A study of frame tale collections from India, Persia, the Middle East, and Western Europe from the 5th century C.E. through the 17th century. We will trace the development of short story/novella from their oral traditions and written reworkings, studying such texts as 1001 Nights, Kalila wa-Dimnah, Scholar’s Guide, and the works of Boccaccio, Marguerite de Navarre, Cervantes, and María de Zayas. This is a Global Core course. Application Instructions: E-mail Professor Patricia E. Grieve (peg1@columbia.edu), with the subject heading Application: E/W Frametale Narratives. In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Applicants will be notified of decisions within a week.
This contemporary technique class invites students into an embodied practice focusing on a daily physical experimentation and challenge. Emphasis will be placed on corporeal ways to explore questions around propelling, listening, connecting, healing, and action. This course offers a chance for students to use their sensatorial experience to reflect on individual pathways/ desires for expression while, challenging the body to take risks and practice as their movement knowledge expands. Emphasis on sensation, initiation, and weight will be introduced in a floor or standing warm-up that will expand to a standing exploration of the transition between form and space. A focus will be to continue our development of a strong-grounded technique with healthy placement that moves with ease in and out of the floor. We will continue to develop our true embodied relationship to environment, people, and time.
Prerequisites: YIDD UN2101-YIDD UN2102 or the instructor's permission. Reading of contemporary authors. Stress on word usage and idiomatic expression, discussion.
Improvisation is an open level, movement based class in which students will learn collaborative improvisation tools, skills, practices, and mindset through experience, reflection, practice, and generation. Deep play, support for others, and a willingness to experiment and reflect are key in this discovery based course.
Prerequisites: ITAL UN2102 or the equivalent. UN3334-UN3333 is the basic course in Italian literature. UN3334: Authors and works from the Cinquecento to the present. Taught in Italian.
Prerequisites: GERM UN2102 or the equivalent. If you have prior German outside of Columbia’s language sequence, the placement exam is required.
Advanced Conversation and Composition is designed for students who have completed Intermediate German II (2102) or the equivalent. It is a content-based, two-point course designed to strengthen both oral and written communication and the ability to engage in critical analysis in German. Students will develop interpretative skills needed for communicating questions, ideas, and opinions; build vocabulary; interact comfortably with various forms of media; and communicate new skills through discussions, various writing assignments, and a presentation.
Prerequisites: ITALUN2102 or the equivalent. If you did not take Intermediate Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester. Written and oral self-expression in compositions and oral reports on a variety of topics; grammar review. Required for majors and concentrators.
This contemporary technique class invites students into an embodied practice focusing on a daily physical experimentation and challenge. Emphasis will be placed on corporeal ways to explore questions around propelling, listening, connecting, healing, and action. This course offers a chance for students to use their sensatorial experience to reflect on individual pathways/ desires for expression while, challenging the body to take risks and practice as their movement knowledge expands. Emphasis on sensation, initiation, and weight will be introduced in a floor or standing warm-up that will expand to a standing exploration of the transition between form and space. A focus will be to continue our development of a strong-grounded technique with healthy placement that moves with ease in and out of the floor. We will continue to develop our true embodied relationship to environment, people, and time.
(Lecture). Shakespeare II examines plays from the second half of Shakespeare’s dramatic career, primarily a selection of his major tragedies and his later comedies (or “romances”).
This course offers the first DEI centered pedagogy and environment for the hundreds of students who come through the Department of Dance’s studios. This new course will provide DEiB-specific language, theory, and practice to a field centered around mind and body integration as well as innovation, community, and collaboration. Students craving this equity and integration will be given the opportunity to research, explore, create, share, and innovate with experts in the field as well as their peers- providing a platform to further their collaborative work and innovative dance performance writing, curating, and lectures.
Leading question: How can we find solutions where we don’t fully understand the issues or extent of the disparity? We must first take score/inventory. This course is a collective attempt to better identify and understand (in theory and in practice) Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as they exist in the “S”(social) or ESG.
ESG = environment, social governance. In this course we will primarily focus on DEIB or DEIA as a subset of The “S” of ESG meaning the social implications.
Additionally, we will consider how the existing industry and field of dance across all sectors, private or public, can better champion, catalyze and construct operations at a systematic level, through integrating DEiB as an actualization of the “S” in ESG. Can the dance world be a leading force in efforts of equity and earth first initiatives?
This course is open to all students.
