A topical approach to the concepts and practices of music in relation to other arts in the development of Asian civilizations.
Infrastructures are the built networks moving goods, commodities, people, energy, waste organizing human action in modern societies. This course critically examines the work of infrastructures globally. It examines issues of urbanism, racial infrastructures, infrastructural breakdown and emergency, postcolonial infrastructures, climate change, and extraction.
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.
Intermediate analysis and composition in a variety of tonal idioms.
The course looks at poets, writing in the twentieth century and after, whose work is concerned with liberation from colonial rule and, subsequently, with the formation of a post-colonial literary voice. Poetry in the period of decolonization deals with issues of national, racial, class and gender identity, place and displacement, and freedom from linguistic and political oppression. We will read, among others, poets from the Indian Subcontinent and Middle East such as Tagore, Iqbal, Faiz and Darwish; two leading poets of négritude, Aimé Césaire and Léopold Senghor, in relation to movements in Caribbean, African, and American literature from the Harlem Renaissance to the present (Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Kamau Brathwaite, Derek Walcott, and Nicolas Guillén); Latin American poets including Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Nicanor Parra; and English-language poets including W.B. Yeats, William Carlos Williams, and voices of more contemporary movements in poetry including the Beat, feminist, LGBTQ, indigenous, and "Black Lives Matter" movements. Using theory and historical background, we will look at the work of each poet comparatively in the context of international development and political change. The course offers a critical approach to globalization through literature; since decolonization has touched so much of the world, we are open to works from other literatures that students propose. Though class discussions will be in English, students are encouraged, to the greatest extent possible, to read the poetry in the original language. Please email me as needed for further information.
Intermediate analysis and composition in a variety of tonal and extended tonal idioms.
This upper-level seminar examines fashion and dress as historical forces and contemporary practices in Oceania and the Pacific diaspora. Clothing is treated not as decoration, but as a domain where colonialism and missionization were enacted, where gender and class hierarchies are negotiated, where Indigenous political and cultural projects take material form, and where creative economies and transnational networks are built.
Students read ethnographic and historical scholarship that centers Pacific perspectives and interrogates how garments, materials, bodies, markets, institutions, and media shape everyday life. Topics include mission clothing and morality, gender and respectability, heritage and tradition, diaspora and migration, fashion platforms and mediation, hybridity and experimentation, intellectual property and Indigenous sovereignty, museums and cultural governance, ecological knowledge, and climate change.
Assignments emphasize analytical writing, discussion leadership, annotated bibliographies, object-based case studies, and a substantial final research project. Students develop skills in evidence-based argumentation, ethical interpretation across difference, and connecting local case studies to global processes without erasing Indigenous histories and lived experience.
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.
There are as many reasons to improvise as there are cultures. People from all over the world have turned to improvised dance for personal, social, and political reasons. Improvisation is equally as useful in developing self-expression as it is in forming community and mutual understanding. It can be a vehicle for discovering more about our world by heightening our senses and awareness. It can be a mind-puzzle, as practitioners devise creative constraints for the purposes of producing structure and clarity. Whatever the reason for improvising, all practitioners share a sense of questioning and curiosity. This course will cover five units of study, each one aimed at exploring a different function of improvisation: self- expression; music and space; our bodies and environment; structure and cognition; and community-building. Learning in the classroom will rely on reading texts and viewing images and videos, written work, peer-to-peer learning and self-directed inquiry. In the studio, students will be given different exercises and prompts to explore and refine. By the end of the semester students will understand how improvisation occurs and how it differs from codified or prescriptive work, and why different people choose to improvise. They will also be able to develop and perform their own improvisatory work, drawing from the skills learned over the semester.
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: (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.
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.
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.
Historians frequently situate Armenia between two powers: between Rome and Persia, then Byzantium and Islam. This class will shake up the usual “between-two-worlds” paradigm, which places Armenia and Armenians in the crosshairs of world powers. Instead, we will study Armenians as active participants in world dramas, at the center of global developments. Our main goal will be to draw upon a variety of sources to tell the story of Armenia and Armenians: histories, poems, art, coins, buildings, etc.
Goals
Critically assess what it means to study history. Why are we learning this?
Analyze primary sources, whether written or material. How can we study this?
Engage with modern scholarship on Armenian experiences. How have other people studied this?
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.
Explores facets of modern Pop Culture by discussing historical developments, international range, literary and audiovisual representation of an aesthetics of the ordinary in the 20th/21st centuries. Emphasis on questions of public appreciation, pleasure, taste, consumption, and impact in examinations of prose, poetry, film, music, and the arts. Course taught in German.
How do ordinary people come together to enact social change in society? Focusing on the United States, this course explores how everyday people engage in collective action from the ground up, through social movements, community organizing, and other forms of advocacy and activisms. In particular, we will consider the role of grassroots movements and organizations as agents of democratic representation and catalysts for political transformation for marginalized communities. We will engage key questions about why groups choose to make political demands outside of formal institutional spaces, what kinds of visions for social change they put forward, how they seek to achieve their ideals, and how successful they are. The course will focus on contemporary activisms around racial justice, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, and labor.
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.
What is “world poetry”? This course will try to give an answer to this vexing question. You are being introduced to a number of influential poets who have entered a dialogue about what it means to write, read, translate and appreciate poetry in a global context. The impact of globalization is most visible in a number of anthologies which made considerable efforts to move beyond the existing range of national representatives and to make an English-speaking audience familiar with the names and works of poets who are bilingual or who write in their native language. Throughout the semester, we will read English translations of these poems (but feel free to read the original if you know the language). Secondly, the global context is of great importance for understanding each poet’s vision of the world since poets are involved in processes of “world-making” as well as reacting to the world’s past and present. s the semester progresses you will see that the poets are part of a larger conversation; some themes, forms and issues we discovered at the beginning will return in the middle or toward the end of the term. The selection of poets is based on considerations of gender, race, age and religious affiliation; many of the poets whose works we are going to discuss are iconic figures; in studying other cases, you will be exposed to new voices (for example, young South African poets) whose significance will emerge in a critical discussion of the anthologists’ rationale and criteria for selecting poets and marginalizing others.
This course surveys cultural production of Spain and Spanish America from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Students will acquire the knowledge needed for the study of the cultural manifestations of the Hispanic world in the context of modernity. Among the issues and events studied will be the Enlightenment as ideology and practice, the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the wars of Spanish American independence, the fin-de-siecle and the cultural avant-gardes, the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century (Spanish Civil War, the Mexican and Cuban revolutions), neoliberalism, globalization, and the Hispanic presence in the United States. The goal of the course is to study some key moments of this trajectory through the analysis of representative texts, documents, and works of art. Class discussions will seek to situate the works studied within the political and cultural currents and debates of the time. All primary materials, class discussion, and assignments are in Spanish. This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies.
Introduction to animal developmental biology and its applications. This course will examine the basic mechanisms through which animal bodies organize themselves, from an integrative perspective at the levels of genes and gene networks, cell properties and behaviors, coordinated interactions of cells in developing tissues, organs and organ systems, and the role of developmental processes in morphological evolution. Topics include: fertilization, cleavage and gastrulation, establishment of body axes, neural development, organ formation, tissue and organ regeneration, stem cells and medical applications, evolution of developmental programs, and teratogenesis.
Prerequisites: Organic II lab (CHEM BC3333, BC3335, or equivalent); Quantitative analysis lab (BC3338, BC3340, or equivalent); Biochemistry (CHEM BC3282y, CHEM C3501, or equivalent).
Theory and application of fundamental techniques for the isolation, synthesis and characterization of biological macromolecules including proteins, lipids, nucleotides and carbohydrates. Techniques include spectroscopic analysis, gel electrophoresis, chromatography, enzyme kinetics, immunoblotting, PCR, molecular cloning and cell culture, as well as modern laboratory instrumentation, such as UV-Vis, GC-MS and HPLC.
This course will explore developing topics in mammalian reproductive biology. Using textbooks and primary literature sources we will explore the molecular and physiological nature of reproduction, including fertilization, assisted reproductive technologies, and physiological changes to the reproductive system during and after birth. These topics will be further discussed in the context of medicine and society, with a particular focus on healthcare disparities in local communities.
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: 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).
Forensic scientific investigations of mass political violence have proliferated in recent decades. As a form of “science in the service of human rights,” forensic methods are used to locate and identify the remains of people killed in mass political violence and, more broadly, to corroborate witness testimonies of rights abuses and contribute evidence for potential use in war crimes trials. Yet forensic investigations of mass violence are not only scientific endeavors, but also highly social and political ones. Families of the dead and disappeared have long been at the forefront of demanding state action to locate, exhume, and return the remains of their loved ones. What drives states, on the one hand, and families of the dead and disappeared, on the other, to turn to forensic exhumations of the dead? What social and political work does forensic science—and the dead bodies it unveils—do to mediate restorative transformation in the wake of mass political violence?
This course explores how the forensic sciences—in particular, forensic anthropology, archaeology, and genetics—are mobilized after atrocity to make rights claims to postmortem dignity, postwar memory, and transformative justice. It approaches forensic science from a holistic (or, in anthropological terms, “four-field”) perspective, in which the scientific cannot be separated from the social or political, given the profound social transformations brought about by war. Practices in biological and forensic science cannot be separated from the social and political contexts of the political violence and human rights violations they investigate. What would it look like to conceive of forensic science from a multi-focal, interdisciplinary perspective?
This discussion-based seminar explores the complex social and scientific worlds that come into being over the course of postwar forensic exhumations, bringing the living and the dead into new forms of relation. We situate forensic investigations within broader struggles over historical and collective memory, narratives of past violence, and accountability for state violence. Drawing primarily on ethnographic and sociocultural anthropological perspectives from Latin America and other global regions, the course engages debates on international humanitarianism, necropolitics, and human rights in death. We critically assess the promises and limits of forensic science as a tool for human rights intervention, while remaining attentive to its af
This upper-level lecture course provides an in-depth analysis of neuroscience at the molecular and cellular levels. Topics include: the structure and function of neuronal membranes, the ionic basis of the membrane potential and action potential, synaptic transmission, synaptic plasticity, and sensory transduction.
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?
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.
Vertebrates have been around for millions of years. In that time, they have evolved morphological attributes to live in the sea, on land, and in the air; hunt or scavenge food; escape from predation; and more. Yet despite the vast differences that have evolved, vertebrates (including humans) share many common traits. In this course, we will explore the evolution of the vertebrate body plan, focusing specifically on the evolution of form and function in many body systems. We will examine the evolution of homologous structures and identify how vertebrates have evolved a wide array of adaptations within the constraints of evolution. Though anatomy courses necessitate memorization of some key structures, we will focus more on the function of those structure, the broad principles of evolution, and the research techniques used in the related field of functional morphology rather than memorizing large lists of terms.
By absorbing electromagnetic radiation through their eyes, people are able to catch frisbees, recognize faces, and judge the beauty of art. For most of us, seeing feels effortless. That feeling is misleading. Seeing requires not only precise optics to focus images on the retina, but also the concerted action of millions of nerve cells in the brain. This intricate circuitry infers the likely causes of incoming patterns of light and transforms that information into feelings, thoughts, and actions. In this course we will study how light evokes electrical activity in a hierarchy of specialized neural networks that accomplish many unique aspects of seeing. Students will have the opportunity to focus their study on particular aspects, such as color, motion, object recognition, learning, attention, awareness, and how sight can be lost and recovered. Throughout the course we will discuss principles of neural information coding (e.g., receptive field tuning, adaptation, normalization, etc.) that are relevant to other areas of neuroscience, as well as medicine, engineering, art and design.
Prerequisites: BC1001 and BC1129 Developmental Psychology or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 20 senior majors. Barnard students receive priority. Examines adolescent development in theory and reality. Focuses on individual physiological, sexual, cognitive, and affective development and adolescent experiences in their social context of family, peers, school, and community. Critical perspectives of gender, race and ethnicity, sexuality, and teen culture explored.
Prerequisites: 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).
Prerequisites: PSYC 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.
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.
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the history of disability as a construct, as well as major models of disability. Both medical and social models (as well as others) will be examined across each of the major neurodevelopmental disabilities explored, including: ADHD, autism, intellectual disability, specific learning disability, and communication/language/speech and motor disabilities. We will examine the ways in which disability is rooted in disparities associated with power and resources, political rights, and social status. We will also utilize an intersectional lens in approaching disability to examine intersections with class, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality, and more. For each disability, we will examine cultural, historical, and socio-political context; diagnostic criteria; epidemiology; etiology; assessment; and interventions/common accommodations. For each disability, we will also engage with several first-person, lived experience accounts and attempt to identify links to the different models and theories of disability, as well as theories of intersectionality.
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.
This course seeks to approach the study of music and society by comparatively studying repertories from different parts of the world, how the history of ideas and methods of studying such repertoires shaped them, the practices that constitute them and the ways they are understood and used by different peoples. Central to this course is the interrelationship between the constitution of a repertoire and the history of the construction of knowledge about it.
Introduction to the theoretical approaches of American Studies, as well as the methods and materials used in the interdisciplinary study of American society. Through close reading of a variety of texts (e.g. novels, films, essays), we will analyze the creation, maintenance, and transmission of cultural meaning within American society.
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor given at first class meeting. Studies the art and practice of designing sound and scoring music for dramatic performance. Students study the relationship between concert and incidental music, and read plays toward the production of a score for live theatre. Students also read broadly in the fields of sound, music, acoustics, and the cultural analysis of sound as a component of performance. Background in music or composition not essential. .
Antimicrobial resistant bacterial infections were estimated to account for 1.27 million deaths worldwide in 2019. The goal of the seminar is to provide an in-depth analysis of this ongoing threat. Discussions will include the molecular mechanisms, epidemiology of transmission and the consequences of antimicrobial resistant infections. It will also cover current efforts to reduce the spread and emergence of these difficult to treat pathogens, both in the community and the healthcare setting.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 12 students. Permission of instructor given at first class meeting. Introduction to designing for the theatre. The course will focus on set design, developing skills in script analysis, sketching, model making, storyboarding and design presentation. Some investigation into theatre architecture, scenic techniques and materials, and costume and lighting design.
UN3405 enables students to hone and perfect their reading and writing skills while improving their ability to express and organize thoughts in French. In this engaging advanced language class, students are exposed to major texts in fields as diverse as journalism, sociology, anthropology, politics, literature, philosophy and history. Stimulating class discussions, targeted reviews of key grammatical points in context, and an array of diverse writing exercises all contribute to strengthen students’ mastery of the French language. This course also works as a bridge class between Intermediate French II and courses that focus on French and Francophone cultures, history and literature (such as 3409 and 3410). Students who take this class will be fully prepared to take advanced content classes or spend a semester in a Francophone country. This class is required for the French major and minor.
This course offers an in-depth examination of depressive disorders, including major depressive disorder, persistant depressive disorder, post-partum depression, premenstrual dysmorphic disorder, and pediatric depression. Topics include historical perspectives, current understanding of diagnoses and symptoms, neural changes associated with the disorders, and research on effective treatments. Emphasis will be placed on the impact of depressive disorders on families and communities, as well as gender and cultural differences in diagnosis, treatment and outcomes.
Computer-aided analysis of general loading states and deformation of machine components using singularity functions and energy methods. Theoretical introduction to static failure theories, fracture mechanics, and fatigue failure theories. Introduction to conceptual design and design optimization problems. Design of machine components such as springs, shafts, fasteners, lead screws, rivets, welds. Modeling, analysis, and testing of machine assemblies for prescribed design problems. Problems will be drawn from statics, kinematics, dynamics, solid modeling, stress analysis, and design optimization.
This class offers students an introduction to major works that have marked the history of literature in French from the Middle Ages to the present. Our focus will be on close reading and discussion, but works will also be placed in historical context. We will look at a variety of literary genres (sonnet, short story, comedy, autobiography, narrative poetry, novel), and our readings will be complemented by visual materials such as paintings and films. The course is taught entirely in French and is one of two core courses for the major and minor in French. Students are encouraged to take FREN 3405 prior to this course.
Examination of human rights within the context of international migration. The course covers topics such as citizenship, state sovereignty, border control, asylum-seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants. (Cross-listed by the Human Rights Program.)
How can we build peace in the aftermath of extensive violence? How can international actors help in this process? This colloquium focuses on international peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding efforts in recent conflicts. It covers general concepts, theories, and debates, as well as specific cases of peacebuilding successes and failures. Cross-listed with Human Rights.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor, given at first class meeting. This course explores the role of the stage manager and production manager in theatrical production. Students undertake hands-on exercises to develop the practical and collaborative skills essential to working both as a stage manager and production manager--script analysis; production timeline and rehearsal management; technical rehearsal; budgeting; working with directors and designers; working with unions; health and safety codes; house management; box office.
This course examines French from a linguistic perspective: the historical development of the language, as well as important phonetic, phonological, and sociolinguistic aspects of varieties of French from around the world. The course is intended for undergraduates in French, as well as students in linguistics, and is open to students across the Columbia community.
Introduction to the mechanics of solids with an emphasis on mechanical engineering applications. Stress tensor, principal stresses, maximum shear stress, stress equilibrium, infinitesimal strain tensor, Hooke’s law, boundary conditions. Introduction to the finite element method for stress analysis. Static failure theories, safety factors, fatigue failure. Assignments include finite element stress analyses using university-provided commercial software.
The ubiquity of computers and networks in business, government, recreation, and almost all aspects of daily life has led to a proliferation of online sensitive data: data that, if used improperly, can harm the data subjects. As a result, concern about the use, ownership, control, privacy, and accuracy of these data has become a top priority. This seminar course focuses on both the technical challenges of handling sensitive data, the privacy implications of various technologies, and the policy and legal issues facing data subjects, data owners, and data users.
A preliminary design for an original project is a prerequisite for the capstone design course. Will focus on the steps required for generating a preliminary design concept. Included will be a brainstorming concept generation phase, a literature search, incorporation of multiple constraints, adherence to appropriate engineering codes and standards, and the production of a layout drawing of the proposed capstone design project in a Computer Aided Design (CAD) software package. Note: MECE students only.
In this course, we work together to understand and address the challenges of misinformation, disinformation, and strategic manipulation in online environments. Students develop a deep understanding of the problem space from an information and social justice perspective by reading and discussing research—both historical and contemporary—on how and why misinformation and disinformation spread. Alongside this, we explore the process, both personal and interpersonal, by which these issues can be approached and addressed in our own lives. This will involve reflecting on our own presuppositions, beliefs, and biases about information; and doing a project in which we apply the principles of Human-Centered Design to investigate different design directions for addressing misleading information. Through this, students gain important contextual knowledge and hands-on design experience that they can take into future professional domains (from education to policy to technology), where they can contribute to building more trustworthy information systems.
Prerequisites: Third-year bridge course (W3300), and introductory surveys (W3349, W3350). Kants Enlightenment motto, sapere aude, took on political significance for Spanish American revolutionaries who made their case in prose, pushing against the constraints of the essay. This course traces the genres evolution from the transatlantic debate over political independence to the exuberant declarations of intellectual independence that would follow.
This course will introduce students to basic concepts in American Constitutional Law - including the history and development of the U.S. Constitution, theories and practice of constitutional interpetation, and the historical context of major controversies of the Supreme Court. Students will develop the intellectual ability to read case law, properly conceptualize and analyze constitutional issues, and will foster an informed perspective on the nature and limits of constitutional decision making. Class will spend particular attention on the development of civil rights and civil liberties.
Prerequisites: PSYC UN1001, and the instructors permission.
A systematic review of the evolution language covering the theory of evolution, conditioning theory, animal communication, ape language experiments, infant cognition, preverbal antecedents of language and contemporary theories of language.
New York City is made up of more than 400 neighborhoods. The concept of neighborhoods in cities has had many meanings and understandings over time. Equally complex is the concept of community used to describe the people attached to or defined by neighborhood. While neighborhood can be interpreted as a spatial, social, political, racial, ethnic, or even, economic unit; community often refers to the group of stakeholders (i.e. residents, workers, investors) whose interests directly align with the conditions of their environment. Community development is “a process where these community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems” that result from the changing contexts in their neighborhoods. Using a variety of theories and approaches, residents organize themselves or work with community development practitioners on the ground to obtain safe, affordable housing, improve the public realm, build wealth, get heard politically, develop human capital, and connect to metropolitan labor and housing markets. To address the ever-changing contexts of neighborhoods, community development organizations are taking on new roles and adapting (in various cases) to larger forces within the city, region and nation such as disinvestment, reinvestment, increased cultural diversity, an uncertain macroeconomic environment, and changes in federal policy. For more than a century, city-dwellers—and especially New Yorkers—have been tackling these challenges. This course will examine both historic and contemporary community building and development efforts, paying special attention to approaches which were shaped by New York City. This urban center, often described as a “city of neighborhoods,” has long been a seedbed for community-based problem-solving inventions. The course will focus on the theories (why?), tools (how?), and actors (who?) within the field of community development practice and is organized around important sectors (housing, econom
For centuries, New York City has served as a primary gateway city for immigrants to the United States. In the early twentieth century, according to the 1910 Census, New York City’s population was roughly 40% foreign-born. The problems these immigrants presented to government officials, doctors, religious leaders, industrialists, the police, and educators in New York City transformed not only the local debate on immigration but the national discussion of “Americanization” as well. According to the most recent census, approximately 40% of the city's population is foreign-born. Like their predecessors at the turn of the twentieth century, contemporary immigrants, arriving from the Caribbean, Africa, Central America, Asia, and Europe, have posed serious challenges to the civic, educational, and political institutions of New York City. How are these foreign-born residents reshaping the city today? This seminar explores the intersection of immigration, race, culture, and politics in New York City, both from the perspective of history and in relation to contemporary realities as it explores the forces shaping the century-old encounter between immigrants and New York City.
PSYC BC1129/2129 (with or without lab) as well as permission of the instructor.
The Barnard Toddler Center provides the focus for this seminar and research in applied developmental psychology, an amalgam of developmental, educational, and clinical psychology. The seminar integrates theory and research and for AY 20-21 will use daily recordings of the toddler sessions as the centerpiece for understanding early development. The unique context of Covid19 will be used to understand risks in development, especially for vulnerable children and families. Second term students will also conduct research on parenting during the pandemic.
Since September 11, 2001, there has been an avalanche of immigration enforcement policies and initiatives proposed or implemented under the guise of national security. This course will analyze the domino effect of the Patriot Act, the Absconder Initiative, Special Registration, the Real I.D. Act, border security including the building of the 700-mile fence along the U.S./Mexico border, Secured Communities Act-that requires the cooperation of state and local authorities in immigration enforcement, the challenge to birthright citizenship, and now the congressional hearings on Islamic radicalization. Have these policies been effective in combating the war on terrorism and promoting national security? Who stands to benefit from these enforcement strategies? Do immigrant communities feel safer in the U.S.? How have states joined the federal bandwagon of immigration enforcement or created solutions to an inflexible, broken immigration system?
The aim of this course is to examine the biological bases of individual differences in behavior. We will start by examining how individual differences in behavior and health are shaped by gene-environment interactions. We will complement these studies with the endophenotype approach and discuss its role in our contemporary views of complex disorders. We will then introduce behavioral epigenetics studies that are suggested to mediate the effects of gene-environment interactions at different levels of analysis. We will continue by discussing how these topics shape and are shaped by developmental programming. We will end the semester by discussing the major debates around these topics as well as their implications in real life and public policies. By covering these topics, students are expected to gain a better understanding of how our behavior is i) formed and shaped by gene-environment interactions over time, ii) influenced by the underlying physiological and epigenetic mechanisms, and iii) changed by developmental processes. With this information, the students are expected to view individual differences in behavior in a perspective that is highly interdisciplinary and dynamic.
Prerequisites: Concurrent with registering for this course, a student must register with the department and provide a written invitation from a mentor; details of this procedure are available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/courses/w3500/index.htm. Students must register for recitations UN3510 or consult the instructor. Corequisites: BIOL UN3510 The course involves independent study, faculty-supervised laboratory projects in contemporary biology. Concurrent with registering for this course, a student must register with the department, provide a written invitation from a mentor and submit a research proposal; details of this procedure are available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/courses/w3500/index.htm. A paper summarizing results of the work is required by the last day of finals for a letter grade; no late papers will be accepted. See the course web site (above) for more details. Students can take anywhere from 2-4 points for this course.
Prerequisites: POLS V1501 or the equivalent. Admission by application through the Barnard department only. Enrollment limited to 16 students. Barnard syllabus. Comparative political economy course which addresses some important questions concerning corruption and its control: the concept, causes, patterns, consequences, and control of corruption. Introduces students to and engages them in several key social science debates on the causes and effects of political corruption.
In this course you will be asked to re-think American history. That is, we will approach the history of America as a continental history. This will require that we think of North America as a New World space, a place that was inhabited and occupied by indigenous peoples, and then remade by the arrival and settlement of Europeans. You will be asked to imagine a North America that was indigenous and adaptive, as well as colonial and Euro-American. This approach to the study of North American history is designed to challenge the epistemology and literature of the history of colonization and American expansion, which displaces Native peoples from the central narrative of American history by placing them at the physical margins of colonial and national development. Instead we will explore the intersection and integration of indigenous and Euro-American national identity and national space in North America and trace their co-evolution from first contact through the early nineteenth century.
Love and sex have long been studied as historical constructs influenced by social, political, and economic dimensions. This course aims to expand this discourse by incorporating the often-overlooked lens of technological mediation. Beginning with the premise that romantic love is deeply shaped by the affordances of the technology of the time, a critical awareness of technological mediation in romance –especially of digital technologies, i.e. online dating, social media, or cybersex— allows for a deeper understanding of how social categories such as gender, race, class, ability, or sexuality are technologically-mediated, thereby informing our societal and cultural perceptions of love, dating, and sex.
Sandra Moyano-Ariza is Term Assistant Professor of WGSS and Research Director at BCRW. Her research works at the intersection of pop culture, philosophy, and digital technologies, with interests in the fields of media studies and digital scholarship, contemporary feminist theory, critical race theory, posthumanism, and affect theory.
A major challenge for governments across the Western Hemisphere is the complex relationship between illicit economies, violence, and politics. We can see this relationship operating at multiple levels, from everyday politics in gang-controlled neighborhoods where drugs are trafficked to the Amazon where illegal extraction of natural resources poses significant threats to the environment at the local and global levels. Today, the dynamics and consequences of the politics of illicit economies touch all our lives in different ways, including individual and family struggles with substance abuse, everyday encounters with militarized police, environmental degradation, state corruption, and the strains on democracy and citizenship, among many others. This course will examine some of these dynamics and consequences with a theoretical and empirical focus mainly on the Western Hemisphere. Throughout our time together we will connect these pressing issues to broader theories, concepts and empirical findings in political science.
Comparative study of gender, race, and sexuality through specific historical, socio-cultural contexts in which these systems of power have operated. With a focus on social contexts of slavery, colonialism, and modern capitalism for the elaboration of sex-gender categories and systems across historical time.
This interdisciplinary course surveys literary, cinematic, historical and other archival text representations of time and change in and around waterways in the Global South—oceanic, riverine, at the littoral and in hinterlands. It is animated by questions of how people live with water as horizon, resource, life-giving source, as ancestral boundaries and threat. We do so now in a time when climate change refocuses our dependencies upon, and vulnerabilities to, water.
Our themes are shaped by water’s influence on the rhythms of lives, and how these rhythms have been changed and are changing—deliberately, as in dam building and its aftermaths in lives, and through climate change.
In this course, students will write original, independent papers of around 25 pages, based on research in both primary and secondary sources, on an aspect of the relationship between Columbia College and its colonial predecessor Kings College, with the institution of slavery.
Historical, comparative study of the cultural effects and social experiences of U.S. imperialism, with attention to race, gender and sexuality in practices of domination and struggle.
The title of this course suggests that there are literatures across the “globe” written in English, and that we will study them. But this statement rests on a series of assumptions: the
a priori
existence of a globe with latitudes, longitudes, and borders; a singular category of “literature” produced in different geographical locations across the globe; and finally, that these literatures are written in English. During the course of the semester, we will investigate and (occasionally overturn) all three of these assumptions.
In order to do so, we will read across different literary genres (short stories and novels, plays, poetry, and essays), while also reading texts that move between these genres or defy them altogether. We will read texts that were originally written in English, as well as texts that have been translated into English, and we will learn and discuss the term “global anglophone” along with the ways in which this term has been challenged. During our collective readings and discussions, we will map the locations that arise in each text
and
the locations out of which these texts arise. We will study the relationship between literature, translation, and mapping, and we will learn and discuss the concept of planetary thinking and writing as an alternative to border and global thinking.
Prerequisites: POLS W1201 or the equivalent. Not an introductory-level course. Not open to students who have taken the colloquium POLS BC3326. Enrollment limited to 25 students; L-course sign-up through eBear. Barnard syllabus. Explores seminal caselaw to inform contemporary civil rights and civil liberties jurisprudence and policy. Specifically, the readings examine historical and contemporary first amendment values, including freedom of speech and the press, economic liberties, takings law, discrimination based on race, gender, class and sexual preference, affirmative action, the right to privacy, reproductive freedom, the right to die, criminal procedure and adjudication, the rights of the criminally accused post-9/11 and the death penalty. (Cross-listed by the American Studies and Human Rights Programs.)
The Senior Seminar in Women's Studies offers you the opportunity to develop a capstone research paper by the end of the first semester of your senior year. Senior seminar essays take the form of a 25-page paper based on original research and characterized by an interdisciplinary approach to the study of women, sexuality, and/or gender. You must work with an individual advisor who has expertise in the area of your thesis and who can advise you on the specifics of method and content. Your grade for the semester will be determined by the instructor and the advisor. Students receiving a grade of B+ or higher in Senior Seminar I will be invited to register for Senior Seminar II by the Instructor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Senior Seminar II students will complete a senior thesis of 40-60 pages. Please note, the seminar is restricted to Columbia College and GS senior majors.
Student-designed capstone research projects offer practical lessons about how knowledge is produced, the relationship between knowledge and power, and the application of interdisciplinary feminist methodologies.
This course explores how New York City didn't just host the American comics industry—it shaped what comics looked like, how they were sold, and what stories they told. We'll trace how the city's newspapers, newsstands, subway cars, tenement buildings, and even its crime waves left their mark on the page. We'll move chronologically from the 1890s to today, looking at moments when the city and the comics it produced were tightly linked: early newspaper strips born in the era of “yellow journalism”; the Golden Age publishers clustered in Midtown offices; the censorship battles of the 1950s; underground cartoonists working out of East Village apartments in the ’60s and ’70s; and the rise of graphic novels in bookstores and museums. Along the way, we'll ask: Why did superhero comics look the way they did? How did economic pressures shape page layout? What happens when the same city produces both blockbuster superhero titles and experimental art magazines?
Readings range from early Sunday pages (the Yellow Kid, Winsor McCay) through Will Eisner’s
A Contract with God
and Frank Miller’s
Daredevil
and
The Dark Knight Returns
, to Art Spiegelman’s
RAW
magazine, Ben Katchor’s urban wanderings, Roz Chast’s
New Yorker
cartoons, and contemporary mainstream works like
Hawkeye
’s “Pizza Dog” issue. Famously, Eisner drew on his Bronx childhood to create
A Contract with God
, while Miller’s work channels the gritty, anxious New York of the late 1970s and early ’80s. But we’ll look at the full range of what the city made possible, from newspaper syndicates to underground comix to today’s independent publishers.
You’ll learn to read comics closely by analyzing how panel grids, gutters, shadows, and perspectives work and by connecting those choices to the real-world conditions in which they were made. Optional Saturday field trips include Newspaper Row/City Hall Park (early press and Sunday pages), an East Village Underground walk (
East Village Other
/
Gothic Blimp Works
sites), and a visit to the Society of Illustrators/MoCCA (exhibition and archives orientation).
Course assignments combine analytical writing, archival engagement, and original digital scholarship. In addition to two short close-reading essays, there is a final project that takes the form of
Why do some countries develop well-functioning states capable of providing security and public services to their citizens while others do not? Why do some develop a strong sense of national identity and unity, while others are plagued by ethnic and communal divisions? How do the structure and strength of the state shape the development of national and other identities, and how do those identities in turn shape the state? This course examines these and related questions from historical and comparative perspectives, drawing on cases from different world regions in both the past and the present.