This course is designed for students with at least two years of college-level Chinese who wish to improve their conversational skills. It focuses on practical speaking and listening in real- world contexts, emphasizing fluency, vocabulary expansion, and cultural competence. Students will develop confidence in expressing opinions, narrating experiences, and engaging in spontaneous conversations on everyday and contemporary topics.
Note: This Course CANNOT be used to fulfill the language requirement.
This class is a cultural history of Black fashion and dress through the lens of the current Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s exhibition
Superfine: Tailoring Black Style
.
Superfine
presents a cultural and historical examination of Black dandyism, from Enlightenment England to contemporary incarnations in the cosmopolitan art and fashion worlds of Paris, London, and New York.
Historical manifestations of dandyism range from absolute precision in dress and tailoring to flamboyance and fabulousness in self-presentation. The
Superfine
exhibition uses dandyism to chronicle the ways in which Black people have used dress and fashion to transform the identities they were given and to propose new ways of embodying political and social possibilities. Interpreting Black dandyism as both an aesthetics and a politics, this class emphasizes the importance of sartorial style to Black identity formation in the Atlantic diaspora.
Various concepts within the field of biomedical engineering, foundational knowledge of engineering methodology applied to biological and/or medical problems through modules in biomechanics, biomaterials, and cell & tissue engineering.
Fundamentals are emphasized: the laws of thermodynamics are derived and their meaning explained and elucidated by applications to engineering problems. Pure systems are treated, with an emphasis on phase equilibrium.
Fables have long been considered sources of popular wisdom and education throughout the entire ancient
Mediterranean, marked by a diversity of literary, ethnic, geographic, political, and class associations. Further,
fable traditions have rather complicated oral and written receptions, often connected to historical/authorial
figures or fable collectors such as Ahiqar, Archilochos, Aesop, Callimachus, Jesus, Babrius, and Phaedrus.
Offering various approaches to world building and sometimes contradictory ethical and social reflections, fables
and their traditions serve as the ideal ground for exploring a variety of literary, methodological, and sociological
questions from the iron age to late antiquity.This course offers an exploration in translation of the fable as a
cross-cultural and multi-lingual discursive form that challenges assumptions around canon formation,
authorship, the socio-historical conditions of the "literary", and western literary narratives of cultural reception.
Introduction to quantum mechanics: atoms, electron shells, bands, bonding; introduction to group theory: crystal structures, symmetry, crystallography; introduction to materials classes: metals, ceramics, polymers, liquid crystals, nanomaterials; introduction to polycrystals and disordered materials; noncrystalline and amorphous structures; grain boundary structures, diffusion; phase transformations; phase diagrams, time-temperature transformation diagrams; properties of single crystals: optical properties, electrical properties, magnetic properties, thermal properties, mechanical properties, and failure of polycrystalline and amorphous materials.
Prerequisites: (PHYS BC2002) Calculus III Nonlinear pendula, transverse vibrations-elastic strings, longitudinal sound waves, seismic waves, electromagnetic oscillations & light, rainbows, haloes, the Green Flash; polarization phenomena - Haidinger's Brush, Brewster's angle, double refraction, optical activity; gravity & capillary waves; interference, diffraction, lenses & mirrors.
Prerequisites: SOCI UN1000 The Social World or Instructor Permission Required for all Sociology majors. Introductory course in social scientific research methods. Provides a general overview of the ways sociologists collect information about social phenomena, focusing on how to collect data that are reliable and applicable to our research questions.
Prerequisites: (VIAR UN1000) (Formerly R3515) This course approaches drawing as an experimental and expressive tool. Students will explore the boundaries between drawing and sculpture and will be encouraged to push the parameters of drawing. Collage, assemblage and photomontage will be used in combination with more traditional approaches to drawing. The class will explore the role of the imagination, improvisation, 3-dimensional forms, observation, memory, language, mapping, and text. Field trips to artists’ studios as well as critiques will play an important role in the course. The course will culminate in a final project in which each student will choose one or more of the themes explored during the semester and create a series of artworks. This course is often taught under the nomenclature Drawing II - Mixed Media.
Prerequisites: ECON BC3035 or ECON BC3033, or permission of the instructor. Conceptualization and measurement of inequality and poverty, poverty traps and distributional dynamics, economics and politics of public policies, in both poor and rich countries.
Prerequisites: SOCI UN1000
Discussion section for SOCI UN3010: METHODS FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
Prerequisites: SOCI UN1000
Discussion section for SOCI UN3010: METHODS FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
Prerequisites: ECON BC3035 and ECON BC2411 or permission of the instructor. Analyzes education policies and education markets from an economic perspective. Examines challenges that arise when researchers attempt to identify the causal effects of inputs. Other topics: (1) education as an investment, (2) public school finance, (3) teacher labor markets, (4) testing/accountability programs, (5) school choice programs, and (6) urban public school reforms.
Prerequisites: LATN UN2102 or the equivalent. Selections from Vergil and Horace. Combines literary analysis with work in grammar and metrics.
Lectures and hands-on experiments on the characterization of microstructure in crystalline and amorphous solids. Optical, scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Metallography, sample preparation and analysis. Stereology. Crystal structure determination with x-ray diffraction. Elemental analysis using energy-dispersive x-ray analysis. Atomic force microscopy.
