Prerequisites: open only to qualified majors in the department; the director of undergraduate studies permission is required. An opportunity for research under the direction of an individual faculty member. Students intending to write a year-long senior thesis should plan to register for C3996 in the spring semester of their senior year and are strongly advised to consult the undergraduate studies as they plan their programs.
Current topics in biomedical engineering. Subject matter will vary by year.
Current topics in biomedical engineering. Subject matter will vary by year.
Current topics in biomedical engineering. Subject matter will vary by year.
The Professional Development and Leadership course aims to enhance and expand Columbia Engineering graduate students’ interpersonal, professional and leadership skills, through six modules, including: (1) professional portfolio; (2) communication skills; (3) business etiquette and networking; (4) leadership, followership and teamwork; (5) life management; and (6) ethics and integrity. Students in the course will build upon and enhance their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills to further distinguishing themselves in the classroom and in their careers. This course is offered at the Pass/D/Fail grading option.
The Professional Development and Leadership course aims to enhance and expand Columbia Engineering graduate students’ interpersonal, professional and leadership skills, through six modules, including: (1) professional portfolio; (2) communication skills; (3) business etiquette and networking; (4) leadership, followership and teamwork; (5) life management; and (6) ethics and integrity. Students in the course will build upon and enhance their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills to further distinguishing themselves in the classroom and in their careers. This course is offered at the Pass/D/Fail grading option.
The Professional Development and Leadership course aims to enhance and expand Columbia Engineering graduate students’ interpersonal, professional and leadership skills, through six modules, including: (1) professional portfolio; (2) communication skills; (3) business etiquette and networking; (4) leadership, followership and teamwork; (5) life management; and (6) ethics and integrity. Students in the course will build upon and enhance their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills to further distinguishing themselves in the classroom and in their careers. This course is offered at the Pass/D/Fail grading option.
The Professional Development and Leadership course aims to enhance and expand Columbia Engineering graduate students’ interpersonal, professional and leadership skills, through six modules, including: (1) professional portfolio; (2) communication skills; (3) business etiquette and networking; (4) leadership, followership and teamwork; (5) life management; and (6) ethics and integrity. Students in the course will build upon and enhance their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills to further distinguishing themselves in the classroom and in their careers. This course is offered at the Pass/D/Fail grading option.
The Professional Development and Leadership course aims to enhance and expand Columbia Engineering graduate students’ interpersonal, professional and leadership skills, through six modules, including: (1) professional portfolio; (2) communication skills; (3) business etiquette and networking; (4) leadership, followership and teamwork; (5) life management; and (6) ethics and integrity. Students in the course will build upon and enhance their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills to further distinguishing themselves in the classroom and in their careers. This course is offered at the Pass/D/Fail grading option.
The Professional Development and Leadership course aims to enhance and expand Columbia Engineering graduate students’ interpersonal, professional and leadership skills, through six modules, including: (1) professional portfolio; (2) communication skills; (3) business etiquette and networking; (4) leadership, followership and teamwork; (5) life management; and (6) ethics and integrity. Students in the course will build upon and enhance their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills to further distinguishing themselves in the classroom and in their careers. This course is offered at the Pass/D/Fail grading option.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of URBS UN2200 Introduction to GIS Methods, or equivalent with instructor permission.
With the veritable explosion of urban data alongside the continued proliferation of new tools for its consideration, this course allows students to develop specialized approaches to spatial analysis while introducing a series of common advanced techniques and nuanced methodological questions. Aimed at covering a variety of topics with immediate relevance to urbanism in practice and in research, the course operates with a two-fold mission: (1) to critically discuss the theories, concepts, and research methods involved in spatial analysis and (2) to learn the techniques necessary for engaging those theories and deploying those methods. The class will work to meet this mission with a dedicated focus on the urban environment and the spatial particularities and relationships that arise from the urban context.
Among others, this course takes as a foundational premise that spatial analysis within geographic information systems is an incredibly powerful and double-edged weapon: it provides both the methods for answering complex spatial questions and the means for effectively communicating the results. Like any other weapon it can serve many ends, and as such an advanced course in spatial analysis must frame its use within the developing discourse on professional practice and responsibility.
The course is designed with a combination format. Early weeks are predominantly lecture-style presentations supplemented with discussion and technical demonstration and exercises. Students are expected to complete these exercises outside of class (as homework), bringing their questions to our discussion. The latter half of the course is a project-based seminar. Seminar-style presentation and discussion will rely heavily on student participation and preparation to consider the variety of spatial methods available and their implications on urban research and intervention. Woven throughout the semester is the development of a self-driven research project, through which students will engage and compare the methodological advantages and disadvantages of several assumptions, approaches, analyses, and datasets.
