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 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Thomas DiPrete
  CULPA: 7 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

ADVANCED FILM PRODUCTION PRACTICE

Advanced Film Production Practice is an advanced production and lecture course for students who wish to obtain a deeper understanding of the skills involved in screenwriting, directing and producing.  Building on the fundamentals established in the Labs for Fiction and Non-Fiction Filmmaking, this seminar further develops each student’s grasp of the concepts involved in filmmaking through advanced analytical and practical work to prepare Thesis film materials.

• Department: Film
• W 6:10 p.m.-8:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Hector Prats I Castro
  Info
• 3 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 and Gender Studies
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Tara Gonsalves
  Info
• 4 points

MODES OF INQUIRY

Corequisites: CSER UN3921 This class, a combination of a seminar and a workshop, will prepare students to conduct, write up, and present original research. It has several aims and goals. First, the course introduces students to a variety of ways of thinking about knowledge as well as to specific ways of knowing and making arguments key to humanistic and social science fields. Second, this seminar asks students to think critically about the approaches they employ in pursuing their research. The course will culminate in a semester project, not a fully executed research project, but rather an 8-10 page proposal for research that will articulate a question, provide basic background on the context that this question is situated in, sketch preliminary directions and plot out a detailed methodological plan for answering this question. Students will be strongly encouraged to think of this proposal as related to their thesis or senior project. Over the course of the semester, students will also produce several short exercises to experiment with research techniques and genres of writing.

• Department: Ethnicity and Race, Center for
• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Shana Redmond
  Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

TRADING NATURE

This course explores the scientific and theoretical conceptualization of nature as a market commodity, through the lens of conservation biology. Students will engage in critical analysis of the 'traditional' forms in which biodiversity has been appropriated as inputs into markets such as fisheries, resource extraction, bushmeat and medicine, as well as new market environmentalism.

• Department: Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Mary E Blair
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR PROJECT COLLOQUIUM

This course is for American studies majors planning to complete senior projects in the spring. The course is designed to help students clarify their research agenda, sharpen their questions, and locate their primary and secondary sources. Through class discussions and a workshop peer review process, each member of the course will enter spring semester with a completed bibliography that will provide an excellent foundation for the work of actually writing the senior essay. The colloquium will meet every other week and is required for everyone planning to do a senior research project. Application due June 15. See American Studies website.

• Department: American Studies
• MT 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Jeremy Dauber
  CULPA: 21 Wikipedia Info
• 1 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: Milan Delor
  h-index: 16 Info
• 2 points

MEDIEVAL ENGLISH TEXTS

The class will read the poem 
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 
in the original Middle English language of its unique surviving copy of circa 1400, and will discuss both the poem's language and the poem's literary meritThe class will read the poem 
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 
in the original Middle English language of its unique surviving copy of circa 1400, and will discuss both the poem's language and the poem's literary merit.

• Department: English and Comparative Literature
• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: David M Yerkes
  CULPA: 41 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEM IN SCREENWRITING

A seminar for senior film majors. Students will complete a step outline and minimum of 30 pages of their project, including revisions. Through reading/viewing and analyzing selected scripts/films, as well as lectures, exercises and weekly critiques, students will expand their understanding of dramatic writing and narrative-making for film and TV, including adaptations. They will learn appropriate structure for each specific screen-writing form, and endeavor to apply their understanding of drama, character, theme, and structure to their chosen narrative project.

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

CONTEMP CULTURE IN ARAB WORLD

This seminar, designed for seniors, aims to acquaint students with the notion and theoretical understanding of culture and to introduce them to a critical method by which they can study and appreciate contemporary culture in the Arab World. The seminar will survey examples of written and cinematic culture (fiction and autobiography), as well as music, dance, and literary criticism in the contemporary Arab world. Students will be reading novels, autobioghraphies and literary criticism, as well as watch films and listen to music as part of the syllabus. All material will be in translation. Films will be subtitled. Songs will be in Arabic.

• Department: Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Joseph A Massad
  CULPA: 23 Wikipedia Info
• 3 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

AMERICAN POLITICS SEMINAR

EQUALITY AND THE LAW

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

• Department: Political Science
• T 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Robert L Amdur
  CULPA: 16 Info
• 4 points

AMERICAN POLITICS SEMINAR

POLITICS OF INCOME INEQUALITY

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

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

AMERICAN POLITICS SEMINAR

US PRESIDENTIAL POWER

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

• Department: Political Science
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: John J Sivolella
  Info
• 4 points

AMERICAN POLITICS SEMINAR

BUREAUCRATIC POLITICS

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

• Department: Political Science
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Michael Ting
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 4 points

