SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE

Prerequisites: SOCI BC1003 or equivalent social science course and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15 students. Drawing examples from popular music, religion, politics, race, and gender, explores the interpretation, production, and reception of cultural texts and meanings. Topics include aesthetic distinction and taste communities, ideology, power, and resistance; the structure and functions of subcultures; popular culture and high culture; and ethnography and interpretation.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Jonathan Rieder
  CULPA: 17 Info
• 4 points

SENIORS HONORS THESIS LAB

Corequisites: CHEM BC3901 Guided research in Chemistry or Biochemistry, under the sponsorship of a faculty member, leading to the senior thesis. A minimum of 8 hours of research per week, to be arranged.

• 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
• 0 points

SENIORS HONORS THESIS LAB

Corequisites: CHEM BC3901 Guided research in Chemistry or Biochemistry, under the sponsorship of a faculty member, leading to the senior thesis. A minimum of 8 hours of research per week, to be arranged.

• Department: Chemistry @Barnard
• 0 points

COMMUNITIES AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Examines how changes in the economy, racial composition, and class relations affect community life-how it is created, changed and sometimes lost-with a specific focus on the local urban context. Student research projects will address how contemporary forces such as neoliberalization, gentrification and tourism impact a communitys social fabric.

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

BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN

A two-semester design sequence to be taken in the senior year. Elements of the design process, with specific applications to biomedical engineering: concept formulation, systems synthesis, design analysis, optimization, biocompatibility, impact on patient health and comfort, health care costs, regulatory issues, and medical ethics. Selection and execution of a project involving the design of an actual engineering device or system. Introduction to entrepreneurship, biomedical start-ups, and venture capital. Semester I: statistical analysis of detection/classification systems (receiver operation characteristic analysis, logistic regression), development of design prototype, need, approach, benefits and competition analysis. Semester II: spiral develop process and testing, iteration and refinement of the initial design/prototype and business plan development. A lab fee of $100 each is collected.

• Department: Biomedical Engineering
• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Lauren N Heckelman
  Info
• 4 points

GLOBAL POLITICS OF REPRODUCTION

Comparative, cross-cultural examination of social organization and historical construction of human reproduction, with emphasis on 20th century. Topics include role of states and local and transnational "stratification" of reproduction by race, class, and citizenship; eugenics; population politics; birth control; kinship as social and biological relationship; maternity; paternity; new reproductive technologies.

• Department: History @Barnard
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Nara Milanich
  CULPA: 15 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

SOCIAL CONTEXTS IMMIGRATN LAW

Examines the historical and contemporary social, economic, and political factors that shape immigration law and policy along with the social consequences of those laws and policies. Addresses the development and function of immigration law and aspects of the immigration debate including unauthorized immigration, anti-immigration sentiments, and critiques of immigration policy.

• Department: Anthropology @Barnard
• M 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: J.C. Salyer
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

SEMINAR

Required of senior majors, but also open to junior majors, and junior and senior concentrators who have taken at least four philosophy courses. This exploration will typically involve writing a substantial research paper. Capped at 20 students with preference to philosophy majors.

• Department: Philosophy @Barnard
• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Karen Lewis
  CULPA: 12 h-index: 7 Info
• 3 points

INEQUALITY, POVERTY & MOBILITY

INEQUALITY POVERTY & MOBILITY

This is an undergraduate seminar in social stratification. The course focuses on the current American experience with socioeconomic inequality and mobility. The goals of the course are to understand how inequality is conceptualized and measured in the social sciences, to understand the structure of inequality in the contemporary U.S. to learn the principal theories and evidence for long term trends in inequality, to understand the persistence of poverty and the impact of social policies on American rates of poverty, and to understand the forces that both produce and inhibit intergenerational social mobility in the U.S. Given the nature of the subject matter, a minority of the readings will sometimes involve quantitative social science material. The course does not presume that students have advanced training in statistics, and any readings sections that contain mathematical or statistical content will be explained in class in nontechnical terms as needed. In these instances, our focus will not be on the methods, but rather on the conclusions reached by the author concerning the research question that is addressed in the text.

