The nature of cinema as a technology, a business, a cultural product, an entertainment medium, and most especially an art form. Study of cinematic genres, stylistics, and nationalities; outstanding film artists and artisans; the relationship of cinema to other art forms and media, as well as to society.
The adjudged authenticity of a work of art is fundamental in determining its value as a commodity on the art market or, for example, in property claim disputes or in issues of cultural property restitution. Using case studies some straightforward and others extremely vexing--this course examines the many ways in which authenticity is measured through the use of provenance and art historical research, connoisseurship, and forensic resources. From within the broader topics, finer issues will also be explored, among them, the hierarchy of attribution, condition and conservation, copies and reproductions, the period eye and the style of the marketplace.
The adjudged authenticity of a work of art is fundamental in determining its value as a commodity on the art market or, for example, in property claim disputes or in issues of cultural property restitution. Using case studies some straightforward and others extremely vexing--this course examines the many ways in which authenticity is measured through the use of provenance and art historical research, connoisseurship, and forensic resources. From within the broader topics, finer issues will also be explored, among them, the hierarchy of attribution, condition and conservation, copies and reproductions, the period eye and the style of the marketplace.
The Introduction to Video Storytelling course teaches students the basics of conceiving, researching, and reporting a story through video. Students will learn to think critically about what makes for a good video story--what makes it newsworthy, what makes video the proper medium for conveying that story--and how to execute using the latest technology. Students will learn how to use and handle a camera, how to best record sound, how to properly frame and light a subject or scene, as well as learn how to use Adobe Premiere editing software. Students will have one complete video story at the end of the 6-week course.
War Reporting: The Coverage of Armed Conflict explores the origins and roles of modern war reporting, examines the challenges journalists face, and discusses journalism's place in the public discourse of armed conflict and political violence, most notably terrorism. Taught by U.S. Marine corps veteran and Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and author, C.J. Chivers, class discussions will be lively and require student engagement. There will be guest lectures and seminars with leading journalists with experience in recent wars, as well discussions with security and legal professionals who assist and guide news organizations in their coverage of war. The examination of risks to journalists on conflict beats will include detailed case studies of real kidnappings and battlefield deaths, and study examples of risk mitigation and best practices in the field. The course is intended for students with a deep interest in war, terrorism and journalism, including both news consumers and aspiring practitioners. It aims to promote skepticism of official narratives and critical thinking about journalism itself.
Prerequisites: STAT UN1201, ECON UN3211 Intermediate Microeconomics and ECON UN3213 Intermediate Macroeconomics. Equivalent to ECON UN3025. Institutional nature and economic function of financial markets. Emphasis on both domestic and international markets (debt, stock, foreign exchange, Eurobond, Eurocurrency, futures, options, and others). Principles of security pricing and portfolio management; the capital asset pricing model and the efficient markets hypothesis.
Prerequisites: (MATH UN2010 and MATH UN2030) or the equivalent introduction to partial differential equations. First-order equations. Linear second-order equations; separation of variables, solution by series expansions. Boundary value problems.
This course will introduce some of the most fascinating texts of the first eight hundred years of English literature, from the period of Anglo-Saxon rule through the Hundred Years’ War and beyond—roughly, 700–1500 CE. We’ll hit on some texts you’ve heard of –
Beowulf
and selections from Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales
– while leaving time for some you may not have encountered – Marie de France’s
Lais
and Margery of Kempe’s
Book
. Along the way, we’ll also hone skills of reading, writing, and oral expression crucial to appreciating and discussing literature in nuanced, supple ways.
If you take this course, you’ll discover how medieval literature is both a mirror and a foil to modern literature. You’ll explore the plurilingual and cross-cultural nature of medieval literary production and improve (or acquire!) your knowledge of Middle English. Plus, you’ll flex your writing muscles with two papers.
This course looks at the narrative and the historical context for an extraordinary event: the conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander III of Macedonia, conventionally known as “Alexander the Great”. We will explore the different worlds Alexander grew out of, confronted, and affected: the old Greek world, the Persian empire, the ancient near-east (Egypt, Levant, Babylonia, Iran), and the worlds beyond, namely pre-Islamic (and pre-Silk Road) Central Asia, the Afghan borderlands, and the Indus valley. The first part of the course will establish context, before laying out a narrative framework; the second part of the course will explore a series of themes, especially the tension between military conquest, political negotiation, and social interactions. Overall, the course will serve as an exercise in historical methodology (with particular attention to ancient sources and to interpretation), an introduction to the geography and the history of the ancient world (classical and near-eastern), and the exploration of a complex testcase located at the contact point between several worlds, and at a watershed of world history.
Political journalism--from the campaign trail to the halls of Congress--has played a vital and important role over the last four years. This course will offer an overview and critical examination of political journalism and the interaction of media with the White House, Congress, campaigns and statehouses. It will explore how technology and polarization have changed coverage of politics, as well as ethical considerations, shifting newsroom expectations and the challenges facing journalists as they cover campaigns and American political institutions.
The course is intended for students with a deep interest politics and journalism, including both news consumers and aspiring practitioners. It aims to both provide practical training and promote critical thinking about political journalism itself. The focus will be largely on print journalism, though radio and television work will be briefly explored along with opinion writing. This will be a writing intensive class with a focus on practical skills. Workshopping of written articles will be required and there will be in-class writing and reporting exercises. Students will both examine their own biases and meet with leading practioners of the craft.
