Prerequisite or corequisite: BIOL UN2005 or BIOL UN2401. Contemporary Biology Lab is designed to provide students with hands-on exploration of fundamental and contemporary biological tools and concepts. Activities include in depth study of mammalian anatomy and physiology through dissection and histology, as well as a series of experiments in genetics and molecular biology, with emphasis on data analysis and experimental technique.
To many observers, mass incarceration is among the most pressing civil rights and human rights issues in
the contemporary United States. America’s carceral state is sweeping. In addition to the nearly 2 million
people currently incarcerated, there are over 7 million people living who have been imprisoned in the past
three decades and 19 million people currently living with felony records. These carceral sentences impact
the lived conditions and life chances of those most directly affected as well as their families and
communities. These dynamics are also deeply racialized and have reshaped American culture and
democracy at the local and national levels. But that is not the full story. Liberatory movements have
resisted and surged against racialized subjugation for centuries in the United States, making confinement
a continually contested racial and political condition in the United States.
In this course, students will study the origins and developments of mass incarceration, as well as the
political struggles that have been waged against it. Students will read across a range of genres, including
scholarly work in the fields of sociology, political science, history, and law, as well as performance,
memoir, and testimony. By examining the rise of the carceral state in this way, students will gain a critical
lens on longstanding concerns in the American imaginary: race and racism, justice and injustice,
community and reparation, liberation and abolition. While the course is not exhaustive, it is meant to
equip students with a working framework on the critical debates in the field.
Prerequisites: Second Year Hebrew: Intermediate I or instructor permission. Equal emphasis is given to all language skills. Irregular categories of the Hebrew verb, prepositions and syntax are taught systematically. Vocabulary building. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or writing short compositions. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes. (Students completing this course fulfill Columbia College and Barnard language requirement.) No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.
This lab course is limited to declared Film & Media Studies majors. Exercises in the use of video for fiction shorts.
Prerequisites: Hebrew for Heritage Speakers I Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II forms the second part of a year-long sequence with Hebrew for Heritage Speakers I. The course is intended for those who have developed basic speaking and listening skills through exposure to Hebrew at home or in day-school programs but do not use Hebrew as their dominant language and have not reached the level required for exemption from the Columbia language requirement. Heritage speakers differ in the degree of their fluency, but their vocabulary is often limited to topics in daily life and many lack skills in reading and writing to match their ability to converse. The course focuses on grammar and vocabulary enrichment, exposing students to a variety of cultural and social topics in daily life and beyond. By the end of the semester students are able to read and discuss simple texts and write about a variety of topics. Successful completion of the year-long sequence prepares students to enroll in third-year modern Hebrew. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.
Exercises in the use of video for documentary shorts.
Prerequisite
: Completion of 1102 or equivalent. If you have prior German outside of Columbia's language sequence, the placement exam is required.
Desire to speak lots of German! Students in Intermediate Conversation should have completed the equivalent of two semester of college German or placed at the Intermediate level at Columbia. This conversation group is designed for students are either taking Intermediate German I or II and would like additional practice or who take only this class because they wish to maintain their spoken German.
The course is designed to improve your ability to speak and understand and manage German in everyday situations; to provide opportunities to participate in conversational situations on any topics you are interested in; to strengthen and acquire skills to understand German spoken at normal conversational speed; to expand active and passive vocabularies speaking skills; and to maintain a certain level of written German through short written activities. This is a 2-point course and does not count towards the language requirement.
This course is a basic introduction to the field and practice of urban planning in the United States. The course will focus on key concepts in planning history, theory, and practice, including the various conflicts and dilemmas planners face, stakeholders involved in urban planning, and the tools and methods that planners use to address challenges in the built environment.
The core questions that this class will return to throughout the semester are: How does planning take place, and whose interest(s) does planning serve? How does planning (re)produce social inequities? Planning is often framed as a technical exercise to rationalize the built environment and create more “livable” cities. However, planning is not value-neutral. As we will examine throughout the course of the semester, power relations fundamentally shape the planning profession, and planning decisions have contributed to racial, economic, and gender inequalities and spatial segregation in cities throughout the United States. We will also explore debates about how to encourage more inclusive cities and engage in more ethical planning practice.
The course is divided into six sections. In Part I, we will explore foundational concepts in urban planning, such as how previous scholars have defined urban planning and urban space. In Part II, we will explore the historical context in which the planning profession emerged and key moments in planning history. In Part III, we will examine normative models of planning, or how the planning profession conceives of itself. In Part IV, we will learn about the different technical tools that planners use to regulate urban development and key debates surrounding these tools. In Part V, we will interrogate the role of the planner, the role of power relations in planning, and how planning decisions have resulted in racial, class, and gender exclusion in the built environment. In Part VI, we will contemplate future directions in planning.
