This course introduces the legal frameworks, institutions, and advocacy strategies that underpin the international human rights system. With a practitioner’s lens, students will explore civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights through treaties, customary law, and jurisprudence. Emphasis is placed on understanding where and how the law offers avenues for redress, and the evolving role of human rights advocacy in confronting modern challenges, including corporate accountability, gender discrimination, and climate justice.
Students will examine the structure and operation of key international and regional human rights mechanisms, the limits and opportunities of legal enforcement, and the relationship between international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The course integrates doctrinal learning with applied analysis through case studies, reflections, and simulations.
Attendance in the first class session is mandatory.
Practical and theoretical issues relating to the teaching of psychology and the psychology of teaching.
MPA Financial Management Core I and II.
This course introduces the principles and practices of financial reporting, with the goal of enabling students to become informed users of financial information in both public and private sector contexts. Emphasis is placed on understanding the three primary financial statements: the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows; and the accounting concepts and rules that shape them. Students will examine how financial information is prepared, disclosed, and interpreted, and will develop analytical tools to assess an organization’s financial health and operational effectiveness. Real-world financial statements will be used throughout the course to build fluency in the language and application of accounting.
MPA Financial Management Core I and II.
This course introduces the principles and practices of financial reporting, with the goal of enabling students to become informed users of financial information in both public and private sector contexts. Emphasis is placed on understanding the three primary financial statements: the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows; and the accounting concepts and rules that shape them. Students will examine how financial information is prepared, disclosed, and interpreted, and will develop analytical tools to assess an organization’s financial health and operational effectiveness. Real-world financial statements will be used throughout the course to build fluency in the language and application of accounting.
This course provides an introduction to major schools of thought about play structure and the practice of dramaturgy in the western theatre. Through directed readings and an ongoing practical project centered around one play, students will develop a deeper understanding of how dramatic writing functions as a blueprint for a life on the stage, and a refined vocabulary to describe story structures and dramatic writing techniques. By learning to view and question a play from a kaleidoscopic range of angles, students will enhance their abilities to take a printed text onto the live stage.
Prerequisites: students in a masters program must seek the director of the M.A. program in statistics' permission; students in an undergraduate program must seek the director of undergraduate studies in statistics' permission. A general introduction to mathematical statistics and statistical decision theory. Elementary decision theory, Bayes inference, Neyman-Pearson theory, hypothesis testing, most powerful unbiased tests, confidence sets. Estimation: methods, theory, and asymptotic properties. Likelihood ratio tests, multivariate distribution. Elements of general linear hypothesis, invariance, nonparametric methods, sequential analysis.
Prerequisites: STAT G6201 and STAT G6201 This course will mainly focus on nonparametric methods in statistics. A tentavie list of topics to be covered include nonparametric density and regression function estimation -- upper bounds on the risk of kernel estimators and matching lower bounds on the minimax risk, reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, bootstrap and resampling methods, multiple hypothesis testing, and high dimensional stastistical analysis.
This course is designed to prepare social workers for clinical work with bereaved families. We emphasize the idea that grief therapy focuses importantly on active listening linked to interventions that provide validation, support or guidance. We provide a way of understanding grief using an attachment theory model that explains a big-picture framework for understanding grief and adaptation to loss. The centerpiece of the course is a presentation of an approach to grief therapy derived from our efficacy-tested treatment for complicated grief and incorporating attention to self-care, racism, ethical obligations and dilemmas and using peer or experienced supervision in doing grief therapy.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This course provides an introduction to the political economy of finance, trade, and international monetary policy, presenting both theoretical perspectives and more policy-oriented concerns. The course requires no knowledge of formal economic models, but it does presume familiarity with basic concepts in open economy macroeconomics and finance. Students without this background may find several sections of the course very difficult. The course has three main sections. The first examines the political economy of the global monetary system. We begin by surveying the evolution of international monetary arrangements from the gold standard period to the present day. Then we analyze the difficulties posed by floating rates and capital mobility as well as the global imbalances that have been frequent features of contemporary times. In addition, we examine the Euro crisis and trace its origins to the establishment of the monetary union. The second section examines the political economy of trade policy, focusing on its links to international monetary affairs. In addition, it explores commercial policy and the recent turn to protectionism led by the United States. The final section considers financial crises, with a special focus on the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98 and 2007/08 global crisis that had its origins in the United States.
