic structures operate and seeks to demystify the distribution of global power and wealth. We will focus on the complex relationships among states, business groups, international organizations, and civil society in the making of the international political economy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL3 221 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Ahmed
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
For international environmental problems, widespread international cooperation is both important and quite difficult. Under what conditions have states been able to cooperate to solve international environmental problems? Most international efforts to address environmental problems involve international law-how does such law function? What types of issues can international environmental law address and what types can it not? This course addresses aspects of international environmental politics as a whole, with particular attention to the international legal structures used to deal with these environmental problems. Each student will additionally become an expert on one international environmental treaty to be researched throughout the course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: POL 3325
Prerequisites: ES 214/POL2 214 or POL3 221 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: DeSombre
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been described as the predominant state—or hegemon—in international politics. American political, economic, and military dominance is said to be essential to the construction of the contemporary global order. This course explores this argument through an in-depth look at American foreign policy, from the Second World War to present. Why did U.S. policy become more internationalist in orientation? What tools has the U.S. used to shape global politics? Is U.S. policy driven more by domestic institutions and values or by external opportunities and geopolitics? Will U.S. predominance endure? Or will global order have to change to accommodate the rise of new powers?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL 221 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: MacDonald
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the origins and effects of the spread of nuclear weapons in the international system, with particular attention to the effects of nuclear proliferation within states, and on state interaction. Historically, the course will cover the development of nuclear technology and strategy from the early twentieth century to the present day. Thematically, the course explores such questions of the morality of nuclear technology and strategy, the construction and conditions for nuclear deterrence, the motives and obstacles for proliferating states, the question of nuclear weapons safety, and arms control approaches in the international system.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL3 221 required; POL3 224 recommended.
Instructor: Goddard
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Explores the challenge of global institutions in the new century within a larger historical context. Considers the function and role of the League of Nations, the International Labor Organization, the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the GATT, and the World Trade Organization. Special emphasis on comparing and contrasting international organizations in the three main periods of institution building: post-World War I, post-World War II, and post-Cold War. Discusses radical, liberal internationalist, and realist approaches.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One unit in international relations and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
We often think of warfare in conventional terms: states fight other states in large-scale battles employing uniformed soldiers to conquer enemy territory. In reality, however, there are many instances of asymmetric conflicts involving non-state actors who avoid open battles, whose fighters are indistinguishable from civilians, and who seek a wide variety of political objectives. Peasant revolts, communist insurrections, ethnic rebellions, and terrorist movements are among the various ways in which the weak have attempted to use violence to break the will of the strong. We address these wars from a theoretical, historical, and contemporary perspective. We will explore how classical theorists, including Mao Zedong and Che Guevara, adapted the ideas of Clausewitz to guerilla warfare. We will examine how rebel groups-whether the Spanish guerillas, Boer commandos, Chinese communists, or Serb militias-employed violence to intimidate their opponents. We will consider how globalization and the diffusion of military technology have transformed guerilla conflicts, and debate the implications of our theories for contemporary conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL3 221 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: MacDonald
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The distribution of power in the international system is in flux. The United States, the preeminent power since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, faces internal and external challenges to its position. China’s significant economic growth over the last several decades has manifested in growing military power and institutional might: it has used its increasing power to contest territorial norms in the South China Seas, and build new and, some would argue, competitive economic institutions, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Russia may be beset by domestic political challenges and a sluggish economy, but nevertheless has flexed its military capabilities in Ukraine. In this seminar, we will undertake a theoretical, historical, and contemporary analysis of competition among great powers. What sources of power do states mobilize as they compete? How does great power competition affect middle and small powers? When great powers compete, how does this shape prospects for cooperation in international politics? We analyze both historical case studies (for example, the ), as well as contemporary cases (the decline of Russia, American hegemony, and the rise of China, India, and the European Union).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL3 221. Another POL3 course or coursework in an adjacent field (history or economics) is strongly encouraged.
Instructor: Goddard
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the interplay between technology, global governance, and global economy from the last quarter of the twentieth century to the present day. The course focuses on the rise of digital economy and its repercussions using a critical lens and analyzes various theories of knowledge economy and information society. We will examine the relationships between information and communication technologies, restructuration of the global economy and transformation of related international regimes. Our topics will include globalization of intellectual property rights, innovation, technology transfer, piracy, censorship, governance of cyber space, uses and misuses of surveillance technologies, entrepreneurial state, digital commons, global digital divide, and global value chains. We will analyze case studies such as pharmaceutical access during public health emergencies, cryptocurrencies, and technology and climate change mitigation. ?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 357
Prerequisites: POLS3 221 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bedirhanoglu
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Since the middle of the 20th century, the number and scope of international institutions have expanded substantially. These institutions, or the formal and informal rules, roles, and relationships, define and facilitate the interests and conduct of states and non-state actors in international affairs. The course analyzes why and how institutionalized cooperation/conflict in world politics occurs and explores the design, function, and effectiveness of various institutions, including prominent intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations, NATO, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, and the International Criminal Court. Students will also study how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), mainly transnational advocacy networks and organizations, prioritize goals, frame issues, and interact with governments, international institutions, and other advocacy groups. The course also explores how and why international norms about state conduct in wartime, humanitarian assistance, women’s rights, human rights, and global cybersecurity evolve or erode.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL3 221.
Instructor: Torres
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
How does studying the process of decision-making aid our understanding of international relations? This seminar explores how and why policymakers select and process information, set goals, rely on conscious and unconscious beliefs and biases in the decision-making process, as well as the impact of policy decisions. Case studies in international security include the 2003 Iraq War, 2011 Libya Intervention, and military actions in Syria; in the economic domain, Britain’s exit from the European Union, the U.S. withdrawal from Trans-Pacific Partnership agreements, and the US-China trade dispute. We study various approaches to decision-making, such as rational choice, neurobiology, and sociology. Although the focus is foreign policy, students will emerge from the course equipped with analytical tools to understand and evaluate decision-making in other areas such as business, medicine, law, and conflict management.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL3 221 and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar examines how politics affects the international economy, and vice versa. It will focus primarily on the political economy of international finance and development, across nations, issues, and time. We will explore some of the following questions: Why do financial crises occur? How does a nation’s currency affect its domestic and international politics? Are countries “punished” for defaulting on their debt? Is foreign aid “effective”? How does financial globalization affect domestic politics and vice-versa? The aim of the course is to equip students with the tools to better understand the relationship between financial globalization and politics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL3 221. ECON 102 recommended.
Instructor: Ahmed
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines how ideas shape contestation over global orders—how the emergence, diffusion, and decline of ideas can challenge the established rules and orders of world politics. The course is both theoretical and empirical in orientation. Theoretically, we will engage with core debates in international relations theory, for example, over whether ideas “matter” in international politics; how actors contest the norms and ideas of existing orders; why it is some ideas gain traction and others fall by the wayside. This course will rely on a range of cases, both historical and contemporary, to explore the relationship between ideas and contestation in international politics. Case studies will include the challenge liberalism posed to dynastic empires in Europe and the Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; nationalism in both nineteenth century European revolutions and twentieth century decolonization; the role of racial ideologies in sustaining imperial politics; the spread of fascism in the mid-twentieth century; and the creation of and challenges to the existing “liberal” global order.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL3 221.
Instructor: Goddard
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course provides a critical overview of empire and imperialism in international politics from the eighteenth century to the present day. Key questions include: Why do states establish empires? Do empires provide political or economic gains? How are empires governed? What role does technology play in driving and sustaining empires? How do empires end? What are the legacies of empire? This course examines these questions by consulting the classic theoretical works on empire by Hobson, Marx, Lenin, Mackinder, Robinson and Gallagher, and Said. It also explores the historical practice of empire through structured historical comparisons of imperial conquest and governance in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. We will also explore the contemporary relevance of the concept of empire for understanding postwar American foreign policy, including issues such as overseas basing, humanitarian intervention, nation-building, and military occupation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL3 221
Instructor: MacDonald
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines the interrelationships among military technology, strategy, politics, and war. How have these forces shaped warfare from the introduction of gunpowder to the present? How, in turn, have developments in warfare influenced societies and politics? This course emphasizes select cases from World Wars I and II and the development of nuclear weapons strategy. How, for example, did the development of chemical weapons affect the battlefield? What ethical choices, if any, guided the strategic bombing of civilians in World War II? How did nuclear weapons change ideas about fighting war? The class concludes with an examination of the "war on terror" and its implications for strategy and politics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL3 221 required; POL3 224 recommended.
Instructor: Goddard
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The course will examine the links between global migration and both national and human security. What are the implications of treating migration as a security issue? We will study the insecurities that migrants face in the source countries from which they migrate, in their journeys across nations, and after they have arrived in their destination countries--and the feelings of insecurity that migration can evoke in those countries. Who is an "illegal" migrant? Who is a "deserving refugee"? We will analyze how race and ethnicity shape the ways in which different groups of migrants are perceived and controlled.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL3 221 or equivalent background in international politics. Enrollment is limited; interested students must fill out a seminar application via the political science department.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What are the causes of and solutions to global inequality? Who or what is responsible for inequality? Why should we even think of global inequality as a problem? In this course, we will consider a range of perspectives on and answers to these questions. A major focus will be on why these questions have proven to be so contentious, particularly in debates between the Global North and Global South. We will cover different theories of global inequality in international political economy and explore how inequality manifests across different issue areas, including security, climate change, health, and gender equality. We will also survey a range of approaches to addressing inequality in international organizations, international advocacy campaigns, and using the framework of human rights. Specific campaigns that will be covered include the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, Oxfam’s Inequality Kills campaign, and the Caribbean campaign for international slavery reparations. Throughout, we will consider how ideas impact policymaking and the political consequences of framing economic issues as a problem of inequality versus a problem of poverty or lack of development.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: POL3 221 and permission of the insturctor.
Instructor: Beall
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Truth Commissions (TCs) have been a mechanism to uncover, document, and recognize human rights violations and to honor victims at moments of transition from dictatorships to democracies, and from wars to post-war contexts. TCs vary in their mandates, composition, and tasks, and have mixed records of success, despite the frequently high expectations. They often stand as acts of reparation, catalysts of larger processes of peacebuilding and dignification of victims. In this course, you will join a group of Notre Dame graduate students to study together the conceptual foundations of TCs and learn from different case studies. We will investigate the background and rationale provided for their creation, their mandate and scope, composition and structure, and analyze their work and post-report reception. We will pay attention to issues such as intersectional approaches of gender and ethnicity, the participation of victims and responsible ones, the complementarity of commissions with other forms of transitional justice, and the management and access to their archives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 3392
Prerequisites: PEAC 104, PEAC 204, or permission of the instructor. Open only to juniors and seniors.
Instructor: Confortini
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The seminar will examine a variety of topics concerning the dynamic between women and conflict including whether a lack of women’s rights leads to conflict, the contributions of women to security, women’s mobilization for conflict, the sex gap in conflict-related public opinion, and women’s rights after war. A variety of methodological approaches, including positivist as well as critical theoretical perspectives, will be covered to better understand the strengths, limitations, and complementarities of different approaches to studying women and conflict. In other words, we will use these different approaches to gain clarity on how we “know what we know” about women and conflict. Students will spend a significant portion of the class contending with issues of measurement, conceptual validity and ruling out alternative explanations. Key historical developments with relevance to women and conflict such as the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), women’s involvement in the military, and the passing of the Murad Code will also be discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 393
Prerequisites: POL3 221. Another POL3 course, or a course in a related field such as history or economics is recommended.
Instructor: Torres
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines who gives and receives foreign aid, and whether it works? Using theories and methodologies from political science, economics, and statistics, the course will probe how international and domestic interests influence how foreign aid is disbursed and its consequences. By focusing on foreign aid, the course will examine core topics in political economy, such as how gender shapes political institutions, how leaders remain in power, and the relationships between race and foreign interventions, how voters assess their political leaders, bargaining among political actors. Throughout the semester, we will also use the case of foreign aid to learn how social scientists study causal relationships. Students will learn techniques involved in “causally-identified” research designs; an approach at the core of the “credibility revolution” in the social sciences and public policy evaluations. Students will have opportunities to apply these techniques by critiquing contemporary research in political science and economics and writing their own research paper.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites: POL3 221, POL 299, ECON 203.
Instructor: Ahmed
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Compared to other regions of the world, Africa has an especially large number of regional intergovernmental organizations. Why have African governments created so many of these organizations, and how do they use them? To address these questions, this class will take a close look at the history, development, transformation, and current dynamics of regional governance in Africa. We will explore the early emergence of regional and “pan-African” cooperation and solidarity, before turning to more recent developments in regional governance. These recent developments include the use of regional organizations to address an ever-expanding number of issues, such as human rights, democracy promotion, environmental governance and climate change, civil conflict, and economic development. Throughout this course, we will also consider the important role and impact of civil society and NGOs and the role of African regional organizations as representatives of Africa within global institutions like the United Nations. Questions that will be addressed include: What, if anything, is distinctive about African approaches to regional governance? Why have regional organizations formed such an important part of the foreign policy of African governments?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL3 221.
Instructor: Beall
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
How does the international community try to establish and maintain peace? This course explores the ways in which international actors try to establish and maintain peace. It focuses on peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and international intervention more broadly. Throughout the course we will cover topics in the peacekeeping and peacebuilding fields such as what peace is, how conceptions of peace differ at the international versus the local level, by which avenues the international community tries to maintain peace, the conditions under which international peacekeeping and peacebuilding are effective, and the unintended consequences of international action. We will explore militarized and non-militarized international interventions, their development since the conception of peacekeeping and policy critiques against and in favor of international intervention as a means of maintaining peace.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 396
Prerequisites: POL3 221
Instructor: Torres
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
What is international law and how does it work? This class will explore international law from a range of different perspectives. A significant part of the course will be spent learning the basics of traditional approaches to international law, including how international law is different from domestic law and how (or whether) it can function given the lack of an enforcement authority. We will then consider a number of critiques of international law, including those that point to the centrality of coercion, power, and hierarchy in the functioning of international law. In considering these different perspectives, we will explore ways international law has worked to advantage or disadvantage different actors, including individuals, civil society, and states with less material power.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: POL3 221 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Beall
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to the study of political theory, and specifically to the problems of political action. Exploration of questions about civil disobedience, legitimate authority, ethics and politics, and the challenge of creating a just order in a world characterized by difference and hierarchy. Discussion of the social contract, liberalism, democracy, decolonization, violence, revolution, universalism, and differences of race, class, and gender. Authors may include Plato, Locke, Charles Mills, Weber, Gandhi, Fanon, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Assata Shakur.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Grattan
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Let’s face it: the “classic” or “canonical” authors in political theory are typically white, male, cis, heterosexual, and rich. Because of this, the canon of political theory has erased the ideas of people of color, women, queer people, and others on concepts such as justice, freedom, and equality. Odds are, these ideas are substantially different than the ones that have become the standards in political science and mainstream politics. This course explores the origins and imports of these other canons, these other classics. We will begin by carefully reading a canonical thinker, such as John Locke or John Stuart Mill, to understand their theorization of concepts such as justice, freedom, equality, and politics. Then we will examine and analyze works on the same topics by Black, women, and queer authors to compare, contrast, and critique the hegemonic perspective. We aren’t trying to justify the canon. Nor are we interested in simply dismantling it. Rather, we’re expanding and multiplying canons to help us confront political problems in an intersectional world. Authors may include Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Stanton, Frances Harper, and the Combahee River Collective.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 28
Prerequisites: Not open to students who have taken POL4 107, the previous version of this course.
Instructor: Martorelli
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
What does it mean to be an American? Answers to this question vary wildly across the political spectrum. And the answers have become more extreme across the board as we enter an unprecedented age of polarization.
This course seeks to understand answers to this often divisive question by exploring theories of political belonging such as nationalism, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism. First, we’ll examine how contemporary western theorists define fundamental concepts such as nation, state, democracy, and citizenship. Then we’ll analyze how these key ideas shape ongoing debates and policies related to immigration and naturalization. In an era of ever increasing division, we’re not looking for universal agreement. Rather, we’re mapping out possible common ground that we, the people, can start from for collective political action.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 35
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Martorelli
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
One of democracy’s greatest strengths is that it gives political power to the people. But what happens when “the people” is a diverse group with identities, interests, and desires that pull in many directions? Does democracy function best when everyone is treated the same? As if there are no differences among them? But what if some people are marginalized, subordinated, or stigmatized? Could pretending these stratifications don't exist actually weaken democracy? This course explores how democracy grapples with differences through texts in contemporary Western political theory. We will begin with liberal theories of democracy. Then we will study feminist, critical-race, queer, and other theorists to understand democracy from the perspectives of marginalized, subordinated, or stigmatized groups. We will not search for definitive answers or hard-and-fast conclusions about when democracy functions best. Rather, we are interested in getting a better sense of democracy’s many dimensions and tensions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 244
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Martorelli
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Neoliberalism has been tied to everything from a decline in public life to the rise of right-wing populism in Europe and the U.S. What is new about neoliberalism compared to earlier forms of capitalism and liberalism? How has neoliberalism reshaped politics and citizenship? How has it impacted groups across intersections of class, race, and gender, and how have movements on the right and left sought to resist it? Is neoliberalism essential to democratic freedom as supporters promise, or does it signal the demise of democracy as critics warn? Authors may include Milton Friedman, Wendy Brown, Bonnie Honig, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and J.K. Gibson-Graham.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Grattan
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An introduction to the theory and practice of grassroots organizing for social change. Learning will take two concurrent paths. In class, we will examine what organizing is and how it has historically played a role in social change. We will ask how organizers: use storytelling to motivate action; analyze power, devise theories of change, and craft creative strategies; develop capacities, resources, relationships, and institutions to build collective power; and facilitate diverse groups in contexts marked by entrenched histories of oppression. Outside class, students will engage in a hands-on organizing project of their own choosing in which they must organize a group of people on or off campus to achieve a common goal.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One course in political theory or significant coursework related to grassroots politics, social movements, or social change, and by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Grattan
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Human rights are an important issue in countries around the world and in international politics. But what are human rights? Is there a universal definition, or do human rights vary across time and space? Who decides when human rights are violated? When is outside action to stop such violations justified? These questions aren’t just philosophical; they’re deeply political. How political communities answer them shapes domestic and international policies on issues such as state violence, humanitarian aid, citizenship and migration, (neo)colonialism, global capital, and efforts of various kinds to promote human freedom. This course will use texts in contemporary political theory and historical and contemporary case studies to explore the intuitively important, yet vaguely understood, concept of human rights. Case studies will examine human rights in the United States (for example, interrogation torture policy, Black Lives Matter, or sanctuary cities) and the international context (for example, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, or the 2003 invasion of Iraq).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 318
Prerequisites: One course in political theory or philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Martorelli
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Police and prison reform have become bipartisan issues in the United States. But this emerging consensus follows historical and ongoing movements to resist policing and prison—from the Black Panther Party, to the prison abolition movement, to the Movement for Black Lives. This course investigates recurring themes in prison and police resistance since the 1960s: the origins of policing and prisons in colonialism and slavery; the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability in both punishment and resistance; theories of politics in captivity; and visions of freedom, justice, and democracy beyond police and prisons. Throughout the course, we will evaluate the strengths and limits of current reform initiatives in light of these readings. Authors may include George Jackson, Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, contemporary prison writers, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Mariame Kaba, Andrea Ritchie, Victoria Law, and Dean Spade.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: One course in POL4 or American Studies, (specific courses in Africana Studies, History, Sociology, or Women's and Gender Studies may apply with permission of the instructor).
Instructor: Grattan
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Examines Black liberation in theory and practice from modernity through contemporary times, emphasizing efforts by Black actors and thinkers to reconstruct culture, politics, and economics. Key concepts include racial formation, racial capitalism, violence, necropolitics, revolution, decolonization, freedom, justice, radical imagination, emotion, and the undercommons. Cases may include transatlantic slavery, the Haitian Revolution, Black Marxism, Black Power, the Movement for Black Lives, prison abolition, and historical and contemporary coalitions between Black freedom struggles and the struggles of indigenous peoples and other racialized minorities. Authors may include Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, C.L.R. James, Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin, George Jackson, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, Claudia Rankine, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Glen Coulthard.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One course in political theory or appropriate background from a related field (e.g., Africana Studies, American Studies, Sociology, WGST, etc.)
Instructor: Grattan
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v Hodges legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S. It also suggested that anyone who isn’t married cannot realize the full potential of being human. Obergefell’s dramatic swings between empowering and deriding LGBTQ people illuminate larger tensions in the relationship between sexuality and politics. Notably, marriage grants privileges to some, but not others, based on the state’s approval of their sexual preferences. The state, moreover, has historically regulated sex acts in ways that criminalize whole classes of people. These tensions raise key questions we will explore in this course: What role should the state play in supporting and restricting sexual practices? Should we look to the state to secure sexual freedom, or is sexual freedom achieved when we kick the state out of our bedrooms? More broadly, how are the boundaries of sexuality created in and through “politics”? To examine these questions, we will read queer theorists alongside contemporary political theorists.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One course in political theory or philosophy, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Martorelli
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Introduction to listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Portuguese. Authentic cultural readings, art, music, and films from Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor will be included.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Igrejas
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Introduction to listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Portuguese. Authentic cultural readings, art, music, and films from Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor will be included.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: PORT 101 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Igrejas
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Introduction to listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Portuguese. Authentic cultural readings, art, music, and films from Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor will be included. The course covers the full-year elementary language curriculum in one semester.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Igrejas
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Review and expansion of all language skills and continued study of Lusophone art, music, film, and literature. Emphasis on oral and written expression and critical analysis. The course covers the full-year intermediate language curriculum in one semester.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: PORT 103 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Igrejas
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Practice in oral and written Portuguese at the advanced level. Serves as a transition between language study and cultural studies through the examination of Lusophone cultural and artistic production. Designed to enhance communicative competence, this course will include a review of advanced grammatical structures within cultural contexts of the Lusophone world. Class discussions focus on the readings and films, as well as current events from around the Portuguese-speaking world. Oral interactions and critical writing will be stressed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: PORT 203 or equivalent, and to heritage speakers with permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Igrejas
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Topics will vary.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Igrejas
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Research or Individual Study.
Topics, assessment, and reading will vary.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Igrejas
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is conducted in English and will introduce students to the cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world through selected films, music and readings. In this interdisciplinary course, we will explore how filmmakers, musicians and writers respond to social and political changes in Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Mozambique and Portugal. Topics covered include colonialism; postcolonialism; wars of independence in Africa; Brazil’s military dictatorship; Portugal´s New State dictatorship; evolving national identities; and representations of trauma and memory. Readings are in English and films have subtitles.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 256,AFR 256
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Igrejas
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
From the dawn of the 20th century, Brazil has promoted itself to the world as a particularly musical country. In addition to samba, the country is the birthplace of many well-loved genres including choro, bossa nova, and funk carioca. Brazilian popular song is considered by many to be a literary genre where songwriters such as Vinicius de Morais and Arnaldo Antunes describe themselves as poets and their lyrics are major topics of study by scholars of Portuguese literature. In this course, we will uncover the historical and cultural origins of many of the major musical developments in Brazil and explore how they express polemics around citizenship, social activism, and cosmopolitanism. Students familiar with Portuguese will have the option of additional, focused study of Portuguese lyrics and will be encouraged to compose their writing assignments in Portuguese.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PORT 314
Prerequisites: MUS 100 or permission of the instructor. Students with prior experience with World Music, Portuguese, or Latin American Studies courses are especially encouraged to register.
Instructor: Goldschmitt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Topics will vary.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 4
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Igrejas
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An introduction to some of the major subfields of psychology, such as developmental, personality, clinical, physiological, cognitive, cultural, and social psychology. Students will explore various theoretical perspectives and research methods used by psychologists to study the origins and variations in human behavior.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
The application of statistical concepts and techniques to the analysis of research data in psychological science. As one of the two prerequisites for the research methods course required for the psychology major, emphasis is placed on hands-on work with realistic data. Students will learn to select, conduct, interpret, visualize, write up, read, and evaluate analyses. The course has an accompanying lab component. Students must register for a lecture and lab at the same time.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - PSYC 105L.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: PSYC 101 or NEUR 100 or a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken or are taking BISC 198, ECON 103/SOC 190, QR/STAT 150, STAT 160, or POL 299, except for psychology majors and neuroscience majors. Not open to students who have taken PSYC 205.
Instructor: Bahns, Brinkman, Cheek, Deveney, Poston
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This is a required co-requisite laboratory for PSYC 105.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 13
Prerequisites: PSYC 101 or NEUR 100 or a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken or are taking BISC 198, ECON 103/SOC 190, QR/STAT 150, STAT 160, or POL 299, except for psychology majors and neuroscience majors. Not open to students who have taken PSYC 205.
Instructor: Bahns, Brinkman, Cheek, Deveney, Poston
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
How do our brains give rise to conscious thought, action, and experience? This is a key question that motivates cognitive science, the interdisciplinary study of the mind. Cognitive scientists integrate approaches from psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and more, to study this issue. This course will survey the major theories, debates, and findings from cognitive science. Topics covered include perception, memory, decision-making, language, consciousness, and more. We will also consider cognitive science from a historical perspective to understand how the study of the mind has evolved in the past century, and what approaches we can take into the future.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PSYC 110
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Bushong
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Human infants and children are simultaneously the most adept learners, yet the least able to care for themselves. This course will wrestle with understanding how children’s development is shaped by human capacities and by the ways in which family, friends, and the larger community influence the maturational process. Through lectures, discussions, activities, and first-hand observations of children at the Child Study Center, we will examine children’s social, cognitive, emotional, perceptual, physical, and language development and try to understand how they relate to one another from conception (or before!) through early adolescence. Special attention will be given to public policy issues related to education, parenting, and children’s rights in the international community.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Survey of contemporary theories and research in the psychology of adolescents. Topics will include the physical, cognitive, social, and personality development of adolescents.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Poston
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Social psychology examines how individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the social context. The United States is a highly individualistic culture. American society teaches that individual outcomes are the product of what each person has wanted, worked for, and deserved. This course will provide a framework for questioning these assumptions--examining how characteristics of the individual person and the social environment jointly influence human behavior. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and experiments, we will learn about major research areas in the field including attitudes and persuasion, interpersonal attraction, sterotyping and prejudice, and prosocial behavior. We will consider how research informs social and policy issues related to education, healthcare, and the environment.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Akert, Bahns
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
A comparison of major ways of conceiving and studying personality, including the work of Freud, Jung, behaviorists, humanists, and social learning theorists. Introduction to major debates and research findings in contemporary personality psychology.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Kulik-Johnson
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
An examination of major psychological disorders with special emphasis on phenomenology. Behavioral treatment of anxiety-based disorders, cognitive treatment of depression, psychoanalytic therapy of personality disorders, and biochemical treatment of schizophrenia will receive special attention. Other models of psychopathology will also be discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Theran
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Memory is central to our functioning in everyday life and to our sense of identity. We use memory not only to accomplish routine tasks (e.g., to recall where we parked the car, to remember what items we need to pick up from the grocery store), but also to construct a narrative of our lives populated by the experiences and events that define us. Memories can be transient or lasting, and can operate both within and outside of conscious awareness. This course will examine the mechanisms underlying human memory abilities. We will discuss distinctions between different forms of memory including short-term/long-term memory, episodic/semantic memory, and implicit/explicit memory. We will examine the neural basis and development of memory functions, and will consider factors contributing to forgetting and distortion of memories.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101 or NEUR 100, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Keane
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Language is central to the human experience. It arises in all cultures and can be learned effortlessly by any child. In fact, children can’t resist it—deprive them of language, and they will invent their own. The organizational power of the human mind and the critical role of human interaction in culture shape the structure of languages and the way they are learned, perceived, and produced. In this class we will apply scientific research methods from cognitive psychology to understand how humans build, use, and acquire language. Throughout, we will view the psychological processes of language through the lenses of cross-linguistic variation, multilingualism, and individual differences.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PSYC 216
Prerequisites: PSYC 101 or NEUR 100, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Pyers
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Cognition refers to the processes and systems that enable us to perceive, attend to, represent and understand the world around us, to learn and remember information, to communicate with each other, and to reason and make decisions. This course provides a survey of research and theory in all of these domains.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101 or NEUR 100, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bushong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
In a split-second, a curling of lips across a crowded room is registered by one's eyes and translated effortlessly into a vividly three-dimensional, full-color perception of a baby's smile. This and other sensory and perceptual feats, unmatched by any computer, are this course's focus. Topics include consciousness, attention and inattention, data visualization, perceptual learning and development, face perception, 3D depth, color, and brain bases of sensation/attention/perception. Emphasis is given to abnormal and illusory perception. Special topics may include communication via language, music, art, and graphic design. Frequent demonstrations and laboratory exercises will provide insights into class concepts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101 or NEUR 100, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Wilmer
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Humans are remarkable beings. We are capable of creating inspiring works of art and dramatic scientific achievements. However, we also engage in harmful behaviors such as violence and prejudice and suffer from debilitating illnesses such as schizophrenia and dementia. This course explores how the 3 lb. structure in our head influences what we think, feel, and do. The course also explores how what we experience and how we behave can change the brain. The course begins with a basic overview of the structure and function of the nervous system and current techniques for studying the nervous system. The latter part of the course examines the biological underpinnings of several behaviors of interest to psychologists including sleep, stress, emotion, cognition, and mental disorders. Throughout the course, students will gain critical thinking skills through evaluating original empirical research and by considering the advantages and disadvantages of the biological perspective on human behavior.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken NEUR 200. Not open to students who have taken NEUR 100 except by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
How can cultural values influence the way we process information, recall memories, or express emotion? What contributes to variations in parenting styles across cultures? How do experiences such as biculturalism, immigration, and racism affect mental health? This course will examine these questions with a specific focus on the cultural experiences of Asian Americans. Our aim is to understand how these experiences interact with basic psychological processes across the lifespan, with attention to both normative and pathological development.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 222
Prerequisites: PSYC 101 or AMST 151; or a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam; or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Chen
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course is designed to provide an overview of Black psychology as a field of study. Both conceptual frameworks and empirical research related to the psychology of individuals of African descent will be presented, with appropriate historical and sociopolitical context. Topics include the Black child, Black youth, achievement and schooling, kinship and family, identity development and socialization, gender norms and behaviors, sexuality, religion and spirituality, wellness, and mental health. The course will also look at the psychology of Black people through the lenses of gender, ethnicity/nationality/culture, and religion. Additionally, this course will explore the legacies of enslavement, racism, discrimination, and racial violence as factors in Black psychology, as well as the role of the Black social movement in the psychology of Black people. The course will incorporate current topics and controversies related to Black psychology, as well as recent advances in the field of Black psychology.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PSYC 225
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Organizational psychology is the study of human thoughts, feelings, and behavior in work settings. This includes how psychological dynamics affect individual and group performance, and how work environments affect individuals. Students will explore how organizational psychologists work to positively and collaboratively transform human systems. This class will examine both theoretical and applied, real-world aspects of the field of organizational psychology. Topics will include interpersonal dynamics, personality of individuals working in organization, attitudes, group dynamics, company culture, and leadership.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines the effect of cultural differences on identity and psychological processes by comparing normative behavioral and psychological tendencies associated with membership in diverse cultural groups: East Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, African American, Latino, and working- and middle-class contexts within the United States. Topics include: self, emotion, cognition, development, relationships, and physical and mental health.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: PSYC 101, a score of 5 on the Psychology AP exam, or a score of 5, 6, or 7 on the Higher Level IB exam, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Chen
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Participation in a structured learning experience in an approved field setting under faculty supervision. Does not count toward the minimum major or minor in psychology.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Two units above the 100 level that are most appropriate to the field setting as determined by the faculty supervisor (excluding PSYC 205).
