This course is an introduction to modern cryptography, focusing on the complexity-theoretic foundations of secure computation and communication in adversarial environments, precise definitions, and provably secure protocols. Topics include private and public key encryption schemes, digital signatures, authentication, pseudorandom generators and functions, one-way functions, trapdoor functions, number theory and computational hardness, identification and zero knowledge protocols.
Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 or the equivalent. Introduction to the principles of money and banking. The intermediary institutions of the American economy and their historical developments, current issues in monetary and financial reform.
This course examines gender as a flexible but persistent boundary that continues to organize our work lives and our home lives, as well as the relationship between the two spheres. We will explore the ways in which gender affects how work is structured; the relationship between work and home; the household as a place of paid (and unpaid) labor; and how changes in the global economy affect gender and work identities.
Drawing on sociological theory and disability studies scholarship, this course explores how societies construct meanings of disability, normalcy, and difference, and how these constructions influence social institutions, policies, and everyday interactions. Through critical analysis of key institutions—e.g. education, work, and the criminal justice system—students will examine how ableism operates at structural levels while also exploring disability rights movements and forms of resistance and agency. Many of these issues will be examined through an intersectional lens, analyzing how disability intersects with race, gender, class, and other identities to create complex experiences of privilege and marginalization.
Prerequisites: CHEM BC3231 or Permission of Instructor. Structure, bonding and spectroscopy in inorganic compounds: applications of group theory to chemistry; ligand field theory; vibrational and electronic spectroscopy of transition metal complexes; selected topics from coordination chemistry, organometallics, bioinorganic chemistry, solid state and materials chemistry, mineralogy, and biogeochemistry.
This laboratory-intensive course introduces students to the biological and ecological processes that shape marine ecosystems. Even in the heart of New York City, marine ecology can be discovered and studied firsthand through experiments, data analysis and field sampling in the Hudson River and coastal environments. Students will explore marine biodiversity, physiology, and ecological interactions and there is an emphasis on experimental design, microscopy, and quantitative methods. Students will prepare lab reports, engage in group projects, and develop skills in scientific communication. One field excursion outside of New York City will be available for participation, but not required.
What does it mean to be intelligent? Recent years have seen rapid advances in artificial intelligence technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, creativity and autonomy. At the same time, we have become more aware of other forms of intelligence—some which have been with us all along. Through a selection of fiction and nonfiction texts and films, students will deepen their understanding of the multifaceted nature of intelligence and the fascinating, uncanny, and multiple ways of existing on, off, and in the earth.
Prerequisites:
both
FILM BC3201 (or equivalent)
and
FILM BC3200 (or equivalent). Digital Production offers visual storytellers an incredible medium to connect and build an audience. It is an inexpensive, accessible platform to launch micro-budget concepts. Developing the storytellers voice inexpensively is critical to the evolution of any student, no matter their starting point. The Digital Series course is intended to take students from story ideation through creation of an independent digital series. Emanating from a writers room setting, all steps of the process will be explored and supported by in-class discussion, examples and workshops. This hands-on class revolves around the TV series production model: breaking story, writing pages, preproduction planning, filming and post-production review. We will emphasize the writers voice, construction of series storytelling, and establishing realistic scopes of production.
This course examines the portrayal of significant themes in international cinema. Through a selection of diverse cinematic works from various countries, students will analyze different cultural, historical, and political perspectives. The course aims to enhance students' understanding of complex topics, their impact on individuals and societies, and the ethical questions they evoke. Through critical analysis and discussion, students will engage with a range of cinematic works that offer alternative narratives and perspectives.
Prerequisites: One year of organic chemistry. Survey of topics in structural, mechanistic, and synthetic organic chemistry, including molecular orbital treatment of structure, bonding, and chemical reactivity; elucidation of organic reaction mechanisms; pericyclic reactions; stereoelectronic effects; reactive intermediates; asymmetric reactions; and natural product total synthesis.
The upper level undergraduate Sustainable Development Workshop will be modeled on client based graduate-level workshops, but with more time devoted to methods of applied policy analysis and issues in Sustainable Development. The heart of the course is the group project on an issue of sustainable development with a faculty advisor providing guidance and ultimately grading student performance. Students would receive instruction on methodology, group work, communication and the context of policy analysis. Much of the reading in the course would be project-specific and identified by the student research teams. Offered in Fall and Spring.
Prerequisites: (CHEM BC3230) and (CHEM BC3231) BIOL BC1502. Introduction to biochemical building blocks, macromolecules, and metabolism. Structures of amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, nucleic acids. Protein structure and folding. Enzyme mechanisms, kinetics, allostery. Membranes and biosignaling. Catabolism and anabolism with emphasis on chemical intermediates, metabolic energy, catalysis by specific enzymes, regulation.
Prerequisites: CHEM BC3282 or equivalent. Advanced topics in the field of biochemistry, including enzyme mechanisms, pharmaceutical drug design, and disease therapies. Emphasis will be placed on discussion of current scientific literature.