• Department: Sociology
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Thomas DiPrete
  CULPA: 7 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

GENDER, SEXUALITY & POWER IN TRANSNATION

GEND,SEX&POWER TRANSNATL

This course considers formations of gender, sexuality, and power as they circulate transnationally, as well as transnational feminist and queer movements that have emerged to address contemporary gendered and sexual inequalities. Topics include political economy, global care chains, sexuality, sex work and trafficking, feminist and queer politics, and human rights. If it is a small world after all, how do forces of globalization shape and redefine the relationship between gender, sexuality, and powerful institutions like the state? And, if power swirls everywhere, how are transnational power dynamics reinscribed in gendered bodies? How is the body represented in discussions of nationalism and in the political economy of globalization? These questions will frame this course by highlighting how gender, sexuality, and power coalesce to impact the lives of individuals in various spaces including workplaces, the academy, the home, religious institutions, the government, and civil society, and human rights organizations. This course will enable us to think transnationally, historically, and dynamically, using gender and sexuality as lenses through which to critique relations of power and the ways that power informs our everyday lives and subjectivities.

• Department: Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies @Barnard
• T 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Manijeh Moradian
  Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEMINAR

Open to senior chemistry, biochemistry, environmental chemistry, and chemical physics majors; senior chemistry concentrators; and students who have taken or are currently enrolled in CHEM UN3098. Senior seminar provides direct access to modern chemical research through selected studies by the students from active fields of chemical research. Topics to be presented and discussed draw from the current scientific literature and/or UN3098 research.

• Department: Chemistry
• F 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Laura J Kaufman
  CULPA: 15 Wikipedia Info
• 2 points

ADV TOPICS GENDER & SEXUALITY

This research and writing-intensive seminar is designed for senior majors with a background and interest in the sociology of gender and sexuality. The goal of the seminar is to facilitate completion of the senior requirement (a 25-30 page paper) based on ;hands on; research with original qualitative data. Since the seminar will be restricted to students with prior academic training in the subfield, students will be able to receive intensive research training and guidance through every step of the research process, from choosing a research question to conducting original ethnographic and interview-based research, to analyzing and interpreting ones findings. The final goal of the course will be the production of an original paper of standard journal-article length. Students who choose to pursue their projects over the course of a second semester will have the option of revisiting their articles further for submission and publications.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• T 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
• Instructor: Nic Rios
  Info
• 4 points

ANTICOLONIALISM

The age of colonialism, so it seems, is long over. Decolonization has resulted in the emergence of postcolonial polities and societies that are now, in many instances, two generations old. But is it clear that the problem of colonialism has disappeared? Almost everywhere in the postcolonial world the project of building independent polities, economies and societies have faltered, sometimes run aground. Indeed, one might say that the anti-colonial dream of emancipation has evaporated. Through a careful exploration of the conceptual argument and rhetorical style of five central anti-colonial texts—C.L.R. James’ The Black Jacobins, Mahatma Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj, Aimé Cesairé’s Discourse on Colonialism, Albert Memmi’s Colonizer and Colonized, and Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth—this course aims to inquire into the image of colonialism as a structure of dominant power, and the image of its anticipated aftermaths: What were the perceived ill-effects of colonial power? What did colonialism do to the colonized that required rectification? In what ways did the critique of colonial power (the identification of what was wrong with it) shape the longing for its anti-colonial overcoming?

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

HIGHER EDUCATION AND INEQUALITY

Prerequisites: (SOCI UN1000) Higher education in the U.S. is going through a period of rapid change. State support is shrinking, student debt is increasing, full-time faculty are being replaced by adjuncts, and learning outcomes are difficult to measure, at best. This class will try to makes sense of these changes. Among other questions, it will ask whether higher education is a source of social mobility or a means of class reproduction; how the college experience differs by race, class, and type of college attended; how the economics of higher education have led to more expensive college and more student loans; and how we might make college better. We will consider several different points of view on the current state of U.S. higher education: that of students who apply to and attend college, that of colleges and universities, and that of society at large. As part of this course, students will conduct research on their own universities: Columbia College or Barnard College.