Enables students to become informed users of financial information by understanding the language of accounting and financial reporting. Focuses on the three major financial statements that companies prepare for use of management and external parties--the balance sheet, the income statement, and the statement of cash flows. Examines the underlying concepts that go into the preparation of these financial statements as well as specific accounting rules that apply when preparing financial statements. Also looks at approaches to analyze the financial strength and operations of an entity. Uses actual financial statements to understand how financial information is presented and to apply analysis techniques.
Prerequisites: ECON BC3035 or ECON BC3033, or permission of the instructor. Economic transformation of the United States from a small, open agrarian society in the late colonial era to the leading industrial economy of the 20th century. Emphasis is given to the quantitative, institutional, and spatial dimensions of economic growth, and the relationship between the changing structures of the economy and state.
Translation of French texts--both critical and literary, focusing on particular questions or themes. FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.
Required Lab for EEEB UN3005. An introduction to the theoretical principles and practical application of statistical methods in ecology and evolutionary biology. The course will cover the conceptual basis for a range of statistical techniques through a series of lectures using examples from the primary literature. The application of these techniques will be taught through the use of statistical software in computer-based laboratory sessions.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited. Required field trip on first Friday of the semester. Hands-on approach to learning environmental methods. Students take a one-day cruise on the Hudson River to collect environmental samples. These samples are then analyzed throughout the semester to characterize the Hudson River estuary. Standard and advanced techniques to analyze water and sediment samples for nutrients and contaminants are taught.
Prerequisites: At least one French course after completion of FREN BC1204: Intermediate II or permission of the instructor. Oral presentations and discussions of French films aimed at increasing fluency, acquiring vocabulary, and perfecting pronunciation skills.
Fittingly in the age of fake news, this seminar addresses how lying, deception, concealment, and forgery have shaped the history of architecture and its historiography. It deals not only with architects’ lies, but also with how their architecture can be deceptive in many different ways. It also analyses how architectural narratives—including biographies—and historical accounts have been shaped by falsehoods and distortions.
While addressing philosophical issues that remain relevant to our present, the course will examine some of the most influential architects and key works of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth century—a pivotal time within intellectual history for the definition of the concept of ‘truth’ and also, therefore, of its opposite.
Students will learn how to make use of the many lenses through which architecture can be investigated. The goal is not only to acquire a foundation in European architectural history, but also, more broadly, to develop the skills necessary to analyze architecture and to deal with original architectural objects and texts, as well as to cultivate a critical attitude towards architectural literature.
Prerequisites: One year of college science or EESC V2100 or permission of the instructor. Acquisition, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of environmental data, assessment of spatial and temporal variability. Focus on water quality issues and storm surges. Uses existing and student-generated data sets. Basic principles of statistics and GIS, uses standard software packages including EXCEL and ArcGIS. Includes a half-day field trip on a Saturday or Sunday. General Education Requirement: Quantitative and Deductive Reasoning (QUA).
This course is a study of the development of American political ideas, through critical analysis of the
writings of intellectuals and political leaders from the American Founding to the present. As our central
theme, we will focus on the traditions of American Political Thought (APT) as simultaneously theorizing
freedom and liberty on the one hand, and intense, often violent forms of domination on the other,
especially domination on the basis of race. Consequently, we will devote time to both classic readings in
APT (the Founders, Tocqueville, Lincoln, etc.) and to multiple strands of US political thinking that
challenge the dominant narratives of APT. In analyzing the competing traditions of equality and
inequality in theory, we will also explore the connections between this theory and practices of equality
and inequality.
Prerequisites: ECON BC3033 or ECON BC3035, and ECON BC2411 or STAT W1111 or STAT W1211, or permission of the instructor. Specification, estimation and evaluation of economic relationships using economic theory, data, and statistical inference; testable implications of economic theories; econometric analysis of topics such as consumption, investment, wages and unemployment, and financial markets.
Experiments in instrumentation and measurement: optical, pressure, fluid flow, temperature, stress, and electricity; viscometry, cantilever beam, digital data acquisition. Probability theory: distribution, functions of random variables, tests of significance, correlation, ANOVA, linear regression.
Prerequisites: (POLS UN1201) In this survey of American political development, we will discuss how and why major institutions and policies emerged, why they took certain forms, when and why they have changed over time, and what kinds of factors limit change. We will also discuss how policies, in turn, shape citizens and institutions.
This seminar analyzes the different critical approaches to studying same-sex desire in the Caribbean region. The region’s long history of indigenous genocide, colonialism, imperialism, and neo-liberalism, have made questions about “indigenous” and properly “local” forms of sexuality more complicated than in many other regions. In response, critics have worked to recover and account for local forms of same-sex sexuality and articulated their differences in critical and theoretical terms outside the language of “coming out” and LGBT identity politics. On the other hand, critics have emphasized how outside forces of colonialism, imperialism, and the globalization of LGBT politics have impacted and reshaped Caribbean same-sex desires and subjectivities. This course studies these various critical tendencies in the different contexts of the Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, and Dutch Caribbean.
Designed to provide students with an understanding of the fundamental marketing concepts and their application by business and non-business organizations. The goal is to expose students to these concepts as they are used in a wide variety of settings, including consumer goods firms, manufacturing and service industries, and small and large businesses. The course gives an overview of marketing strategy issues, elements of a market (company, customers, and competition), as well as the fundamental elements of the marketing mix (product, price, placement/distribution, and promotion).