Topics in Modern Statistics that provide undergraduate students with an opportunity to study a specialized area of statistics in more depth and to meet the educational needs of a rapidly growing field. Courses listed are reviewed and approved by the Undergraduate Advisory Committee of the Department of Statistics. A good working knowledge of basic statistical concepts (likelihood,
Bayes' rule, Poisson processes, Markov chains, Gaussian random vectors), including especially linear-algebraic concepts related to regression and principal components analysis, is necessary. No previous experience with neural data is required.
Prerequisites: 1 year of Introductory Biology, 1 year General Chemistry, and 1st semester Organic Chemistry. Biochemistry is the study of the chemical processes within organisms that give rise to the immense complexity of life. This complexity emerges from a highly regulated and coordinated flow of chemical energy from one biomolecule to another. This course serves to familiarize students with the spectrum of biomolecules (carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, nucleic acids, etc.) as well as the fundamental chemical processes (glycolysis, citric acid cycle, fatty acid metabolism, etc.) that allow life to happen. The course will end with a discussion of diseases that have biochemical etiologies. In particular, this course will employ active learning techniques and critical thinking problem-solving to engage students in answering the question: how is the complexity of life possible? NOTE: While only the 1st semester of Organic Chemistry is listed as a pre-requisite, it is highly recommended that you take all of Organic Chemistry beforehand.
An examination of the political, cultural, and artistic history in Modern and Contemporary Catalonia and its role in the building of its sociolinguistic identity. Material includes literary, academic, and media readings and audiovisual and online resources.
Prerequisites: SPAN UN2102 or AP score of 4 or 5; or SAT score. An intensive exposure to advanced points of Spanish grammar and structure through written and oral practice, along with an introduction to the basic principles of academic composition in Spanish. Each section is based on the exploration of an ample theme that serves as the organizing principle for the work done in class (Please consult the Directory of Classes for the topic of each section.) This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies. Formerly SPAN W3200 and SPAN BC3004. If you have taken either of these courses before you cannot take SPAN UN3300. All Columbia students must take Spanish language courses (UN 1101-3300) for a letter grade.
Prerequisites: SPAN UN2102 or AP score of 4 or 5; or SAT score. An intensive exposure to advanced points of Spanish grammar and structure through written and oral practice, along with an introduction to the basic principles of academic composition in Spanish. Each section is based on the exploration of an ample theme that serves as the organizing principle for the work done in class (Please consult the Directory of Classes for the topic of each section.) This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies. Formerly SPAN W3200 and SPAN BC3004. If you have taken either of these courses before you cannot take SPAN UN3300. All Columbia students must take Spanish language courses (UN 1101-3300) for a letter grade.
Prerequisites: SPAN UN2102 or AP score of 4 or 5; or SAT score. An intensive exposure to advanced points of Spanish grammar and structure through written and oral practice, along with an introduction to the basic principles of academic composition in Spanish. Each section is based on the exploration of an ample theme that serves as the organizing principle for the work done in class (Please consult the Directory of Classes for the topic of each section.) This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies. Formerly SPAN W3200 and SPAN BC3004. If you have taken either of these courses before you cannot take SPAN UN3300. All Columbia students must take Spanish language courses (UN 1101-3300) for a letter grade.
Prerequisites: SPAN UN2102 or AP score of 4 or 5; or SAT score. An intensive exposure to advanced points of Spanish grammar and structure through written and oral practice, along with an introduction to the basic principles of academic composition in Spanish. Each section is based on the exploration of an ample theme that serves as the organizing principle for the work done in class (Please consult the Directory of Classes for the topic of each section.) This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies. Formerly SPAN W3200 and SPAN BC3004. If you have taken either of these courses before you cannot take SPAN UN3300. All Columbia students must take Spanish language courses (UN 1101-3300) for a letter grade.
Prerequisites: SPAN UN2102 or AP score of 4 or 5; or SAT score. An intensive exposure to advanced points of Spanish grammar and structure through written and oral practice, along with an introduction to the basic principles of academic composition in Spanish. Each section is based on the exploration of an ample theme that serves as the organizing principle for the work done in class (Please consult the Directory of Classes for the topic of each section.) This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies. Formerly SPAN W3200 and SPAN BC3004. If you have taken either of these courses before you cannot take SPAN UN3300. All Columbia students must take Spanish language courses (UN 1101-3300) for a letter grade.
Prerequisites: SPAN UN2102 or AP score of 4 or 5; or SAT score. An intensive exposure to advanced points of Spanish grammar and structure through written and oral practice, along with an introduction to the basic principles of academic composition in Spanish. Each section is based on the exploration of an ample theme that serves as the organizing principle for the work done in class (Please consult the Directory of Classes for the topic of each section.) This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies. Formerly SPAN W3200 and SPAN BC3004. If you have taken either of these courses before you cannot take SPAN UN3300. All Columbia students must take Spanish language courses (UN 1101-3300) for a letter grade.
