SENIOR THESIS RESEARCH & SEMINAR

SR THESIS RESEARCH & SEMI

This year-long course is open to senior Biology majors. Students will complete an independent research project in Biology under the guidance of a faculty mentor at Barnard or another local institution. Attendance at the weekly seminar is required. By the end of the year, students will write a scientific paper about their project and give an oral presentation about their research at the Barnard Biology Research Symposium.

Completion of this year-long course fulfills the senior capstone requirement for the Biology major. This course must be taken in sequence, beginning with BIOL BC3593 in the Fall and continuing with BIOL BC3594 in the Spring. Acceptance into this course requires confirmation of the research project by the course instructors. A Barnard internal mentor is required if the research project is not supervised by a Barnard faculty member. This course cannot be taken at the same time as BIOL BC3591-BIOL BC3592.

• Department: Biological Sciences @Barnard
• M 1:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS RESEARCH & SEMINAR

SR THESIS RESEARCH & SEMI

This year-long course is open to senior Biology majors. Students will complete an independent research project in Biology under the guidance of a faculty mentor at Barnard or another local institution. Attendance at the weekly seminar is required. By the end of the year, students will write a scientific paper about their project and give an oral presentation about their research at the Barnard Biology Research Symposium.

Completion of this year-long course fulfills the senior capstone requirement for the Biology major. This course must be taken in sequence, beginning with BIOL BC3593 in the Fall and continuing with BIOL BC3594 in the Spring. Acceptance into this course requires confirmation of the research project by the course instructors. A Barnard internal mentor is required if the research project is not supervised by a Barnard faculty member. This course cannot be taken at the same time as BIOL BC3591-BIOL BC3592.

• Department: Biological Sciences @Barnard
• M 1:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• 4 points

RSRCH/SEM-NEUROSCNC&BEHAVIOR

Prerequisites: Open to senior Neuroscience and Behavior majors. Permission of the instructor. This is a year-long course. By the end of the spring semester program planning period during junior year, majors should identify the lab they will be working in during their senior year. Discussion and conferences on a research project culminate in a written and oral senior thesis. Each project must be supervised by a scientist working at Barnard or at another local institution. Successful completion of the seminar substitutes for the major examination.

• Department: Neuroscience & Behavior @Barnard
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Russell D Romeo
  CULPA: 9 Info
• Instructor: Peter D Balsam
  CULPA: 25 Info
• Instructor: Alex White
  h-index: 13 Info
• Instructor: Kevin G Bath
  Info
• 4 points

GUIDED RESEARCH

Similar to BIOL BC3591-BIOL BC3592, this is a one-semester course that provides students with degree credit for unpaid research 
without 
a seminar component. You may enroll in BIOL BC3597 for between 1-4 credits per semester. As a rule of thumb, you should be spending approximately 3 hours per week per credit on your research project.

A 
Project Approval Form
 must be submitted to the department each semester that you enroll in this course. Your Barnard research mentor (if your lab is at Barnard) or internal adviser in the Biology Department (if your lab is elsewhere) must approve your planned research 
before
 you enroll in BIOL BC3597. You should sign up for your mentor's section. 

This course does not fulfill any Biology major requirements.  It is open to students beginning in their first year.

• Department: Biological Sciences @Barnard
• Instructor: Rafael Marcondes
  Info
• Instructor: Hilary Callahan
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 17 Info
• Instructor: John Glendinning
  CULPA: 23 h-index: 39 Info
• Instructor: Jordan Balaban
  Info
• Instructor: Jj L Miranda
  CULPA: 3 Info
• Instructor: Alison Pischedda
  CULPA: 3 h-index: 11 Info
• Instructor: Jonathan Snow
  CULPA: 7 h-index: 18 Info
• Instructor: Brian Morton
  CULPA: 21 Info
• Instructor: Jennifer H Mansfield
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 15 Info
• Instructor: Gabrielle Corradino
  Info
• Instructor: Jessica Goldstein
  CULPA: 14 Info
• Instructor: Emlyn J Resetarits
  Info
• 1-4 points

PROBLEMS IN CHEMISTRY

Prerequisites: CHEM BC3328 and permission of instructor. Individual research projects at Barnard or Columbia, culminating in a comprehensive written report.

• Department: Chemistry @Barnard
• Instructor: Christian Rojas
  CULPA: 24 Info
• Instructor: Marisa C Buzzeo
  CULPA: 2 Info
• Instructor: Dina C Merrer
  CULPA: 24 Info
• Instructor: Andrew C Crowther
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Michael Campbell
  Info
• Instructor: Rachel Austin
  CULPA: 18 Wikipedia h-index: 28 Info
• Instructor: Christina Vizcarra
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Rebecca Donegan
  Info
• 2 points

PROBLEMS IN CHEMISTRY

Prerequisites: CHEM BC3328 and permission of instructor. Individual research projects at Barnard or Columbia, culminating in a comprehensive written report.