An exploration of the early periods of French literary creation (Medieval-17th century) through works of fiction, poetry, and theatre. Special attention is given to texts that use tradition to bring about change, to provoke, to contest social norms, and to test the expected parameters of literary expression.
Prerequisites: BIOL UN2005 and BIOL UN2006 or equivalent. Come discover how the union of egg and sperm triggers the complex cellular interactions that specify the diverse variety of cells present in multicellular organisms. Cellular and molecular aspects of sex determination, gametogenesis, genomic imprinting, X-chromosome inactivation, telomerase as the biological clock, stem cells, cloning, the pill and cell interactions will be explored, with an emphasis on humans. Original research articles will be discussed to further examine current research in developmental biology. SPS and TC students may register for this course, but they must first obtain the written permission of the instructor, by filling out a paper Registration Adjustment Form (Add/Drop form). The form can be downloaded at the URL below, but must be signed by the instructor and returned to the office of the registrar. http://registrar.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/reg-adjustment.pdf
“I believe
—
I know that ghosts
have
wandered the earth. Be with me always
—
take any form
—
drive me mad!”
—Emily Brontë
, Wuthering Heights
In this course we’ll expand our understanding of how writing is often the site of lingering, numinous, immaterial presences. We’ll begin with the tradition of
the ghost story
— a literary device beloved by writers for centuries across many genres. Beyond the consideration of the supernatural, we’ll also investigate more abstract capacities in which texts—and writers (and sometimes editors!)—are inevitably possessed by an
other
, a presence that lingers persistently, making itself known whether we welcome it or not. Memory and trauma are their own kinds of ghosts. Similarly, we’ll discover how traces of works by writers we admire, our teachers, even a specific text or image, can manifest as spectral forms inhabiting our work. We’ll address the complexities of those vestiges in terms of appropriation and originality—what Harold Bloom calls “the anxiety of influence.” Students will process and explore these ideas in both creative and analytical writings throughout the semester.
Course Books (available at Book Culture):
Eileen Myles
, Afterglow
Diana Khoi Nguyen,
Ghost Of
Lucie Brock Broido,
Trouble in Mind
Mary Reufle
, A Little White Shadow
Max Porter
, Grief is the Thing With Feathers
All other readings will be posted on Courseworks as PDFs.
Prerequisites: (BIOL UN2005 and BIOL UN2006) This course provides an introduction to Neurogenetics, which studies the role of genetics in the development and function of the nervous system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogenetics). The course will be focused on teaching classic and contemporary concepts in genetics and neuroscience, rather than cataloguing mere facts. The course will emphasize the discovery processes, historical figures involved in these processes and methodologies of discovery. Primary research papers will be discussed in detail. A central organizational theme of the course is the presence of a common thread and narrative throughout the course. The common thread is an invertebrate model system, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, which serves as a paradigm to show how simple genetic model systems have informed our view on the genetics of nervous system development and function. The ultimate goal of this course is to gain an understanding of the underlying principles of how the nervous system of one specific animal species forms, from beginning to end. The course is intended for neuroscience-inclined students (e.g. neuroscience majors) who want to learn about how genetic approaches have informed our understanding of brain development and function and, vice versa, for students with an interest in molecular biology and genetics, who want to learn about key problems in neuroscience and how genetic approaches can address them.
In this course, we will consider three mid-20th-Century thinkers who responded to grave injustices of their day through writing: Rodolfo Walsh, Hannah Arendt, and James Baldwin. Taking three texts by these authors as a point of comparison and departure—
Operation Massacre
(1957),
Eichmann in Jerusalem
(1963), and
The Fire Next Time
(1963)—we will explore the urgency of each text and think together about how these works catch the consciences of their readers. In tandem, we will look at related documentary films—
Operación Masacre
(1973),
The Specialist
(1999), and
I Am Not Your Negro
(2016), among others—to enrich our understanding of these writers’ interventions, with a specific eye to their capacity for holding hope and despair together in their work. We will study the narrative techniques each writer uses to depict the suffering they are confronting while also leaving room for the possibility of improved conditions. In each case, we will also read the work of each writer in different genres—poetry and philosophy for Arendt, fiction for Walsh and Baldwin—and think together about the forms and rhetorical functions of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, in these contexts, as well as the specific affordances of literature as a medium (compared, say, to film). As a final, capstone assignment, students will have the choice of either writing a research paper on one or at most two of the authors/central works, or crafting their own work of long-form cultural criticism in response to a social issue of their choice.
Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and STAT UN1201 Institutional nature and economic function of financial markets. Emphasis on both domestic and international markets (debt, stock, foreign exchange, eurobond, eurocurrency, futures, options, and others). Principles of security pricing and portfolio management; the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.
Prerequisites: EESC V2100, physics, or permission of instructor. Includes a weekend field trip. Alternate years. Hands-on study and discussion of the basic physical principles of the water cycle (evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, and subsurface flow), as well as environmentally relevant applications based on case studies. Special focus on the New York City area, the arid Southwest, and the developing world. Coverage of contemporary global water resources issues, including pollution control, sustainable development, and climate change. General Education Requirement: Quantitative and Deductive Reasoning (QUA).