Students explore more deeply the range of skills and techniques necessary to direct both short and feature films including script breakdown of sequences, scenes, turning points and beats as well as advanced study of actor and camera staging. Students will hone their directing skills by preparing, shooting, and editing, in video, a minimum of three significant scenes from published or original work, depending on priority of the instructor. When taken concurrently, at least one of these scenes will be presented in Directing the Actor workshops. Students should also be working on a first draft of a short screenplay for their second-year project if they intend to take Directing 4.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Prerequisites: the director of graduate studies' permission. Corequisites: ECON G6410. Consumer and producer behavior; general competitive equilibrium, welfare and efficiency, behavior under uncertainty, intertemporal allocation and capital theory, imperfect competition, elements of game theory, problems of information, economies with price rigidities.
This is the second of two semester-long courses that provide graduate students with an overview of the scholarly study of American politics. G6210 and G6211 constitute the American politics field survey. The field survey is designed for political science doctoral students who intend to specialize in American politics, as well as for those students whose primary interests are comparative politics, international relations, or political theory, but who desire an intensive introduction to the American style of political science. In this course we will cover a range of topics related to American politics that, for the most part, are not covered in G6210. Our focus will be on public opinion and political behavior. The reading assignments are a mix of foundational contributions (i.e. the canons of American politics literature) and recent research. The first part of each seminar session will aim to clarify and probe enduring puzzles, theories, and debates highlighted in the foundational texts. The latter portion of the seminar session will focus on how recent studies contribute to ongoing debates and define the research agenda going forward.
New technologies for capturing carbon dioxide and disposing of it away from the atmosphere. Detailed discussion of the extent of the human modifications to the natural carbon cycle, the motivation and scope of future carbon management strategies and the role of carbon sequestration. Introduction of several carbon sequestration technologies that allow for the capture and permanent disposal of carbon dioxide. Engineering issues in their implementation, economic impacts, and the environmental issues raised by the various methods.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
Prerequisites: the director of graduate studies' permission. Concept of full employment. Models of underemployment and theory applicability, determinants of consumption and of investment, multiplier and accelerator analysis, an introduction to monetary macroeconomics, the supply side and inflation. Integration of macroeconomics with microeconomic and monetary analysis.
Concepts, principles, and applications of various sensors for sensing structural parameters and nondestructive evaluation techniques for subsurface inspection, data acquisition, and signal processing techniques. Lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on laboratory experiments.
This course will explore plausible analytical responses to a selection of diverse sonic works from the past five decades, with emphasis on works that expand or challenge existing analytical methodologies and assumptions. The goal of this course is not to offer strict analytical models or standard procedures, but to foster analytical conversations that are pertinent to their subjects while broadening the understanding of what music analysis as it relates to new music can offer.
Prerequisites: Enrollment in the MARSEA program This seminar represents the first half of a year-long course designed for students in the MARSEA program. It offers an introduction to the social scientific study of East Asia, with special attention to China, Japan, the two Koreas, and Taiwan. With the aid of guest presentations by faculty and scholars affiliated with the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, we will explore critically some of the major conceptual and methodological concerns that inform social scientific scholarship in the region. A linked aim for the course is to support students as they choose and develop topics and research designs for their M.A. theses. To that end, the course includes sessions introducing key resources and tools for research, as well as collaborative workshops designed to help students frame and draft thesis proposals.
This course explores the multidimensional nature of teaching and learning science education. It does so through a deep dive into pedagogical theory and practice, the nature of science, and the social-cultural aspects of education. The class is intended for students who may enter fields requiring elements of public education and who want to learn how to teach others.
This class takes the creation and inhabitation of place as its focus, drawing on diverse conceptual frameworks from anthropology and beyond to think critically about landscape and the forms of life and non-life through which it is constituted. Well look at the history of approaches to landscape and then address a range of case studies that attempt to decenter the human and to imagine a non-anthropocentric form of inquiry to place-making. How might such modes of approach reconfigure what is understood by landscape and the coming into being of place?
A close examination of Dostoevsky’s
Brothers Karamazov
, supplemented by a reading of related texts: works by Dostoevsky and others, notebooks for the novel; essays, theoretical and critical works, and works that illuminate the (folk-)religious, aesthetic, philosophical, scientific, and political dimensions of the novel.