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. PSYC 299 is repeatable for credit one time. Students who receive two units of credit for PSYC 299 may not receive credit for PSYC 299H.
The Psychology Practicum in Child Development allows students to gain hands-on experience in the field of psychology and acquire course credit through their participation in non-paid teaching internships at the Child Study Center. Students are expected to spend 4-5 hours per week teaching at the Child Study Center, do periodic readings, keep a weekly journal, and attend three, mandatory supervision meetings. Does not count toward the minimum major or minor in psychology.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 298H
Prerequisites: PSYC 101. Permission of the instructor is required.
Instructor: Morgan
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: This course is repeatable once for additional credit. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Topic for 2024-25: From Perceptrons to ChatGPT: How Computational Models Help Us Understand the Mind
Topic for 2024-25: From Perceptrons to ChatGPT: How Computational Models Help Us Understand the Mind
Cognitive scientists have used mathematical and computational methods to understand human cognition since at least the 1940s. Similarly, the study of human neuroscience and cognition has influenced the development of artificial intelligence systems. Beginning in the early 2010s, massive increases in computational power and the accessibility of large databases have resulted in the rapid rise of human-like artificial intelligence systems, culminating in well-known public AI tools like ChatGPT. To what degree are these models a reflection of human intelligence, and can they help us understand human cognition? Are human-like cognitive biases also present in these models, and does this present ethical issues with their use? This course will cover the history of computational modeling in cognitive science, from early debates about modularity, interactivity, and the nature of representation; to the modern development of deep neural networks not only as practical systems, but as models of human cognition.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PSYC 300
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors who have taken one of the following - PSYC 215, CLSC 216/PSYC 216, PSYC 217, PSYC 218, PSYC 219, LING 114, PHIL 215, or CS 111; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bushong
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
An introduction to research methods appropriate to the study of human development. Individual and group projects. Laboratory. Observations at the Child Study Center required.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Either PSYC 105 or PSYC 205, and PSYC 207, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Pyers
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. This course does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
This course examines theory, research, and practice in three schools of psychotherapy: psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and humanistic. Topics to be covered include underlying assumptions of normalcy/pathology, theories of change, methods/techniques, and relationship between therapist and client.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250 and PSYC 299, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to research methods appropriate to the study of the psychology of personality and adjustment. Student projects investigate individual and group differences in personality traits, values, and dimensions of self-concept, and will include exploration of subclinical expressions of clinical conditions that are significant in psychological adjustment. Laboratory.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Either PSYC 105 or PSYC 205, and either PSYC 212 or PSYC 213, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Norem
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
An introduction to research methods appropriate to the study of social psychology. Topics will include attitudes and persuasion, interpersonal attraction and relationships, sterotyping and prejudice, aggression and prosocial behavior. Individual and group projects on selected topics. Laboratory.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Either PSYC 105 or PSYC 205, and PSYC 210, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bahns
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
Students will learn techniques for conducting personality and social psychological research using paid, crowd-sourced participants. We will cover correlational and experimental methods, as we explore personality and social topics such as individual differences in goals, and traits, aspects of self-concept and identity, stereotyping and prejudice, and group processes. Students will learn how to evaluate the reliability and validity of psychological measures. After developing specific hypotheses, students will work together to design ways of testing those hypotheses by administering on-line study protocols, and collecting empirical data. We will learn how to analyze the different kinds of data collected, and students will write up a research report following the conventions of the field.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Either PSYC 210 or PSYC 212, and either PSYC 105 or PSYC 205, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Norem
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introduction to research methods appropriate to the study of personality psychology. Student projects investigate individual and group differences in personality traits, values, goals, and dimensions of self-concept. Laboratory.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Either PSYC 105 or PSYC 205, and either PSYC 212 or PSYC 210.
Instructor: Norem
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
An introduction to research methods appropriate to the study of abnormal psychology. Topics will include affective and personality disorders, substance abuse, and stressful life events. Individual and group projects. Laboratory.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Either PSYC 105 or PSYC 205, and PSYC 213.
Instructor: Theran
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
Introduction to research methods appropriate to the study of human cognition (i.e., how people take in, interpret, organize, remember, and use information in their daily lives). Individual and group projects. Laboratory.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Either PSYC 105 or PSYC 205 and one of the following - PSYC 215, PSYC 216, PSYC 217, PSYC 218, PSYC 219, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Keane
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
Introduction to research methods used to study how different people's minds work differently; for example, how they think, perceive, attend, judge, learn, prefer, notice, scan, search, choose, quantify, calculate, read, remember, communicate, navigate, or mind-read differently, and how they process faces, words, depth, beauty, scenes, numbers, or colors differently. Includes dual focus on human variation methods and experimental methods. Individual and group projects. Laboratory.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Either PSYC 105 or PSYC 205 and one other PSYC 200-level unit, excluding PSYC 250 and PSYC 299.
Instructor: Wilmer
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
Children around the world acquire their first language, spoken or signed, with seemingly little effort. By the end of their first year, they are saying their first words, and a mere two years later they are speaking in full sentences. What are the biological, cognitive, and environmental factors that play into children’s rapid language learning? What do special cases of language acquisition, such as bilingualism, disordered language development (e.g., autism, dyslexia), and sign language tell us about the human capacity to learn language? We will consider all of these questions and more. In addition, we will spend time observing children of different ages to witness language acquisition in action.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CLSC 316
Prerequisites: Two 200-level courses in PSYC (excluding PSYC 205) or LING, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Pyers
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will provide students with a background on the biological underpinnings of the major psychiatric disorders and discuss emerging trends in the field. Course topics include: (1) the techniques used to study nervous system functioning in psychiatry; (2) the nervous system abnormalities observed in several major psychiatric disorders (e.g., schizophrenia, unipolar and bipolar disorders, and anxiety disorders) in childhood and adulthood; (3) recent changes in how the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders is being studied; and (4) interactions between the brain and the environment. Students will investigate individual topics of interest and will present their findings in a formal class presentation and a final paper.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken PSYC 219 or NEUR 200, and one additional 200-level PSYC course excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299.
Instructor: Deveney
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
For thousands of years, humans have used substances to alter their mental states for medicinal, religious, and recreational purposes. Many of these substances have been used to ameliorate the symptoms of severe mental illnesses. However, the illegal and/or inappropriate use of many substances has had profound costs to individuals and to society at large. This course provides an in-depth examination of how legal and illicit drugs influence our neurochemistry to produce changes in behavior, feelings, and cognition. Other course topics include basic pharmacological principles, the drug development process, and controversies in the field of psychiatric treatment. During the course, students will connect the technical aspects of drug mechanisms to larger clinical and societal issues and gain skills communicating complex psychobiological concepts in a clear fashion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken PSYC 219 or NEUR 200, and one additional 200-level PSYC course excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299. Not open to students who have taken NEUR 332.
Instructor: Deveney
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course explores the neural underpinnings of human cognition and behavior by considering behavioral evidence from individuals with brain damage and behavioral/neuroimaging evidence from healthy individuals. The first part of the course provides an overview of major neuroanatomical systems. The remainder of the course is organized around student-led discussions of current issues in the literature about how the brain gives rise to behavior.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units, including either PSYC 219 or NEUR 200, and excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299.
Instructor: Keane
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Adolescents are developing socially, cognitively, and civically in their online and offline worlds, transforming how formal and informal learning takes place. Students in this course will digest research findings and reflect on their own experiences about how social technologies (e.g., Instagram, gaming, mobile phones) can influence wellbeing during the tween and teen years. Harnessing personal narratives that appeal to different stakeholders, we will develop timely and accessible strategies to inform adolescents, educators, families, youth workers, and policymakers about the implications of these findings. This interdisciplinary course spanning education, psychology, media studies, and health communication fields involves transforming research into digestible, brief, non-academic pieces intended for the general public and provides opportunities for students to explore their own interests. Sample assignments include a policy brief, op-ed, e-newsletter, 2 minute podcast, social media messaging campaign, and strategic writing for UX design. Each week, fellow classmates critique each other’s work in a friendly, constructive environment while guest writing coaches and industry professionals provide useful tips to hone each piece to its creative potential.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: PSYC 322,PSYC 322
Prerequisites: Open to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors.
Instructor: Charmaraman
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing; CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Fall
Notes:
An introduction to research methods appropriate to the study of individual and group differences in sexual attitudes and behavior. Student projects use archival and new survey data to investigate topics such as sexual motivation and attraction, sexual self-esteem and identity, intimacy in romantic relationships, and gender and cultural differences in sexuality. Laboratory.
Units: 1.25
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: PSYC 105 or PSYC 205, and one of the following - PSYC 208, PSYC 210, PSYC 212, PSYC 213, or PSYC 219, and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Cheek
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Does not fulfill the laboratory requirement.
Thoughtful communication about adolescents’ sexual health is a complex and often fraught issue. Many people have strong feelings and deeply held beliefs about what is right and wrong, what should be taught, and why. In this Calderwood Seminar, we will utilize small groups and collaborative editing to tackle how to communicate effectively with a wide range of audiences. We will explore ways to translate evidence-based research for a general population. All course assignments will consist of writing for public audiences, such as an op-ed, newspaper article, a blog for a teen or parent magazine, and an interview profile of a professional in the field. Students will learn about psychological research and evidence-based practice in health-promoting and developmentally appropriate communication with adolescents about sex and relationships.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 324
Prerequisites: This course is limited to juniors and seniors. Students must have completed at least two 200-level courses in Psychology, Education, or Women's and Gender Studies.
Instructor: Grossman
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Because of the explosive changes happening during adolescence, it presents a period ripe for targeted prevention and intervention efforts to increase the health and success of our youth and to promote their early and sustained positive development. Drawing on current, strength-based theories and scientific research about adolescent development, we will examine how our earlier conceptions about adolescence may not best meet the needs of and promote positive development among youth today. We will explore the fundamental changes of this developmental period (e.g., biological, cognitive, social) and how their interactions with context (family, peers, school, out-of-school time settings, media, culture) can better inform prevention and intervention efforts that target diverse subgroups of adolescents.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Description, etiology, and developmental patterns of behavior problems of children, adolescents, and their families. Topics include theories of child and adolescent psychopathology, externalizing problems such as conduct disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, internalizing problems such as depression, anxiety, and children's experiences of trauma, and developmental disorders such as mental retardation, risk and protective factors for child psychopathology, and child and family interventions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Theran
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An examination of psychological approaches to individual and group differences in sexual attitudes and behavior. This course draws upon theory and research from the fields of personality psychology and social psychology. Topics include: sexual motivation and attraction; sexual self-esteem and identity; intimacy in romantic relationships; and gender and cultural differences in sexuality.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Cheek
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Why do some people have a keen memory for names or faces, a great sense of direction, or a remarkable ability to do two things at once? And why are some people only average (or even below average) in these areas? We will critically evaluate a broad range of perceptual and cognitive abilities (and disabilities) by drawing upon the fields of cognitive neuroscience, behavioral genetics, development, and human variation. We will address three kinds of questions: What broad combination of nature and nurture, and what specific genes and experiences, contribute to differing abilities? What are the neural and cognitive bases of such abilities? And how can we or should we apply such knowledge to ourselves, our families, our communities, and our countries?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Two 200-level units, (excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299), one of which should be PSYC 215, PSYC 216, PSYC 217, PSYC 218, PSYC 219, or NEUR 200, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Wilmer
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
An examination of how individuals develop and change over the life course. Particular emphasis on experiences associated with entry into adulthood, middle age, and older adulthood. Topics include: age-related changes in personality, emotion, and cognition; work and relationships (including marriage and parenting); life's transitions (e.g., divorce, menopause, and retirement); influence of culture and history on crafting adult lives. Different models of the life course will be discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Poston
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What do we want, why do we want it, and how do we get it? Do we all want the same things? How much control do we have over our own behavior? These questions drive psychologists who study motivation and personality. We will review major perspectives on motivation from personality and social psychology. Within each perspective, we will consider ways in which individual differences at different levels of analysis (e.g., neural networks, hormonal processes, traits, emotional dispositions, family background, social and cultural contexts) are intertwined with motivation and goal pursuit. We will consider ways in which students might apply what psychologists have learned to the pursuit of their personal goals.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken either PSYC 210 or PSYC 212 and one other 200-level unit, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Norem
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Current approaches to the psychological appraisal of individual differences in personality, intelligence, and special abilities will be investigated through the use of cases. Tests included in the survey are MMPI®, CPI®, WAIS®, Rorschach®, and the TAT®. Special emphasis will be placed on test interpretation, report writing, and an understanding of basic psychometric concepts such as validity, reliability, and norms. Useful for students intending to pursue graduate study in clinical, personality, occupational, or school psychology.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units in PSYC, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A discussion-based examination of social psychological theory and research on prejudice and discrimination with applications to current social issues. Topics include racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, and many other forms of intergroup bias, with an emphasis on the psychological mechanisms that underlie all prejudices. We will address two primary questions: Why do people have prejudices? What factors may reduce intergroup bias?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level courses, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250 and PSYC 299, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bahns
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course focuses on a major topic in social psychology: attitude formation and change. Techniques of social influence that we encounter in everyday life will be explored, with a particular emphasis on advertising. The findings of empirical research and theory will be used to understand persuasive messages. Topics include how emotion, gender, and culture are used to maximize the effectiveness of advertisements, and how stereotypes are both perpetuated and refuted in advertising.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken PSYC 210 and one other 200-level unit, excluding PSYC 205, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Akert
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Narrative psychology explores the human propensity to create and use stories about significant figures and events in the process of identity formation. Topics will include an exploration of mermaids and related figures as cultural images, metaphors for personal transformation, and archetypal symbols of the collective unconscious. The Little Mermaid and La Sirene of Haitian Vodou will be examined as representations of men's fear of, and attempts to control, women's spirituality and sexuality. The personality theories of Jung and Reich provide the framework for the seminar.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units in PSYC, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Cheek
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Take a step back from your psychology major and learn how to transfer your expertise to the public. This Calderwood Seminar challenges upper-class students in an intimate workshop setting to grow as psychologists and writers. Throughout the semester, students will build a writing portfolio that might include op-eds, book reviews, journal article reviews, coverage of public talks, Wikipedia entries, articles for middle school STEM magazines, and interviews with research psychologists. Classes will include collaborative editing workshops, guest lectures from experts, and activities to build a strong writing foundation. In keeping with the structure of the Calderwood seminar, students choose areas of psychology to study in depth, and weekly deadlines are firm so as to allow classmates time to reflect and comment on each others' work. You have learned how to write for college, now learn how to write for life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to Junior and Senior Psychology majors who have taken two 200-level courses, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Gleason
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An examination of the uses and types of imagination in both childhood and adulthood. This course will touch on the mechanics of mental imagery and discuss the ways in which imagery is manifest in cognition and particularly in management of social relationships. Emphasis will be placed on the connections between imagination and emotion, such as in children's enactment of scary or nurturant pretend play. How imagination affects interpersonal interactions will be considered, as will other topics such as children's creation of imaginary companions, imagination as pathology, and individual differences in imagination, imagery of individuals deprived of particular senses, and the influence of imagination on memory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level courses, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299.
Instructor: Gleason
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Humans are supremely adept mind readers. Our daily interaction depends on accurately assessing what other people are thinking and feeling. In fact, much of what entertains us centers on the drama that surrounds what people think and know. Lies, deceptions, and mistaken beliefs are major plot devices in novels, plays, and television shows. This seminar will trace the development,from childhood to adulthood,of a "theory of mind", the understanding of our own and others' intentions, desires, and beliefs. Topics include the development of lying, the effect of language experience on theory of mind abilities, cross-cultural variation in theory of mind development, the challenge of theory of mind for autistic children, and the role of theory of mind in art and fiction. Observations at the Child Study Center (outside of class time) will be required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken PSYC 207 and one other 200-level course, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299.
Instructor: Pyers
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar examines ways in which cultural factors interact with basic emotional processes. We will integrate theoretical and empirical research from different areas of psychology (e.g., developmental, social, clinical), and will also include readings from other disciplines (e.g., anthropology and applied linguistics). Topics will include culture and emotion regulation, emotion and language, and socialization of emotion in the family.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken PSYC 322.
Instructor: Chen
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This seminar is meant to serve as a way of scientifically exploring questions about close relationships from a social psychological perspective. “Close relationships” are interpersonal relationships in which one person perceives the self to have a sense of intimacy (e.g., physical, emotional) with another person. There will be a focus on romantic relationships, along with parent-child relationships, friendships, and other close relationships. Although these relationships are commonly a topic of everyday, layperson discussions, this seminar will utilize a scientific approach to understanding them. The goal of this course is to provide students with an overview of the major social psychological theories and research findings on close relationships and to understand how these topics are connected to cognition, emotion, motivation, social behavior, health, well-being, the self, and more. By the end of the course you should be able to think critically about questions related to understanding relationships and be able to use scientific rationale to back up your reasoning. We will discuss not only research on these topics, but also how this research might relate to students’ everyday lives and their future careers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Two 200-level courses in PSYC.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
No other species can communicate complex meanings as flexibly and efficiently as humans can. This course examines the cognitive and neural basis of our communication system, providing a comprehensive overview of what we do and don’t know about it. We will cover topics such as gesture, turn-taking in conversation, miscommunication, language and the role of prediction in communication. The course will introduce core concepts, terminology and skills through reading research papers that probe the architecture of our communication system from a cognitive neuroscience perspective, with a focus on ecological validity in communication research.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: CLSC 348
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors who have taken one of the following - CLSC 216/PSYC 216, PSYC 217, PSYC 218, PSYC 219, LING 114, PHIL 215, or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An examination of the use of nonverbal communication in social interactions. Systematic observation of nonverbal behavior, especially facial expression, tone of voice, gestures, personal space, and body movement. Readings include scientific studies and descriptive accounts. Issues include: the communication of emotion; cultural and gender differences; the detection of deception; the impact of nonverbal cues on impression formation; nonverbal communication in specific settings (e.g., counseling, education, interpersonal relationships).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors who have taken two 200-level units, excluding PSYC 205, PSYC 250, and PSYC 299.
Instructor: Akert
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: PSYC 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
In this course, students develop and apply mathematical, logical, and statistical skills to solve problems in authentic contexts. The quantitative skills emphasized include algebra, geometry, probability, statistics, estimation, and mathematical modeling. Throughout the course, these skills are used to solve real world problems, from personal finance to medical decision-making. A student passing this course satisfies the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. This course is required for students who do not satisfy the QR component of the QR & DL requirement via the Quantitative Reasoning Assessment. Those who satisfy the QR Assessment, but still want to enroll in this course must receive permission of instructor.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 13
Prerequisites: Open to First-Year students who did not satisfy the QR component of the QR & DL requirement via the QR Assessment.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Degree Requirements: QR - Quantitative Reasoning (Formerly QRB)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of disease and health in human populations and the application of this understanding to the solution of public health problems. Topics include measurement of disease and health, the outbreak and spread of disease, reasoning about cause and effect with attention to study designs and sources of bias, analysis of risk, and the evaluation of trade-offs. The course will emphasize women’s health topics such as mammography and breast cancer. The course is designed to fulfill and extend the professional community’s consensus definition of undergraduate epidemiology. In addition to the techniques of modern epidemiology, the course emphasizes the historical evolution of ideas of causation, treatment, and prevention of disease.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement.
Instructor: Polito
Distribution Requirements: NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
The magical Russian Firebird—with its feathers of pure gold—embodies the creative genius and salvational glory of the Russian performing arts. In this course we will explore Russian ballet, opera, music, theater and poetry, and their place in the culture and history of Russia and the Soviet Union, from the age of Tolstoy to the Putin era, from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake to Pussy Riot, the feminist protest group. In addition to larger themes and movements, we will consider the contexts, histories, meanings—and, in some cases, iconic afterlives—of selected works and their masterful creators.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken RAST 322.
Instructor: Tumarkin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as RAST 322.
The magical Russian Firebird—with its feathers of pure gold—embodies the creative genius and salvational glory of the Russian performing arts. In this course we will explore Russian ballet, opera, music, poetry and theater and their place in the culture and history of Russia and the Soviet Union, from the age of Tolstoy to the Putin era, from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake to Pussy Riot, the feminist protest group. In addition to larger themes and movements, we will consider the contexts, histories, meanings—and, in some cases, iconic afterlives—of selected works and their masterful creators.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Normally open to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject. Not open to students who have taken RAST 222.
Instructor: Tumarkin
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as RAST 222.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: RAST 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
An introduction to the academic study of religion. What does religion mean to its global participants and how has the modern world increasingly sought to fulfill those meanings through non-religious (secular) experiences? Are cos-play, celebrity, sports-fandom, and libraries analogous to pilgrimage, worship, ritual, and sacred space? We will look to historical and contemporary research on religion and popular culture to probe the roots of religious experience; map the social functions of ritual and myth; consider religion as the symbolic synthesis of worldview and ethic; and test its definition as a prism of historical conflict and change. Readings will focus on theories and varieties of religious worship, organization, roles, and authority along with attention to the effects of social identity in terms of class, race, gender, ethnicity. This is an introductory course; no previous knowledge of or experience with religion is presumed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course exposes students to major approaches to the interdisciplinary field of Jewish Studies. We will focus our attention, in sequence, on different objects of analysis: Jews, Jewish languages, Jewish texts, Jewish politics, and Jewish cultural expression. In each case, we will ask what it means to call that kind of object (a person, word, political idea, work of culture, etc.) Jewish, and we will examine some of the most influential answers that have been presented, from antiquity to modernity. By the end of the semester, students will have a solid grounding in the field as a whole and a roadmap for pursuing the study of Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture at Wellesley (and beyond).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: REL 10 2
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Lambert
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Critical introduction to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, studying its role in the history and culture of ancient Israel and its relationship to ancient Near Eastern cultures. Special focus on the fundamental techniques of literary, historical, and source criticism in modern scholarship, with emphasis on the Bible's literary structure and compositional evolution.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 10 4
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The writings of the New Testament as diverse expressions of early Christianity. Close reading of the texts, with particular emphasis upon the Gospels and the letters of Paul. Treatment of the literary, theological, and historical dimensions of the Christian scriptures, as well as of methods of interpretation. The beginnings of the break between the Jesus movement and Judaism and the challenges posed by Roman rule will be specially considered.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Geller
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An introduction to the Bible at the intersection of queer theory, biblical interpretation, and the historical study of the ancient Middle East. Through an examination of queer readings of the biblical canon and the canon of contemporary queer theory, the class explores the social construction of gender and examines how people in the biblical world and ancient Middle East maintained and contested gender roles. Using primary texts and iconographic evidence, we will consider not only the complex interaction between the categories of gender and sexual orientation, but also how contemporary expectations about “biological sex”, patriarchal structures, and the biblical world impede our capacity to understand the biblical text, explore the experiential varieties of gender in the ancient world, and appreciate the inherent queerness of gender. This is an introductory course; no previous knowledge of the Bible is required or presumed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 10 6
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introduction to the major religions of India, Tibet, China, and Japan with particular attention to universal questions such as how to overcome the human predicament, how to perceive ultimate reality, and what is the meaning of death and the end of the world. Materials taken from Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto. Comparisons made, when appropriate, with Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 40
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This introductory course focuses on Jesus of Nazareth. We will study key texts within the Jewish and Christian Bibles, examining not only their composition in the context of empire and diasporic Judaism in the ancient world, but also how they are still used to debate contemporary ethical and political actions. We will consider 1) biblical texts in their historical context and their earliest interpretations; 2) recent trends in Jesus studies, including feminist, queer, and postcolonial interpretation; Black Jesus; and contemporary popular culture; 3) Jesus in global, pluralistic, and multi-religious contexts.
Visits to the Wellesley Davis Museum and the Harvard Art and Near Eastern Museums are planned.
All persons and perspectives are welcome in this class. Previous knowledge or personal experience with the Bible or religious traditions is neither presumed nor necessary.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; HS - Historical Studies
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An introduction to the history and concepts of monsters and monstrosity. We will apply readings in literary and cultural theory to case studies drawn from biblical literature and iconography from the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean myths and cosmologies, Victorian-era gothic novels, and contemporary popular culture to study monstrous beings from the earliest examples until the present. We will center questions concerning the human creation (and fear) of monstrous beings, the cultural specificity of terror, the social significance of monsters, and how the history of monsters informs, and has been informed by, the ancient world. No previous knowledge of the Bible, literature, or monsters is required or presumed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: CPLT 112Y
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Every four years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A study of the Christian religion through twelve objects that represent key beliefs, rituals, institutions, and spiritualities of the tradition: a cross, flame, water, bread and wine, a crown, an icon, a monastery, a cathedral, a bible, a hymn book, a meetinghouse, and a megachurch. We will take one week of the term to examine each of these objects and their complex meanings in Christian culture. Our approach will feature historical and thematic perspectives and engage with a combination of primary source texts, secondary interpretive readings, visual images, sound recordings, and videos. No previous knowledge of Christianity is assumed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Discussion based seminar deals with Japan both as a victim and as a victimizer during and in the aftermath of the World War II. It probes what drove Japan to aspire toward world domination; how the "ultimate bomb to end all wars" was used twice on Japan in August 1945; and how the Japanese "war criminals" are enshrined today at Yasukuni as "divine beings"; and how Yasukuni Shinto Shrine remains a major barrier in establishing peace between Japan and its Asian neighbors. The seminar is intended for students interested in the comparative and historical study of religion, Peace and Justice Studies, and East Asian Studies. Requirements: active participation in discussion, joint paper writing and presentation; no exams.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 119Y
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of theoretical models and methods employed in the study of religions. Particular attention to approaches drawn from anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Readings taken from writers of continuing influence in the field: William James and Sigmund Freud, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim, Clifford Geertz and Victor Turner, Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade, Karl Marx and Paul Ricœur.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Topic for Spring 2023: Satan
Topics in this course explores the Bible and its uses in contemporary popular culture. In Spring 2023, we will focus on Satan and popular culture. We will examine related concepts of demons and spirit possession in the biblical world along with their history of interpretation. Key biblical texts include the book of Job, Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness, and apocalyptic literature. In addition to the (re)creation of Satan in the medieval and early modern period, we will also cover popular case studies including Lil Nas X, Southpark, DMX, Hellboy, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Rick & Morty, and The Simpsons. This class has no prerequisites; no previous knowledge of the Bible is presumed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 20 1
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
This course explores the use of biblical stories and themes in cinema. We will begin with films based on selected biblical texts including the creation accounts, the exodus, the books of Ruth and Job, the life of Jesus. We will then examine cinematic treatments of biblical themes: roles of women and children, apocalypse, monsters, and suffering. No previous knowledge of film or the Bible is assumed; the course offers an introduction to key modes of biblical interpretation including historical criticism, feminist, womanist, literary and comparative approaches. Films include East of Eden, Moonlight, Prince of Egypt, The Shape of Water, The Color Purple, Get Out, Apocalypse Now, and JoJo Rabbit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 20 9
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Scholars of Jewish Studies tend to focus on moments of hardship and pain. But do disasters and the despair tell the whole story? What gets missed when we prioritize despair and misery and cast aside allegedly lighter and more positive themes? Such questions are the engine that runs this seminar. We will rethink the cultural roles of joy in Judaism, take Jewish humor seriously, and ponder whether happiness in Judaism is distinct from what we find in other religious traditions. Throughout the semester, through careful readings of primary sources (in translation) and contemporary theories, we will explore how so-called positive emotions, moods, and affects are inextricable from the most serious aspects of religion, politics, and the human experience, such as identity formation, violence, gender norms, and power.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: REL 210
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: DeGolan
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Traditionally, the study of Judaism has neglected the senses, the body, and emotions as worthy objects of inquiry. This course aims to fill this gap in our conception of Judaism by surveying key Jewish traditions from antiquity to the present through the lenses of sensory studies, new materialism, and affect theory. We will explore, for instance, the centrality of pleasant and foul odors to premodern Israelite religiosity, notions of attention as a bodily experience in medieval Jewish mysticism, and modern debates about love and shame as determining factors in Jewish law. To appreciate the sensory, somatic, and affective realms of Jewish history, we will engage analytical tools that focus on texts’ representation of textures of lived experiences and apply these methods to sources such as the biblical Song of Songs, the talmudic tractate Berakhot (“prayers and blessings”), hassidic tales of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, and Noah Kahan’s Twitter feed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: REL 212
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: DeGolan
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
With readings, documentary films, discussions, and lectures, this course will examine the complex spiritual beliefs and expressions of peoples of African descent in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, and North America. The course surveys African diasporic religions such as Candomble, Santeria, Voodoo, Shango, and African American religions. Attention will be paid to how diasporic Africans practice religion for self-definition, community building, and sociocultural critique, and for reshaping the religious and cultural landscapes of the Americas.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: REL 214
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Fitzpatrick
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A study of Christian spirituality as presented in perennial favorites, including Augustine’s Confessions (4th c.), Thomas a Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ (15th c.), Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle, (16th c.), Therese of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul (19th c.) , C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters (20th c.), and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Strength to Love (20th c.). We will consider the continuity, change, and diversity of understandings of God and humans, the body and the soul, the freedom of the will, the need for action, and the role of personal religious experiences. We will conclude with 21st- century works, such as Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ and Pamela Lightsey’s Our Lives Matter.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
From the church of the martyrs to Medieval Christendom and the 16th-century reformations, Christians debated questions still asked today: who is Christ, and why does he matter? What is good, and what is evil? Do we will freely? Is our reason trustworthy? What do the Scriptures mean? Do mystics help us know God? We will read autobiographies, saints’ lives, letters, visionary literature, and theology. We will study Benedictines, Franciscans, Jesuits, crusades, pilgrimages, art, and music. Material will be from the Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Reformed traditions. Authors will include Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A study of the religions of Americans from the colonial period to the present. Special attention to the impact of religious beliefs and practices in the shaping of American culture and society. Representative readings from the spectrum of American religions including Aztecs and Conquistadors in New Spain, Puritans; the Evangelical and Enlightenment movements; Native American prophets; enslaved persons, slave owners, and abolitionists in the antebellum period; ethnic and assimilationist Catholics and Jews; the Black Church; Fundamentalists and Liberals; American Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus; and new internet sectarians.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 218
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Ritual is a fundamental and often controversial aspect of the Christian tradition. It is also a remarkably complex form of religious expression that integrates language, tone, gesture, image, and design. This course examines the major forms of Christian ritual, their expression in art, architecture, music, and literature, and the methods used in interpreting them in contemporary scholarship. We will examine Christianity’s principal rituals from their beginnings in baptism (initiation) and the eucharist (communion), through monastic chant and the Roman mass, to Protestant liturgies, sacred song, and revivalism, and ritual in contemporary social media. As a special feature, we will study specific sites from various historical periods in order to learn about how art, architecture, and music articulated these ritual forms, using theoretical models from the emerging field of Ritual Studies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: MUS 219
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Human nature and destiny, good and evil, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal, tradition and assimilation, salvation and damnation, God and fate in The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and contemporary novels including Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima, Allegra Goodman’s Kaaterskill Falls, and Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine. Reading and discussion of these texts as expressions of diverse religious cultures in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 228
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Martyrs, mystics, witches, wives, virgins, reformers, and ministers: a survey of women in Christianity from its origins until today. Focus on women's writings, both historical and contemporary. Special attention to modern interpreters-feminists, womanists, Latinas, and LGBTQi Christians.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The role of the Virgin Mary in historical and contemporary Christianity. Topics include Mary in the Bible, early Christian writings, devotion to her in the Middle Ages, her role in Islam, artistic productions in her honor, debates about her body and her power, and her "appearances" at Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima, and in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Attention also to the relation between concepts of Mary and attitudes toward virginity, the roles of women, and "the feminization of the deity."