The course is led by
New York Times
political reporter Lisa Lerer.
The goal of this course is to provide students with an overview of constitutive debates over the theory and practice of democracy along three major lines: democracy as a word (with a time-honored ancestry and a tortuous trajectory across the centuries); democracy as a constellation of principles and values; and democracy as an array of institutions and procedures that instantiate the word and pursue the foundational principles of popular sovereignty and democratic self-rule. In doing so, we will read the work of major representatives of historical and contemporary political thought who assessed democracy’s shortcomings and potential, examined the relationship between its theory and its practice, and offered prominent resources for thinking about democracy’s future in our present.
Capitalism shapes every aspect of our daily lives. Thinkers on both the left and the right of the political spectrum agree that capitalism structures our economic, social, and political relationships. Yet, there is little agreement as to the definition of capitalism and its normative implications. The definition and interpretation of capitalism differs across time and space, always evolving in response to challenges, crises, and contradictions. The aim of this course is to provide students with analytical tools to think critically and historically about the concept of capitalism. By studying how philosophers, economists, and political theorists have defined and described the concept of capitalism throughout its history (from the early seventeenth century to the present), students will be provided with a set of terminologies and analytical frameworks that enable them to interrogate the various dimensions of capitalism. The readings in the course are selected to illustrate the fact that capitalism has always been controversial. We will read texts authored by both proponents and critics of capitalism. We will explore how various canonical figures have thought about private property, markets, money, economic growth, injustice, inequality, alienation, and socialism.
This is an intensive, six-week class moving from the basics of paint materials, techniques, issues of color, light, narrative and most of all representation. Students will begin working from still life set-ups in the studio and gradually move towards more ambitious approaches including figure painting from a model. Towards the end of the class students will be encouraged to work on a project or projects that more closely reflect their personal ideas.
Prerequisites: MATH UN1101 and ECON UN1105 or the equivalent; one term of calculus. 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.
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.
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 course is an introduction to American constitutional law. We examine key historical debates surrounding the constitution’s framing, ratification, and subsequent amendments, and study several major court decisions that have elaborated the constitution’s meaning over time. We will explore competing theories of how the constitution should be interpreted, how the constitution distributes and limits the power of different branches of government, and which fundamental political and civil rights the constitution guarantees (see the schedule of readings for specific topics). Students will regularly discuss, debate, and write about these issues.
A major learning goal of the course is to practice the skills needed to understand a legal argument and to articulate our own. Students will learn how to identify the different elements of a legal opinion, how to formulate a legal opinion, and how to conduct basic legal research.
This urban politics course examines the evolving intergovernmental structure of political power in and relative to American cities. It includes factors that range from globalization to national and state policies and politics, down through the local level where - to misquote former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill - “all politics used to be local.“ It focuses on the context and drivers of local government politics, structures, and decision-making frameworks and on the evolution of cities’ patterns of relationships with state and national governments. Themes include power and decision-making, the leadership and administration of cities, present day problems and strategies to deal with them, the historical origins of urban politics, past federal and state policies toward cities and the contemporary consequences of these patterns. The survivability of the city in the face of contemporary overlapping crises will be addressed. Among other topics, students can expect to focus on urban political economy, political machines and urban reform, immigration, race and ethnicity in urban politics, regional efforts to contend with economic development and crisis, federal laws and policies that have shaped today’s urban environment, the day to day administration of cities, and urban problems such as fiscal strain, poverty, the burden of growth and attracting economic investment, the costs and consequences of urban terror, disaster, extreme political lability, and the evolving global city.
This course provides an introduction to Shakespeare through a combination of reading his plays and viewing them in performance. On the one hand, we approach each play as a written, published text: our in-class conversation consist primarily in close analysis of key passages, and, in one class period, we visit Rare Books to examine the earliest printed versions of the plays in light of English Renaissance print technology. On the other hand, we view performances of each assigned play, including the attendance as a group of at least one Shakespeare production on an NYC stage. Our semester’s through line is to trace, from his earliest plays to Hamlet, Shakespeare’s remarkable development of the techniques of characterization that have made generations of both playgoers and readers feel that his dramatis personae are so modern, real, human. We will also devote attention to exploring the value of each play in our present moment and on our local stages. We read 8 plays in all, including Titus Andronicus, Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet.
This is the required discussion section for
POLS S3233.
Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 or the equivalent. Introduction to the principles of money and banking. The intermediary institutions of the American economy and their historical developments, current issues in monetary and financial reform.
Walt Whitman was not the first to write about New York. But he was the first of many to let New York write him. By age 43, Whitman had composed most of his best poetry, published three editions of Leaves of Grass, and left New York only twice. How did the second son of an unsuccessful farmer, a grammar school dropout and hack writer become America’s greatest poet? This course offers a response to this perennial mystery of literary scholarship by proposing that “Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son” was indeed a product of his environment. Coming of age as a writer at the same time the city was emerging as a great metropolis, he received his education and inspiration from New York itself. Course time is equally divided between discussions of Whitman’s antebellum poetry, journalism, and prose (including the newly recovered Life and Adventures of Jack Engle) in their cultural and geographical contexts, and on-site explorations that retread Whitman’s footsteps through Brooklyn and his beloved Mannahatta. Experiential learning is further encouraged through assignments based in archives, museums, and at historic sites throughout the city.