How have painters, filmmakers, novelists, and other artists portrayed the history of Africans and their descendants in Latin America? How do those portrayals – of the Middle Passage, slavery, revolution, abolition, and contemporary social movements, to name a few examples – compare to scholarly approaches to those same subjects? To answer these and other questions, this class brings together a wide array of materials covering more than five hundred years of Afro-Latin American history. The course will move chronologically from the 15th century to the present, with each week devoted to grappling with a topic relevant to the history of Afro-Latin America in a given era, as viewed through both artistic and scholarly sources. Students will come to class prepared to consider what each has to offer to our understanding of the past. We will also debate the possibilities of using art to disseminate historical knowledge, and whether there any dangers to privileging artistic over scholarly approaches to history (or vice versa). In addition, because NYC is home to so many museums, archives, and cultural institutions relevant to our subject, it will serve as an experiential laboratory where we will spend several of our class meetings. Learning outcomes. By the end of the semester, students will be skilled at the following:
analyzing artistic and scholarly sources on their own terms
discussing them in relation to one another
evaluating the utility of these diverse materials to the process of understanding the past.
Prerequisites: for undergraduates: Introductory Genetics (W3031) and the instructors permission. This seminar course provides a detailed presentation of areas in classical and molecular genetics for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students. Topics include transmission genetics, gain and loss of function mutations, genetic redundancy, suppressors, enhancers, epistasis, expression patterns, using transposons, and genome analysis. The course is a mixture of lectures, student presentations, seminar discussions, and readings from the original literature.
The course covers some of the greatest films made in Europe over the past century. It explores a question posed by many of the directors on the syllabus: how to make films that are, on the one hand, connected to their local and national realities, and which articulate, on the other, a broader geographical imagining, “Europe.” Each of the films offers a kind of prism through which directors explore the shifting identity of Europe. Interestingly, most of the films are from the so-called “margins” of Europe, not the core: e.g. Poland, Sweden, as well as from Turkey/Istanbul and Senegal. Europe looks different from the perspective of a Senegalese immigrant attempting to cross the Mediterranean to reach Italy in a rickety boat. Or from the point of view of Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul. Such positionality, such shifting perspectives, are the through line that runs through the course.
Prerequisites: Calculus through multiple integration and infinite sums. A calculus-based tour of the fundamentals of probability theory and statistical inference. Probability models, random variables, useful distributions, conditioning, expectations, law of large numbers, central limit theorem, point and confidence interval estimation, hypothesis tests, linear regression. This course replaces SIEO 4150.
"It seems to me interesting to evaluate Black literature on what the writer does with the presence of an ancestor...How the Black writer responds to that presence interests me." Toni Morrison, “Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation," 1984
When Alice Walker went "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston " she embarked on a quest for a literary ancestor, an artist, and creator, who, as Toni Morrison writes in "Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation," 1984, is "of the tribe and in it." Who are these "timeless people" we call our ancestors? What stories, traditions, and wisdom have they passed on to help us better understand ourselves and each other? What is our role in preserving their stories? How might they inspire us to tell our own? Using the essays "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston" and "Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation" as starting points, this seminar explores the intricate relationship between writers and scholars and their literary ancestors who are also, at times, mentors and friends. We examine how they have delved into the lives and works of their chosen literary ancestors, using scholarly analysis, personal reflections, memoir, travelogue, and other creative methods to probe, honor, challenge, and expand our view and understanding of their predecessors.
Students are introduced to a quantitative, engineering approach to cellular biology and mammalian physiology. Beginning with biological issues related to the cell, the course progresses to considerations of the major physiological systems of the human body (nervous, circulatory, respiratory, renal).
An engineering and economic analysis of past, present and future energy resources. Technological options and their role in the world energy markets. Understanding limits of energy and power density and its impact of resource adoption and feasibility. Comparison of renewable and non-renewable energy resources and analysis of the consequences of various technological choices and constraints. Economic considerations, energy availability, and the environmental consequences of large-scale, widespread use of each particular technology. Critical analysis of carbon dioxide capture and carbon dioxide disposal as a means of sustaining the fossil fuel options in comparison to dramatic increase of electrified resources.