• Department: Chemistry @Barnard
• 2 points

PROBLEMS IN CHEMISTRY

Prerequisites: CHEM BC3328 and permission of instructor. Individual research projects at Barnard or Columbia, culminating in a comprehensive written report.

• Department: Chemistry @Barnard
• Instructor: Meenakshi S Rao
  CULPA: 24 Info
• 2 points

PROBLEMS IN CHEMISTRY

Prerequisites: CHEM BC3328 and permission of instructor. Individual research projects at Barnard or Columbia, culminating in a comprehensive written report.

• Department: Chemistry @Barnard
• Instructor: Christian Rojas
  CULPA: 24 Info
• Instructor: Marisa C Buzzeo
  CULPA: 2 Info
• Instructor: Dina C Merrer
  CULPA: 24 Info
• Instructor: Andrew C Crowther
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Michael Campbell
  Info
• Instructor: Rachel Austin
  CULPA: 18 Wikipedia h-index: 28 Info
• Instructor: Christina Vizcarra
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Rebecca Donegan
  Info
• 4 points

PROBLEMS IN CHEMISTRY

Prerequisites: CHEM BC3328 and permission of instructor. Individual research projects at Barnard or Columbia, culminating in a comprehensive written report.

• Department: Chemistry @Barnard
• 4 points

Approaches to Global Thought

Challenges confronting the world today require multiple perspectives, approaches, and methods to grasp their complexity and devise responses and solutions. Whether addressing the climate crisis, public health threats, global and local inequities, social problems, geopolitical tensions, or any number of other problems, all demand the expertise developed in disciplinary training as well as flexible thinking and the ability to collaborate and solve problems across disciplinary boundaries. This course places students with different majors into conversation with each other to consider the approaches of their own disciplines, learn about the methodological “tool kits” of other fields, investigate examples of transdisciplinary research, and work with their classmates to design their own problem-centered collaborative projects.

• Department: Committee on Global Thought
• M 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Sarah A Miller-Davenport
  Info
• 4 points

Broadway's New York: A Cultural History

This course explores the intertwined histories of Broadway and New York City. Emphasizing musicals and plays set in the five boroughs, students examine how Broadway serves as both a stage and a lens for imagining urban life. The course considers how the “Great White Way” not only reflects social and cultural change but also operates as a powerful site of tourism, commerce, and political expression. Through case studies of landmark productions, students analyze how Broadway stages urban myths, crises, and possibilities within broader debates about gentrification, labor, and city identity. Students will engage with the material through traditional lectures and screenings, supplemented by immersive field experiences including archive research, museum and theater tours, and a live Broadway performance.

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Paul A Scolieri
  CULPA: 19 Info
• 4 points

RELATVITY,BLACK HOLES,COSMOLGY

• Department: Astronomy
• MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Frederik Paerels
  CULPA: 21 Info
• 3 points

REHEARSAL & PERFRMNCE IN DANCE

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• MW 6:10 p.m.-9 p.m.
• TR 6:10 p.m.-9 p.m.
• 1-3 points

REHEARSAL & PERFRMNCE IN DANCE

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• TR 6:10 p.m.-9 p.m.
• 1-3 points

REHEARSAL & PERFRMNCE IN DANCE

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• TR 6:10 p.m.-9 p.m.
• Instructor: Nelida Tirado
  Info
• 1-3 points

INTL LAW & U.N. IN PRACTICE

Prerequisites: POLS UN1601 or HRTS UN3001 An equivalent course to POLS UN1601 or HRTS UN3001 may be used as a pre-requisite, with departmental permission. Examines the development of international law and the United Nations, their evolution in the Twentieth Century, and their role in world affairs today. Concepts and principles are illustrated through their application to contemporary human rights and humanitarian challenges, and with respect to other threats to international peace and security. The course consists primarily of presentation and discussion, drawing heavily on the practical application of theory to actual experiences and situations. For the Barnard Political Science major, this seminar counts as elective credit only. (Cross-listed by the Human Rights Program.)

• Department: Human Rights (HRTB)
• F 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Martin S Flaherty
  CULPA: 1 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

As If: Anthropologies of the Future

This seminar engages--through science fiction and speculative fiction, film, and companion readings in anthropology and beyond—a range of approaches to the notion of the “future” and to the imagination of multiple futures to come.  We will work through virtual and fictive constructions of future worlds, ecologies, and social orders “as If” they present alternative possibilites for pragmatic yet utopian thinking and dreaming in the present (and as we’ll also consider dystopian and “heterotopian” possibilities as well).

