A project on civil engineering subjects approved by the chairman of the department.
Prerequisites: BIOL BC1500, BIOL BC1501, BIOL BC1502, BIOL BC1503. Co-requisite: BIOL BC2100. Enrollment limited to 12. Laboratory course in which students conduct original research projects in molecular genetics. Students interested in getting involved in research, or those looking to deepen research design and lab skills in this area, are encouraged to begin with this course. Students will participate in experimental design, conduct and data analysis, and work with key techniques for studying gene structure, expression and function such as nucleic acid extraction and synthesis, cloning, bioinformatics analysis including RNA-Seq, PCR and quantitative PCR, immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy. Students will present their results orally and in writing. Enrollment in both semesters (BIOL BC3305 and BIOL BC3306) of this full-year course is required for credit, and fulfills two upper-level lab courses for the Barnard Biology major. Must be taken in sequence, beginning in the fall. - J. Mansfield
What is ethnography and what makes ethnography “urban”? This course explores how social scientists use ethnography to analyze questions and dilemmas often associated with urban settings. We will combine close readings of ethnographies with field-based inquiry, including our own studies of urban public space. Through both our readings and our field exercises, we will focus on the methods at the heart of ethnography: observation and participant-observation.
As we read other scholars’ work, we will ask how the author uses ethnographic tools to explore issues that are suitable for intensive fieldwork. We will assess which kinds of research problems and theoretical perspectives are a good fit with ethnography and the roles that ethnography can play in transdisciplinary research projects. You will apply what you have learned about research to design your own pilot fieldwork. The ethnographies that we read together will examine intersections of housing, race, and class in urban communities. You are welcome to extend this focus to your own fieldwork, but it’s not required to do so. This is a writing-intensive course, and we will devote a considerable portion of class time to workshop your individual projects.
Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.
Prerequisites: LATN UN2102 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.
This course explores the components, systems, and regulatory mechanisms involved in eukaryotic cellular function. Topics include: signal transduction, translational and protein quality control, organellar and cytoskeletal dynamics, and some coordinated responses such as proliferation and programmed cell death. Throughout the course we will see how general cell biology can be specialized to achieve specific cellular functions through regulation of the basic machinery. We will also explore the cellular and molecular bases for a variety of human pathologies, with an emphasis on cancer. In addition to lecture, we will spend some time discussing the material, including selected articles from the primary literature, and learning through group presentations.
Aiming to improve human conditions within many diverse environments, sustainable development seeks to create, increase and perpetuate benefit and to cease, rectify and reverse harm. Sustainable development is consequently inextricable from the fabric of ethics, woven with determinations of benefit and harm to the existence and well-being of both humans and nonhumans. Underlying such determinations are those of self- and other-regarding motivation and behavior; and underlying these are still others, of sensitivity and rationality in decision-making, whether individual, social or public. Sustainable development is interlaced with and contingent upon all these determinations, at once prescriptive and judgmental, which can be called the ethics of sustainable development. This course is divided into four main sections, of which two are intended to show the ethical fallacies of unsustainable development, and two, the ethical pathways of sustainable development. The first section focuses upon ethically problematic basic assumptions, including human (species) hegemony, happy (hedonic) materialism, and selective (data) denial. The second focuses upon ethically problematic ensuing rationalizations, including those pertaining to damages, victims, consequences and situations of climatic, chemical, biological and ecological harm. The third section responds to these rationalizations with ethically vital considerations of earth justice, environmental justice, culturally-based ethics, and sector-based ethics (water, food, place and climate ethics). Finally, the fourth section responds to the initial, longstanding problematic assumptions with a newly emergent ethical paradigm, comprising biotic wholeness, environmental integrity and the deliberative zero-goal. Tying all sections together is the central theme: to be sustainable, development must be ethical. Reflecting the collaborative quality of the field of sustainable development, the course extends to readings whose authors have all pursued their work at intersections of science and ethics, environment and ethics, policy and ethics, business and ethics, and sustainable development and ethics.
