This course provides a general introduction to some of the key intellectual debates in Africa by Africans through primary sources, including scholarly works, political tracts, fiction, art, and film. Beginning with an exploration of African notions of spiritual and philosophical uniqueness and ending with contemporary debates on the meaning and historical viability of an African Renaissance, this course explores the meanings of ‘Africa' and ‘being African.' Field(s): AFR*
Corequisites: Intended for the non-major, sophomore year and above. Enrollment limited to 18 students.
Introductory design studio to introduce students to architectural design through readings and studio design projects. Intended to develop analytic skills to critique existing media and spaces. Process of analysis used as a generative tool for the students' own design work. Attendance is mandatory at the first class meeting in order to form class registration lists.
This course will use an evolutionary perspective to focus on what humans need to eat for survival and health. We will examine how and why sufficient and optimal diets can be obtained through a range of dietary patterns, and how those patterns were rooted in different geographic and cultural regions. We will also compare current patterns with those of humans from 200,000, 12,000 and 100 years ago, and where it is instructive, we will compare the food intake and food system of other animals. Throughout the course, the environmental impact of a given dietary pattern will be considered, and where possible, the economic determinants of individual food intake will be reviewed. We will incorporate a lifespan perspective throughout the course.
Rome and its empire, from the beginning to late antiquity.
Field(s): ANC
It focuses on key texts from Latin America in their historical and intellectual context and seeks to understand their structure and the practical purposes they served using close reading and, when possible, translations. The course seeks to establish a counterpoint to the list of canonical texts of Contemporary Civilization. The selections are not intended to be compared directly to those in CC but to raise questions about the different contexts in which ideas are used, the critical exchanges and influences (within and beyond Latin America) that shaped ideas in the region, and the long-term intellectual, political, and cultural pursuits that have defined Latin American history. The active engagement of students toward these texts is the most important aspect of class work and assignments.
Provides a broad overview of the rapidly expanding field of human rights. Lectures on the philosophical, historical, legal and institutional foundations are interspersed with weekly presentations by frontline advocates from the U.S. and overseas.
This course provides an introduction to central approaches and concepts animating the investigation of race and ethnicity. We will not treat either of these categories of difference as a given, nor as separable from other axes of social difference. Rather, we will apply an interdisciplinary and intersectional framework to illuminate how these concepts have come to emerge and cohere within a number of familiar and less familiar socio-cultural and historical contexts. We will consider how racial and ethnic differentiation as fraught but powerful processes have bolstered global labor regimes and imperial expansion projects; parsed, managed, and regulated populations; governed sexed and gendered logics of subject and social formation; and finally, opened and constrained axes of self-understanding, political organization, and social belonging. Special attention will be given to broadening students' understanding of racial and ethnic differentiation beyond examinations of identity. Taken together, theoretical and empirical readings, discussions, and outside film screenings will prepare students for further coursework in race and ethnic studies, as well as fields such as literary studies, women’s studies, history, sociology, and anthropology.
The contribution of chemistry to everyday life is immense. The applications of chemistry in medicine, petrochemicals, cosmetics, and food are readily apparent. However, chemistry is a key part of many other fascinating fields, some of which may be less obvious. Examples of areas in which chemistry plays a key role include forensic science; art restoration and forgery detection; and flavors and fragrances in food, beverages and other consumer products. The goal of this course is to provide insights and spur discussion of several areas and applications of chemistry, and provide hands-on experience in techniques used in these fields sparking the curiosity of Barnard students into this marvelous field.
Weekly meetings with researchers to discuss the nature of scientific inquiry in psychology; and intellectual, professional, and personal issues in the work of scientists.
Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required.
The beginning workshop in fiction is designed for students with little or no experience writing literary texts in fiction. Students are introduced to a range of technical and imaginative concerns through exercises and discussions, and they eventually produce their own writing for the critical analysis of the class. The focus of the course is on the rudiments of voice, character, setting, point of view, plot, and lyrical use of language. Students will begin to develop the critical skills that will allow them to read like writers and understand, on a technical level, how accomplished creative writing is produced. Outside readings of a wide range of fiction supplement and inform the exercises and longer written projects.