Introduction to and analysis of major myths in classical literature. Topics include the changing attitudes and applications of myth from Greek epic to tragedy, as well as modern approaches to myth. Readings include Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. All readings in English.
Many people don’t think of themselves as having attended segregated schools. And yet, most of us went to schools attended primarily by people who look very much like ourselves. In fact, schools have become more segregated over the past 30 years, even as the country becomes increasingly racially diverse. In this class, we will use public schools in New York as an example to examine the role race plays in shaping urban spaces and institutions.
We will begin by unpacking the concept of racialization, or the process by which a person, place, phenomenon, or characteristic becomes associated with a certain race. Then, we will explore the following questions: What are the relationships between city schools and their local contexts? What does it mean to be a “neighborhood school”? How are spaces inside of schools racialized? We will use ethnographies, narrative nonfiction, and educational research to explore these questions from a variety of perspectives. You will apply what you have learned to your own experiences and to current debates over urban policies and public schools.
This course will extend your understanding of key anthropological and sociological perspectives on urban inequality in the United States, as well as introduce you to critical theory.
A topical approach to the concepts and practices of music in relation to other arts in the development of Asian civilizations.
This course is a topical (not comprehensive) survey of some of the musical traditions of South and West Asia, and of their diasporas. Each tradition will be described locally, connecting it to critical themes that the course aims to explore. The purpose of the course is to introduce you to a range of indigenous and diasporic “Asian” musical styles, ideas, traditions, and artists through an interdisciplinary approach to the study of music as culture. No previous background in music is required.
A survey of major themes of Existentialist philosophy in Europe from the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century, this class will focus on Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre and their influences on philosophical conceptions of the human being and the form of its freedom, and the consequences of anxiety, nihilism, and despair in the face of death.
Historiographically speaking this course is a study of the complex processes that evolve social memory and shape various (often deeply contested) historical narratives. Practically speaking, this course is a study of objects (“scraps” and “fragments”) that “fix” history within the matrices of particular technologies (manuscripts, books, photographs, recorded sound and moving image) at a particular moment in time and amid a variety of historical contexts (most of which quickly become invisible to posterity). Our challenge, really the challenge for all researchers, is to reconcile the process by which fixed history is evolved into both memory and narrative.
But, first, we distinguish “American Memory” from “American History.” To begin, I suggest that history is memory codified and placed within a particular narrative (generally the final product is a published volume). We need to consider, however, that Americans are exceptionally good at democratizing technologies of memory: Thomas Edison (recorded sound, moving image), Polaroid, and Steve Jobs (I-phone) revolutionized how (and by whom) memory is captured and shared. I suggest, that such a collective history of memory making has created massive new opportunities to expand upon and revaluate the boundaries of “American History.”
Within this critical context we will then engage the complex contestations of history that are shaping American culture today. Does America have a national origin story? Across American history how have the experiences of Native Americans been remembered, forgotten, and (re)remembered? What is “The Lost Cause” and how can a narrative composed in 1865 still be tearing at the very fabric of American society? What is “the West”? Could the advances in Civil Rights (broadly conceived) that we associate with post World War II America have been possible without the documentation and preservation of the memories of marginalized populations from before World War II (this includes focused study of the WPA during the 1930s as well as the phenomena of “America’s documentary aesthetic.” More recently, we will consider the connection between the processes of memorializing the Aids epidemic (the famous Aids Memorial Quilt) and the rapid acceleration of LGBTQ+ rights in America.
New media is nothing new. New media historians trace rich record of the moments when some new textual technology entered the public sphere and provoked responses ranging from widespread anxiety and to revolutionary fervor. We will examine the cultural anxieties that attend new media, stretching from Plato’s
Phaedrus
—where Socrates warns that the advent of writing will destroy people’s memories—to today, when Nicholas Carr asks “Is Google making us stupid?” The clay tablet, the codex, the printing press, the chalkboard, the telegraph, the typewriter, the pdf, computer coding, and the smart phone have each promised to revolutionize the reading and writing publics, access to power, and even how people think.
This course examines those promises within their historical contexts, through critical study, and using hands-on experiences. For instance, we will study the role of clay tablets in upholding ancient empires at the same time that we craft our own clay tablet texts. We will take notes with ink pens while we study the role of Medieval scribes in spreading Christianity and Islam. We will create ‘zines while studying the Riot Grrl movement. And we will create our own html hypertexts (no prior coding experience required) as we read the earliest hypertext fiction. These hands-on experiences move arguments about the dangers and revelations of writing technologies out of the realm of the hypothetical and into the realm of the experiential.
The class will visit Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML) and Barnard’s Zine Archive, where we will look at textual artifacts, from ancient papyri to early print and digital texts. Our approach will prepare you to situate the contemporary textual technologies you take for granted (IMs, Twitter, Google Docs, and so on) within the long history of new media. And it will teach those pursuing literary studies, new media studies, and computer science research methods required to examine a text as a technology.
This class examines venues in New York City constructed specifically for entertainment, recreation, and relaxation. Organized typologically, it covers parks, playgrounds, theaters, performing arts complexes, World’s Fairs, hotels, department stores, and museums from the perspective of architectural history and urban planning, while taking into account issues such as class and race, private and public patronage, the city’s transition from industrial hub to global cultural capital, and the financial and social impact of the entertainment industry on the people of New York. Above all, it explores the ways in which places of play, recreation, and escape have shaped and continue to reshape the identity of the city that never sleeps. The 4-credit course includes numerous class trips, some of which will take place beyond regular class time.