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Every religious culture regards the earth as a site of sacrality, whether understood as the creation of the gods and thus intrinsically sacred, or as an entity through and with which the sacred interacts. In our time of escalating ecological disaster and runaway global heating, humans can claim these traditions as one way of placing our human wreckage of the planet into a larger critical perspective than the scientific warnings, corporate denials, and governmental temporizing that currently inform the environmental crisis. This course will introduce students to ideas of the terrestrial sacred and how humans should relate to it from a range of religious and spiritual traditions, including Native American, Biblical, Christian, Transcendentalist, and today’s ecological thinkers. Together we will assess the value and applicability of these diverse approaches to sacred earth for today’s ever more urgent crisis of global environmental disruption. No prior knowledge of or course work in Religious Studies is required.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ES 229
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An inquiry into the nature of values and the methods of moral decision-making. Examination of selected ethical issues, including self-interest and freedom, the common good, capitalism and economic inequality, just war theory, racism, the environmental crisis, the hazards of digital technology, and religious morality.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
There is a deep crisis of values at the heart of contemporary culture in the United States. On one hand, the nation is unquestionably committed to the principle of radical individualism, marked especially by free-market capitalism, consumerism, and increasingly violent libertarian politics. On the other hand, increasing competition and diversity require principles of the common good to sustain the cultural coherence, social media, and environmental stability necessary for civil society to function effectively. This course will investigate the conflict between these two sets of values through theoretical readings and the inspection of public life in the United States in the twenty-first century. It asks whether there ought to be any constraints on individualism that can be justified by an appeal to the common good and, if so, what those constraints should be.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 234
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course offers an introduction to the anthropological study of human religious experience, with particular emphasis on religious and ritual practice in a comparative perspective. What is the relationship between religion and society? Can categories such as “religion” and “the sacred” be legitimately applied to all cultures? Does religion necessarily imply belief in a God or sacred beings? We will concentrate on a range of small-scale, non-Western, cultures for much of the semester, returning to religious experience in the modern industrial world and the concept of "world religions" at the course’s end.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: REL 233
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Walters
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores anthropological, religious, and psychiatric perspectives on mental health and mental illness, with careful attention to varied constructions of "madness", treatment, and healing across human cultures. We begin with comparative questions: are there universal standards of positive mental and emotional functioning? Are there overall commonalities in approaches to psychic and emotional disturbances? What is the role of spirituality? After considering the history of ‘madness’ in the West, we consider early anthropological and religious models of "madness" elsewhere. We next turn to ritualized therapeutic interventions in small-scale indigenous societies and consider a range of case studies from around the world. We conclude with a unit on culture and mental health in the United States and the ‘globalization” of American models of the psyche
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: ANTH 236
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Walters
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
How has technology impacted religion? How has religion influenced technology? This course explores how digital technologies like the Internet, social media, gaming, virtual reality, telecommunications, and artificial intelligence (AI) have changed the way that people think about and practice religion. Throughout this course, we will focus on the relationships between religion, digital media, robotics, and popular culture online using both real-world case studies and current research in the fields of religion, anthropology, and science and technology studies (STS).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Walters
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
At the birth of the Roman Empire virtually all of its inhabitants were practicing polytheists. Three centuries later, the Roman Emperor Constantine was baptized as a Christian and his successors eventually banned public sacrifices to the gods and goddesses who had been traditionally worshipped around the Mediterranean. This course will examine Roman-era Judaism, Graeco-Roman polytheism, and the growth of the Jesus movement into the dominant religion of the late antique world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CLCV 240
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Geller
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An examination of the ways in which archaeological data contribute to the understanding of the history of ancient Israel and the Jewish and Christian communities of the Roman Empire. We shall explore such archaeologically dependent topics as the origins of ancient Israel, goddess worship in Iron Age Israel, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Galilee in the time of Jesus, Roman-era leadership positions of Jewish and Christian women, and monumental architecture in Jerusalem. We shall also consider the complex relationships between archaeology and Biblical Studies and archaeology and nationalism. In addition to the Davis Museum, visits to the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East and the Museum of Fine Arts are tentatively planned.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken REL 342.
Instructor: Geller
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as REL 342.
The roles and images of women in the Bible, and in early Jewish and Christian literature, examined in the context of the ancient societies in which these documents emerged. Special attention to the relationships among archaeological, legal, and literary sources in reconstructing the status of women in these societies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Geller
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An exploration of the history, archaeology, and architecture of Jerusalem from the Bronze Age to the present. Special attention both to the ways in which Jerusalem's Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities transformed Jerusalem in response to their religious and political values and also to the role of the city in the ongoing Middle East and Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Geller
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An examination of the origins, character, course, and consequences of Nazi antisemitism during the Third Reich. Special attention to Nazi racialist ideology, and how it shaped policies that affected such groups as the Jews, the disabled, the Roma, Poles and Russians, Afro-Germans, and gay men. Consideration of the impact of Nazism on women and on the German medical and teaching professions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 245
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Geller
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
A study of Buddhist views of the human predicament and its solution, using different teachings and forms of practice from India, Southeast Asia, Tibet, China, and Japan. Topics including the historic Buddha's sermons, Buddhist psychology and cosmology, meditation, bodhisattva career, Tibetan Tantricism, Pure Land, Zen, and dialogues with and influence on the West.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Continuity and diversity in the history of Chinese thought and religion from the ancient sage-kings of the third millennium B.C.E. to the present. Topics include: Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese Buddhism, folk religion, and their further developments and interaction. Materials drawn from philosophical and religious and literary works.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Constancy and change in the history of Japanese religious thought and its cultural and literary expression from the prehistoric "age of the gods" to contemporary Japan. An examination of Japanese indebtedness to, and independence from, Korea and China, assimilation and rejection of the West, and preservation of indigenous tradition. Topics include: Shinto, distinctively Japanese interpretations of Buddhism, neo-Confucianism, their role in modernization and nationalism, Western colonialism, and modern Japanese thought as a crossroad of East and West.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of the relationship between the two polar aspects of being religious. Materials drawn from across the globe, both culturally and historically. Topics include: self-cultivation and social responsibility, solitude and compassion, human frailty as a basis for courage, anger as an expression of love, nonviolence, Western adaptations of Eastern spirituality, meditation and the environmental crisis. Readings selected from Confucius, Gautama Buddha, Ryokan, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Heschel, Dag Hammarskjöld, Simone Weil, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, Henri Nouwen, Beverly Harrison, Benjamin Hoff, Ruben Habito, and others.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
History of the Christian tradition in South and East Asia from the first century to the present. Emphasis on the Christian impact, both positive and negative, on Asian societies; why Asia rejected Western Christianity; and the development of uniquely Asian forms of Christian belief, practice, and sociopolitical engagement. Topics include: Thomas's supposed "apostolic mission" to Kerala, India in the first century; the Nestorian "heretics" in T'ang China; symbiosis of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in ninth-century China; the two sixteenth-century Jesuits (Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci); Spanish colonialism and the Roman Catholics of the Philippines; the 26 martyrs of Japan (1597); the Taiping Rebellion; Uchimura's "No Church Christianity"; Horace Allen in Korea; Kitamori's "Pain of God Theology"; Endo's "Silence of God"; India's "untouchables" and Christianity; Mother Teresa of Calcutta; the Three Self Movement in the People's Republic of China; Korea's Minjung Theology; and the rise of Asian American Christianity.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Historical survey of Muslim-majority societies and the diverse cultural forms produced within them from the seventh century to the beginnings of the modern period. Topics include literary and artistic expression, architecture, institutions, philosophical and political thought, religious thought and practice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MES 260
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Normally alternates with REL 262.
An exploration of urban forms and culture in Muslim societies from Islamic late antiquity to the present. The course examines and critiques concepts of 'the Arab city' and ‘the Islamic city' while focusing on elements of continuity and change in particular cities, such as Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Istanbul, Isfahan, Samarqand, Lucknow and Lahore. Topics include migration, settlement, and the construction of new cities; conversion; the emergence of ‘holy cities' as centres for pilgrimage, religious education and Islamic legal scholarship; sacred space and architecture; religious diversity in urban environments; the impact of colonialism; post-colonial developments; modern and contemporary environmental issues; renewal and preservation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 261
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken MES 365/REL 365.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as MES 365/REL 365.
Historical study of the Islamic tradition, from its beginnings in Arabia through its shaping in the seventh to tenth centuries in the diverse and newly integrated regions of Western and Central Asia and North Africa. Topics include the sacred sources of the Islamic religious tradition, the Prophet and the Qur'an; the formulation of religious law, ethics, theology, and philosophy; varied patterns of piety and mysticism; and the development of Sunni and Shi'i understandings of Islam and Islamic history. Particular attention to the diversity within the Islamic tradition, its intercultural contacts, and its continuing processes of reinterpretation. The course also addresses approaches, methods, issues, and new directions in the study of Islam and Muslim societies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MES 262
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Normally alternates with REL 260.
A study of the modern history of the Islamic religion and its interaction with historical forces in shaping developments in Muslim-majority societies from the late eighteenth century to the present. The course explores the emergence and evolution of religious movements and discourses in the context of the colonial and postcolonial periods, with particular attention to the histories of modern nation-states, such as Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia. Readings encompass a variety of perspectives and address a range of topics, including religious practice, modes of interpretation, matters of governance and the state, economic issues, gender and gender relations, and the participation of women in various arenas of public life. Islam is explored as a diverse and dynamic religious tradition that is responsive to change, and enquires into the divergent understandings of religion represented in a variety of modern and contemporary contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 263
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the emergence of the Ottoman state from a frontier principality into a world empire. Topics include pre-Ottoman Anatolia; frontier society; methods of conquest; centralization and organization of power; religion, architecture, and literature; land regime and peasantry; urbanization; and relations with European Empires as well as other Islamic states. Particular attention will be given to the institutionalization of religion in Ottoman state and society, including the employment of Sharia in political decision-making and legal judgments, and to the treatment of religious minorities in the empire. Readings from primary source texts (in English) and their recent interpretations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: HIST 285
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How have Muslims, over the course of a millennium and a half and in strikingly different environments and circumstances, conceived of human nature, moral conduct and responsibility, and the good life; and how have they formulated, debated and applied ethical principles? This course explores these questions with reference to the rich materials that have informed the religious cultures of Muslim communities, including the sacred sources of the Qur'an and the Prophet's example, the reception, interpretation and development of late antique moral philosophies and wisdom literatures, the evolving corpora of legal and theological scholarship, and the elaboration of rationally based ethical systems. Issues include charity, the environment, animal welfare, economics, gender and sexuality, medicine and bio-ethics, conflict and dispute resolution.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 267
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken MES 347/REL 347.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as MES 347/REL 347.
An exploration of Egyptian history, with an emphasis on religious and cultural dimensions, from late antiquity and the rise of Islam to the present. Topics include the adoption of the Arabic language; religious diversity and conversion; the emergence of distinctive social-cultural forms in Egypt's urban, coastal, desert and rural areas; evolving understandings of and responses to the Pharaonic past; and the gradual transformation of Cairo, from a garrison town in the early Islamic period to a pre-eminent commercial, intellectual, cultural and artistic capital and a megalopolis in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Attention to Egypt's interactions with its neighbours in the eastern Mediterranean, especially Syria; Egypt's experience of the Crusades and colonialism, and especially its relations with Britain and France; and the challenges of the twenty-first century, including conservation of the natural and built environments.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken REL 348.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as REL 348 with additional assignments.
An exploration of the history of Iran and its peoples from antiquity to the present. Topics include cultural and religious life; social and economic developments; government and court politics; the interactions among rural, urban, and nomadic communities; the lives and roles of women; commerce, cultural exchange, and the impact on Iran of European imperial rivalries; the forging of the nation-state, discontent and dissent; the Islamic Revolution, post-revolutionary Iran; and the Iranian diaspora.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of the contacts and interactions among the major religious communities of Eurasia especially as facilitated by trade, travel and pilgrimage along the 'Silk Road'. After initial consideration of the idea of the 'Silk Road' and the history of its 'discovery', the course focuses on commerce and contacts in specific historical periods from antiquity to the present. Readings include sacred texts (including Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, Daoist, Islamic and Zoroastrian texts), as well as merchants', travellers' and pilgrims' accounts. The course includes substantial attention to the material cultures and artistic works produced by the religious communities of the Silk Road.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Love in its myriad manifestations constitutes a central and perennial theme in the literary and artistic repertoires of Arabic- and Persian-speaking societies. This course explores the varied, subtle vocabulary and the versatile, multivalent imagery linked with the themes of love and longing in Arabic- and Persian-language literature and film. In different times and places, how have men and women writers and directors used the themes of love and longing to depict and critique concepts of gender and gender relations, and social and political inequalities? How have men and women writers and filmmakers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries both continued and disrupted earlier literary and poetic discourses of love? How have modern filmmakers engaged with and reworked classical stories of transgressive love? Divided roughly equally between literary and cinematic works, the course explores treatments of love and longing in, for example, early Arabic poetry and the Quranic text, philosophical and medical treatises, narrative cycles (for example the Thousand and One Nights), epic (notably the Persian Shahnameh or ‘Book of Kings’), lyric poetry (Rumi, Saadi, Hafez), modern verse, and film, including films by Dariush Mehrjui, Youssef Chahine, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abbas Kiarostami, Rakhshan Bani-Etamad and Shirin Neshat.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MES 271
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken MES 371/REL 371.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also taught at the 300-level as MES 371/REL 371.
A close examination of the rationale by the U.S. government for the incarceration of American citizens of Japanese ancestry, and Japanese nationals living in the United States and Latin America, after Japan's attack in December 1941 of Pearl Harbor. The course also examines the dynamics of overwhelming popular support for the incarceration, as well as the aftermath of the internment. The topics include Japan's rise as a colonial power, starting in the late nineteenth century; the place of Asian migrant workers and the "yellow peril"; life in the camps; the formation of the Japanese American Citizens League; the valor of the Japanese American soldiers in Europe during World War II; how the United States has since responded to its "enemies," especially after 9/11; changing immigration laws; race and politics in America.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: REL 318
Prerequisites: One course in Asian American Studies, or in Asian Religions, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A study of the relationships among religion, fundamental law, and political culture in the American experience. Topics include established religion in the British colonies, religious ideologies in the American Revolution, religion and rebellion in the Civil War crisis, American civil religion, and the New Religious Right. Special attention to the separation of church and state and selected Supreme Court cases on the religion clauses of the First Amendment. In addition, the class will monitor and discuss religious and moral issues in the 2022 elections.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 319
Prerequisites: REL 200 or REL 218, or at least one 200-level unit in American Studies or in American history, sociology, or politics; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A study of contemporary women theologians' critiques and reinterpretations of Christianity - its Scriptures, its God, its teachings about human bodies and the earth - from second wave feminists to contemporary LGBTQI Christians. Special attention to African American, Latina, and Asian American authors. Consideration also of alternative concepts of divinity proposed by ecofeminists and devotees of goddesses.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: One 200-level course in religion, women and gender studies, or a related subject.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Fifty years ago, in that time of social and political turmoil, Christian theologians James Cone (United States), Leonardo Boff (Brazil), and Gustavo Gutierrez (Peru) described God as working actively for and with the racially, socially, and economically marginalized. Our course begins with this Liberation Theology of the 1970s and continues with developments of the 1980s (including Oscar Romero and the El Salvadoran martyrs). But the majority of the course focuses on more recent womanist, mujerista, Native American, ecofeminist, and LGBTQI theologians whose god opposes racism, sexism, heterosexism, cultural imperialism, and exploitation of the earth. Some attention also given to Engaged Buddhism, Radical Dharma, and Muslim and Jewish liberation theologies in the United States.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200-level course in religion, Latin American studies, or peace and justice studies.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Is religion inherently violent, or do external forces like political factionalism and ethnic hostility exploit it to gain power? This course explores these and other questions to theorize the sources and manifestations of religious violence. Topics include the role of violence in sacred texts and traditions, intra- and interreligious conflicts, religion and nationalism, and religious violence in today's global society. Historical and contemporary examples selected from world religious traditions and global geography, with particular attention to the role of religion in the rise of violent American survivalist, paramilitary, and internet movements.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 330
Prerequisites: One of the following - HIST 205, REL 200, REL 230, PEAC 104, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Normally alternates with REL 319.
An examination of the ways in which archaeological data contribute to the understanding of the history of ancient Israel and the Jewish and Christian communities of the Roman Empire. We shall explore such archaeologically dependent topics as the origins of ancient Israel, goddess worship in Iron Age Israel, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Galilee in the time of Jesus, Roman-era leadership positions of Jewish and Christian women, and monumental architecture in Jerusalem. We shall also consider the complex relationships between archaeology and Biblical Studies and archaeology and nationalism. In addition to the Davis Museum, visits to the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East and the Museum of Fine Arts are tentatively planned.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: At least one unit in archaeology, Biblical studies, classical civilization, early Christianity, early Judaism, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken REL 242.
Instructor: Geller
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as REL 242.
Why do people build monuments? How do they help and whom do they hurt? This seminar introduces approaches and case studies related to sacred monuments, monumentality, and memory from the ancient Mediterranean to the Confederate South. We will review current research in biblical studies, classics, archaeology, and sociology with a focus on physical monuments in the Bible, and in the ancient Near East, Greco-Roman antiquity, and up through the present. Case studies include historical monuments and artifacts such as the Law of Hammurabi, Confederate monuments, and obelisks of Mussolini; literary descriptions of artifacts including the Ten Commandments, cultic statues, and the Dead Sea Scrolls; and monument desecration and destruction including Roman condemnations of memory and #BlackLivesMatter protests. Possible trips to the MFA, and Harvard Art and Semitic Museums.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 344
Prerequisites: A course in a relevant subject area such as religion, art history, Africana studies, Jewish studies, classics, American studies, sociology, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar considers enslavement practices in the biblical world. Although we will focus on the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean from the Iron Age through the early Roman Empire (roughly 1200 BCE through 300 CE), we will frame problems of enslavement broadly to show how systems of group-based slavery and punishment practiced in the ancient world were enshrined in the biblical literature and then perpetuated throughout history. Our goal is not just to investigate the relationship and differences between these systems and second-wave chattel slavery during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but also to interrogate how these ancient practices have informed, substantiated, and can elucidate contemporary institutions like systemic racism and the prison-industrial complex.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: A course in a relevant subject area such as Religion, History, Africana Studies, Jewish Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Classics, or American Studies, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar considers the difficult paradox of the Bible as both a tool for colonization and decolonization. We will frame this problem in three parts. First, we will engage post-colonial theory to interrogate the biblical text as a record of interaction with the various empires of the ancient Middle East, North Africa, and Mediterranean. Second, we will interrogate the Bible as a tool of empire and the European and colonial agenda, with a focus primarily on British, French, and Spanish despoliation of Africa, the Middle East, and Central America. Finally, we will explore the Bible as a tool for decolonization by engaging biblical interpretation by marginalized groups (womanist, mujerista, indigenous, and queer approaches). Our goal is to investigate the role of the Bible as a source of both harm and healing in the history of the world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 346
Prerequisites: A course in a relevant subject area such as religion, history, Peace and Justice studies, Jewish studies, Middle Eastern Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Jarrard
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
How have Muslims, over the course of a millennium and a half and in strikingly different environments and circumstances, conceived of human nature, moral conduct and responsibility, and the good life; and how have they formulated, debated and applied ethical principles? This course explores these questions with reference to the rich materials that have informed the religious cultures of Muslim communities, including the sacred sources of the Qur'an and the Prophet’s example, the reception, interpretation and development of late antique moral philosophies and wisdom literatures, the evolving corpora of legal and theological scholarship, and the elaboration of rationally based ethical systems. Issues are likely to include charity, the environment, animal welfare, economics, gender and sexuality, medicine and bio-ethics, conflict and dispute resolution.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 347
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors who have taken at least one unit in Middle Eastern Studies or Religion, and permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken MES 267/REL 267.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as MES 267/REL 267.
An exploration of Egyptian history, with an emphasis on religious and cultural dimensions, from late antiquity and the rise of Islam to the present. Topics include the adoption of the Arabic language; religious diversity and conversion; the emergence of distinctive social-cultural forms in Egypt's urban, coastal, desert and rural areas; evolving understandings of and responses to the Pharaonic past; and the gradual transformation of Cairo, from a garrison town in the early Islamic period to a pre-eminent commercial, intellectual, cultural and artistic capital and a megalopolis in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Attention to Egypt's interactions with its neighbours in the eastern Mediterranean, especially Syria; Egypt's experience of the Crusades and colonialism, and especially its relations with Britain and France; and the challenges of the twenty-first century, including conservation of the natural and built environments.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors who have taken at least one unit in Middle Eastern Studies or Religion, with permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken REL 268.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as REL 268.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Zen, the long known yet little understood tradition, studied with particular attention to its historical and ideological development, meditative practice, and expressions in poetry, painting, and martial arts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one unit in Asian religions.
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Normally alternates with REL 354.
Promises and challenges in the evolving debate over how different truth claims and faith communities might seek tolerance, respect, and coexistence. How to reconcile tradition with innovation, doctrine with practice, contemplation with action, globalism with tribalism. Impediments of monotheism and "revealed scripture." The role of religion in prejudice and discrimination; and yet also inpeace and justice. The rise of Buddhism in the West and of Christianity in the East. Readings include works by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, John Hick, Uchimura Kanzo, Endo Shusako, Raimundo Panikkar, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, and Diana Eck.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Kodera
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How have Muslims understood the relationship between religion and politics at different moments in Islamic history? This seminar explores the interplay of religious principles and ritual practices with discourses of political legitimation and socio-political dissent in Muslim contexts. With examples drawn from the earliest period of Islamic history to the present day, the course examines religious authority and political leadership in Sunni and Shi'i contexts; the evolving religious-political meanings of the caliphate and the imamate; concepts of justice and injustice; power, authority and gender; dynastic rule and monarchy; and the position of Muslims living in non-Muslim-majority states. Particular attention to twentieth- and twenty-first-century responses to and appropriations of the pre-modern Islamic religious and political heritage.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 359
Prerequisites: At least one course in Religion, Middle Eastern Studies, History or Political Science, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
An exploration of the study and representation of Islam and West Asia/the Middle East in European and American scholarship, literature, arts, and journalism, from the Middle Ages to the present. Topics, studied in historical context, include medieval European images of Islam, translations of sacred texts and literary works, religious polemic, colonial histories and correspondence, Orientalism and post-Orientalism, new and emerging scholarship, the modern press and popular culture. Students will participate in focused discussion of primary sources and works of criticism, including Edward Said's Orientalism, and will undertake individual and group-based research projects.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MES 361
Prerequisites: Open to Seniors, Juniors and Sophomores who have taken at least one unit of Middle Eastern studies, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of law in theory and practice in Muslim communities from the early Islamic period to the present day. How have Muslim societies developed legal principles, discourses and practices? How have different kinds of law – the religious law or shari'a, legal rulings issued by the state, customary law – interacted at different times and in different localities? What have been the roles of scholars, jurists and judges? How have legal discourses and local practices interacted with issues of social and economic status, gender and sexuality? Areas of concentration include law in the diverse societies of the early modern empires (Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal), the legal interventions of colonial powers and their legacies, and contemporary legal discourses among Muslims in Muslim-majority and non-Muslim majority settings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: MES 363
Prerequisites: One unit at the 200 level in Religion, Middle Eastern Studies, History, Political Science or a related field.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An interdisciplinary exploration of the diverse manifestations of mysticism in Islamic contexts. Topics include the experiences and writings of individual Sufis, including Rabi'a, al-Junayd, Hujwiri, Ibn al-‘Arabi, Jalal al-Din Rumi, ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani, Ruzbihan Baqli; the formation of Sufi organizations and development of mystical paths; the place of Sufism in Islamic legal, theological, and philosophical traditions as well as in Muslim religious practice; Sufism in local contexts, both urban and rural; holy men and women; Sufism's permeation of artistic and aesthetic traditions, especially poetry and music; the reception, interpretations, and practices of Sufism in Western countries.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors, students who have taken at least one unit in Middle Eastern studies or religion, and by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of urban forms and culture in Muslim societies from Islamic late antiquity to the present. The course examines and critiques concepts of 'the Arab city' and ‘the Islamic city' while focusing on elements of continuity and change in particular cities, such as Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Istanbul, Isfahan, Samarqand, Lucknow and Lahore. Topics include migration, settlement, and the construction of new cities; conversion; the emergence of ‘holy cities' as centres for pilgrimage, religious education and Islamic legal scholarship; sacred space and architecture; religious diversity in urban environments; the impact of colonialism; post-colonial developments; modern and contemporary environmental issues; renewal and preservation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 365
Prerequisites: One unit in Middle Eastern Studies or Religion, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken MES 261/REL 261.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as MES 261/REL 261.
An exploration of the experiences and writings of Muslim travelers from the Middle Ages to the present in West, South, East, and Central Asia, North Africa, Europe, and America. Focus on the wide range of cultural encounters facilitated by journeys for purposes of pilgrimage, study, diplomacy, exploration, migration, and tourism, and on the varied descriptions of such encounters in forms of literary expression associated with travel, including poetry, pilgrimage manuals, narrative accounts, letters, memoirs, and graffiti. Authors include al-Biruni, Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Battuta, Evliya Çelebi, al-Tahtawi, Farahani, Abu Talib Khan, Asayesh.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 367
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors, students who have taken at least one unit in Middle Eastern studies, and by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: REL 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Love in its myriad manifestations constitutes a central and perennial theme in the literary and artistic repertoires of Arabic- and Persian-speaking societies. This course explores the varied, subtle vocabulary and the versatile, multivalent imagery linked with the themes of love and longing in Arabic- and Persian-language literature and film. In different times and places, how have men and women writers and directors used the themes of love and longing to depict and critique concepts of gender and gender relations, and social and political inequalities? How have men and women writers and filmmakers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries both continued and disrupted earlier literary and poetic discourses of love? How have modern filmmakers engaged with and reworked classical stories of transgressive love? Divided roughly equally between literary and cinematic works, the course explores treatments of love and longing in, for example, early Arabic poetry and the Quranic text, philosophical and medical treatises, narrative cycles (for example the Thousand and One Nights), epic (notably the Persian Shahnameh or ‘Book of Kings’), lyric poetry (Rumi, Saadi, Hafez), modern verse, and film, including films by Dariush Mehrjui, Youssef Chahine, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abbas Kiarostami, Rakhshan Bani-Etamad and Shirin Neshat.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MES 371
Prerequisites: At least one course in Religion or Middle Eastern Studies, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken MES 271/REL 271.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also taught at the 200-level as MES 271/REL 271.
Reading and discussion of recent works in the study of religion noted for their innovative methods, theoretical significance, and current impact in the field. Students will incorporate these new perspectives into their individual research interests to produce a major interpretive essay in consultation with their classmates and the instructor.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Marini
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This is a topics course and can be taken more than once for credit as long as the topic is different each time.
Introduction to Russian grammar through oral, written, and reading exercises; special emphasis on oral expression. Four periods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Hodge, Epsteyn
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Continued studies in Russian grammar through oral, written, and reading exercises; special emphasis on oral expression. Four periods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: RUSS 101 or equivalent.
Instructor: Weiner, Epsteyn
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Conversation, composition, reading, music, comprehensive review of grammar; special emphasis on speaking and writing idiomatic Russian. Students learn and perform a play in Russian in the course of the semester. Three periods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: RUSS 102 or equivalent.
Instructor: Epsteyn
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Conversation, composition, reading, popular music, continuation of grammar review; special emphasis on speaking and writing idiomatic Russian. Students read unadapted short stories by Pushkin and Zamiatin. Three periods.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: RUSS 201 or equivalent.