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

RACE&REPRESENTATION IN ASIAN AMER CINEMA

RACE&REPRSNTATN IN ASAM CINEMA

This seminar focuses on the critical analysis of Asian representation and participation in Hollywood by taking a look at how mainstream American cinema continues to essentialize the Asian and how Asian American filmmakers have responded to Hollywood Orientalist stereotypes. We will analyze various issues confronting the Asian American, including yellowface, white patriarchy, male and female stereotypes, the “model minority” myth, depictions of “Chinatowns,” panethnicity, the changing political interpretations of the term Asian American throughout American history, gender and sexuality, and cultural hegemonies and privileging within the Asian community.

• Department: Ethnicity and Race, Center for
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Eric Gamalinda
  CULPA: 9 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

LATIN MUSIC AND IDENTITY

LATIN MUSIC AND IDENITY

Latin music has had a historically strained relationship with mainstream music tastes, exploding in occasional boom periods, and receding into invisibility in others. What if this were true because it is a space for hybrid construction of identity that directly reflects a mixture of traditions across racial lines in Latin America? This course will investigate Latin musics transgression of binary views of race in Anglo-American society, even as it directly affects the development of pop music in America. From New Orleans jazz to Texas corridos, salsa, rock, and reggaeton, Latin music acts as both as a soundtrack and a structural blueprint for the 21st centurys multicultural experiment. There will be a strong focus on studying Latin musics political economy, and investigating the story it tells about migration and globalization.

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

ARABIC PRISON WRITING

This course studies the genealogy of the prison in Arab culture as manifested in memoirs, narratives, and poems. These cut across a vast temporal and spatial swathe, covering selections from the Quran, Sufi narratives from al-Halllaj oeuvre, poetry by prisoners of war: classical, medieval, and modern. It also studies modern narratives by women prisoners and political prisoners, and narratives that engage with these issues. Arabic prison writing is studied against other genealogies of this prism, especially in the West, to map out the birth of prison, its institutionalization, mechanism, and role. All readings for the course are in English translations.

• Department: Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Muhsin Al-Musawi
  CULPA: 8 Info
• 3 points

COLONIZATION/DECOLONIZATION

Prerequisites: Open to CSER majors/concentrators only. Others may be allowed to register with the instructors permission. This course explores the centrality of colonialism in the making of the modern world, emphasizing cross-cultural and social contact, exchange, and relations of power; dynamics of conquest and resistance; and discourses of civilization, empire, freedom, nationalism, and human rights, from 1500 to 2000. Topics include pre-modern empires; European exploration, contact, and conquest in the new world; Atlantic-world slavery and emancipation; and European and Japanese colonialism in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The course ends with a section on decolonization and post-colonialism in the period after World War II. Intensive reading and discussion of primary documents.

• Department: Ethnicity and Race, Center for
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Natasha J Lightfoot
  CULPA: 5 Info
• 4 points

SLAVERY/ABOLITION-ATLANTC WRLD

This seminar investigates the experiences of slavery and freedom among African-descended people living and laboring in the various parts of the Atlantic World. The course will trace critical aspects of these two major, interconnected historical phenomena with an eye to how specific cases either manifested or troubled broader trends across various slaveholding societies. The first half of the course addresses the history of slavery and the second half pertains to experiences in emancipation. However, since the abolition of slavery occurs at different moments in various areas of the Atlantic World, the course will adhere to a more thematic and less chronological structure, in its examination of the multiple avenues to freedom available in various regions. Weekly units will approach major themes relevant to both slavery and emancipation, such as racial epistemologies among slaveowners/employers, labor regimes in slave and free societies, cultural innovations among slave and freed communities, gendered discourses and sexual relations within slave and free communities, and slaves’ and free people’s resistance to domination. The goal of this course is to broaden students’ comprehension of the history of slavery and freedom, and to promote an understanding of the transition from slavery to freedom in the Americas as creating both continuities and ruptures in the structure and practices of the various societies concerned.