Prerequisites: (MATH UN1101 and MATH UN1102 and MATH UN1201) and and MATH UN2010. A concrete introduction to abstract algebra. Topics in abstract algebra used in cryptography and coding theory.
Political parties have evoked widespread scorn in the U.S. since the founding era; and yet, they arose almost immediately and have endured for over two centuries. In this course, we will examine why parties formed despite the Founders’ disdain for them. (In 1789, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go at all.” In 1800, he won the presidency as a candidate of a major party.) We will dig into scholarly debates about what exactly parties are, what purpose they serve, and how and why they have changed over time as organizations, in the electorate, and in government. Topics will include the presidential nomination process from the founding through the much-discussed 2016 primary election season, the life cycle of third parties, and the relationship between political parties and interest groups. Students will learn what is and is not unique about the current historical moment, and how history might shape our expectations of parties moving forward. Throughout the course, we will pay particularly close attention to the roots of contemporary party polarization, and the implications of this phenomenon for representation and governance. In 1950, the American Political Science Association released a report criticizing the two major parties for excessive similarity; today, party polarization evokes widespread concern. Is there an ideal level of party difference? How much is too much? We will address these difficult questions, among others, in this broad survey of American political parties.
Prerequisites: (ECON BC3035 or ECON UN3211) The purpose of the course is to think about public policy issues through an economic lens. We will explore the basic economic foundations of individual decision-making and discuss the ways in which economists hypothesize that individuals respond to the incentives embedded within public policies. We will pay particular attention to the nature and detail of existing public policies, and use economic analysis to predict how these policies might influence behavior. We will also explore some of the relevant empirical literature on a set of policy topics, to see how these predictions hold up.
Looking at both historical and lived realities of Muslims in NYC, moving from the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan to Harlem as Mecca. The course would engage both with cultural production, such as music, plays, and street art, and living communities around the Barnard campus.
This course seeks to impart students with knowledge of volcanic eruptions on Earth and the effects on the environment as a whole. The course will focus on the physical mechanisms responsible for eruptions, the effects eruptions have on humans and other living organisms, as well as the environment. The course will investigate how eruptions have contributed to global climate change. The course will also look at the positive effects volcanoes have had on Earth, such as providing nutrient rich soils for growing crops and providing renewable geothermal energy--a cleaner energy resource. Format: lecture, field trip, data collection and analysis, student presentations.
This course explores education as a process through which critical consciousness and epistemic justice combat oppression in communities. Students will connect seminal work by critical pedagogues, such as Paolo Freire and bell hooks, to systemic educational challenges and lived experience. As a class, we will investigate power dynamics and structural inequalities at the systemic, institutional, interpersonal and individual levels. Students will problem-pose, dialogue and create pedagogical tools through praxis, by integrating the theory learned in the class to educational practice.
This course explores the meaning of American citizenship in connection with the country’s immigration history. Topics include historic pathways to citizenship for migrants; barriers to citizenship including wealth, race, gender, beliefs and documentation; and critical issues such as colonialism, statelessness, dual nationality, and birthright citizenship. We will ask how have people become citizens and under what authority has that citizenship been granted? What are the historic barriers to citizenship and how have they shifted over time? What major questions remain unanswered by Congress and the Supreme Court regarding the rights of migrants to attain and retain American citizenship?
Pre-requisites Chem 1 and Calculus I ; Co-requisites Chemistry II (CHEM1404 or equivalent) and Calculus II (MATH UN2030 or equivalent)
By the end of this course, students will understand: The biogeochemical cycles driving the composition of trace gas and aerosol species that are both long- and short-lived in the atmosphere that influence climate by directly interacting with radiation (i.e. greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, CFCs, aerosols) and those that do so mainly by altering the concentrations of other gases (OH, NOx, etc.); The effects of these gas and aerosol species on climate and atmospheric composition; Climate mitigation strategies that are being considered in response to climate warming.
This course is designed for undergraduate students seeking a quantitative introduction to climate and climate change science. EESC V2100 (Climate Systems) is not a prerequisite, but can also be taken for credit if it is taken before this course.
Prerequisites: An introductory course in economics and a functioning knowledge of high school algebra and analytical geometry or permission of the instructor. Systematic exposition of current macroeconomic theories of unemployment, inflation, and international financial adjustments.
Being young can often mean being (or feeling) powerless, particularly within the large
institutions that structure youth’s lives. Couple this with experiences of marginalization due to
race, class, gender, or other social identities, and young people may experience profound
constraints in their choices or pathways. At the same time, youth – both individually and in
groups – often develop strategies to resist these sources of literal and figurative confinement to
seek out dignity, joy, and justice. Using sociological and ethnographic texts as our foundation,
this course will explore the way experiences of confinement and constraint show up in the lives
of young people, particularly as they move through educational institutions – and how youth
work to resist those forms of subordination.