• Department: Anthropology
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Marilyn Ivy
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

INDEPENDENT STUDY

This course can be worth 1 to 4 credits (each credit is equivalent to approximately three hours of work per week), and requires a Barnard faculty as a mentor. The course will be taken for a letter grade, regardless of whether the student chooses 1, 2, 3, or 4 credits. The expectations for each of these options are as follows: 1 credit, 3h/week commitment, 5-10 page "Research Report" at the end of the term; 2 credits, 6h/week commitment, 5-10 page "Research Report" at the end of the term; 3 credits, 9h/week commitment, 15-20 page "Research Report" at the end of the term; 4 credits, 12h/week commitment, 15-20 page "Research Report" at the end of the term. "Research Report" is a document submitted to the person grading the student, the instructor of record for the section in which the student has enrolled. If a student is working off-site, then input from the off-site research mentor will inform the grading. The "Research Report" can take a variety of forms: progress reports on data collected, training received, papers read, skills learned, etc.; or organized notes for lab notebooks, lab meetings, etc.; or manuscript-like papers with Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion; or some combination thereof, depending on the maturity of the project.  Ultimately, this will take different forms for different students/labs.

• Department: Psychology @Barnard
• Instructor: Robert Brotherton
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Armita Ghobadi
  Info
• Instructor: Ken Light
  CULPA: 17 h-index: 15 Info
• Instructor: Koleen McCrink
  CULPA: 6 h-index: 17 Info
• Instructor: Michelle Greene
  Info
• Instructor: Robert E Remez
  CULPA: 26 Wikipedia h-index: 23 Info
• Instructor: Anna Shusterman
  Info
• Instructor: Ann Senghas
  CULPA: 17 Info
• Instructor: Katherine Thorson
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 7 Info
• Instructor: Lisa K Son
  CULPA: 25 Info
• Instructor: Mariel Roberts
  h-index: None Info
• Instructor: Erica Musser
  Info
• Instructor: Kathleen M Taylor
  CULPA: 78 Info
• Instructor: Tara Well
  CULPA: 4 Info
• Instructor: E'Mett McCaskill
  CULPA: 38 Info
• Instructor: Kate M Turetsky
  Info
• Instructor: Alexandra C Horowitz
  CULPA: 23 Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Antonio Viera
  Info
• Instructor: Annie Vu
  Info
• 1-4 points

THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM OF CO

US JOURNALISM OF CONSCIEN

From Frederick Douglass’s The North Star, which insisted that journalism could be a tool for liberation and collective conscience, to today’s digital-first platforms, American journalism has always been a site of struggle over truth, power, and representation. This course explores the power of journalism to shape public conscience — from the days when print was the Twitter of its time to the rise of radio, television, and digital media. At its core, this seminar centers the voices of journalists of conscience — those who speak truth to power, challenge dominant narratives, and reflect the full spectrum of human experience. We will approach journalism through a lens that foregrounds the perspectives of people of color, recognizing how mainstream media has historically erased, distorted, or marginalized their voices while also highlighting the powerful traditions of resistance and self-representation in journalism.

To foster meaningful connection and collaboration, students will be split into groups for the semester. These groups will meet in breakout rooms during each class session to workshop ideas, respond to prompts, and sometimes collaborate on short journalistic pieces. The goal is to make a large seminar feel intimate and to encourage peer-to-peer dialogue throughout the course.

Through weekly readings, in-class discussions, site visits, guest speakers, and multimedia projects, students will examine how journalism has both reflected and resisted dominant narratives across history. Students will also create original work that embodies conscience-based journalism.

• Department: English @Barnard
• TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Maria D Hinojosa
  Info
• 3 points

ADVANCED OPTIMIZATION

For undergraduates only. Required for all undergraduate students majoring in IE, OR:EMS, OR:FE, and OR. This is a follow-up to IEOR E3608 and will cover advanced topics in optimization, including integer optimization, convex optimization, and optimization under uncertainty, with a strong focus on modeling, formulations, and applications.

• Department: Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
• MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Bento Natura
  Info
• 3 points

MATERIALS/PROCESSES IN MANUFAC

Introduction to microstructures and properties of metals, polymers, ceramics and composites; typical manufacturing processes: material removal, shaping, joining, and property alteration; behavior of engineering materials in the manufacturing processes.

• Department: Mechanical Engineering
• MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Chaoqun Dong
  Info
• 3 points

THIRD YEAR MODERN TIBETAN II

For those whose knowledge is equivalent to a student whos completed the Second Year course. The course develops students reading comprehension skills through reading selected modern Tibetan literature. Tibetan is used as the medium of instruction and interaction to develop oral fluency and proficiency.

• Department: East Asian Languages and Cultures
• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Sonam Tsering
  Info
• 4 points

SENIOR RESEARCH THESIS

Discussions of the student's Independent Research project during the fall and spring terms that culminate in a written and oral senior thesis. Each project must be supervised by a scientist working at Barnard or at another local institution.