Instructor: Epsteyn
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Survey of Russian fiction from the Age of Pushkin (1820s-1830s) to Tolstoy's mature work (1870s) focusing on the role of fiction in Russian history, contemporaneous critical reaction, literary movements in Russia, and echoes of Russian literary masterpieces in the other arts, especially film and music. Major works by Pushkin (Eugene Onegin, "The Queen of Spades"), Lermontov (A Hero of Our Time), Gogol (Dead Souls), Pavlova (A Double Life), Turgenev (Fathers and Children), Tolstoy (Anna Karenina), and Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment) will be read.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 35
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Hodge
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Vladimir Lenin characterized film as “the most important of the arts” for the fledgling Soviet state. Film has played a crucial role in documenting and shaping Russia's Soviet and post-Soviet experience. This course will begin by exploring early Soviet masters of montage (Vertov, Eisenstein, and Pudovkin) and the impact of their revolutionary ideas on world cinema. We will study visionaries of the long take (Tarkovsky, Parajanov, and Sokurov) who later enchanted audiences with a more meditative cinematic sensibility. Along the way, we will consider masterpieces by such filmmakers as the brothers Vasiliev, Kalatozov, Khutsiev, Sheptiko, Mamin, Mikhalkov, Muratova, German, and Zviagintsev. Students will deepen their knowledge of Russian history, from the October Revolution to modern-day Russia, and develop a foundation in film theory and analysis.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Weiner
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every four years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Nineteenth-century Russian writers were locked in a desperate struggle for freedom under an extraordinarily repressive regime. Through an intensive analysis of the great ideological novels at the center of Russia's historic social debates from the 1840s to the 1860s, we will unearth the roots of both Lenin’s revolution and Dostoevsky’s fervent anti-radicalism. The tension between literary realism and political exigency will be explored in the fictional and critical works of Chaadaev, Herzen, Belinsky, Turgenev, Chernyshevsky, Goncharov, Dobroliubov, Pisarev, and Dostoevsky. Isaiah Berlin’s famous essays on the Russian intelligentsia, as well as representative works from the nonliterary arts, including Tom Stoppard's epic play, The Coast of Utopia, will supplement our reading and discussion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Hodge
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Probably no writer has been so detested and adored, so demonized and deified, as Dostoevsky. This artist was such a visionary that he had to reinvent the novel in order to create a form suitable for his insights into the inner life and his prophecies about the outer. To this day readers are mystified, outraged, enchanted, but never unmoved, by Dostoevsky's fiction, which some have tried to brand as "novel-tragedies," "romantic realism," "polyphonic novels," and more. This course challenges students to enter the fray and explore the mysteries of Dostoevsky themselves through study of his major writings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Weiner
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An odyssey through the fiction of the great Russian novelist and thinker, beginning with his early works (Sevastopol Stories) and focusing on War and Peace and Anna Karenina, though two major achievements of Tolstoy's later period (A Confession, The Death of Ivan I'lich) will conclude the course. Lectures and discussion will examine the masterful techniques Tolstoy employs for his intensive explorations of human existence, from mundane detail to life-shattering cataclysm. Students are encouraged to read as much of the Maude translation of War and Peace (Norton Critical Edition) as possible before the term begins.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Hodge
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An examination of the artistic legacy of the great novelist, critic, lepidopterist, and founder of Wellesley College's Russian Department. Nabokov became one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and English literature. Students will read Lolita, Pnin, and Pale Fire, which were written in English, and Nabokov's English translations of two of his best Russian novels: The Defense and Invitation to a Beheading. The class will also discuss his utterly unique autobiography, Speak, Memory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Weiner
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Students will become experts in one of the great overarching themes of Russian culture: Moscow. We will read and discuss texts, view films, listen to music, and compose essays on the theme of Russia's historic capital. The course includes study of grammar, vocabulary expansion with strong emphasis on oral proficiency and comprehension. At the end of the semester, each student will write a final paper and present to the class her own special research interest within the general investigation of Moscow's history, traditions, culture, and art.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: RUSS 201-RUSS 202 or the equivalent.
Instructor: Epsteyn
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Taught in Russian.
Students will enter the world of Russian children's folklore, literature, songs, film, and animation. From lullabies to folktales, from Pushkin's skazki, animal fables by Krylov, didactic stories by Tolstoy, we will move on to examine the contributions of Soviet authors from the early 1920s to the present (V. Maiakovsky, K. Chukovsky, S.Marshak, D. Kharms, M. Zoshchenko, A. Gaidar, N. Nosov, E. Uspensky, G. Oster) and their effect on the aesthetic development and ethical upbringing of children in Russia. The course emphasizes oral proficiency, extensive reading, and weekly writing assignments. Students will create and present a final project on their own special research interest.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: RUSS 301 or RUSS 305 or the equivalent.
Instructor: Epsteyn
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Taught in Russian.
Students will become experts in one of the great overarching themes of Russian culture: St. Petersburg. We will read and discuss texts, view films, listen to music, and compose essays on the theme of Russia's second capital. The course includes study of grammar, vocabulary expansion with strong emphasis on oral proficiency and comprehension. At the end of the semester, each student will write a final paper and present to the class her own special research interest within the general investigation of St. Petersburg's history, traditions, culture, and art.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: RUSS 201-RUSS 202 or the equivalent.
Instructor: Epsteyn
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Taught in Russian.
This course explores Soviet and Russian popular film classics loved by generations of viewers and that have become cultural symbols. We will study G. Aleksandrov's musicals of the 1930s; sentimental, detective and fantastic comedies by the masters of the genre, L. Gaidai, E. Riazanov, and G. Danelia, in the 1950s-80s; and post-Soviet crime comedies of the twenty-first century. We will attempt to determine the source of their enduring popularity and cult status through an examination of their aesthetics and of their social and political context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: RUSS 301 or RUSS 305 or the equivalent.
Instructor: Epsteyn
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Taught in Russian.
Students will immerse themselves in the famous poems of Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov, and Nekrasov, analyzing ballads and verse tales devoted to the natural and the supernatural. Exotic "Eastern" cultures as well as high and low Russian culture serve as the backdrop for these dramatic verse narratives. Russian painting, music, and history will enrich our discussions of Russian Romanticism in the poetry.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Prerequisite or co-requisite - RUSS 301, RUSS 302, RUSS 305, or RUSS 306.
Instructor: Hodge
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
This course explores the great works of Russian film in the original Russian. We will view, analyze and discuss films by Vertov, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Tarkovsky, Parajanov, Sokurov, the brothers Vasiliev, Kalatozov, Khutsiev, Shepitko, Mamin, Mikhalkov, Muratova, German, and Zviagintsev. Students will deepen their knowledge of Russian history, from the October Revolution to modern-day Russia, and develop a foundation in film theory and analysis. They will also improve their passive and active Russian. All classroom discussion, writing assignments and oral presentations will be in Russian.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: RUSS 202 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Weiner
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: RUSS 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
In this course students will enter the world of Dostoevsky's short fiction and learn his explosive literary style, obsessive themes, and artistic strategies. Students will increase their passive and active vocabulary and improve their speaking, writing and reading fluency in Russian. We will discuss one work of short fiction (about 20 pages) each week of the semester. Students will translate excerpts from each work discussed. Each student will write a short essay on a story of her choosing and present it to the class. Class meets twice weekly for 75 minutes. All work will be in Russian.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Prerequisite or co-requisite - RUSS 301, RUSS 302, RUSS 305, or RUSS 306.
Instructor: Weiner
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: One meeting per week.
A Russian-language course designed to supplement RUSS 277 above, though RUSS 377H may be taken independently. Students will read and discuss, in Russian, major short works by Tolstoy.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prerequisite or co-requisite - RUSS 301, RUSS 302, RUSS 305, or RUSS 306.
Instructor: Hodge
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: One meeting per week.
In this course students will enter the world of Nabokov's short fiction and learn to recognize his innovative literary style, obsessive themes, and artistic strategies. Students will increase their passive and active vocabulary and improve their speaking, writing and reading fluency in Russian. Students will translate excerpts from each work discussed. Each student will write a short essay on a story of their choosing and present it to the class. Class meets once weekly for 75 minutes. All work will be in Russian.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prerequisite or co-requisite - RUSS 301, RUSS 302, RUSS 305, or RUSS 306.
Instructor: Weiner
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will examine the major aspects of the constellation of distinct but interrelated religious traditions of South Asia generally entitled “Hinduism.” The course will have three foci. One will be the sacred texts as well as the intersecting ritual, philosophical, and devotional currents that laid the historical foundations of this tradition and form integral parts of it to this day. These texts and currents are also linked to aesthetic expressions that form a core of Hindu religious life. The second focus will be on Hindu social organization and issues of political identity. This will cover the Hindu social divisions of caste, gendered roles and rituals as well as issues related to Hindu nationalism. The third focus will be on practices followed by and negotiations made by diaspora Hindus, especially those settled in America. This area will focus especially on Hindu responses to diversity and interfaith dialogue.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: REL 20 6
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
South Asia is one of the most religiously diverse regions of the world where Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Christian, Jewish and native traditions have co-existed for centuries. The vibrancy of its cultural life derives greatly from artistic expressions of devotion in its multiple traditions. Yet, the sacred artistic expressions are not limited to the sphere of religion. This course explores visual as well as performative sacred art forms of South Asia including architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and dance from a historical perspective. The exploration focuses on symbolic vocabulary of various art forms, their significance as media of religious/spiritual knowledge, and their role as sites of social encounters.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: REL 281
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Hindu thinkers in all historical periods have interpreted the classics of Hindu spirituality and ethics within the tradition for their own times. Do these texts have contemporary relevance? Do they offer spiritual inspiration for individuals and ethical norms for a healthy society for our times? How have these been interpreted by modern thinkers? We will examine a few major Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita from ancient times, and the lives and lyrics of saintly poets from pre-modern times as primary texts as well as their modern interpretations. We will also look at uses and abuses of the texts in social and political arenas. Most of these texts are structured in a question-answer format, reflecting the spirit of questioning and dialog prevalent in the contexts of their composition. Our examination will follow suit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 222
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
PEAC/SAS 225 is a combined fall/Wintersession course, focusing on Mohandas Gandhi as a figure of global significance, and also one deeply rooted in Indian history and cultures. During the fall at Wellesley, students will study the sprawling and diverse cultural/political history of India; the many cultural and religious currents that influenced Gandhi's thought; his model of nonviolent action (Satyagraha); various models of contemporary grassroots organizing in India; and the art/skills of travel journaling. Then, during the winter, students will travel to Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and Coimbatore, residing and studying for then days at FLAME University in Pune. The remaining ten days will be divided between Chennai and Coimbatore, where we will partner with Praxis- Institute for Participatory Practices- an organization working on social justice issues with a commitment to equity and participatory governance for poor and marginalized sectors of society. Students will keep an extensive travel journal during their time in India. This course will meet every other week. First day of the course will be Friday, September 14th.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 225
Prerequisites: PEAC 104
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt, Confortini
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall; Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Anthropology has a fraught and complex history within South Asia. Many of its techniques of knowledge production were honed within the colonial context. In the postcolonial period, these techniques have been taken up by scholars within the region and beyond to update and challenge long-standing understandings of the region. Much historical and recent scholarship grapples with how one ought to understand the unique nature of the region's forms of culture and social organization, and to place them in relation to modernity and the West. South Asia proves an insistently fruitful case for assessing the universality or provincial nature of Western social theory and to consider the connections between knowledge and power. In this course, students will come to comprehend and assess the history of ethnography and anthropology in India, Pakistan, and other parts of South Asia. Through contemporary ethnographic texts, they will also gain insight into the major social and cultural categories and phenomena that have come to define South Asia today such as caste, kinship and gender, class, nationalism, and popular culture. Throughout, we will consider the politics of representation and knowledge production that are particularly fraught in this postcolonial context.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 237
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Walters
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course covers the visual culture of India from ancient Indus Valley civilization through Independence. It follows the stylistic, technological, and iconographical developments of painting, sculpture, architecture, and textiles as they were created for the subcontinent's major religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam. We will examine the relationship between works of art and the political, economic, and social conditions that shaped their production. It will emphasize such themes as religious and cultural diversity, mythology and tradition, and royal and popular art forms. Attention will also be paid to colonialism and the close relationship between collecting, patronage, and empire.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 239
Prerequisites: None. ARTH 100 or WRIT 107 recommended.
Instructor: Oliver
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Mystifying and complex, the figure of courtesan has appeared as the foil to the virtuous and docile wife in Sanskrit and Tamil classics of ancient India, early Urdu novels, and literary works of several South Asian languages. Since the mid-twentieth century, the courtesan has appeared in films produced in South Asia as a self-sacrificing character with a strong will. In this course, we will examine literary works in South Asian languages since the antiquity with courtesans as central characters and films based on them. For each work, we will first consider the figure of the courtesan in view of the cultural context of the time of its composition and various theories of literary criticism. We will then analyze the film based on the work in terms of how the interpretation of the character here compares with the literary work.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: REL 241
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Since the nineteenth century South Asians have migrated to different parts of the world as indentured laborers, merchants, professionals, and some as refugees. Some have suffered great financial difficulties, and some have enjoyed privilege. The writings that have emerged from South Asian diaspora communities reflect these differences; yet they also tell a shared story of negotiating the two worlds - the homeland left behind (even for the descendants of the immigrants) and the land of the new home far away from it. This course examines writings – memoirs, essays, narratives, and poetry (in English) – of South Asians in the diaspora (in the West Indies, Fiji, Africa, Europe, and the Americas) since the early twentieth century. It considers the common themes as well as differences in diaspora experiences as well as stylistic differences in the use of the shared language (English) among the writers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the treatment of various types of love – for the beloved, the family, the community, the motherland or the divine – in Indian cinema, the largest film industry in the world. We examine Indian cinema's early phase in the colonial milieu, its flourishing in popular and art films since the 1950s, and contributions of diaspora Indians. We will watch films by prominent directors of the postcolonial era who articulated India’s national identity as well as the socio-religious and political aspirations of its common people integrating indigenous sacred symbolism. We will consider how several films reflect a religious sensitivity in portraying the motherland almost as a divine entity worthy of worship. Paying particular attention to the distinctive grammar of song, dance and intense drama, we will analyze the ways in which the film-makers reworked long-prevailing South Asian conventions of narration and performance in a medium imported from Europe.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: REL 223,CAMS 243
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Independent (half-credit) research project supervised by a faculty member.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 3
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines the history of interaction of Africans, Arabs, Persians, and South Asians in the coastal regions of East Africa, the Arabian/Persian Gulf, and India, which together enclose the western Indian Ocean. In the period under study (1500 to the present), European imperial expansion and a globalizing economy played an increasingly transformative role. We will read about the port cities connecting these shores; the movements and networks of people; the objects and patterns of trade; the intensifying slave trade; shared environmental and health hazards, and the exchange of legal and commercial practices, and religious and political ideas.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 266
Prerequisites: Open to students with at least one course in either History or African, Middle Eastern, or South Asian studies.
Instructor: Kapteijns and Rao
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as HIST 367/SAS 367 with additional assignments.
The form of a religion changes according to the social and historical contexts.. In the past century, a large number of South Asians of diverse religious backgrounds have migrated to the USA and have established their religious communities in its various regions. How have the Hindu, Muslim, Jain, and Buddhist South Asians contributed to the growing religious diversity in the US? What adjustments have they made to meet the expectations from religion in their new homeland where their children have grown? In this course we will explore these questions employing the case-study approach. We will begin with a review of the historical forms of religions in South Asia, followed by their study in the USA. Groups of students will pursue case-studies of various South Asian communities in New England. The final project will bring the findings of all groups in a collective study of South Asian religions in this part of the USA.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 280
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
As a world Region, South Asia provides an important locus to understand the dynamics of religion and modernity because of its long religious history and immense diversity. In many parts of South Asia, encounter with modernity (as broadly defined) occurred in the context of colonial rule. The nature of the early processes of modernization continues to impact the social and religious fabric of the region even today, often with deeply divisive implications. This seminar will examine processes related to religion in South Asia since the late 19th century to the present day. Along with the historical survey of events within South Asia, the implications of current world affairs and the processes of globalization for South Asia's religious landscape will also be examined.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: REL 30 1
Prerequisites: Two units at the 200 level in South Asia studies, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Narratives have long provided channels for shaping and reshaping of cultures around the world. South Asia has one of the largest collections of folktales, mythology, epics, and romances in the world. This course will explore traditional narratives from South Asia that have had significant cultural impact in the region. We will examine them in translations not only as channels for transmission of cultural values, but also as sites of debate through contested interpretations. Along with texts, performative traditions based on them and their use in identity politics will be discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: REL 30 2
Prerequisites: Two units at the 200 level in South Asia studies, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Turning religious diversity into vibrant pluralism is a challenge faced by many parts of the world today. This seminar will explore the development of pluralistic discourses, ideologies, and interactions in the history of South Asia and will consider lessons this history may have for other religiously diverse societies. Readings will include ancient texts; writings of Buddhist, Sufi, Sikh and Hindu saints of the medieval period; historical documents about policies of the Mogul emperor Akbar; and modern writings on pluralism by Gandhi and others. We will also discuss current scholarship on religious pluralism and visit interfaith organizations in the Boston area. Final projects will give students opportunities to interact with local South Asian religious communities and examine how engage with diversity in the diaspora.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: REL 30 3
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Shukla-Bhatt
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course examines the history of interaction of Africans, Arabs, Persians, and South Asians in the coastal regions of East Africa, the Arabian/Persian Gulf, and India, which together enclose the western Indian Ocean. In the period under study (1500 to the present), European imperial expansion and a globalizing economy played an increasingly transformative role. We will read about the port cities connecting these shores; the movements and networks of people; the objects and patterns of trade; the intensifying slave trade; shared environmental and health hazards, and the exchange of legal and commercial practices, and religious and political ideas.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 367
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken HIST 266/SAS 266.
Instructor: Kapteijns and Rao
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200 level as HIST 266/SAS 266. At the 300-level, student writing assignments will encompass a wider set of readings than at the 200-level of this course and include a short research paper.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: SAS 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Thinking sociologically enables us to understand the intersection of our individual lives with larger social issues and to grasp how the social world works. Students in this course will become familiar with the background of sociology and the core analytical concepts employed by sociologists. Students will also gain familiarity with the major substantive topics explored by sociology, with focused attention given to the study of social structures, material, cultural, and institutional explanations of social action, and using concepts for real world problem solving.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rutherford
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
What do your friend's social media postings tell you about the way they want to be seen in the world? What can you learn about poverty in the United States by observing a city like Boston? What do TV shows tell you about our societal beliefs about the haves and the have-nots? This course introduces students to sociology by studying U.S. economic stratification through an intersectional lens. We will learn to uncover patterns of inclusion and exclusion and illuminate the invisible ways that power seems to operate. Additionally, we will explore the simultaneous impact of race, gender, sexuality (and other identities) on economic insecurity. Topics in this course include historical understandings of poverty; intergenerational class mobility; depictions of poverty in pop culture; and bringing attention to populations that often get left out of mainstream conversations about poverty.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The word meritocracy was coined by the sociologist Michael Young in the 1950s. In the intervening years it has taken on a life of its own and has become an enduring part of social and cultural debates over such diverse issues as equality, privilege, luck, and achievement. What is the relationship between these issues and, for example, admission to college? We will read Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy along with both support for and criticism of the idea of merit. How is it measured? What is its relation to social status? Are there alternative systems to meritocracy?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 10 6
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Imber
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How are your personal problems related to larger issues in society and the world? In what ways do global economic and political shifts affect your personal trajectory as a college student in the United States? In this course, you will come to understand sociology as a unique set of tools with which to interpret your relationship to a broader sociopolitical landscape. By integrating classic readings in the discipline of sociology with the principles of global political economy, we will analyze and contextualize a range of social, economic, and political phenomena at the scales of the global, the national, the local, and the individual.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: S. Radhakrishnan
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course provides a broad introduction to population studies, or social demography, which offers a framework and tools by which to understand how fundamental human processes of birth, death, and migration are inextricably linked to social change and inequality. Is racial inequality deadly? Is there such a thing as “too many people” on Earth? Over the course of the semester, we will develop a conceptual and analytic toolkit that allows us to consider these, among other big questions about societies, populations, and inequality and change therein. In addition to developing a demographic vocabulary, students will learn how to use interpret and calculate basic demographic measures and statistics, including population growth rates, life expectancies, and racial/ethnic population compositions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Yi
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
What do we learn about class, race, and gender by reading novels? What difference does it make when we read about these ideas rather than watching programs about them on TV? This course treats novels, short stories, poems, films, and radio and television programs as sociological texts. We will read and analyze them together to learn new concepts, methods, and analytical approaches. Class projects include debates, "author" interviews, and a creative writing project.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course offers an examination of the relationship between the individual and society from a sociological and interdisciplinary perspective. The course begins with an exploration of different conceptions of the individual in Western and non-Western social thought and then explores sociological theories of the self and society to explore a central question: to what extent are we determined by external social forces and to what extent can we find individual autonomy, personhood, and dignity in relation to these forces? A central focus of sociology is the study of social inequality, and the course offers detailed sociological case studies on the stigmatization and marginalization of physically disabled and mentally ill individuals. Special attention is paid to how sociological understandings of exclusion of physically and mentally disabled individuals have led to social movements to protect their human rights and personhood.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to First-Years and Sophomores.
Instructor: Cushman
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of quantitative data as used to understand problems in economics and sociology. Using examples drawn from these fields, this course focuses on basic concepts in probability and statistics, such as measures of central tendency and dispersion, hypothesis testing, and parameter estimation. Data analysis exercises are drawn from both academic and everyday applications.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: SOC 190
Prerequisites: ECON 101 or ECON 101P or one course in sociology. Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken or are taking STAT 160, STAT 218, PSYC 105 or PSYC 205.
Instructor: Giles, Levine, Swingle (Sociology)
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
What is sociological theory and what work does theory do in sociology? What makes a theory useful? Which theories shape research agendas and why? The modern discipline of sociology primarily traces its origins to the 19th and early 20th centuries, when social scientists were grappling with the social upheavals of colonialism, industrial capitalism, urbanization, changing forms of governance, and the scientization of society. Placing key authors from this era in their historical context, this course takes a critical perspective to examine the origins of some of the foundational concepts that have shaped the history of sociology as a discipline: solidarity, authority, domination, class, nationalism, exploitation, justice, revolution, and more. As we work to understand the ideas of early sociologists, we will consider how their institutional locations shaped their understandings of the role of sociology as a theoretical and/or applied science, with special attention given to the roles race and gender have played in shaping the history of sociological theory. This will lead us to engage in critical examination of later processes of canonization that designated some works as “classics” and shaped our definitions of sociology and sociological theory.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: One 100- or 200-level unit in sociology.
Instructor: Rutherford
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Critical theories question power, domination, and the status quo. They aim to critique and change society by uncovering the assumptions that keep humans from a full and true understanding of how the world works. In this course, we will examine several different bodies of critical theories, evaluating how these theories explain and offer practical solutions to social problems. Beginning with Marx’s historical materialism and critique of capitalism, we will trace Marx’s influence through the Frankfurt School’s critique of culture and Bourdieu’s critiques of symbolic power. From there we will turn to the social critiques of feminist theory, Critical Race Theory, and post-colonial theory. Through all of these theories, we will seek to understand: What are the possibilities for true human freedom?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: At least one 100- or 200-level unit in sociology, with SOC 200 strongly recommended
Instructor: Rutherford
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course can fulfill the requirement of a second course in social theory for the sociology major but is open to all interested students.
Who is an outsider? Who is an insider? What role do systems and structures play in shaping exclusion and inclusion in social life and organization? In this course, we will examine forms, conditions, causes, experiences, and the very definitions of social exclusion and marginalization through a deep engagement with sociological scholarship. We will focus on key topical contexts of interest including immigration, family and kinship, and poverty, based on a shared foundation of core sociological theory and concepts. We will consider not only how social exclusion helps us analyze sociological phenomena in new (or expanded) ways, but also how social exclusion is enacted and/or recognized in the policy systems that structure our everyday lives. Notes: This course can fulfill the requirement of a second course in social theory for the sociology major but is open to all interested students.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: At least one 100- or 200-level unit in sociology, with SOC 200 strongly recommended.
Instructor: Yi
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course investigates why certain problems become matters of significant public and policymaking concern while others do not. We do not focus on a predefined list of social problems but rather on the process by which some issues capture more attention than others. Our discussions analyze the actions of those institutions involved either in calling public attention to or distracting public attention away from particular problems in our society. This focus enables students to acquire a perspective toward social problems that they are unlikely to gain from the many other forums where people discuss social problems, such as journalism or politics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Silver
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Does education in the United States encourage social mobility or help to reproduce the socioeconomic hierarchy? What is the hidden curriculum—the ideas, values, and skills that students learn at school that are not in the textbook? Who determines what gets taught in school? How do schools in the US compare to school systems in other countries? What makes school reform so hard to do?
Questions like these drive this course. It offers students an introduction to the sociology of education by broadly exploring the role of education in American society. The course covers key sociological perspectives on education, including conflict theory, functionalism, and human and cultural capital. Other topics include schools and communities; the role of teachers, students, parents, mentors, and peers in educational inequalities (including tracking and measures of achievement), school violence, school reform, and knowledge production. We also look comparatively at education systems across the world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 20 7,EDUC 20 7
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines the distribution of social resources to groups and individuals, as well as theoretical explanations of how unequal patterns of distribution are produced, maintained, and challenged. Special consideration will be given to how race, ethnicity, and gender intersect with social class to produce different life experiences for people in various groups in the United States, with particular emphasis on disparities in education, health care, and criminal justice. Consideration will also be given to policy initiatives designed to reduce social inequalities and alleviate poverty.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 219
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rutherford
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Why do people protest and organize to change the world around them? How do social movements operate, and why do some succeed while others fail? How do the powerful respond to protest movements? This class examines the origins, dynamics, and consequences of social movements on three levels. First, the course is grounded in the sociological perspective, looking at movements’ emergence, recruitment mechanisms, leadership, interactions, tactical repertoires, and framing processes, and so on. Second, we see these concepts in action through a global tour of activist hotspots, from the Arab Spring to Central American revolutionaries to Black Lives Matters. Finally, students learn directly by conducting original research and writing their own case study on a social movement of their choosing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores how marriage and the family have evolved over the past century, the changes both are undergoing now, and what the future may have in store for these two social institutions. The course will focus on the U.S. but students will be encouraged to make international comparisons. Using a variety of both scholarly and popular sources, we will explore cultural understandings of marriage and family life and topics like romantic love, Cinderella weddings, the nuclear family ideal, the Supermom syndrome, and the legal fight for gay marriage. Family diversity and variation are recurring themes throughout the course and particular attention will be paid to social class differences in family life and marriage, alternatives to the nuclear family like cohabitation and non-marriage, and the consequences of different living arrangements to individuals as well as to society as a whole. A primary goal of the course is to distinguish between the facts and many fictions surrounding family and marriage in contemporary society. In the process, the course will introduce the richness of the sociological approach and its use of surveys, in-depth interviews, analyses of film and literature, and other methodologies for understanding the family. ?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Swingle
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course surveys the development of the modern organization and organizational analysis, with a focus on corporate strategy and managing employees. We live in a world of organizations: organizations drive the economy, innovation, and our careers, but are also the arenas in which policy issues like discrimination, harassment, and equity are raised, fought over, and ultimately implemented. We will read business case studies, management theory, and social scientific analysis to chart how organizations respond to internal and external challenges, how they succeed and when they fail. The focus in on for-profit corporations, but we will explore other complex organizations, from churches to governments to NGOs, and study the transformation of firms from conglomerates to networks. Students will write a case study of their own based on original research.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Two abiding tensions exist in the making of a physician. The first is between the humanistic and scientific sides of medicine, and the second is between defining the sociological foundation of medical practice and understanding the promise and limits of that foundation. A basic introduction to the sociology of the medical profession (applicable to the MCAT) will be offered in conjunction with a focus on physicians' self-reporting on the nature of their vocation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Imber
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Among the various challenges that face democratic societies committed to the ideal of pluralism and its representations in both individuals and institutions, is what is meant by the term "liberty". Among those who identify as conservative, the concept of liberty has over time been addressed in ways that seek to impose order on both individual and institutional behavior or what some conservatives refer to as "ordered liberty". Classical liberal views of liberty stress the removal of external constraints on human behavior as the key to maximizing individual agency, autonomy and selfhood. This course examines the historical and sociological debates and tensions surrounding different visions of liberty. Focus on case studies of contentious social issues that are at the center of public debates, including freedom of expression; race and ethnicity; criminality; sexuality; gender; social class, religion, and the war on drugs.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 220
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Cushman, Imber
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How do our bodies and everyday experiences reflect and (re)produce geopolitical relations? How do militarized discourse and technologies shape our sense of (in)security in the world and at home? How is war gendered and how does gender become militarized? This course considers how war and militarism are intimately intertwined with our everyday lives. Drawing on scholarship from political sociology and geography, with a particular focus on feminist geopolitics, we will examine how war and militarism inform contemporary political governance across a variety of sites and scales, including our state institutions, economies, bodies, homes, and emotions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will introduce students to core readings in the field of urban studies. While the course will focus on cities in the United States, we will also look comparatively at the urban experience in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and cover debates on “global cities.” Topics will include the changing nature of community, social inequality, political power, socio-spatial change, technological change, and the relationship between the built environment and human behavior. We will examine the key theoretical paradigms driving this field since its inception, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these shifts for urban scholarship and social policy. The course will include fieldwork in Boston and presentations by city government practitioners.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 227,AMST 225
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
What makes community possible? Where does our sense of belonging come from? How do communities attract and change us? How do communities socialize us to be good members or shape our beliefs? Sociological theorists have wrestled with these questions of community from the beginnings of the discipline. This applied theory course examines group formation via theoretical frameworks and thematic case studies of several types of natural and intentional communities, starting with the most intimate and face-to-face communities, friendship and marriage, before exploring important larger communities, including new religious movements, communes, and social movements. We will use these cases to compare various perspectives on the promises and pitfalls of social life in community. Students will apply theoretical frameworks to analyze each group, and conclude by analyzing the potential for community in the post-pandemic world. Note: This course can fulfill the requirement of a second course in social theory for the sociology major but is open to all interested students.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course considers how debt and indebtedness shape contemporary social life and governance. We will examine how scholars have understood debt as—in addition to a financial obligation—a historically situated relation of power that influences societies in myriad ways. We will consider the creation of debt and experiences of indebtedness across a range of interlinked scales, including those of the transnational, nation-state, family, and individual, and in respect to class, race, gender, and age. Case studies might include medical, educational, housing, and carceral debts in the US; sovereign debt, structural adjustment loans, and international financial institutions; legacies of colonial debts in the present; and practices of debt resistance. We will work to interlink and contextualize case studies within an understanding of both how states and transnational institutions mobilize debt to govern labor and how the experience of indebtedness is intimately embodied in our everyday lives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
If any mention of South Asian culture conjures for you Bollywood films, Bharatanatyam dancers, and Google engineers, then this course will prompt you to reconsider. Adopting a sociological perspective that examines culture from the specific context of migration, we will study the histories of Punjabi-Mexican families in California, Gujarati motel owners across the United States, South African Indians at the end of apartheid, and Bangladeshi garment workers in London’s East End, among others. Through our study, we develop a nuanced understanding of race, culture, migration, and upward mobility in the United States and beyond, while also considering the power of mobile South Asian cultures, including movies, music, dance, and religion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: SAS 232
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: S. Radhakrishnan
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
What is a crime? Who or what is a criminal? How do individuals and societies respond to crime? These are the broad questions that will structure our work together in this sociological introduction to criminology and criminal justice. We will begin by developing a shared foundation of key terms, concepts, and theoretical perspectives that are used to help us describe and understand crime. Using this shared foundation, we will then turn our attention to a set of real-world historical and contemporary “moments” to help us understand key challenges and possible futures currently facing communities and the criminal justice system.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Yi
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
What is therapy? Although historically tied to the values and goals of medicine, the roles that therapy and therapeutic culture play in defining life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are now ubiquitous. The impact of therapeutic culture on every major social institution, including the family, education, and the law, has created a steady stream of controversy about the ways in which Americans in particular make judgements about right and wrong, about others, and about themselves. Are Americans obsessed with their well being? Is there a type of humor specific to therapeutic culture? This course provides a broad survey of the triumph of the therapeutic and the insights into the character and culture that triumph reveals.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 241
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Imber
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
We live in a world on the move. Nearly one out of every seven people in the world today is an international or internal migrant who moves by force or by choice. In the United States, immigrants and their children make up nearly 25 percent of the population. This course looks at migration to the United States from a transnational perspective and then looks comparatively at other countries of settlement. We use Framingham as a lab for exploring race and ethnicity, immigration incorporation, and transnational practices. Fieldwork projects will examine how immigration affects the economy, politics, and religion and how the town is changing in response. We will also track contemporary debates around immigration policy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 246
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
How can we understand the mechanisms and effects of racial domination in our society? In this class, we develop a sociological understanding of race through historical study of four racial regimes in the United States: slavery, empire, segregation, and the carceral state. We relate the U.S. experience to racial regimes in other parts of the world, including British colonialism, the Jewish ghetto in Renaissance Venice, and apartheid and post-apartheid states in South Africa, among other contexts. Thus, we develop a comparative, global understanding of race and power. We conclude with a hands-on group media project engaging a relevant contemporary issue.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 251
Prerequisites: At least one social science course required.