In the first half of the semester, we will focus on policing and prisons and examine the ways
schools play a role in funneling youth into different forms of confinement. In the second half of
the semester, we will investigate college and college preparatory contexts in an effort to
understand the ways they may constrain opportunities by creating or foreclosing particular
pathways for students’ futures. Throughout the semester, we will emphasize the role of socially
constructed identity categories – race, gender, class, in particular, as well as the category of
youth itself – in these processes of confinement and constraint. We will also highlight youth and
community practices of resistance against these social and institutional forces. Along the way,
we will consider (and practice) the affordances and limitations of ethnography as a mode of
social research for studying confinement, constraint, and practices of resistance in educational
contexts.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Through this course, students will:
● Use a range of sociological, ethnographic, and multimodal texts to analyze youth’s
experiences of confinement, constraint, and resistance (expansively defined) and the
ways they play out in different institutional, educational, and social contexts.
● Explore the methodological approach of ethnography – its affordances, challenges, and
some of the major dilemmas in the field – and practice it by conducting a series of
scaffolded ethnographic projects.
● Write for multiple purposes, including exploratory and dialogic writing shared with peers
The origin and development of the contemporary roles of the President as a decision maker and the
importance of the presidency in the American Political System. Studies examining the selection process
and the relationship between presidents and other decision- making actors, such as the Congress,
interest groups, the courts and the bureaucracy, will be used to inform the students to help critically
analyze both continuity and changes in the influence of the office.
This course examines the American presidency from both an academic and applied perspective. The
executive branch of government has changed more than the others, especially over the past century.
As America has moved from a legislative centered government to an executive centered one, it
becomes important to understand the intricacies of presidents and of the presidency. This course
examines the individuals who have held this office and stand as the head of state and government,
along with the institutional structure of the executive branch that consists of departments, agencies,
offices that employ over two million people. The course covers the complexities and struggles
administrations have in navigating internal politics, along with public expectations and approval,
influencing relations with Congress and the courts, and navigating global politics around security and
economic interests.
This course seeks to examine the role families and communities play in P-12 public schools in the United States, with a focus on urban school systems. We will be using New York City as a case study, and comparing what we see happening in the nation’s largest public school district to other districts around the country. While much of our focus will be on the NYC Department of Education, which serves approximately 1.3 million students each year, students will be asked to look close to home to examine the relationships between families, communities, educators and educational institutions in their own communities.
Prerequisites: An introductory course in microeconomics or a combined macro/micro principles course (ECON BC1003 or ECON W1105, or the equivalent) and one semester of calculus or ECON BC1007, or permission of the instructor. Preferences and demand; production, cost, and supply; behavior of markets in partial equilibrium; resource allocation in general equilibrium; pricing of goods and services under alternative market structures; implications of individual decision-making for labor supply; income distribution, welfare, and public policy. Emphasis on problem solving.
Feminism is often recognized as a political movement. But is there a feminist way of thinking about politics? In this course, we’ll investigate the core premises, provocations, proposals, and tensions of feminism as they relate to specifically political problems, focusing particularly on feminist political thought as it developed in the twentieth century. Who is the subject of feminist politics? What is the meaning of “difference,” and how can—or should—feminists seek to organize across it? What are appropriate topics for politics, and what should remain private? Is the family a space for politics? The household? The body? How much of the personal can, and should, be made political? Are there feminist ways of
doing
politics? We will consider these questions with reference to texts from both feminist activists and feminist scholars.
Our writing often appears primarily as a product of cognitive faculties, and we easily overlook the profound influence our bodies exert on our thoughts and, consequently, our writing. Our perception of language itself is tied to how we perceive our physical selves. We can understand our bodies materially, as intricate structures of bone, muscle, and cells, or kinesthetically, through movement, force, and tone, intertwined with a spectrum of sensations like pain and pleasure, which intersect with our psychological and emotional landscapes. Through a series of movement exercises, readings, and writing assignments, this seminar delves into the profound impact a deeper understanding of our bodies and their movement can have on our writing, and conversely, how writing can influence our bodily experiences. Using various artistic mediums such as dance, film, literature, and fine arts, we aim to enhance our ability to articulate and write the body's presence and movement through space and time. Students from all concentrations are encouraged to join.
Prerequisites: ECON BC3033. Introduction to balance of payments and exchange rate theory; capital mobility and expectations; internal and external adjustment under fixed and flexible exchange rates; international financial markets; capital mobility and expectations; international policy coordination and optimum currency areas; history of the international monetary system.
Prerequisites: ECON BC1003 or ECON W1105. Prerequisite for Economics majors: ECON BC3035. Link between economic behavior and environmental quality: valuation of non-market benefits of pollution abatement; emissions standards; taxes; and transferable discharge permits. Specific problems of hazardous waste; the distribution of hazardous pollutants across different sub-groups of the U.S. population; the exploitation of commonly owned natural resources; and the links between the environment, income distribution, and economic development.
Comprehensive and in-depth engagement with foundational and contemporary theoretical concepts and texts in Anthropology. Required of all Barnard students majoring in Anthropology (including specialized tracks). Permission of instructor required for non-majors. Not open to First Year students. Prerequisite: an introductory (1000 level) course in Anthropology.
This laboratory course will explore fundamental techniques that are frequently utilized in modern molecular biology laboratories. A combination of experiments will provide broad exposure to several important techniques in molecular biology. Experiments include current approaches to site-directed mutagenesis, cloning by PCR, and mutation analysis. Students will pursue multiple experimental projects and will gain experience with scientific thinking and scientific communication. SPS and TC students may register for this course, but they must first obtain the written permission of the instructor, by filling out a paper Registration Adjustment Form (Add/Drop form).