• Department: Psychology @Barnard
• M 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Lisa K Son
  CULPA: 25 Info
• 1 points

NAT'L & CONTEMP WORLD POLITICS

The causes and consequences of nationalism. Nationalism as a cause of conflict in contemporary world politics. Strategies for mitigating nationalist and ethnic conflict.

• Department: Political Science
• MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Jack L Snyder
  CULPA: 27 Info
• 3 points

INTRO CONTEMP CHINESE POLITICS

This undergraduate course is designed to introduce to students who have limited knowledge of China some basic aspects of political institutions and processes as well as major events in Chinese political life under the communists since 1949, focusing on the post-Mao reform period since 1978. It examines economic and political development in China--their causes, patterns, consequences, and implications--in a broader context of transition from authoritarianism and state socialism. In this class, we will apply some concepts and theories in comparative politics in analyzing Chinese politics. By taking this class, students are expected to gain substantial knowledge about contemporary Chinese politics and acquire some basic ability to apply such knowledge to relate to and analyze current affairs concerning China.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Xiaobo Lu
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 4 points

SEM-DEVELOPMNTL PSYCHOPATHOLGY

Prerequisites: at least two of the following courses: (UN1001, UN1010, UN2280, UN2620, UN2680, UN3280) and the instructor's permission. Developmental psychopathology posits that it is development itself that has gone awry when there is psychopathology. As such, it seeks to understand the early and multiple factors contributing to psychopathology emerging in childhood and later in life. We will use several models (e.g. ones dominated by biological, genetic, and psychological foci) to understand the roots of mental illness.

• Department: Psychology
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Hannah E Hoch
  CULPA: 27 Info
• 4 points

TOPICS IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Prerequisites: (PSYC UN1001) Instructor permission required. A seminar for advanced undergraduate students exploring different areas of clinical psychology. This course will provide you with a broad overview of the endeavors of clinical psychology, as well as discussion of its current social context, goals, and limitations.

• Department: Psychology
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• F 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Usha Barahmand
  Info
• Instructor: Irit Felsen
  Info
• Instructor: Jeffrey M Cohen
  h-index: 5 Info
• 4 points

Islam in Colonial South Asia

Muslim India

This course will study Muslim communities and cultures in South Asia, a global demographic center of Islam. Our focus will be on the British colonial period and Muslim resistance and engagement with European colonialism. The class, however, will also cover earlier and later periods. We will study, for example, ideas about the “origins” of Islam in the Indian subcontinent as well as the development of majority-minority politics in independent India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Throughout the course, we will analyze a variety of primary source materials including historical texts, literature, music and visual materials. The class pays particular attention to Muslim interactions with other religious communities and the Muslim influence on the arts, literature, and legal traditions of the region.

• Department: Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Isabel Huacuja Alonso
  Info
• 3 points

Contemporary Art in New York City: 1968-

Contemp Art in NYC 1969-8

Between 1968 and 1983, New York City was radically transformed by mass social movements on the one hand, and the forces of Wall Street and real estate development on the other. Across the underground, SoHo lofts, and corporate boardrooms, artists learned to move, and if needed, hustle, to negotiate an urban environment that was not only rapidly changing but increasingly governed by market speculation. Starting with the social uprisings of 1968, we explore how canonized figures such as Donald Judd and Martha Rosler, alongside avant-garde artists Faith Ringgold, Melvin Edwards, and Juan Downey, whose innovations only belatedly received due recognition, broke with artistic traditions. Turning to everyday domestic goods, textiles, barbed wire, and Portapak video, these artists dismantled traditional objects and institutions while founding alternative, artist-run spaces and activist spaces. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, art in New York was radically transformed by an influx of finance. Downtown dealers Mary Boone and Leo Castelli manufactured an art boom through speculative wait lists, and the enterprises of art stars Andy Warhol and Julian Schnabel thrived. Others lampooned the market-driven mutations of art, as seen in Lynda Benglis’s 1974 erotic interventions in
Artforum
magazine, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s critiques of white patronage, and Barnard alumna Laurie Anderson’s parody of televisual spectacle in
O Superman
(1981). We also explore other Barnard and Columbia alumnae, including Mierle Laderman Ukeles and her retooling of unpaid domestic labor, and Joan Jonas’s deconstructions of commercialized femininity. The course concludes in 1983 with the opening of Trump Tower and the simultaneous explosion of East Village galleries–and a critical reflection on how the legacies of these decades continue to shape the contemporary art of New York. In class discussion sections offer students close engagement with the course’s artworks in New York’s art institutions and through archives, spanning performance documentation, artists’ zines, magazines, and exhibition ephemera
.