Prerequisites: SPAN UN2102 or AP score of 4 or 5; or SAT score. An intensive exposure to advanced points of Spanish grammar and structure through written and oral practice, along with an introduction to the basic principles of academic composition in Spanish. Each section is based on the exploration of an ample theme that serves as the organizing principle for the work done in class (Please consult the Directory of Classes for the topic of each section.) This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies. Formerly SPAN W3200 and SPAN BC3004. If you have taken either of these courses before you cannot take SPAN UN3300. All Columbia students must take Spanish language courses (UN 1101-3300) for a letter grade.
Prerequisite: Student must have taken beginning workshop in any undergraduate creative writing concentration. Open workshops are for students who are acquainted with and have experience in at least one beginning workshop in creative writing. In Open Poetry Workshops, students may be instructed in aspects of craft including the poetic persona, the prose poem, the collage, open-field composition, and others. They may also study verse forms such as the villanelle, sonnet, sestina, ballad, acrostic, free verse and also non-European verse forms such as the pantoum. They may read source texts as examples and/or critical texts as theoretical frameworks, and afterward, submit brief critical analyses. They will put their instruction into regular practice by composing original work that will be critiqued by their peers. Students will be encouraged to develop their strengths and to cultivate a distinctive poetic vision and voice but must also demonstrate a willingness to broaden their range and experiment with new forms and notions of the poem. A portfolio of poems will be written and revised with critical input from the instructor and workshop. Please visit
https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate
for information about registration procedures.
In 1942, the American sociologist Robert Merton described modern science as an intellectual enterprise that can produce truthful and factual knowledge only if inspired by democratic values. Yet such concept contrasted starkly with the reality of science in the interwar period and World War II, at the peak of the clash between liberal democracies and fascist dictatorships. What was the role of science in the global conflict between liberalism and the fascist ‘New Order’? What did science and technology look like under fascism?
This class examines the relationship between science and fascism in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Franco’s Spain, and Salazar’s Portugal. During the Great War (1914-1918), science and technology were enlisted as critical assets for the war effort and the international scientific community was shattered across national lines. The Great War proved the importance of the scientific organization of society and state-controlled scientific advancement. Fascism developed this lesson in the interwar period to pursue its nationalist and imperialist goal: the creation of a new world order.
Thus, the seminar explores the entanglement between science, technology and fascism by examining a wide range of disciplines, such as physics, medicine, eugenics, statistics, demography, agronomy, and engineering. Focusing in particular on fascism’s central themes of race and empire, the course examines the relationship between state power and scientific expertise, the persecution of Jewish scientists in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and scientists’ critical competition in World War II ahead of the creation of the atomic bomb, which ushered in the new era of the Cold War.
Students will develop original dramatic scripts. Students will also read drafts of writers currently produced on New York stages to understand why changes and rewrites were made. Recommended for students undertaking a senior thesis in playwriting.
Prerequisites: VIAR UN2300 or the instructors permission. (Formerly R3331) Continuation of VIAR UN2300. The objective of the class is to engage in in-depth research and hands on studio projects related to a specific theme to be determined by each student. Each student is expected to complete class with four fully realized and thematically linked works. Wood, metal, and plaster will be provided for this class but video, sound, performance and various mixed media approaches are highly encouraged. In addition, lecture and field trips will be part of the course. If the class is full, please visit http://arts.columbia.edu/undergraduate-visual-arts-program.
Prerequisites: One introductory course in Sociology suggested. Examination of factors in gender identity that are both universal (across time, culture, setting) and specific to a social context. Social construction of gender roles in different settings, including family, work, and politics. Attention to the role of social policies in reinforcing norms or facilitating change.
Prerequisites: Advanced Swahili I or the instructor's permission. An introduction to the advanced syntactical, morphological, and grammatical structures of Swahili grammar; detailed analysis of Swahili texts; practice in conversation. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.
Prerequisites: VIAR R2300. (Formerly R3332) Sculpture III is an invitation for immersive sculpting. The class will explore the idea of experiences and construction of contexts as central research topics. The class becomes a laboratory space to explore various techniques to heighten body awareness and spatial sensibility. Through assignments and workshops, the students will practice how to digest these sensory experiences through their studio practice. Historical precedents for art outside the usual mediums and venues will be our reference points to investigate how our own work may take part in a generative process that evolves the definition of sculpture. The assignments in the first half of the semester point the students to performance, site specificity, and sound, that utilize New York Citys odd spots and professionals. While building such common experiential platforms, the class will also build language for a dialogic space, through weekly in-class discussions lead by the instructor, guests, and rotating panels of the students. As the semester progresses, the emphasis will gradually be shifted from experiential learning to intensive studio work on a final project, where the students are asked to pay close attention to how various methods and fields of subjects combine. The resulting project has to be the best work you have ever done. If the class is full, please visit http://arts.columbia.edu/undergraduate-visual-arts-program.
Prerequisites: Advanced Wolof I or instructor permission. This course will further your awareness and understanding of the Wolof language and culture, as well as improve your mastery of grammar, writing skills, and oral expression. Course materials will incorporate various types of text including tales, poetry, literature as well as multimedia such as films, and videos, television and radio programs.