A survey of the history of the American South from the colonial era to the present day, with two purposes: first, to afford students an understanding of the special historical characteristics of the South and of southerners; and second, to explore what the experience of the South may teach about America as a nation.
An exploration of choreography that employs text, song, vocal work, narrative and principles of artistic direction in solo and group contexts.
The purpose of this course is to increase the history department’s offerings in American cultural history and to familiarize students with how to use and interpret cultural documents and sources in the writing of history. To this end, it also designed to expose students to interdisciplinary
scholarship in the context of research firmly rooted in historical practice. A second goal is to increase students’ sophistication as media consumers by increasing their awareness of how industrial practices and outside institutions work to shape what we do and don’t see on movie
screens. It will pay particular attention to two related issues: how Hollywood’s shifting attitudes toward its audience and the controversies the industry sparked in American society, reflected broader changes in the American cultural landscape. In this way, students will come to
understand the agendas and desires of those who supported, disliked, or simply sought to control the nation’s first mass cultural form of entertainment.
Investigates the multicultural perspectives of dance in major areas of culture, including African, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, Middle Eastern, as well as dance history of the Americas through reading, writing, viewing, and discussion of a wide range of resources. These include film, original documents, demonstration, and performance.
This lecture explores major topics in modern American history through an examination of the American film industry and some of its most popular films and stars. It begins with the emergence of “Hollywood” as an industry and a place in the wake of WWI and ends with the rise of the so-called ‘New Hollywood’ in the 1970s and its treatment of the 1960s and the Vietnam War. For much of this period, Hollywood’s films were
not
protected free speech, making movies and stars peculiarly reflective of, and vulnerable to, changes in broader cultural and political dynamics. Students will become familiar with Hollywood’s institutional history over this half-century in order to understand the forces, both internal and external, that have shaped the presentation of what Americans do and don’t see on screens and to become skilled interpreters of American history at the movies.
Study of the cultural roots and historical contexts of specific communities using New York Citys dance scene as a laboratory. Students observe the social environments in which various modes of dance works are created while researching the history of dance in New York City. Course includes attendance at weekly events, lecture-demonstrations, and performances.
This course introduces major forms of Chinese art from the Neolithic period to the present. It stresses the materials and processes of bronze casting, the development of representational art, principles of text illustration, calligraphy, landscape painting, imperial patronage, and the role of the visual arts in elite culture. Works of Chinese art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art will receive special attention, as you will be able to study these closely online and see the real things at the museum. Throughout the course we will attempt to study not only the history of Chinese art but also
how
that history has been written, both in China and in the West. Please note that students will be required to keep their webcams on throughout the class sessions. We will take appropriate breaks.
One year of prior coursework in Elementary Hindi-Urdu I&II or the instructor’s permission. The course aims to continue consolidating and building upon the existing listening, speaking, reading, writing and cultural skills and will help students acquire higher level proficiency in Hindi language. Students will be introduced to new grammatical structures and a broad range of vocabulary through exposure to a variety of authentic materials including Hindi literature, newspapers, folk tales, films, songs, and other kinds of written and audio-visual materials and through these materials. Students will expand their knowledge base of the society and culture of the target languages in this course. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.
Introduces distinctive aesthetic traditions of China, Japan, and Korea--their similarities and differences--through an examination of the visual significance of selected works of painting, sculpture, architecture, and other arts in relation to the history, culture, and religions of East Asia.
For those whose knowledge is equivalent to a student whos completed the First Year course. The course focuses on the further development of their skills in using the language to engage with practical topics and situations, such as seeing a doctor, reading news, writing letters, and listening to music.
Prerequisites: An introductory psychology course. Examines definitions, theories, and treatments of abnormal behavior.
Study of behavior in organizational and business-related settings. Examination of such topics as employee motivation and satisfaction, communication patterns, effective leadership strategies, and organization development.
Prerequisite: An introductory psychology course.
An introduction to basic concepts in moral psychology. Topics include controversies around the definition of morality, foundations of moral thought and behavior, and connections between morality and other areas of life, among other subjects.
Gandhi is in two senses an extraordinary figure: he was the most important leader of anti-imperialist movements in the twentieth century; yet, his ideas about modernity, the state, the industrial economy, technology, humanity’s place in nature, the presence of God - were all highly idiosyncratic, sometimes at odds with the main trends of modern civilization. How did a man with such views come to have such an immense effect on history? In some ways, Gandhi is an excellent entry into the complex history of modern India - its contradictions, achievements, failures, possibilities. This course will be primarily a course on social theory, focusing on texts and discursive exchanges between various perceptions of modernity in India. It will have two parts: the first part will be based on reading Gandhi’s own writings; the second, on the writings of his main interlocutors. It is hoped that through these exchanges students will get a vivid picture of the intellectual ferment in modern India, and the main lines of social and political thought that define its intellectual culture. The study in this course can be followed up by taking related courses in Indian political thought, or Indian politics or modern history. This course may not be taken as Pass/D/Fail.