This course explores the process of EU policy-making - how and why certain public policies are pursued by the institutions of the European Union - and analyses what the Union is doing to address a number of major policy challenges in today's interdependent world. After providing a general introduction to the overall policy process in the EU - looking at how policies are born, adopted, enacted, implemented and reviewed - this term's course will examine the specific policy agenda of the current European Commission (2019-24), led by Ursula von der Leyen, and do a 'deep dive' into EU action in three areas: the fight against climate change, the development of a 'digital Europe', and the EU response to the on-going coronavirus crisis. It will identify the key characteristics of these policies, assess how far they are succeeding or failing, and ask what they show about the evolving EU political system. The course will round off with an assessment of the growing emphasis on strategic foresight in the EU policy-making and identify new policies that are likely to be developed in coming years. Taught from a practitioner perspective by Anthony Teasdale, Director General of the European Parliament's research service, the course aims to provide a firm grounding in modern EU policy and should appeal to those interested both in EU politics and in the individual policy issues under discussion.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
Sustainability Management
introduces students to the practical tools and core concepts needed to lead organizations in ways that support environmental sustainability and responsible resource use. Designed for those preparing to work in public, nonprofit, and mission-driven private organizations, the course explores how effective management practices intersect with urgent sustainability challenges.
Each week, students engage with real-world case studies and supporting readings that address issues in organizational strategy, environmental compliance, resource management, sustainability metrics, and equity. The course emphasizes decision-making grounded in practical experience, with lessons drawn from government, nonprofit, and private sector contexts. Topics include energy and water systems, sustainable supply chains, food systems, and the role of public policy in promoting sustainable development.
Through team briefings and individual written assignments, students will analyze sustainability challenges from a managerial perspective and develop actionable strategies for achieving environmental and organizational goals.
This seminar is based entirely on the primary sources of Ṣūfism, including the writings of Qushayrī, Nūrī, Muḥāsibī, Sarrāj, Ghazālī, Hujwīrī, Ibn ʿArabī, Suhrawardī, Shaʿrānī, and al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. We will explore how the leading Ṣūfīs saw themselves and the ways in which they articulated their identity. This is also articulated in the ways they organized their works and constructed the biographies of their ethical exemplars. We will study their major concepts and descriptions of their own experiences, and then theorize their subjective formations as “hermeneutics of the subject.” Inasmuch as this seminar is about how we study and view Ṣūfism, it is also as much about the various ways this conception of the world can inform a basis of a set of critiques of modernity and its epistemologies and practices.
More sophisticated principles are applied and more challenging scenes are presented. Collaboration with a writer is a requirement. Required for Screenwriting and Directing concentrates.
This course provides a rigorous survey of the key areas of natural science that are critical to understanding sustainable development. The course will provide the theories, methodological techniques and applications associated with each natural science unit presented. The teaching is designed to ensure that students have the natural science basis to properly appreciate the co-dependencies of natural and human systems, which are central to understanding sustainable development. Students will learn the complexities of the interaction between the natural and human environment. After completing the course, students should be able to incorporate scholarly scientific work into their research or policy decisions and be able to use scientific methods of data analysis. This is a modular course that will cover core thematic areas specifically, climate, natural hazards, water management, public health/epidemiology, and ecology/biodiversity. To achieve coherence across lectures this course will emphasize how each topic is critical to studies of sustainable development and place-based case studies in recitation will integrate various topics covered. In the lectures and particularly the recitation sections this course will emphasize key scientific concepts such as uncertainty, experimental versus observational approaches, prediction and predictability, the use of models and other essential methodological aspects.
PhD Seminar for Environmental Science for Sustainable Development (SDEV U6240)
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This seminar seeks to engage with materials that question personhood. Drawing on both fictional and non-fictional accounts, we will be involved with textual and visual documents as well institutional contexts in order to revisit such notion under contemporary capitalism. We will cover topics like rites of passage and life cycle, the role of the nation state and local communities in defining a person, the relation between self and non-self, between the living and the dead. We will likewise address vicarious forms of personhood through the prosthetic, the avatar or the heteronomous. But we will also look into forms of dissipation and/or enhancement of personhood through bodybuilding, guinea-piging and pharmo-toxicities. As a whole, the course will bring to light how the question of personhood cross-culturally relates to language, performativity, religion, technology, law, gender, race, class, care, life and death.
This course provides a strong theoretical and practical background in the use of wildlife monitoring techniques to address ecological and conservation orientated questions. The course will conduct an overview of monitoring plan design and the conceptual background needed to understand and critique monitoring plans, and have the basic skills to develop and implement a monitoring program as part of an interdisciplinary team. During this course, we will examine a variety of research and monitoring techniques used by wildlife professionals. We will evaluate the theories, strengths, and weaknesses behind the use of these wildlife techniques and apply them in the field.
MPA Financial Management I Core.
This course provides a practical introduction to budgeting as a critical tool for planning, decision-making, and leadership across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Students will develop hands-on skills in budget creation, financial analysis, and cash flow management while exploring how budgets shape organizational strategy and operations.