The course explores both the practice of translation (the rendering of texts from one language into another) and the idea of translation (as a medium of cultural transmission) in medieval Iberia. Jews were not only the paradigmatic translators of texts from Arabic to Latin and Castilian but were also translators of literary phenomena into the Jewish literary cultures of Iberia. Further, Hebrew texts made their way into Romance languages, rendered by both Jewish and non-Jewish writers. Theoretical materials on translation and historical background on translation practices of the period will accompany readings. All readings are in English, but all texts will be made available in the original language, and students are encouraged to read in the original whenever possible. Sources in bold are primary sources. Students are expected to spend three hours preparing for each class session.
Prerequisites: BIOL BC1500, BIOL BC1501, BIOL BC1502, BIOL BC1503, BIOL BC2100, BIOL BC3305. 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
Prerequisites: GREK UN2101 - GREK UN2102 or the equivalent. 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.
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.
Steady and unsteady heat conduction. Radiative heat transfer. Internal and external forced and free convective heat transfer. Change of phase. Heat exchangers.
Steady and unsteady heat conduction. Radiative heat transfer. Internal and external forced and free convective heat transfer. Change of phase. Heat exchangers.
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
This course conceives of the Qur’ān as a living text in constant flux through interactions with other religious traditions. It focuses on developing an understanding of the Qur’ān’s form, style, and content through a close reading of comparable religious texts. Major topics covered include the Qur’ānic theory of prophecy, its treatment of the Biblical tradition (both that of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament), and its perspective on pre-Islamic pagan religion. The central goals of the course include the ability to (a) analyze primary religious sources in a critical and objective manner and (b) construct coherent arguments based on concrete evidence. In a class of this nature, class members will naturally hold or develop a wide variety of opinions about the topics covered. The goal is not to adopt a single opinion concerning the interpretation of a particular text, but rather to support personal conclusions in a clear logical manner.
This class explores how racism and racialized capitalism and politics shape the distribution of material resources among cities and suburbs in metropolitan areas and the racial and ethnic groups residing in them. Readings and discussion focus on the history of metropolitan area expansion and economic development, as well as contemporary social processes shaping racial and ethnic groups’ access to high-quality public goods and private amenities. We address racial and ethnic groups’ evolving political agendas in today’s increasingly market-driven socio-political context, noting the roles of residents; federal, state, and local governments; market institutions and actors; urban planners, activist organizations, foundations, and social scientists, among others. Here is a sample of specific topics: race/ethnicity and who “belongs” in what “place;” inequitable government and market investment across racial and ethnic communities over time and “sedimentation effects” (for example, the “redlining” of Black communities leading to their inability to access loan and credit markets and the resulting wealth gap between Blacks and Whites); gentrification processes; creating sufficient, sustainable tax bases; and suburban sprawl. Assignments will include two short response papers, mid-term and final exams, and another project to be determined.
The Soviet Union was a country of paradoxes. While the Soviet government promoted national self-determination by establishing autonomous territories and fostering the development of national languages and cultures, it simultaneously engaged with practices of domination and control akin to European colonial empires. This course seeks to elucidate the inherent ideological tensions of the Soviet system through the works of authors and filmmakers from the Caucasus and Central Asia, situating them within the broader context of what has come to be known as postcolonial theory.
Beginning with the Soviet Union’s self-championing as the first anti-imperialist state, we will explore how writers and filmmakers from the Soviet metropole imagined and constructed the idea of an internal Other. Moving beyond the metropolitan imagination, we will examine how imperial categorizations were challenged by writers and filmmakers from the so-called Soviet "periphery." How did the non-European part of the population of the Soviet Union negotiate questions of identity, assimilation into the dominant culture, and resistance within the frameworks of Soviet modernization, nationality policy, and the official aesthetic doctrine of the Soviet Union - Socialist Realism? Finally, we will delve into how Soviet-era discourses persist and evolve in the post-Soviet context, influencing contemporary geopolitical and social realities across the Eurasian region. All course materials will be available in English.
“After a great pain, a formal feeling comes —"
—Emily Dickinson
The history of literature has, in many ways, become inseparable from the history of trauma. Poetry can be an excavation site of memory and the subconscious dreamscape, and inevitably, trauma is what is unearthed there. Poems working with, through, and out of personal and collective trauma can create what Dorothea Lasky calls “the material imagination;” a shared world inhabited by both poet and reader long after the poem has been read—a physical space we are in together that helps us move through, process, and in the best of cases, rewrite trauma into the generative and healing space of metaphor and imagery. In this way, poems are—in both their content and their form (which are often are indivisible)—an invitation to the reader to access the depths and complexities of the human psyche that we are all connected by, perhaps in a way they might not have before. The poem creates a finite terrain that anchors infinite possibility. This class will study texts that stem from, speak to, document and process historical, ecological, collective and personal trauma. How can a poem hold, house, and reconfigure traumatic events for both reader and poet through its formal and thematic architecture?
A topical approach to the concepts and practices of music in relation to other arts in the development of Asian civilizations.