Prerequisites: CHEM BC3231 and CHEM BC3333
Quantitative techniques in volumetric analysis, pH measurement, UV-Visible, absorption, and fluorescence spectroscopy, and chromatographic separations. Data analysis with spreadsheets.
Prerequisites: Limited to twenty people. Examination of the gender-neutral partnering technique that is now common in contemporary dance. Focus is placed on recent improvisatory forms, sensation building, center connection and risk. Emphasis is placed on listening and sensing rather than controlling or leading.
This course will introduce the exploration of a partnering technique that is enriching for the mind and body. Contact Improvisation is not only an important tool for the dancer as it informs the body how to move with weight and connection and is required by most contemporary styles – it is also a technique that informs the artist in us all as it emphasizes listening, trust, and spontaneous creativity. In this course, students will use contact to support the creation of most duets, trios, and larger group dance. Focus is placed on recent improvisatory forms, sensation building, center connection, and finding the safe edges of risk as well as applying these studies to creation and expression. Students in this course will explore their own weight and how it relates to other bodies by listening as well as employing emotional, psychological, and cultural structures to their improvisation. Emphasis is placed on listening and sensation rather than controlling or leading. Students will explore the dynamic ride and risk taking of improvisation and trusting another body by giving and taking weight. Contact Improvisation is open to all students.
In all societies, public policies are developed to solve social problems such as extreme
poverty, inequality, basic sanitation, health and basic care, family planning, food
security, mental health, abuse of illegal substances, education and protection of
vulnerable groups. How can we ensure that these public policies are based on solid
evidence, which would guarantee the greatest probability of effectiveness? And how do
we plan and adapt the implementation of these policies to different realities, respecting
cultural and historical differences?
In order to achieve this, it is useful, if not necessary, to be acquainted with scientific
thinking and the accumulation and use of evidence. It is also necessary to understand
our own limitations and cognitive biases that interfere in the decision-making process,
as well as understand the political and social context where decisions need to be made.
This course aims to provide students with the tools necessary to assess public policies
critically and rationally, as well as to evaluate different types of scientific evidence and
understand how and where it is appropriate to include scientific evidence in building
effective public policy.
Prerequisites: (ITAL UN2102) or (ITAL UN2121) Students must have completed Intermediate level Italian language proficiency. The course, designed for students who have mastered the grammatical structure of the language, will give the students the opportunity to improve their language skills and discover Italian art from Middle Ages to the second half of twentieth century. The works of the artists will be studied and discussed with the intent of developing knowledge of the main features of artistic and cultural movements and of the appropriate vocabulary and terminology to describe and talk about them. A particular emphasis will be put to oral and written productions: various kinds of texts and genres will be practiced (description, narration, critical analysis). Students will learn how to describe and interpret a work of art, examine the main characteristics and the techniques used by the artists and will be able to look for themes recurring in the artistic productions. The artists covered during the course will be introduced along the lines of their unique artistic, historical and socio-cultural relevance through different sources: images, scholarly essays, literature, video and music. Two visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to CIMA (Center for Modern Italian Art) will be organized. In Italian.
Concentrating on the drama of early modern England, this course will focus on women who behave badly. Some of these characters cheat, lie, and murder, while others perfect the guise of seeming compliance; some brazenly flout the structures that aim to contain them, while others are subtler in their subversion. We will use these plays to investigate what is by turns exciting, threatening, and frightening about these unruly women, paying attention to the ways that they are punished and sometimes rewarded. We will also attend to the resources of theatrical form, especially the early modern use of boy actors to play women’s parts, to ask how the conditions of staging uphold or undercut the plays’ ideological messages. Finally, we will supplement our reading of this drama with other historical and cultural texts from this period—pamphlets, advice literature, poems, court cases, and ballads—in order to get a better sense of the plays in relation to early modern gender, sexual, and political norms, many of which were crucially different from our own.
This course is designed for those curious about the structure of Hungarian - an unusual language with a complex grammar quite different from English, or, indeed, any Indo -European language. The study of Hungarian, a language of the Finno-Ugric family, offers the opportunity to learn about the phonology of vowel harmony, the syntax of topic-comment discourse, verb agreement with subjects and objects, highly developed case systems and possessive nominal paradigms. In addition to its inflectional profile, Hungarian derivation possibilities are vast, combinatory, and playful. During the semester we will touch upon all the important grammatical aspects of Hungarian and discuss them in relation to general linguistic principles and discourse, and finally, through some text analysis, see them in action. Although the primary discussion will center on Hungarian, we will draw on comparisons to other Finno-Ugric languages, most notably Finnish and Komi; students are encouraged to draw on comparisons with their own languages of interest. No prerequisite. Counts as Core Linguistics.