• Department: Art History @Barnard
• MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Veronica Tello
  Info
• 3 points

LIT & AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP

Prerequisites: Permission of instructor. (Seminar).

Who is a citizen? How has the notion of citizenship changed in American history? Questions of American citizenship—who can claim it and what it entails—have been fiercely contested since the founding of the United States. Scholars have articulated various ways of conceptualizing citizenship: as a formal legal status; as a collection of state-protected rights; as political activity; and as a form of identity and solidarity. In this seminar, we’ll explore the role that literature and literary criticism have played in both shaping and responding to the narratives and civic myths that determine what it means to be an American citizen.

Because literature dwells in the ambiguity and ambivalence that legal definitions seek to avoid, an examination of literature across American history can illuminate otherwise-hidden aspects of citizenship. We’ll see that the American promise of citizenship—the idea that citizens of the United States can experience personal sovereignty—has been compromised and unfulfilled for many; definitions of citizenship have often exerted economic, religious, racial, and sexual power.

By looking at literature that wrestles with questions of citizenship, we will strive to uncover the ways that legal, abstract notions of citizenship reveal themselves in the everyday lives of individuals. We will investigate how literary texts shape citizens, whose lives may be determined not only by political boundaries and legal definitions but also by emotional affiliations and psychological allegiances. As we read American literary texts alongside political theory and historical writing, we’ll ask a number of questions about the relationship between literature and citizenship, including:


What is the political power of literature?

How does writing call into being certain kinds of citizens? Who is included and who is left out?

How are texts political agents?

• Department: English and Comparative Literature
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Aaron Ritzenberg
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 4 Info
• 4 points

Masterpieces of European Cinema

Masterpieces of Euro Cine

• Department: Comparative Literature and Society @Barnard
• T 6:10 p.m.-10 p.m.
• Instructor: Nelson Moe
  CULPA: 10 h-index: 6 Info
• 3 points

A Literary History of Marriage

From its origins, and to the present, marriage has been transactional, arranged, and rarely concerned with the desires or interests of the wife. In the eighteenth-century, and especially through the genre of the novel, women began to insist on right to choose their spouse, and the possibility of marrying for love. Perversely, it is at this point that the descriptions of some of the most disastrous and repressive marriages enter literature, and in the twentieth century film. If “the course of true love never did run smooth” this seminar follows its path, investigating the shifts and transformations of marriage. While the focus of the seminar will be on women, we will also consider men, same-sex marriage, questions of marriage and race in the United States, and marriage in China.

• Department: English @Barnard
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Daphne Miriam Merkin
  Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

OBSERVATIONAL ASTRONOMY

Prerequisites: one year of general astronomy Introduction to the basic techniques used in obtaining and analyzing astronomical data. Focus on ground-based methods at optical, infrared, and radio wavelengths. Regular use of the telescope facilities atop the roof of the Pupin Labs and at Harriman Observatory. The radio-astronomy portion consists mostly of computer labs, In research projects, students also work on the analysis of data obtained at National Observatories.

• Department: Astronomy
• R 7 p.m.-9:30 p.m.
• Instructor: Kishalay De
  Info
• 3 points

Literatures of the Americas before 1492

Lits of Americas before 1

This course surveys the literatures of the Americas before the arrival of the Spanish in 1492. Proceeding from Inca political histories to Aztec poetry and philosophy to Ojibwe sacred narratives, this course offers students the opportunity to study and discuss some of the most significant and challenging literary works of the pre-Columbian Americas. Reading closely and in translation, we will consider the difficult questions posed by these texts, such as: What is the world? What is the human’s place in it? How does one find that place? And how does one lose it? Because many of these texts were transcribed during the colonial period, we will trouble the boundary line of “1492” by examining issues of translation, tradition, periodization, hybridization, appropriation, and resurgence. Throughout the semester, we will also explore recent engagements with Indigenous literary and philosophical traditions by reading contemporary poetry and scholarship by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, David Damrosch, Louise Erdrich, Jack D. Forbes, Edgar Garcia, Beth Piatote, Arthur Sze, Cecilia Vicuña, Gerald Vizenor, and Sylvia Wynter.

• Department: English and Comparative Literature
• M 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Ethan A Plaue
  Info
• 4 points

LANGUAGE, RACIAL CAPITALISM, AI

LANGUAGE,RACIAL CAPITALIS

This investigative seminar combines weekly readings on AI written by scholars, activists, artists and others, with student led exploration and research. We begin with a syllabus composed of readings identifying some key issues and questions about the nature of computing and the emergence of AI, and proceed by allowing our discussions and concerns to shape further course reading, research and experimentation. While students are encouraged to focus their semester’s
research on the current state of AI considered from a broad set of perspectives
, participants may
also pursue a topic of their own choosing
that they explore in relation to the affordances, challenges and difficulties posed by AI. We are looking for processes to engage with the new capacities of machine learning, recognizing at the outset that a wide variety of positions on AI are possible, ranging from eager optimism, to cautious acceptance, to out and out rejection and resistance.