Prerequisites: BIOL BC1500, BIOL BC1501, BIOL BC1502, BIOL BC1503 or the equivalent, and BIOL BC2100. Survey of the diversity, cellular organization, physiology, and genetics of the major microbial groups. Also includes aspects of applied microbiology and biotechnology, the function of microorganisms in the environment, and the role of microbes in human diseases.
Enrollment limited to 16. Provides experience in the isolation, cultivation, and analysis of pure cultures of microorganisms. Methods used for the study of cell structure, growth, physiology, and genetics of microbes will be incorporated into laboratory exercises.
An interdisciplinary course focused on environmental humanities and based in the English department, “Changing Climate, Changing World” will examine the representation of nature across time and its implications for global warming and biodiversity from multiple perspectives, emphasizing issues of climate change and environmental justice. The course will provide a conceptual framework for reading and critiquing the representation of nature in the context of historical, economic, social, cultural, scientific and political change.
The course design asks students to address climate change in the context of the industrial revolution before discussing environmental issues in a pre-industrial and finally a post-industrial context. We will begin in media res by addressing issues of industrialization and colonialism in the mid-18th and 19th century before considering indigenous, medieval, and renaissance representations of nature. In the second half of the course, we return to examine contemporary issues from the early 20th century to the present.
The course will meet twice weekly in Spring 2025. One of these meetings will include a lecture with a guest faculty member from Barnard and Columbia, or occasionally with other experts, artists, and activists from New York and beyond, followed by questions from the audience on the lecture. The second meeting will emphasize student discussion of the lecture and associated readings, with the purpose of integrating each lecture into the total course framework. Since all the participating faculty are teaching full time, we will aim to schedule lectures in the late afternoon or evening to minimize conflicts. We would also like to open some of the lectures to the public, either virtually or in person, so that their impact could be felt beyond the class itself.
Intermediate analysis and composition in a variety of tonal idioms.
Intermediate analysis and composition in a variety of tonal and extended tonal idioms.
In this course, students will come to see the imbrication of religion, power, and mental illness across South Asia by examining experiences of suffering and its management; the history of psychiatry in the British colonial era and its afterlives; and the relationship of religion to concepts of mental and emotional disorder. Students will identify models for medical structures of care, healing, and treatments in the context of religion, ritual, and quotidian life. Topics include diagnostic processes and the creation of categories, stigma and models of clinical care, hysteria, spirit possession, pharmaceuticals, and the relationship of trauma to political structures. This course has three sections: 1) the first portion undertakes a brief historical survey of medical disciplines and institutions in South Asia (such as the development of Ayurveda, Yunānī Ṭibb, and the rise of the bīmāristān); 2) the second portion of the course focuses on the rise of the asylum (sometimes called the pāgal khāna) in tandem with psychiatry and its twinned consequence: the pathologization of asceticism by British colonial technologies of discipline; 3) the final portion examines the relationship between British colonialism and psychoanalysis with the introduction of this western discipline to the subcontinent.
This course will take
critical
stock of historical structures throughout South Asia
claiming
to provide care (such as family, caste, healthcare, mental asylums, colonialism, educational systems, pensions, and much more). As a result, students come to consider concepts of social suffering, biopolitics, biosociality, political subjectivity, and postcolonial disorder.
Primary source material will include the following: śāstra, ethnography, clinical studies, poetry, scripture, ritual texts across Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions.
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.
Inspired by the Jim Carroll book of the same name, this class will examine the persona poem form specifically through the lens of film and television, focusing on how style, atmosphere and character translate from visual media to poetry. We will examine and discuss persona poems based on movie/television characters, writing the self into movies/television, and writing movie/television characters into personal experience. We will generate ideas and/or drafts of our own, centering the following questions, among others:
How do you create, sustain, and complicate tone without sacrificing clarity? How does a character transcend space/time limits to evolve from a first introduction to a cherished and known persona in a constrained space, whether that constraint be a 90-minute film or a 16-line poem? Which tensions accelerate and/or stifle character development, and which tensions permit a persona the most accessible, familiar, or surprising presence for a reader? What differentiates movie stars or actors from literary protagonists? Why are movies “cool,” how has “cool” evolved in film, and how do we render “cool” in poems, for the purpose of deepening the poem? What separates sentimentality from earnestness in film versus poetry?
The class is structured as a hybrid seminar/workshop: we will spend our time in class discussing assigned texts, visual media, and the connections and divergences between the two, as well as crafting our own poetic responses and interpretations and sharing them in a workshop format. Source material will include poetry that is persona-based in perspective or subject, film and television prompts, and field trips to meaningful NYC literary and/or filmic landmarks. We will explore possibilities in poetry to evoke and render common filmic techniques such as the tracking shot, the closeup, the montage, and others.
Operational amplifier circuits. Diodes and diode circuits. MOS and bipolar junction transistors. Biasing techniques. Small-signal models. Single-stage transistor amplifiers. Analysis and design of CMOS logic gates. A/D and D/A converters.