Corequisites: CHEM BC3348 This course combines chemical synthesis, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, and nanoscience into experiments with an emphasis using spectroscopy to determine chemical structure and reactivity. you will gain experience with a range of instruments, techniques, calculations, and theories. Instrumentation will include UV-Visible, infrared, near-infrared, fluorescence, and Raman spectroscopy.
Prerequisites: CHEM BC3333 or 3338 and CHEM BC3253 Corequisites: CHEM BC3271 This course combines chemical synthesis, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, and nanoscience into experiments with an emphasis using spectroscopy to determine chemical structure and reactivity. You will gain experience with a range of instruments, techniques, calculations, and theories. Instrumentation will include UV-Visible, infrared, near-infrared, fluorescence, and Raman spectroscopy.
Prerequisites: L course: enrollment limited to 15 students. Completion of language requirement, third-year language sequence (W3300). Provides students with an overview of the cultural history of the Hispanic world, from eighth-century Islamic and Christian Spain and the pre-Hispanic Americas through the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period until about 1700, covering texts and cultural artifacts from both Spain and the Americas.
Prerequisites: L course: enrollment limited to 15 students. Completion of language requirement, third-year language sequence (W3300). Provides students with an overview of the cultural history of the Hispanic world, from eighth-century Islamic and Christian Spain and the pre-Hispanic Americas through the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period until about 1700, covering texts and cultural artifacts from both Spain and the Americas.
Prerequisites: L course: enrollment limited to 15 students. Completion of language requirement, third-year language sequence (W3300). Provides students with an overview of the cultural history of the Hispanic world, from eighth-century Islamic and Christian Spain and the pre-Hispanic Americas through the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period until about 1700, covering texts and cultural artifacts from both Spain and the Americas.
This course focuses on Lusophone African and African Brazilian cultures and the relations, continuities, ruptures and influences between them. Brazil is the result of the miscegenation of Ameridians, African and Europeans, and this means that is also a cultural mélange of these groups. The African cultural contribution to Brazilian culture and grand-narrative is the primary focus of this course, however, to understand Brazil one needs to understand the cultural diversity found in Lusophone Africa, with which Brazil has had a long relationship. The readings for this course include texts from different disciplines and genres. We will study texts, movies and other forms of visual arts from the following authors: José Eduardo Agualusa, Pepetela, Mia Couto, Jorge Amado, Achille, Mbembe, Hilton Costa, Jocélio Teles dos Santos, Livio Sansone, José Luis Cabaço, Benedita da Silva and Solano Trindade.
This course surveys cultural production of Spain and Spanish America from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Students will acquire the knowledge needed for the study of the cultural manifestations of the Hispanic world in the context of modernity. Among the issues and events studied will be the Enlightenment as ideology and practice, the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the wars of Spanish American independence, the fin-de-siecle and the cultural avant-gardes, the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century (Spanish Civil War, the Mexican and Cuban revolutions), neoliberalism, globalization, and the Hispanic presence in the United States. The goal of the course is to study some key moments of this trajectory through the analysis of representative texts, documents, and works of art. Class discussions will seek to situate the works studied within the political and cultural currents and debates of the time. All primary materials, class discussion, and assignments are in Spanish. This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies.
This course surveys cultural production of Spain and Spanish America from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Students will acquire the knowledge needed for the study of the cultural manifestations of the Hispanic world in the context of modernity. Among the issues and events studied will be the Enlightenment as ideology and practice, the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the wars of Spanish American independence, the fin-de-siecle and the cultural avant-gardes, the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century (Spanish Civil War, the Mexican and Cuban revolutions), neoliberalism, globalization, and the Hispanic presence in the United States. The goal of the course is to study some key moments of this trajectory through the analysis of representative texts, documents, and works of art. Class discussions will seek to situate the works studied within the political and cultural currents and debates of the time. All primary materials, class discussion, and assignments are in Spanish. This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies.
Introduction to animal developmental biology and its applications. This course will examine the basic mechanisms through which animal bodies organize themselves, from an integrative perspective at the levels of genes and gene networks, cell properties and behaviors, coordinated interactions of cells in developing tissues, organs and organ systems, and the role of developmental processes in morphological evolution. Topics include: fertilization, cleavage and gastrulation, establishment of body axes, neural development, organ formation, tissue and organ regeneration, stem cells and medical applications, evolution of developmental programs, and teratogenesis.