This course focuses on the ways in which museums conceptualize, contextualize, curate and display Islamic art. In the process, it interrogates the degree to which the orientalist past and the secular present shapes our understanding of the Muslim world. Students will not just engage with material objects from Muslim societies but also consider the choices museums make about their display and presentation. These choices, in turn, speak to the role of museums in defining a specific understanding of the “sacred.” Finally, students will learn to thoughtfully and critically pose questions about the roles that museums as public institutions play in sharping public and private understandings of Islam.
The course begins with a general discussion of material objects in the study of religion. This is followed by a broad survey of Islamic Art which both describes and critiques the category as it has been framed in the Academy. Students then visit a number of museums to learn about the style and content of their Islamic collections. The course concludes by engaging a different kind of curation, namely oral histories in the Brooklyn Museum.
This course moves from Serbia and Bosnia, to Ukraine and the Czech lands, through Poland to Russia and Finland and then on to the southern Siberian steppes and finally the Russian Far East. Along the way, the course is divided into three major thematic and theoretical units.
Epics and Ballads: History, Performance, Identity
Our first focus is on historical songs in the context of Romantic nationalism. We will explore why people (philologists) began to write these down, and how they were they edited and organized into print books. We discuss what these publications meant in the context of Romantic nationalist movements for political autonomy from the Ottoman or Hapsburg Empires. Given the stakes, some scholars were (maybe too) creative with their material. We will ask: What makes an epic text authentic, as opposed to an invented tradition, or even a fake? Throughout, we will pay attention to how traditions of oral performance were learned and transmitted within specific communities of artists, such as Ramadan performers, upper-class Bosnian women, and Ukrainian minstrels.
Words in Context: Poetry, Power, Positioning
Our second unit begins with the theoretical redefinition of folklore in the 20th c. Folklore is no longer defined by
who
performs it (e.g. peasants), but by its characteristics of variation and localization. We begin with a genre that anyone can perform—the proverb. To understand the power of small forms we need place them in their real-world context. We learn about ethnographic interviewing methods aimed at eliciting the local meanings of folklore. We consider relationship between the body and verbal folklore in south Siberian shamanism and in the performance of charms by folk healers in Russia and Finland. In order to bring the study of folklore home, to us at Columbia, we consider campus legends and folklore of the COVID-19 pandemic. This unit provides students with the tools needed to design and carry out their own mini-ethnography, which serves as the final project for the course.
Oral Narrative: Legends, Fairytales, Cross-Cultural Motifs
Our last major unit is dedicated to folk narrative—the memorate (personal narrative), the legend and the fairytale. We begin with Russian memorates about nature and house spirits. Narratives told as true events (memorates, legends) are contrasted with the genre of the fairy tale. We learn about how fairy tales were typically performed
Principles of physical chemistry applied to equilibria and kinetics of aqueous solutions in contact with minerals and anthropogenic residues. The scientific background for addressing problems of aqueous pollution, water treatment, and sustainable production of materials with minimum environmental impact. Hydrolysis, oxidation-reduction, complex formation, dissolution and precipitation, predominance diagrams; examples of natural water systems, processes for water treatment and for the production of inorganic materials from minerals.
Prerequisites: differential and integral calculus, differential equations, and PHYS UN3003 or the equivalent. Lagranges formulation of mechanics, calculus of variations and the Action Principle, Hamiltons formulation of mechanics, rigid body motion, Euler angles, continuum mechanics, introduction to chaotic dynamics.
RECITATION FOR STAT4203GU PROBABILITY THEORY
In this seminar, students will learn how to interpret Black Performance through historical, social, and political theory. In studying Black Performance, students will engage strategies of subversion and resistance to dominant ideologies throughout the African diaspora. With a focus on the blues and its other-worldly iterations, we will cover theorists and topics from the Black Radical tradition such as Zora Neale Hurston and American South gothic folklore; Amiri Baraka and the blues; Greg Tate and hip-hop; bell hooks and queering the Black gaze; Fred Moten and abstraction; Angela Davis and imagining abolition, and more. We will pair theory with praxis by engaging masterpieces by Black performing artists in music, dance, comedy, theatre, as well as film and television.
As a seminar, students should prepare to participate in in-depth discussions weekly by completing the reading and viewing assignments. Since the central subject matter is performance studies and visual culture based in African-American studies, an interdisciplinary field, the course has a strong multi-media element. Students should expect to view films regularly, both online and in class. Students are also strongly encouraged to attend outside exhibitions and performances for extra credit. Syllabus is subject to change.