• Department: History
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Natasha J Lightfoot
  CULPA: 5 Info
• 4 points

Creative Embedded Systems

CREATIVE EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

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

• Department: Computer Science @Barnard
• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Tiffany Tseng
  Info
• 3 points

Psychology/Neuroscience Senior Thesis Ad

Advanced Research Seminar

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

• Department: Psychology
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• 1-3 points

Psychology/Neuroscience Senior Thesis Ad

Advanced Research Seminar

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

• Department: Psychology
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• 1-3 points

SOC JUSTICE & HUM RIGHTS

Corequisites: Students must have an internship related to social justice or human rights during This class is intended to complement and enhance the internship experience for students working in internships that relate to social justice and human rights during the Spring 2016 semester. This course will meet bi-weekly to provide an academic framing of the issues that students are working on and to provide an opportunity for students to analyze their internship experience.

• Department: Human Rights (HRTB)
• Instructor: Faculty
  h-index: 37 Info
• 3 points

CLIM CHNG/GLOBAL MIGR/HUM RGT

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

• Department: Anthropology @Barnard
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: J.C. Salyer
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

SOCIOLOGY OF THE BODY

This seminar examines the ways in which the body is discursively constituted, and itself serves as the substratum for social life. Key questions include: How are distinctions made between normal and pathological bodies, and between the psychic and somatic realms? How do historical forces shape bodily experience? How do bodies that are racialized, gendered, and classed offer resistance to social categorization?

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Elizabeth Bernstein
  CULPA: 27 Info
• 4 points

Seeking Sanctuary in New York City

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

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

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

• Department: Human Rights (HRTB)
• TR 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Jennifer Trowbridge
  Info
• 5 points

HELLENISM&THE TOPOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION

This course examines the way particular spaces—cultural, urban, literary—serve as sites for the production and reproduction of cultural and political imaginaries. It places particular emphasis on the themes of the polis, the city, and the nation-state as well as on spatial representations of and responses to notions of the Hellenic across time. Students will consider a wide range of texts as spaces—complex sites constituted and complicated by a multiplicity of languages—and ask: To what extent is meaning and cultural identity, sitespecific? How central is the classical past in Western imagination? How have great metropolises such as Paris, Istanbul, and New York fashioned themselves in response to the allure of the classical and the advent of modern Greece? How has Greece as a specific site shaped the study of the Cold War, dictatorships, and crisis?

• Department: Classics
• T 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Dimitris Antoniou
  h-index: 5 Info
• 3 points

ANIME EFFECT: JAPANESE MEDIA

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

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

Life on Mars: Building a New Society in

Life on Mars: Society & S

This course explores the interdisciplinary challenges of establishing a human society on Mars. Students explore a number of challenges that are involved in reaching the Red Planet and setting up a functional social habitat for the long term. This includes both the numerous logistical hurdles of traveling to and surviving on Mars, as well as the social, political, and ethical considerations of establishing a new society on the planet. Through analysis and discussion of scientific research, social science texts, and popular media, students will gain a deep understanding of the physiological, psychological, and strategic challenges of long-duration space travel and human habitation on another planet.

The course is not scientific or overly technical in nature. Instead, the perspective being adopted is that of a social scientist seeking to understand how humans can travel to another planet and live together. The first half of the course focuses on the practical, physiological, and psychological challenges of traveling to and surviving on Mars while maintaining contact withEarth. In the first part of the course, students will study the unique environmental conditions of Mars, the health risks of space travel, and how to maintain communication and connectivity with Earth despite vast distances. Students will also engage with how sustainable living on Mars—through food, energy, and resource management—could shape the future of human expansion in space.