Prerequisites: Organic II lab (CHEM BC3333, BC3335, or equivalent); Quantitative analysis lab (BC3338, BC3340, or equivalent); Biochemistry (CHEM BC3282y, CHEM C3501, or equivalent).
Theory and application of fundamental techniques for the isolation, synthesis and characterization of biological macromolecules including proteins, lipids, nucleotides and carbohydrates. Techniques include spectroscopic analysis, gel electrophoresis, chromatography, enzyme kinetics, immunoblotting, PCR, molecular cloning and cell culture, as well as modern laboratory instrumentation, such as UV-Vis, GC-MS and HPLC.
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a broad introduction to the field of climate law in the United States and at the international level. The course begins with an overview of the causes and effects of global climate change and the methods available to control and adapt to it. We then examine the negotiation, implementation and current status of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Copenhagen Accord. The focus then turns to the past and proposed actions of the U.S. Congress, the executive branch and the courts, as well as regional, state and municipal efforts. The Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act will receive special attention. We evaluate the various legal tools that are available to address climate change, including cap-and-trade schemes; carbon taxation; command-and-control regulation; litigation; securities disclosures; and voluntary action. The roles of energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, carbon capture and sequestration, and forestry and agriculture each receive close attention. Implications for international human rights, international trade, environmental justice, and international and intergenerational equity are discussed. The course concludes with examination of the special challenges posed by China; proposals for adaptation and geoengineering; and business opportunities and the role of lawyers. Offered in the Spring.
Prerequisites: BIOL BC1500, BIOL BC1501, BIOL BC1502, BIOL BC1503 or the equivalent. This course examines how mammals carry out basic functions like manipulating objects, sensing the external world, oxygenating tissues, and processing food. Emphasis is placed on (a) how the body regulates itself through the integrated action of multiple organ systems and (b) what goes awry in disease.
Cognition, language and behavior are central elements of the human experience. Development in these areas begins shortly after conception and continues through the first two decades of life. Children's development usually follows a known and predictable course. In a sizable minority of cases, development goes awry, either before or shortly after birth, leading to a range of challenges and disorders in cognition, language and behavior. This course explores the etiology and presentation of disordered cognition, language and behavior resulting from developmental impairments. Vulnerabilities associated with prenatal, perinatal, infancy, childhood and adolescent stages will be analyzed. Students will be familiarized with contemporary research on the defining characteristics, associated features, possible causes, and current approaches to intervention and prevention for a wide range of issues associated with atypical development in cognition, language and behavior.
Between 1400 and 1600, in the context of the Iberian conquest and colonization of the “four parts of the world," artifacts were looted, melted, and destroyed; other objects traveled between continents in physical and textual forms. They were sent and offered as proof of the new territories, desired and collected. The powerful subtlety of unexpected artistic forms, media, and monuments triggered a new space of inquiry. Novel materials, techniques, and ideas about artistry were observed far and near—in the Americas, in Asia, in Africa, and in Europe. They were also described, compared and analyzed in letters, histories, or inventories. All around a sphere that could now be mentally embraced, missionaries, collectors, historians, and artists felt under the power of novel creations: intricate shell jewelries, wood and stone sculptures, turquoise masks, feather mosaics, painted manuscripts and folding screens, ivory spoons, carved temples, monumental cities, and so on. These splendid artworks deeply challenged conceptual boundaries such as those between: idol and image, beautiful and frightening, civilized and barbarian, center and periphery, classic and modern, and ancient and new. The artworks and their descriptions contributed to define humanity as immanently creative and to conceive artistic creation as a distinctive form of thought. Section 001 will be taught in Spanish; section 002 will be taught in English.
Prerequisites: Students must have one of the following pre-requisites for this course: PSYC BC1125 Personality Psychology, PSYC BC1138 Social Psychology, or PSYC BC2151 Organizational Psychology, and permission by the instructor. An in-depth examination of the concept of leadership in psychology with an emphasis on womens leadership. Topics include the role of gender, culture, and emotional intelligence as well as an examination of transactional and transformational models. Topics will be discussed with an equal emphasis on theory, research, and application. Students must have prerequisites and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Examination of European understandings of human senses through the production and reception of art, literature, music, food, and sensual enjoyments in Britain and France. Readings include changing theories concerning the five senses; efforts to master the passions; the rise of sensibility and feeling for others; concerts and the patronage of art; the professionalization of the senses.
