AMERICAN POLITICS SEMINAR

TOPICS IN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in American Politics Seminar. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. For list of topics and descriptions see: https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/undergraduate-seminars

• Department: Political Science
• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Lincoln A Mitchell
  Info
• 4 points

AMERICAN POLITICS SEMINAR

POLITICS OF POLICYMAKING

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in American Politics Seminar. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. For list of topics and descriptions see: https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/undergraduate-seminars

• Department: Political Science
• M 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Judith Russell
  CULPA: 49 Info
• 4 points

AMERICAN POLITICS SEMINAR

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Seminar in American Politics Seminar. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list. For list of topics and descriptions see: https://polisci.columbia.edu/content/undergraduate-seminars

• Department: Political Science
• M 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Yamil R Velez
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 8 Info
• 4 points

CNTRL QUESTIONS IN ISLAMIC LAW

Through detailed discussions of certain landmarks in Islamic legal history (e.g. origins; early formation; sources of law; intellectual make-up; the workings of court; legal change; women in the law; legal effects of colonialism; modernity and legal reform, etc.), the course aims at providing an introductory but integrated view of Islamic law, a definition, so to speak, of what it was/is. Please note, this course must be taken for a letter grade.

• Department: Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Wael Hallaq
  CULPA: 9 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

NARRATIVE STRAT-SCREENWRITING

Prerequisites: FILM W2420. This workshop is primarily a continuation of Senior Seminar in Screenwriting. Students will either continue developing the scripts they began in Senior Seminar in Screenwriting, or create new ones including a step outline and a minimum of 30 pages. Emphasis will be placed on character work, structure, theme, and employing dramatic devices. Weekly outlining and script writing, concurrent with script/story presentation and class critiques, will ensure that each student will be guided toward the completion of his or her narrative script project.

• Department: Film
• F 2:10 p.m.-4:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Loren-Paul Caplin
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 3 points

ADVANCED TOPICS: POLITICS & SOCIETY

ADV TOPICS POLITICS & SOC

Research and writing intensive seminar on civic and political engagement in contemporary American society, along with critical evaluation of methods used to collect and analyze data on political and social life. Requirements include a final research paper based on independent data collection and analysis. Seminar limited to sociology majors with senior standing (except in exceptional circumstances). Fulfills the Research Paper Option for the senior requirement in sociology at Barnard.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Debra Minkoff
  CULPA: 6 h-index: 17 Info
• 4 points

Creative Embedded Systems

CREATIVE EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

Ubiquitous computing is creating new canvases and opportunities for creative ideas.
This class explores the use of microprocessors, distributed sensor networks, IoT,
and intermedia systems for the purposes of creative expression. The course is delivered
in a mixed lecture and lab format that introduces the fundamental concepts
and theory behind embedded systems as well as issues particular to their creative
employment. The key objective of the course is for students to conceive of and
implement creative uses of computation.

• Department: Computer Science @Barnard
• TR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Mark Santolucito
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 8 Info
• 3 points

Psychology/Neuroscience Senior Thesis Ad

Advanced Research Seminar

The seminar component of the Psych/Neuro Senior Thesis Advanced Research program. Students admitted to the research program should plan to take this seminar in the spring of their junior year and in the fall and spring semesters of their senior year. Students are expected to be working in a lab as part of their participation in this program. In addition to supporting students throughout their independent research project, this seminar will introduce students to some of the big questions in the field through its connection with the Psychology Department Colloquium and will train students in reading and evaluating scientific research and communicating their own research findings.

• Department: Psychology
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Lila Davachi
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 59 Info
• Instructor: Nim L Tottenham
  Info
• 1-3 points

TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES

EQUITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

• Department: American Studies
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 4 points

TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES

FREEDOM & CITIZENSHIP IN U.S.

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

• Department: American Studies
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Jessica H Lee
  Info
• 4 points

TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES

RACE; POVERTY & AMER CRIM JUST

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

• Department: American Studies
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Randolph Jonakait
  Info
• 4 points

CLIM CHNG/GLOBAL MIGR/HUM RGT

While the existence of processes of anthropogenic climate change is well established, predictions regarding the future consequences of these processes are far less certain. In no area is the uncertainty regarding near and long term effects as pronounced as in the question of how climate change will affect global migration. This course will address the issue of climate migration in four ways. First, the course will examine the theoretical and empirical literatures that have elucidated the nature of international migration in general. Second, the course will consider the phenomena of anthropogenic climate change as it relates to migration. Third, the course will consider how human rights and other legal regimes do or do not address the humanitarian issues created by anthropogenic climate change. Fourth, the course will synthesize these topics by considering how migration and climate change has arisen as a humanitarian, political, and economic issue in the Pacific. Human Rights elective.