Because of the broad and indeed planetary questions posed by the gathering momentum of AI — questions that encompass labor, energy, ecology, psychology, race, class, gender, sexuality, colonialism, imperialism, surveillance, finance, warfare, and more, but also including seemingly more mundane issues like homework, search, everyday social engagement, friendship, school, and other personal and social questions — the direction and success of
our work together
depends heavily on student contributions to class. You are encouraged to consider yourself both as student and teacher, and thus also to take responsibility to learn from the course materials as well as to educate your peers (and the professor) by sharing some of the fruits and insights of your explorations. The depth of your questions, the responsibilities you feel to self, community, ecology, future, and planet, will effect the outcomes of this seminar for you and for all involved. The seminar is designed to help you ask significant questions in relation to a world that has given rise to AI and a world that now seems destined to emerge in some relation to it — questions in which life is at stake.

• Department: English @Barnard
• R 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Jonathan L Beller
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 4 points

TOPICS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND PHILOSOP

TOPICS IN COG SCI & PHILO

This course will focus on one topic at the intersection of cognitive science and philosophy. Potential topics include free will, consciousness, modularity, mental representation, probabilistic inference, the language of thought, and the computational theory of mind.

• Department: Cognitive Science @Barnard
• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Tyler Knowlton
  Info
• 3 points

PROBABILITY FOR ENGINEERS

Introductory course to probability theory and does not assume any prior knowledge of subject. Teaches foundations required to use probability in applications, but course itself is theoretical in nature. Basic definitions and axioms of probability and notions of independence and conditional probability introduced. Focus on random variables, both continuous and discrete, and covers topics of expectation, variance, conditional distributions, conditional expectation and variance, and moment generating functions. Also Central Limit Theorem for sums of random variables. Consists of lectures, recitations, weekly homework, and in-class exams.

• Department: Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
• MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Daniel Lacker
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 13 Info
• 3 points

The Politics of Work

In this class we will examine the politics, organization, and experience of work. In the first three weeks we will get our bearings and consider some basic (but difficult!) questions about work, including: What counts as work and who counts as a worker? How important are our jobs to our survival in the world, and what makes for a good or bad job? In this section you will start thinking about and analyzing your own work experiences. In weeks four and five we will read what sociology’s founders had to say about work, and consider some of the important shifts to work that accompanied industrialization. Then we will turn to 20th century transformations, including the rise of the service economy and worker-customer relations, changes in forms of managerial control and worker responses to these changes, globalization, and the proliferation of precarious work. Finally, we will turn to examining gender, class and race in labor markets and on the job, paid and unpaid reproductive labor, the construction of selves at work, and the job of fashion modeling. Throughout the course we will examine how the sociology of work is bound up with other key institutions including gender, race, class, and the family.

• Department: Sociology
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Teresa Sharpe
  CULPA: 14 Info
• 4 points

Heretics and Heathens: The Politics of D

From Salem witches to QAnon conspiracy theories, deviant and heretical behaviors take various forms. But who holds the power to label someone a heretic, a heathen, or a deviant? For what purposes? And with what consequences? Heretics and Heathens: The Politics of Deviance in America explores these questions by analyzing the social dynamics that position outsiders and insiders and the underlying logics that inform and justify social positioning. Through case studies in U.S. history, including the Salem witch trials, the Red Scare, and the People’s Temple, we will examine how categories of deviance are socially constructed and used to stigmatize beliefs, practices, and individuals, and the material consequences of casting individuals and groups into these social roles. Students will analyze media and discourse to evaluate how these roles function, and to understand why and when they are deployed. The course will conclude with students developing their own case studies examining how categories of deviance are used to position an individual or group as beyond the threshold of cultural acceptability.

• Department: Religion
• R 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Gabriella Lee
  Info
• 3 points

The Organization of Diversity

This course examines diversity at the societal, organizational, and individual levels.  At the societal level, for example: How to measure the health of an economy? Growth in GDP is the current dominant metric. But organizational diversity might be a better measure if health is understood as the ability to adapt to sudden changes in the environment.  What is the relationship between wealth and diverse principles of worth?  At the organizational level: Under what conditions does racial and gender diversity contribute to higher team performance?  Can a complex organization be managed according to diverse principles of evaluation?  Moving to the individual level, how do we manage the multiple presentations of self in a diverse society?

