Peqod :: Classes - Columbia University Catalog of Classes

(Seminar). This class will be primarily invested in a close reading of
Moby-Dick
. We will access the work’s complexity through four characters: Moby-Dick, Ahab, Ishmael and Queequeg. They will serve in our discussions both as proper names and common nouns, for we will not just take them to signify a singular characterological invention, a particular psyche or a singular cluster of motives, but also take them to be names of larger problems, whether political, philosophical, theological or psychological. Additionally, to help us better understand the philosophical, political and cultural background of the novel we will read some of Melville’s earlier work. We will pay special attention to
Typee
, examining in particular the Pacific that Melville constructs there, rather than the novel’s narrative or characterological features. For that reason we will also look closely at the ethnographic literatures on the Pacific that Melville consulted in writing
Typee, Mardi
and
Moby-Dick
, in the hope of discerning what kind of “Pacific Self” – to use Jonathan Lamb’s phrase – Melville generated in those novels and how and why such a “self” is juxtaposed to the philosophies of the West. We will also look at selected chapters from
Mardi
to better understand a cluster of philosophical, theological and scientific questions that started to appear in Melville’s work as of that novel, but came to be seriously articulated only in
Moby-Dick
. To gain the access to
Moby-Dick
we will also study various contemporary literatures – scientific, literary and legal – that Melville himself consulted in writing the novel, as well as the scientific or philosophical texts that he didn’t know of but which will help us reconstruct the larger context within which he was writing. Thus, while the class is based on a single novel, its scope is much larger. For the hope is to access Melville’s work slowly, giving ourselves time to dwell on certain of the most complex questions in his work. In reconstructing scientific, legal, political and philosophical debates that Melville’s novel echoes and to which it responds, we will also revisit major concerns of Antebellum Americans; and finally, most broadly, think about answers to larger questions that never stopped obsessing Melville, such as: how is the human related to the elemental, to vegetal and animal life? What is life? Is all life “selfed”? How is a self-constructed, and do geography and geology constitute it

Department: English and Comparative Literature
M 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
Instructor: Branka Arsic
CULPA: 3 Wikipedia Info
4 points

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ENGL GR6601

EXT: CITY & STATE POLICY ADV

Department: Law
2 points

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LAW_ L6601

EXT: CITY & STATE POLICY ADV

Department: Law
2 points

Details

LAW_ L6601

QUESTIONS-ANTHRO THRY II:TEXTS

QUESTIONS-ANTHROP THRY II:HIST

Department: Anthropology
R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
3 points

Details

ANTH GR6602

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR IA

Department: International and Public Affairs
T 9 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
T 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
W 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
R 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
Instructor: Miguel S Urquiola
CULPA: 1 Info
3 points

Details

INAF U6602

EXT: REPRESENTNG NYC

Department: Law
Instructor: Stephen Louis
Wikipedia Info
2 points

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LAW_ L6602

EXT: REPRESENTNG NYC

EXT: REPRESENTING NYC-FIE

Department: Law
Instructor: Stephen Louis
Wikipedia Info
2 points

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LAW_ L6602

PROGRAMMING & ELECTRONICS

Department: Music
R 5:30 p.m.-8 p.m.
Instructor: Benjamin Holtzman
h-index: 18 Info
3 points

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MUSI GR6602

DEV ASPCT-ADOLESCN:THEOR/INTER

Department: Social Work
T 2 p.m.-3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Monique Jethwani-Keyser
Info
3 points

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SOCW T6603

APPLIED ECONOMETRICS

Prerequisites: SIPA U6501
The goal of this course is to enable students to evaluate the policy relevance of academic research. While academic research frequently considers treatments that approximate a potential public policy, such prima facie relevance alone does not inform policy. In particular, public policy is predicated on the credible estimation of causal treatment effects. For example, although researchers frequently document the strong correlation between years of schooling and better health, this tells us surprisingly little (and arguably nothing) about the health effects of public tuition assistance, compulsory school laws, or any other program that raises educational attainment. Policies guided by statistical correlations - even the regression-adjusted estimates that dominate the academic literature - will frequently have unintended and even perverse real-world effects. Policymakers must distinguish between causal estimates that should inform policy design and statistical correlations that should not. The catch is that distinguishing correlation from causation in empirical studies is surprisingly difficult. Econometric technique alone does not provide a reliable path to causal inference. Applications of instrumental variables (IV) techniques, while wildly popular, arguably obscure sources of identification more often than isolating exogenous variation. Similar concerns apply to popular panel data and fixed effects (FE) models, which can eliminate certain unobservable sources of bias. Furthermore, causal claims by a study's author should be regarded with skepticism - frequently this is merely the marketing of a non-transparent statistical correlation. Put differently, when has a researcher portrayed his empirical result as a mere correlation when in fact he/she had identified a credible causal impact? A basic theme of the course is that identification strategy - the manner in which a researcher uses observational [real-world] data to approximate a controlled/randomized trial (Angrist & Pischke, 2009) - is the bedrock of causal inference. Econometric technique cannot rescue a fundamentally flawed identification strategy. In other words, econometrics and identifications strategies are complements in the production of causal estimates, not substitutes. Examples of appropriate econometric technique applied to compelling identification strategies will be described to illustrate this approach (most often from health economics), along with their implications for public policy.

Department: International and Public Affairs
R 9 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
Instructor: Doru Cojoc
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3 points

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INAF U6604