This course will survey a century of Mexican history that oscillated between an authoritarian regime (Porfirio Díaz’s presidency, 1876-1911), a massive revolutionary upheaval (1911-1920), the construction of a single-party, corporatist regime that became a model of stability and economic success (that of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional), and a complex transition to democracy (culminated in the July 2000 presidential elections but, one might argue, still ongoing).
Politics will be defined in broad terms. Lectures and readings will consider social and cultural processes from diverse perspectives. Topics will include: migration and population growth; economic expansion and stagnation; urban history, crime and punishment; gender, women and families; elite and popular culture; labor, agrarian reform; the left, electoral and armed insurgency; relations with the United States and other countries of Latin America. Local and regional perspectives will be offered as an alternative against prevailing state-centered, national narratives. Combining thematic and chronological lectures and discussion of primary sources, the course will examine the most exciting recent literature on Mexican society, culture, and politics.
Discussion of primary sources will be an important component of this course. Classes will combine lecture and discussion of historical contents with discussion of primary documents. These documents will include texts (political manifestos, essays, letters, testimonies, legislation, literature) as well as movies, music and visual records (mostly photography and painting). Discussions sections will also use those documents to expand on topics presented in the lectures and the required readings.
This course will survey a century of Mexican history that oscillated between an authoritarian regime (Porfirio Díaz’s presidency, 1876-1911), a massive revolutionary upheaval (1911-1920), the construction of a single-party, corporatist regime that became a model of stability and economic success (that of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional), and a complex transition to democracy (culminated in the July 2000 presidential elections but, one might argue, still ongoing).
Politics will be defined in broad terms. Lectures and readings will consider social and cultural processes from diverse perspectives. Topics will include: migration and population growth; economic expansion and stagnation; urban history, crime and punishment; gender, women and families; elite and popular culture; labor, agrarian reform; the left, electoral and armed insurgency; relations with the United States and other countries of Latin America. Local and regional perspectives will be offered as an alternative against prevailing state-centered, national narratives. Combining thematic and chronological lectures and discussion of primary sources, the course will examine the most exciting recent literature on Mexican society, culture, and politics.
Discussion of primary sources will be an important component of this course. Classes will combine lecture and discussion of historical contents with discussion of primary documents. These documents will include texts (political manifestos, essays, letters, testimonies, legislation, literature) as well as movies, music and visual records (mostly photography and painting). Discussions sections will also use those documents to expand on topics presented in the lectures and the required readings.
This course will survey a century of Mexican history that oscillated between an authoritarian regime (Porfirio Díaz’s presidency, 1876-1911), a massive revolutionary upheaval (1911-1920), the construction of a single-party, corporatist regime that became a model of stability and economic success (that of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional), and a complex transition to democracy (culminated in the July 2000 presidential elections but, one might argue, still ongoing).
Politics will be defined in broad terms. Lectures and readings will consider social and cultural processes from diverse perspectives. Topics will include: migration and population growth; economic expansion and stagnation; urban history, crime and punishment; gender, women and families; elite and popular culture; labor, agrarian reform; the left, electoral and armed insurgency; relations with the United States and other countries of Latin America. Local and regional perspectives will be offered as an alternative against prevailing state-centered, national narratives. Combining thematic and chronological lectures and discussion of primary sources, the course will examine the most exciting recent literature on Mexican society, culture, and politics.
Discussion of primary sources will be an important component of this course. Classes will combine lecture and discussion of historical contents with discussion of primary documents. These documents will include texts (political manifestos, essays, letters, testimonies, legislation, literature) as well as movies, music and visual records (mostly photography and painting). Discussions sections will also use those documents to expand on topics presented in the lectures and the required readings.
Explores changing structures and meanings of family in Latin America from colonial period to present. Particular focus on enduring tensions between prescription and reality in family forms as well as the articulation of family with hierarchies of class, caste, and color in diverse Latin American societies.
Examines immigrations to Latin America from Europe, Africa, and Asia and the resulting multiracial societies; and emigration from Latin America and the formation of Latino communities in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. Analyzes the socioeconomic and discursive-cognitive construction of ethno-racial identities and hierarchies, and current debates about immigration and citizenship.
This is the discussion section for HIST BC2699: Latin American Civilization II.