Prerequisites: BC1001 and permission of the instructor. Consideration of classic Psychodynamic (the unconscious/incubation), Psychometric (testing/training), and Personaility (train/motivation) models of creativity. Application of contemporary Process (cognitive/problem-solving) models to art, literature, and independently selected areas of expertise. Process models are involving constraint selection within well-established domains are emphasized.
In 1918, German sociologist Max Weber lamented that scientific innovation had made the world too transparent––disenchanted, devoid of magic. However, even in current times, characterized by information on demand, ubiquitous connectedness, and hyper-rationalization, magic and belief in the supernatural continue to operate and fascinate in the Western world. Think, for instance, of TikTok “ghost cams,” or the incorporation of terms like manifesting or ritual into popular discourses of personal success and self-care. At the same time, we may argue that enchantment never disappeared in many parts of the world: consider the reclamation of the term “brujx” to designate a syncretic spirituality connected with queerness and Latinx ethnicity. In response to these trends and the normalization of magical language in the mainstream, this seminar proposes an expansive an intersectional investigation of what “magic” has meant in the Hispanic world: organized in a loosely chronological manner, it delves into the conceptual roots and historical relevance of notions of magic and supernatural in the Greater Caribbean (Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia), Spain, Guatemala, Argentina, Bolivia, and Mexico and its US border. With a combination of written, cinematic, pictorial, and audio primary and secondary texts, the seminar addresses the political implications of magical belief and practices; the affects and relationships that magic metaphorizes in literature; the role of belief in configuring socioeconomic hierarchies in colonial and postcolonial contexts; and the uses of popular spirituality to assert agency against the forces of colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy.
Prerequisites: BC1001 and two more psychology courses, and permission of the instructor required. Consideration of research on the interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors related to physical health and illness. Topics include the relationship of stress to illness, primary prevention, mind-body methods of coping with stress and chronic illness (such as meditation), and the relationship between psychological factors and recovery from illness. Enrollment limited to 15.
“Research that produces nothing but books will not suffice.” — Kurt Lewin, 1946
Social psychology has a long tradition of turning research outward to understand and address real-world social problems. For example, using insights gleaned from theories of human behavior, scientists have designed programs, activities, and materials to reduce prejudice and conflict, narrow academic disparities, increase prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors, promote health and wellness, and more. In this seminar, we will explore the interdisciplinary science of harnessing psychology to change people and society for the better. We will discuss theoretical, methodological, and practical issues that drive the design, implementation, and evaluation of social psychological and behavioral science interventions. Throughout the course, students will develop their own interventions targeting a social problem of their choice, with special attention to identifying the psychological underpinnings of the problem chosen, the theoretical basis for the intervention, and the design and evaluation of the intervention. This class focuses on social psychological and related behavioral science interventions; clinical interventions and therapies will not be discussed.
We spend much of our time in our imaginations: we daydream or immerse ourselves in fiction, children engage
in pretend play, and we mentally simulate how our room might look if we rearrange the furniture. Imagination
forms a critical link between perception, memory, creativity, and higher-order thinking. This seminar will
examine imagination and mental simulation from the perspective of modern psychology. We will consider how
imagination is formed in children, how it is used in adults, whether machines might imagine, and how we can
study the contents of our imaginations.
Prerequisites: BC1001 and BC1129 Developmental Psychology or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 20 senior majors. Barnard students receive priority. Examines adolescent development in theory and reality. Focuses on individual physiological, sexual, cognitive, and affective development and adolescent experiences in their social context of family, peers, school, and community. Critical perspectives of gender, race and ethnicity, sexuality, and teen culture explored.
Prerequisites: Third-year bridge course (W3300), and introductory surveys (W3349, W3350). Sociolinguistics studies the connections between language and social categories such as class, gender, and ethnicity. This course will address how social, geographic, cultural, and economic factors affect the different usages of Spanish among its millions of speakers. Through theory and practice of various research tools including Ethnography of Communication and Discourse Analysis, students with explore topics such as English-Spanish contact in the US, code-switching, and Spanglish, as well as issues of identity, bilingualism, and endangered languages.