• Department: Anthropology @Barnard
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Stephanie M Ratte
  Info
• 4 points

Polish Cinema: Seminar in Intl Film

Polish Cinema: Intl Semin

This course explores the richness--formal, political and thematic--of post-World War II Polish cinema, with a focus on the films of Andrzej Wajda ("Ashes and Diamonds"), Krzysztof Kieslowski ("Decalogue"), and Wojciech Has ("The Hourglass Sanatorium").

• Department: Film
• R 2 p.m.-5:50 p.m.
• Instructor: Annette Insdorf
  CULPA: 10 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

INDEPENDENT STUDY

Prerequisites: the department chairs permission. (Formerly R3932)

• Department: Visual Arts
• Instructor: Daphne Arthur
  Info
• Instructor: Matthew E Buckingham
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: David A Cruz
  Info
• Instructor: Delphine A Fawundu
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Jon Kessler
  CULPA: 5 Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Miya Masaoka
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Naeem Mohaiemen
  Wikipedia h-index: 8 Info
• Instructor: Kenny Rivero
  Info
• Instructor: Shelly Silver
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Sable Smith
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Rirkrit Tiravanija
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Tomas Vu Daniel
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 1-3 points

BUOYANCY

“Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.”,Michael Caine , We do not live our own desires. Pressing ourselves into heavy molds not made for our bodies compresses us, tears our skin, and bruises our features. It is hard to breathe. We sink. Weight harbors the downward pull. It attaches itself in many ways but there are countless ways to set it down, to be free. This takes practice and skill. The common task of this visual arts seminar is to distinguish ourselves from the weight we carry. Through a variety or reading, writing, and making activities we shall seek out and contact levity: that gravity that changes our bodies, make us light of touch, aerates and propels us toward the state of buoyancy. Not for the faint of heart.

• Department: Art History @Barnard
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Irena Haiduk
  Info
• 4 points

Genre: Blockbuster Cinema

This course examines how globalization and the global success of American blockbuster films have affected Hollywood film production, stardom, distribution, and exhibition. The course will analyze blockbuster aesthetics, including aspects of special effects, 3-D, VR, IMAX, sound, narration, genre, editing, and AI. The course will also explore the effects of new digital technologies on Hollywood and the cross-pollination among Hollywood, art house, and other national cinemas. Finally, the course will examine the effects of 9/11, the “war on terrorism,” climate change, Covid, AI, and other global concerns on marketing, aesthetics, distribution, franchise, and other aspects of this cinema.

• Department: Film
• M 10 a.m.-1:50 p.m.
• Instructor: Ronald Gregg
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 3 points

Seeking Sanctuary in New York City

In a renewed age of anti-immigrant fervor, the last few years have seen attention focused on people seeking asylum – the process under international law by which people fleeing persecution can seek protection in a country not of their citizenship. New York has become a particular flashpoint with a large influx of asylum seekers, most of them from Latin America. Often, they have arrived on buses sent here by southern governors intending to make the border “problem” that of a so-called “sanctuary city.” How has New York responded? And how does this fit into the city’s long history of refuge? 

This course will offer students an introduction to the theory, ethics, and history of the idea of international protection. We will look specifically at how Latin American citizens have engaged with the US asylum system over time and how this engagement has changed the shape of US immigration laws. We will study the origins of the ideas of international protection, who is understood to qualify and why, how the system has changed over time, and what these developments mean for a broader understanding of human rights across borders. We will also take a critical look at asylum, examine ideas of deservingness and innocence and their intersection with categories of race, class and gender, and question what it means for certain people to be constructed as victims and others to be seen as not eligible – or worthy – of protection.

This is an engaged pedagogy course. The class will be organized around a close collaboration with a NY legal organization that has taken on the work of representing many asylum seekers in the city. Students will learn the complexities of US asylum law and will work collectively to use this knowledge, while developing their research skills, to put together reports to be used in active asylum cases.