This course is intended to offer a survey of the history of a complex and vast region through two centuries. In order to balance the specificity of particular histories and larger processes common to Latin America, units will often start with a general presentation of the main questions and will be followed by lectures devoted to specific countries, regions, or themes. We will look closely at the formation of class and ethnic identities, the struggle around state formation, and the links between Latin America and other regions of the world. We will stress the local dimension of these processes: the specific actors, institutions and experiences that shaped the diversity and commonalities of Latin American societies. The assignments, discussion sections, and lectures are intended to introduce students to the key conceptual problems and the most innovative historical research on the region and to encourage their own critical reading of Latin American history.
The Western Hemisphere was a setting for outstanding accomplishments in the visual arts for millennia before Europeans set foot in the so-called “New World.” This course explores the early indigenous artistic traditions of what is now Latin America, from early monuments of the formative periods (e.g. Olmec and Chavín), through acclaimed eras of aesthetic and technological achievement (e.g. Maya and Moche), to the later Inca and Aztec imperial periods. Our subject will encompass diverse genre including painting and sculpture, textiles and metalwork, architecture and performance. Attention will focus on the two cultural areas that traditionally have received the most attention from researchers: Mesoamerica (including what is today Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras) and the Central Andes (including Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia). We will also critically consider the drawing of those boundaries—both spatial and temporal—that have defined “Pre-Columbian” art history to date. More than a survey of periods, styles, and monuments, we will critically assess the varieties of evidence—archaeological, epigraphic, historical, ethnographic, and scientific—available for interpretations of ancient Latin American art and culture.
Prerequisites: MDES W1701-MDES W1702 or the equivalent. A general review of the essentials of grammar; practice in spoken and written Persian; Arabic elements in Persian; selected readings emphasizing Iranian life and culture; materials from Tajikistan and Afghanistan, Indari. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.
Plays and other theatrical experiences in England from 1660-1780, with attention to a wide range of social, cultural and formal questions. We will discuss performance history and theories of acting as well as politics, sex, Shakespeare adaptation, the presentation of self and a number of other topics that remain relevant today. Students with a practical interest in theater are encouraged to enroll, and no prior background in theater or in eighteenth-century literature and culture is expected or required.
Advanced analog photography & darkroom printing. Students will work with analog cameras and learn how to refine black-and-white printing techniques, produce larger prints, etc. Emphasis will be placed on the editing, sequencing, and display of images while cultivating a theoretical and historical context to situate the work. Students will engage with an array of photographic practices through presentations, critiques, guest artist lectures and printing assignments. This course will explore critical issues in contemporary photography and advanced camera and production techniques through regular shooting assignments, demonstrations, critique, lectures, readings, and field trips. Prerequisites:
Intro Darkroom Photography
(Columbia) or equivalent experience
This course will focus on helping students gain greater profiency in reading Tibetan Buddhist philosophical and religious historical texts.
“The Ottoman Empire and the West” is a course designed to familiarize undergraduate students with the major developments concerning the Ottoman Empire’s relations with the West throughout the ‘long’ nineteenth century, roughly from the end of the eighteenth century to the outbreak of World War I. The course will adopt a predominantly chronological structure but will address a wide range of themes, from politics and ideology to economics and diplomacy, and from religion and culture to gender and orientalism.
“The Ottoman Empire and the West” is a course designed to familiarize undergraduate students with the major developments concerning the Ottoman Empire’s relations with the West throughout the ‘long’ nineteenth century, roughly from the end of the eighteenth century to the outbreak of World War I. The course will adopt a predominantly chronological structure but will address a wide range of themes, from politics and ideology to economics and diplomacy, and from religion and culture to gender and orientalism.
Required zero-point/ungraded discussion section for “The Ottoman Empire and the West in the 19th Century” lecture (HIST 2717)
This course will examine the origins and evolutions of horror literature from ancient Babylon to the Early Modern period. We will be examining consistent tropes that span long periods of time, as well as local innovations and idiosyncracies that are particular to a given culture at a given moment. We will be asking what makes for horror—that is, how does horror literature work, and what is it trying to do—as well as why horror is such an enduring modality.
This course will examine the origins and evolutions of horror literature from ancient Babylon to the Early Modern period. We will be examining consistent tropes that span long periods of time, as well as local innovations and idiosyncracies that are particular to a given culture at a given moment. We will be asking what makes for horror—that is, how does horror literature work, and what is it trying to do—as well as why horror is such an enduring modality.
Prerequisites: PHYS UN2801 This accelerated two-semester sequence covers the subject matter of PHYS UN1601, PHYS UN1602 and PHYS UN2601, and is intended for those students who have an exceptionally strong background in both physics and mathematics. The course is preparatory for advanced work in physics and related fields. There is no accompanying laboratory; however, students are encouraged to take the intermediate laboratory, PHYS UN3081, in the following year.