Many people don’t think of themselves as having attended segregated schools. And yet, most of us went to schools attended primarily by people who looked very much like us. In fact, schools have become more segregated over the past 30 years, even as the country becomes increasingly multiracial. In this class, we will use public schools as an example to examine the role race plays in shaping urban spaces and institutions. We will begin by unpacking the concept of racialization, or the process by which a person, place, phenomenon, or characteristic becomes associated with a certain race. Then, we will explore the following questions: What are the connections between city schools and their local contexts? What does it mean to be a “neighborhood school”? How do changes in neighborhoods change schools? We will use ethnographies, narrative non-fiction, and educational research to explore these questions from a variety of perspectives. You will apply what you have learned to your own experiences and to current debates over urban policies and public schools. This course will extend your understanding of key anthropological and sociological perspectives on urban inequality in the United States, as well as introduce you to critical theory.
Introduction to cell biological techniques used to investigate structural, molecular, and physiological aspects of eukaryotic cells and their organization into tissues. Techniques include light and electron microscopy, cell culture, isolation of cellular organelles, protein electrophoresis, and Western Blot analysis.
Prerequisites: LIMITED TO 20 BY INSTRUC PERM; ATTEND FIRST CLASS
This course provides a theoretical itinerary to the emergence of contemporary queer theory and engagement with some contemporary legacies of the movement. The goal is not to be exhaustive nor to establish a correct history of queer theory but to engage students in the task of understanding and creating intellectual genealogies.
See the Barnard and Columbia Architecture Department website for the course description:
https://architecture.barnard.edu/architecture-department-course-descriptions
See the Barnard and Columbia Architecture Department website for the course description:
https://architecture.barnard.edu/architecture-department-course-descriptions
Sight-singing techniques of modulating diatonic melodies in simple, compound, or irregular meters that involve complex rhythmic patterns. Emphasis is placed on four-part harmonic dictation of modulating phrases.
Techniques of musicianship at the intermediate level, stressing the importance of musical nuances in sight-singing. Emphasis is placed on chromatically inflected four-part harmonic dictation.
To maximize their survival animals must regulate their behavior in response to external environmental cues and their own internal state. A fundamental goal of neuroscience is to understand how neural circuits in the brain function to influence behavior. The aim of this course is to highlight the neural basis of neuropeptide regulation of innate behaviors that are critical for survival and discuss modern approaches to study the neuronal control of classically studied aspects of behavior. We will explore motor control (escape responses), sensory systems (vision, taste, and olfaction), and survival behaviors (feeding, drinking, mating, and aggression). Focus will be on recent and current research, the diversity of approaches for studying it, and how this knowledge can be applied to solve scientific questions. Students will read primary scientific literature and a significant portion of the course will be presentation and discussion-based.
This course introduces students to the world of artisans and makers in premodern Japan from the seventh to the nineteenth century. Broadly, this course is divided into two sections. The first section situates makers within their historical contexts, from the
ritsuryō
state of ancient Japan to the early modern Tokugawa regime, in order to introduce students to the forms of labor artisans engaged in over the course of premodern history, including corvée labor, guild labor, and free market labor. The second section of the course takes a more thematic approach rooted in fundamental frameworks and ideas in material culture and craft studies. Each week, we will dig into a particular theme or problem, such as embodied knowledge or social marginalization, and think through the ways in which these themes materialized in the specific historical contexts we covered in the first half of the semester.
A topical approach to the concepts and practices of music in relation to other arts in the development of Asian civilizations.
Intermediate analysis and composition in a variety of tonal idioms.
“There are things / We live among ‘and to see them / Is to know ourselves.’”
George Oppen, “Of Being Numerous”
In this class we will read poetry like writers that inhabit an imperiled planet, understanding our poems as being in direct conversation both with the environment as well as writers past and present with similar concerns and techniques. Given the imminent ecological crises we are facing, the poems we read will center themes of place, ecology, interspecies dependence, the role of humans in the destruction of the planet, and the “necropastoral” (to borrow a term from Joyelle McSweeney), among others. We will read works by poets and writers such as (but not limited to) John Ashbery, Harryette Mullen, Asiya Wadud, Wendy Xu, Ross Gay, Simone Kearney, Kim Hyesoon, Marcella Durand, Arthur Rimbaud, Geoffrey G. O’Brien, Muriel Rukeyser, George Oppen, Terrance Hayes, Juliana Spahr, and W.S. Merwin—reading several full collections as well as individual poems and essays by scholars in the field.
Through close readings, in-class exercises, discussions, and creative/critical writings, we will invest in and investigate facets of the dynamic lyric that is aware of its environs (sound, image, line), while also exploring traditional poetic forms like the Haibun, ode, prose poem, and elegy. Additionally, we will seek inspiration in outside mediums such as film, visual art, and music, as well as, of course, the natural world. As a class, we will explore the highly individual nature of writing processes and talk about building writing practices that are generative as well as sustainable.