AMERICAN POLITICS SEMINAR

US IMMIGRATION & POLICY

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

• Department: Political Science
• W 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Carlos Vargas-Ramos
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 4 points

AMERICAN POLITICS SEMINAR

20TH C AFR AMER POLIT THOUGHT

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

• Department: Political Science
• T 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Fredrick Harris
  Wikipedia 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 10:10 a.m.-noon
• 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 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Karl Jacoby
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 8 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

TOPICS IN THE BLACK EXPERIENCE

Please refer to African American and African Diaspora Studies for section course descriptions  https://afamstudies.columbia.edu/

• Department: African American and African Diaspora
• M 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Nyle Fort
  Info
• 4 points

TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES

GENDER HISTORY AND AMER FILM

Please refer to the Center for American Studies website for course descriptions for each section.
americanstudies.columbia.edu

• Department: American Studies
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Hilary-Anne Hallett
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 4 points

TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES

LANGUAGES of AMERICA

Please refer to the Center for American Studies website for course descriptions for each section.
americanstudies.columbia.edu

• Department: American Studies
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: John H McWhorter
  CULPA: 26 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES

SHAKESPEARE IN AMERICA

Please refer to the Center for American Studies website for course descriptions for each section.
americanstudies.columbia.edu

• Department: American Studies
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: James Stephen Shapiro
  Info
• 4 points

TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES

SUPREME COURT IN AMER HISTORY

Please refer to the Center for American Studies website for course descriptions for each section.
americanstudies.columbia.edu

• Department: American Studies
• M 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Benjamin Rosenberg
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES

Tocqueville: Democratic Mind

Please refer to the Center for American Studies website for course descriptions for each section.
americanstudies.columbia.edu

• Department: American Studies
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Mark Lilla
  CULPA: 57 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

Psychology/Neuroscience Senior Thesis Ad

Advanced Research Seminar

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

• Department: Psychology
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Alfredo Spagna
  CULPA: 3 h-index: 15 Info
• 1-3 points

ADVANCED TOPICS RACE & ETHNICITY

Discusses theories of race and ethnicity, distinctions between prejudice, discrimination, and racism, and the intersectionality paradigm. Under instructors guidance students design a research proposal, conduct their own fieldwork and write a research paper on a sociological question relating to race and/or ethnicity.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Mignon R Moore
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 17 Info
• 4 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)
• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Widney Brown
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

INDEPENDENT STUDY

Prerequisites: the department chairs permission. (Formerly R3932)

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

Seeking Sanctuary in New York City

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

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

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

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

The Native Northeast

This course provides an interdisciplinary perspective on Native peoples of present-day New York and New England and their interactions with colonial empires (French, Spanish, British, US). Most of the reading will be by Native authors. In order to provide a firm historical foundation for understanding the dynamics of Indigenous and colonial history our emphasis will be on the period between European settlement and the nineteenth century. Coverage will not be exhaustive; there are too many Native nations in this region for that to be possible. Our focus rather will be on major turning points in Native history which have become flashpoints for controversy among scholars and in the broader public sphere: the relationship between Native nations and Pilgrims, King Philip’s War, the so-called Indian Great Awakening, and others. The course will cover topics in literary and religious history, politics, law, and anthropology, and should appeal to students in any of those fields, while providing an introduction to the history and methods of Indigenous Studies.

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

HIST OF THE US-MEXIC0 BORDER

Beginning in the 1980s, border crossing became an academic rage in the humanities and the social sciences. This was a consequence of globalization, an historical process that reconfigured the boundaries between economy, society, and culture; and it was also a primary theme of post-modernist aesthetics, which celebrated playful borrowing of multiple and diverse historical references. Within that frame, interest in the US-Mexican border shifted dramatically. Since that border is the longest and most intensively crossed boundary between a rich and a poor country, it became a paradigmatic point of reference. Places like Tijuana or El Paso, with their rather seedy reputation, had until then been of interest principally to local residents, but they now became exemplars of post-modern “hybridity,” and were meant to inspire the kind of transnational scholarship that is required in today’s world. Indeed, the border itself became a metaphor, a movable imaginary boundary that marks ethnic and racial distinction in American and Mexican cities. This course is an introduction to the historical formation of the US-Mexican border.