Prerequisites: PHYS UN2801 This accelerated two-semester sequence covers the subject matter of PHYS UN1601, PHYS UN1602 and PHYS UN2601, and is intended for those students who have an exceptionally strong background in both physics and mathematics. The course is preparatory for advanced work in physics and related fields. There is no accompanying laboratory; however, students are encouraged to take the intermediate laboratory, PHYS UN3081, in the following year.
Why do certain mental illnesses only appear in specific regions of the world? What processes of translation, adaption, and “indigenization” take place when psychiatric diagnostic categories, pharmaceutical regimens, and psychodynamic treatments developed in the West travel to China, Japan and South Korea? How do contemporary East Asian therapeutic modalities destabilize biomedical assumptions about the origins and treatment of mental illness?
This course employs anthropological analysis to explore the paradoxes of “culture-bound syndromes”, examine how biomedical psychiatric practices have been received and transformed, and discuss the ways in which shamanistic rituals and Traditional Chinese Medicine clinical encounters understand their objects of intervention. Focusing on East Asia with a particular emphasis on China, we will employ interpretive and political economic anthropological analyses to explore experiences of people struggling with illness, the practices of health practitioners who treat them, and the broader social and historical contexts that shape these interactions.
This course will familiarize students with major debates around questions in the study of diaspora and migration while providing a sense of their interlinkages with large scale socio-political processes such as the globalization of labor, the formation of social hierarchies, as well as movements for survival and belonging.
Students who complete this course will learn how to:
1) Use and evaluate primary materials through critical reading and interpretation
2) Conduct close readings of key texts in multimedia formats (posters and ephemera, digital archives, art and cultural production, manifestos, etc.)
3) Evaluate divergent perspectives and representations by combining historical accounts with memory and personal narratives
4) Adopt methods of public outreach and neighborhood ethnography to understand the imprint of the past on the present
5) Present arguments cogently and logically in writing and speaking, including through collaborative learning and presentation
A continuation of the study of the written and spoken language of Turkey, with readings of literary, historical, and other texts. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.
Participation in research is an essential component of a complete undergraduate science education, and is mandatory for those students wishing to go on to the PhD. This course is designed to introduce students to doing astronomy beyond the classroom. It will cover basic topics including but not limited to: coding in astronomy, utilizing international archives, manipulating data, running simulations, reading academic papers, making and giving presentations, academic culture, time management, working in collaborations, and career paths. Students will engage in first-hand research on a specific astronomical topic in order to put their skills to practice. By the end of the course, students should be fully prepared to enter a summer research internship and make the most of their time there. We encourage students considering majoring in Astronomy or Astrophysics who are interested in astrophysical research to take this course. Priority will be given to those interested in majoring in Astrophysics who have no prior research experience. Students should have taken at least one semester of college-level physics and have a knowledge of calculus. No prior experience in python coding is required.
Globalization emerged as a concept in the 1990s to describe the various supranational forces that shape the contemporary world. Its history, however, is much older, and it encompasses major historical developments such as the formation and global spread of empires, of trade and capitalism, slavery, and migratory movements, as well as environmental and ecological issues. Processes of globalization and deglobalization affect central categories with which to interpret social, political and economic dynamics such as sovereignty, hegemony, and inequality.
This course will offer students the critical instruments to discuss globalizing dynamics and how they have affected human societies historically. We will proceed both thematically and chronologically, to develop the analytical instruments to understand how various dimensions of globalization emerged and transformed over time, as well as the different interpretations that scholars have offered to interpret them.
This course is an introduction to the interplay between science, technology, and society. Unsettling Science invites students to: ask big questions about science and technology, interrupt preconceived ideas about what sicience is and who does it, and engage deeply with troubling social implications. By offering historical and contemporary perspectives, this course equips students with critical and methodological skills essential to exploring not only longstanding questions about the world but also urgent issues of our time. To do so, the course focuses on a series of fundamental and foundational questions (e.g., what is knowledge? what is prog that underpin the study of science, technology, and society from a variety of interdisicplinary perspectives.
Economic inequality characterizes virtually every human society, informing deep social dynamics. And yet scholars and lay people alike hold vastly differing opinions about the effects that inequality has on the social fabric, and the need to combat it. The question of how wealth and income are distributed among the members of a national community as well as among nations has acquired center stage in analyses about fundamental issues such as the causes of the progress and decline of societies and the dynamics of globalization. Inequality issues are at the heart of discussions about international economic relations, transnational phenomena such as migrations and the domestic economic platforms of political parties.