Prerequisites: BC1001 and one of the following: Neurobiology, Behavioral Neuroscience, Fundamentals of Neuropsychology, or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 20 students. Recent advancements in neuroscience raise profound ethical questions. Neuroethics integrates neuroscience, philosophy, and ethics in an attempt to address these issues. Reviews current debated topics relevant to the brain, cognition, and behavior. Bioethical and philosophical principles will be applied allowing students to develop skill in ethical analysis.
Perception is often taken as the most striking proof of something factual: when we perceive something, we interpret it as real. In this seminar we will challenge this assumption by taking into consideration states of altered perception, wherein the brain creates perceptual experiences that do not correspond to sensory input. Specifically, we will review a number of experiments showing changes in brain activity accompanying illusions, hallucinations, and dreaming across sensory modalities (i.e., vision, hearing, touch), and in both clinical and non-clinical populations. We will examine the similarities and differences between these states of altered perception both at the level of phenomenology and underlying biological mechanisms, specifically focusing on neural oscillations. Using the latest research findings in clinical, cognitive, and computational neuroscience, this seminar offers a great opportunity to learn more about how the brain creates perceptual experiences and why sometimes we perceive something that isn’t real.
Students work in teams to specify, design, implement and test an engineering prototype. Involves technical as well as non-technical considerations, such as manufacturability, impact on the environment, economics, adherence to engineering standards, and other real-world constraints. Projects are presented publicly by each design team in a school-wide expo.
Prerequisites: BC1001 and one other Psychology course. Enrollment limited to 15 students. Permission of the instructor is required. An examination of the scientific study of the domestic dog. Emphasis will be on the evolutionary history of the species; the dogs social cognitive skills; canid perceptual and sensory capacities; dog-primate comparative studies; and dog-human interaction.
This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive overview of theoretical concepts underlying GIS systems and to give students a strong set of practical skills to use GIS for sustainable development research. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a system of computer software, data and analysis methods used to create, store, manage, digital information that allow us to create maps and dynamic models to analyze the physical and social processes of the world. Through a mixture of lectures, readings, focused discussions, and hands-on exercises, students will acquire an understanding of the variety and structure of spatial data and databases, gain knowledge of the principles behind raster and vector based spatial analysis, and learn basic cartographic principles for producing maps that effectively communicate a message. Student will also learn to use newly emerging web based mapping tools such as Google Earth, Google Maps and similar tools to develop on-line interactive maps and graphics. The use of other geospatial technologies such as the Global Positioning System will also be explored in this class. Case studies examined in class will draw examples from a wide ranges of GIS applications developed to assist in the development, implementation and evaluation of sustainable development projects and programs. On completion of the course, students will: 1. use a variety of GIS software programs to create maps and reports; 2. develop a sound knowledge of methods to search, obtain, and evaluate a wide variety of spatial data resources; 3. develop skills needed to determine best practices for managing spatial data resources; 4. use GIS to analyze the economic, social and environmental processes underlying the concept of building a sustainable world; 5. Gain an understanding of the limits of these technologies and make assessments of uncertainty associated with spatial data and spatial analysis models. Offered in the fall and spring.
This course introduces students to state-of-the art genetic and computational tools to study connectivity in neuronal circuits that control behavior. The focus will be on the
Drosophila
Circadian Clock Neuron Network (CCNN), a well-characterized neuronal circuit that controls sleep/wake cycles among other rhythms in physiology and behavior. Students will learn about genetic tools for neuronal circuit mapping and connectomics analysis, and will perform behavioral experiments with transgenic animals in which specific neuronal subpopulations within the CCNN were genetically manipulated.
This course examines what Saidiya Hartman calls the ‘afterlife of slavery.’ By drawing from readings in cultural studies, Black feminist theory, sociology, philosophy, and decolonial thought, the class explores questions surrounding the archive of transatlantic slavery and its afterlives. A crucial goal of the course is to engage critically the meaning of sexuality, intimacy, reproduction, labor, and domination in slaveholding societies. Throughout the course, students will discuss how the afterlives of slavery inform current ethical debates on issues like: sexual violence, reparations, surveillance, criminalization, incarceration, housing, militarism, imperialism, distribution of wealth, environmental racism, education, mental illness, political participation, and anti-colonial activism. The course is therefore structured less as a historical survey of slavery and more as an investigation as to how slavery is remembered and its rhetorical function when reasoning about today’s moral and political controversies. Special attention is paid to how a study of slavery’s afterlives challenges narratives of U.S. exceptionalism and innocence, as well as stories commonly told about freedom, emancipations, and racial progress.