• Department: Human Rights (HRTB)
• TF 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Jennifer Trowbridge
  Info
• 5 points

Global Activism

GLOBAL ACTIVISM

This seminar will investigate efforts to coordinate, justify, and understand global activism through lenses of internationalism, solidarity, and universal human rights. We will also study transformations in the global institutional landscape – comprising international finance, supranational unions, and non-governmental organizations – which is itself the contradictory outcome of prior cycles of contestation. We will survey historical precedents, analyze contemporary manifestations, and speculate on the future prospects of global activism. Students will explore cases and concepts by reading scholarly literature and by considering the political practices, texts, and media created by movements themselves.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• W 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
• Instructor: Andrew S Anastasi
  Info
• 4 points

Power, Politics, and Procedure in US Imm

Power in Immigration Cour

Immigration court has been described as akin to trying death penalty cases in traffic court. With a backlog of over two million cases and counting, judges have impossibly full dockets, cases get continued at the last minute, and many people are left to their own devices to try to make sense of what their options might be to stay in the United States. A key part of this confusion is because immigration court – though the stakes of decisions are as high as can be – is civil, not criminal. Given this, individuals are not guaranteed the right to a court appointed attorney. New York City, however, has been on the forefront of trying to remedy at least this part of the equation, piloting a unique program to guarantee representation to New Yorkers facing removal proceedings. While having access to an attorney can make a meaningful difference, immigration judges still enjoy wide discretion in how they decide a given case.

The core idea of this course is that there is a real utility to observing immigration court, both for research and for contributing to social change.  This course will center around a practice of court watching in immigration court in order to develop a scholarly analysis of systems, institutions, and the functioning (or not) of the law. At the same time, this court watching practice will also involve the systematic collection of qualitative data that may be directly useful to immigration attorneys and their clients in their perpetual effort to hold immigration courts accountable and create as fair as possible of a playing field that upholds the basic principles of human rights. To that end, in this class we will study how to conduct courtroom observations, drawing from different methodological approaches and findings, study the idea, history, and critiques of immigration law from across disciplines, and conduct extensive, in depth, immigration court watching. We will partner with local legal services organizations in order to sharpen our sense of what kinds of data is useful for their specific legal interventions and to ensure that the data that we do collect and interpret can become part of a larger project to hold courts accountable.

This course will offer students a unique opportunity to see how rigorous social science research and analysis can have real impacts in the world beyond the classroom, and how those two realms, through collaboration, can mutually contribute to advancing social change. They will learn first-hand how the careful application of qualitative

• Department: Human Rights (HRTB)
• WF 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Jennifer Trowbridge
  Info
• 5 points

ANIME EFFECT: JAPANESE MEDIA

Culture, technology, and media in contemporary Japan. Theoretical and ethnographic engagements with forms of mass mediation, including anime, manga, video, and cell-phone novels. Considers larger global economic and political contexts, including post-Fukushima transformations. Prerequisites: the instructor's permission.

• Department: Anthropology
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Marilyn Ivy
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR

The Senior Seminar will afford thesis writers the chance to workshop their idea, conduct research and/or interviews, work with the IRB protocols (if necessary), learn to work with archival materials, and perform other research activities prior to writing the thesis. Students who choose to write a capstone paper or conduct a capstone project can choose an elective course the following semester. The Thesis Seminar, conducted in the spring semester, is a workshop-oriented course for Senior Thesis writers organized around honing their writing skills while providing guidance to students in their field/disciplinary-specific projects. For example, a student may choose to write a historical biography of an artist while another may pursue a sociological study of the effects of mass incarceration on voting rights. The instructor of the Thesis Seminar, working with a faculty adviser (dependent on the specific field of inquiry in the thesis), will provide feedback and supervise the writing schedule of the students.

• Department: African American and African Diaspora
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Kellie Jones
  CULPA: 3 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

COMP STUDY OF CONSTITUTNL CHAL

This course will examine how the American legal system decided constitutional challenges affecting the empowerment of African, Latino, and Asian American communities from the 19th century to the present. Focus will be on the role that race, citizenship, capitalism/labor, property, and ownership played in the court decision in the context of the historical, social, and political conditions existing at the time. Topics include the denial of citizenship and naturalization to slaves and immigrants, government sanctioned segregation, the struggle for reparations for descendants of slavery, and Japanese Americans during World War II.