This course will provide students with the critical instruments with which to analyze the main interpretations of economic inequality from the eighteenth century to the present. We will read and discuss authors who have addressed the question of inequality and distribution: how did they frame the issue? What visions of society emerged from their analyses? We will see how the concept of inequality has changed historically, how different dimensions (e.g., national and international) have appeared and disappeared, and how visions of national, international and global inequality inform debates about the foundational elements of the social compact.
Required course for department majors. Not open to Barnard or Continuing Education students. Students must receive instructors permission. Introduction to different methodological approaches to the study of art and visual culture. Majors are encouraged to take the colloquium during their junior year.
Basic scientific and engineering principles used for the design of buildings, bridges, and other parts of the built infrastructure. Application of principles to analysis and design of actual large-scale structures. Coverage of the history of major structural design innovations and of the engineers who introduced them. Critical examination of the unique aesthetic/artistic perspectives inherent in structural design. Consideration of management, socioeconomic, and ethical issues involved in design and construction of large-scale structures. Introduction to recent developments in sustainable engineering, including green building design and adaptable structural systems.
A survey of how dance and embodied performance adapt textual sources and even generate text. How do moving bodies enhance or subvert words in order to tell a story, and whose story do they tell? Includes the study of plays, poems, and political speech; and of ballet, experimental dance, dance-theater, silent film, physical theater, and puppetry
Prerequisites: declared major in Earth and environmental sciences and the departments permission. Students with particular interest in one of the many components of the Earth and environmental sciences should approach a director of undergraduate studies during the registration period so that tutorial-level exposure to the subject can be arranged. Each point requires two hours each week of readings, discussion, and research work under the close supervision of a member of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, American Museum of Natural History, or Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In consultation with the supervisor, the student selects a topic for intensive study and the time and place of the tutorial discussion sessions. May be repeated for credit up to a maximum of 12 points, with a maximum of 6 points with each staff member.
“Political friendship is not an emotion, but a practice, a set of hard-won, complicated habits that are used to bridge trouble, difficulty, and differences of personality, experience, and aspiration.” – Danielle Allen,
Talking to Strangers
What does it take to build community on a campus made up of diverse sets of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives? What sorts of communities are possible under the conditions of pluralism where we cannot take for granted that people in our community share similar interests or are making the same assumptions about political, social, or cultural goods? Is it possible to build something we would call friendship among people who experience social and political complexities differently, especially given the welter of feelings--rage and compassion, joy, fear, and sorrow--that course through us all?
To claim, taking cues from the above quote from Danielle Allen, that building community requires learning practices or habits of engagement frames these questions in a particular way. It insists that communities are forged through embodied efforts and actions. What are the sorts of social practices and social habits--the doings--that help build communities marked by pluralistic cross-pressures? How does one learn these practices and habits? What traditions and examples can we call on?
In this class, we will through the explicit and implicit norms that qualitatively shape community, norms such as:
To what degree and how should the pain of others be recognized?
How important is a “hermeneutics of generosity” in community building, which begins with trying to understand the other’s intentions before judging or criticizing them?
How does self-criticism and criticism of others function in community?
How important is dialogue, and of what sorts, to building forms of political friendship? Exchange of ideas--dialogue--may be necessary, but our focus on practice and habits also casts a skeptical eye on the notion that community rests solely or primarily on evaluating the soundness of propositions. History is replete with other social practices--story-telling, song, listening, dance--that carry and convey real discursive value.
Informed by selected readings rooted in the themes of the Core Curriculum, students will envision and develop projects that appeal to their interests, which they will bring to fruiti
“Political friendship is not an emotion, but a practice, a set of hard-won, complicated habits that are used to bridge trouble, difficulty, and differences of personality, experience, and aspiration.” – Danielle Allen,
Talking to Strangers
What does it take to build community on a campus made up of diverse sets of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives? What sorts of communities are possible under the conditions of pluralism where we cannot take for granted that people in our community share similar interests or are making the same assumptions about political, social, or cultural goods? Is it possible to build something we would call friendship among people who experience social and political complexities differently, especially given the welter of feelings--rage and compassion, joy, fear, and sorrow--that course through us all?
To claim, taking cues from the above quote from Danielle Allen, that building community requires learning practices or habits of engagement frames these questions in a particular way. It insists that communities are forged through embodied efforts and actions. What are the sorts of social practices and social habits--the doings--that help build communities marked by pluralistic cross-pressures? How does one learn these practices and habits? What traditions and examples can we call on?
In this class, we will through the explicit and implicit norms that qualitatively shape community, norms such as:
To what degree and how should the pain of others be recognized?
How important is a “hermeneutics of generosity” in community building, which begins with trying to understand the other’s intentions before judging or criticizing them?
How does self-criticism and criticism of others function in community?