Prerequisites: Open to Barnard College History Senior Majors. Individual guided research and writing in history and the presentation of results in seminar and in the form of the senior essay. See Requirements for the Major for details.
This course is intended to introduce students to the modern tradition of Western Christian political thought, with an emphasis on the theological underpinnings of political theory. A significant focus will revolve around the ethics of citizenship. Key readings explore topics like religious violence, the historical construction of “religion”, decolonial approaches to religious studies, the politics of secularism, the ethics of patriotism, and the role of faith in electoral politics. In an attempt to unsettle commonly held views about religion and science, the colloquium also examines current debates around environmental justice, natural history museums, medical ethics, and the corporate space race. Other topics in the seminar include Afro-Caribbean spiritualities, the legacy of activist Sylvia Rivera, theorizations of an “abolitionist faith,” and the intersection of critical pedagogy and liberation theology. The seminar concludes by examining the role of religion in revolts, rebellions, and maroon communities throughout the Americas. Throughout the class, students will explore how theology and spirituality can serve as important resources for liberation movements and for broader struggles against empire, colonialism, and capitalism.
The spell cast by a captivating novel or elegant research can lead us to imagine that great writing is a product of the author's innate genius. In reality, the best writing is a product of certain not-very-intuitive practices. This course lifts the veil that obscures what happens in the minds of the best writers. We will examine models of writing development from research in composition studies, cognitive psychology, genre studies, linguistics, ESL studies, and educational psychology. Our classroom will operate as a laboratory for experimenting with the practices that the research identifies. Students will test out strategies that prepare them for advanced undergraduate research, graduate school writing, teaching, editing, and collaborative writing in professional settings. The course is one way to prepare for applying for a job as a peer writing fellow in Columbia’s Writing Center.
This seminar will explore sleep and circadian rhythms, emphasizing how these factors and their disruption influence human health, disease, function, and well-being. Topics will include the physiologic and neurobiological generation of sleep and circadian rhythms, and the interaction between these systems with cognitive, behavioral, endocrine, metabolic, and mood/psychiatric variables in humans, as well as sleep disorders and their treatment.
NOTE: The course description is the same for the fall/spring course and the summer course.
This course seeks to approach the study of music and society by comparatively studying repertories from different parts of the world, how the history of ideas and methods of studying such repertoires shaped them, the practices that constitute them and the ways they are understood and used by different peoples. Central to this course is the interrelationship between the constitution of a repertoire and the history of the construction of knowledge about it.
Basic field concepts. Interaction of time-varying electromagnetic fields. Field calculation of lumped circuit parameters. Transition from electrostatic to quasistatic and electromagnetic regimes. Transmission lines. Energy transfer, dissipation, and storage. Waveguides. Radiation.
For undergraduates only. Required for all undergraduate students majoring in IE, OR:EMS, OR:FE, and OR. Must be taken during (or before) the sixth semester. Inventory management and production planning. Continuous and periodic review models: optimal policies and heuristic solutions, deterministic and probabilistic demands. Material requirements planning. Aggregate planning of production, inventory, and work force. Multi-echelon integrated production-inventory systems. Production scheduling. Term project. Recitation section required.
Studio course exploring designing costumes for the stage. Students become familiar with textual and character analysis, research, sketching and rendering, swatching and introductory costume history.
Application Instructions: E-mail the instructor with the title of the course in the subject line. In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list, from which the instructor will admit them as spaces become available.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 12 students. Focuses on both the technical and creative aspects of theatrical lighting design. Students will learn the role of lighting within the larger design and performance collaboration through individual and group projects, readings, hands-on workshops, and critique of actual designs.
Application Instructions: E-mail the instructor (
acasey@barnard.edu
) with the title of the course in the subject line. In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list, from which the instructor will admit them as spaces become available.
It is strongly advised that Stochastic modeling (IEOR E3106 or IEOR E4106) be taken before this course. This is an introductory course to simulation, a statistical sampling technique that uses the power of computers to study complex stochastic systems when analytical or numerical techniques do not suffice. The course focuses on discrete-event simulation, a general technique used to analyze a model over time and determine the relevant quantities of interest. Topics covered in the course include the generation of random numbers, sampling from given distributions, simulation of discrete-event systems, output analysis, variance reduction techniques, goodness of fit tests, and the selection of input distributions. The first half of the course is oriented toward the design and implementation of algorithms, while the second half is more theoretical in nature and relies heavily on material covered in prior probability courses. The teaching methodology consists of lectures, recitations, weekly homework, and both in-class and take-home exams. Homework almost always includes a programming component for which students are encouraged to work in teams.