Advanced introduction to classical sentential and predicate logic. No previous acquaintance with logic is required; nonetheless a willingness to master technicalities and to work at a certain level of abstraction is desirable.
Introduction to the fundamentals of silkscreen techniques. Students gain familiarity with the technical processes of silkscreen and are encouraged to use the processes to develop their visual language. Students are involved in a great deal of drawing for assigned projects. Portfolio required at end.
Prerequisites: STAT UN1201 Intro to Stats w/Calculus, MATH UN1201 Calculus III, and either intermediate micro or macro (UN3211 or UN3213). Equivalent to ECON UN3412. Modern econometric methods, the general linear statistical model and its extensions, simultaneous equations and the identification problem, time series problems, forecasting methods, extensive practice with the analysis of different types of data.
Coming on the heels of the MoMA's blockbuster exhibit, this seminar will trace the rise and fall of Abstract Expressionism, from its pre-World War II precipitates in Europe (Surrealism) and in America (Regionalism), to the crucial moment when, as scholar Serge Guilbaut has argued, New York 'stole' the idea of modern art, and finally, through the decade when Pop Art rendered Abstract Expressionism obsolete. Although special emphasis will be given to Jackson Pollock, whose persona and work reside at the literal and figurative center of the movement, we will also look closely at works by Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Willem DeKooning, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Eva Hesse, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly. Class lectures and presentations will be supplemented with trips to New York's world-renowned museums.
Coming on the heels of the MoMA's blockbuster exhibit, this seminar will trace the rise and fall of Abstract Expressionism, from its pre-World War II precipitates in Europe (Surrealism) and in America (Regionalism), to the crucial moment when, as scholar Serge Guilbaut has argued, New York 'stole' the idea of modern art, and finally, through the decade when Pop Art rendered Abstract Expressionism obsolete. Although special emphasis will be given to Jackson Pollock, whose persona and work reside at the literal and figurative center of the movement, we will also look closely at works by Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Willem DeKooning, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Eva Hesse, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly. Class lectures and presentations will be supplemented with trips to New York's world-renowned museums.
This lecture examines how the American presidency evolved into the most important job on earth. It examines how major events in US and world history shaped the presidency. How changes in technology and media augmented the power of the president and how the individuals who served in the office left their marks on the presidency. Each class will make connections between past presidents and the current events involving today's Commander-in-Chief. Some topics to be discussed: Presidency in the Age of Jackson; Teddy Roosevelt and Presidential Image Making; Presidency in the Roaring ‘20s; FDR and the New Deal; Kennedy and the Television Age; The Great Society and the Rise of the New Right; 1968: Apocalyptic Election; The Strange Career of Richard Nixon; Reagan's Post Modern Presidency; From Monica to The War on Terror.
This course will introduce students to the history of museums and display practices through New York collections. The birth of the museum as a constitutive element of modernity coincides with the establishment of European nation states. Throughout the course of the nineteenth century, museums were founded in major European and American cities to classify objects, natural and manmade, from plants and fossils to sculpture and clothing. This course presents the alternate art history that can be charted through an examination of the foundation and development of museums from cabinets of curiosity to the collection-less new museums currently being built in the Middle East and beyond. We will consider broad thematic issues such as nationalism, colonialism, canon formation, the overlapping methods of anthropology and art history, and the notion of 'framing' from the architectural superstructure to exhibition design. We will visit a wide variety of museums from the American Museum of Natural History to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum as in-depth case studies of more general concepts. Students will have the opportunity to meet museum educators, conservators and curators through on site teaching in a variety of institutions.
This course will introduce students to the history of museums and display practices through New York collections. The birth of the museum as a constitutive element of modernity coincides with the establishment of European nation states. Throughout the course of the nineteenth century, museums were founded in major European and American cities to classify objects, natural and manmade, from plants and fossils to sculpture and clothing. This course presents the alternate art history that can be charted through an examination of the foundation and development of museums from cabinets of curiosity to the collection-less new museums currently being built in the Middle East and beyond. We will consider broad thematic issues such as nationalism, colonialism, canon formation, the overlapping methods of anthropology and art history, and the notion of 'framing' from the architectural superstructure to exhibition design. We will visit a wide variety of museums from the American Museum of Natural History to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum as in-depth case studies of more general concepts. Students will have the opportunity to meet museum educators, conservators and curators through on site teaching in a variety of institutions.
Through an examination of painting, sculpture, decorative arts, photography. fashion and visual culture of the United States from 1750 to 1914, the course will explore how American artists responded to and operated within the wider world, while grappling with issues of identity at home. Addressing themes shared in common across national boundaries, the class will consider how American art participated in the revolutions and reforms of the "long" nineteenth century, and how events of the period continue to impact our country today. The period witnessed the emergence of new technologies for creating, using and circulating images and objects, the expansion and transformation of exhibition and viewing practices, and the rise of new artistic institutions, as well as the metamorphosis of the United States from its colonial origins to that of a world power, including the radical changes that occurred during the Civil War. With many sessions taking place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the class will investigate how American art engaged with international movements while constructing national identity during a period of radical transformation both at home and abroad.