• Department: Ethnicity and Race, Center for
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Elizabeth Ouyang
  CULPA: 8 Info
• 4 points

History of Human Rights

This course provides students with an introduction to the history of human rights as a compelling, contested, and dynamic constellation of discourses, structures, and practices.  As a framework for articulating and pursuing justice at local, national, and global levels, human rights in the 21st century draw on the diverse histories of social movements, moral philosophy, legal institutions, and political maneuvers across the modern period.  Claimed most frequently when their violation is most egregious, the history of human rights is also a history of wrongs, with the changing nature and scope of oppression serving to provoke different kinds of human rights struggles.  Often invoked as timeless and universal standards, the history of human rights demonstrates their basic malleability, both in terms of which rights are recognized and who qualifies as human, and their fundamental contingency, both in terms of the precariousness of any human rights ‘victory’ and their potential for co-optation in the interests of power.  Finally, while this course is primarily concerned with the history of human rights, we will also consider the human rights of history, reflecting on the role of history and historical consciousness in the pursuit for justice. 

Learning Outcomes

Aligned with the critical, historical, and integrative grounding of the course, the objectives for student learning encompass areas of
knowledge
,
skills
, and
values
.  They include:


Students will analyze the change over time of human rights discourses, institutions, practices.

Students will analyze the continuities and discontinuities between historic and contemporary forms of human rights.

Students will develop knowledge and understanding of various strategies for promoting human rights deployed by historic actors.

Students will develop knowledge and understanding of the role of history and historical consciousness in contemporary efforts to secure human rights.

Students will develop their capacity for empathy across difference.

Students will orient their own values in relation to the dynamic principles of human rights.

• Department: Institute for Study of Human Rights
• MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Glenn Mitoma
  Info
• 3 points

Ottoman Americana

This seminar explores the intertwined histories of the Ottoman Empire and the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through migration, mobility, and cultural exchange. It examines why diverse Ottoman subjects (Armenian, Greek, Turkish, Arab, Jewish, etc.) migrated to the United States and how they navigated life and contributed to the country’s evolving social and cultural fabric. Students will analyze migration experiences, community formations, and identity negotiations while considering how race, religion, class, and gender shaped the lives of transnational Ottoman communities in America. The course also investigates how Americans imagined the Ottoman world through missionary writings and journalism, and how Ottoman migrants themselves influenced these representations. Combining global and local perspectives, the seminar draws on historical, cultural, and sociological methods. Field-based learning, including visits to historic sites in New York City once home to Ottoman immigrant communities, complements classroom discussions.

• Department: American Studies
• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Tunc Sen
  Info
• 4 points

RACE AND RACISMS

In this class we will approach race and racism from a variety of disciplinary and intellectual perspectives, including: critical race theory/philosophy, anthropology, history and history of science and medicine. We will focus on the development and deployment of the race concept since the mid-19th century. Students will come to understand the many ways in which race has been conceptualized, substantiated, classified, managed and observed in the (social) sciences, medicine, and public health. We will also explore the practices and effects of race (and race-making) in familiar and less familiar social and political worlds. In addition to the courses intellectual content, students will gain critical practice in the seminar format -- that is, a collegial, discussion-driven exchange of ideas.

• Department: Ethnicity and Race, Center for
• F 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Catherine Fennell
  Info
• 4 points

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE

ENGLISH TRANSLTNS OF THE

English translations of the Bible from Tyndale to the present.

• Department: English and Comparative Literature
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: David M Yerkes
  CULPA: 41 Info
• 4 points

Black Americans and Development Politics

BLACK AMER & DEVELOP POLI

This seminar explores theories regarding race/racism, gendered racism, capitalism, political economy, and processes related to how governments and markets allocate capital to build and maintain public goods and services and private amenities—from drinking water, to homes, to schools, to grocery and retail stores. Focus is on debates within and across Black communities regarding how Black people should seek individual and collective capacity to realize their citizenship rights and privileges, with particular attention to variation in Black Americans’ interests across the class spectrum. The final two weeks are devoted to Black liberation and reparations movements.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Angela Simms
  Info
• 4 points

American Business: A History

“The business of America is business,” President Calvin Coolidge famously said in 1925.
1
But what he said next is far less known, and central to the aims of this course: “They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.” How, exactly, did that concern develop over the course of American history, in response to particular historical and cultural conditions? How did it shape, and how was it shaped by, other American concerns? And how do those concerns, anxieties, challenges, and opportunities manifest in today’s business landscape – and what does that mean for America’s place in the world tomorrow?

To find out, we’ll engage in a largely chronological analysis of the history of American business, focusing primarily on the last 150 years; and using a range of primary and secondary sources, ranging from Revolutionary-era documents to AI company press releases to business school case studies. It should be noted that there is no background in economics or finance required to take this course.