Intermediate analysis and composition in a variety of tonal and extended tonal idioms.
The development of the modern culture of consumption, with particular attention to the formation of the woman consumer. Topics include commerce and the urban landscape, changing attitudes toward shopping and spending, feminine fashion and conspicuous consumption, and the birth of advertising. Examination of novels, fashion magazines, and advertising images.
Prerequisites: (CHEM BC2001) General Chemistry I with lab. Corequisites: CHEM BC3230 Basic techniques of experimental organic chemistry. Principles and methods of separation, purification, and characterization of organic compounds. Selected organic reactions.
In newspapers, political commentary, popular culture, and public debate, “neoliberalism” is everywhere. We live, so these debates say, in neoliberal times. But no one seems to be able to agree on the obvious question that follows: what is neoliberalism and how did it come to exercise such a pervasive influence on politics, economics, and society? In this class, we will explore the theory and the history of “neoliberalism” in one particular context: Britain since the 1970s. As the site of one of the most drastic turns to neoliberalism under Margaret Thatcher, Britain offers a particularly good case study to examine both the nature of neoliberalism and its relationship to the major social changes of the late twentieth century. This class thus explores not only the rise of Thatcherism and neoliberalism but also how neoliberalism in Britain was shaped by empire and decolonization, feminism and new gender roles, deindustrialization and unemployment, racism and policing, popular democracy and protest in the welfare state. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, including Stuart Hall, Bea Campbell, the Race Today Collective, and the Institute for Economic Affairs as well as records of everyday lives and “ordinary” experiences, we will interrogate the social conflicts and political transformations that did – and did not – make Britain neoliberal. In doing so, this class doubles as both an introduction to the political history of neoliberalism and to the social history of Britain in the late twentieth century.
This course presents a survey of the foundational theories of biodiversity and an introduction to the mathematics of these theories. Though we partially understand the diversity of species on earth, we are unable to explain why there are so many species. There are numerous theories that try to explain the enigma of biodiversity. These theories have touched on exciting fields of mathematics: complex systems, chaos, and neutral theory. Students from applied math and ecology/biology backgrounds are especially encouraged in this course, the latter even if they do not have extensive mathematical background. For those familiar with mathematics, this class will teach how to leverage mathematics in interesting models that have both popular and scientific appeal. For those with more biological expertise, this class emphasizes building mathematical skills especially in the context of ecology. This class discusses the theories behind complex systems, chaos, and neutral theory, but focuses on reading the papers and monographs in which these theories are used. The papers selected for this class show how complex mathematical topics were explained elegantly and engagingly enough to enter the popular imagination and scientific debate.
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.
Focus on formulation and application of the finite element to engineering problems such as stress analysis, heat transfer, fluid flow, and electromagnetics. Topics include finite ele?ment formulation for one-dimensional problems, such as trusses, electrical and hydraulic systems; scalar field problems in two dimensions, such as heat transfer; and vector field problems, such as elasticity and finally usage of the commercial finite element program. Students taking ENME E3332 cannot take ENME E4332.
Prerequisites: (CHEM BC3328) or (CHEM BC3230) CHEM BC3328 with a grade of C- or better and CHEM BC3230. Corequisites: CHEM BC3231,CHEM BC3334 Advanced experimental organic techniques and introduction to qualitative and quantitative organic analysis. Emphasis on instrumental and chromatographic methods. Selected reactions. Students enrolling in this course must register for CHEM BC3334x.
Prerequisites: GERM UN2102 or the equivalent. Examines short literary texts and various methodological approaches to interpreting such texts in order to establish a basic familiarity with the study of German literature and culture.
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Prerequisites: Intermediate Italian II ITAL UN2102 or the equivalent. UN3334x-UN3333y is the basic course in Italian literature. UN3333: This course, entirely taught in Italian, introduces you to Medieval and early modern Italian literature. It will give you the opportunity to test your ability as a close-reader and discover unusual and fascinating texts that tell us about the polycentric richness of the Italian peninsula. We will read poems, tales, letters, fiction and non-fiction, travel writings and political pamphlets. The great “Three Crowns” - Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio - as well as renowned Renaissance authors such as Ludovico Ariosto and Niccolò Machiavelli, will show us the main path to discover Italian masterpieces and understand the European Renaissance. But we will also explore China with Marco Polo and the secrets of the Medieval soul diving into the mystical poems by Jacopone da Todi. We will study parody and laughter through the “poesia giocosa” (parodic poetry) by Cecco Angiolieri and the legacy of Humanism through the letters of Poggio Bracciolini. This first overview will allow you to explore Italian literature from its complex and multicultural beginnings to its diffusion across Europe during the Renaissance.