This syllabus has drawn from the research of a community of social justice scholars, including the writers of the #Trans-Justice Syllabus, #Immigration Syllabus, #Black Lives Matter Syllabus, and #The Charlottesville Syllabus.
For more than a century, scientists, policy makers, law enforcement, and government agencies
have collected, curated and analyzed data about people in order to make impactful decisions.
This practice has exploded along with the computational power available to these agents. Those
who design and deploy data collection, predictive analytics, and autonomous and intelligent
decision-making systems claim that these technologies will remove problematic biases from
consequential decisions. They aim to put a rational and objective foundation based on numbers
and observations made by non-human sensors in the management of public life and to equip
experts with insights that, they believe, will translate into better outcomes (health, economic,
educational, judicial) for all.
But these dreams and their pursuit through technology are as problematic as they are enticing.
Throughout American history, data has often been used to oppress minoritized communities,
manage populations, and institutionalize, rationalize, and naturalize systems of racial violence.
The impersonality of data, the same quality that makes it useful, can silence voices and
displace entire ways of knowing the world.
A graduate course only for MS&E, IE, and OR students. This is also required for students in the Undergraduate Advanced Track. For students who have not studied linear programming. Some of the main methods used in IEOR applications involving deterministic models: linear programming, the simplex method, nonlinear, integer and dynamic programming.
RECITATION FOR STAT4204GU STATISTICAL INFERENCE
Numerical and symbolic (algebraic) problem solving with Mathematica. Formulation for graphics application in civil, mechanical, and bioengineering. Example of two-and three-dimensional curve and surface objects in C++ and Mathematica; special projects of interest to electrical and computer science.
The classical prophetic political tradition derives from biblical prophets like Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah who, with strong words, courageous deeds and abiding faith in the righteousness of their causes, struggled to transform oppressive, exploitive regimes of power into just and equitable political institutions that would “let justice roll down as water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” For millennia this tradition has been a touchstone for peoples throughout the world in their struggles for freedom.
This course will seek to understand the role of the biblical prophetic political tradition in the ongoing struggle of African Americans for political equity and justice in America. Our exploration will range from David Walker’s revolutionary early nineteenth century
Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World
to the racial claims and counter claims in our contemporary moment.
RECITATION FOR STAT4206GU PROGRAMMING FOR DATA SCIENCE
Prerequisites: MATH UN3007 A one semeser course covering the theory of modular forms, zeta functions, L -functions, and the Riemann hypothesis. Particular topics covered include the Riemann zeta function, the prime number theorem, Dirichlet characters, Dirichlet L-functions, Siegel zeros, prime number theorem for arithmetic progressions, SL (2, Z) and subgroups, quotients of the upper half-plane and cusps, modular forms, Fourier expansions of modular forms, Hecke operators, L-functions of modular forms.
This course is organized around a number of thematic centers or modules. Each is focused on stylistic peculiarities typical of a given functional style of the Ukrainian language. Each is designed to assist the student in acquiring an active command of lexical, grammatical, discourse, and stylistic traits that distinguish one style from the others and actively using them in real-life communicative settings in contemporary Ukraine. The styles include literary fiction, scholarly prose, and journalism, both printed and broadcast
Advanced topics in linear algebra with applications to data analysis, algorithms, dynamics and differential equations, and more. (1) General vector spaces, linear transformations, spaces isomorphisms; (2) spectral theory - normal matrices and their spectral properties, Rayleigh quotient, Courant-Fischer Theorem, Jordan forms, eigenvalue perturbations; (3) least squares problem and the Gauss-Markov Theorem; (4) singular value decomposition, its approximation properties, matrix norms, PCA and CCA.
It is widely known that in the Soviet Union, from the first years after the Revolution of 1917, the image of a "New Person," with not only a new morality but also a new physical body, was enthusiastically constructed on both verbal and visual levels and then thoroughly developed and widely propagandized. Literature and visual arts played a significant role in creating and disseminating these images. The same media were also often used to transmit normative ideas about health, illness, hygiene, sexuality, etc. Lived reality, however, frequently contradicted the propaganda and the iconic images it produced, and some works of art registered that tension, sometimes deliberately, sometimes without meaning to. This course will discuss Soviet attitudes and practices towards the body, disciplining the body, and the role of sport and exercise in human life. We will also focus on the work of healthcare institutions, discuss issues of medical ethics, and address models of relationships between patients and doctors that significantly differ from those we know from 20th-century Western Europe and the USA. Throughout, we will look at the normative images, at the practices, and at the ways in which their divergence was reflected upon.