The aim of the beginning French sequence (French 1101 and French 1102) is to help you to develop an active command of the language. Emphasis is placed on acquiring the four language skills--listening, speaking, reading and writing--within a cultural context, in order to achieve basic communicative proficiency.
Upon completion of the course, students understand, speak, read, and write German at a level enabling them to communicate with native speakers about their background, family, daily activities, student life, work, and living quarters. Daily assignments and laboratory work.
For students who have never studied Greek. An intensive study of grammar with reading and writing of simple Attic prose.
Thia course introduces students to the rudiments of the Irish language, including phonemes and pronunciation, syntactical structure, and verbal conjugations. In addition, a history of the language is provided, as well as a general introduction to Irish culture, including discussions of family and place names. Students are encouraged to begin speaking with basic sentence structures, eventually expanding into more complex verbal conjugations while concentrating on idiomatic expressions. The accumulation of vocabulary is stressed and students are introduced to basic literature in Irish while developing beginning conversational fluency.
Same course as ITAL V1101-V1102.
For students who have never studied Latin. An intensive study of grammar with reading of simple prose and poetry.
Prerequisites: (see Courses for First-Year Students).
Functions, limits, derivatives, introduction to integrals; or an understanding of pre-calculus will be assumed.. , The Help Room in 333 Milbank Hall (Barnard College) is open during the day, Monday through Friday, to students seeking individual help from the teaching assistants.
(SC)
What is the relationship between law and justice? Are capacities of political judgment shared by the many or reserved for the few? What does human equality consist of and what are its implications? Can individual freedom be reconciled with the demands of political community? What are the origins and effects of persistent gender inequalities? These are some of the crucial questions that we will address in this introductory course in political theory. The course is divided into five thematic sections, each addressing an enduring political problem or issue and centered on a key text in the history of political thought: 1. Laws, Obligations, and the Question of Disobedience; Sophocles,
Antigone;
2. Democratic Citizenship and the Capacities of Political Judgment; Plato,
Republic;
3. Origins and Effects of (In)equality; John Locke,
Second Treatise of Civil Government;
4. Paradoxes of Freedom; Jean Jacques Rousseau,
On the Social Contract;
5. The Woman Question; John Stuart Mill,
The Subjection of Women.
A beginning course designed for students who wish to start their study of Portuguese and have no proficiency in another Romance language. The four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing are developed at the basic level.
Prerequisites: BC1001 and instructor permission. Enrollment limited to 20 students per recitation section.
Corequisites: PSYC BC1102
Lecture course introducing students to statistics and its applications to psychological research. The course covers basic theory, conceptual underpinnings, and common statistics.
Quechua is the most important and most widely-distributed indigenous language in South America, with over 10 million speakers living from the high mountains to the tropical lowlands in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Those who speak it call the language runa simi or runa shimi, "human speech." It was the principal language of the Inca empire and the key language of cultural interaction during the colonial era. Quechua has remained central to indigenous peoples' efforts to preserve their cultural autonomy. It has gained greater force in recent years, during which indigenous movements have swept Quechua speakers into national politics, where they have succeeded in transforming constitutions to recognize cultural diversity, making Quechua an official language of state, and successfully promoting schooling in the language. Students who satisfactorily complete Elementary Quechua I and II will be well-prepared for intensive summer study at one of many summer study abroad programs in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia that will put them in closer contact with the indigenous world.
Prerequisites: a score of 0-279 in the department's Placement Examination.
Prerequisites: A score of 0-279 in the department's Placement Examination. An introduction to Spanish communicative competence, with stress on basic oral interaction, reading, witting, and cultural knowledge. Principal objectives are to understand and produce commonly used sentences to satisfy immediate needs; ask and answer questions about personal details such as where we live, people we know and things we have; interact in a simple manner with people who speak clearly, slowly and are ready to cooperate; and understand simple and short written and audiovisual texts in Spanish. All Columbia students must take Spanish language courses (UN 1101-3300) for a letter grade.
Prerequisites: intermediate high school algebra.
Designed for students in fields that emphasize quantitative methods. Graphical and numerical summaries, probability, theory of sampling distributions, linear regression, analysis of variance, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing. Quantitative reasoning and data analysis. Practical experience with statistical software. Illustrations are taken from a variety of fields. Data-collection/analysis project with emphasis on study designs is part of the coursework requirement.