Prerequisites: two years of college Russian or the instructor's permission. The course is devoted to the reading, analysis, and discussion of a number of Russian prose fiction works from the eighteenth to twentieth century. Its purpose is to give students an opportunity to apply their language skills to literature. It will teach students to read Russian literary texts as well as to talk and write about them. Its goal is, thus, twofold: to improve the students’ linguistic skills and to introduce them to Russian literature and literary history. In 2007-2008: A close study in the original of the “fallen woman” plot in Russian literature from the late eighteenth century. Conducted in Russian.
Course Description and Goals:
This course focuses predominantly on developing reading comprehension skills, as well as on listening, writing, speaking, and some more advanced grammar. It explores literary and scholarly texts examining the modern Jewish experience in the context of the twentieth-century history and culture of the Ashkenazi Jews. Supplementary texts will be selected based on students’ interests and may include historical pedagogical materials, past and present newspaper articles, polemic, poetry, historical and scholarly articles. We will also venture outside the classroom to explore the Yiddish world today: through field trips to Yiddish theater, Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods, Yiddish organizations, such as YIVO, and so on. We will apply our reading and translating skills to contribute to the Mapping Yiddish New York online project, and will also have Yiddish-speaking guests. At the end of the semester, you will be able to converse in Yiddish on a variety of everyday topics and read authentic Yiddish literary and non-literary texts. Welcome back to Yiddishland!
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: POLS V 1201 or equivalent American Politics course. POLS V 3222 or equivalent Research Methods course is recommended. Admission by application through the Barnard department only. Enrollment limited to 16 students. The purpose of this course is to examine how political science can inform the real-world campaign environment, improving our understanding of strategy and outcomes in American elections.
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: 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.
An exploration of the growing knowledge and technological advances in genetics, with a focus on human genetics, using scientific, popular and artistic sources. The course will cover areas such as genetic testing, personalized medicine, ancestry analysis, genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9, stem cells and cloning. It will involve an examination of scientific sources, portrayals in popular culture and discussions of some of the ethical implications and social/political impacts.
Prerequisites: ITAL V3335. Students will develop advanced language competence while analyzing and discussing Italian film comedies and their reflection of changing Italian culture and society. Films by Monicelli, Germi, Moretti, Wertmuller, Soldini and others.
The role played by the media in democratic politics has never been more fiercely debated than it is today, nor has it ever been more complex and rapidly changing. How do both traditional mass media and social media shape how we see the political world? Why do they shape it in the ways that they do? This topic is huge, so after a general look at this topic, providing you with theoretical tools that can be used to address these questions, we will focus on the relationship between the media and political polarization.
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 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.
This course will examine films and a few memoirs that center on family narratives, family cultures, cultural legacies and customs inherited through generations, generational dynamics, childhood memory, and ideas of
home
as a utopian/dystopian and oneiric space. Explorations of memory, imagination and childhood make-believe will interface with readings in psychoanalysis, attachment theory, phenomenology and in the social history of this polymorphous institution.
Authors will include Gaston Bachelard, Alison Bechdel, Jessica Benjamin, Mark Doty, Vivian Gornick, Lorraine Hansberry, Maggie Nelson and D.W. Winnicott; and films by Sean Baker, Alfonso Cuaron, Greta Gerwig, Lance Hammer, Barry Jenkins, Jennifer Kent, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinart, Lucretia Martel, Mike Mills, Sarah Polley, Charlotte Wells, Andrei Zvyagintsev and others.
Seminar application instructions: Email Professor Spiegel (mls37@columbia.edu) with the subject heading "Family in Film & Memoir Seminar." In your message, include your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken. All students are automatically placed on a waitlist, from which the instructor will in due course admit students as spaces become available.
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: one prior philosophy course. Reading and discussion of selected texts by central figures in phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, critical theory, and recent Continental philosophy. Authors may include Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Horkheimer, Adorno, Foucault, Bourdieu.