This course is addressed to students interested in Soviet culture and history. It may be of particular interest to those who have not learned a lot about Soviet culture, but who plan to specialize in medicine and healthcare. The literary and visual works suggested for discussion will help us understand the specific traits in Soviet perceptions of health, illness, and death that have carried over into the post-Soviet period.
Basic concepts of spatial data representation and organization, and analytical tools are introduced and applied in a form of case studies from hydrology, environmental conservation, and emergency response to natural or man-made hazards, among others. Technical content includes geographic topics (map projections, cartography, etc.), spatial statistics, database design and use, interpolation and visualization of spatial surfaces and volumes, and multi-criteria decision analysis. Students will learn the basics of ArcGIS Pro, Model Builder and Python. Elective term projects or final exams emphasize spatial information synthesis towards the solution of a specific problem.
Basic concepts of spatial data representation and organization, and analytical tools are introduced and applied in a form of case studies from hydrology, environmental conservation, and emergency response to natural or man-made hazards, among others. Technical content includes geographic topics (map projections, cartography, etc.), spatial statistics, database design and use, interpolation and visualization of spatial surfaces and volumes, and multi-criteria decision analysis. Students will learn the basics of ArcGIS Pro, Model Builder and Python. Elective term projects or final exams emphasize spatial information synthesis towards the solution of a specific problem.
This course will examine geological problems from a standpoint of thermodynamic and kinetic theory. Theoretical thermodynamic concepts will be used to derive the crystallization depth and temperature of metamorphic and magmatic minerals, describe the solubility of volatile species in magmas, predict the composition of volcanic gas mixtures, model the nucleation and growth of crystals and bubbles in a melt and determine the chemical interaction between water and rock at the Earth’s surface. Kinetic treatments on the diffusion of heat and matter through crystals and melts will be used to constrain the timing of geological processes. Recommended preparation: Knowledge of mathematics at the level of partial differential equations; mineralogy (EESC 4113); and petrology (EESC 4701); or permission of the instructor.
Mathematical description of chemical engineering problems and the application of selected methods for their solution. General modeling principles, including model hierarchies. Linear and nonlinear ordinary differential equations and their systems, including those with variable coefficients. Partial differential equations in Cartesian and curvilinear coordinates for the solution of chemical engineering problems.
Prerequisites: GREK UN2101 - GREK UN2102 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes each year, it may be repeated for credit.
Prerequisites: LATN UN3012 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.
This is a course in Spanish conversation. Students will study and practice features of social interaction in Spanish that are crucial to participate in the new culture. This means the course has two learning objectives: One is learning to engage in regular conversations in Spanish; the other is to understand how conversation works. We will cover conversational issues such as gesture, narratives, intonation, opening and closing interactions, turn taking, etc. both in linguistics and social terms. Practice and analysis will be connected: Every week we will consider an aspect of oral interaction in Spanish. We will study those features in naturally occurring conversations among native speakers and we will practice in actual conversations inside and outside the classroom, by means of role play, simulation, film making, debates and interviews. We will use topics of conversation to provide a meaningful environment for the conversation practice.
The purpose of this course is to provide a comprehensive introduction to accounting. It is designed to provide managerially oriented users of accounting products with the foundations of accounting concepts, the underlying mechanics, and the overall perspective required to become intelligent users of accounting information. The course will focus on the typical financial statements (e.g., balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements) along with the environment in which they are produced and used. The overarching perspective is that accounting reports provide information that is useful for various purposes.
The course design emphasizes that the information content of accounting reports is jointly determined by the accounting methods used to generate the reports and the environment in which the reports are produced and used. Thus, the course integrates the study of accounting methods and the study of the accounting environment. Accounting concerns, in turn, vary with market opportunities, instruments, and organizational arrangements at hand.
The course is organized into two interrelated modules. First, we review accounting-related institutional details, the nature of financial reports, audits, and disclosure. This includes the examination of the three main financial statements the nature of accrual measurement, and the information perspective that is central to the course. Second, we explore accounting methods in detail, focusing on revenue recognition, assets, liabilities, and equity. We explicitly consider accounting issues related to global organizations.
Throughout the course, we apply these concepts to real-world contexts, with attention to ethics, data integrity, financial statement analysis, valuation, and regulatory frameworks. In addition, we integrate contemporary topics such as the impact of climate change and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) considerations on financial reporting. Selected current events and emerging trends in ESG reporting are discussed in relation to the accounting frameworks and principles covered in class.