In addition to the readings, we will use Columbia’s largest advantage for the study of this subject – its location in New York City, the historical and still unquestioned home of American business – to bring in senior guest speakers from leading New York companies, offering unique perspectives on the past, present, and future business environment. We are fortunate that Matt Anestis, a former BlackRock managing director, Boston Consulting Group partner, and member of the Board of Visitors of American Studies, has agreed to actively support these efforts, and provide extensive real-world business insight to students throughout the term along with opportunities to visit top New York City businesses in various industries and meet with employees over coffee. These opportunities – ungraded and optional – will supplement the course and provide real-world complementary insight into what life is like on a world-class investment trading floor, Silicon Alley Startup office, publishing office, etc.  The schedule and choice of companies will reflect the goals and interests of students in the class.

1
Almost: the actual line reads “the chief business of the American people is business.” Always check your sources!

• Department: American Studies
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Jeremy Dauber
  CULPA: 21 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

AMERICAN FILM GENRES

There are certain stories we tell ourselves over and over and over, and many film genres are built around these stories.
 
This course examines Hollywood genre not only as a system of conventions but as a structure of feeling, a way of organizing fantasy, reproducing ideology, and sharing collective experience. They evolve with shifts in politics, technology, and taste, and each era’s films reveal something about how America imagines itself and grapples with its contradictions. We will engage a range of Hollywood genres, following their increasing self-reflexiveness, genre-bending and hybridity.  Our orientation will be formal as well as social and historical, as we identify codes, tropes and conventions of generic illusion and verisimilitude; the look and sound of different genres; genre and acting style; and different expressions of heroism. Genres will include: the romantic comedy, the western, superheroes, dystopian and “Indiewood” films, and television limited series.

• Department: American Studies
• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Maura L Spiegel
  CULPA: 40 Info
• 4 points

TEXT, MAGIC, PERFORMANCE

TEXT MAGIC PERFORMANCE

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. This course pursues interconnections linking text and performance in light of magic, ritual, possession, narration, and related articulations of power. Readings are drawn from classic theoretical writings, colonial fiction, and ethnographic accounts. Domains of inquiry include: spirit possession, trance states, séance, ritual performance, and related realms of cinematic projection, musical form, shadow theater, performative objects, and (other) things that move on their own, compellingly. Key theoretical concerns are subjectivity - particularly, the conjuring up and displacement of self in the form of the first-person singular I - and the haunting power of repetition. Retraced throughout the course are the uncanny shadows of a fully possessed subject --within ritual contexts and within everyday life.

• Department: Anthropology
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: John Pemberton
  CULPA: 15 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

Black Education

BLACK EDUCATION

This class will examine the development of education for African Americans in the United States. Chattel slavery and its afterlives are marked by questions, debates, and experiments not simply in schooling for Black people, but how to use education for the practice of freedom. Through examining this development, students will learn how the experience of Black people in schools complicates static notions about public vs private schools, demands for school desegregation, and the ongoing role of (mostly) white philanthropy in shaping the development of education for Black youth in the US and around the world.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Dominic T Walker
  Info
• 4 points

Language, Meaning, and Mind

In little more than fifty years linguistics has shifted from philological description to a cognitive-biological quest to uncover the mind’s language faculty. This seminar traces that shift through the generative tradition, which treats language as an innate “mental organ” whose universal grammar lets children build a full syntax from sparse input. We follow Minimalism’s bold reduction: a single operation called Merge, plus a finite lexicon and two interfaces, one to articulation and one to thought, yields the “digital infinity” of human expression. Framing this architecture in evolutionary terms, we confront Darwin’s problem: did language emerge gradually for communication or erupt suddenly from pre-existing cognitive parts? Evidence from birdsong, primate calls, and gesture helps separate general performance limits from the species-specific competence that remains uniquely human. Students will practice minimalist analyses and weigh competing biolinguistic accounts, using language as a window onto the design and origin of the human mind.

• Department: Cognitive Science @Barnard
• M 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Nikita Bezrukov
  Info
• 4 points

SUPERVISED INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH

1-4 points. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Except by special permission of the director of undergraduate studies, no more than 4 points of individual research may be taken in any one term. This includes both PSYC UN3950 and PSYC UN3920. No more than 8 points ofPSYC UN3950 may be applied toward the psychology major, and no more than 4 points toward the concentration. Readings, special laboratory projects, reports, and special seminars on contemporary issues in psychological research and theory.