The second half delves into the complexities of building social, legal, and economic systems in a new extraterrestrial society. Students will critically evaluate how to create a self-sustaining, functional civilization on Mars. Given the social science focus of the class, there will be emphasis placed on topics such as governance, establishing social contracts and property rights, and building economic systems for an entirely new world.

This course is meant to attract a small group of 10-15 students interested in space exploration. The small size and intensive four-hour class format is intended to foster creative problem-solving and interdisciplinary thinking (see below for discussion of non-traditional format). By the end of the course, students will not only understand the practicalities of space colonization but also develop skills in envisioning and designing innovative solutions for humanity’s future beyond Earth.

• Department: Sociology
• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Sudhir A Venkatesh
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

AMERICAN CULTURAL CRITICISM

• Department: History
• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Casey Blake
  CULPA: 22 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

Black Americans Abroad

This course focuses on the long history of Black Americans going (and sometimes returning from) abroad. Our exploration will unfold chronologically from the 19th century to the present day, as we trace our subjects’ myriad reasons for setting out beyond their country’s shores. Each week of the course will be devoted to grappling with a set of travelers and international departures characteristic of a given era, including:


Enslaved people’s quests for freedom

Entertainers, creatives, and scientists’ pursuit of professional opportunities during the era of Jim Crow

Scholars, journalists, and diplomats’ search for knowledge and cultural understanding

Modern nomads and expats’ journeys of self-actualization


Our goal is to consider Black Americans’ evolving relationship to the United States and the world at large.

• Department: Africana Studies (AFSB)
• R 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Tamara Walker
  Info
• 4 points

SUPERVISED INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH

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

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

Computational Models of Decision-Making

Comp Models of Decision-M

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

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

Philosophy of Computing

Advances in artificial intelligence carry potential for both social good and ethical danger. The purpose of this course is to explore both foundational and applied debates in the philosophy of computing, with a focus on machine learning technologies. Drawing from works in philosophy, computer science, literature, and policy, this course will comprehensively examine the conceptual and normative challenges artificial intelligence presents. The course analyzes present-day challenges through the prism of specific technologies and tools, namely predictive analytics, computer vision, and large language models, and also investigates moral and social questions on the horizon, with an eye to how advancements in computing will impact responsibility, moral status, and relationships.

• Department: Cognitive Science @Barnard
• 4 points

SENIOR RESEARCH SEMINAR

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

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

How Race Gets Under Our Skin: The Sociol

RACE, HEALTH, AND BIOMEDI

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

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Domonique M Reed
  Info
• 4 points

HONORS THESIS SEMINAR PART 1

Prerequisites: minimum GPA of 3.5 in MESAAS courses. The MESAAS honors seminar offers students the opportunity to undertake a sustained research project under close faculty supervision. The DUS advises on general issues of project design, format, approach, general research methodologies, and timetable. In addition, students work with an individual advisor who has expertise in the area of the thesis and can advise on the specifics of method and content. The thesis will be jointly evaluated by the adviser, the DUS, and the honors thesis TA. The DUS will lead students through a variety of exercises that are directly geared to facilitating the thesis. Students build their research, interpretive, and writing skills; discuss methodological approaches; write an annotated bibliography; learn to give constructive feedback to peers and respond to feedback effectively. The final product is a polished research paper in the range of 40-60 pages. Please note: This is a one-year course that begins in the fall semester (1 point) and continues through the spring semester (3 points). Only students who have completed both semesters will receive the full 4 points of credit.

• Department: Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
• 1 points

Introduction to Genocide Studies

Intro to Genocide Studies

This course provides students with an introduction to the study of genocide. 

In this class, we will take a
critical approach
to understanding genocide, meaning:


we will try to avoid easy moralizing and distancing of genocide;

we won’t take existing legal and political definitions of genocide for granted; and

we will think about
power
in relation to genocide perpetration and prevention.


Our strategy will be
interdisciplinary
, meaning:


we will explore the ways historians, psychologist, lawyers, political scientists, and others have tried to understand genocide; and

we will reflect on the limits on what and how we can know about genocide as a human experience.