Prerequisites: UN2005/UN2401 and UN2006/UN2402, or the equivalent at a different institution, and Contemporary Biology Laboratory (UN2501).
Globalization and mass migration are reconfiguring the modern world and reshaping the contours of nation-states. New technologies that facilitate the movement of information, goods and people across borders have made it easier for people to remain culturally, politically, economically and socially connected to the places from which they migrated. This seminar focuses on the experiences of the youngest members of these global migration patterns—children and youth—and asks: What do these global flows mean for educating young people to be members of the multiple communities to which they belong?
This seminar will explore the following questions: What is globalization and why is it leading to new patterns of migration? How do children and youth experience ruptures and continuities across contexts of migration? How do language policies affect young people’s capacity to be educated in a new land? What does it mean to forge a sense of belonging and citizenship in a “globalized” world, and how does this challenge our models of national citizenship? How are the processes by which young people are incorporated into their new country entwined with structures of race, class, and gender? Drawing on fiction, autobiography, and anthropological and sociological research this class will explore these questions from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
Prerequisites: one year of biology, normally BIOL UN2005-BIOL UN2006, or the equivalent. Cell Biology 3041/4041 is an upper-division course that covers in depth all organelles of cells, how they make up tissues, secrete substances important for the organism, generate and adapt to their working environment in the body, move throughout development, and signal to each other. Because these topics were introduced in the Intro Course (taught by Mowshowitz and Chasin), this course or its equivalent is a pre-requisite for W3041/4041. Students for whom this course is useful include biology, biochem or biomedical engineering majors, those preparing to apply for medical school or graduate school, and those doing or planning to start doing research in a biology or biomedical lab. SCE and TC students may register for this course, but they must first obtain the written permission of the instructor, by filling out a paper Registration Adjustment Form (Add/Drop form). The form can be downloaded at the URL below, but must be signed by the instructor and returned to the office of the registrar. http://registrar.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/reg-adjustment.pdf
Prerequisites: An introductory course in economics or permission of the instructor. Intellectual origins of the main schools of thought in political economy. Study of the founding texts in classical political economy, Marxian economics, neoclassicism, and Keynesianism.
This course is designed to enhance advanced German conversation skills through structured class discussions, weekly student presentations, and engagement with German-language films. During this course students will have ample opportunity to practice German communication skills, hone fluency, expand vocabulary, and refine pronunciation while exploring cultural, historical and contemporary topics. Students will examine German-language cinema from the Weimar Republic to the present day in their original German, and the influence of social, political and philosophical movements on cinematic practices. We will explore key directors, genres, and stylistic developments, while considering how film functions as a cultural text that reflects and shapes societal values. Attention will be given to narrative techniques, symbolism, and the relationship between German film and its historical contexts.
Summer and
Semester version:
Making Change: Activism, Social Movements and Education will look at the ways people power has pushed for change in the United States educational landscape. We will study historical and current social political education movements to answer questions such as: What does education/teacher activism look like? Who engages in educational social activism, and why? What do different models for organizing look like, past to present? We will learn from the examples of the Freedom Schools, the Chicago Teachers Union, the Tucson Unified School District fight for ethnics studies, BLM at Schools, Teacher Activist Groups and more. We will engage in readings, watch documentaries and hear from education activist guest lecturers.
Learning Outcomes:
You will explore the historical relationships between and across social movements in education and its social contexts.
You will reflect on major educational justice movements from across the country and analyze its impact and importance.
You will evaluate the changing role of education and schools in our society and propose actions that could be taken to improve education and schools in the future.
Optical electronics and communications. Microwave circuits. Physical electronics.
This course will examine the relationship between education and social change in different regions of the world, with a focus on vulnerable populations (e.g., indigenous
groups, street and working children, immigrants, women and girls; refugees).
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. In partnership with the American Museum of Natural History students investigate science, science pedagogical methods, and ways to use New York City as a resource for science teaching and learning. Sessions will be held at Barnard and the museum. Field trips and fieldwork required. Non-science majors pre-service elementary students and first year students, welcome. Note: Students in the Childhood Urban Teaching Program may use this course as a pedagogical elective.
Big Data is changing how we interact with and understand the environment. Yet analyzing Big Data requires new tools and methods. Students will learn to use Python programming to analyze and visualize large environmental and earths systems data sets in ways that Excel is not equipped to do. This will include both time series and spatial analyses with programming occurring interactively during class and assignments designed to strengthen methods and results. Students will learn to write code in Python, plot, map, sub-select, clean, organize, and perform statistical analyses on large global scale data sets, using the data in analysis, and take any data set no matter how large or complicated.
This seminar serves as the capstone course for students pursuing the Education Studies minor/special concentration or the Urban Studies major/concentration with an Urban Education Specialization. The Seminar in Urban Education explores the historical, political and socio-cultural dynamics of urban education in the U.S. context. Over time, a range of social actors have intervened in the “problem” of urban education, attempting to reshape and reform urban schools. Others have disputed this “problem” focused approach, arguing that policy makers, teachers, and researchers should start from the strengths and capacities located in urban communities. Despite decades of wide ranging reform efforts, however, many urban schools still fail to provide their students with an adequate, equitable education. Seminar in Urban Education investigates this paradox by pursuing three central course questions: 1) How have various social actors tried to achieve equity in urban schools over time? 2) What are the range and variation of assets and challenges found in urban schools? and 3) Considering this history and context, what would effective reform in a global city like NYC look like? Students will engage these questions not only through course readings and seminar discussions, but through a 40-hour field placement in a New York City public school classroom, extra-curricular program, or other education based site.