• Department: Psychology
• Instructor: Dima Amso
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 31 Info
• Instructor: Christopher Baldassano
  h-index: 13 Info
• Instructor: Niall Bolger
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 55 Info
• Instructor: Natalie Brito
  Info
• Instructor: Lila Davachi
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 59 Info
• Instructor: Sarah Demoya
  Info
• Instructor: Geraldine Downey
  CULPA: 9 Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Katherine T Fox-Glassman
  CULPA: 6 h-index: 4 Info
• Instructor: Jon B Freeman
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Carl Hart
  CULPA: 43 Wikipedia h-index: 54 Info
• Instructor: Tory Higgins
  CULPA: 23 Wikipedia h-index: 134 Info
• Instructor: Nora Isacoff
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Sheena Iyengar
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Nikolaus Kriegeskorte
  h-index: 56 Info
• Instructor: Chujun Lin
  Info
• Instructor: Patricia G Lindemann
  CULPA: 64 Info
• Instructor: Bianca J Marlin
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Janet Metcalfe
  CULPA: 31 h-index: 70 Info
• Instructor: Meghan Meyer
  Info
• Instructor: Michael W Morris
  h-index: 68 Info
• Instructor: Kevin Ochsner
  CULPA: 12 h-index: 86 Info
• Instructor: Valerie J Purdie-Greenaway
  Wikipedia h-index: 29 Info
• Instructor: Daphna Shohamy
  CULPA: 10 h-index: 47 Info
• Instructor: Rae Silver
  Wikipedia h-index: 69 Info
• Instructor: Larisa H Solomon
  Info
• Instructor: Alfredo Spagna
  CULPA: 3 h-index: 15 Info
• Instructor: Yaakov Stern
  Wikipedia h-index: 160 Info
• Instructor: Herbert S Terrace
  CULPA: 29 Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Nim L Tottenham
  Info
• Instructor: Sarah Woolley
  CULPA: 13 Wikipedia h-index: 31 Info
• 0-4 points

Computational Models of Decision-Making

Comp Models of Decision-M

We make decisions countless times a day. Computational models have been developed that improve our understanding of how these decisions are made. This course is organized in three parts: perceptual decision-making, value-based decision-making, and computational psychiatry. In part one, perceptual decision-making, we will focus on computational models that can capture and explain decisions in perception, such as categorizing an orientation, or discriminating the direction of moving dots, or estimating the magnitude of a stimulus (e.g., time). We will start by laying the foundations of signal detection theory and Bayesian inference under uncertainty and build to models that incorporate confidence ratings and reaction times. In part two, value-based decision-making, we will move on to decisions that incorporate our values (e.g., ‘Should I go out or stay in and study?’, ‘Should I eat a burger or a salad?’). We will learn the basics of a computational modeling framework that captures how we learn values from rewards and punishments, reinforcement learning, as well as about model-free and model-based learning. Lastly, we will learn how impairments in decision-making that occur in psychopathology (e.g., addiction, anorexia nervosa, anxiety) have been conceptualized and quantified in the relatively new field of computational psychiatry.

• Department: Cognitive Science @Barnard
• F 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Andra L Mihali
  Info
• 4 points

COMPARATIVE POLITICS SEMINAR

VOTING WITHOUT BORDERS

Prerequisites: POLS V1501 or the equivalent, and the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Please see here for detailed seminar registration guidelines: http://polisci.columbia.edu/undergraduate-programs/seminar-registration-guidelines. Seminar in Comparative Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list.

• Department: Political Science
• T 8:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
• Instructor: Chiara Superti
  CULPA: 3 Info
• 4 points

COMPARATIVE POLITICS SEMINAR

Dev. Democracy Challenges

Prerequisites: POLS V1501 or the equivalent, and the instructors permission. Pre-registration is not permitted. Please see here for detailed seminar registration guidelines: http://polisci.columbia.edu/undergraduate-programs/seminar-registration-guidelines. Seminar in Comparative Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list.

• Department: Political Science
• T 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Mark A Schneider
  Info
• 4 points

UNDERGRADUATE SEMINARS II

Prerequisites: two years of calculus, at least one year of additional mathematics courses, and the director of undergraduate studies' permission. The subject matter is announced at the start of registration and is different in each section. Each student prepares talks to be given to the seminar, under the supervision of a faculty member or senior teaching fellow. Prerequisite: two years of calculus, at least one year of additional mathematics courses, and the director of undergraduate studies' permission.