In this class, we will focus on recurring themes and questions of contemporary queer cinema by engaging with a number of film genres and forms, and explore how filmmakers create queer visions of the world through their cinematic practices. We will also consider how these queer films are informed by various local, national, cultural and political contexts. Through a comparative, transnational and intersectional approach that takes into consideration the particularities of each filmmaker’s context, we will aim to answer the following questions: How do various cultural, national, linguistic, religious contexts affect the way queer identities are defined and depicted visually? How do these filmmakers create queer narratives that contest, complicate or reify dominant narratives of gender and sexuality? How do they play around with cinematic and genre conventions?
Films, directors and genres studied are subject to change but will likely include directors such as Celine Sciamma, Cheryl Dunye, Pedro Almodovar, Todd Haynes, among others; and various genres such as drama, romance, thriller, mockumentary, thriller and experimental film.
This course explores how civil war, revolution, militarization, mass violence, refugee crises, and terrorism impact urban spaces, and how city dwellers engage in urban resilience, negotiate and attempt to reclaim their right to the city. Through case studies of Beirut (1975-present), Baghdad (2003-present), Cairo (2011-present), Diyarbakir (1914-present), Aleppo (1914-present), and Jerusalem (1914-present), this course traces how urban life adjusted to destruction (and post-conflict reconstruction), violence, and anarchy; how neighborhoods were reshaped; and how local ethnic, religious, and political dynamics played out in these cities and metropolises. Relying on multi-disciplinary and post-disciplinary scholarship, and employing a wealth of audiovisual material, literary works, and interviews conducted by the instructor, the course scrutinizes how conflicts have impacted urban life in the Middle East, and how civilians react to, confront, and resist militarization in urban spaces.
You saw a bird today.
You saw a bird yesterday.
You will surely see a bird tomorrow. Without knowing you, or knowing what you do with your days, I know this for a fact about you.
Unless they are under absolute confinement, chances are that every human being anywhere on the planet will see at least one bird every day. Birds are everywhere. They are mostly diurnal, they fly and they vocalize. Probably more so than any other kind of animal, this makes birds particularly conspicuous and appealing to humans.
But when you saw a bird today, did you really
see
it? Did it register at all? Probably not—no more than a passing car or cloud or a stranger in the sidewalk. That’s a shame, because birds have shaped modern biology more than any other group, inspiring discoveries in ecology, evolution, and behavior. They also move billions of dollars each year through birdwatching.
The overarching goal of this class is for you to start really
seeing
birds for the wondrous animals that they are and all that they have taught us about biology. This will include identifying and naming bird species, having the basic vocabulary to talk about birds, and relating your bird observations in the field to conceptual knowledge about their evolution and ecology.
Towards that goal, students will participate in a combination of lectures, readings, group discussions, written assignments, and group and solo outings to observe birds in Central Park. Topics addressed will include: evolutionary origins of birds; bird systematics and classification; the biology of feathers; bioacoustics and birdsong; the biology of migration; bird reproductive behavior; and bird conservation.
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.
Improvisation is an open level, movement based class in which students will learn collaborative improvisation tools, skills, practices, and mindset through experience, reflection, practice, and generation. Deep play, support for others, and a willingness to experiment and reflect are key in this discovery based course.
Prerequisites: ITAL UN2102 or the equivalent. UN3334-UN3333 is the basic course in Italian literature. UN3334: Authors and works from the Cinquecento to the present. Taught in Italian.
Prerequisites: ITALUN2102 or the equivalent. If you did not take Intermediate Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester. Written and oral self-expression in compositions and oral reports on a variety of topics; grammar review. Required for majors and concentrators.
This contemporary technique class invites students into an embodied practice focusing on a daily physical experimentation and challenge. Emphasis will be placed on corporeal ways to explore questions around propelling, listening, connecting, healing, and action. This course offers a chance for students to use their sensatorial experience to reflect on individual pathways/ desires for expression while, challenging the body to take risks and practice as their movement knowledge expands. Emphasis on sensation, initiation, and weight will be introduced in a floor or standing warm-up that will expand to a standing exploration of the transition between form and space. A focus will be to continue our development of a strong-grounded technique with healthy placement that moves with ease in and out of the floor. We will continue to develop our true embodied relationship to environment, people, and time.
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.
Prerequisites: CHEM BC3231 and CHEM BC3333
Quantitative techniques in volumetric analysis, pH measurement, UV-Visible, absorption, and fluorescence spectroscopy, and chromatographic separations. Data analysis with spreadsheets.
Prerequisites: CHEM BC3231 and CHEM BC3333
Quantitative techniques in volumetric analysis, pH measurement, UV-Visible, absorption, and fluorescence spectroscopy, and chromatographic separations. Data analysis with spreadsheets.
Prerequisites: Limited to twenty people. Examination of the gender-neutral partnering technique that is now common in contemporary dance. Focus is placed on recent improvisatory forms, sensation building, center connection and risk. Emphasis is placed on listening and sensing rather than controlling or leading.