This seminar will engage prospective teachers in developing effective strategies for teaching at the elementary school level in ways that draw upon five specific domains of knowledge: knowledge of self, content, pedagogy, context and students. Students will be introduced to a variety of teaching approaches and develop ways to adapt them to teach various subjects to students in urban public school settings, understanding the intellectual, social and emotional needs of elementary school students. Students will learn to write lesson plans, develop assessments and practice teaching in “microteaching” sessions taught to peers. We will explore state standards, approaches to classroom management, and Universal Design for Learning as we develop approaches to create caring, democratic learning communities.
What does it mean to be an excellent teacher? The Seminar in Secondary Multicultural Pedagogy will engage this question as you work to develop methods for teaching your subject(s) in ways that draw upon five specific domains of knowledge: knowledge of self, content, pedagogical methods, context, and students. You will be introduced to a variety of multicultural teaching approaches and develop ways to adapt them to your particular subject area and to the intellectual, social, and emotional needs of adolescent learners. Throughout the course, we will consider how to effectively differentiate instruction for and support ELL students and students with special needs. Seminar sessions will include discussions, presentations of lessons, group activities, and problem-solving issues teachers encounter in the classroom. We will explore culturally responsive approaches to: learning; learning standards; instruction and assessment; creating caring, democratic learning communities; selecting curriculum content, and engaging all students in learning. Assignments will ask you to reflect on the teaching/learning process in general, and on the particulars of teaching your academic discipline. We will accomplish this through lesson planning, practice teaching two mini-lessons, observing your peers teaching and offering feedback, and exploring stances and strategies for multicultural pedagogy in your content area.
Using the theme of “Arts and Humanities in the City”, this seminar will build participants’ knowledge of critical literacy, digital storytelling methods, and ways to use New York City as a resource for teaching the Arts (Dance, Theatre, Music, and Visual Arts), Social Studies, and English Language Arts in grades K-12. Critical literacy is an approach to teaching and learning that focuses on developing students’ abilities to read, analyze, understand, question, and critique hidden perspectives and socially-constructed power relations embedded in what it means to be literate in a content area.
This course will explore the transformation of literary texts onto the big screen of motion pictures. Adaptation is an act of re-visioning, a way of expanding the reach of a given story while still upholding its unique, immutable grace and power.
That’s easier said than done. The screenwriter who is tasked with an adaptation reads that source text with an eagle eye for all that is embedded therein. They don’t need to be utterly faithful to the source. In fact, they can’t be. But the source is a holistic entity, a product of another literary mind (and soul). It’s a gestalt that demands respect and thoughtful creative interpretation. And like all strong works of art, it contains beautiful secrets, some of which good screenwriters will find and preserve.
And they must. Half of the feature films made in America are adaptations. Many of their sources are already beloved. Those that aren’t, deserve the wider audience that film can bring. All story forms have adapted each other since
Pyramus and Thisbe
sprung from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
, later to inspire
Romeo and Julie
and
West Side Story.
Adaptation is how stories continue to inspire humans across time. It is therefore a core skill of the screenwriter’s art and livelihood.
Adaptation is a reflex of mind. We “see” what we read, and we “read” what we see.
I have a dream. I tell you about it. Already, I’m adapting my own inner life into a spoken version of a dream I have salvaged from the chaos of dreaming. And yet I’m compelled to relate that dream to you because it had some gravitational pull that made the story of that story well worth the telling.
To adapt any story for film is to make its original content visible and audible, through dialogue, behavior, theme and visual metaphor. It is to take the reflective and make it active, show more and talk less, imbed theme in plot, turn ideas and symbols into images, expand or condense it as needed, shape its new timeframe, and emphasize story at least as much as character.
Every source must be approached using different rules of engagement. Literature, plays, and true-life stories all resist the morphology of adaptation in unique ways. But the great equalizer is film’s deliberately kinesthetic structure. Character and structure are one in the same. And movies must
move.
This is a process of translating the
char
This seminar looks at the narrative and the historical context for an extraordinary event: the conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander III of Macedonia, conventionally known as “Alexander the Great”. We will explore the different worlds Alexander grew out of, confronted, and affected: the old Greek world, the Persian empire, the ancient near-east (Egypt, Levant, Babylonia, Iran), and the worlds beyond, namely pre-Islamic (and pre-Silk Road) Central Asia, the Afghan borderlands, and the Indus valley. The first part of the course will establish context, before laying out a narrative framework; the second part of the course will explore a series of themes, especially the tension between military conquest, political negotiation, and social interactions. Overall, the course will serve as an exercise in historical methodology (with particular attention to ancient sources and to interpretation), an introduction to the geography and the history of the ancient world (classical and near-eastern), and the exploration of a complex testcase located at the contact point between several worlds, and at a watershed of world history.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Tutorials and conferences on the research for and writing of the senior thesis. This is the 1st semester of a two-semester course sequence.