This course charts the expansion of U.S. military power from a band of colonists to a globe-girdling colossus with over 2.1 million personnel, some 750 bases around the world, and an annual budget of approximately $754 billion — almost half of federal discretionary spending, and more than the next nine nations combined. It introduces students to the history of American military power; the economic, political, and technological rise of the military-industrial complex and national security state; the role of the armed services in international humanitarian work; and the changing role of the military in domestic and international politics. A three-point semester-long course, compressed into six weeks; visit
bobneer.com
for a complete syllabus.
This course investigates the ways in which research in human neuroscience both reflects and informs societal issues. Topics include how neuroscience research is interpreted and applied in areas such as healthcare, education, law, consumer behavior, and public policy.
How does life work on a molecular level? Why do we succumb to disease, and how can we create new cures? This course will explore the biochemistry of life and how this knowledge can be harnessed to create new medicines. You will learn how cells convert environmental resources into energy through metabolism, how cellular molecules function, and how to use this biochemical knowledge for drug discovery related to neurodegeneration, cancer, and the current SARS-CoV-2 COVID19 pandemic. At the conclusion of the course, you will be able to diagram the major metabolic pathways and compare how these pathways are dysregulated in normal tissues in and disease states, and to design your own drug discovery program to create therapeutic for diseases such as COVID-19. In addition, you will know what techniques are used to uncover biochemical knowledge and how to design and interpret relevant experiments. You will be capable of collaborating with other people in the analysis and interpretation of biochemical data, and be able to communicate, defend and refute interpretations of data. You will learn how to create an original research proposal in the form of a research grant application. Having completed one year of college-level biology and one year of organic chemistry will be helpful to maximally benefit from this course. This course satisfies the requirement of most medical schools for introductory biochemistry, and is suitable for advanced undergraduates, and beginning graduate students; this replaces the previous UN3501 course.
The social, cultural, economic, political, and demographic development of America's metropolis from colonial days to present. Slides and walking tours supplement the readings.
In the late seventeenth century, a new genre appears across Europe: the novel. It told the stories – not of the princes and princesses – but of ordinary people on extraordinary voyages, from villages to the Metropolis, from England to Africa and the Americas. In their travels, they encountered not the dragons or giants of romance, but the people and things that made up everyday life in the eighteenth century – country houses and whorehouses, aristocrats and the merchants, pirates and slaves, and a vast array of enticing goods (shoes and coats, silks and ribbons, coffee and opium) produced in early capitalism.
Why does the novel appear? What role does it play, in personal psychology as well as society? Can we account for its increasing popularity as well as its transformations across the eighteenth century? To puzzle these questions, we will place the development of the novel within the history of art, philosophy and science, as well as psychology and literary theory. Writers include Mme. de La Fayette, Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, Eliza Heywood, Henry Fielding, John Cleland, William Godwin, and Jane Austen. Critical readings include selections from Benjamin, Adorno,
Foucault, Elias, Moretti, and others. Note: we will read primarily novellas (short novels) or selections from longer novels in this course.
As a population, Latino, Latina, Latine, and Latinx peoples have been prominent in the public sphere in popular culture, the media, and especially around discussions of immigration. Though individuals with a tapestry of Spanish-Indian-African ancestry (who may be described as “Latinas/os” “Hispanics” or “Latinxs” today) explored the lands of present-day Florida and New Mexico long before English colonizers reached Plymouth Rock, Latina/o/x communities are continually seen as foreigners, immigrants, and “newcomers” to American society. This course aims to place Latina/o populations in the United States within historical context. We begin by asking: Who are Latinas/os in the U.S. and how did they become part of the American nation-state? Why are they identified as a distinct group? How have they participated in American society and how have they been perceived over time? The course will familiarize students with the broad themes, periods, and questions raised in the field of Latinx History. Topics include conquest and colonization, immigration, labor recruitment, education, politics, popular culture, and social movements. The course emphasizes a comparative approach to Latinx history aiming to engage histories from the Southwest, Midwest, and Eastern United States and across national origin groups—Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and South Americans. This class is taught in mostly the modern period (after 1750) within United States history so it can count toward the history major or concentration. Where the course points may be applied depends on a student’s field of specialization within their major or concentration. The course can also count toward the
Global Core
requirement, which is reflected on the Columbia online registry. The class can, moreover, serve as three elective points toward degree progress or as non-technical elective credits. Finally, the course is regularly
cross-listed
with both the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights as well as with American Studies.
A story in the “occupational” genre develops within a professional setting, like a hospital, airport, or police department. Occupational novels (and film and television scripts) are widely consumed but rarely studied. In this course, we will take a deep dive into the history of the genre, beginning with works from French and Soviet realisms, and continuing to American police procedurals and Japanese business novels.
Despite its popular image, works in this genre will lead us to profound philosophical questions about collective intelligence, personal belonging, the emergence of institutional agency, and the feeling of personal powerlessness in the face of large bureaucracies. Readings from Plato, Hobbes, Marx, Mary Douglas, Sara Ahmed other institutional theorists will therefore anchor our weekly discussion.
This course will survey topics in contemporary metaphysics. We will focus on material objects, time, modality, causation, properties, and natural kinds. We will begin by considering what objects there are in general (ontology) and what to say about certain puzzling entities (such as holes). Then we will turn to debates about material objects and puzzles about composite objects and the notion of parthood. Next is the issue of how material objects persist over time and survive change in their parts. We shall consider two important views on persistence. We then turn to two issues related to persistence: personal identity over time, and puzzles about time travel. This will lead us into the next part of the course on modality and causation, which concerns the notions of possibility, necessity, laws of nature, and causation. We will consider different views about 'possible worlds'. We will then consider the nature of laws and causation and then turn to the problem of free will. We will look at debates in the metaphysics of properties between realists and nominalists about properties. Then we'll consider causal powers, dispositions, and natural kinds. The section will conclude with problems about the metaphysics of socially constructed kinds such as race or gender.