How important is dialogue, and of what sorts, to building forms of political friendship? Exchange of ideas--dialogue--may be necessary, but our focus on practice and habits also casts a skeptical eye on the notion that community rests solely or primarily on evaluating the soundness of propositions. History is replete with other social practices--story-telling, song, listening, dance--that carry and convey real discursive value.
Informed by selected readings rooted in the themes of the Core Curriculum, students will envision and develop projects that appeal to their interests, which they will bring to fruiti
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing. Required for all sociology majors. Prerequisite: at least one sociology course of the instructor's permission. Theoretical accounts of the rise and transformations of modern society in the19th and 20th centuries. Theories studied include those of Adam Smith, Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim, Max Weber, Roberto Michels. Selected topics: individual, society, and polity; economy, class, and status: organization and ideology; religion and society; moral and instrumental action.
This undergraduate seminar offers an in-depth exploration of the nonfiction work of the renowned African-American poet and playwright Ntozake Shange, whose archives are at Barnard College, her alma mater. Through readings, discussion, and visits to her archives, students will probe this lesser-examined aspect of Shange's oeuvre, including her essays on her life, the arts, food, and other artists and creators. This course invites participants to engage critically with Shange's essays and personal writings while delving into her archive.
Students will identify key themes and literary techniques in Shange's nonfiction and the historical and cultural context in which she wrote these works. We will examine how Shange's nonfiction contributes to her broader work and her perspectives on history, gender, feminism, and race as they intersect in her life as a Black woman artist. Students will develop critical thinking skills through close reading, analysis, and discussion of Shange's nonfiction and will improve their writing skills by composing reflections and essays on Shange's works. They will develop research skills and gain insights into Shange's creative process through firsthand engagement with Shange's archive at Barnard.
Black Speculative Fiction encompasses a whole range of Black subgenres from Science Fiction and Fantasy to Horror and Afrofuturism. For the duration of this course, we will attempt to begin the work of extrapolating the function of Blackness within these various genres—interrogating which syntactical elements are required to label a piece of fiction “Black” and how Blackness informs genre. Through formal analysis of texts and the application of various theories presented in class, we’ll begin to understand how Blackness moves through genre to understand its relationship to the world and in some cases, to the artform itself. We will look at various texts: Film, Television, Prose, and Music. By looking across genres, we will be able to honor the inherent intertextuality of Black work and the constant inter-discursive work done across genre, text, and time. Whether a critique of structural anti-Blackness writ large, an expression of the complexity of the positionality of Black persons, or a statement of the function of Blackness, these texts make a case for the theoretical rigor and provocative discourses that lies at the heart of Black Speculative Fiction.
This course provides an in-depth examination of the physiological bases of behavior and the development, organization, and function of the nervous system. Specific topics include methods used in behavioral neuroscience, development of the nervous system, sensory and motor systems, homeostasis, sexual differentiation, biological rhythms, stress, learning and memory, psychopathology, and neurological disorders.
Discussion section for Social Theory (SOCI UN3000).
Prerequisites: the departments permission. Required for all thesis writers.
This course will start by exploring techniques photographers have used over the past century to respond to the natural world’s beauty and complexity. During the second half of the term, we will examine how contemporary photographers are depicting shrinking natural landscapes, environmental destruction, and global warming and why some artists are beginning to question human centrality in the sentient world.
Augmented by literary texts by scientists, poets, artists, and ecologists, we will explore how close-looking might inform an artist’s practice regarding the living environment - its bounty - and its degradation. Readings include texts by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Masanobu Fukuoka, Robert Macfarlane, Terry Tempest Williams, Rebecca Solnit, Barry Lopez, John McPhee, Akira Hasegawa, and others. Calling on a canon of photographic works from around the globe, students will study book-length photographic essays whose makers have seen art as a form of praise of the natural world and those who investigate the relationship between art and environmental activism. Anna Atkins; Susan Derges; Meghann Riepenhoff; Masahisa Fukase; Pedro David; Stephen Gill; Ron Jude; Dornith Doherty; David Maisel, Zhao Renhui; Mandy Barker; Pablo Lopez Luz are some of the artists whose works we will study.
Students will produce a semester-long photographic project that engages with the natural world or explores an ecological theme.
Sign up for section in the department.
In this course, you will conduct independent projects in photography in a structured setting under faculty supervision. You are responsible for arranging for your photographic equipment in consultation with the instructor.
This course will afford you a framework in which to intensively develop a coherent body of photographs, critique this work with your classmates, and correlate your goals with recent issues in contemporary photography.
Students are required to enroll in an additional fifteen contact hours of instruction at the International Center for Photography. Courses range from one-day workshops to full-semester courses.
Permission of instructor only. The class will be limited to 20 students.