Instructor: S. Radhakrishnan
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course explores the distinctive contributions of sociology to the study of emotions. We explore sociological concepts, theories, and case studies that consider emotions, which are perhaps the most deeply felt experiences in the consciousnesses of individuals, as fundamentally social phenomena. Topics include: the social construction of moral panics and “folk devils”’ in social movements; hedonic cruelty; emotional labor in work organizations; emotional socialization in high-risk professions; the social structure of empathy, sympathy and pity; racial, class, and status stratification and the invidious social emotions of resentment, envy and Schadenfreude. Emphasis on showing how sociological perspectives on emotions can enhance students’ abilities to navigate the “complexities of feeling” in order to foster individual and collective human flourishing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Cushman
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Freedom of expression is considered one of the most fundamental human rights. Why is this the case? Why are people willing to suffer, fight, and die and to protect the right of freedom of expression? Why is freedom of expression so dangerous to those with political and social power? How do powerful elites mobilize against dissent and dissidents? What is the role of charismatic individuals and freedom of expression in social change? This course examines sociological theories of communication and freedom of expression; the idea of “civil courage” and its relation to social change; the origins of dissent and dissidents in comparative-historical perspective. Emphasis is on case studies of dissent and dissidents in authoritarian societies of the 20th and early 21st centuries in order to understand, sociologically, the elementary forms of dissent and “the dissident life.” The course introduces students to the life-history method of social research in examining case studies of dissent.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Cushman
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course introduces some of the more prominent qualitative and quantitative methods used by sociologists to study the social world. The course emphasizes hands-on experience with several small-scale research projects with the goal of teaching students how to 1) integrate social theory with research methods, 2) ask good research questions, 3) define key concepts, 4) choose appropriate samples, 5) collect high-quality data in an ethical manner, 6) analyze data, and 7) write formal research papers. A section of this course will build upon the statistics learned in SOC 190, but statistics will not be the main focus.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: ECON 103/SOC 190 or permission of the instructor. Required of all sociology majors. Not open to students who have taken SOC 301.
Instructor: Swingle
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Sociology as a discipline emerged in 19 th and early 20 th century Europe as a response to rapid social changes that dramatically transformed traditional societies and ways of life. Classical sociological theorists such as Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, W.E.B. Dubois, and Georg Simmel sought to explain the nature of these changes, but also offered critiques of what has been called “modernity.” The seminar begins with an exploration of these classical theories of modernity and continues with an examination of contemporary works that seek to understand and critique the consequences of modernity in a variety of social and cultural spheres. The seminar focuses on theories relevant to a central sociological question: how do large scale, transformative social and cultural changes affect individual self-identity, self-consciousness, and ways of being in the world? Central topics include: the challenges to individuality posed by pressures for ideological and social conformity; the quest for authenticity of the self; capitalism and the commercialization of emotions; the uncontrollability of the social world and the difficulties of experiencing resonance and harmony in social life; empirically-based, non-Marxist critiques of the state and other bureaucratic processes that challenge the quest for the autonomy and dignity of the self; the relationship between modernity and anxiety and the rise of the neurobiological imaginary in the treatment of mental health disorders; and the transformation of love and intimate relationships in the modern world. Particular attention is paid to non-Western social thought that is relevant to understanding the nature of the self in the modern world. This course fulfills one of the theory requirements for the Sociology major but is open to all interested students.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one of the following is recommended - SOC 150, SOC 200, SOC 201.
Instructor: Cushman
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This seminar will focus upon children and youth as both objects and subjects within societies. Beginning with consideration of the social construction of childhood, the course will examine the images, ideas, and expectations that constitute childhoods in various historical and cultural contexts. We will also consider the roles of children as social actors who contribute to and construct social worlds of their own. Specific topics to be covered include the historical development of childhood as a distinct phase of life, children's peer cultures, children and work, children's use of public spaces, children's intersectional experiences of inequality, and the effects of consumer culture upon children. Considerable attention will be given to the dynamics of the social institutions most directly affecting childhood today: the family, education, and the state.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: EDUC 30 8
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors who have taken any 100- or 200-level sociology course, or one of the following - EDUC 214, EDUC 215, or EDUC 216.
Instructor: Rutherford
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
In a seemingly borderless world full of hyphenated identities, do nations still matter? How and why are nations built and sustained? This course examines these questions with attention to race, class, and gender as interlocking systems of power, and utilizes the theoretical toolkits of feminism, post-colonial theory, and global sociology. We examine Native American, immigrant, and Black forms of belonging in the United States in relation to indigenous and post-colonial movements in various countries of the world, including India and South Africa, among others.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: At least one social science course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: S. Radhakrishnan
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This seminar examines various works of W.E.B. Du Bois within their historical, social, and cultural contexts. Although this course will pay special attention to Du Bois's literary endeavors, it will also examine his concept of race and color and his approaches to colonialism, civil rights, and politics. This seminar will examine The Souls of Black Folk, Darkwater, John Brown, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois, and The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade as well as some of his poems and other fiction.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: SOC 310
Prerequisites: One 200-level course of relevance to Africana Studies or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Cudjoe
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Cultural and intellectual life is still dominated by the West. Although we recognize the importance of globalizing scholarship, our research and teaching still prioritizes western canons and frameworks. Cultural and intellectual inequality are part and parcel of socioeconomic inequality. If we don’t do better at one, we will not do better at the other. We need to master a broader range of methods, tools, and ways of knowing. In this class, Wellesley College students work with students and faculty from Latin America, Asia, and Africa to explore what it means to produce, disseminate, teach about, and act upon knowledge more equitably in different parts of the world. Our goals are to (1) learn to read power in physical, intellectual, virtual, and cultural spaces by witnessing, evaluating, and then acting, (2) gain exposure to ways of asking and answering questions outside the West, (3) reread classical theories in context to explore how we can reinterpret their usefulness and meaning, (4) understand and develop new engaged and critical pedagogies and forms of education, and (5) promote a decentered attitude, that charts more equitable and inclusive forms of intellectual engagement and collaboration.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 312,EDUC 321
Prerequisites: At least two 200-level or above courses in the social sciences including Peace and Justice Studies.
Instructor: Levitt
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Concerns about the health of communities date back to antiquity. Social epidemiology is the study of the incidence and distribution of disease among populations. This course offers historical, sociological, and ethical perspectives on the uses of epidemiology as it emerged from an age defined principally by infectious disease to one of chronic illness. What are the social and collective responses to pandemics, real and imagined? Case studies address in particular global public health issues, including smoking, nutrition, AIDS, mad cow disease, and influenza, among others. Both governmental and nongovernmental approaches to health, including the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, are considered. Special attention is given to disparities in health care, a core sociological focus.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 200-level SOC course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Imber
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course uses the feminist optic of intersectionality to delve into the sociology of work. As one of the most fundamental aspects of human society, work shapes and is shaped by forces as big as the global political economy and by circumstances as context-specific as our complex social identities. How do race, class, gender, ability, age, and nationality constitute what kinds of work are possible in a given context, and for whom? How does work both take advantage of social difference and inequality and transform it? We will examine diverse kinds of work, including domestic work, factory work, precarious day labor, surrogacy, IT, and finance in the U.S., India, and China, among other countries. As we study ethnographies of work, we will conduct original qualitative research and share our research with the class through a sophisticated oral presentation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Prior completion of any sociology course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: S. Radhakrishnan
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
This course explores the powerful roles that technology plays in contemporary social life and suggests that some of the impacts that our ever-greater reliance on, and faith in, technology might have upon our lives. The course begins with a critical overview of the heralded promises that technology often carries; here, we explore some of the undersides of so-called "technological progress." The remainder of the course examines a variety of salient contemporary issues concerning the social implications of technological change.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Silver
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How and why does consumerism exercise so great an influence on global culture today? How are our institutions and relationships shaped and transformed by the forces of commodification and consumerism? Are there any realms of life that ought to be free from the market-driven forces of commodification? Can consumerism offer a positive means of cultural critique to processes we wish to resist? In this seminar, we explore the history of consumer culture in the United States and globally, with special attention to understanding the effects of commodification upon the self, human relationships, and social institutions. We will consider both classical and contemporary critiques of commodification and consumerism, as well as arguments for the liberatory dimensions of consumer society. Course projects will give students opportunities to connect theory with questions of practical interest and to develop skills for communicating ideas in a variety of creative formats.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One 100- or 200-level SOC course, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rutherford
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An examination of conservative movements and ideas in terms of class, gender, and race. Historical survey and social analysis of such major conservative movements and ideas as paleoconservatism, neoconservatism, and compassionate conservatism. The emergence of conservative stances among women, minorities, and media figures. The conservative critique of American life and its shaping of contemporary national discourse on morality, politics, and culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 348
Prerequisites: A 100-level sociology course or permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors only.
Instructor: Imber
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: SOC 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Introduction to spoken and written Spanish; stress on interactive approach. Extensive and varied activities, including oral presentations, cultural readings and recordings, and video program.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Arraiza Rivera, Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Introduction to spoken and written Spanish; stress on interactive approach. Extensive and varied activities, including oral presentations, cultural readings and recordings, and video program.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: SPAN 101 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Arraiza Rivera, Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Intensive review of all language skills and introduction to the art, literature, and cultures of Spain and Latin America. Emphasis on oral and written expression and critical analysis.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: SPAN 102, or placement by the department.
Instructor: Bassa Vanrell, Selimovic, Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Intensive review of all language skills and introduction to the art, literature, and cultures of Spain and Latin America. Emphasis on oral and written expression and critical analysis.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: SPAN 201 or placement by the department.
Instructor: Bassa Vanrell, Selimovic, Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Practice in oral and written Spanish at the advanced level. Designed to enhance communicative competence, this course will provide an intensive review of advanced grammatical structures within cultural contexts of the Spanish-speaking world. Each section will explore a specific theme through the examination of Hispanic literary texts and the arts, as well as other cultural phenomena. Varied oral interactions, technological applications, and critical writing will be stressed.
Topics for Fall 2024:
Culture, Politics, and Creativity; Instructor: Selimovic
This course studies cultural expressions as invigorating glimpses into socio-political realities of Latin America and Spain. We will explore how writers, film directors, poets, and artists respond to social demands, political changes, and cultural shifts in particular times, places, and communities. Selected works engage students with diverse cultural repertoires of the Hispanic world in interdisciplinary ways. We will spotlight the relationship between political violence and literature in Argentina and Chile; displacement and photography in Spain and Uruguay; domestic workers and film in Mexico and Peru; education and artistic activism in El Salvador and Nicaragua; and exile and poetry in Cuba and Paraguay.
Art with a Cause in Modern Spain; Instructor: Ramos
Artists in Spain have a long tradition of confronting violence and injustice as well as raising awareness, about pressing issues from the effect of wars on civilians to domestic abuse. This class will explore how modern Spanish artists have used their work to comment on and change minds about the thorniest matters of their time. Our analysis will range through many different forms of art, including painting, performance art, photography, graphic novels, film, and popular music.
Topics for Spring 2025:
The Marvelous in Latin American Literature and Culture; Instructor: Guzauskyte
This course explores the intersections between fantasy and reality in literary texts, art, film, cultural events, and digital content from various Spanish-speaking countries (Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina, and Spain). Texts and materials to be studied range from pre-Hispanic indigenous myth and art, to works from colonial and contemporary periods. We will study how societies and individual authors have explored fantasy and imagination in their various forms including myth, fable, magic, superstition, miracle, hallucination, magic realism, and the fantastic. Course materials will include readings, works of art, film, and music. Focus on class discussions, public speaking, and student writing, both critical and creative. Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
Biodiversity and the Arts; Instructor: Staff
This course explores the representation of biological diversity in literature written in Spanish, and in other forms of cultural expression. Through creative writing exercises, short essays, translations, and oral presentations, students will analyze both the conservation efforts to preserve the diversity of plants, animals and ecosystems by cultures of the Americas, and how biological diversity has been central to that region. Course materials will include readings, artwork, movies, and music.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: SPAN 201, SPAN 202 or placement by the Department.
Instructor: Guzauskyte, Ramos, Selimovic, Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
This course is for Heritage Learners of Spanish. Heritage Speakers have learned Spanish primarily as an immersion experience at home. Participants will improve their written and oral Spanish through the examination of cultural assumptions and values. Content is based on a variety of topics such as legends, differing historical perspectives, traditions, and others. The review of language structures and grammar will emerge from students’ language levels. Participants will read novels, short stories, plays, and essays. Students will examine multimedia illustrating experiences of Latinos/Hispanics in the United States. By the end of the semester, students will gain an understanding of how their culture influences language learning and how language learning affects their perspective of Latino/Hispanic culture. The course is conducted entirely in Spanish.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: For students who have learned Spanish primarily through an immersion experience abroad or at home.
Instructor: Arraiza Rivera
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The legacy of Spain in the US is a complicated one. On the one hand, Spanish conquest and colonization had devastating effects on indigenous peoples of North America. On the other, Spain has had an extensive and lasting influence on American and Hispanic cultures, especially in the areas of language, religion, art, and architecture. Through a multidisciplinary approach, this class will explore the space that Spain has occupied in shaping America, from the early 16th century to today. It will also look ahead, as we try to envision what impact Spain will have on the US in the years to come. In order to understand the past, assess the present, and imagine the future, we will read chronicles from early Spanish explorers of North America, investigate Mission/Spanish revival architecture and painting, examine the testimonies of American travelers to Spain, and learn about social justice interventions of contemporary indigenous activists, including attacks on statues linked to colonialism and slavery in the United States depicting prominent figures from Spain’s past.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Ramos
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300 level as SPAN 344 with additional assignments.
This class integrates the reading, studying and performing of some of the most important plays in Spanish Theatre. Students will learn about the Spanish theatrical tradition while developing their language and critical skills. Taught in Spanish.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: SPAN 241. Not open to students who have taken THST 246.
Instructor: Ramos
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The course explores the mythological, literary, artistic, and cultural landscapes of the Andes spanning the ancient civilizations (including the Nazca, Moche, and Inca) and throughout the colonial period, prior to the proclamation of Independence of the countries in the region. Emphasis on Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia, including their Afro-Andean and immigrant communities. Authors and texts will include pre-Hispanic oral traditions in Quechua, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Guamán Poma de Ayala, Catalina de Erauso, Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón, Ricardo Palma, Clorinda Matto de Turner, as well as select postcolonial writers and theorists.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Guzauskyte
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Few cities are as imbued with history, culture and myth as is Cordoba in the south of Spain. As of 2018 it can boast even more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other city in the world. As “City of Three Cultures” it witnessed the convergence over centuries of the three main monotheistic religions, a commingling that, while unique in medieval civilization, was rarely completely harmonious and may have oftentimes been overly idealized. Print materials (including philosophical and literary production), recent educational media (including digital architectural reconstructions) and samples of dance and music will offer students the opportunity to see how cultural cross pollination resulted in significant and lasting contributions to the world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: MER 248
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Vega
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
This course explores the construction of the child and adolescent voices in Argentine contemporary fiction and film. We will consider how young protagonists’ curiosities, trepidations, and transgressions in adult-regimented worlds have critical implications for class, gender, sexual and racial politics. Our discussions will center on diverse portrayals of children and adolescents as navigators of their settings, which range from shantytowns to country clubs, rural provinces to urban centers, homeless shelters to sheltered existences. Short stories, films, novels, and flash fiction by Ariel Magnus, Lucrecia Martel, Mariana Enríquez, Daniela Seggiaro, Paula Markovitch, Andrés Neuman, and Agustina Bazterrica will be considered.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Selimovic
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
A study of selected works, creators and historical events that shaped Spain's multiethnic and linguistically diverse identity from the 10th to the 17th centuries. Authors and topics explored in this class include El Cantar de Mío Cid, Alfonso X el Sabio and the Spain of the "three cultures", the poetry of Hebrew and Arabic Spain, the Reconquista, and the writing of American Chronicles, as well as some examples of the work of Garcilaso de la Vega, Fray Luis de León, Santa Teresa, San Juan de la Cruz, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderón de la Barca.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Vega
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A survey of the genre with in-depth analysis of works in Spanish by foundational writers Ricardo Palma, Rubén Darío, and Horacio Quiroga, as well as twentieth-century masters Jorge Luis Borges, Clarice Lispector, Julio Cortázar, Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes, and Gabriel García Márquez, among others. Special attention to voices that have emerged since 2000, such as Mayra Santos (Puerto Rico), Rita Indiana Hernández (Dominican Republic), Edmundo Paz Soldán (Bolivia), and Roberto Bolaño (Chile/Mexico). Contemporary texts published in indigenous languages will be read in Spanish translation. We will explore themes of identity, memory, class, freedom, creative expression, myth-making, violence, mass media, race, education, women, children, and urban and rural life.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A study of the struggle for self-expression in Franco's Spain and the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Special attention will be devoted to the literature of the Civil War and exile. The readings will include more recent explorations of the Spanish Civil War in literature, cinema and politics. Authors include Mercè Rodoreda, Carmen Laforet, Manuel Rivas, Alberto Méndez, Adelaida García Morales, and Víctor Erice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Ramos
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
A study of the major twentieth-century poets of Latin America, focusing on literary movements and aesthetic representation. Poets to be examined include Vicente Huidobro, Gabriela Mistral, Octavio Paz, and César Vallejo.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Agosin
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Since the early 1970s, women in Latin America have been at the forefront of social justice initiatives and have held important leadership positions. Artistic expression has both informed and driven much of this activist engagement. Literature, film, textile arts, and painting are only a few dimensions of this dual agenda of artistic expression and ensuring human rights. The course will examine key movements in Latin America-from the rejection of dictatorial regimes to a call for greater indigenous rights-paying particular attention to the role of women, both as individuals and as a group, in these movements.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Agosin
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will explore the history of Latin American cinema, from the early 1960s to the present. Different forms of cinematic expression will be explored: narrative film, the documentary, the cinema of exile, and others. Issues of national culture and identity, as well as cultural exchanges of films between Latin America and abroad, will be addressed. In addition to the films themselves, students will be required to read selected works on film criticism and several literary texts that have been made into films. Films to be examined may include Angelitos negros, México:Agua para chocolate, Rojo amanecer, Novia que te vea, Roma; Argentina: Camila, Kamchatka, La historia oficial; Chile: El último traje, Machuca, Una mujer fantástica: El Salvador: Voces inocentes: Colombia: María llena de gracia, Cuba: Memorias del subdesarrollo, Azúcar amarga, Miel para Oshún. Documentary films may include Reportero, Cartas del otro lado, 911, Pedro Pan: Del otro lado del cristal, 90 Millas; La República Dominicana: Trópico de la sangre.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How did authors find new ways to think about the self in the Iberian Peninsula? How do their lives and works relate to the transformation of Spanish and Portuguese into global languages? This course constitutes an introduction to the literary and cultural production of Spain and Portugal from 1492 to 1681. We will discuss why the works of this period are considered "classics" and have an enduring impact in the Hispanic world. Analysis of key texts will be accompanied by samples of painting and music. Topics include: the importance of concepts such as love and honor in the private and public spheres, the role of ethnic identities and political processes in the representation of the Iberian modern subject, women writers, and self-representation through writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: PORT 266
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Arraiza-Rivera
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The role of the Latin American writer as witness and voice for the persecuted. Through key works of poetry and prose from the 1970s to the present, we will explore the ways in which literature depicts issues such as censorship and self-censorship; the writer as journalist; disappearances; exile; testimonial writing; gender and human rights; and testimonial narratives. The works of Benedetti, Timmerman, Alegría, and others will be studied.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Agosin
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Not open to students who have taken SPAN 261.
An introduction to the major literary, historical, artistic and cultural traditions of the Caribbean. Attention will focus on the Spanish-speaking island countries: Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. We will discuss such topics as slavery, independence, nation-building, race, gender, dictatorship, and immigration. We will use a variety of texts, films and artworks. Authors may include Juan Francisco Manzano, José Martí, Julia de Burgos, Alejo Carpentier, Nicolás Guillén, Nancy Morejón, Luis Palés Matos, Mayra Santos Febres and Junot Díaz.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course provides a sociolinguistic overview of Spanish in the US by examining concepts such as language ideologies, language identity, language attitudes, language maintenance and shift, the politics of language, language contact, bilingualism, the relationship of language to Latinx identities, and how language ideologies and policies reflect and shape societal views of Spanish and its speakers, race, identity, and education. This course will provide a descriptive, historical and linguistic overview of the different Spanish-English bilingual communities in the US. For instance, we will examine the use and representation of Spanish and misconceptions about Spanish varieties and Latinx communities in a wide array of contexts, including everyday speech, contemporary culture, media and the portrayal in the media, education, and policy. Reading selections will be in Spanish (for the most part) and English. Homework, projects, exams and class discussions will be strictly in Spanish.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: LING 270
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or SPAN 242 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bassa Vanrell
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
A multidisciplinary introduction to contemporary Spain’s life and culture. Literary, historical, artistic, and anthropological readings will inform our understanding of recurrent themes in the construction and questioning of Spanish national identity and culture: Spain as a nexus of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic thought; centripetal vs. centrifugal forces; religion and class; long-term economic and cultural consequences of global empire; dictatorship and democracy. Attention will be paid to Portugal and to the diversity of languages and cultures of the Iberian Peninsula.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Ramos
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An introduction to the multiple elements constituting Latin American culture. An examination of the principal characteristics of Spanish colonialism and Creole nationalism will inform our general understanding of Latin American culture today. Readings and class discussions will cover such topics as military and spiritual conquest, the Indian and African contributions, the emergence of criollo and mestizo discourses, and gender and race relations. Readings will include the works of Latin American writers, filmmakers, and historians.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 273
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or SPAN 242 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Guzauskyte
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An examination of the principal characteristics of the search for identity and independence of the emerging Latin American nations as expressed in literary, historical, and anthropological writing. We will examine the experience of each of four distinct regions: Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean, the Andean countries, and the Southern Cone. Readings will include the works of contemporary Latin American writers, filmmakers, and historians. Special attention will be given to the relationship between social issues and the evolution of literary form.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 275
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or SPAN 242 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Selimovic
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will explore the vibrant literary culture of Jewish women writers of Latin America from the 1920s to the present. We will examine selected works by these authors, daughters of immigrants, whose various literary genres reveal the struggle with issues of identity, acculturation, and diasporic imagination. Writers include Alicia Steimberg of Argentina, Clarice Lispector of Brazil, and Margo Glantz of Mexico, as well as a new generation of writers who explore issues of multiculturalism and ethnicity.
This course is taught in Spanish.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 277
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or SPAN 242 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken JWST 377/SPAN 377.
Instructor: Agosin
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as JWST 377/SPAN 377.
This course offers an introduction to the works of Spanish women authors ranging from the fifteenth century to the seventeenth. Topics include: the links between gender constructs and literary genres, representations of women's voices in early poetry, novels, letters and autobiography, rhetorical and artistic self-fashioning, and the analysis of women's access to writing, education, and socio-political institutions in early modern Spain. Texts by, among others, Teresa de Cartagena, Florencia Pinar, Teresa of Ávila, María de Zayas, Ana Caro, Hipólita de Narváez, Sor María de Ágreda and Sor Marcela de san Félix along artworks by Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana will be read and discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5); or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Arraiza-Rivera
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
In this interdisciplinary course, students will acquire a deep understanding of the colonial Latin American period, while learning to identify and interpret textiles, clothing items, and fashion movements. Focus on female garb in the 17th and 18th centuries Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Mexico. Topics will include dress as a form of language, representation, and performance; morality, and sexuality; dress and politics. Materials will include primary and secondary sources; illustrations of clothing in printed and manuscript texts; textiles and clothing in museums, Special Collections, and digital collections; films and webcasts; and representations of clothing in various art forms and digital sources. Students will undertake a digital humanities project. Museum and Wellesley College Special Collections.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241, or placement by the department.
Instructor: Guzauskyte
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Beginning with Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin-American Nobel Laureate for Literature, this course focuses on the leading women poets in both Spain and the Americas. Central to this production are themes of human rights and social justice, gender, and the expression of love and desire. While the class will examine connections between women poets on both sides of the Atlantic, differences in terms of negotiating a male-dominated publication infrastructure will be examined. Other than Mistral, poets will include Concha Méndez, Rosa Chacel, Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Clara Janés, Cristina Peri Rossi, Gloria Fuertes, and from the Americas, Delmira Agustini, Alfonsina Storni, Idea Villarino, Violeta Parra and others.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 287
Prerequisites: Students who have completed Spanish 241 and Spanish 242, or AP 5, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Agosin
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The course focuses on women’s literary expression and the roles women played in the societies of pre-Hispanic and colonial Latin America, ranging from serving as concubines and slaves to being recognized as key figures of leadership and prominent literary voices. The course will integrate writing by women with the ways in which women are depicted in visual and material culture, historical sources, and film. Authors to be studied may include Anacaona, la Malinche, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, among others. In Spanish.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Guzauskyte
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An examination of the interweaving relationship between race and gender in the framework of nation building during Latin America's era of independence. Through literary, cultural, and historical studies, we will explore how the ideological trends that defined the fundamental characteristics of the nineteenth century continue to shape Latin American identities today. A wide range of literary genres will be discussed (essays, novels, poems, and chronicles), as well as other cultural products, such as art, music, and film. Topics covered include wars of independence, art and nationalism, anti-imperialism, the role of gender and sexuality in the national imagination, slavery and violence, and popular culture (e.g. folkloric music, dance, visual arts). Readings may cover texts by Simón Bolívar, Andrés Bello, Domingo F. Sarmiento, José Martí, José Enrique Rodó, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Clorinda Matto de Turner, and José de Alencar.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: Open to students who have completed SPAN 241 or equivalent (AP 5) or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hagimoto
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course focuses on the tensions between affect and emotions in contemporary Latin American films and literary texts as terrains of sociopolitical and cultural critique. Focus on the works of Quiroga, Borges, Cortázar, Enríquez, Zambra, Bizzio, Valenzuela, Eltit, Valdés, Jodorowsky, Puenzo, Martel, Llosa, and Markovitch.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: SPAN 241 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Selimovic
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course focuses on a burst of creative expression across different cinematic genres in Argentina from 1995 to the present. Renowned as the New Argentine Cinema (NAC), which continues to regenerate imaginatively, this aesthetic tendency has evolved and propagated its founders’ inimitable artistic and thematic explorations in unexpected ways. We will illuminate distinctive contributions to the formation and evolution of NAC, including those of Lucrecia Martel, Lisandro Alonso, Albertina Carri, Adrián Caetano, Martín Rejtman, and Pablo Trapero.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to junior and senior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Selimovic
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
A close reading of the Quixote with particular emphasis on Cervantes' invention of the novel form: creation of character, comic genius, hero versus anti-hero, levels of reality and fantasy, and history versus fiction.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Arraiza-Rivera
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course focuses on fundamental films by prominent contemporary Argentine women filmmakers. We examine these directors’ influence on the New Argentine Cinema (NAC) and explore their diverse aesthetic contributions to the country’s film industry. Interdisciplinary readings about the country’s socio-political and cultural changes from 1995 onwards guide our discussions, explorations, and analyses. Films by Albertina Carri, Lucrecia Martel, Julia Solomonoff, Paula Markovitch, María Victoria Menis, Gabriela David, and Lucía Puenzo.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to junior and senior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Selimovic
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
A study of U.S. Hispanic writers of the Southwest and East Coast from the Spanish colonial period to the present. Political, social, racial, and intellectual contexts of their times and shared inheritance will be explored. Consideration of the literary origins and methods of their craft. Authors may include: Cabeza de Vaca, Gaspar de Villagrá, José Villarreal, Lorna Dee Cervantes, José Martí, Uva Clavijo, Pedro Juan Soto, Miguel Algarín, and Edward Rivera.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A study of the cultural notions of clothing and nakedness in colonial Latin America, and their uses in construing ideas of superiority, social and economic status, gender, race, and power during the conquest and the colonial period. The role of clothing in indigenous cultures pre- and post- conquest will also be studied throughout the semester. We will examine a broad range of representations of clothing, costume, veiling, textiles, as well as perceived nakedness, uses of body paint and body mutilation, jewelry and adornments, among other expressions of the culture of clothing in both literary and historical written accounts (chronicles, letters, historias, poetry, treatises, and novels), oral traditions (such as myth and song in Aztec, Maya, Inca, and other indigenous cultures), and visual culture (codices, sculpture, religious paintings, portraiture).