• Department: Mathematics @Barnard
• Instructor: Alisa Knizel
  Info
• 3 points

How Race Gets Under Our Skin: The Sociol

RACE, HEALTH, AND BIOMEDI

One of the glaring forms of inequalities that persists today is the race-based gap in access to health care, quality of care, and health outcomes. This course examines how institutionalized racism and the structure of health care contributes to the neglect and sometimes abuse of racial and ethnic minorities. Quite literally, how does race affect one’s life chances? This course covers a wide range of topics related to race and health, including: racial inequalities in health outcomes, biases in medical institutions, immigration status and health, racial profiling in medicine, and race in the genomic era.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Domonique M Reed
  Info
• 4 points

SENIOR RESEARCH SEMINAR

Prerequisites: Course open to Barnard Art History majors only. Independent research for the senior thesis. Students develop and write their senior thesis in consultation with an individual faculty adviser in Art History and participate in group meetings scheduled throughout the senior year.

• Department: Art History @Barnard
• T 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Elizabeth Hutchinson
  CULPA: 9 Info
• 3 points

EPISTEMOLOGY

Corequisites: PHIL W3963 Required Discussion Section (0 points). What can we know? What is knowledge? What are the different kinds of knowledge? We will read classic and contemporary texts for insight into these questions.

• Department: Philosophy
• MW 6:10 p.m.-7:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Jessica Collins
  Info
• 4 points

Honors Thesis Seminar Part 2

Honors Thesis Sem Pt. 2

The MESAAS honors seminar offers the opportunity to undertake a sustained research project working closely with an individual faculty adviser. It also enables you, as part of a small group of MESAAS students working with the seminar instructor, to develop the skills of academic research and writing and learn how to collaborate with peers and create an engaged intellectual community. This 3-point seminar continues the work begun in the Fall semester of the senior year in MDES 3960 Honors Thesis Seminar Part 1.

• Department: Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Debashree Mukherjee
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 5 Info
• 3 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

COERCION AND WORLD POLITICS

Prerequisites: POLS UN2601 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. Seminar in International Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list.

• Department: Political Science
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Sarah Daly
  Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

SOLVING GLOBAL PROBLEMS

Prerequisites: POLS UN2601 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. Seminar in International Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list.

• Department: Political Science
• M 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Giulio M Gallarotti
  Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

INTERNATIONAL LAW

Prerequisites: POLS UN2601 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. Seminar in International Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list.

• Department: Political Science
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Jean Krasno
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

INT'L CRISES SINCE COLD WAR

Prerequisites: POLS UN2601 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. Seminar in International Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list.

• Department: Political Science
• M 8:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
• Instructor: Jeremiah S Pam
  Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

ADVANCES IN IPE

Prerequisites: POLS UN2601 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. Seminar in International Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list.

• Department: Political Science
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Davit Sahakyan
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

FOREIGN ECONOMIC POLICY

Prerequisites: POLS UN2601 or the equivalent, and the instructor's permission. Seminar in International Politics. Students who would like to register should join the electronic wait list.

• Department: Political Science
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: David E Spiro
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 6 Info
• 4 points

EPISTEMOLOGY - REC

Required discussion section for PHIL UN3960 Epistemology.

• Department: Philosophy
• R 12:10 p.m.-1 p.m.
• R 1:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Lisa J Clark
  Info
• Instructor: James O Beardmore
  Info
• 0 points

Social Stratification Among Asian Americ

Social Stratification Asi

This seminar examines social stratification through the lens of Asian American experiences. Social stratification refers to the unequal distribution of valued resources, such as income, wealth, education, and power, and the processes by which these resources are allocated across individuals, groups, and generations.

We will explore how the broader patterns of inequality and mobility in the United States intersect with the histories and social positions of Asian Americans. Topics include income and wealth inequality, educational attainment and occupational mobility, immigration and inter-generational mobility, racialization and stereotypes (e.g., the “model minority" and “perpetual foreigner" narratives), gender and family dynamics, neighborhood segregation, and political and civic incorporation. We will also consider how globalization, transnational migration, and the future of work shape opportunities and constraints for different Asian American communities.