This course aspires to be
practical
and
applied
, meaning


this course fundamentally
anti-genocidal
in its purpose, and

students will have the opportunity to contribute to and/or develop practical efforts commemorate, advocate against, or prevent the perpetration of genocide.

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

POST-BACCALAUREATE SEMINAR

This seminar aims to provide students in the post-baccalaureate certificate program with opportunities 1) to (re-)familiarize themselves with a selection of major texts from classical antiquity, which will be read in English, 2) to become acquainted with scholarship on these texts and with scholarly writing in general, 3) to write analytically about these texts and the interpretations posed about them in contemporary scholarship, and 4) to read in the original language selected passages of one of the texts in small tutorial groups, which will meet every week for an additional hour with members of the faculty.

• Department: Classics
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Gareth Williams
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 3 points

POST-BACCALAUREATE SEMINAR

This seminar aims to provide students in the post-baccalaureate certificate program with opportunities 1) to (re-)familiarize themselves with a selection of major texts from classical antiquity, which will be read in English, 2) to become acquainted with scholarship on these texts and with scholarly writing in general, 3) to write analytically about these texts and the interpretations posed about them in contemporary scholarship, and 4) to read in the original language selected passages of one of the texts in small tutorial groups, which will meet every week for an additional hour with members of the faculty.

• Department: Classics
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Gareth Williams
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 3 points

Crime and Policing

This course will introduce students to the literature on crime and policing. Readings for the course will be from a broad range of disciplines, including sociology, criminology, law, and public policy.  Most weeks, the readings will include relevant “popular press” articles that will help situate the literature in the context of current debates. The course is organized in two parts. The first half will focus on the problems of crime and violence in urban environments. We will review classic and modern ideas and theories explaining crime and violence, and we will look at the evidence describing patterns and trends in crime in recent history. The second half of the course will focus on the approaches to confront crime and violence, with a strong emphasis on policing. We will review the literature on the relationship between crime and policing, and we will learn about the impact that policing practices have on individuals and their communities.

• Department: Sociology
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Gerard Torrats-Espinosa
  h-index: 6 Info
• 4 points

CURATORIAL POSTNS 1969-PRES

Contemporary exhibitions studied through a selection of great shows from roughly 1969 to the present that defined a generation. This course will not offer practical training in curating; rather it will concentrate on the historical context of exhibitions, the theoretical basis for their argument, the criteria for the choice in artists and their work, and exhibitions internal/external reception.

• Department: Art History @Barnard
• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Valerie Smith
  Info
• 4 points

Race, Discrimination, and Racial Inequal

Race, Dscrmttion, Rac Inq

This course focuses on race, discrimination, and racial inequalities. The course will address three key questions: (1) What is race as perceived in the U.S. and Europe, and what are the sources of racial inequalities? (2) What does social science research tell us about patterns and trends of racial inequalities? (3) What policies can alleviate racial inequalities? The course will systematically adopt comparative perspectives focusing on the North American and European contexts. We will also address research on race and racial inequality within an interdisciplinary lens particularly building on sociology, economics, and social psychology.

This course is designed for advanced undergraduate students from Columbia University and Science Po (Paris). We aim for a class of 30 students (15 from each partner university). Class will take place once a week (for 2 hours). In addition, the Columbia TA will conduct a discussion section once a week in which Columbia and Sciences Po students will work together in small groups on class projects that will be presented over the course of the semester. The classes will be organized in a hybrid format. In each campus, the professor will teach his/her class in person and the two classes will be connected via Zoom. The Columbia and Science Po professors will thus co-teach a virtually connected class. The professors will closely coordinate and alternate in leading the lecture and discussion parts of each class.

• Department: Sociology
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• 4 points

SENIOR PROJ:RESEARCH FOR MUSIC

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

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

SENIOR SEMINAR

This course is a requirement for all majors and is taken in the 
Fall
 semester of the Senior year; students may register for the Barnard or Columbia (3991) section. In this academic writing workshop students develop individual research projects under the guidance of the course’s instructor and in dialogue with the other participants’ projects. The final assignment of the senior seminar (6000 words) is the 
senior essay
. It is written in Spanish.