This course will introduce the exploration of a partnering technique that is enriching for the mind and body. Contact Improvisation is not only an important tool for the dancer as it informs the body how to move with weight and connection and is required by most contemporary styles – it is also a technique that informs the artist in us all as it emphasizes listening, trust, and spontaneous creativity. In this course, students will use contact to support the creation of most duets, trios, and larger group dance. Focus is placed on recent improvisatory forms, sensation building, center connection, and finding the safe edges of risk as well as applying these studies to creation and expression. Students in this course will explore their own weight and how it relates to other bodies by listening as well as employing emotional, psychological, and cultural structures to their improvisation. Emphasis is placed on listening and sensation rather than controlling or leading. Students will explore the dynamic ride and risk taking of improvisation and trusting another body by giving and taking weight. Contact Improvisation is open to all students.
In all societies, public policies are developed to solve social problems such as extreme
poverty, inequality, basic sanitation, health and basic care, family planning, food
security, mental health, abuse of illegal substances, education and protection of
vulnerable groups. How can we ensure that these public policies are based on solid
evidence, which would guarantee the greatest probability of effectiveness? And how do
we plan and adapt the implementation of these policies to different realities, respecting
cultural and historical differences?
In order to achieve this, it is useful, if not necessary, to be acquainted with scientific
thinking and the accumulation and use of evidence. It is also necessary to understand
our own limitations and cognitive biases that interfere in the decision-making process,
as well as understand the political and social context where decisions need to be made.
This course aims to provide students with the tools necessary to assess public policies
critically and rationally, as well as to evaluate different types of scientific evidence and
understand how and where it is appropriate to include scientific evidence in building
effective public policy.
The course will closely examine 1) the various traits of postmodern Japanese cinemas in the 1980s and the 1990s after the phase of global cinematic modernism, 2) contemporary media phenomena such as media convergence and the media ecologies of anime, 3) media activism after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, and beyond. We will proceed through careful analysis of films, anime, and digital media, while also addressing larger questions of historiography in general.
Concentrating on the drama of early modern England, this course will focus on women who behave badly. Some of these characters cheat, lie, and murder, while others perfect the guise of seeming compliance; some brazenly flout the structures that aim to contain them, while others are subtler in their subversion. We will use these plays to investigate what is by turns exciting, threatening, and frightening about these unruly women, paying attention to the ways that they are punished and sometimes rewarded. We will also attend to the resources of theatrical form, especially the early modern use of boy actors to play women’s parts, to ask how the conditions of staging uphold or undercut the plays’ ideological messages. Finally, we will supplement our reading of this drama with other historical and cultural texts from this period—pamphlets, advice literature, poems, court cases, and ballads—in order to get a better sense of the plays in relation to early modern gender, sexual, and political norms, many of which were crucially different from our own.
Corequisites: CHEM BC3348 This course combines chemical synthesis, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, and nanoscience into experiments with an emphasis using spectroscopy to determine chemical structure and reactivity. you will gain experience with a range of instruments, techniques, calculations, and theories. Instrumentation will include UV-Visible, infrared, near-infrared, fluorescence, and Raman spectroscopy.
Prerequisites: CHEM BC3333 or 3338 and CHEM BC3253 Corequisites: CHEM BC3271 This course combines chemical synthesis, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, and nanoscience into experiments with an emphasis using spectroscopy to determine chemical structure and reactivity. You will gain experience with a range of instruments, techniques, calculations, and theories. Instrumentation will include UV-Visible, infrared, near-infrared, fluorescence, and Raman spectroscopy.
Prerequisites: L course: enrollment limited to 15 students. Completion of language requirement, third-year language sequence (W3300). Provides students with an overview of the cultural history of the Hispanic world, from eighth-century Islamic and Christian Spain and the pre-Hispanic Americas through the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period until about 1700, covering texts and cultural artifacts from both Spain and the Americas.
Prerequisites: L course: enrollment limited to 15 students. Completion of language requirement, third-year language sequence (W3300). Provides students with an overview of the cultural history of the Hispanic world, from eighth-century Islamic and Christian Spain and the pre-Hispanic Americas through the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period until about 1700, covering texts and cultural artifacts from both Spain and the Americas.
In the course, we will engage the decades-long debates around what it means to organize politics around identity in the United States, particularly from the lens of marginalized groups. In the age of American politics where the term “identity politics” is often used as a dismissal or derogation of the experiences of marginalized groups, what exactly is identity politics? What do the contemporary anxieties around identity politics tell us about political life? What are the political possibilities that arise from organizing identity-based movements? Does focusing too much on identity politics overshadow concerns around material redistribution? We will trace the notion of identity politics back to its origins in Black queer feminism in the 1970s, and seek to understand its evolutions to today. We will bridge the work of critical theorists with the empirical study of identity-based politics, focusing on those who have sought to negotiate differences across race, gender, and sexuality.
This course focuses on Lusophone African and African Brazilian cultures and the relations, continuities, ruptures and influences between them. Brazil is the result of the miscegenation of Ameridians, African and Europeans, and this means that is also a cultural mélange of these groups. The African cultural contribution to Brazilian culture and grand-narrative is the primary focus of this course, however, to understand Brazil one needs to understand the cultural diversity found in Lusophone Africa, with which Brazil has had a long relationship. The readings for this course include texts from different disciplines and genres. We will study texts, movies and other forms of visual arts from the following authors: José Eduardo Agualusa, Pepetela, Mia Couto, Jorge Amado, Achille, Mbembe, Hilton Costa, Jocélio Teles dos Santos, Livio Sansone, José Luis Cabaço, Benedita da Silva and Solano Trindade.