This course explores the encounter between Europe, broadly conceived, and the Islamic world in the period from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries. While the Latin Christian military expeditions that began in the late eleventh century known as the Crusades are part of this story, they are not the focus. The course stresses instead the range of diplomatic, commercial, intellectual, artistic, religious, and military interactions established well before the Crusades across a wide geographical expanse, with focal points in Iberia and Southern Italy. Substantial readings in primary sources in translation are supplemented with recent scholarship. Students will be assigned on average 150-200 pages of reading per week, depending on the difficulty of the primary sources; we will read primary sources every week.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Seminar sections are limited to 15 students. A topic in economic theory or policy of the instructors choice. See department for current topics and for senior requirement preference forms.
Enrollment limited to student teachers enrolled in the Education Program. Designed to help student teachers develop as reflective practitioners who can think critically about issues facing urban schools, particularly how race, class and gender influence schooling; and to examine the challenges and possibilities for providing intellectually engaging, meaningful curriculum to all students in urban classrooms.
Must be supervised by a faculty member approved by the program adviser. This is the 1st semester of a two-semester course sequence.
A detailed study of a selected field of active research in physics. The motivation, techniques, and results obtained to the present, as well as the difficulties and unsolved problems. For Physics majors only. Priority given to seniors; juniors by permission of the instructor.
This course takes jealousy-in its psychosexual, socio-political, ontological dimensions, and in its formal implications-as a lens through which to view a series of seminal works of French literature from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. These works include: 12th-century Arthurian legend (Béroul); a late-medieval, proto-feminist short story (Navarre); 17th-century neo-classical tragedy (Corneille); 12th and 17th-century folkloric forms (Marie de Frances lai and Perraults fairy tale, respectively); the Enlightenment philosophical novel (Montesquieu); the 19th-century realist novel (Balzac); the early 20th-century modernist novel (Proust); and the nouveau roman (Robbe-Grillet). Two contemporary adaptations (Singers 2008 novel based on the Navarre story, and Chabrols 1996 film based on Prousts novel) will also be studied. In addition, a selection of highly condensed, relevant secondary readings (excerpts of 10 pages of less) will provide students with an introduction to an array of theoretical approaches to literary study: most notably, psychoanalysis, political philosophy, and literary theory. FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.
Prerequisites: (CHEM UN1403 and CHEM UN1404) or (CHEM UN1604) or (CHEM UN2045 and CHEM UN2046) and (MATH UN1101 and MATH UN1102) or (MATH UN1207 and MATH UN1208) and (PHYS UN1401 and PHYS UN1402) PHYS UN1201 - PHYS UN1202 is acceptable; PHYS UN1401 - PHYS UN1402 or the equivalent is HIGHLY recommended. Corequisites: CHEM UN3085 Elementary, but comprehensive, treatment of the fundamental laws governing the behavior of individual atoms and molecules and collections of them. CHEM UN3079 covers the thermodynamics of chemical systems at equilibrium and the chemical kinetics of nonequilibrium systems. Although CHEM UN3079 and CHEM UN3080 are separate courses, students are expected to take both terms sequentially. A recitation section is required. Please check the Directory of Classes for details and also speak with the TA for the course.
This course samples works by women writers from the Middle Ages, interrogating questions of authorship and gender to situate these works in broader social histories. Selections center on western archives, where women’s voices have been extensively curated, but students will also survey non-western texts. This course is built around in-class discussion and the collaborative exploration of texts, complemented by a series of short papers in which students explore recurring themes. A visit to special collections and supplemental materials will also allow students to explore how premodern women projected their voices and views through manuscripts and visual culture. Students will select an additional text to explore individually for the final project, writing a short research paper and presenting a summary of their findings.
Companion lab course for ELEN E3201. Experiments cover such topics as: use of measurement instruments; HSPICE simulation; basic network theorems; linearization of nonlinear circuits using negative feedback; op-amp circuits; integrators; second order RLC circuits. The lab generally meets on alternate weeks.
Prerequisites: phys UN2601 or phys un2802 Primarily for junior and senior physics majors; other majors must obtain the instructors permission. Each experiment is chosen by the student in consultation with the instructor. Each section meets one afternoon per week, with registration in each section limited by the laboratory capacity. Experiments (classical and modern) cover topics in electricity, magnetism, optics, atomic physics, and nuclear physics.
Prerequisites: PHYS UN3003 or PHYS UN3007 May be taken before or concurrently with this course. A sequence of experiments in solid-state electronics, with introductory lectures.
Companion lab course for ELEN E3801. Experiments cover topics such as: introduction and use of MATLAB for numerical and symbolic calculations; linearity and time invariance; continuous-time convolution; Fourier-series expansion and signal reconstruction; impulse response and transfer function; forced response. The lab generally meets on alternate weeks.
Corequisites: CHEM UN3079 A student-centered experimental course intended for students who are co-registered or have completed CHEM UN3079 and CHEM UN3080. The course emphasizes techniques of experimental physical chemistry and instrumental analysis, including vibrational, electronic, and laser spectroscopy; electroanalytical methods; calorimetry; reaction kinetics; hydrodynamic methods; scanning probe microscopy; applications of computers to reduce experimental data; and computational chemistry. Students must also attend the compulsory Mentoring Session. Please check the Directory of Classes for details.