UN3405 enables students to hone and perfect their reading and writing skills while improving their ability to express and organize thoughts in French. In this engaging advanced language class, students are exposed to major texts in fields as diverse as journalism, sociology, anthropology, politics, literature, philosophy and history. Stimulating class discussions, targeted reviews of key grammatical points in context, and an array of diverse writing exercises all contribute to strengthen students’ mastery of the French language. This course also works as a bridge class between Intermediate French II and courses that focus on French and Francophone cultures, history and literature (such as 3409 and 3410). Students who take this class will be fully prepared to take advanced content classes or spend a semester in a Francophone country. This class is required for the French major and minor.
Prerequisites: Some design experience is helpful, though not required. Enrollment limited to 12 students. Studio-based course explores the main elements of theatrical design: sets, costumes, lighting, and sound through objects, materials, theatrical and non-theatrical environments. Students examine these design elements as both individual and interrelated components within a performance. Fulfills one course in Design requirement for Theatre/Drama and Theatre Arts majors. Fulfills one of three courses in performance fields for Theatre/Drama and Theatre Arts majors: design.
Required discussion section for WRIT UN3010 Short Prose Forms
Required discussion section for WRIT UN3226 Nonfiction-ish
Introduction to drafting, engineering graphics, computer graphics, solid modeling, and mechanical engineering design. Interactive computer graphics and numerical methods applied to the solution of mechanical engineering design problems.
This course offers an in-depth examination of depressive disorders, including major depressive disorder, persistant depressive disorder, post-partum depression, premenstrual dysmorphic disorder, and pediatric depression. Topics include historical perspectives, current understanding of diagnoses and symptoms, neural changes associated with the disorders, and research on effective treatments. Emphasis will be placed on the impact of depressive disorders on families and communities, as well as gender and cultural differences in diagnosis, treatment and outcomes.
Adolescence is a peak period for the onset of mental disorders and suicidal behaviors. The seminar is designed to enhance understanding of topics including, prevalence, etiology, risk factors, mechanisms, prevention and treatment approaches, and ethical considerations related to clinical research.
Required discussion section for WRIT UN3010 Short Prose Forms
This class provides an introduction to the history of France and of the francophone world since the Middle Ages. It initiates students to the major events and themes that have shaped politics, society, and culture in France and its former colonies, paying special attention to questions of identity and diversity in a national and imperial context. Modules include a combination of lecture and seminar-style discussion of documents (in French).
This course is part of a two-course sequence and is a core requirement the French and Francophone Studies major.
This class offers a survey of major works of French and francophone literature from the Middle Ages to the present. Emphasis will be placed on formal and stylistic elements of the works read and on developing the critical skills necessary for literary analysis. Works will be placed in their historical context.
In an increasingly urban world, sustainable development is not possible without achieving sustainability in cities. This course explores the challenges and opportunities of sustainable development policy-making at the urban level through the study of local efforts to address climate change, provide access to clean water, and develop renewable energy resources, among other topics. Students will gain a more detailed understanding of how cities’ histories, land use patterns, and economies influence urban resource use, and how cities have attempted to change those impacts. Using case studies of local sustainability initiatives, students examine how a city’s governance structure, political dynamics, and administrative capacity affect policy outcomes. Consideration of the equity implications of urban sustainability efforts is integral to the course.
Corequisites: PHILV3413 Required Discussion Section (0 points). Advanced introduction to classical sentential and predicate logic. No previous acquaintance with logic is required; nonetheless a willingness to master technicalities and to work at a certain level of abstraction is desirable.
Corequisites: PHILV3413 Required Discussion Section (0 points). Advanced introduction to classical sentential and predicate logic. No previous acquaintance with logic is required; nonetheless a willingness to master technicalities and to work at a certain level of abstraction is desirable.
Prerequisites: (ECON UN3211 or ECON UN3213) and (MATH UN1201 or MATH UN1207) and STAT UN1201 Modern econometric methods; the general linear statistical model and its extensions; simultaneous equations and the identification problem; time series problems; forecasting methods; extensive practice with the analysis of different types of data.
Required discussion section for ECON UN3412: Intro to Econometrics