• Department: Spanish and Latin American Culture
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Wadda Rios-Font
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 8 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEM-COMP LIT & SOCIETY

Prerequisites: CPLS UN3900 The senior seminar is a capstone course required of all CLS/MedHum majors and CLS concentrations. Only ICLS students may register. The seminar provides students the opportunity to discuss selected topics in comparative literature and society and medical humanities in a cross-disciplinary, multilingual, and global perspective. Students undertake individual research projects while participating in directed readings and critical dialogues about theory and research methodologies, which may culminate in the senior thesis. Students review work in progress and share results through weekly oral reports and written reports.

• Department: Comparative Literature and Society, Institute for
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Bruno Bosteels
  Wikipedia h-index: 21 Info
• 3 points

Advanced Topics in German Literature

Heinrich von Kleist

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

• Department: Germanic Languages
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Dorothea von Muecke
  Info
• 3 points

SENIOR PROJ: MUSIC REPERTORY

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

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

SENIOR PROJECT IN CREATIVE WRITING

SENIOR PROJ: CREATIVE WRI

Enrollment limited to Barnard senior English majors with a concentration in creative writing.

This creative writing workshop represents an opportunity for creative writing concentrators to focus on one large project that will serve as a capstone senior project. As in a typical writing workshop, much of the focus will be on sharing and critiquing student work. Unlike other workshops, in this class students will focus on building out a longer project—such as a more ambitious full-length story for fiction and creative nonfiction writers and a chapbook for poets. This means students will discuss work by writers who may not share their own genre. We will focus on generating new work, developing your writing process, and creating new possibilities and momentum for your piece, as well as trying to create a sense of community among the concentrators. We will also conduct in-class writing exercises in response to short reading assignments and class lectures. Students should be aware of two important notes: (1) This class is limited to senior English majors who have already been approved to be creative writing concentrators; and (2) this course fulfills the requirement for concentrators to finish a senior project, but not the academic senior seminar requirement. This class is about your own writing and that of your classmates. This class will be what you make of it!

• Department: English @Barnard
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Ken Chen
  Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEM FOR MUSIC MAJORS

The goals of this seminar are a) to introduce senior music majors to ethnographic, bibliographic, and archival research methods in music and b) to help the same students develop, focus, implement, draft, revise, and polish a substantive, original piece of research (25-30 pages) which will serve as the senior project. The course will begin with a survey of academic literature on key problems in musicological research and writing, and will progress to a workshop/discussion format in which each week a different student is responsible for assigning readings and leading the discussion on a topic which s/he has formulated and deemed to be of relevance to her own research.

• Department: Music @Barnard
• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Lauren E Ninoshvili
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 4 points

URBAN STUDIES SENIOR SEMINAR

Prerequisites: Senior standing. Year-long course; participation is for two consecutive terms. No new students admitted for spring. Emphasizes the study of the built environment of cities and suburbs, and the related debates. Readings, class presentations, and written work culminate in major individual projects, under the supervision of faculty trained in architecture, urban design, or urban planning.

• Department: Urban Studies @Barnard
• W 9 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
• Instructor: Faculty
  h-index: 37 Info
• Instructor: Christian Siener
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Andreina Torres Angarita
  Info
• 4 points

SUPERVISED IND RES-LING THESIS

• Department: Slavic Languages
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• 1-4 points