A seminar for advanced undergraduate students exploring different areas of clinical psychology. The specific focus within clinical psychology may differ each time the course is offered, so it is possible for the course to be retaken for additional credit.
Prerequisites: the instructor's permission required; contact emccaski@barnard.edu. An introductory course in neuroscience like PSYC 1001 or PSYC 2450. Analysis of the assessment of physical and psychiatric diseases impacting the central nervous system, with emphasis on the relationship between neuropathology and cognitive and behavioral deficits.
This course examines questions in international political economy, asking what we know and how we know it. It addresses questions such as: Why do some countries promote globalization while others resist it? What do IOs do in international politics? Who runs our system of global governance? We will explore these questions and others by focusing on topics such as international trade, foreign aid, investment, and the environment. For each topic, we will use a variety of theoretical lenses and then investigate the evidence in favor of each. More generally, the course will consider the challenges of drawing casual inferences in the field of international political economy. There are no prerequisites for this course but an introductory economy course would be helpful. Students will write a short reading response each week and produce a research proposal for studying a topic related to international political economy, though they do not need to actually conduct this research.
This is the required discussion section for
POLS S3628.
Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. Main objective is to gain a familiarity with and understanding of recording, editing, mixing, and mastering of recorded music and sounds using Pro Tools software. Discusses the history of recorded production, microphone technique, and the idea of using the studio as an instrument for the production and manipulation of sound.
In 2013, Alice Munro was honored with the Nobel Prize in literature. Munro’s award was seen as a literary landmark: the first time that the prize was awarded to a writer whose exclusive form was the short story. The award was seen as fitting recognition, not only for this writer in particular, but also more broadly as moment of recognition for the short story’s importance as a genre, especially in a publishing industry that has long been dominated by the novel.
In this course, we will focus on the contemporary North American short story authors featured on our syllabus: Chimamanda Adichie, George Saunders, Lydia Davis, Carmen Machado, Leanne Simpson, Anthony Veasna So. Some of the writers on this list are veterans of the short story form. Others are authors who recently published debut collections. As we work through our reading list, we will attempt to analyze not only individual short stories, but also what marks these books as collections. What might hold these texts together? What disrupts the unifying principles of a collection? And most importantly, what do short stories offer—in terms of representations of American life and culture and itscomplexity—that other forms do not?
This class aims to introduce students to the logic of social scientific inquiry and research design. Although it is a course in political science, our emphasis will be on the science part rather than the political part — we’ll be reading about interesting substantive topics, but only insofar as they can teach us something about ways we can do systematic research. This class will introduce students to a medley of different methods to conduct social scientific research.
This is the required discussion section for
POLS UN3720.
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.
Six major concepts of political philosophy including authority, rights, equality, justice, liberty and democracy are examined in three different ways. First the conceptual issues are analyzed through contemporary essays on these topics by authors like Peters, Hart, Williams, Berlin, Rawls and Schumpeter. Second the classical sources on these topics are discussed through readings from Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Marx, Plato, Mill and Rousseau. Third some attention is paid to relevant contexts of application of these concepts in political society, including such political movements as anarchism, international human rights, conservative, liberal, and Marxist economic policies as well as competing models of democracy.
This course endeavors to understand the development of the peculiar and historically conflictual relationship that exists between France, the nation-states that are its former African colonies, and other contemporary African states. It covers the period from the 19th century colonial expansion through the current ‘memory wars’ in French politics and debates over migration and colonial history in Africa. Historical episodes include French participation in and eventual withdrawal from the Atlantic Slave Trade, emancipation in the French possessions, colonial conquest, African participation in the world wars, the wars of decolonization, and French-African relations in the contexts of immigration and the construction of the European Union. Readings will be drawn extensively from primary accounts by African and French intellectuals, dissidents, and colonial administrators. However, the course offers neither a collective biography of the compelling intellectuals who have emerged from this relationship nor a survey of French-African literary or cultural production nor a course in international relations. Indeed, the course avoids the common emphasis in francophone studies on literary production and the experiences of elites and the common focus of international relations on states and bureaucrats. The focus throughout the course is on the historical development of fields of political possibility and the emphasis is on sub-Saharan Africa. Group(s): B, C Field(s): AFR, MEU
In a 2015 interview with David Simon (creator of
The Wire
) President Barak Obama offered that
The Wire
is, "one of the greatest -- not just television shows, but pieces of American art in the last couple of decades."
The Wire
combines hyperrealism (from a-quasi anthropological capture of syntax and dialect that recalls the language of Langston Hughes and Zora Neal Hurston to a preference for actors who lived “the game” in Baltimore’s inner city) with the reinvention of fundamental American themes (from picaresque individualisms, to coming to terms with the illusory “American dream”, to a fundamental loss of faith in American institutions), and engages in a scathing expose of the shared dysfunction among the bureaucracies (police, courts, public schools etc.) that manage a troubled American inner city. On a more macro level
The Wire
humanizes (and therefore vastly problematizes) assumptions about the individual Americans’ who inhabit America’s most dangerous urban environments from gang members to police officers to teachers and even ordinary citizens.