Prerequisites: one philosophy course. A survey of Eurpoean social philosophy from the 18th to the 20th century, with special attention to theories of capitalism and the normative concepts (freedom, alienation, human flourishing) that inform them. Also: the relationship between civil society and the state.
Prerequisites: one philosophy course. A survey of Eurpoean social philosophy from the 18th to the 20th century, with special attention to theories of capitalism and the normative concepts (freedom, alienation, human flourishing) that inform them. Also: the relationship between civil society and the state.
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.
This undergraduate seminar is offered to students interested in the anthropological analysis of extractive economies and the social and political forms associated with them, as well as the arts through which they have been made the object of both investment and resistance. The course this semester will be focused on mining, and is organized along three axes: 1) mineral object; 2) socioeconomic form; and 3) aesthetics, with the latter including the arts of artisanal extraction, and literary, visual and media artistic practice.
Prerequisites: CHEM BC3333, CHEM BC3271, and CHEM BC3338 Corequisites: CHEM BC3253 Multistep and multi-day experiments in organic and inorganic synthesis via advanced synthetic methods. Experiments include solution phase, solid state, and photochemical syntheses. Products will be analyzed and characterized by a variety of methods, including: IR, NMR, and UV-Vis spectroscopy, and also by polarimetry, chiral GC, and GC/MS.
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.
One of the most hotly debated issues of today is the extent to which the state can legitimately dictate or impinge on one’s bodily autonomy. This is a long-running debate in the area of sexual and reproductive rights, but also is relevant to such current debates as the right to die / right to death with dignity; the right to use drugs for recreational or ritual purposes; engaging in hunger strikes as a protected form of freedom of expression; and the debate about whether the state can mandate vaccines. It is a debate that is highly gendered but also raises questions about how political power and socio-economic status influences how governments act on individuals and communities.
Prerequisites: EESC 2330; SDEV W2300. Human welfare status is very unevenly distributed throughout the globe - some of us live very comfortable lives, others remain in desperate poverty showing little progress away from their condition. Between are countries that are rapidly developing and converging toward the welfare of the richest. At all levels of economic development human activities place significant pressure on the environment and threatens all of Earth’s vital functions and support systems for human life. This challenge requires timely responses based on solid understanding of the human/environment interface, technological and economic approaches to mitigate adverse effects on the environment, and routes to understanding the complex dynamics of the coupled human/natural systems that can chart a pathway to improvement in the lives of the poorest and continued well-being for those who have achieved prosperity without forcing natural systems into decline or massive fluctuation. This course offers undergraduate students, for the first time, a comprehensive course on the link between natural disaster events and human development at all levels of welfare. It explores the role that natural disasters might have and have had in modulating development prospects. Any student seriously interested in sustainable development, especially in light of climate change, must study the nature of extreme events - their causes, global distribution and likelihood of future change. This course will cover not only the nature of extreme events, including earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and droughts but also their transformation into disaster through social processes. It will ultimately help students to understand the link between such extreme events, the economic/social shock they represent and development outcomes. The course will combine careful analysis of the natural and social systems dynamics that give rise to disasters and examine through group learning case studies from the many disasters that have occurred in the first decade of the 21st century. Offered in the Spring (odd years only).
Prerequisites: BIOL BC1502 + BIOL BC1503, and either BIOL BC1500 + BIOL BC1501 or NSBV BC1001 or permission from the instructor. Structure and function of neural membranes; ionic basis of membrane potential and action potential; synaptic transmission and neurochemistry; sensory transduction and processing; reflexes and spinal cord physiology; muscle structure and function; neuronal circuitry; and nervous system development.
Prerequisites: (PSYCH BC2141) and (PSYCH BC1001) This course presents an in depth investigation of anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and OCD-related disorders, from a primarily psychological perspective. The course will focus on the phenomenology, correlates, and contributing factors of these conditions. Students will also learn about the current psychological treatments for these disorders. Emphasis will be placed on recent empirical research findings.