• Department: Sociology
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Xi Song
  Info
• 4 points

MAJOR 20TH CENTURY PLAYWRIGHTS

Ibsen, Pinter, and Parks

The course will trace the playwriting careers of Henrik Ibsen, Harold Pinter, and Suzan-Lori Parks, exploring the nature of and relationships among key features of their evolving aesthetics. Thematic and theatrical exploration involve positioning the plays in the context of the contested 20C trajectories of modernism and postmodernism. History in modernism and the history of modernism have become much-debated concepts, and these playwrights variously confront the challenges of looking back in time to facilitate looking forward. The course examines, in that context, the status of different kinds of history; the claims of family, friendship, and community identifications; the contributions of often disruptive intruders; the issues raised by performance and the implied playhouse; and the plays’ potential as instruments of cultural intervention.
Application Instructions: 
E-mail Professor Austin Quigley (aeq1@columbia.edu) with the subject heading "Ibsen, Pinter, and Parks seminar." In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken (if any), along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. 
Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available.

• Department: English and Comparative Literature
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Austin E Quigley
  Info
• 4 points

IDEAS/SOCIETY IN THE CARIBBEAN

• Department: Anthropology
• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: David Scott
  CULPA: 6 h-index: 72 Info
• 4 points

Senior Thesis Seminar II

This seminar is a continuation of the course from last semester (SOCI3988). It will culminate in you completing your thesis. Whereas last semester you concentrated on posing interesting, important, and feasible research questions, as well as how to conduct data collection, this semester you will learn how: to troubleshoot challenges and ethical issues in collecting data (i.e. data collection), translate your data into findings and conclusions (i.e. data analysis), orient your findings in an existing conversation (i.e. revising a literature review and introduction/hook), and write to persuade your audience and readers of your argument (i.e. write persuasively). 

Instructor permission is required to join the course. Please note this course is the second part in a two part sequence, you must first take SOCI 3988 before you can enroll in SOCI 3989.

• Department: Sociology
• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: James Chu
  h-index: 18 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR PROJECT SEMINAR

The Senior Project Seminar will focus primarily on developing students’ ideas for their research projects while charting their research goals. The course is designed to develop and hone the skills necessary to complete a senior thesis paper or creative project.  An important component of the seminar is the completion of original and independent student research. The seminar provides students a forum in which to discuss their work with both the instructor and their peers.  The professor, who facilitates the colloquium, will also provide students with additional academic support through seminar presentations, one-on-one meetings, and classroom exercises; supplementary to the feedback they receive from their individual faculty advisors.  The course is divided into three main parts: 1.) researching and producing a senior project thesis; 2.) the submission of coursework throughout the spring semester that help lead to a successful completed project; 3.) and an oral presentation showcasing one’s research to those in and beyond the CSER community at the end of the academic year.  This course is reserved for seniors who are completing a CSER senior project and who have successfully completed 
Modes of Inquiry
 in either their junior or senior year.

• Department: Ethnicity and Race, Center for
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Darius V Echeverria
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

FIELDWORK

May be repeated for credit, but no more than 3 total points may be used for degree credit. Only for Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering undergraduate students who include relevant off-campus work experience as part of their approved program of study. Final report and letter of evaluation required. May not be used as technical or nontechnical electives or to satisfy any other Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering major requirements. May not be taken for pass/fail credit or audited.

• Department: Electrical Engineering
• Instructor: Xiaodong Wang
  CULPA: 15 Info
• 1-2 points

SENIOR PROJ:RESEARCH FOR MUSIC

Working with her advisor, a student will expand the research project initiated in the Fall Senior Seminar for Music Majors (BC3992x). In order to satisfy the requirement, the student will complete a fifty page research paper.

• Department: Music @Barnard
• Instructor: Gail R Archer
  CULPA: 24 Info
• 3 points

Advanced Topics in German Literature

ROMANTICISM

"Advanced Topics in German Literature” is open to seniors and other advanced undergraduate students who have taken Intro to German Literature (GERM 3333) or an equivalent class. The seminar provides students the opportunity to closely examine a topic from a variety of perspectives and theoretical approaches. Readings and discussion in German. The course is repeatable for credit.

• Department: Germanic Languages
• M 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Stefan Andriopoulos
  CULPA: 6 Wikipedia h-index: 12 Info
• 3 points

SENIOR PROJ: MUSIC REPERTORY

Working with her advisor, a student will develop a vocal or instrumental recital program with representative musical works from a variety of historical periods. In order to satisfy the requirement, the student will present an hour long public performance of the recital program. Students may also satisfy this requirement by composing original vocal or instrumental works.

• Department: Music @Barnard
• Instructor: Gail R Archer
  CULPA: 24 Info
• 3 points

THESIS RESEARCH SEMINAR

Guided, independent, indepth research experience culminating in the senior essay. Weekly meetings are held to review work in progress, to share results through oral and written reports, and to consider career options for further work in this field.

• Department: Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• 3 points