Prerequisites: general physics, and differential and integral calculus. Newtonian mechanics, oscillations and resonance, conservative forces and potential energy, central forces, non-inertial frames of reference, rigid body motion, an introduction to Lagranges formulation of mechanics, coupled oscillators, and normal modes.
This course will introduce students to
Black geographies
as a spatial expression of Black studies. Black scholars have long recognized the complex spatialities of Black life, developing theories of diaspora, racial capitalism, and anti-/post-colonialism that are inherently geographical. In this course, we will think about space, place, landscape, and ecology through a Black geographic framework, paying attention to how scholars, activists, and artists engage the poetics and materiality of Black life to explore ideas about repair, inequality, resistance, and liberation. The questions that animate this course are: what are Black geographies? What is the future of Black geographies outside of academia? How can centering a “Black sense of place” in turn transform the way we think about space, place, and power? How does Black Studies account for and understand Black spatial condition, experience, and imaginaries?
The course will begin with an engagement of key works on Black geographies. We will come to see institutional Black geographies as concerned with the Black spatial imaginaries formed in the aftermath of enslavement and colonialism in the Western hemisphere. As such, our readings will center experiences in the United States. We will cover such topics as Black method(s), racial capitalism, regional geographies, carceral geographies, and Black home and infrastructure.
Ultimately, students will be introduced to central themes, concepts and approaches that highlight the spatialization of race and the racialization of space through various technologies that signify places according to new rules of inclusion and exclusion. In this way, we will examine historical and contemporary macro-community and micro- sub-community (e.g., neighborhood) issues shaping the social, economic and political lives of Black people.
Third Year Chinese II, CHNS3004UN, 5 points. You are required to take Third Year Chinese I, CHNS3003UN, 5 points with this course.
Instructor
:
Zhirong Wang
Prerequisites
: Two (2) years of college-level Chinese or the equivalent
Texts
: Jingua Chinese (Columbia University staff, published by Peking University Press; simplified characters)
Introduces Chinese social values and attitudes, focusing on the rapid changes now taking place in China. Uses materials from Chinese newspapers and modern short stories to teach essential elements of semi-formal and formal writing. Reading and writing are routine tasks, and oral discussion and debate are important components of the class, allowing students to integrate and improve their communication skills in Chinese.
To enroll in this course, you must apply to the
Virtual Columbia Summer Chinese Language
program through the Center for Undergraduate Global Engagement (UGE).
Global Learning Scholarships
available.
Tuition
charges apply.
Please note the program dates are different from the Summer Term A & B dates.
Prerequisite: Open to all Barnard and Columbia undergraduates. Permission of Instructor required; students admitted from Waiting List. Course develops physical, vocal, and imaginative range and skills needed to approach the text of a play: text analysis, speech exercises, non-verbal behavior, improvisation designed to enhance embodiment, movement, and projection.
Gateway course to advanced courses; transfer students who have previous college-level course may be exempted with approval of Chair
.
May be retaken for full credit.
This course is a broad survey of art from the Caribbean region, spanning indigenous Taíno, Kalinago, and Garifuna art, contemporary art of the Caribbean and its diaspora, and art from the colonial era. The course will cover the history of the region including indigenous cultures from first Columbian contact to today, European exploration, arrivals, and conceptions of the “New World,” plantation economies, the transatlantic slave trade, the Haitian Revolution, art of maroon communities, and the syncretism of Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices like Vodou, Santería, Palo Monte, and the Abakuá. Throughout the semester, we will examine definitions of the term “Caribbean.” We ask if the term should be limited geographically to the Caribbean basin or take on a more cultural valence, expanding to places like Louisiana and Brazil, both of which share significant historical and cultural similarities with the countries from the Caribbean basin. Major themes of the class will include the impacts of colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, the formation of the Afro-Atlantic diaspora, and legacies of the colonial era in contemporary art.
Prerequisites: One year of biology, BIOL UN3004 or instructors permission in case the student hasn't take it. This course is the capstone course for the Neurobiology and Behavior undergraduate major at Columbia University. It is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Knowledge of Cellular Neuroscience (how an action potential is generated and how a synapse works) will be assumed. It is recommended that students take BIOL UN3004 Neurobiology I: Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, or a similar course, or obtain instructors permission. Website for BIOLUN3005:
https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/rmy5/files/2022/01/syllabus.UN3005.2022.v4-lab.pdf
Prerequisite: Open to all Barnard and Columbia undergraduates. Permission of Instructor required; students admitted from Waiting List. Students must have taken Acting I or equivalent to be eligible for Acting II sections. Acting II will offer several different sections, focusing on a specific range of conceptual, embodiment, and physical acting skills. Please check with the Theatre Department website forspecific offerings and audition information. May be retaken for full credit. All sections of Acting II fullfull the “Arts and Humanities” Foundations requirement at Barnard College.