The lyric has often been conceived of as timeless in its content and inwardly-directed in its mode of address, yet so many poems with lasting claim on our attention point unmistakably outward, addressing the particulars of their times. This course will examine the ways in which an array of 21st poets have embraced, indicted, and anatomized their cultural and historical contexts, diagnosing society’s ailments, indulging in its obsessions, and sharing its concerns. Engaging with such topics as race, class, war, death, trauma, feminism, pop culture and sexuality, how do poets adapt poetic form to provide meaningful and relevant insights without losing them to beauty, ambiguity, and music? How is pop star Rihanna a vehicle for discussing feminism and isolation? What does it mean to write about Black masculinity after Ferguson? In a time when poetry’s cultural relevancy is continually debated in academia and in the media, how can today’s poets use their art to hold a mirror to modern living? This class will explore how writers address present-day topics in light of their own subjectivity, how their works reflect larger cultural trends and currents, and how critics as well as poets themselves have reflected on poetry’s, and the poet’s, changing social role. In studying how these writers complicate traditional notions of what poetry should and shouldn’t do, both in terms of content and of form, students will investigate their own writing practices, fortify their poetic voices, and create new works that engage directly and confidently with the world in which they are written.
This course concerns the regulation of energy, energy resources, and energy facilities. Among the topics will be the regulation of rates and services; the roles of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the state public utility commissions; and the interaction with environmental law. Attention will be devoted to energy resources (such as oil, natural gas and coal) and to generating, transmission and distribution facilities. The current and future roles of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and nuclear energy will receive special attention, as will the regulation and deregulation of electricity.
The term “kleptocracy” literally means “rule by thieves” and refers to the extensive grand corruption that elite rulers, allies and their family members engage in to privately enrich themselves at the expense of their populations. Traditionally, kleptocracy has been viewed as a scourge on developing countries, associated with greedy authoritarian rulers in conflict-prone, resource rich and/or aid dependent states. However, in recent years scholars and policymakers have increasingly become aware of the critical role played by international actors, institutions, legal structures and professional service providers that facilitate kleptocracy at a global level. Unlike other transnational illicit sectors such as narcotics trafficking or terrorism, many aspects of kleptocracy networks are publicly visible and perfectly legal. Overall, these networks function to enable the domestic plundering of these elites, the whitewashing of their reputations, and the exacerbation of vast inequality, both within the countries that kleptocrats systemically plunder and between the Global South and the West which receives and benefits from many of the proceeds of these corrupt activities.
The first part of the course (Weeks 2-5) examines the transnational actors, service professionals and institutions that facilitate money laundering by kleptocrats. The second part (Weeks 6-7) concentrates on how kleptocrats launder their reputations, by presenting themselves as global philanthropists or business professionals and by acquiring residency in other jurisdictions through the growing market for citizenship. The final part of the course (Weeks 8-10) examines recent developments in international policy efforts to counter kleptocracy, including incorporating such efforts into national security strategies, enacting extraterritorial legislation to punish corporate bribery, sanctioning individual kleptocrats and oligarchs, and amending libel laws in countries like the UK that are routinely used by kleptocrats to intimidate journalists and deter investigations into their dealings.
Finally, throughout the course we will grapple with the methodological challenges posed by trying to study and detect illegal and secretive patterns of behavior. What are the tools, resources and research techniques available to researchers and policy makers interested in making more evidence-based assessments about kleptocracy and grand corruption?
Prerequisites: PSYC BC1001 and one of the following: PSYC W2240, PSYC BC1129, or LING UN1101. Enrollment limited to 15 students. Examines the acquisition of a first language by children, from babbling and first words to complex sentence structure and wider communicative competence. Signed and spoken languages, cross-linguistic variation and universalities, language genesis and change, and acquisition by atypical populations will be discussed.
Prerequisites: BC1001 and BC1128/1129 Developmental (lab and lecture taken together) or BC1129 (only lecture). Or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15 students. Analysis of human development during the fetal period and early infancy. Review of effects of environmental factors on perinatal perceptual, cognitive, sensory-motor, and neurobehavioral capacities, with emphasis on critical conditions involved in both normal and abnormal brain development. Other topics include acute and long term effects of toxic exposures (stress, smoking, and alcohol) during pregnancy, and interaction of genes and the environment in shaping the developing brain of high-risk infants, including premature infants and those at risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Through special attention to translation method and practice, this course aims to develop a solid foundation on which to build the full set of competences required to become thoughtful, alert, self-critical translator while extending and improving the students competence of Spanish through complex translation tasks of a wide range of texts presented with a progressive overall structure and thematic organization. With a professional approach, it focuses on translation as a cross-cultural and crosslinguistic communicative activity that integrates areas such as interlanguage pragmatics, discourse analysis and transfer.