This course surveys cultural production of Spain and Spanish America from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Students will acquire the knowledge needed for the study of the cultural manifestations of the Hispanic world in the context of modernity. Among the issues and events studied will be the Enlightenment as ideology and practice, the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the wars of Spanish American independence, the fin-de-siecle and the cultural avant-gardes, the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century (Spanish Civil War, the Mexican and Cuban revolutions), neoliberalism, globalization, and the Hispanic presence in the United States. The goal of the course is to study some key moments of this trajectory through the analysis of representative texts, documents, and works of art. Class discussions will seek to situate the works studied within the political and cultural currents and debates of the time. All primary materials, class discussion, and assignments are in Spanish. This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies.
This course surveys cultural production of Spain and Spanish America from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Students will acquire the knowledge needed for the study of the cultural manifestations of the Hispanic world in the context of modernity. Among the issues and events studied will be the Enlightenment as ideology and practice, the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the wars of Spanish American independence, the fin-de-siecle and the cultural avant-gardes, the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century (Spanish Civil War, the Mexican and Cuban revolutions), neoliberalism, globalization, and the Hispanic presence in the United States. The goal of the course is to study some key moments of this trajectory through the analysis of representative texts, documents, and works of art. Class discussions will seek to situate the works studied within the political and cultural currents and debates of the time. All primary materials, class discussion, and assignments are in Spanish. This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies.
We live in an increasingly urbanized world. But what does it mean to be “urban”? As urbanization reaches more corners of the globe, its forms and processes become increasingly diverse.
Urban Elsewheres
is dedicated to investigating this diversity and to exploring the implications that unfamiliar urban phenomena might have for how we understand urbanization—both elsewhere in the world and in our own backyards. Through a comparative engagement with case studies drawn from around the world, this course will challenge some of our most deeply held, common sense assumptions about urbanization. Students will be asked to stretch the conceptual limits of urbanization and explore the social and political possibilities of an expanded urbanism. In doing so, the course will engage with the many of the most heated theoretical debates about urbanization, equipping students with a set of comparative analytical tools with which to explore the wider field of urban studies.
Introduction to animal developmental biology and its applications. This course will examine the basic mechanisms through which animal bodies organize themselves, from an integrative perspective at the levels of genes and gene networks, cell properties and behaviors, coordinated interactions of cells in developing tissues, organs and organ systems, and the role of developmental processes in morphological evolution. Topics include: fertilization, cleavage and gastrulation, establishment of body axes, neural development, organ formation, tissue and organ regeneration, stem cells and medical applications, evolution of developmental programs, and teratogenesis.
Prerequisites: 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: Organic II lab (CHEM BC3333, BC3335, or equivalent); Quantitative analysis lab (BC3338, BC3340, or equivalent); Biochemistry (CHEM BC3282y, CHEM C3501, or equivalent).
Theory and application of fundamental techniques for the isolation, synthesis and characterization of biological macromolecules including proteins, lipids, nucleotides and carbohydrates. Techniques include spectroscopic analysis, gel electrophoresis, chromatography, enzyme kinetics, immunoblotting, PCR, molecular cloning and cell culture, as well as modern laboratory instrumentation, such as UV-Vis, GC-MS and HPLC.
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a broad introduction to the field of climate law in the United States and at the international level. The course begins with an overview of the causes and effects of global climate change and the methods available to control and adapt to it. We then examine the negotiation, implementation and current status of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Copenhagen Accord. The focus then turns to the past and proposed actions of the U.S. Congress, the executive branch and the courts, as well as regional, state and municipal efforts. The Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act will receive special attention. We evaluate the various legal tools that are available to address climate change, including cap-and-trade schemes; carbon taxation; command-and-control regulation; litigation; securities disclosures; and voluntary action. The roles of energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, carbon capture and sequestration, and forestry and agriculture each receive close attention. Implications for international human rights, international trade, environmental justice, and international and intergenerational equity are discussed. The course concludes with examination of the special challenges posed by China; proposals for adaptation and geoengineering; and business opportunities and the role of lawyers. Offered in the Spring.
Prerequisites: BIOL BC1500, BIOL BC1501, BIOL BC1502, BIOL BC1503 or the equivalent. This course examines how mammals carry out basic functions like manipulating objects, sensing the external world, oxygenating tissues, and processing food. Emphasis is placed on (a) how the body regulates itself through the integrated action of multiple organ systems and (b) what goes awry in disease.
Emines the writer’s view of foreign cultures and animals, his response to empires and states, reflections on bureaucracy or personal relationships, with an emphasis on Kafka’s international legacy and influence. Discussions of his followers in American or world literature. Major novels such as The Trial, The Castle and Amerika as well as short stories are covered and rediscovered in this course.