This course offers an introduction to the language that has been spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews for more than a millennium, and an opportunity to discover a fabulous world of Yiddish literature, language and culture in a fun way. Using games, new media, and music, we will learn how to speak, read, listen and write in a language that is considered one of the richest languages in the world (in some aspects of vocabulary). We will also venture outside the classroom to explore the Yiddish world today: through field trips to Yiddish theater, Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods, Yiddish organizations, such as YIVO or Yiddish farm, and so on. We will also have Yiddish-speaking guests and do a few digital projects. At the end of the two-semester course, you will be able to converse in Yiddish on a variety of everyday topics and read most Yiddish literary and non-literary texts. Welcome to Yiddishland!
Introduction to cuneiform script and to the Akkadian language, with emphasis on grammatical structure.
Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepares students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.
Introductory courses to Bengali, a major language of northeast India and Bangladesh.
This course introduces students to both the spoken and written Cantonese language, with achieving conversational proficiency being a primary goal. The course emphasizes oral expressions, listening comprehension, and grammar. It is designed to give beginning students a practical command of the language. Upon completion of the course, students can expect to converse in simple sentences, and recognize and write about 350 Chinese characters. Students with passable conversation ability or native speakers from Cantonese-speaking communities should not enroll in this course.
Note:
This course is part of the language exchange program with New York University (NYU). Classes will be held at NYU.
The course is designed to develop basic skills in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing modern colloquial Chinese. Standard Chinese pronunciation, traditional characters.
Students who can already speak Mandarin will not be accepted into this course.
Section subject to cancellation if under-enrolled. CC GS EN CE
Taught by members of the Departments of Anthropology, Classics, English and Comparative Literature, French, German, History, Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Slavic Languages, and Sociology; and members of the Society of Fellows.
A study in their historical context of major contributions to the intellectual traditions that underpin contemporary civilization. Emphasis is on the history of political, social, and philosophical thought. Students are expected to write at least three papers to complete two examinations, and to participate actively in class discussions.
Essentials of the spoken and written language. Prepare students to read texts of moderate difficulty by the end of the first year.
Fundamentals of grammar, reading, speaking, and comprehension of the spoken language. During the spring term supplementary reading is selected according to students' needs.
Introduction to hieroglyphics; readings in ancient Egyptian texts.
Core requirement for all entering SEAS students. This course is a bridge between the science-oriented, high school way of thinking and the engineering point of view. Fundamental concepts of math and science are reviewed and re-framed in an engineering context, with numerous examples of each concept drawn from all disciplines of engineering represented at Columbia. Non-technical issues of importance in professional engineering practice such as ethics, engineering project management, and societal impact are addressed. Lab fee: $150.
Introduction to Filipino with an emphasis on mastering basic skills and working vocabulary. Linguistic rules are applied to enable the student to communicate with more competence. Lessons incorporate discussions on history, current events, literature, pop culture, and native values. Includes field trips to Filipino neighborhoods in Queens and Jersey City.
Note:
This course is part of the language exchange program with New York University (NYU). Classes will be held at NYU.
Fundamentals of grammar and lexicon. Building proficiency in aural comprehension, reading, speaking, and writing. Linguistic structures in the cultural context.
Prerequisites:
GERM V1101
or the equivalent.
Students expand their communication skills to include travel, storytelling, personal well-being, basic economics, and recent historical events. Daily assignments and laboratory work.
Prerequisites:
GREK V1101
or the equivalent, or the instructor or the director of undergraduate studies' permission.
Continuation of grammar study begun in
GREK V1101
; selections from Attic prose.
Prerequisites:
GRKM V1101
or the equivalent.
Continuation of
GRKM V1101
. Introduction to modern Greek language and culture. Emphasis on speaking, writing, basic grammar, syntax, and cross-cultural analysis.
Introduction to the basic structures of the Hungarian language. With the instructor's permission the second term of this course may be taken without the first. Students with a schedule conflict should consult the instructor about the possibility of adjusting hours.
This course offers students an introduction to the basic structures of Bahasa Indonesia, a major language of Indonesia and South East Asia.