HUMAN RIGHTS SENIOR SEMINAR RSRCH METHOD

This course aims to introduce students to human rights research methods, while providing them with practical research tools. The course will be tailored to students’ interests, disciplinary backgrounds and research areas. The specific topics students will research and the methods they will employ will determine the substantive focus of readings. During the course we will ask the following questions: ‘what is human rights research?, how do you carry out research in an interdisciplinary field?, what distinguishes academic research from applied research and advocacy? While answering these questions, you will become familiar with the literature on human rights methodologies, and you will engage in analysis and critical assessment of important human rights research literature. In addition, the course gives a practical approach to research methodology. You will learn about a diverse set of methodologies, such as interviewing and focus groups, archival research, ethnographic and participant observation, interviewing focus groups, conducting online research; interpretive and non-empirical methods and basic quantitative methodologies to be employed in the study of human rights. As you learn about different methodological approaches, you will develop your own research project. Scholars and practitioners in the field of human rights research will present their work and engage in discussions with students about their own research, challenges, successes and publication venues. NB: This course is geared towards students who commit to writing a senior thesis. It is part of a two-course sequence: HRTS UN3994 Section 001 Human Rights Senior Seminar: Research Methods in the fall and HRTS UN3996 Human Rights Thesis Seminar in the spring. Students who do not intend to write a thesis should enroll in HRTS UN3995 section 001 Human Rights Senior Seminar, which is a one-semester course taught each semester focused on writing a seminar paper.

• Department: Institute for Study of Human Rights
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Tracey Holland
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS IN MATHEMATICS I

SENIOR THESIS MATHEMATICS

Majors in Mathematics are offered the opportunity to write an honors senior thesis under the guidance of a faculty member. Interested students should contact a faculty member to determine an appropriate topic, and receive written approval from the faculty advisor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies (faculty sponsorship is limited to full-time instructors on the staff list). Research is conducted primarily during the fall term; the final paper is submitted to the Director of Undergraduate Studies during the subsequent spring term.

MATH UN3994 SENIOR THESIS IN MATHEMATICS I must be taken in the fall term, during which period the student conducts primary research on the agreed topic. An optional continuation course MATH UN3995 SENIOR THESIS IN MATHEMATICS II is available during the spring. The second term of this sequence may not be taken without the first. Registration for the spring continuation course has no impact on the timeline or outcome of the final paper.

Sections of SENIOR THESIS IN MATHEMATICS I and II do NOT count towards the major requirements, with the exception of an advanced written approval by the DUS.

• Department: Mathematics @Barnard
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS IN COMP LIT/SOC

This year-long, three-credit course is mandatory for students who will be writing their Senior Thesis in Comparative Literature and Society or in Medical Humanities. Students who wish to be considered for Departmental honors are required to submit a Senior Thesis. The thesis is a rigorous research work of approximately 40 pages, and it will include citations and a bibliographical apparatus. It may be written in English or, with the permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies, in another language relevant to the students scholarly interests. Although modeled after an independent study, in which core elements of the structure, direction, and pace of the work are decided together by the student and their faculty thesis supervisor, students are nonetheless expected to complete certain major steps in the research and writing process according to the timeline outlined by the ICLS DUS.

• Department: Comparative Literature and Society, Institute for
• 1.5 points

HUMAN RIGHTS SENIOR SEMINAR

The senior seminar is a capstone course required for the human rights major. The seminar provides students the opportunity to discuss human rights from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and to explore various theoretical approaches and research methodologies. Students undertake individual research projects while collectively examining human rights through directed readings and discussion.

• Department: Institute for Study of Human Rights
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Shourideh Molavi
  Info
• 4 points

HONORS RESEARCH

Prerequisites: a formal proposal to be submitted and approved prior to registration; see the director of undergraduate studies for details. A creative/scholarly project conducted under faculty supervision, leading to completion of an honors essay, composition, or the equivalent.

• Department: Music
• Instructor: Susan Boynton
  CULPA: 18 Info
• Instructor: Alessandra M Ciucci
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Zosha Di Castri
  Info
• Instructor: Joseph P Dubiel
  CULPA: 3 Info
• Instructor: Kevin Fellezs
  CULPA: 4 Info
• Instructor: Aaron A Fox
  CULPA: 7 Info
• Instructor: Giuseppe Gerbino
  CULPA: 12 Info
• 2-3 points