Finally, we explore the role of artificial intelligence—particularly large language models (LLMs)—in financial analysis. The course introduces how AI tools can assist in interpreting financial statements, while emphasizing the importance of human judgment and expertise in ensuring responsible and effective use of AI technologies.
For Mendelson Students Only.
Prerequisites: two years of Chinese study at college level. This course is designed for students who have studied Chinese for two years at college level and are interested in business studies concerning China. It offers systematic descriptions of Chinese language used in business discourse. CC GS EN CE
This seminar examines the grotesque as one of Eastern European literature’s most productive formal resources: a way of revealing what happens when incompatibilities are forced into uneasy coexistence in various representational sites – whether that be the same body, image, voice, institution, or world. We will read works from a wide range of Eastern European traditions – Russian, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Czech, Polish, Romanian, Albanian, South Slavic/post-Yugoslav, and Hungarian. The course is comparative and does not treat Eastern Europe as a monoculture. Instead, it asks why writers whose lives and works have been informed by a great diversity of forces – empires, border changes, modernization, war, revolution, state socialism, post-socialist transition, folklore, and ecological crisis – converge on the grotesque as a representational strategy. We will also learn how to read the meanings of various grotesque representational staples – distorted bodies, animate objects, proliferating doubles, impossible bureaucracies, unstable genres, and comic catastrophe.
Across the semester, we will develop a sophisticated working definition of the grotesque by examining its greatest theorists – from Bakhtin and Kayser to Eikhenbaum, Ruskin, Thomson, Harpham, Russo, and Connelly.
The literary readings are assigned as whole works: unexcerpted novels and novellas, plays, and stories or story cycles. Only scholarship and theoretical books will be assigned in excerpts. All readings are available in English
Media Chinese (I & II) : This level-4 course enhances students’ proficiency in reading and discussing current events in Chinese. It features close reading and critical discussions on topics such as politics, economics, culture, and social issues. Through careful analysis of authentic media materials, students will further develop their language skills and deepen their understanding of contemporary China. By the end of the course, students will be able to navigate Chinese media sources confidently and engage meaningfully in conversations about both global and Chinese current events.
This course is designed to help students master formal Chinese for professional or academic purposes. It includes reading materials and discussions on selections from Chinese media covering contemporary topics, Chinese literature, and modern Chinese intellectual history. The course aims to enhance students' strategies for comprehension, as well as their written and oral communication skills in formal modern Chinese.
Typical experiments are in the areas of plasma physics, microwaves, laser applications, optical spectroscopy physics, and superconductivity.
Prerequisites: CHNS W4017 or the equivalent. This is a non-consecutive reading course designed for those whose proficiency is above 4th level. See Admission to Language Courses. Selections from contemporary Chinese authors in both traditional and simplified characters with attention to expository, journalistic, and literary styles.
Literature and film provide critical reflections on how nuclear technology and its dangers have shaped Soviet and post-Soviet imaginations and worldviews. This course draws from multiple literary and creative narratives that respond to the region’s nuclear history, tracing how official discourse was first subverted by dissident narratives, and then, over the course of the Perestroika period (1985–1991), subsumed within them. Alongside disasters like Chernobyl, we will investigate nuclear legacies across the former Soviet sphere, including in Kazakhstan, where the Soviet government detonated more than 450 nuclear tests over a forty-year period, and in Lithuania, where inhabitants of a former “nuclear city” still live as if beyond history’s reach. How did artistic narratives shape Soviet nuclear realities, and vice versa? How have nuclear concerns fostered cultural exchange and solidarity in unexpected ways? These questions will guide our inquiry.
While works of literature, film, and art from the (post-)Soviet world take precedence, the course seeks to situate them within their international geopolitical and cultural contexts; as such, some key works from other cultural spaces will be considered as points of comparison or as relevant primary texts. Classes will include both lecture and discussion elements; each class period will be devoted to a broad aspect shared among the assigned readings and will focus on determining what each work sought to achieve within its own cultural-historical context. Assignments will be approximately 100–150 pages or two to three viewing hours per class period. In addition, there will be a weekly film screening, with approximately two (and sometimes more) screen hours of film.
Weekly written responses will be supplemented on occasion with short interactive assignments. Each student is expected to give one 10-to-12-minute presentation during the semester on a major theme from a given week’s assigned materials; the presentation will serve as a genesis for wider discussion. There will be one midterm essay (responses to be four to six pages in length) due at the end of Week 6. One final essay (responses to be eight to ten pages in length) will be due during the exam period at the end of the semester.