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Guzauskyte
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Analysis of how masculinity is constructed in key Spanish canonical texts of the period. Together with the “Don Juan” and the “rogue/trickster” (“el pícaro”)—two literary archetypes bequeathed by Spain to the world, models for defining aspects of manhood will include the battling hero, the saint, the villain, the “average guy,” and the philosopher. Emphasis will be placed on how these figures interact with and defined by interaction with women and how the un-enunciated queer is ever present. Together with examining how masculinity reflects notions of honor, virility, social order, religion, and misogyny, the course will consider medical and biological models of manhood and how those framed gender.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: SPAN 241 or higher, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Vega
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar examines Cuban literature and culture from the nineteenth century to the present. As a tropical island in the Caribbean ruled by numerous imperial powers and domestic tyrants, Cuba has often been perceived as a paradise and/or a prison. We will study both the literal and metaphorical meanings of these two symbols through various modes of cultural expression, including prose, poetry, art, music, and film. We will discuss such topics as colonialism, slavery, the independence movement, the Cuban Revolution, socialism, race and gender, immigration, and the changing relationship between Cuba and the United States. Readings may include texts by Juan Franciscano Manzano, José Martí, Cristina García, Fidel Castro, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, José Lezama Lima, Reinaldo Arenas, Yoani Sanchéz, and Sonia Rivera-Valdés.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hagimoto
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course explores how early modern Spanish literature and other forms of cultural production (such as music, paintings and engravings), depict peoples and places perceived as foreign or other in relation to Spain's political dimension as a world power in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe. Places like Italy and England or social groups such as Spain's moriscos appear in Golden Age literature in complex, often surprising ways. We will analyze the historical and cultural processes that inform such representations and also read how is Spain, and its dwellers, represented in contrast to people viewed as culturally and ethnically different in major works. Novels by Cervantes and María Zayas, plays by Calderón de la Barca, and poetry by Garcilaso and Camões will be discussed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Crosslisted Courses: PORT 310
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Arraiza-Rivera
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An in-depth inquiry into the writings, life, and legacy of the salient Mexican woman poet, dramatist, scholar, and nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651?-1695), known for her precocious literary talent, mastery of the poetic forms of the Hispanic Baroque, thirst for knowledge, early defense of women’s learning, and dramatic life. Students will be introduced to interdisciplinary Sor Juana studies through approaches from literary criticism, women’s and gender studies, sexuality studies, and the studies of colonial and postcolonial discourses. Readings will include sonnets, romances, and villancicos written in Spanish and Nahuatl, plays, the long poem entitled First Dream, and prose texts including Letter Worthy of Athena, Allegorical Neptune, and the autobiographical essay, The Answer. The course will also explore Sor Juana’s reception in contemporary literary criticism, essays, visual art, and film.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to Senior and Junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Guzauskyte
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course centers on connections between recent Latin American films and other media, especially music, literature, and television. We will explore how such connections critique certain sociopolitical and cultural milieus that the selected films spring from, seek to represent, or both. Interdisciplinary readings will anchor our discussions as we focus on illuminating the films’ nuanced commentaries on local particularities—but also foreign influences—through the intersections of politics, agency, gender, and race. Alejandro González Iñárritu, Juan José Campanella, Fabián Bielinsky, Martín Rejtman, Paula Markovitch, Paz Encina, Jayro Bustamente, and Lucrecia Martel will be at the heart of the course, for their films have reconfigured contemporary Latin American cinema in unexpected ways.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Crosslisted Courses: LAST 317
Prerequisites: Open to Senior and Junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Selimovic
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Medieval Spain, at the nexus of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic cultures, witnessed a flowering of literature dealing with the nature and depiction of love. This course will examine works from all three traditions, stressing the uses of symbolic language in the linguistic representation of physical desire. Texts will include Ibn Hazm, The Dove's Neck-Ring; the poetry of Yehuda Ha-Levi and Ben Sahl of Seville; the Mozarabic kharjas; the Galician cantigas de amigo; Juan Ruiz, The Book of Good Love; Diego de San Pedro, Cárcel de Amor; and Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Vega
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will explore the craft of writing poetry and short stories in Spanish. Attention will be given to the study of the aesthetics as well as craft in lyrical works and short narratives. Emphasis will be placed on discussion of student work, focusing on basic skills and grammatical knowledge involved in creative writing in a foreign language. Readings from Latin America's most distinguished authors will the assigned.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Agosin
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This seminar will explore how contemporary writers, artists, and activists from Spain, Latin America and the US use various nonfiction forms to document personal experiences of love, loss, and identity, as well as important political, cultural, and social issues. We will investigate their creative uses of the personal essay, biography, memoir, autofiction, profiles, blogs, and longform journalism. In addition, we will examine visual, audio, and multimedia forms such as documentaries, podcasts, photography, and graphic novels. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which these examples of Creative Nonfiction use the tools and techniques of fiction to develop material based on real personal experiences, public events, and cultural phenomena. Students will have the opportunity to produce analytical responses to the texts and topics covered in the course, as well as their own creative pieces .
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to seniors and juniors with advanced level of Spanish or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Ramos
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A study of post-Revolutionary Mexico through works by novelists, poets, essayists, artists, filmmakers, political leaders and public intellectuals who explore what it means to be modern. Topics include the history of one-party rule, the student movement of 1968, the 1985 earthquake, Zapatismo, women’s voices, the era of Insecurity, and migration. Special attention to issues around poverty and economic growth, the criminal justice system and public safety, climate change and sustainable development, the fight against racism and exclusion, political innovation, and US bilateral relations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to junior and senior majors or by permission of the instructor. Not open to students who completed SPAN 281.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Using a gender-aware perspective and a wide variety of literary texts,, documents, films, and architectural and artistic examples, this course will explore various forms of Modernity and Modernization in Spain. The analysis will go beyond aesthetic modernity to consider social change and cultural transformation. Main figures will include Federico García Lorca, Maruja Mallo, Vicente Huidobro, Antonio Gaudí, Luis Buñuel, Concha Méndez and “las sinsombrero”, José Ortega y Gasset, Clara Campoamor, Victoria Kent, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso. The connections between modernity and postmodernity will also be explored, as well as a comparison of the attitudes towards change and innovation at the turn of the 21th and 21st centuries.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Ramos
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
An in-depth study of food in Latin American literature and culture, with a particular focus on its functions and symbolism in indigenous cultures and in the context of the transatlantic exchanges of food products, plants, animals, and recipes among the Americas, Europe, and Africa after 1492. We will also study the role of food and cuisine in the search for new literary forms of expression during the Latin American independence era and contemporary times. The course will study depictions of food, cooking, recipe books, private and public spaces, hunger, deprivation, and body image to explore power relations, gender, race, sexuality, and identity as rooted in long-standing, multicultural traditions involving preparation and consumption of food, global exchanges of foodstuffs, plant, and animal species, as well as the emergence of new hybrid cultures. Readings may include Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo's Historia, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz' Respuesta, Francisco de Paula García Peláez' Libro del Chocolate, Fernando Ortiz' Contrapunteo cubano, and Laura Esquivel's Como agua para chocolate.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Guzauskyte
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An examination of twentieth-century women writers from Latin America. Perspectives for analyses will include questions of identity (national, ethnic/racial, religious, sexual, gender), the extent to which Afro-Hispanic, Indigenous, and non-Christian writers constitute distinct, marginalized groups in Latin American literature, and a comparison of issues regarding identity in selected canonical and noncanonical works by Gabriela Mistral, Remedios Varo, Elena Poniatowska, Nancy Morejón, Rosario Aguilar, Gioconda Belli, and Victoria Ocampo.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Agosin
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
From 1971 to 2003, Chile, one of South America's longest democracies, has experienced traumatic cultural, political, and social change. From the election of Salvador Allende (1971—1973) through the Pinochet dictatorship, during these turbulent times an unprecedented cultural life was manifested in literature, theatre, and the visual arts. In this seminar, we will explore the cultural changes experienced in Chile during three decades, the ways in which writers understood the complex web of creativity, as well as the specter of censorship. We will analyze how historical figures were revived through writers such as Gabriela Mistral, Rosamel del Valle, Pablo Neruda, and Salvador Allende. Narratives, journalistic essays, and theatrical and visual productions will be examined vis-à-vis the social and political history in which the topics were created.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Agosin
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Connections between two geographically remote areas (Asia and Latin America) that would seem to have little in common will be studied. By analyzing prose, poetry, art, and music, we will examine diverse Asian influences in Latin American literature and culture from the nineteenth century to the present. We will explore how various images of the “exotic” Orient are represented in Latin America during the periods of “modernismo” and “vanguardia.” We will also examine contemporary Asian-Latin American writers and artists with an emphasis on the multicultural experience of immigration and assimilation. Authors may include Edward Said, José Martí, José Rizal, Rubén Darío, José Juan Tablada, Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Octavio Paz, Jorge Luis Borges, Cristina García, Anna Kazumi Stahl, José Watanabe, Siu Kam Wen, and Seiichi Higashide.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to senior and junior majors or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hagimoto
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
The legacy of Spain in the US is a complicated one. On the one hand, Spanish conquest and colonization had devastating effects on indigenous peoples of North America. On the other, Spain has had an extensive and lasting influence on American and Hispanic cultures, especially in the areas of language, religion, art, and architecture. Through a multidisciplinary approach, this class will explore the space that Spain has occupied in shaping America, from the early 16th century to today. It will also look ahead, as we try to envision what impact Spain will have on the US in the years to come. In order to understand the past, assess the present, and imagine the future, we will read chronicles from early Spanish explorers of North America, investigate Mission/Spanish revival architecture and painting, examine the testimonies of American travelers to Spain, and learn about social justice interventions of contemporary indigenous activists, including attacks on statues linked to colonialism and slavery in the United States depicting prominent figures from Spain’s past.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Open to junior and senior majors or by permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken SPAN 244.
Instructor: Ramos
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200 level as SPAN 244.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: SPAN 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course will explore the vibrant literary culture of Jewish women writers of Latin America from the 1920s to the present. We will examine selected works by these authors, daughters of immigrants, whose various literary genres reveal the struggle with issues of identity, acculturation, and diasporic imagination. Writers include Alicia Steimberg of Argentina, Clarice Lispector of Brazil, and Margo Glantz of Mexico, as well as a new generation of writers who explore issues of multiculturalism and ethnicity.
Students in JWST 227/SPAN 277 and JWST 377/SPAN 377 will all get the same material, but students taking the 300-level version of the course will have additional assignments, including formal presentations and longer writing and independent work.
This course is taught in Spanish.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Crosslisted Courses: JWST 377
Prerequisites: Open to Junior and Senior majors or by permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken JWST 277/SPAN 277.
Instructor: Agosin
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as JWST 277/SPAN 277.
This course is intended to provide students with the skills necessary to digest, critique, and express every-day statistics and to use statistical thinking to answer questions in their own lives. Students will be exposed to and produce descriptive statistics, including measures of central tendency & spread, as well as common visual representations of data. The bulk of the class will be devoted to giving students the tools needed to analyze and critique statistical claims, including an understanding of the dangers of confounding variables and bias, the advantages and limitations of various study designs and statistical inference, and how to carefully read and parse claims which attempt to use numbers to sway their audience. The class will examine this material in authentic contexts such as political polling, medical decision making, online dating, and personal finance. This course is primarily aimed at students whose majors do not require mathematics or statistics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: STAT 150
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have completed another introductory statistics course at Wellesley, including STAT 160, STAT 218, BISC 198, ECON 103/SOC 190, POL 299, PSYC 105 or PSYC 205. Not open to students who have received AP credit in Statistics.
Instructor: Bu, Schultz
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Note that this course cannot be used as a prerequisite for upper-level courses in statistics or econometrics including STAT 260 and ECON 203.
An introduction to the fundamental ideas and methods of statistics for analyzing data. Topics include descriptive statistics, inference, and hypothesis testing. This course introduces statistical concepts from the perspective of statisticians and mathematicians, with concepts illustrated by simulation. Students will engage with statistics using the data analysis software R. Designed for students who plan to continue to study statistics and/or apply statistical methods to future work in the sciences or other fields. The course is accessible to those who have not yet had calculus.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. Not open to students who have taken or are taking MATH 205, STAT 218, STAT 220, ECON 103/SOC 190, PSYC 105, PSYC 205, BISC 198, POL 299, QR 260/STAT 260, STAT 318,
Instructor: A. Joseph (Fall); C. Cochran (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This is a calculus-based introductory statistics course. Topics covered include data collection, data visualization, descriptive statistics, linear regression, sampling schemes, design of experiment, probability, random variables (both discrete and continuous cases), Normal model, statistical tests and inference (e.g. one-sample and two-sample z-tests and t-tests, chi-square test, etc). Statistical language R will be used throughout the course to realize data visualization, linear regression, simulations, and statistical tests and inference.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Instructor: W. Wang (Fall), A. Joseph, J. Lauer (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Spatial data is becoming increasingly available in a wide range of disciplines, including social sciences such as political science and criminology, as well as sciences such as geosciences and ecology. This course will introduce methods for exploring and analyzing spatial data. We will cover methods to describe and analyze three main types of spatial data: areal, point process, and point-referenced (geostatistical) data. We will also introduce tools for working with spatial data in R.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Any introductory statistics course (BISC 198, ECON 103/SOC 190, STAT 160, STAT 218, POL 299) or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Kelling
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Probability is the mathematics of uncertainty. We begin by developing the basic tools of probability theory, including counting techniques, conditional probability, and Bayes's Theorem. We then survey several of the most common discrete and continuous probability distributions (binomial, Poisson, uniform, normal, and exponential, among others) and discuss mathematical modeling using these distributions. Often we cannot calculate probabilities exactly, and we need to approximate them. A powerful tool here is the Central Limit Theorem, which provides the link between probability and statistics. Another strategy when exact results are unavailable is simulation. We examine Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, which offer a means of simulating from complicated distributions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Crosslisted Courses: STAT 220
Prerequisites: MATH 205
Instructor: Tannenhauser
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course introduces the theory of statistical inference: given a data set, how do we estimate the parameters of probabilistic models like those introduced in MATH 220/STAT 220? What is the optimal way to make use of the information in our data? Topics include the theories that underlie traditional hypothesis testing and confidence intervals, such as maximum likelihood inference and sufficiency. The course will also cover Bayesian techniques for point and interval estimation and resampling approaches, such as the bootstrap.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: MATH 220/STAT 220.
Instructor: Tannenhauser
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This is a course in multivariate data analysis. Students will be introduced to modern multivariate techniques, their applications and interpretations, and will learn how to use these methods to understand relationships between variables, extract patterns, or identify clusters or classifications in a rich data set involving multiple variables. Topics covered during the semester include both dependence techniques (e.g. multiple linear regression, binary logistic regression, multinomial logistic regression, principal component analysis, linear discriminant analysis, decision trees, etc) and interdependence techniques (e.g. factor analysis, cluster analysis, etc). A selection of topics in machine learning and data mining are also introduced during the semester. Statistical language R is used in this class.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: MATH 205 and (STAT 218 or STAT 260 or STAT 318).
Instructor: W. Wang
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This is an intermediate statistics course focused on fundamentals of statistical inference and applied data analysis tools. Emphasis on thinking statistically, evaluating assumptions, and developing practical skills for real-life applications to fields such as medicine, politics, education, and beyond. Topics include t-tests and non-parametric alternatives, multiple comparisons, analysis of variance, linear regression, model refinement and missing data. Students can expect to gain a working knowledge of the statistical software R, which will be used for data analysis and for simulations designed to strengthen conceptual understanding. This course can be counted as a 200-level course toward the major or minor in Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, Environmental Studies, Psychology or Neuroscience. Students who earned a Quantitative Analysis Institute Certificate are not eligible for this course.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Crosslisted Courses: STAT 260
Prerequisites: Any introductory statistics course (BISC 198, ECON 103/SOC 190, STAT 160, STAT 218, POL 299, PSYC 105 or PSYC 205).
Instructor: Pattanayak
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course focuses on statistical methods for causal inference, with an emphasis on how to frame a causal (rather than associative) research question and design a study to address that question. What implicit assumptions underlie claims of discrimination? Why do we believe that smoking causes lung cancer? We will cover both randomized experiments – the history of randomization, principles for experimental design, and the non-parametric foundations of randomization-based inference – and methods for drawing causal conclusions from non-randomized studies, such as propensity score matching. Students will develop the expertise necessary to assess the credibility of causal claims and master the conceptual and computational tools needed to design and analyze studies that lead to causal inferences. Examples will come from economics, psychology, sociology, political science, medicine, and beyond. Previous exposure to the statistical software R is expected; students who have not previously coded in R may enroll but should expect to put in additional effort to learn this skill.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: STAT 30 9
Prerequisites: Any one of QR 260/STAT 260, STAT 318, ECON 203, SOC 290, PSYC 305 or a Psychology 300-level R course; or a Quantitative Analysis Institute Certificate; or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Pattanayak
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This is an applied regression analysis course that involves hands-on data analysis. Topics covered during the semester include simple and multiple linear regression models, model diagnostics and remedial measures, matrix representation of linear regression models, model comparison and selection, generalized linear regression models (e.g. binary logistic regression, multinomial logistic regression, ordinal logistic regression, and Poisson regression), and basic time-series autoregressive AR(p) models. Statistical language R will be used throughout the course to realize fitting linear (or generalized linear) regressions models, model diagnostics, model comparison and selection, and simulations.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: STAT 218 and MATH 205 and MATH 206. (STAT 218 can be replaced by STAT 160, ECON 103/SOC 190, or QR 260/STAT 260.)
Instructor: W. Wang (Fall); A. Joseph (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course is an introduction to Bayesian theory and applications. Bayesian methods provide a powerful alternative to classical (frequentist) statistical methods. In this course we emphasize the development of Bayesian inference and conduct hands-on data analysis within the Bayesian framework. We begin with a brief overview of essential distinctions between classical and Bayesian methods and progress through the following topics: conjugate families of distributions; posterior simulation and analysis when the posterior is intractable; Bayesian regression and classification; and hierarchical models.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: MATH 205, an introductory statistics course at Wellesley (STAT 160, STAT 218, ECON 103/SOC 190, PSYC 205, BISC 198, POL 299, or QR 150) or a statistical modeling course (QR 260/STAT 260 or STAT 318 or the QAI Summer Course). MATH 220/STAT 220 (may be taken concurrently).
Instructor: Joseph
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
The primary focus of Elementary Swahili is to develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Aspects of Swahili/African culture will be introduced and highlighted as necessary components toward achieving communicative competence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The primary focus of Elementary Swahili is to develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Aspects of Swahili/African culture will be introduced and highlighted as necessary components toward achieving communicative competence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: SWA 101.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is offered as an immersion experience designed to provide students with the unique opportunity to study Swahili language, community service leadership, and the diverse cultures of East Africa. The course blends regular classroom activities with daily immersion in the cultures of the Swahili speaking communities. Students will learn through intensive coursework and community engagement to expand their Swahili language skills, gain better understanding of the social, cultural, political, and economic context in Tanzania in particular and East Africa in general. The students will have the opportunity to explore the intersection of language and culture with contemporary issues in leadership and development.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: SWA 101 and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course does not satisfy the language requirement. Not offered every year. Subject to Provost's Office approval. This course may be taken as SWA 120 or with additional assignments, SWA 220.
Intermediate Swahili builds on Elementary Swahili to enhance listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills at a higher level. Aspects of Swahili/African culture will be expanded upon and highlighted as necessary components toward increasing communicative competence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: SWA 102.
Instructor: Staff
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Intermediate Swahili builds on Elementary Swahili to enhance listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills at a higher level. Aspects of Swahili/African culture will be expanded upon and highlighted as necessary components toward increasing communicative competence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: SWA 201.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Intermediate Swahili builds on Elementary Swahili to enhance listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills at a higher level. Aspects of Swahili/African culture will be expanded upon and highlighted as necessary components toward increasing communicative competence.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: SWA 102.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course is offered as an immersion experience designed to provide students with the unique opportunity to study Swahili language, community service leadership, and the diverse cultures of East Africa. The course blends regular classroom activities with daily immersion in the cultures of the Swahili speaking communities. Students will learn through intensive coursework and community engagement to expand their Swahili language skills, gain better understanding of the social, cultural, political, and economic context in Tanzania in particular and East Africa in general. The students will have the opportunity to explore the intersection of language and culture with contemporary issues in leadership and development.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: SWA 201 and permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course does not satisfy the language requirement. Not offered every year. Subject to Provost's Office approval.
This course will apply theatrical performance training to the art of public speaking or rhetoric. One of the three original Liberal Arts, the art of discourse has long been recognized as fundamental to the creation of knowledge, and the development of thought. Employing dramatic and nondramatic texts, original student-written work, and an occasional Saturday Night Live sketch, students will discover the power of words. The course is intended to develop communicative and expressive skills in students who might not be drawn to the fine arts, but who might benefit from theatrical training to become more effective thinkers, writers, and speakers.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Arciniegas
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. Summer Session enrollment is open to all students.
Exposing students to the live theatre in the Boston area and encouraging lively discussion of the productions is the focus of this introductory course. Scripts will be read and rigorously analyzed in the classroom. Women's presence in the arts, contemporary issues as seen on stage and the history of theatre in society will all be addressed by the group.The syllabus will be fluid and drawn from classical, musical and contemporary offerings each year. Visiting artists in all the disciplines will augment discussions. Attendance at productions will be arranged for Thursday evenings and paid for by the Theatre Program. This is an opportunity to have a hands on, up close and personal interaction with those who write, design, direct and act in the theatre.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course will introduce students to the art of developing personal narrative. From full speeches crafted for their presentations to the improv of saluting a wedding, birth or graduation, students gain the confidence to rise to the occasion as needed. Through guided writing exercises and exposure to the works of Nora Ephron, Billie Holiday, and others, students will listen, write and support each other weekly, all while attending select on campus sessions in the Ruth Nagel Jones Theater. Finally, while preparing for a final afternoon of speeches to be offered to the public at the end of the semester, students learn to speak for others, placing their words in context with authenticity and research.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Roach
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course will introduce students to the art of developing personal narrative as a means to creating a viable piece of theatre. Through guided writing exercises and exposure to the works of Nora Ephron, Billie Holiday, and Susanna Kaysen, and others, students will explore the intricacies of their own and their family histories. Based on the techniques that have produced numerous original plays here at Wellesley, the weekly exercises will be centered around various aspects of life such as race, gender, class, body image, and personal history. Students will hear and critique each other weekly while preparing for a final evening of “stories” to be offered to the public at the end of the semester. The class will also focus on the final composition of the evening, and the journey each student makes to bring it to fruition. Emphasis is on the development and refinement of the dramatic content while building confidence for even the least experienced student.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Roach
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Other Categories: FYS - First Year Seminar
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
Imagine you are the designer for an immersive visual production that takes place in Harlem, New York in the 1920's. The buildings, art, clothing, lighting and sounds of the neighborhood must be recreated to transport the audience to another time and place. In this course you will work individually or in groups to create complete environments representing periods and cultures such as the Harlem Renaissance or the French Art Nouveau. Students will be introduced to a range of major artistic styles throughout history and interpret those in to a set, lighting, costume and sound design. This is a project based course that culminates in an immersive digital exhibit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Howland
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes:
This course outlines and examines the role of costume and fashion design in media, from the movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood to high-tech motion pictures to recent cable miniseries. Analyze the history and social contexts of clothing in media, as well as the critical role of fashion in relation to the narrative, i.e., how it enhances the mood and propels the dramatic action of the production. Using illustrated lectures, critical thinking and writing, and research and presentation skills, students will focus on how/why clothing is worn, how fashion design and costume design intersect, and how we can understand the economic and cultural realities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through the shifting trends of fashion.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kerl
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes:
A survey of American Drama that takes a journey through America’s history from the early 20th century to the present. Issues explored will include: family trauma; the American Dream; evolving ideas of race, class, gender and sexuality; and identity. Works will include: Eugene O'Neill’s classic, Long Day's Journey into Night; Edward Albee’s absurdist satire, The American Dream; Lorraine Hansberry’s story of a Black family’s struggle, A Raisin in the Sun; Sam Shepard’s dark story about secrets, Buried Child; Tony Kushner’s meditation on the AIDS era, Angels in America; Melinda Lopez’s story of Cuban emigreés, Sonia Flew; Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer winner about class, race and social inequality, Sweat; the filmed version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton; and the playwright Celine Song’s film about transcultural romance, Past Lives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 5
Crosslisted Courses: THST 132
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Ko
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Theatre-making - like much of life - involves moment to moment evaluation and problem-solving. Improvisational theatre is a performance tradition which joyfully embraces this challenge head-on! In this course, we will immerse ourselves in the practice of this art form. We will create characters, stories and new worlds through tapping our intuition, embracing the unknown, and letting the focus of a theatre game lead us to collective discovery, Guided by the teachings of Viola Spolin, students will seek the bold and the spontaneous in themselves through group agreement. Everybody can improvise!
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rainer
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
Theatre-making - like much of life - involves moment to moment evaluation and problem-solving. Improvisational theatre is a performance tradition which joyfully embraces this challenge head-on! In this course, we will immerse ourselves in the practice of this art form. We will create characters, stories and new worlds through tapping our intuition, embracing the unknown, and letting the focus of a theatre game lead us to collective discovery, Guided by the teachings of Viola Spolin, students will seek the bold and the spontaneous in themselves through group agreement. Everybody can improvise!
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Rainer
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
This course invites students to take funny women seriously. Through their legacy of work as well as oral histories, we will investigate the evolving challenges and triumphs of women whose comedic voices influenced American expectations over the last century. Elaine May, Joan Rivers, Carol Burnett, Gilda Radner, Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Cho, Wellesley's own Nora Ephron and more will make us laugh. Forms to be explored include writing, improvisation, stand-up, comic acting on stage and screen, cartooning, plus new media. Creating belly laughs changed the culture on which these women were commenting — ultimately, through deepening our understanding of the purposefulness and craft of comedy, our collective goal will be the creation of several forms of original comedy works. Students will have the opportunity to participate in the Theatre Studies Showcase at the end of the semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rainer
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Students are introduced to the fundamentals of contemporary acting, as devised by such stage theoreticians as Constantine Stanislavsky, Lee Strasberg, and Sanford Meisner. Instruction focuses on the proper methods for breaking scenes down into component units or "beats," and achieving a measure of authenticity discernible in person or through the camera lens. Students perform with a rotating roster of partners, emphasizing group learning and mutual support in the pursuit of an individual acting aesthetic. It is intended for any and all levels of experience.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Arciniegas
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course studies the creative skills of the director in conjunction with the analytical skills of the dramaturge. Particular emphasis will be placed on communicating with actors. Students will be encouraged to develop their own unique directorial vision. Students will be expected to provide probing intellectual questions to each other while collaborating. Dramatic material will be drawn from a variety of world literature with emphasis placed on women playwrights. Students will be given opportunities to work with professional actors in a guest-artist "lab" format.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Roach
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course studies the craft and theory of the production arts in the theatre. We will cover the practice of intent creation and explore how that intent is interpreted - from the designer's process to how that process is implemented by various craftspeople and specialists.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Towlun
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Think outside the box! Learn the abstract art of scenic design for the theatre and beyond. Students will learn basic drafting, sketching, script analysis and visual research to create a scenic environment for scripts written by THST playwriting students. Students will be taught the artistic and technical skills needed in order to facilitate communication and collaboration with directing and stagecraft students. Students will participate as designers in the Theatre Showcase at the end of the semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Howland
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will focus on plays where the voices of women are at the center of the story. This class will read, discuss and write about the powerful female protagonists, playwrights and practitioners who captivate us as they speak from their different cultural landscapes. From Shakespeare’s Desdemona to Lorraine Hansberry’s “Les Blancs,” we will explore what it means to investigate the stories of playwrights like Josefina Lopez, Young Jean Lee, Larissa FastHorse and Dominique Morisseau. What are the expectations of a society and an audience? How do female playwrights craft their stories? How will you write your own? Students will also explore their voice thru the writing of their own 10 min. play!
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will give students the tools and skills to develop a character either from the outside in, using movement, or from the inside out, using the voice. Utilizing a dynamic survey of vocal and physical techniques developed by influential theatre practitioners of the last five decades, students will move towards 'freeing their natural voice' and developing range, color, and texture for effective stage use. Concurrently, students will work on 'freeing their bodies' and using physicality to flesh out a character. Class work will focus on both individual and group work with particular attention given to layering voice and movement with text to create vivid, fully developed characters in devised contexts. Not offered every year.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Rainer
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
A survey of contemporary American plays, Pulitzer Prize winners as well as investigating inventive new companies that break down the boundaries between performance and audience. We'll read texts ripped from the headlines as well as what might be the "new classics." We'll also attend or stream productions and discuss the journey from page to stage. This is not your parents' theatre class. No Plays Over 20 Years Old. Students will use critical thinking to analyze trends in contemporary theatre, and contrast and compare contemporary events with the events in dramatic texts. We will incorporate our knowledge into class projects, such as adaptations, research papers, or original plays. Guest artists from the theatre world occasionally visit to illuminate other perspectives.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will teach basic playwriting skills implemented through in-class exercises and at-home writing assignments. This hands-on, practical approach will require writing one short play each week. Emphasis is on experimentation, innovation, risk taking, and process. A spirit of fun, innovation, and creativity will dominate this workshop format. Each class meeting will incorporate reading student work aloud with commentary from the instructor and the class. Students will listen, critique, and develop the vocabulary to discuss plays, structure, story, and content. Each student will begin to connect her dramatic voice and theatrical passion. Students will ultimately write a one-act play as the capstone experience for this class. Students will have the opportunity to participate in the Theatre Studies Showcase at the end of the semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Roach
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. This course may be taken as THST 321 upon completion of THST 221. See the description for THST 321.