• Department: Ethnicity and Race, Center for
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Claudio Lomnitz
  CULPA: 3 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

THE FANTASTIC IN PRE-MOD CHINA

From the Daoist philosophical text Zhuangzi to the famous novel The Journey to the West, the "fantastic" has always been part of Chinese literature that pushes human imagination and questions the boundary of reality. Readers and writers created fantastic beasts (though not always knowing where to find them), passed down ghost stories, rationalized bizarre occurrences, and dismissed, sometimes embraced, tales that could potentially subvert their established framework of knowledge. The fantastic is also historically and culturally contingent. What one regards as fantastic reveals more about the perceiving subjects---their values, judgment, anxiety, identity, and cultural burdens. How do fantastic texts problematize the definition of humanity? How does the fantastic complicate our understanding of narrative, truth, and epistemology? How did premodern Chinese writers use the fantastic to approach and propose solutions to pressing social issues? Using “fantastic” literature as a critical lens, this course takes a thematic approach to the masterpieces of Chinese literature from the first millennium BCE up until late imperial China. The topics that we will explore include shifting human/non-human boundaries, representations of the foreign land (also the “underworld”), the aestheticization of female ghosts, and the fantastic as social criticism and allegory. All materials and discussions are in English.

• Department: East Asian Languages and Cultures
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Lu Kou
  Info
• 4 points

THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY

The point is to examine democracy not as a political system, but as a historical phenomenon characterized by a specific culture: a body of ideas and values, stories and myths. This culture is not homogenous; it has a variety of historical manifestations through the ages but remains nonetheless cohesive. The objective is twofold: 1) to determine which elements in democratic culture remain fundamental, no matter what form they take in various historical instances; 2) to understand that the culture of democracy is indeed not abstract and transcendental but historical, with its central impetus being the interrogation and transformation of society. Special emphasis will be placed on the crisis of democratic institutions in the era of globalization and, as specific case-study in point, the democratic failure in the Mediterranean region in light of the challenges of the assembly movements (Spain, Greece, Arab Spring) and the current migrant/refugee crisis.

• Department: Classics
• R 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Stathis Gourgouris
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia 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

CUR CONTROV-PRIMATE BEHAV&ECOL

Prerequisites: EEEB UN1011 or the equivalent. Critical in-depth evaluation of selected issues in primate socioecology, including adaptationism, sociality, sexual competition, communication, kinship, dominance, cognition, and politics. Emphasizes readings from original literature.

• Department: Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Marina Cords
  CULPA: 19 Info
• 4 points

Democracy and De-Democratization, Theory

Democracy & De-Democratiz

The concepts of democratic backsliding, regime cycles (between oligarchy and populism, democracy and dictatorship), hybrid regimes and reverse waves, were devised with regard to newly democratized and/or insufficiently institutionalized democratic regimes. Yet today even long consolidated, wealthy western democracies seem to be at risk. This course will focus on the case of the United States.  While domestic and external threats to American constitutional democracy are not new, there is widespread concern today that both liberal constitutionalism and American democracy are at grave risk.  Our inquiry will involve an in-depth study of the political theory and American politics literature on the relevant concepts and dynamics. In the first part of the course, we will discuss the basic concepts and theories regarding democracy, oligarchy, constitutionalism and regime cycles developed in classical and early modern political thought.  The second part of the course will focus on the U.S., the oldest constitutional representative democracy and typically deemed the exemplar of a successfully consolidated democratic regime.  We analyze the processes, dynamics, reversals and limits to democratization in the US focusing on key tipping points from the founding to the present.  Our focus will be on four sets of factors and modes of explanation for the relevant shifts: constitutional, political, socio-cultural, and economic.  We conclude with analysis of the  contemporary conjuncture and current threats to American constitutional democracy.

• Department: American Studies
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Jean L Cohen
  CULPA: 7 Wikipedia h-index: 63 Info
• 4 points

Senior Pro Seminar

SENIOR PRO SEMINAR

This course is a seminar for seniors to either write a formal proposal for a capstone project or to begin the research process for a Senior Thesis, which will be written in the Spring semester. This interdisciplinary course provides the necessary structure needed to complete either goal. This will be an interactive class in which students are required to participate and actively engage in each meeting.

• Department: African American and African Diaspora
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Farah Griffin
  CULPA: 10 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

GLOBAL HEALTH, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY

GLOBAL HEALTH, SOCIETY

What is global health? Where do global health disease priorities come from, and how do the ways that we understand disease shape how we respond to it? What happens when good ideas and good intentions go wrong? This course critically examines the politics of global health and its impact on local institutions and people. Drawing on social science research, the course will address three main themes: 1) how global health priorities are defined and constructed, 2) how our understandings of disease influence our response to that disease, and 3) how efforts to respond to disease intersect with people on the ground, sometimes in unexpected ways. We will examine the global health industry from the vantage point of different institutions and actors – international organizations, governments, local healthcare institutions, healthcare workers, and people living with or at risk of various illnesses like HIV/AIDS, malaria, cancer, and Ebola. A primary goal of this course is to help you to develop skills in critical thinking in relation to global health issues and their impact on society. Students will demonstrate their knowledge through individual writing, class discussion, presentations, and a final research project.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Amy Zhou
  Info
• 4 points

Transgender Lives

TRANSGENDER LIVES

This seminar examines transgender people’s lives through a sociological lens, investigating how social structures, institutions, and everyday interactions shape trans people’s lives and identities. Students will analyze the intersectional nature of transgender experience, exploring how gender, race, class, disability, nation, and citizenship status create diverse lived realities within transgender communities. Topics include family dynamics, violence, resistance, space, work, legal recognition, and visions of transgender futures.