Prerequisites: JPNS W4017 or the equivalent. Sections 1 - 2: Readings of advanced modern literary, historical, political, and journalistic texts, and class discussions about current issues and videos. Exercises in scanning, comprehension, and English translation. Section 3: Designed for advanced students interested in developing skills for reading and comprehending modern Japanese scholarship.
Prerequisites: PHYS GU4021 and PHYS GU4023 or the equivalent. Introduction to solid-state physics: crystal structures, properties of periodic lattices, electrons in metals, band structure, transport properties, semiconductors, magnetism, and superconductivity.
This course, taught in English, offers an in-depth exploration of the Chinese language and its historical development. Key topics include historical phonology and syntax, the Chinese script, and the classification and linguistic features of major dialects. The course also explores the emergence of modern standard Chinese and early poetic traditions. The primary goal is to deepen students’ understanding of the language’s evolution while strengthening their critical thinking skills.
Many modern theories of grammar are almost entirely based on English, having been developed mainly to describe the structure of English and, to a much lesser extent, other familiar languages of Europe. But the languages of the world are highly diverse, many of them, in contrast to English, with highly complex word and inflectional structures and relatively simple phrasal structures. Theories of grammar built on English serve such languages poorly. This course seeks to address this imbalance by focusing on languages with complex morphological and morphosyntactic structures. Because the grammars of such languages are built around word structures, we will be exploring current lexicalist theories of grammar such as Lexical Functional Grammar and Construction Grammar to develop formal explicit analyses of these languages. One learns morphological and morphosyntactic analysis by doing it across languages of various types, so we will regularly be working through problems to analyze in class.
Prerequisites: PHYS GU4021. Formulation of quantum mechanics in terms of state vectors and linear operators, three-dimensional spherically symmetric potentials, the theory of angular momentum and spin, time-independent and time-dependent perturbation theory, scattering theory, and identical particles. Selected phenomena from atomic physics, nuclear physics, and elementary particle physics are described and then interpreted using quantum mechanical models.
This course provides an introduction to semantics, the study of meaning in language. We will explore a range of semantic phenomena, and students will learn the tools and techniques of formal semantic analysis as well as core concepts, goals, and findings of the field.
This course explores architecture in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The time frame starts with the conquest of England in 1066 and ends with the appointment of Gothic experts in 1399 to advise on the construction of Milan Cathedral towards the end of the Middle Ages. The first historical event coincides with the creation of architecture of a bewildering scale while the second reflects the end of building without architectural treatises or architectural theory - in a modern sense. The course will also introduce students to new digital technologies such as laser scanning and photogrammetry for the study of medieval architecture. No preliminary knowledge of medieval history or architectural history is needed, and no knowledge of digital technologies or specific computer skills is expected.
The monuments selected belong to a period that starts when architecture moved away from Roman antique models and ends just before the re-adoption of Classical standards in the Renaissance. In this course the originality of medieval architecture, its relationship with earlier and later monuments, and the dramatic effort involved in its creation will be discussed. Major themes of medieval society such as pilgrimages, crusades, piety, the cult of relics, and the social and intellectual context of the Middle Ages are also part of this lecture. In the first weeks, important concepts of medieval society and its architecture will be presented in combination with a number of new technologies recently adopted in the field. These introductory classes will offer the foundations needed to understand artistic and architectural developments in the Middle Ages. While the course will focus on architecture, different media are included when they provide valuable information on the artistic and cultural context to which buildings belong. New technologies serve as a basis for a critical discussion about the changes in method introduced by new media and technologies in the field of architectural history.
A survey of postwar Czech fiction and drama. Knowledge of Czech not necessary. Parallel reading lists available in translation and in the original.
We will explore Anton Chekhov’s work on its own terms, in its cultural context, and in relation to the work of others, especially Anglophone writers who responded, directly or indirectly, to Chekhov and his work. Readings by Chekhov include selected stories (short and long), his four major plays, and
Sakhalin Island,
his study of the Russian penal colony.
There are no prerequisites. Knowledge of Russian is not required; all readings in English.
Students who know Russian are encouraged to read Chekhov’s work in Russian.
The course will be comparative as it addresses Chekhov on his own and in relation to anglophone writers.
The course is open to undergraduates (CC, GS, BC) and graduates in GSAS and other schools. The attention to
how
Chekhov writes may interest students in the School of the Arts.