This class explores the relationship between water and society in history. How did water shape human and environmental histories around the globe? On one hand, oceans and rivers affected the characteristics and resources of different civilizations. Throughout history, every community depended on access to water resources, developed local practices of water management, and produced cultural and scientific understandings of “water.” On the other hand, human attempts at regulating water flows aimed at controlling life itself, as water is essential for life. Hydro-power, before being a renewable source energy, required exerting political power over humans and nature alike.
Grounded in the interdisciplinary approach of the environmental humanities, this class will explore the politics of water management thanks to a wide range of case studies. Starting with the first environmental history of the Mediterranean in the early modern period, we will focus on the last two centuries to examine the roots of the current environmental crisis. By following the politics of water flows, the class will introduce students to key themes in global environmental history, such as the role of geography, climate, race, energy, labor, technology, cities, animals, diseases, and empires in the transformation of human societies. Finally, the class provides foundational historical knowledge to understand the importance of water in contemporary debates about environmental justice and climate change.
Prerequisites: (PSYC BC1001) Permission of the instructor. Review of current literature from experimental social psychology pertaining to stereotyping and prejudice. Topics include: functions and costs of stereotyping, the formation and maintenance of stereotypes, and stereotype change. Recent research concerning the role of cognitive processes in intergroup perception will be emphasized.
By the end of this course you'll understand some of the canonical principles underlying how brains encode information. You'll become familiar with the most influential frameworks and models for describing the encoding and transfer of information in the brain and you'll dive into the paradigms that generate or motivate these coding frameworks. Prerequisites: Introduction to Neuroscience (NSBV BC 1001) and either Systems and Behavioral neuroscience (NSBV BC 3001), or a Stats course (NSBV BC2002, PSYC BC1101, PSYC UN1610, STAT UN1101, STAT UN1201), or a computer science course (such as any of the following: COMS BC1016+lab COMS BC1017, COMS W1001, COMS W1002, COMS W1004), or any bioengineering course, or permission of the instructor. Students will complete a brief survey during registration to determine whether they meet the prerequisites.
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.
This course is a seminar designed to enhance students understanding of the methods used in primary research to inform how we study and understand the neural basis of both normative and pathological behavior in humans through the use of model systems. Through this course students will read and discuss primary research papers, debate the merits, limitations, and applicability of various approaches for advancing our understanding of the human condition, gain skills in presentation of scientific data, and a richer understanding of the scientific process. Topics covered will include the study of depression, anxiety, aging, memory, evolution, developmental disorders, and genetics (among others).
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.
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.
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.
Educational neuroscience is an emerging interdisciplinary effort to integrate neural, developmental, and behavioral research methods and findings with educational theory and practice. We will begin with an overview of the neurobiological basis of learning and memory, followed by a systematic investigation of five key cognitive processes: emotion, attention, motivation, decision-making, and sleep, examining how each contributes to learning. Our evidence-based exploration will confront both the challenges and opportunities in creating a productive, symbiotic partnership between neuroscience and education.
Prerequisites: BC1001, and one psychology laboratory course; final enrollment determined on the first day of class Metacognition is one of the latest psychological buzzwords, but what exactly is metacognition? Metacognition enables us to be successful learners, problem solvers, and decision makers, and as often been used synonymously with words such as language, awareness, and consciousness. In this seminar, we will examine various components of metacognition, including its role in learning and memory, and its existence in various non-human populations. In addition, we will explore the fragility of metacognition, including illusions of confidence and harmful control strategies that people use. Readings will include classic and important recent papers in the field, looking at metacognition as a higher-level cognitive process, and as knowledge individuals use to guide behavior.
Design project planning, written and oral technical communication, the origin and role of standards, engineering ethics, and practical aspects of engineering as a profession, such as career development and societal and environmental impact. Generally taken fall of senior year just before ELEN E3390.
Design project planning, written and oral technical communication, the origin and role of standards, engineering ethics, and practical aspects of engineering as a profession, such as career development and societal and environmental impact. Generally taken fall of senior year just before ELEN E3390.
Prerequisites: Required: at least a semester of calculus and physics; any 1000-level or 2000-level EESC course. Computer models are essential for understanding the behavior of complex natural systems in geosciences. This course is an introduction to writing computer models to simulate Earth processes. Students will learn methods for numerical modeling of a variety of geoscience topics, such as nonlinear systems of air chemistry, ocean currents, atmospheric dispersion, and more. Simulations will be created by learning to program with a user-friendly language (Python). Student learning will be facilitated through a combination of lectures, in-class exercises, homework assignments and a final project on a student-selected topic.