• Department: Sociology
• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: David Stark
  CULPA: 15 Wikipedia h-index: 48 Info
• 4 points

The Rise of the Modern World Economy

Rise of Modern World Econ

Over the past thousand years, modern capitalism has expanded from its European starting point to the entire world. Modern economic activity started with a commercial revolution in the late Middle Ages, concentrated in European city states like Venice and Genoa. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, European colonialism spread this commercial revolution around the globe. The Industrial Revolution in northwestern Europe led to unprecedented and sustained economic growth, which allowed European nations to dominate the rest of the world economically, politically, and militarily, with mixed results for the rest of the world. Over the past hundred years, global capitalism has continued to present countries, and the people in them, with enormous opportunities, crushing constraints, and major political dilemmas. 

The course is an introductory overview of the economics and politics of international economic activity in historical and theoretical perspective.

• Department: Political Science
• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Jeffry A Frieden
  Info
• 4 points

The Rise of the Modern World Economy Dis

Modern World Economy Disc

Over the past thousand years, modern capitalism has expanded from its European starting point to the entire world. Modern economic activity started with a commercial revolution in the late Middle Ages, concentrated in European city states like Venice and Genoa. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, European colonialism spread this commercial revolution around the globe. The Industrial Revolution in northwestern Europe led to unprecedented and sustained economic growth, which allowed European nations to dominate the rest of the world economically, politically, and militarily, with mixed results for the rest of the world. Over the past hundred years, global capitalism has continued to present countries, and the people in them, with enormous opportunities, crushing constraints, and major political dilemmas. 

The course is an introductory overview of the economics and politics of international economic activity in historical and theoretical perspective.

• Department: Political Science
• 0 points

Writing Desire: Sex and Sexual Politics

This seminar examines how French and francophone writers have given form to desire in novels, memoirs, poetry, polemic, and film from the nineteenth century to the present. French writing has been uniquely preoccupied with sexuality, its representation, its regulation, and the scandal that erupts when private life becomes public text. Flaubert was prosecuted for
Madame Bovary
, Colette scandalized and seduced in equal measure, and Duras made the novel a repository of erotic memory. In the twenty-first century, writers such as Édouard Louis, Abdellah Taïa, and Vanessa Springora have turned to memoir and autofiction to reckon with questions of queer desire, sexual violence, and consent. Moving across two centuries, we will read works that explore the boundaries between confession and fiction, between liberation and exploitation, and between secrecy and exposure. Authors include Flaubert, Baudelaire, Colette, Gide, Leduc, Duras, Ernaux, Taïa, Louis, and Springora alongside films by Malle and Campillo. This course will be taught in French.

• Department: French
• TR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Rj McIntyre
  Info
• 3 points

Food, Race, and Migration

This course explores the intersectional histories of food, race, and migration in the U.S., with most of its focus on the period 1900 to the present. From food that migrated with colonists and enslaved laborers, to food created within ethnic communities trying to establish comfort and presence in the nation, to haute and fusion cuisines that cross racial, classed, and geographic borders—the things we see on our plates are the product of a myriad of movements of people, commodities, and ideas. How have factors such as race/ethnicity, migration, class, and gender impacted the foods available to us to eat, buy, and share? How have different waves of immigrants to North America shaped the nation’s culinary landscape, and conversely, how has the national culture shaped the diets of newcomers? How does food function to unite and separate people? How have food politics and activism developed over time in the U.S.? This class will explore all of these questions, and more.

• Department: History
• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Lori Flores
  Info
• 4 points

Research Immersion in OR and Data Analyt

An overview of active research areas in Operations Research and Data Analytics, and an introduction to the essential components of research studies. This course helps students develop fundamental research skills, including paper reading, problem formulation, problem-solving, scientific writing, and research presentation. Classes are in seminar format, with students analyzing research papers, developing research projects, and presenting research findings.

• Department: Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
• F 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Yuri Faenza
  h-index: 11 Info
• 3 points

STRATEGY FORMULATION

This class is an introduction to strategic management and the decisions that firms make in their historical context. We look at the growth of the large multi-product firm in almost all countries in the world and the the process by which they internationalized their activities and, very often, were also forced to retreat from their international positions.  We treat strategies as relation to two broad goals of the class: to understand why some companies are financially much more successful than others; and to analyze how managers can devise a set of actions (the strategy) and design processes and structures that allow their company to obtain a competitive advantage. You will learn the analytical tools developed in universities, in consulting and industrial firms, and even in the military.   These tools include what companies do to outperform their rivals; to analyze the competitive moves of rival firms by game-theoretic concepts; and when it makes sense for companies to diversify and globalize their business. Applications will be to Walmart and Apple, European firms and to Asian firms, and developing country firms.