Have you ever considered what goes into creating the costumes for your favorite characters? This is your chance to try it yourself! Over the course of the term you will read scripts, do visual research, design for different characters, and learn drawing and hand sewing techniques. The main focus is on developing design ideas for different circumstances and enhancing how to communicate them. This is an immersive production class, taught by a professional costume designer.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kerl
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Summer; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Circus is not simply spectacle; it is a reflection of society. This course is an exploration of the Western circus as a performance form that can construct, affirm, and even change cultural values and norms. Beginning with a foundation in Western circus history, we will look at circus acts from the eighteenth century to the modern day as spectacles that have the power to resist the status quo. Considerations of gender, race, sexuality, and nationality, will guide readings, viewings, and discussions of freak shows, animal acts, aerial and acrobatic performance in theatre, film, popular culture, and on the national stage. Through the lens of the circus, this course seeks to explore the larger impact of popular, performing arts on society.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Meyer
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Critics occupy a place of exciting responsibility in the evolving global conversation about theatre. Come amplify your own voice! Students will immerse themselves in the craft of criticism during an intensive excursion to the biggest arts and culture festival in the world. This summer session course timing coincides with the festival timing, and so will run for two weeks in mid-August. Daily theatre productions in myriad genres (and languages!) will be selected from hundreds of festival venues, be they castles, pubs, conference rooms, observatories, volcanic playgrounds, or even in the cobbled alleys of historic Edinburgh. Daily critical discussion in print and audio will be offered, evaluated, and published online. Reviews, profiles and more will employ succinct analysis, vivid description, informed perspective and provocative questions. Collectively, students will create a vibrant snapshot of the state of theatre in today’s world!
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 8
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rainer
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course explores Japanese literature from the seventh to the nineteenth centuries––including myths, poetry, narrative romances, diaries, essays, military tales, Noh drama, haiku, puppet plays, kabuki, and ghost stories––then traces its modern afterlife to film, television, and manga. Students will develop a critical and historically grounded appreciation of Japan's rich and varied literary tradition by analyzing it in light of such topics as religious practice, aesthetic ideals, dreams, desire, subjectivity, Chinese influence, the supernatural, war, gender, and sexuality.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 30
Crosslisted Courses: JPN 251
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Goree
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course invites the developing student of acting to approach the solo interpretation and performance of song as a powerful storytelling medium. In addition to reading, viewing, listening and evaluative assignments, visits by working professional actors in the musical field will enhance our exploration throughout the course. In-class/synchronous master classes rehearsing songs-in-progress should be expected weekly. Students will learn to apply acting philosophies and performance techniques to disentangle the voice from the body and expand their avenues of physical expression, while preparing the imagination through lyrical interpretation and even character development. Students will get the in-joke "do you have an uptempo?" as they learn the constitutive elements of the cabaret genre. Students will propose multi-song plot narratives for an imagined one-person cabaret show, while considering how this underground art provides a liberating space for representation and expression. Each student will ultimately prepare a selection chosen from that envisioned show for public performance.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 8
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Rainer
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
The purpose of this course is to explore and understand stage lighting design and how it plays a crucial role in modern theatrical storytelling. Through the use of a scaled light lab students will investigate how the functions and qualities of light affect an audience’s perception of actors and the stage picture. This course will also provide an introduction to the Vectorworks CAD software as well as the ETC EOS programming environment. The course culminates in a final presentation demonstrating the student’s mastery of the elements of lighting design.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: THST 207 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Stetson
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Building upon the work of its prerequisite, Acting I, this advanced scene study course broadens the scope of plays, styles, and periods. Students will examine plays written prior to the advent of modern psychology for acting techniques that do not rely exclusively on intention and motivation. They may also examine modern plays written in alternative styles, (ex. Expressionism, Absurdism, Surrealism). Students will focus on a particular playwright, period, or style to explore performance approaches beyond realism. Students may also explore non-English texts in their original, relying upon their particular language or languages of study.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: THST 204
Instructor: Arciniegas
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
From stage to screen! This class continues to build on the skills learned in playwriting and/or intro to directing classes. Students become part of an ensemble in complete collaboration where all students write, direct and act in each others plays (The 306 Rep). The plays will be staged and presented as part of a midterm festival; then adapted, videotaped and edited for an end of semester screening. Tangible work products include a 10 min. play, a directors book of sketches and blocking notes plus a 10 min. video.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: THST 206 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Roach
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course builds upon the basic techniques taught in Acting 1 for achieving authenticity on stage, and reframes them in the context of the subtler, electronically sensitive environment of the small screen. Acting students will learn to maintain emotional stakes and dramatic tension, while conveying them in stillness, simplicity, and with breath control for the nuanced and electronically magnified environment of a camera recording. Students will learn various techniques to calibrate performance for wide and medium shots, as well as what to do in "close-up". Through classroom film sessions and independent recording assignments, students will develop a personal performance aesthetic for film and television production.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: THST 204 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Arciniegas
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course focuses on the study and practice of skills and techniques for the performance of scenes and monologues and the realization of theatrical characters from Shakespeare's texts. Speeches and scenes will be performed for class criticism. The class will be subdivided by instructor according to skill levels. Students are expected to rehearse and prepare scenes outside of class time.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: Any THST course and any Shakespeare course in the English Department or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Arciniegas
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
THST 321 is an opportunity for former students of THST 221 to build on skills developed during that course. Students will work in an intensive process with the goal of completing a two act play with related analysis material. Similar to THST 221, there will be opportunities to hear the material during table reads as part of class participation. Interested students should discuss their interest with the professor prior to registration. Students will have the opportunity to participate in the Theatre Studies Showcase at the end of the semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Roach
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit. This course is also offered at the 200-level as THST 221.
This course offers the advanced students of the theatre arts an opportunity to incorporate the performance, stage management, set design, lighting design, costume design, sound design, and directing disciplines available within the department into one focused and fully-produced project through an immersive investigation of a full-length script. Students will conduct dramaturgical research to contextualize the world of a play, establishing connections among the text, actors, and production elements, and creating a platform for conversation in the Wellesley community. Concurrently, students will implement performance and production techniques, engaging every aspect of the collaborative process of theatre-making. Actors and stage management will commit to 3+ scheduled rehearsals weekly. Students interested in participating as a designer or stage manager should contact the instructors significantly prior to registration. Students interested in performance must audition in the first week of each semester - invitations will be issued by the instructors within the add/drop period. The course will culminate with a fully supported public production, to be directed, managed, and advised by Theatre Studies faculty, serving as a capstone of integrated learning in the department.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required.
Instructor: Rainer, Towlun
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course may be repeated once for credit. THST 345 meets MTW 6.30-9.30 + tech/dress/performances.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This course is for the advanced theatre student who desires to put into practice the collaborative creative and research responsibilities of devising a one-act performance as an ensemble, centered around a collectively chosen theme. In '20-'21, live streaming technology will be utilized to develop work and ultimately connect with our audiences in real time online. Students will take inspiration from the multlimedia and physical strategies and training of renowned devised contemporary global theatre companies, whose work we will investigate. Students will learn how to build a production from physical impulse and observation, game, improvisation, research, sound and image collage, group gesture, collaborative writing, and more - and to learn to engage consistently with a design, tech and stage management team as co-creators. To prepare our students to become autonomous artists in the world, this course provides the opportunity to explore the creation of a performance event outside of text-driven theatre structures. To support this goal, students will receive the technical & training tools, ensemble rehearsal and individual assignments, concurrent critique, and an intensive structure within which to immerse themselves in the devising process.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Strong consideration will be given to students who have completed THST 204, THST 214H, THST 221, THST 306, THST 345, or equivalent.
Instructor: Rainer
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is for the advanced theatre student with previous acting/dance/production training. The expectation is that they will take on the collaborative creative and research responsibilities of devising a one-act performance as an ensemble by bringing their individual strengths to the process.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 10
Prerequisites: THST 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course explores the ways in which the body, as a reflection and construction of the self, is tied to social, cultural and political relations. Through this examination of the role that our bodies play in daily life we will delve into the study of gender, race, sexuality and power. We focus on several major areas: (1) after Roe and the medicalization of bodies (contraception, abortion, new reproductive technologies), (2) sex education and the Internet as sites of bodily learning (3) body work (nail salons, surrogacy) (4) the use of the body as a vehicle for performance, self-expression and identity (tattoos, getting dressed). Throughout the course we will discuss how ideas about bodies are transported across national borders and social, sexual and class hierarchies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: SOC 10 4Y
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Hertz
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Introduction to the interdisciplinary field of women's and gender studies with an emphasis on an understanding of the "common differences" that both unite and divide women. Beginning with an examination of how womanhood has been represented in myths, ads, and popular culture, the course explores how gender inequalities have been both explained and critiqued. The cultural meaning given to gender as it intersects with race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality will be studied. This course also exposes some of the critiques made by women's studies' scholars of the traditional academic disciplines and the new intellectual terrain currently being mapped.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Musto, Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes:
Some have argued that Elvis Presley was the greatest cultural force in twentieth-century America. This course will consider the early career of Elvis Presley as a unique window for the study of race, class, gender, and heteronormative sexuality in postwar popular American culture. Specifically, we will look at the blending of African American and other forms of musical style in Presley's music, the representation of masculinity and sexuality across a sampling of his films and television performances, and key cultural film texts from the 1950s, and we will end by evaluating Presley's lasting impact as a unique icon in American cultural history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Creef
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course introduces the interdisciplinary field of trans studies. We will explore the long history of gender-variant identities and the prevalence of gender diversity in America as well as global societies, leading to the development of "transgender" as a recent social category and phenomenon. In this course we examine the ongoing development of the concept of transgender as it is situated across social, cultural, historical, legal, medical, and political contexts. Drawing on this interdisciplinary framework, we will explore central questions posted by the field of transgender studies. What “natural,” “obvious,” or “timeless” ideas about gender, sex, and sexuality turn out to be none of those things? How does transgender politics intersect or diverge from feminist politics, queer politics, and anti-racist politics? How has transgender studies required that we re-conceptualize the ways we think about bodies, communities, medical science, and media representation? The readings and materials will reflect a range of voices, including diverse forms of scholarship like memoir and manifesto, as well as film, art, graphic novels, memes, and blog posts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Nordgren
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course explores love and intimacy in transnational context. In this course, we will examine the systems of meaning and practices that have evolved around notions of love and intimacy and investigate their broader political significance. We will further explore how love and intimacy are linked to economics, consumption practices, structural inequalities, disruptive technologies, and shifting ideas about subjectivity. If we accept that love, intimacy, and sexuality are socially constructed, how much agency do we exercise in whom we love and desire? How and in what ways do our experiences and expectations of love and intimacy shift as a result of economic arrangements, mobility, and technology? Finally, what, if any, ethical frameworks should mediate our intimate connections, desires, and labor with others?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Musto
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Health is a powerful manifestation of the economic, political and cultural substructures of society. This course uses a public health approach, a focus on health at the population level and attention in the distribution of disease, to explore the strategies related to and the power of health activism. Focusing on examples throughout U.S. history and in the present day, we will apply an intersectional lens to understand how inequalities (e.g. race, class, gender and sexual identity) are embodied via health and impact individuals and communities. Using a case study approach we will examine social movements (eg, AIDS activism, reproductive justice, workers’ rights), as well as structural efforts (eg, healthcare reform and legal challenges) to discuss collective struggles and successful strategies for transformation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken WGST 310.
Instructor: Agenor
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as WGST 310.
Feminist scholarship demonstrates that American family life needs to be viewed through two lenses: one that highlights the embeddedness of family in class, race, heteronormativity, gender inequalities and another that draws our attention to historical developments – such as the aftermath of World War 2, technologies and government social policies. In 2015 same-sex marriage became U.S. federal law; but at the same time fewer people are marrying and parenthood is delayed. Moreover, new reproductive technologies coupled with the Internet and the wish for intimacy is creating unprecedented families. Topics covered vary yearly but include: inequalities around employment, the home front and childcare; intensive motherhood, social class and cultural capital; welfare to work programs; immigrant families and the American Dream. Finally, we will explore new developments from adoption to gamete donors by same-sex or single-parent families and how science and technologies are facilitating the creation of new kinds of kin. A special feature of this class is looking at the relationship of families and social policy.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: SOC 20 5
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Hertz
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This multi-disciplinary course introduces a broad range of concepts and issues related to the highly diverse group we call “women” and their health with a primary focus on the United States. The class will cover three areas of inquiry. First, the course explores basic definitions, concepts, data, and narratives regarding women's health needs, status, and experiences, the social determinants of health, and women's health movements. Second, the course interrogates sexual and reproductive health as an intersection between health, gender, and broader social structures. Third, the course investigates current events as theaters or enduring patterns around women and health, such as healthcare reform, innovations in remote heath care delivery, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Agenor
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Feminist scholars have long recognized Denmark and Sweden as among the most gender equal, sexually progressive countries in the world. Bolstered by a strong welfare state and egalitarian values, Sweden and Denmark have been held up as prototypes for their cultivation of gender inclusive policies. The course will cover a range of topics, including sexual and reproductive markets, sex education, and changing configurations of family. We will also examine how both countries’ welfare states are influenced by markets and consider the extent to which national legislation in a moment of heightened mobility and globalization is equipped to transform societal norms, promote gender equality, and foster sexual freedom and reproductive justice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Hertz, Musto
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course proposes an analysis of popular cultural productions and the ways in which they represent Chicanxs and Latinxs. Cultural productions go beyond just entertaining an audience; they help to inform how we see ourselves and the world around us. These productions often support traditional stereotypes about marginalized groups. The course will encourage students to question the ways in which Chicanx/Latinxs are reduced to stereotypes that reinforce hierarchies of race and gender. By critically reading popular productions as analyzable cultural texts, we will ask: How do cultural productions perpetuate the "otherness" of Chicanx/Latinxs? What role does sexuality play in the representation of the Chicanx/Latinx subject? In what ways do cultural productions by Chicanx/Latinxs resist/challenge negative images?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Mata
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course serves as an introduction to Chicanx/Latinx theater and performance and the role that class, race, gender, and sexuality play in constructing identity on the stage. We will examine how members of the Chicanx/Latinx community-individuals often marginalized from mainstream theater productions-employ the public stage as a space for self-expression and resistance. Through an analysis of plays and theater/performance scholarship, we will identify common themes and important differences in the various productions. We will further consider how community, citizenship, and notions of belonging manifest themselves on the public arena of the stage. We will begin by studying the role of theater in the social justice movements of the 1960s and trace the changes that Chicanx/Latinx theater and performance have undergone in subsequent years.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Mata
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Traditional American medical history has emphasized the march of science and the ideas of the "great doctors" in the progressive improvement in American medical care. In this course, we will look beyond just medical care to the social and economic factors that have shaped the development of the priorities, institutions, and personnel in the health care system in the United States. We will ask how gender, race, class, and sexuality have affected the kind of care developed, its differential delivery, and the problems and issues addressed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: WGST 108 or WGST 120 or WGST 222, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What is the carceral state? What do girls, women, and transgender individuals’ experiences of policing and punishment in 21st century America reveal about its shifting dimensions? Despite public concerns about mass incarceration in the United States and calls for criminal justice reform, mainstream commentators rarely account for the gendered, racialized, and class dimensions of punishment, nor address the growing ranks of girls, women, poor and gender nonconforming individuals that experience carceral control and oversight. Interdisciplinary in scope, this course critically examines how race, gender, sexuality and class intersect and shape people’s experience with systems of punishment and control. It further explores the economic, social, and political factors that have influenced the development of the contemporary American carceral state and scholarly, activist, and artistic responses to it.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 20 1
Prerequisites: One WGST course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Melchor Hall
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Drawing upon feminist, queer, and social science theories of gender and sexuality, this course will examine transformations in the lives of cisgender and transgender people in a contemporary U.S. context. Particular emphasis will be placed on technology, inequality, and activist and scholarly agitations for social justice. Questions we will explore include: To what extent are categories of gender, sexuality, race and class socially constructed? How have our understandings of these categories shifted across time and space? How do networked and mobile technologies shape identities and alter individuals' understanding and performance of gender, sexuality, race and class? Finally, how are carceral politics, border policies, precarious labor arrangements and surveillance practices, among other topics, shaped by race, gender, sexuality, class and citizenship and to what extent are these intersecting positionalities leveraged in building movements for justice?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Musto
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
What is feminist research? What is feminist methods? This course addresses these questions by exploring a wide range of methods of interviewing, ethnography, surveys, archival research, focus groups, and participatory action research from a feminist perspective. The class introduces students to feminist approaches to research from across the humanities, natural and social sciences. The readings for the class explore topics of engaged research and feminist politics of knowledge production. The course focuses on situating multiple methods within feminist epistemologies, and critically examining self- reflectivity among researchers and the ways they influence research.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Hertz
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
What does consent have to do with politics and sexuality? From the “consent of the governed” to “affirmative consent,” notions of political and sexual agency and ethics develop in relation to consent. For example, much of the thinking about democracy and the exercise of bodily autonomy refers to consent. So, too, the contemporary feminist critique of rape culture advocates for the practice of affirmative, even enthusiastic, consent as an index of agency. We will ask: who can consent and, as importantly, who can withhold consent? Are all bodies, genders, and sexualities equally able to consent? We will read ancient and contemporary texts in order to gauge the historical scope of consent. We will spend some time with feminist theory from the 1980s that proposes new configurations of power, bodies, and pleasure, and explore how this work offers a counter discourse to neoliberal accounts of individual pleasure and risk. Sample texts: Anne Carson, Antigonick; C. Riley Snorton, Black on Both Sides; Judith Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly; Monique Wittig, The Lesbian Body; Sandra Lee Bartly, Femininity and Domination; Sarah Schulman, Conflict is Not Abuse.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: One WGST course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will offer a critical representation of bodies across science, society, and public health. We explore a variety of approaches to studying the body that challenge the Cartesian dualism, which splits the mind from the body. We also draw from feminist theories that examine the body in relation to race, gender, sexuality, and power. The course content shows how social values can have material and physiological effects on bodies and in turn how aesthetic and medical representations of the body reflect social values. While the class focuses primarily on examples in the U.S., we will include some cross-cultural examples that reveal how bodies change through social and historical forces. Students will gain a critical understanding for how conceptions of the body are important for understanding markets, beauty, reproduction, public health and biomedicine writ large.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Using examples from everyday life, this course investigates how preferences for certain technologies are shaped by social arrangements that reflect power relations, including genetic testing, social media, and the construction of a wall on the US/Mexico border.By considering the origins, materiality, and practices of use for a diverse range of technologies, from the telephone to the underwire bra, this course will interrogate the socio-political and ethical fallout of consumer and medical technologies. Within the context of this history of technology as a means of manipulating nature and maintaining control over groups of people, we will also consider how users, tinkerers, and hackers challenge and negotiate the meanings and usage of technology in ways that contradict the intended use.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A quarter century ago the Institute of Medicine defined the work of public health as "what we as a society do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy." Historically rooted in a commitment to social justice, U.S. public health is now renewing this commitment through 1) an epidemiological shift to examine the social, economic, and political inequities that create disparate health and disease patterns by gender, class, race, sexual identity, citizenship, etc., and 2) a corresponding health equity movement in public health practice. This broad-ranging course examines the debates shaping the above as well as the moral and legal groundings of public health, basic epidemiology, and the roles of public and private actors. Highlighted health topics vary year to year.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: PEAC 240
Prerequisites: Open to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Harrison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course will serve as an introduction to representations of Asian/American women in film beginning with silent classics and ending with contemporary social media. In the first half of the course, we examine the legacy of Orientalism, the politics of interracial romance, the phenomenon of "yellow face", and the different constructions of Asian American femininity, masculinity, and sexuality. In the second half of the course, we look at "Asian American cinema" where our focus will be on contemporary works, drawing upon critical materials from film theory, feminist studies, Asian American studies, history, and cultural studies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: CAMS 241
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Creef
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
How do we account for the many similarities and differences within and between human populations? Axes of human “difference”– sex, gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality – have profound consequences. These differences shape not only group affiliation and identity but have been shaped by colonial and national histories. They shape social structures such as socioeconomic status, professions, work mobility, as well as stereotypes about personal traits and behaviors. The biological sciences have been very important in the history of differences. Scientists have contributed to bolster claims that differences are determined by our biology – such as research on sex and racial differences, notions of the “gay” gene, math abilities, spatial ability etc. Conversely, scientists have also contributed to critiquing claims of difference – challenging the idea that sex, gender, race, sexuality are innate, and immutable. How do we weigh these claims and counterclaims? We will begin with a historical overview of biological studies on “difference” to trace the differing understandings of the “body” and the relationship of the body with identity, behavior and intellectual and social capacity. We will then examine contemporary knowledge on differences of sex, gender, race, class, and sexuality. Using literature from biology, anthropology, feminist studies, history and science studies, we will examine the biological and cultural contexts for our understanding of “difference.” How do we come to describe the human body as we do? What is good data? How do we “know” what we know? The course will give students the tools to analyze scientific studies, to understand the relationship of nature and culture, science and society, biology and politics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: WGST 254
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Van Arsdale, Subramaniam
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis; NPS - Natural and Physical Sciences
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In this course, we will explore the ways individuals and nations reconfigure their conceptions of sex, gender, and race due to globalization. We will explore transnational phenomena such as sex trafficking, sex tourism, and marriage migration. We will address questions such as: In an era of increasingly fast-paced and multifaceted globalization, how do we formulate sexual, gender, and racial identities across national and cultural boundaries? How do migrants renegotiate their gender, sexual, and racial identities in their new countries of residence? What motivates sex tourists to travel to other countries to form intimate relations? How do these sex tourists influence the sexual, gender, and racial identities of the local people they interact with?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course takes a critical perspective on the field of public health by applying a feminist lens to examine current health crises such as pandemics, police brutality, racism, and gender violence. Drawing on Black feminism and critical race studies we examine how logics of race/racism, gender binaries, and hierarchies of power and knowledge shape the ways in which public health concerns are defined and intervened upon. We explore emergent research topics that have only recently been framed as legitimate public health issues, such as gun control and policing. In order to understand how far the field has come in expanding its scope of study, and why it has taken this long, the course historically situates the field of public health within an intersectional framework. We end by examining past and present inspirations of how public health contributes to people’s well-being.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines how media constructs expressions of masculinity, femininity, and sexuality through normative and transgressive representations of gender and race within media. Through readings, screenings, and class discussions, we will examine how gender, sexuality, and race are constructed within a cultural domain of power that not only constitutes but also is constituted by the production, consumption, and interpretation of media.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines how LGBTQ+ individuals have been depicted in media. Grounded in queer theory and queer of color critique, the class charts the evolution of such depictions, mapping the progress media industries have made in representing LGBTQ+ people onscreen, while also thinking critically about the work still left to do. It asks the following questions: who has helmed these portrayals, both behind and in front of the camera? How have these different representational modes informed (ostensibly) straight audiences’ understandings of queer identities? How do these cinematic depictions of queerness impact members of the LGBTQ+ community?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course will offer a critical introduction to queer theory, a major theoretical framework within women’s and gender studies that emerges from the study of sex and sexuality as a guiding force in social and political life. The course will start with an expansive background on the history and development of queer theory, before exploring some of the key debates that continue to animate the field. Specifically, we will consider the complicated relationships between queer theory, feminist theory, and queer of color critique. Finally, the course will consider the relationship between queer theory and forms of queer expression in literature and culture, such as in Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir Fun Home and its musical adaptation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Staff
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The Japanese American incarceration experience during World War II has always had a vexed relationship with the camera. Cameras and other recording devices were banned in the camps until spring 1943. This course engages with the legacy of this incarceration experience in visual culture and American historical memory. Using a gendered lens, we look at how the camps have been documented and remembered in photography, film, graphic memoir, camp newspapers, museum exhibitions, and new media since 1942. We will closely examine the photography of Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Toyo Miyatake, the intersection of internment camps and Indigenous lands, women filmmakers and activists, and explore major digital archives and recent augmented reality installations focusing on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Creef
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Westerns, a complex category that includes not only films but also novels, photographs, paintings, and many forms of popular culture, have articulated crucial mythologies of American culture from the nineteenth century to the present. From Theodore Roosevelt to the Lone Ranger, myths of the Trans-Mississippi West have asserted iconic definitions of American masculinity and rugged individualism. Yet as a flexible, ever-changing genre, Westerns have challenged, revised, and subverted American concepts of gender and sexuality. Westerns have also struggled to explain a dynamic and conflictive "borderlands" among Native Americans, Anglos, Latinos, Blacks, and Asians. This team-taught, interdisciplinary course will investigate Westerns in multiple forms, studying their representations of the diverse spaces and places of the American West and its rich, complicated, and debated history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: AMST 274
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Creef, P. Fisher (American Studies)
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
AIDS changed how we live our lives, and this course looks at writings tracing the complex, sweeping ramifications of the biggest sexual-health crisis in world history. This course looks at diverse depictions and genres of H.I.V./AIDS writing, including Pulitzer Prize-winning plays like Angels In America and bestselling popular-science "contagion narratives" like And the Band Played On; independent films like Greg Araki's The Living End and Oscar-winning features and documentaries like Philadelphia, Precious, and How to Survive a Plague. We will read about past controversies and ongoing developments in AIDS history and historiography. These include unyielding stigma and bio-political indifference, met with activism, service, and advocacy; transforming biomedical research to increase access to better treatments, revolutionizing AIDS from death sentence to chronic condition; proliferating "moral panics" about public sex, "barebacking," and "PrEP" (pre-exposure prevention), invoking problematic constructs like "Patient Zero," "being on the Down Low," "party and play" subculture, and the "Truvada whore"; and constructing a global bio-political apparatus ("AIDS Inc.") to control and protect populations. We will look at journal articles, scholarly and popular-science books (excerpts), as well as literary and cinematic texts. Also some archival materials from ACT UP Boston, the activist group. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: WGST 294
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: González
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In the U.S. more women than men live in poverty. This class will highlight how income inequality and the disproportion of wealth are gendered and racialized, impacting women of color at higher rates. Throughout the course we will examine how such economic processes as globalization and such ideologies as neoliberalism influences employment, labor, wages, health, social life, families, and other societal structures. Applying feminist theories, we will also contextualize the life experiences of women of color from their perspectives and question dominant ideals that perpetuate the concept of meritocracy. We will also engage and learn about the different ways women of color resist economic inequality through life skills and strategies, activism, and social movements.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Social understandings of the relationship between human health and the environment are visible and malleable in moments of crisis, from industrial disasters, weather-related catastrophes, and political conflict, as everyday events like childbirth and routine sickness. But these understandings vary dramatically across time and community. This course addresses the complex dynamics at work in the representations of and responses to health and the environment that emerge during moments of crisis. By studying the way these constructions are shaped by social, political, technological, and moral contexts, we will analyze the role of nature, knowledge, ethics and power in such contemporary problems as human migration, hunger, debility, and disease. The class will together consider the meaning of crisis and how it is shaped by social systems such as gender, sexuality, ability, class, and race.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ES 30 2
Prerequisites: Open to Sophomores, Juniors or Seniors or by permission of the instructor. A 200 level WGST course is recommended.
Instructor: Harrison
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course provides an in-depth analysis of how the formative scholarship of the 1990s not only continues to impact the field of WGST today, but also animates popular social and political debates happening in the world around us. It explores the misunderstood ideologies at the center of contemporary controversies like the “don’t say gay” Florida bill, or bans on critical race theory, by returning to the WGST texts that pioneered these frameworks. Covering topics like gender performativity, intersectionality, queer theory, cultural theory, reproductive justice, transgender theory, and U.S. Third World Feminisms, this course takes a deep dive into all things 1990s to help students understand how the recent past informs the politics of today.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: WGST 120 and one 200 level WGST course. Open to Juniors and Seniors only.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A feminist cultural studies approach to the representation of race, class, gender and sexuality in film, photography, and art featuring Native Americans. This course examines the longstanding legacy of the Hollywood Western and its depiction of "reel injuns" before exploring the rich history of Native American self-representation and visual sovereignty in film and culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Recommended for Juniors and Seniors with background in WGST, AMST, or CAMS.
Instructor: Creef
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
More women leaders are in work settings and public office than any prior point in history. However, the fraction of women who are CEOs, board members of major corporations, heads of state and elected representatives in global assemblies remains shockingly small by comparison to the sheer numbers of women workers, consumers, and family decision makers. This course will examine the way that gender, race, and class shape women's access to positions of leadership and power at work. Questions to be considered include: (1) Why are there so few women leaders in work settings? (2) What can we learn about leadership from women who have achieved it? Four modules for the course are (1) Strategies developed by women who lead; (2) Efforts to achieve parity through policies, e.g., glass ceilings, affirmative action; (3) Tensions between work, family and carework; and (4) Profiles of Productive Rule Breakers. Students will research women leaders in all sectors and countries.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: SOC 30 6
Prerequisites: Open to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors. Priority will be given to SOC and WGST majors and minors.
Instructor: Hertz
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course examines Techno-Orientalism as a global science fiction genre in literature, film, and social media to understand the broad historical and social formations of Otherness, Aliens, Citizenship, and Immigration. We also study racial assumptions in popular culture, discourses of the human and human rights, science and technology industries, and anti-Asian violence during the global pandemic. Finally, we also interrogate the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, and geopolitical divisions and interactions in Asian/American Studies and Postcolonial Studies from the past to the present.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Recommended for juniors or seniors with background in WGST, Asian American Studies, CAMS, Media Arts, East Asian Studies.
Instructor: Creef
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Epidemics and pandemics lay bare the economic, political and cultural substructures of society. The history of changing explanations for infectious diseases dictate differing responses by health personnel and governmental entities. The seminar explores the intersectional aspects of race, gender, class, and sexuality that shape reactions and efforts to contain disease. Epidemics to be explored include plague, syphilis, smallpox, cholera, polio, HIV/AIDS, flu and COVID-19.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: One WGST course at the 200 level or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken WGST 210.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as WGST 210, though not always in the same semester/year.