The Wire
, of course, did not single-handedly reshape American television. Scholars like Martin Shuster refer to this period of television history as “new television.” That is, the product of new imaginations that felt television had exhausted its normative points of reference, subject matter and narrative technique. Many of the shows from this period sought to reinvent television for interaction with an evolving zeitgeist shaped by shared dissolution with 21st century American life: “I’d been thinking: it’s good to be in a thing from the ground floor, I came too late for that, I know. But lately I’m getting the feeling I might be in at the end. That the best is over,” Tony Soprano confides to Dr. Malfi in S1.E1 of the Sopranos. Series that fall within this rubric include (in chronological order):
The Sopranos
;
The Wire
;
Deadwood
;
Madmen
; and
Breaking Bad.
This course will examine British women writers including Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf in the context of the (long-) nineteenth-century "Woman Question". Our inquiry will engage the controversy over a woman’s status in terms of the social and political debates of early feminism as well as the enigma of “woman’s nature” in light of the rise of psychology and psychoanalysis in the period. We will consider how women writers negotiate these current social and psychological discourses in the stories they tell about themselves and others: how do they portray a woman’s life, especially as it manifests the tension George Eliot articulates between “inward impulse and outward fact”? We will pay attention to representations of gender, subjectivity, interiority, desire, domestic affections, friendship, education, economic and professional experience, faith, and creativity as reflecting the struggle, rising influence, and emergent identity of woman. In addition to novels, poetry, and drama, we will read excerpts of critical essays from among our primary authors and other prominent thinkers of the period, such as Wollstonecraft, Martineau, Taylor Mill, and Freud, who, by the early twentieth century, still famously puzzles: “What does a woman want?”
Global capitalism inspired novelists to explore the ways in which money, or the lack of it, forms or deforms our characters. It also inspired the writings of Karl Marx, the great theorist of economic justice. In this seminar we will read three early novels – Behn’s
Orinooko
, Godwin’s
Caleb Williams
, Austen’s
Persuasion
alongside Marxist theory, and then examine a cluster of twentieth century global novels in English. We will pay special attention to Marxist notions of materialism; alienation and human flourishing; capital and labor; classes; and ideology. Special emphasis will also be given to the Marxist approach in the study of culture, the role of intellectuals (such as ourselves) and the relationship between capitalism and culture – through theorists like Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, and Raymond Williams.
The course tracks how key Marxist concepts such as capital and class consciousness, reification, commodification, totality, and alienation have been developed across these traditions and considers how these concepts have been used to rethink literary and mass cultural forms and their ongoing transformation in a changing world system. Writers discussed may include Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Georg Lukács, Mikhail Bakhtin, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, C.L.R. James, Frantz Fanon, Amílcar Cabral, Edward Said, Antonio Gramsci, Raymond Williams, Giovanni Arrighi, Pascale Casanova, David Harvey, and Melinda Cooper.
Faculty supervised independent study for undergraduate Film & Media Studies majors. Must have faculty approval prior to registration.
Faculty supervised independent study for undergraduate Film & Media Studies majors. Must have faculty approval prior to registration.
This practical lab focuses on the fundamental aspects of development, planning and preparation for low budget films. While using a short film script as their own case study – students will learn pitching, development, script breakdown, scheduling, budgeting and fundraising. Discussion of legal issues, location scouting, deliverables, marketing, distribution and film festival strategy will allow students to move forward with their own projects after completing the class. Using weekly assignments, in-class presentations and textbook readings to reinforce each class discussion topic, students will complete the class having created a final prep/production binder for their project, which includes the script breakdown, production schedule, line item budget, financing/fundraising plan and film festival strategy for their chosen script.
In this seminar we will examine the politics of ethnicity religion in China from the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) through the present. Our readings and discussions will touch on important themes in world history including empire and colonialism, borderlands and state-building, nationalism and representation, law and constitutional politics, and religion and ritual; as well as major topics in China studies including the legacy of the Qing dynasty, the history of the Chinese state in Inner and Southeast Asia, and the religious and ethnic policies of the Chinese Communist Party. This is not a survey of minority cultures and communities. Rather, it is a critical exploration of the maintenance and management of cultural difference within a society that is often construed as homogenous.
“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”― Michel de Montaigne “There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.” Annie Dillard, The Writing Life “Find a subject you care about and which in your heart you feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” Kurt Vonnegut What makes the essay of personal experience an essay rather than a journal entry? How can one's specific experience transcend the limits of narrative and transmit a deeper meaning to any reader? How can a writer transmit the wisdom gained from personal experience without lecturing her reader? In The Art of the Essay, we explore the answers to these questions by reading personal essays in a variety of different forms. We begin with Michel de Montaigne, the 16th-century philosopher who popularized the personal essay as we know it and famously asked, “What do I know?,” and follow the development of the form as a locus of rigorous self-examination, doubt, persuasion, and provocation. Through close reading of a range of essays from writers including Annie Dillard, Salman Rushdie, Jamaica Kincaid, and June Jordan, we analyze how voice, form, and evidence work together to create a world of meaning around an author's experience, one that invites readers into conversations that are at once deeply personal and universal in their consequences and implications.