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

SUPERVISED INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH

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

• Department: Psychology
• Instructor: Dima Amso
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 31 Info
• Instructor: Christopher Baldassano
  h-index: 13 Info
• Instructor: Niall Bolger
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 55 Info
• Instructor: Natalie Brito
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• Instructor: Lila Davachi
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 59 Info
• Instructor: Sarah Demoya
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• Instructor: Geraldine Downey
  CULPA: 9 Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Katherine T Fox-Glassman
  CULPA: 6 h-index: 4 Info
• Instructor: Jon B Freeman
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Carl Hart
  CULPA: 43 Wikipedia h-index: 54 Info
• Instructor: Tory Higgins
  CULPA: 23 Wikipedia h-index: 134 Info
• Instructor: Nora Isacoff
  CULPA: 1 Info
• Instructor: Sheena Iyengar
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Nikolaus Kriegeskorte
  h-index: 56 Info
• Instructor: Patricia G Lindemann
  CULPA: 64 Info
• Instructor: Bianca J Marlin
  Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Janet Metcalfe
  CULPA: 31 h-index: 70 Info
• Instructor: Meghan Meyer
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• 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
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• Instructor: Alfredo Spagna
  CULPA: 3 h-index: 15 Info
• Instructor: Yaakov Stern
  Wikipedia h-index: 160 Info
• Instructor: Herbert S Terrace
  CULPA: 29 Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: John N Thorp
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• Instructor: Nim L Tottenham
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• Instructor: Sarah Woolley
  CULPA: 13 Wikipedia h-index: 31 Info
• Instructor: Chujun Lin
  Info
• 0-4 points

UNDERGRADUATE SEMINARS I

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

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

COMPARATIVE POLITICS SEMINAR

Innovation

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

• Department: Political Science
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Caterina Chiopris
  Info
• 4 points

COMPARATIVE POLITICS SEMINAR

Voters, Leaders & Media

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

• Department: Political Science
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Beatrice Bonini
  Info
• 4 points

Surveillance

SURVEILLANCE

Surveillance has become a ubiquitous term that either conjures images of George Orwell’s
1984
, the popular series
Black Mirror,
or is dismissed as an inconvenience and a concern of only those who engage in criminal activity or have something to hide. Using sociological theories of power, biopower, racialization, and identity formation,
Surveillance
explores the various ways we are monitored by state authorities and corporations and our role in perpetuating the system (un)wittingly.

• Department: Sociology @Barnard
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Randa B Serhan
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR RESEARCH SEMINAR

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

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

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
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Debashree Mukherjee
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 5 Info
• 1 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

SECURITY TOPICS

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

• Department: Political Science
• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Jack L Snyder
  CULPA: 27 Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

INEQUALITY WITHIN&BTWN NATIONS

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

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

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

POLITICS OF WORLD ECONOMY

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

• Department: Political Science
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Allison J Carnegie
  Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

Pol Multinat'l Enterprise

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

• Department: Political Science
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Calvin N Thrall
  Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

War and Peace

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

• Department: Political Science
• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Sarah Daly
  Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

POLITICAL VIOLENCE

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

• Department: Political Science
• R 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Linda M Kirschke
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR

CAUSES OF WAR

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

• Department: Political Science
• R 8:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
• Instructor: Zachary C Shirkey
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

ART CRITICISM

This course is a seminar on contemporary art criticism written by artists in the post war period. Such criticism differs from academic criticism because it construes art production less as a discrete object of study than as a point of engagement. It also differs from journalistic criticism because it is less obliged to report art market activity and more concerned with polemics. Art /Criticism I will trace the course of these developments by examining the art and writing of one artist each week. These will include Brian ODoherty/Patrick Ireland, Allan Kaprow, Robert Morris, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Smithson, Art - Language, Dan Graham, Adrian Piper, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Judith Barry and Andrea Fraser. We will consider theoretical and practical implications of each artists oeuvre.

• Department: Art History @Barnard
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: John Miller
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 4 points