This course examines the politics facing contemporary U.S. families and potential policy directions at the State and Federal Levels. Discussion of the transformation of American families including changing economic and social expectations for parents, inequality between spouses, choices women make about children and employment, daycare and familial care giving, welfare and underemployment, and new American dreams will be explored. Changing policies regarding welfare and teen pregnancy will also be examined as part of government incentives to promote self-sufficient families. Expanding family (i.e. single mothers by choice, lesbian/gay/trans families) through the use of new reproductive technologies is emphasized as examples of legislative reform and the confusion surrounding genetic and social kinship is explored. Comparisons to other contemporary societies will serve as foils for particular analyses. Students will learn several types of research methodologies through course assignments. Student groups will also produce an original social policy case.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: SOC 311
Prerequisites: One 100 level and one 200 level course in either WGST or Sociology. Open to Juniors and Seniors; to Sophomores by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hertz
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This is a supervised, independent fieldwork project resulting in a research paper, documentary, policy initiative, creative arts presentation, or other research product. This project, developed in conjunction with a WGST faculty member, will have a significant experiential component focusing on women's lives and/or gender. Students may (1) work in an organization, (2) work with activists or policy makers on social change issues or social policy issues, or (3) design their own fieldwork experience.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to majors or minors only. Permission of the instructor required.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
This seminar is structured as a critical engagement of transnational feminism(s) in a global context. In this course, we will explore how neoliberal globalization, human rights discourses and an intersecting array of complexes — including those of a humanitarian, non-profit, and prison industrial variety - dually shape and constrain agitations for justice across national, political, and technological borders and boundaries. We will further track how and in what ways ideas about different feminism(s), women's, LGBTQ, transgender and human rights, and paradigms of justice travel across borders, shape systems of response, and promote and/or ameliorate the vulnerability and life opportunities of particular bodies located within particular geopolitical contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One course in WGST.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course.
What are ethnographic methods? And what is feminist ethnography? This course addresses these questions by exploring the method of ethnography from a feminist perspective. The class grounds ethnographic methods in anthropology and explores examples from across the social sciences. The readings for the class explore topics of engaged research and feminist politics of knowledge production. The course focuses on situating ethnographic methods within feminist epistemologies, and critically examining ethnographic examples by attending to race, gender, and power.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: One WGST Course or one 100 level STEM course. Open to Juniors and Seniors; to Sophomores by permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
This course focuses on the politics of human reproduction which is inextricably linked with nation states, as well as cultural norms and expectations. Reproductive issues and debates serve as proxies for more fundamental questions about the intersecting inequalities of citizenship, gender, race, class, disability and sexuality. What does reproductive justice look like? We will discuss how the marketplace, medical technologies and the law are critical to creating social hierarchies that are produced, resisted and transformed. We ask: Why is access critical to control for the use of fertility technologies (both pre-and during pregnancy), gamete purchase, egg freezing? How is each accomplished and by whom? How are new technologies in reproduction coupled with the global marketplace creating a social hierarchy between people (e.g. gamete donors, gestational carriers). Finally, what is the relationship between the commercialization of reproduction and the creation of new intimacies and forms of kinship? The course emphasizes both empirical research situated in the U.S. and research involving transnational flows.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: SOC 322
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors only; must be a WGST or SOC major or minor or a junior or senior who has taken WGST 211/SOC 205.
Instructor: Hertz
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This course examines literatures that challenge the construction of borders, be they physical, ideological, or metaphoric. The theorizing of the border, as more than just a material construct used to demarcate national boundaries, has had a profound impact on the ways in which Chicana/Latinas have written about the issue of identity and subject formation. We will examine how the roles of women are constructed to benefit racial and gender hierarchies through the policing of borders and behaviors. In refusing to conform to gender roles or hegemonic ideas about race or sexuality, the Chicana and Latina writers being discussed in the course illustrate the necessity of crossing the constructed boundaries of identity being imposed by the community and the greater national culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Any WGST 100-level course and WGST 200-level course or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Mata
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
The stories we tell about the world make certain futures possible, while foreclosing other imaginable ones. This course reveals how Western historical, theoretical, and scientific ways of knowing understood both women and nature as inferior and thus needing to be controlled. Pushing back against the ideas of any inherent binary separations between sex/gender and nature/culture, we will examine feminist ecological possibilities for planetary futures. Learning from the intertwined histories of environment, race, and gender, that have led to both personal and global inequity and disaster, we will also engage solutions that imagine different futures. Recognizing that solutions to environmental problems require a feminist attunement, we can start to understand the implications that our ethical commitments have to the future of life on the planet.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ES 328
Prerequisites: Any WGST 200-level course or ES-200-level course. Juniors and Seniors only.
Instructor: Subramaniam
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In 2015 a global movement began at the University of Cape Town to decolonize education, research, and tackle institutional racism in academia. This course gives students an introductory engagement of decolonial research practices. Decolonizing research and knowledge means to center the concerns and perspectives of non-Western individuals on theory and research. Thus, this course will be a process of “unlearning” social and scientific standards that we have taken as universal, resisting coloniality in academic production of knowledge, and moving research into action. This course will broadly discuss research methods and praxis in social sciences and in public health/medicine.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: WGST 332
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Franklin
Distribution Requirements: EC - Epistemology and Cognition
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
From Hollywood’s casting couches, to the Copenhagen City Hall and the highest echelons of the French media establishment, to the feminists in Mexico and Argentina and the demands of those in Japan, Iran, and Egypt, the #MeToo movement has raised a global wave of protests against sexual abuse. The expression of women’s voices has been undeniably transformed since the hashtag's emergence, but the aims and results of the movement, and the consequences faced by those accused, have varied from place to place. Students will consider #MeToo from a comparative and multilingual perspective, analyzing texts and media from around the globe, in a collective effort to grasp how culture, language, and nation condition the international struggle for women’s rights.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Crosslisted Courses: WGST 336
Prerequisites: At least one Language & Literature course at the 200-level in any modern language department or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Bilis
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Every three years
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Feminist scholars, activists, and community organizers have been at the forefront of the US and transnational abolitionist movement to address structural violence, including but not limited to violence that occurs in jails, prisons, and immigration detention facilities. Anti-carceral feminists share a broad commitment to divesting in carceral systems and resisting racist ideologies and carceral feminist projects fueling the “global prison industrial complex.” Anti-carceral feminist efforts have culminated in a rich yet understudied body of work animated by intersectional and transnational insights. Interdisciplinary in scope, this seminar explores anti-carceral feminist research and activism in the United States and transnationally. In addition to engaging with anti-carceral feminist research, this seminar will explore abolitionist feminist methods and organizing strategies to facilitate safety, accountability, and transformative justice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: WGST 120 and WGST 221, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Musto
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Grounded in feminist and critical race theory, this course provides students with the theoretical and historical backgrounds so that they can critically consider contemporary feminist movements and their lineage to early feminist activism and theory. The class considers how social media platforms and technological infrastructure enables contemporary digital activism. Contemporary movements the course will explore include Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Women's March, Reproductive Justice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: WGST 120 and one 200 level course. Open to Juniors and Seniors only.
Instructor:
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Equine cultural studies has become one of the most exciting fields to emerge out of Critical Animal Studies for how it looks at the intersection of humans and horses across histories, cultures, and the humanities. This seminar will provide an introduction to Equine Cultural Studies through the lens of feminist studies in its focus on the boundaries between horses and humans. Some of the questions we explore include: Did Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877) inspire the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention Against Cruelty to Animals as well as the backlash against Victorian women’s corsets? Is there a feminist way to ride a horse? How does feminist thought offer a unique interrogation of race, flesh, and femaleness that sheds new light on equine studies? How has the horse been an integral partner in therapeutic healing in both Native and Indigenous communities as well as in non-Native communities?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ES 343
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. At least one course in either WGST or ES or ANTH 240 is recommended. This course is intended for juniors and seniors.
Instructor: Creef
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: WGST 360 and permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
This course will teach you the basic tools and concepts of narrative theory, a branch of literary theory that focuses on stories and story-telling. Using short stories as our primary examples, we will consider how analyzing narratives can provide deeper insight into questions of social justice and injustice, including racial, class, and gender difference as well as global distributions of inequality.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open only to first-year students.
Instructor: Y. Lee
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course satisfies the First-Year Writing requirement and counts as a unit toward the English major.
Why does art matter? Because images, sculptures and buildings shape our ways of understanding our world and ourselves. Learning how to look closely and analyze what you see, therefore, is fundamental to a liberal arts education. Within a global frame, this course provides an introduction to art and its histories through a series of case studies, from Egypt's Queen Nefertiti to Jean-Michel Basquiat's raw street art. Meeting three times weekly, each section will draw on the case studies to explore concepts of gender and race, nature and landscape, culture and power, repatriation, and other issues. Assignments focus on developing analytical and expressive writing skills and will engage with the rich resources of Wellesley College and of Boston's art museums. The course fulfills both the Writing requirement and the ARTH 100 requirement for art history, architecture, and studio majors.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Lynn-Davis
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: This course satisfies the First-Year Writing requirement and counts as a unit toward the major in Art History, Architecture, or Studio Art. Includes a third session each week.
We are living in an age of unprecedented access to information and have the means for immediate communication, thanks to advances in technology. Connecting to this virtual, ceaselessly changing world, however, often means turning away from the physical realm and prioritizing immediate reaction over thoughtful reflection. In this interdisciplinary course, we will investigate the boundless opportunities, and the real challenges, of living and writing in the age of distraction. How do we understand one another and ourselves as we toggle between the virtual and physical worlds? How do we create meaningful ideas and united communities? How does the reading and writing we do in the classroom inform what we read and write on social media, and vice versa? Students will consider these questions as they study literature, art, psychology, and technology, and as they explore both virtual spaces and physical ones, including the Wellesley campus and other area locales.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: H. Bryant
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course will provide extra academic support and intensive preparation for the demands of writing at the college level. It is appropriate for students who have not done much academic writing in English in high school, or who lack confidence in their writing. No letter grades given.
This course will approach the life and work of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg as a springboard for thinking about the experiences of Jewish women—especially those in the legal profession—in the 20th- and 21st-century U.S. We will read texts in several genres and disciplines, including histories of anti-Semitism and misogyny in American law, oral histories of female Jewish legal pioneers, and Justice Ginsberg’s own opinions and dissents. In addition, the course will use Justice Ginsberg’s career and experiences as a framework for examining broader issues at the intersection of feminism and popular culture. This will give us the chance to explore representations of her in various media such as Tumblr, children’s books, and Saturday Night Live.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open only to First-year students.
Instructor: Lambert
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course satisfies the First-Year Writing requirement and counts as a unit towards a major in Jewish Studies. Includes a third session each week.
Wellesley's mission is to educate those "who will make a difference in the world." In this course, we will study some of Wellesley's change-makers and learn about the College's role in shaping American higher education, promoting student wellness, advancing gender equality, influencing global politics, and improving public health. We will also examine the world that is Wellesley, with special emphasis on its historic buildings and unique landscape. Students will gain a deep understanding of Wellesley's story and their place in it, and they will practice making a difference in the world through their own writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Jeannine Johnson
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course will provide extra academic support and intensive preparation for the demands of writing at the college level. It is appropriate for students who have not done much academic writing in English in high school, or who lack confidence in their writing. No letter grades given.
How have writers and artists in the U.S. used the power of words, images, and sound to promote social change? We will explore this question by examining an array of texts within their specific cultural contexts, including abolitionist narratives, intersectional feminist theory, and contemporary art from the Davis Museum. Students will analyze the rhetorical strategies of these works of protest literature, assessing their influence on laws, social practices, and cultural values. Students will also practice protest as they write for the change they want to see in the world today.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: E. Battat
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course will provide extra academic support and intensive preparation for the demands of writing at the college level. Section 01 is appropriate for students who have not done much academic writing in English in high school, or who lack confidence in their writing. Section 02 is reserved for students participating in the Wellesley Plus Program. No letter grades given.
This course will start with the premise that food is an essential ingredient in the making of selves, families, communities, regions, and nations. We will explore the ways that we celebrate food traditions, create new habits and tastes, and also respond to food problems (e.g. food scarcity and safety, climate change and land use, and the complex networks of food producers, servers, and consumers). Our readings will draw from a variety of different fields and perspectives, including literature, history, anthropology, and environmental studies, as well as various genres of food writing - the personal essay, the recipe, food blogs and podcasts, and scholarly essays on the intersections between food and culture.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Brubaker
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Reserved for students participating in the Wellesley Plus Program. No letter grades given.
As college in the US becomes increasingly expensive and competitive, it’s worth asking what role institutions of higher education play in our society. Do they promote equity and equality? Do they transform or preserve the status quo? Do we prioritize their value as a private or as a public good, that is, as something that benefits the individual, or as something that the public invests in for some broader social goal? Students will read and write about the work of political theorists and educators in order to consider what the political and social mission of the university should be. We will also investigate the business of higher education, examining what happens when a college’s financial considerations might conflict with its educational mission. Other topics we’ll explore include the public financing of college, student debt, practices of for-profit universities, and the size of college endowments.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Krontiris
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course will provide extra academic support and intensive preparation for the demands of writing at the college level. It is appropriate for students who have not done much academic writing in English in high school, or who lack confidence in their writing. No letter grades given.
American women often hear messages that they can "have it all"--a meaningful career, a loving family, and a fulfilling personal life. Yet popular culture is also filled with images of working mothers as stressed-out and miserable. In this course we will examine the highly varied aspirations, opportunities, and experiences of American women as they relate to work. We will consider some of the advice high-powered professional women have given to college graduates looking to advance their careers and "balance" that ambition with family life. We will read memoirs of low-wage earners, including many single mothers, about the particular challenges they face, and the limits that discrimination and systemic inequities place on their personal and professional goals. We will also explore what social scientists have to say about how cultural norms and economic markets generate the opportunities and constraints that women face. Finally, we will analyze how public policy at the local and national level influences the choices women and families face, and how those choices affect society more broadly.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Velenchik
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course examines how different communities commemorate racial conflict in U.S. history, and how these historical memories operate as instruments of political power in the present. How do the stories we tell about the past impact policy decisions, social values, and collective identity? How do historical narratives support those in power, and are these narratives countered and contested? To explore these questions, students will examine a range of texts and cultural artifacts, including monuments, museum exhibits, landscapes, images, stories, and digital media. Students will build skills in analytical writing and scholarly research as they investigate the complex interplay between past and present.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: E. Battat
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
"Boy meets girl" has long been a classic starting point, in both literature and the movies. This course will focus on romantic comedy in American cinema, with significant looks backward to its literary sources. We will view films from the classic era of Hollywood (It Happened One Night, The Lady Eve), the revisionist comedies of the 1970s and beyond (Annie Hall, My Best Friend's Wedding), and perhaps some of the decidedly unromantic comedies of recent years (Knocked Up). We will also read one or two Shakespeare plays, and a Jane Austen novel, to get a sense of the literary precedents that established the paradigms within which cinematic comedy operates.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Shetley
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: No letter grades given.
Behind every name there is a story. In this course, we will explore those stories, learning the history and meaning of the labels that we affix to people, places, and things. We will pay particular attention to the power, responsibility, and consequences that come with naming and re-naming. We will examine recent controversies on college campuses involving the names of buildings, monuments, mascots, local flora, and landmarks. We will also study how the producers of all kinds of things–from poems to consumer products–use metaphor and neologism to refresh our understanding of the familiar, introduce us to the unfamiliar, and name the unnameable. In addition, we will explore how names and name changes can frame political discourse, sway opinion, influence behavior, and alter history.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Jeannine Johnson
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
We will read a diverse range of modern science fiction stories with an aim toward understanding how these texts represent, critique, and imagine alternatives to existing social, political, economic, and environmental conditions. Through stories by writers such as Ray Bradbury, Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and Ted Chiang, we will explore how science fiction reimagines and challenges traditional ideas about ourselves, complicating easy distinctions between mind and body, human and machine, alien and native, self and other.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Brubaker
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Helen of Troy was a mythological beauty who was trafficked among men at the direction of the goddess Aphrodite, and she’s been held responsible for the outbreak of the Trojan War. Her character is usually defined as an object of desire (eros), and she is often seen as a passive figure at the center of larger events. Yet her role in ancient literature extends far beyond this objectification: she is at various times presented as a poet, a desiring subject, a metaphor for seduction, and a symbol for Athenian imperialism. In this course, students will encounter representations of Helen including those written by Homer, Sappho, Gorgias and Euripides. We will explore how these writers approached or avoided the interior experience of Helen, and what kind of agency and responsibility they attributed to her. As we study the complex persona of Helen, we will engage with contemporary approaches to understanding gender in ancient Greece. We will also explore the construction of eros, and how it relates to subjectivity, persuasion, and politics.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Gilhuly
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: No letter grades given.
When fiction blurs or crosses the line between our "real" world and "other worlds," the reader (as well as the narrator or main character) has entered the realm of "weird fiction," a genre that (broadly interpreted) contains "horror," "fairy tale," "science fiction," and "magical realism." We will read, write about, and write some of our own "weird" short stories by twentieth-century and twenty-first writers from all over the world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open only to First-Year students.
Instructor: Sides
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Fascinating cultural practices are found not only in far-off places but are also embedded in the stories of our everyday lives. From our families and friends to taxi drivers and grocery clerks, everyone's personal history has something to teach us. Written accounts of culture (called ethnographies) are created from these narratives of how people live their lives. What extraordinary stories of culture are hidden in local, everyday places? What does it mean to write someone else's story? Or our own? What can we learn about culture by translating oral histories into words? With the understanding that some of the most interesting stories about human culture are told in our own backyards, we will approach writing through ethnographic storytelling, using our life experiences as our subject.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: J. Armstrong
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Ann E. Maurer '51 Speaking Intensive Course. Wendy Judge Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Living Laboratory course. This course does not satisfy the Natural and Physical Sciences Laboratory requirement. Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
Have you ever wondered why some places evoke strong emotions, or why particular locations are charged with powerful meaning? Through the lenses of cultural geography and anthropology, this course explores the complex relationship between human beings, their emotions, and their environment. Key questions include: How can feelings for the places from our past and present be written into words? What are the qualities of a place that evoke certain emotions and memories? How do our memories of places change over time? What effect do collective memories have on individual remembrances? By reading memoirs, cultural histories, and critical essays, students learn how space and place can be translated into texts. Students will create their own written geographies of memory and analyze popular conceptions of space and place.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: J. Armstrong
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: No letter grades given.
In medieval Europe, biographies of saints were one of the most popular forms of literature, providing readers and listeners with examples of saintly behavior to emulate and sinful actions to avoid. More importantly the biographies narrated the lives of some of the most important members of medieval society. Whether living or dead, saints were seen as liminal beings able to move between this world and the next, communicating God’s will to their fellow Christians and harnessing divine power to perform miracles. This course will examine the lives of a diverse group of male and female saints from the Middle Ages (c. 300-1300 C. E.), utilizing the sacred biographies both as a means for understanding medieval society and as a springboard for addressing larger issues connected to the aims and function of biographical writing and the question of whether or not an “objective” biography is ever possible.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Ramseyer
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
In this course, we will examine the role that work plays in contemporary life and investigate how the value and experience of working get shaped by modern capitalism. We’ll start by reflecting on the character of the 21st century “gig” economy: Does working now mean something fundamentally different than it did for previous generations? Are we really working harder for less reward, as some argue? Is the recommendation to “pursue your passion” good advice? Next, we’ll examine theoretical perspectives on work, looking at how capitalism shapes the relationship between people and their work, how it structures our relationship to time and leisure, and how it codes certain forms of work as gendered labor. Last, we’ll take up questions about workers’ rights, worker power, and the extent to which we have a responsibility, as a society, to ensure stable and fulfilling work for all. This course asks students to think about the problem of work in both personal and structural terms, considering how it features in their own lives and how it reflects the larger social structures within which our lives play out.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Krontiris
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
“Free time is shackled to its opposite,” writes the critic Theodor Adorno. In a world full of incessant demands for productivity, our free time, he observed, never feels truly free. We’re always watching the clock, trying to get the most out of our workday and then using our down time to ready ourselves to work again. We may be managing our time, but we don’t really own it. This course asks: what does it mean to live your life ‘on the clock’, and what might it look like to get ‘off’ of it? What would make your time feel like it is genuinely your own? We’ll seek answers to these questions first by exploring the issue of time management, reading theories about how to do it as well as histories and critiques of the impulse to maximize your time. Next, we’ll take up political and theoretical perspectives on how capitalism shapes our relationship to time. We’ll discuss where we get the idea that time is money and something we can spend or save. We’ll also consider what it means that our time is something we can sell and that someone else can own, and we’ll ask what the stakes are of commodifying time that way. Last, we’ll examine the idea and practice of leisure and explore what it takes for free time to be truly free.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Krontiris
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
In this seminar, we will explore how the human body was represented in medieval writing. We will also investigate how medieval authors considered the human body metaphorically as its own kind of text, or as the medium within which society’s codes and values are written. Together we will trace enduring themes associated with the body, such as: the relationship between the soul and the flesh; food and self-image; the tensions of the sexed body (gender, power, and sexuality); the political meaning of fashion and clothing; rituals connected to illness and death; and the link between human and the divine. The authors we will read include poets and philosophers, lawyers and monks, mystics and wanderers. By studying their work, we will trace how perceptions of the body shifted throughout medieval societies, and learn how medieval understandings of the body have shaped our own modern perceptions of it.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Surh
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
“The personal is political” is a feminist rallying cry. It affirms, among other things, that we act and write out of our subjectivity, and that identity and politics are inseparable. In this course, we will explore our own relationships to sociopolitical matters such as reproductive rights, immigration and migration, prison abolition, environmental justice, and citizenship. We will also investigate the power structures that influence these areas and that make them resistant to meaningful change. Using This Bridge Called My Back: Writings from Radical Women of Color as our inspiration and guide, we will develop the critical thinking and writing skills needed to transform sociopolitical systems and to assert the value of our lives in them.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Maurissette
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: No letter grades given (Fall); Mandatory Credit/Non Credit (Spring)
We are supposed to offer gifts without expecting anything in return; we are urged to give our best effort for the good of ourselves and others; we are born with, develop, and use our gifts in a range of contexts. But what, exactly, is a gift? In this course, we will explore perspectives on gifts in literature, religious texts, economic theories, and cultural criticism. We will consider questions such as: Why do we give things away? Are we morally obligated to use our resources or natural talents for the greater good? How do we decide who is worthy of a gift with no strings attached, and who must earn a subsidy or repay a benefactor? How does America’s reliance on philanthropy reinforce structural inequities? How do norms of generosity and reciprocity persist in a culture defined by contracts and debts? Can we imagine a society without money and based instead on a principle of giving?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Moe
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: No letter grades given (Fall); Mandatory Credit/Non Credit (Spring).
In this course, we will examine Black feminist essays and speculative fiction as resources for thinking about the future of feminism and its impact on the broader culture. These texts are helping to shift paradigms of what is understood by the term “feminism”. They also contain critical information that students need not just to survive but thrive in the future. We will discuss how these works offer new ways to think about kinship, gender, reproductive rights, abolition, and representations of selfhood. In addition, they will provide a springboard for looking inward to our own lives and perspectives, as we explore how writing, reading, and action are influenced by the personal. Indeed, if the “personal is political,” as Audre Lorde aptly stated, then what we write from our own experience can shape and change our world.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open only to first-year students.
Instructor: Maurissette
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: No Letter Grades Given (Fall); Mandatory Credit/Non Credit (Spring)
What makes a world? And what makes a world beautiful, sustainable, inclusive, or just? At a time when humanity faces myriad global challenges, we can seek insight in writing that reimagines the world and helps us change it for the better. Reading the work of activists, philosophers, fiction writers, and political theorists, we will examine how past worlds shape those of the present and future. In particular, we will investigate the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in these different visions of the world, asking questions such as: Who enjoys freedom, and when? What is a “human right,” and should those rights be the basis of social organization? In what ways has the nation-state been a force for emancipation, and in what ways a vehicle of empire? What would it look like to live in a world that was fully feminist in its design, or that was built on reparations for past injustices, or that prioritizes the health of the planet above all? What are the conditions necessary for individuals and societies to undergo transformation, improve, and thrive?
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Moe
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: No letter grades given.
Documentary film makes an implicit promise to its viewers to present reality. In this course, we explore the complexities of this promise by examining the interplay between objective fact and the documentarian’s subjective presentation of fact. Such an exploration will take us into questions concerning how we think about the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’ on film and beyond. We will also consider what documentarians owe to those who appear in their films and what ethical standards should apply to documentarians. Films (documentary and otherwise) may include Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line, Albert and David Maysles’ Grey Gardens and its fictional feature film offspring (starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange), Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, Jian Fan’s Still Tomorrow, Nicole Lucas Haimes’ Chicken People, Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning and Sara Jordenö and Twiggy Pucci Garçon’s Kiki.
This class requires active and sustained participation from each student and will be speaking intensive; students will be supported in developing participation skills and guided to additional resources as needed.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: Rodensky
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: No letter grades given.
Since the earliest days of public competition, sports have shaped conversations about social relations, power structures, and cultural values. Athletic performances express who we are individually and collectively, embodying the stories we tell about ourselves. This course explores how sports both reflect and influence our understandings of race, gender, class, sexuality, nation, ability/disability, religion, and more. We’ll examine these subjects through the lens of major events like the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Super Bowl, and the Boston Marathon, and of sports ranging from soccer to figure skating to wheelchair basketball. We’ll consider how art, commerce, and politics mingle on the athletic stage. We’ll compare sports and the performing arts, thinking about the narratives that we construct from these events and the role that spectators play in shaping them.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years only.
Instructor: A. Meyer
Degree Requirements: WFY - First Year Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
This course will help students become more confident and proficient in the writing that they do at Wellesley and beyond. Students will design an individualized syllabus around a topic of interest to them and focus on the areas of writing in which they most want to improve. Building on what they learned in their 100-level WRIT course, students will become more adept at working with sources, developing their thinking, and communicating their ideas clearly and purposefully. There will be two class meetings per week. In one, all students will meet as a group with the professor, engaging in writing workshops and discussing some short common readings. In the second meeting, students will meet individually with a TA to discuss readings on their own topic and to work on their writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the First-Year Writing requirement.
Instructor: H. Bryant (Fall); E. Battat (Spring)
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit
This course will examine the recent, dramatic rise in the number of women writing and publishing essays. This new wave of literary production, driven in part by the spirit of the #metoo movement, has inspired Cheryl Strayed to call it the essay’s “golden age.” By studying the works of contemporary prose writers, we will explore the causes and effects of this phenomenon. We will also investigate how women are using and re-shaping the essay to foreground their experience and to confront difficult topics such as rape, harassment, abuse, and shaming. Throughout, we will be mindful of the range of identities that are sometimes or always women-centered, and we will read essays by authors who are cisgender, transgender, and gender non-conforming. The rise of all these voices is changing our literary and social landscape, and it is even shifting the form of the essay itself. Students will study this movement and contribute to it through their own writing.
Wellesley Online courses are designed to be highly interactive and encourage group discussion; they require participation through live online class meetings throughout the semester, as well as work in a collaborative environment.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the First-Year Writing requirement. Students who have taken WRIT 391 must receive permission of the instructor to enroll in this course.
Instructor: H. Bryant
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Open to qualified students who have fulfilled the First-Year Writing requirement. Permission of the instructor and the director of the Writing Program required.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 30
Prerequisites: Open to qualified students who have fulfilled the First-Year Writing requirement. Permission of the instructor and the director of the Writing Program required.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Do you like to "people watch"? Do you wish you could translate your real-world experiences into narratives that are readable and relatable, and also intellectually rigorous? If so, you probably have an ethnographic writer hiding somewhere inside you, and this class will give them the opportunity to emerge. Ethnography, a “written document of culture,” has long been a key component of a cultural anthropologist’s tool-kit, and scholars in other fields have recently begun to take up this practice. We will read classic and contemporary ethnographies to better understand the theoretical and practical significance of these texts. Students will also have the unique opportunity to be the authors and subjects of original ethnographic accounts, and at various stages in the semester they will act as anthropologists and as informants. Although this course will emphasize an anthropological method, it is appropriate for students from various disciplines who are looking to expand their research skills and develop new ways to engage in scholarly writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: ANTH 277
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the First-Year Writing requirement. Not open to First-Year students.
Instructor: Armstrong
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course supports senior McNair Program Scholars as they prepare to apply to graduate schools and post-baccalaureate programs. Students will become more confident, effective writers as they produce drafts of personal statements, fellowship applications, and other scholarly materials. Students in this course will engage in professional development activities, practice communicating their scientific knowledge and research results to different audiences, and gain the benefits of being part of a community of scholars. Open only to seniors participating in the McNair Scholars Program.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 18
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Fulfillment of the First-Year Writing requirement. Open only to Seniors enrolled in the McNair Scholars Program.
Instructor: Jeannine Johnson, J. Dolce
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
The growing field of data humanism recognizes data as foundational to our economic, political, and social systems, while also seeking to recenter people in the process of its curation. In this course, we will explore the use of data through a humanistic lens, not only to better understand the critical role data plays in our lives, but also to discover how we can use data to become more humane. We will ask: if the word data comes from the Latin root for “the thing given,” by and to whom is it given? When exactly did data get “big”? What do we mean when we identify projects as “data-driven”? How can data intersect with social justice activism? And with art and storytelling? Students will engage these questions by drawing on the work of historians, cultural critics, journalists, social scientists, data analysts and designers, performing their own data tracking, and using their research to craft opinion pieces, reviews, reports, and other forms of public writing.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Brubaker
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
Margaret Atwood professes that, “A word after a word after a word is power.” Propelled by the #MeToo movement, LeanIn, and the women’s march, women are baring their truths, beliefs, and experiences in an explosion of public words. In this seminar students will become immersed in the dynamic contemporary landscape of women’s writing, spanning memoir, poetry, journalism, and political commentary. Within an intimate workshop setting, students will develop their own voices through assignments that will include book reviews, op-eds, social media analyses, and interviews. By taking turns as writers and editors, students will become skilled in evaluating and fostering their own writing as well as the writing of others. This course takes as its premise the intensive Calderwood format of having students regularly produce, critique, and revise their and their peers' writing by alternating being writers and editors throughout the semester.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: This course is open only to juniors and seniors; all students must have taken at least one 200-level course in the study of literature.
Instructor: H. Bryant
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Other Categories: CSPW - Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: