The COVID-19 pandemic has made the underlying health disparities that exist in the United States more apparent. The traditional biomedical model places the responsibility of these disparities on the choices that an individual makes. The model assumes that one’s smoking, eating and exercising habits are based on personal choice. Therefore, the prevalence of morbidities such as high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes is the result of an individual’s poor decisions. This course will explore how the conditions under which individuals live, work, play and pray impact their health outcomes. Collectively these conditions are referred to as the Social Drivers of Health (SDoH) and often they reveal the systemic inequalities that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. This course will also call upon the need for a paradigm shift from the "Social" "Determinants" of Health to the “Structural” "Drivers" of Health. This shift is in recognition that it is the underlying structures (laws, material infrastructure) that impact and drive health outcomes. The development of the SDoH has challenged health care providers to look beyond the biomedical model that stresses an individual’s behavior as the main predictor of adverse health conditions. Instead the SDoH focuses on an “upstream” approach that examines the underlying systemic and racial inequalities that impact communities of color and their health outcomes.
Prerequisites: Open to students who have taken at least one course in directing. Required for students approved for Directing thesis, but open to all qualified students. Permission of instructor given at first class meeting. This course requires students to draw on all previous theatre training, synthesizing scholarship and research toward dynamic fully-realized scene work. Emphasis is on the director-actor relationship; students will direct at least three fully-realized scenes, typically drawn from Shakespeare, Chekhov, or other playwrights. Students may have the opportunity to make devised work, and will collaborate with students in the Advanced Acting class. Required for, but not limited to, students undertaking a senior thesis in directing.
Study of apocalyptic thinking and practice in the western religious tradition, with a focus on American apocalyptic religious movements and their relation to contemporary cultural productions, as well as notions of history and politics.
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor, given at first class meeting; enrollment limited to 12. This course teaches the research skills and practices a production dramaturg develops as part of the conceptual work of theatrical production. Course is focused on a series of activities: analyzing dramatic text, comparing different versions of script, conducting archival and cultural research, and presenting it to the production team. Fulfills as a "studio" or "praxis" course toward the Theatre/Drama and Theatre Arts major. Does not fulfill a "seminar or lecture" requirement. Recommended for students undertaking a senior thesis in directing prior to the thesis year.
Prerequisites: ECON UN1105 and MATH UN1101 and (MATH UN1201 or MATH UN1207) The determination of the relative prices of goods and factors of production and the allocation of resources.
Required Discussion section for ECON UN3211 intermediate Economics.
Prerequisites: (MATH UN1101 or MATH UN1207) and ECON UN1105 or the equivalent. Corequisites: MATH UN1201 This course covers the determination of output, employment, inflation and interest rates. Topics include economic growth, business cycles, monetary and fiscal policy, consumption and savings and national income accounting.
Discussion section for ECON UN3213 Intermediate Macro. Student must register for a section.
Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Creative nonfiction is a frustratingly vague term. How do we give it real literary meaning; examine its compositional aims and techniques, its achievements and especially its aspirations? This course will focus on works that we might call visionary - works that combine art forms, genres and styles in striking ways. Works in which image and text combine to create a third interactive language for the reader. Works still termed fiction history or journalism that join fact and fiction to interrogate their uses and implications. Certain memoirs that are deliberately anti-autobiographical, turning from personal narrative to the sounds, sight, impressions and ideas of the writers milieu. Certain essays that join personal reflection to arts and cultural criticism, drawing on research and imagination, the vernacular and the formal, even prose and poetry. The assemblage or collage that, created from notebook entries, lists, quotations, footnotes and indexes achieves its coherence through fragments and associations, found and original texts.
This course traces the history of Korean cinema and literature from the 1930s to the early 2000s. Particular attention is given to colonialism, national division, war, gender relations, authoritarianism, urbanization, consumer culture, and diaspora. What kinds of familial, social, economic, and political relations do these films and literary works envision? We will link films and literary texts to their historical context, noting how representations of people, places, and ideas have changed over time—from colonialism, through poverty and malaise in the aftermath of the Korean War, to North Korea’s continuing search for autonomy in the world system and South Korea’s current position as global economic power and maker of the “Korean Wave ”
Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required.
This course will introduce students to writing about visual art. We will take our models from art history and contemporary art discourse, and students will be prompted to write with and about current art exhibitions and events throughout the city. The modes of art writing we will encounter include: the practice of ekphrasis (poems which describe or derive their inspiration from a work of art); writers such as John Ashbery, Gary Indiana, Eileen Myles, and others who for periods of their life held positions as art critics while composing poetry and works of fiction; writers such as Etel Adnan, Susan Howe, and Renee Gladman who have produced literature and works of art in equal measure. We will also look at artists who have written essays and poetry throughout their careers such as Robert Smithson, Glenn Ligon, Gregg Bordowitz, Moyra Davey, and Hannah Black, and consider both the visual qualities of writing and the ways that visual artists have used writing in their work. Lastly, we will consider what it means to write through a “milieu” of visual artists, such as those associated with the New York School and Moscow Conceptualism. Throughout the course students will produce original works and complete a final writing project that enriches, complicates, and departs from their own interests and preoccupations.
Examines the social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States from colonial period to present. Analyzes how capitalist interests, class differences, gender, immigration, and who “deserves” the full rights and privileges of citizenship, shape boundaries between and within racial and ethnic groups. Also considers how racism affects resource access inequities between racial groups in education, criminal justice, media, and other domains. Explores factors underpinning major social change with an eye toward discerning social conditions necessary to create and sustain just social systems.
Explores the aesthetic and formal developments in Russian prose, especially the rise of the monumental 19th-century novel, as one manifestation of a complex array of national and cultural aspirations, humanistic and imperialist ones alike. Works by Pushkin, Lermonotov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov. Knowledge of Russian not required.
In this seminar, we will target nonfiction from the 1960s—the decade that saw an avalanche of new forms, new awareness, new freedoms, and new conflicts, as well as the beginnings of social movements and cultural preoccupations that continue to frame our lives, as writers and as citizens, in the 21st century: civil rights, feminism, environmentalism, LGBTQ rights, pop culture, and the rise of mass media. We will look back more than a half century to examine the development of modern criticism, memoir, reporting, and profile-writing, and the ways they entwine. Along the way, we will ask questions about these classic nonfiction forms: How do reporters, essayists, and critics make sense of the new? How do they create work as rich as the best novels and short stories? Can criticism rise to the level of art? What roles do voice, point-of-view, character, dialogue, and plot—the traditional elements of fiction—play? As we go, we will witness the unfolding of arguably the most transitional decade in American history—with such events as the Kennedy assassination, the Watts Riots, the Human Be In, and the Vietnam War, along with the rise of Pop art, rock ‘n’ roll, and a new era of moviemaking—as it was documented in real time by writers at
The New Yorker
, New Journalists at
Esquire
, and critics at
Partisan Review
and
Harper
’s, among other publications. Some writers we will consider: James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, Rachel Carson, Dwight Macdonald, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Pauline Kael, Nik Cohn, Joseph Mitchell, Lillian Ross, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, John Updike, Michael Herr, Martha Gellhorn, John McPhee, and Betty Friedan. We will be joined by guest speakers.
All of us have spent many years in school and understand that schools impact our lives in important ways. But how exactly does formal schooling shape young people? And how do students make sense of their lives in the context of schools and educational systems more broadly? In this class we will examine education as a central institution in modern society, and we will grapple with an important question: What role does education play in reinforcing or challenging broader patterns of social inequality and mobility? Particular emphasis will be placed on higher education as a critical site in which these processes take shape.
This craft seminar aims to uncover daring and unusual approaches to literature informed by nonfiction (and nonfiction-adjacent) practices. In this course we will closely read and analyze a diverse set of works, including Samuel R. Delany’s memoir-polemic of New York street life, Lydia Davis’s very short stories drawn from life, Svetlana Alexievich’s “novel of voices,” Sheila Heti’s alphabetical diaries, Adania Shibli’s double-telling of a crime story, Eliot Weinberger’s ways of looking at translation and Chinese poetry, Sei Shōnagon’s observations from eleventh-century Japan, Christopher Isherwood’s autofiction, Emmanuel Carrère’s “nonfiction novels,” Sigrid Nunez’s memoir “of” Susan Sontag, Saidiya Hartman’s critical fabulations, W. G. Sebald’s essay-fiction, and Rainer Maria Rilke’s semiautobiographical novel in journal entries, alongside shorter pieces and extracts by writers like Eileen Myles, Alejandro Zambra, Maria Stepanova, Ben Mauk, and more. What we learn in this course we will apply to our own work, which will consist of regular ungraded generative writing prompts and two graded creative writing responses. Students will also learn to keep a daily writing journal, from which selections will serve as the midterm and final.
Tricksters constitute one of the universal themes or tropes in mythology and folklore of many cultures. Through the discussions of ancient Greek, Native-American, African, Paleo-Asiatic, Scandinavian, African-American, Muslim and Jewish myths and folklore about tricksters, the course will telescope the cultural functions of the comedic transgression as a form of social critique; it will also highlight cynicism, its productive and dangerous aspects. Then we’ll introduce different historical subtypes of tricksters, such as a fool, jester, holy fool, kynik, picaro, con artist, female and queer tricksters, thus moving through premodern and early modern periods. Each type of the trickster is illustrated by literary examples from different world cultures (European and non-European alike) as well as theoretical works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk. Finally, the role of the trickster in modernity will be discussed through the case of Soviet tricksters, who had become true superstars manifesting the resistance to repressive political ideology by the means of “cynical reason”.
The class consists of lectures and group discussions. On Wednesday there will be a lecture for all students; on Monday you will be divided into 3 sections and have separate sessions (all three at the same time in different rooms) led by Teaching Assistants. YOU HAVE TO REGISTER FOR A DISCUSSIONS SESSION AS A SEPARATE COURSE WITH 0 POINTS. Assignments for group discussions are listed on the syllabus along with others. This course is a co-requisite of RUSS UN3232.
Prerequisites: CHEM BC3230. Lecture: MWF 10:00-10:50. Extension of concepts from Organic Chemistry I to conjugated systems; chemistry of the carbonyl group; NMR and IR spectroscopy; bioorganic chemistry.
Tricksters constitute one of the universal themes or tropes in mythology and folklore of many cultures. Through the discussions of ancient Greek, Native-American, African, Paleo-Asiatic, Scandinavian, African-American, Muslim and Jewish myths and folklore about tricksters, the course will telescope the cultural functions of the comedic transgression as a form of social critique; it will also highlight cynicism, its productive and dangerous aspects. Then we’ll introduce different historical subtypes of tricksters, such as a fool, jester, holy fool, kynik, picaro, con artist, female and queer tricksters, thus moving through premodern and early modern periods. Each type of the trickster is illustrated by literary examples from different world cultures (European and non-European alike) as well as theoretical works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk. Finally, the role of the trickster in modernity will be discussed through the case of Soviet tricksters, who had become true superstars manifesting the resistance to repressive political ideology by the means of “cynical reason”.
FORMAT
The class consists of lectures and group discussions. On a typical week, the first class will be a lecture for all students; for the second class of the week, you will be divided into 3 sections and have separate sessions (all three at the same time in different rooms) led by Teaching Assistants. Assignments for group discussions are listed on the syllabus along with others.
We will not break the class in discussion sections before Week 3.
The distribution of students between discussion sections will be announced in class after the beginning of the semester.
Tricksters constitute one of the universal themes or tropes in mythology and folklore of many cultures. Through the discussions of ancient Greek, Native-American, African, Paleo-Asiatic, Scandinavian, African-American, Muslim and Jewish myths and folklore about tricksters, the course will telescope the cultural functions of the comedic transgression as a form of social critique; it will also highlight cynicism, its productive and dangerous aspects. Then we’ll introduce different historical subtypes of tricksters, such as a fool, jester, holy fool, kynik, picaro, con artist, female and queer tricksters, thus moving through premodern and early modern periods. Each type of the trickster is illustrated by literary examples from different world cultures (European and non-European alike) as well as theoretical works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk. Finally, the role of the trickster in modernity will be discussed through the case of Soviet tricksters, who had become true superstars manifesting the resistance to repressive political ideology by the means of “cynical reason”.
FORMAT
The class consists of lectures and group discussions. On a typical week, the first class will be a lecture for all students; for the second class of the week, you will be divided into 3 sections and have separate sessions (all three at the same time in different rooms) led by Teaching Assistants. Assignments for group discussions are listed on the syllabus along with others.
We will not break the class in discussion sections before Week 3.
The distribution of students between discussion sections will be announced in class after the beginning of the semester.
Tricksters constitute one of the universal themes or tropes in mythology and folklore of many cultures. Through the discussions of ancient Greek, Native-American, African, Paleo-Asiatic, Scandinavian, African-American, Muslim and Jewish myths and folklore about tricksters, the course will telescope the cultural functions of the comedic transgression as a form of social critique; it will also highlight cynicism, its productive and dangerous aspects. Then we’ll introduce different historical subtypes of tricksters, such as a fool, jester, holy fool, kynik, picaro, con artist, female and queer tricksters, thus moving through premodern and early modern periods. Each type of the trickster is illustrated by literary examples from different world cultures (European and non-European alike) as well as theoretical works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk. Finally, the role of the trickster in modernity will be discussed through the case of Soviet tricksters, who had become true superstars manifesting the resistance to repressive political ideology by the means of “cynical reason”.
FORMAT
The class consists of lectures and group discussions. On a typical week, the first class will be a lecture for all students; for the second class of the week, you will be divided into 3 sections and have separate sessions (all three at the same time in different rooms) led by Teaching Assistants. Assignments for group discussions are listed on the syllabus along with others.
We will not break the class in discussion sections before Week 3.
The distribution of students between discussion sections will be announced in class after the beginning of the semester.
Until the mid-twentieth century, philosophies of embodiment failed to think through the morphology of trans bodies and lives, leaving trans experience, in a sense, “un-worded” in the critical imagination.
Disruptive Bodies, Disruptive Texts: Trans Imaginings
will examine how trans creatives have responded to this silence, rethinking cis-centric theories of embodiment to unearth innovative “vocabulary” for those lives and bodies long erased from archives and linguistic intelligibilities. Indeed, even in its representations of silence and loss for trans experience, the archive demands a certain attention: What is held in the weight of silence? How do such silences, or rather “silencings,” inform trans embodiment? Is transness destined to forever see itself bound up in hauntings, in violence?
The US publishing industry favours trans narratives that operate within traditional memoir or political and activist nonfiction. Yet, transness, in its disruption of supposed bodily norms, powerfully destabilises essayistic conventions. What is trans nonfiction when its written for us and by us? How then do we define trans nonfiction? What is transness at the level of the sentence, the paragraph? What textures, dimensions, or discussions does it bring to nonfiction as form, genre, and critical discourse?
Disruptive Bodies, Disruptive Texts: Trans Imaginings
will explore transness not only as content but as syntax, as form. The course will consider those works of trans creation that remove cis-lenses for approaching, organising, and understanding trans experience and literature. Instead, we will consider how the trans body emerges as rich centre from which to rework ideas of embodiment and essay form. And from that centre we will disrupt.
Each week, students will receive a generative prompt (either to complete in class or after) specific to the themes and concerns of the relevant reading materials. These are opportunities to experiment as the work will not be workshopped or critiqued.
Twice during the semester, students will lead discussions on assigned books, craft essays, and criticism and theory. At the end of the term, students will submit a final portfolio consisting of a project of their own design.
Prerequisites: One introductory course in Sociology suggested. Social movements and the theories social scientists use to explain them, with emphasis on contemporary American activism. Cases include the Southern civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter, contemporary feminist mobilizations, LGBTQ activism, immigrant rights and more recent forms of grassroots politics.
Seeing the Body: Movement and Physicality in Modern Visual Culture will examine how concepts of
movement, space, and time gained an outsized role in photographic and cinematic experimentation,
typography, interior design and exhibition, contributing a “choreographic voice” to the interwar age.
Prerequisites: EEEB UN1010 or EEEB UN1011 or the instructor's permission. Throughout their range, numerous primate species are on the brink of extinction. This course examines the central issues relating to conservation of wild primates and explores strategies and solutions for preserving these endangered populations. Through the analysis of the ecological and social traits linked to vulnerability and the direct and indirect threats from human activities, students will gain a practical understanding of how to develop successful, sustainable, and practical conservation strategies.
Prerequisites: FREN UN2102 French socio-political issues and language through the prism of film. Especially designed for non-majors wishing to further develop their French language skills and learn about French culture. Each module includes assignments targeting the four language competencies: reading, writing, speaking and oral comprehension, as well as cultural understanding.
This course examines the social roots and impacts of environmental contamination and disasters, in order to understand how humans relate to nature in the context of global racial capitalism and the possibilities for creating a more sustainable world. We will also explore how racism is foundational to environmental exploitation and consider why global struggles for racial justice are crucial for protecting both people and the earth, paying particular attention to how environmental health inequalities are linked to race, class, gender, and nation. We will consider key theories, debates, and unresolved questions in the subfield of environmental sociology and discuss future directions for the sociological study of human/environment relations.
Between prestige and streaming, the medium of television has never covered a wider breadth of narratives, voices, and concerns. This course will take a closer look at the format of the American Drama and how it has served as a cultural tool since its inception, reflecting the concerns of the time in one form or another. Through theoretical readings and sociological texts, the course will survey and sharpen our understanding of the power of the medium when placed in conversation with the greater American discourse.
This class explores Advanced contemporary jazz movement using music from both American and Diasporic pop culture.
The course is an introduction to the visual arts and art professions in the context of French and
francophone arts and cultural institutions. Students will experience arts through class discussions of artistic production and a familiarization with art history and art criticism in French, presentations, workshops, discussions with art professionals, guest lectures, and visits to art museums and
galleries. Students who take the class can apply for paid internships in an art institution in the
spring following the class. In these internships, students will use some of the French language
skills they have acquired in class.
This class will examine the social phenomenon of exclusion. Attempts to understand the social behavior of creating insiders and outsiders is a hallmark in Sociology. How does it happen? What purpose does it serve? Who decides who is in and who is out? While some forms of social closure, like segregation, are more well known, there are numerous mechanisms of social exclusion people and groups employ in the social world. Additionally, forms of exclusion do not always come from the top down as a form of domination, but sometimes from the bottom up, with the goal of resource redistribution. We will study these different forms of exclusion along with the theorized aims these forms of closure seek to achieve to get a more comprehensive picture of how social exclusion is used in the social world.
The study of contemporary flamenco dance technique with special emphasis on improvisation and performance. Through video and reading assignments and attendance at live performances, students will also develop a context for understanding flamenco art, pedagogy, and culture.
In the same way that there can never be a single objective account of an historical event, using one medium to convey a story first told in another is never as straightforward as it might seem. Translating the essence of an existing story to the screen may require making significant changes to the events or characters as they were originally presented. As a screenwriter faced with such an adaptation, you must understand the idiosyncrasies of your craft well enough to recognize what to keep, what to change, and what to leave behind. This course will explore what makes a screen story work, balancing faithfulness and invention.
This course will focus on the mechanisms that drive political behavior in the United States. “Political behavior” is a broad concept, and can include many areas of engagement with civic life such as voting, donating, organizing, advocating, protesting, and more. As we consider “behavior,” we must therefore also take on its foundations: Public opinion, ideology, and partisanship. We will focus primarily (but not exclusively) on mass politics—beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of ordinary citizens—rather than on behaviors of activists or elites. We will also explore the connection between behavior and other factors such as race and place.
Explores the connections between theoretical and practical reason in Kants thinking with special attention to the Critique of Pure Reason and the project of transcendental philosophy.
Prerequisites: 2 semesters of calculus-based introductory physics, Calculus II, BC3242 Quantitative Analysis, or permission of instructor. Exact and approximate solutions to the Schrodinger equation. The structure of atoms and molecules. Chemical bonding and spectroscopy. Computer-based molecular modeling.
In this course, we will approach Fanon’s question through our understanding of violence as it was
invented and deployed from the heart of empire into the colonies. What is fascism and how was it
linked to colonialism, if at all? In what ways were they dependent on each other to conceive a
certain world order, particularly between World War I and II? In other words, how did fascist
visions and colonial practices from the imperial core import repressive structures of violence into
the colonies, and then export those methods of control back into the metropole as a perpetual
renewable source of power?
This course examines the Mediterranean as a site of violence and a theater of “fire and blood,” in
which the inextricable and dialogical bond between colonialism and fascism are tied through
mythologies, discourses, institutions, and of course, revolution. In so doing, we interrogate
Tunisian writer Albert Memmi’s critical intervention of “colonial fascism” that shapes the
confrontations between metropole and colony as an intricate network shaping the contours of the
Mediterranean and renewing itself through violence. It also focuses on the rhetoric undergirding
colonial and fascist discourses, and the counterinsurgent and resistance strategies that, in turn,
challenge these hegemonies. By situating this particular Mediterranean narrative within the
broader colonial discourse, the course encourages critical reflection on the enduring legacies of
imperial power that informs the region’s historical trajectories
Many of us know a second language. How we use it varies – some use it occasionally, others routinely. Recent research in cognitive neuroscience has shed light on the mechanisms associated with the various types of bilingualism, and has shown that using two languages affects a variety of cognitive abilities, starting in infancy and continuing until an old age. The primary findings of recent research in cognitive neuroscience are reviewed and discussed in this course. Bilingualism also has a political facet – governments decide what languages are used in public institutions and taught in schools. This course also evaluates scientific findings on bilingualism for their potential implications on informing parents, educators, and policy makers.
This seminar focuses on writing and cultural productions that reimagine and intervene in the classification of gender. Students will engage with genre theory, as they read across works of fiction, poetry, memoir, and other forms of trans expressivity. This course poses questions about the contours and limits of classification with regards to gender, literature, and politics.
This course explores the negotiation of religion and revolutionary politics in modern China through literature, art, media, and cultural production. Through the course, students will investigate the meaning of “ religion” and its counterparts, such as secularism and superstition, and its relationship to conceptions of modernity in its colonial and anti-colonial registers. The course will tackle the problems religion posed to revolutionary movements while exploring how religion remained an important part of revolutionary culture in China and beyond. Finally, the class addresses the tensions between the religious and the modern in a post-revolutionary moment. The course requires deep engagement with literary, artistic, and cultural materials, such as novels, poetry and films. The course will also introduce political and theoretical writings, both by thinkers in China and other parts of the world. By treating the transformation of China in the twentieth century as an event of global significance, we will examine the implications of these negotiations for our understanding of revolutionary politics worldwide.
Study of contemporary Latin American narrative; its origins and apotheosis. Readings include Machado de Assis, Borges, Garcia Marquez, Puig, and others.
Nonfiction Digital Video Production: Enrollment limited to 12 students. Registering for the course only through myBarnard or SSOL will NOT ensure your enrollment. Attend first class for instructor permission. Lab section required. This workshop course is designed to familiarize students with digital video technologies while they investigate various aesthetic and theoretical concepts related to nonfiction cinema and its engagement with the real. Through weekly readings, discussions, screenings, critiques, and practical exercises, students will develop a solid understanding of how to use digital video as an expressive tool. The course will culminate in the completion of a short video work by each student. Students should be both self-directed and interested in developing a support system for each others work.
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: (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.
Examines the constitutional right of freedom of speech and press in the United States. Examines, in depth, various areas of law, including extremist or seditious speech, obscenity, libel, fighting words, the public forum doctrine, and public access to the mass media. Follows the law school course model, with readings focused on actual judicial decisions.
This seminar will focus on migration patterns, both voluntary and forced, of Jews and Palestinians to and from Israel/Palestine from the late 19th century until the present. These migration patterns of different national and ethnic groups have been informing the social, political and economic dynamics in the State of Israel, as well as the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We first discuss Jewish immigration in the pre-state period (before 1948), Palestinian forced migration in the 1948 and 1967 wars, Jewish immigration to Israel until the 1967 war, and migration of Jews and non-Jews (including labor migrants and refugees) during the post-1967 period. In this context, we will analyze the ethnic/racial and national cleavages – between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews and between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel –that have been developing in Israel since 1948 and before.
In addition, we will discuss Israel’s ‘migration’ into the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967 and the ramifications of such population movement on the Palestinian and Israeli societies. Finally, we will discuss Jewish emigration from Israel,focusing on the number of emigrants and the question of the brain drain from contemporary Israel.
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.
Students address real-world issues in sustainable development by working in groups for an external client agency. Instruction in communication, collaboration, and management; meetings with and presentations to clients and academic community. Projects vary from year to year. Readings in the course are project-specific and are identified by the student research teams.
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: Permission of the instructor given at first class meeting. Students will create and workshop plays, with a focus on learning new approaches to language and structure. Recommended for students undertaking a senior thesis in playwriting.
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.
Prerequisites: SWHL UN2101-UN2102 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: Two years of Wolof or instructor permission. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class
Seniors who are majors in creative writing are given priority for this course. Enrollment is limited, and is by permission of the professor. The senior workshop offers students the opportunity to work exclusively with classmates who are at the same high level of accomplishment in the major. Students in the senior workshops will produce and revise a new and substantial body of work. In-class critiques and conferences with the professor will be tailored to needs of each student. Please visit
https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate
for information about registration procedures.
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.
Introduction to the use of molecular techniques to answer questions about subcellular biological phenomena. Techniques include isolation of genomic and plasmid DNAs, restriction enzyme analysis, DNA and protein electrophoresis, bacterial transformation, and plasmid subcloning.
Prerequisites: BIOL BC1500, BIOL BC1501, BIOL BC1502, BIOL BC1503. Co-requisite: BIOL BC2100. Enrollment limited to 12. Laboratory course in which students conduct original research projects in molecular genetics. Students interested in getting involved in research, or those looking to deepen research design and lab skills in this area, are encouraged to begin with this course. Students will participate in experimental design, conduct and data analysis, and work with key techniques for studying gene structure, expression and function such as nucleic acid extraction and synthesis, cloning, bioinformatics analysis including RNA-Seq, PCR and quantitative PCR, immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy. Students will present their results orally and in writing. Enrollment in both semesters (BIOL BC3305 and BIOL BC3306) of this full-year course is required for credit, and fulfills two upper-level lab courses for the Barnard Biology major. Must be taken in sequence, beginning in the fall. - J. Mansfield
What is ethnography and what makes ethnography “urban”? This course explores how social scientists use ethnography to analyze questions and dilemmas often associated with urban settings. We will combine close readings of ethnographies with field-based inquiry, including our own studies of urban public space. Through both our readings and our field exercises, we will focus on the methods at the heart of ethnography: observation and participant-observation.
As we read other scholars’ work, we will ask how the author uses ethnographic tools to explore issues that are suitable for intensive fieldwork. We will assess which kinds of research problems and theoretical perspectives are a good fit with ethnography and the roles that ethnography can play in transdisciplinary research projects. You will apply what you have learned about research to design your own pilot fieldwork. The ethnographies that we read together will examine intersections of housing, race, and class in urban communities. You are welcome to extend this focus to your own fieldwork, but it’s not required to do so. This is a writing-intensive course, and we will devote a considerable portion of class time to workshop your individual projects.
Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.
Prerequisites: LATN UN2102 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.
This course explores the components, systems, and regulatory mechanisms involved in eukaryotic cellular function. Topics include: signal transduction, translational and protein quality control, organellar and cytoskeletal dynamics, and some coordinated responses such as proliferation and programmed cell death. Throughout the course we will see how general cell biology can be specialized to achieve specific cellular functions through regulation of the basic machinery. We will also explore the cellular and molecular bases for a variety of human pathologies, with an emphasis on cancer. In addition to lecture, we will spend some time discussing the material, including selected articles from the primary literature, and learning through group presentations.
Introduction to cell biological techniques used to investigate structural, molecular, and physiological aspects of eukaryotic cells and their organization into tissues. Techniques include light and electron microscopy, cell culture, isolation of cellular organelles, protein electrophoresis, and Western Blot analysis.
Prerequisites: LIMITED TO 20 BY INSTRUC PERM; ATTEND FIRST CLASS
This course provides a theoretical itinerary to the emergence of contemporary queer theory and engagement with some contemporary legacies of the movement. The goal is not to be exhaustive nor to establish a correct history of queer theory but to engage students in the task of understanding and creating intellectual genealogies.
To maximize their survival animals must regulate their behavior in response to external environmental cues and their own internal state. A fundamental goal of neuroscience is to understand how neural circuits in the brain function to influence behavior. The aim of this course is to highlight the neural basis of innate behaviors that are critical for survival and discuss modern approaches to study the neuronal regulation of classically studied aspects of behavior. We will explore motor control (escape responses), sensory systems (vision, taste, and olfaction), and survival behaviors (feeding, drinking, mating, and aggression). Focus will be on recent and current research, the diversity of approaches for studying it, and how this knowledge can be applied to solve scientific questions. Students will read primary scientific literature and a significant portion of the course will be presentation and discussion-based.
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.
A topical approach to the concepts and practices of music in relation to other arts in the development of Asian civilizations.
This course introduces students to major works, genres and waves of East Asian cinema from the Silent era to the present, including films from Japan, Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. How has cinema participated in East Asian societies’ distinct and shared experiences of industrial modernity, imperialism and (post)colonialism? How has cinema engaged with questions of class, gender, ethnic and language politics? In what ways has cinema facilitated transnational circulations and mobilizations of peoples and ideas, and how has it interacted with other art forms, such as theatre, painting, photography and music? In this class, we answer these questions by studying cinemas across the region sideby- side, understanding cinema as deeply embedded in the region’s intertwining political, social and cultural histories and circulations of people and ideas. We cover a variety of genres such as melodrama, comedy, historical epic, sci-fi, martial arts and action, and prominent film auteurs such as Yasujir? Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Yu Hy?nmok, Chen Kaige, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Ann Hui. As cinema is, among other things, a creative practice, in this course, students will be given opportunities to respond to films analytically and creatively, through writing as well as creative visual projects. As a global core course, this class does not assume prior knowledge of East Asian culture or of film studies.
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.
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.
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Prerequisites: Intermediate Italian II ITAL UN2102 or the equivalent. UN3334x-UN3333y is the basic course in Italian literature. UN3333: This course, entirely taught in Italian, introduces you to Medieval and early modern Italian literature. It will give you the opportunity to test your ability as a close-reader and discover unusual and fascinating texts that tell us about the polycentric richness of the Italian peninsula. We will read poems, tales, letters, fiction and non-fiction, travel writings and political pamphlets. The great “Three Crowns” - Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio - as well as renowned Renaissance authors such as Ludovico Ariosto and Niccolò Machiavelli, will show us the main path to discover Italian masterpieces and understand the European Renaissance. But we will also explore China with Marco Polo and the secrets of the Medieval soul diving into the mystical poems by Jacopone da Todi. We will study parody and laughter through the “poesia giocosa” (parodic poetry) by Cecco Angiolieri and the legacy of Humanism through the letters of Poggio Bracciolini. This first overview will allow you to explore Italian literature from its complex and multicultural beginnings to its diffusion across Europe during the Renaissance.
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.
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.
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?
An exploration of the growing knowledge and technological advances in genetics, with a focus on human genetics, using scientific, popular and artistic sources. The course will cover areas such as genetic testing, personalized medicine, ancestry analysis, genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9, stem cells and cloning. It will involve an examination of scientific sources, portrayals in popular culture and discussions of some of the ethical implications and social/political impacts.
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.