Prerequisites: PHYS UN3003 and PHYS UN3007 or the equivalent. Tensor algebra, tensor analysis, introduction to Riemann geometry. Motion of particles, fluid, and fields in curved spacetime. Einstein equation. Schwarzschild solution; test-particle orbits and light bending. Introduction to black holes, gravitational waves, and cosmological models.
Prerequisites: MATH UN1102 and MATH UN1202 and MATH UN2010 or the equivalent. The second term of this course may not be taken without the first. Groups, homomorphisms, normal subgroups, the isomorphism theorems, symmetric groups, group actions, the Sylow theorems, finitely generated abelian groups.
Prerequisites: MATH UN1102 and MATH UN1202 and MATH UN2010 or the equivalent. The second term of this course may not be taken without the first. Rings, homomorphisms, ideals, integral and Euclidean domains, the division algorithm, principal ideal and unique factorization domains, fields, algebraic and transcendental extensions, splitting fields, finite fields, Galois theory.
Prerequisites: MATH GU4041 and MATH GU4042 or the equivalent Algebraic number fields, unique factorization of ideals in the ring of algebraic integers in the field into prime ideals. Dirichlet unit theorem, finiteness of the class number, ramification. If time permits, p-adic numbers and Dedekind zeta function.
Prerequisites: (MATH GU4041 and MATH GU4042) and MATH UN3007 Plane curves, affine and projective varieties, singularities, normalization, Riemann surfaces, divisors, linear systems, Riemann-Roch theorem.
This course teaches students how to move from data analysis to model building and prediction. It introduces computational and systems-level approaches for understanding genomes, molecular and cellular networks, evolution, disease genetics, and virtual cells, helping students learn how quantitative models can be used to generate mechanistic insight and testable biological hypotheses.
Intensive study of a philosophical issue or topic, or of a philosopher, group of philosophers, or philosophical school or movement. Open only to Barnard senior philosophy majors.
These two-part mid-career global leadership development courses (1.5 credit course in the summer and spring) provide intensive, collaborative, and highly interactive hands-on instruction, constructive evaluation, and ample opportunities to transform theory into practice. It utilizes cutting-edge, research-based methodologies and customized case studies to build the next generation of leaders that turn differences into opportunities, ideas into solutions, and knowledge into action. Students will acquire a variety of leadership skills in global contexts, including cross-cultural negotiation strategies, consensus building, collaborative facilitation, persuasion, inclusionary leadership, design-thinking-based problem-solving techniques, and public speaking in knowledge-intensive industries. They will gain a competitive edge in their professional careers by participating in a variety of simulation games, role-playing exercises, and mock public policy panels to apply the skills they have learned and receive valuable feedback.
Prerequisites: MATH GU4051 Topology and / or MATH GU4061 Introduction To Modern Analysis I (or equivalents). Recommended (can be taken concurrently): MATH UN2010 linear algebra, or equivalent. The study of algebraic and geometric properties of knots in R^3, including but not limited to knot projections and Reidemeisters theorm, Seifert surfaces, braids, tangles, knot polynomials, fundamental group of knot complements. Depending on time and student interest, we will discuss more advanced topics like knot concordance, relationship to 3-manifold topology, other algebraic knot invariants.
A substantial paper, developing from an Autumn workshop and continuing into the Spring under the direction of an individual adviser. Open only to Barnard senior philosophy majors.
Prerequisites: MATH UN2010 and MATH GU4041 and MATH GU4051 The study of topological spaces from algebraic properties, including the essentials of homology and the fundamental group. The Brouwer fixed point theorem. The homology of surfaces. Covering spaces.
This seminar examines ways in which Italy is understood and represented by Italians and non-Italians. It will analyze the formation of multiple discourses on Italy, how Italian culture and society are imagined, represented and/or distorted. Based on an anthropological perspective, this course will examine ways in which we can understand Italy through the intersections of pluralism, ethnicity, gender, and religion. The course will study how Italy strives for political and economic unity, while there is a concurrent push toward inequality, exclusion, and marginalization. Moreover, the course will analyze the revitalization of nationalism on one hand of regionalism on the other, and will focus on the concepts of territory, identity, and tradition. Short videos that can be watched on computer and alternative readings for those fluent in Italian will be assigned. There are no pre-requisites for this course.
Enrollment limited to 12 students. Mechatronics is the application of electronics and microcomputers to control mechanical systems. Systems explored include on/off systems, solenoids, stepper motors, DC motors, thermal systems, magnetic levitation. Use of analog and digital electronics and various sensors for control. Programming microcomputers in Assembly and C. Lab required.