• Department: Mendelson Center
• R 10:25 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Len Sherman
  Info
• 3 points

Modern Library Resources for Scientific

Library Science Research

Guided exploration of chemistry research using modern library resources. Topics include: organization and evaluation of information, information ethics, the history of citation, and use of databases. Culminates in the creation of an online research guide on a specific chemistry topic, using a variety of carefully considered and annotated sources.

• Department: Chemistry @Barnard
• Instructor: Michael Campbell
  Info
• 1 points

LATINX RACIAL IDENTITY & CULTURAL PRODUC

LATINX RACIAL CULTURAL PR

The course will investigate the impact of racial identity among Latinx in the U.S. on cultural production of Latinos in literature, media, politics and film. The seminar will consider the impact of bilingualism, shifting racial identification, and the viability of monolithic terms like Latinx. We will see how the construction of Latinx racial identity affects acculturation in the U.S., with particular attention to hybrid identities and the centering of black and indigenous cultures. Examples will be drawn from different Latinx ethnicities from the Caribbean, Mexico and the rest of Latin America.

• Department: Ethnicity and Race, Center for
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Edward Morales
  Info
• 4 points

INTRO TO COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

A basic course in communication theory, stressing modern digital communication systems. Nyquist sampling, PAM and PCM/DPCM systems, time division multipliexing, high frequency digital (ASK, OOK, FSK, PSK) systems, and AM and FM systems. An introduction to noise processes, detecting signals in the presence of noise, Shannons theorem on channel capacity, and elements of coding theory.

• Department: Electrical Engineering
• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Irving Kalet
  CULPA: 3 h-index: 12 Info
• 3 points

MAJOR WOMEN FILMMAKERS

Traditional film history has consigned a multitude of cinema practices to an inferior position. By accepting Hollywood’s narrative model as central, film scholars have often relegated non-male, non-white, non-Western films to a secondary role. Often described as “marginal” or “peripheral” cinemas, the outcomes of these film practices have been systematically excluded from the canon. Yet… are these motion pictures really “secondary”? In relation to what? And according to whom? This course looks at major films by women filmmakers of the 20th Century within a tradition of political cinema that 1) directly confronts the hegemonic masculinity of the Hollywood film industry, and 2) relocates the so-called “alternative women’s cinema” at the core of film history. Unlike conventional feminist film courses, which tend to be contemporary and anglocentric, this class adopts a historical and worldwide perspective; rather than focusing on female directors working in America today, we trace the origins of women’s cinema in different cities of the world (Berlin, Paris, New York) during the silent period, and, from there, we move forward to study major works by international radical directors such as Lorenza Mazzetti, Agnès Varda, Forough Farrokhzad, Věra Chytilová, Chantal Akerman, Lina Wertmüller, Barbara Loden, Julie Dash, and Mira Nair. We analyse how these filmmakers have explored womanhood not only as a source of oppresion (critique of patriarchal phallocentrism, challenge to heteronormativity, etc) but, most importantly, as a source of empowerment (defense of matriarchy, equal rights, lesbian love, inter- and transexuality...). Required readings include seminal texts of feminist film theory by Claire Johnston, Laura Mulvey, Ann Kaplan, bell hooks, and Judith Butler. Among the films screened in the classroom are silent movies –
Suspense
(Lois Weber, 1913),
The Seashell and the Clergyman
(Germaine Dulac, 1928)—, early independent and experimental cinema –
Girls in Uniform
(Leontine Sagan, 1931),
Ritual in Transfigured Time
(Maya Deren, 1946)—, “new wave” films of the 1950s and 1960s –
Cléo from 5 to 7
(Varda, 1962),
Daisies
(Chytilová, 1966)–,
auteur
cinema of the 1970s –
Seven Beauties
(Wertmüller, 1974),
Jeanne Dielman
(Akerman, 1975)–, and documentary films –

• Department: Film @Barnard
• F 11 a.m.-2:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Sophia de Baun
  Info
• 3 points

Russia s Silver Age, 1890-1920

Russia's Silver Age, 1890

The end of a century and the beginning of a new one can be a moment of self-consciousness, when people pause in their usual activities to reflect on the direction of their civilization and to wonder what the future might hold. Usually, the 1917 Revolution dominates our consciousness of the first decades of the 20th century in Russia. This course offers a chance to take an in-depth look at a different aspect of Russian life: the turbulent world of ideas and culture, in many ways shared with other European capitals, that we have come to know as the Silver Age. One of the great novels of the age, Andrei Bely’s
Petersburg
(1913), will be our window into the artistic currents, philosophical discussions, apocalyptic moods and revolutionary stirrings of turn-of-the-century Russia. Since the creators of the Silver Age thought of themselves as drawing on the whole of Russian and world culture for inspiration, I also hope that our focus on these 30 years will propel us both backwards and forwards in time so we can discuss broad themes of Russian history and culture.

• Department: History
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Catherine Evtuhov
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 4 points