1-4 points. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Except by special permission of the director of undergraduate studies, no more than 4 points of individual research may be taken in any one term. This includes both PSYC UN3950 and PSYC UN3920. No more than 8 points ofPSYC UN3950 may be applied toward the psychology major, and no more than 4 points toward the concentration. Readings, special laboratory projects, reports, and special seminars on contemporary issues in psychological research and theory.
1-4 points. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Except by special permission of the director of undergraduate studies, no more than 4 points of individual research may be taken in any one term. This includes both PSYC UN3950 and PSYC UN3920. No more than 8 points ofPSYC UN3950 may be applied toward the psychology major, and no more than 4 points toward the concentration. Readings, special laboratory projects, reports, and special seminars on contemporary issues in psychological research and theory.
Prerequisites: A good working knowledge of calculus, including derivatives, single and double, limits, sums and series. Life is a gamble and with some knowledge of probability / statistics is easier evaluate the risks and rewards involved. Probability theory allows us take a known underlying model and estimate how likely will we be able to see future events. Statistical Inference allows us to take data we have seen and estimate the missing parts of an unknown model. The first part of the course focus on the former and the second part the latter.
Pushing back against this trope of homelessness, this course illuminates the robust, vibrant, and multifacetted
qualities of a home in the Diaspora, lasting for over a millennium, that both Ashkenazi and Sephardi
Jews managed to create for themselves in lands, predominantly populated by Slavs. They did so despite the
many constraints of legal and religious discrimination, threats of physical violence, displacement, and countless
forms of exclusion from dominant society. Moving across centuries, countries, and languages, we will revisit the
contributions of the Jews to their so called “host cultures” by way of diverse media—literary and non-fictional
works, memoirs, artistic works, songs, feature and documentary films, journalistic pieces, and more. By the end
of this journey, we will have gained a deeper understanding of the ways in which the Jews and Slavs have been
intimately imbricated and intertwined since times immemorial.
All course materials are available in English. No reading knowledge of Russian or other Slavic languages
is required. Course participants with the reading knowledge of any region-specific language are encouraged to
consult the respective originals, provided by the instructor upon request. This course will be of interest to those
majoring in Slavic and/or Jewish Studies, as well as anyone interested in Comparative Literature, History, Art
History, and Film and Visual Studies.
This course will provide a wide-ranging survey of conceptual foundations and issues in contemporary human rights. The class will examine the philosophical origins of human rights, contemporary debates, the evolution of human rights, key human rights documents, and the questions of human rights enforcement. This course will examine specific civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and various thematic topics in human rights.
Modern feature-length screenplays demand a specific architecture. In this class students will enter with an idea for a film, and during the first eight sessions build a coherent treatment; that is, a summary of the events and major emotional arcs of the film's three acts. In the final four sessions students will begin and complete the first act of their feature-length screenplay.
This 3-credit course aims to give students a foundation in research, policy, and practice relevant to gun violence and the human rights of young people. In the first part of the course, we look at the US. In the US gun violence against children has increased, as part of a broader nationwide rise in crime. School shootings have also risen: The Washington Post counted 42 last year in the U.S., the most on record and up from 27 in 2019. In addition to exploring its underlying causes, the prevalence, and solutions to gun violence in homes, schools, and communities in the United States, young peoples’ participation in legislation and other efforts to address physical insecurity. In the second half of the course, students examine the ways in which US foreign policy– including in the areas of small arms waivers, direct gun sales, and migration, have shaped the lives of young people in other nations. The focus of this part of the course will be on Central America where armed violence has had a dramatic impact on young people and has resulted in forced displacement and loss of education for young people. Throughout the course, students will explore the gun-related human rights issues affecting young people through the study of cases, reports, documentaries, and other visual images including satellites and aerial images. Students will examine the implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions 2250 and 2419-- the Youth Peace and Security Agenda (YPS), the Arms Trade Treaty, and the Optional Protocol on the Child Soldier, as well as the U.S. Youth Peace and Security Act of 2021 (HR 4838), national legislation that prioritizes the inclusion of youth in conflict resolution and recognizes that youth participation is a key component of U.S. peace and security strategy. An ongoing and significant consideration in the course will be the role of international education efforts and youth-led advocacy and legislative efforts around gun control legislation.
In addition to the topics mentioned above, students will acquire and deepen their understandings
the framing of gun violence and violence caused by small weapons as human rights issues for young people, including but not limited to the international and national human rights laws that protect the right to life, development, survival, and protection
the impacts that race, ethnicity, gender, age, life experience all have on the realization of young people’s human rights
the debates surroun
Prerequisites: MATH S1202, MATH S2010, or the equivalent. Students must have a current and solid background in the prerequisites for the course: multivariable calculus and linear algebra. Elements of set theory and general topology. Metric spaces. Euclidian space. Continuous and differentiable functions. Riemann integral. Uniform convergence.
Prerequisites: MATH S4061, or the equivalent with the instructor's permission. Equicontinuity. Contraction maps with applications to existence theorems in analysis. Lebesgue measure and integral. Fourier series and Fourier transform
The world economy is a patchwork of competing and complementary interests among and between governments, corporations, and civil society. These stakeholders at times cooperate and also conflict over issues of global poverty, inequality, and sustainability. What role do human rights play in coordinating the different interests that drive global economic governance? This seminar will introduce students to different structures of global governance for development, trade, labor, finance, the environment, migration, and intellectual property and investigate their relationship with human rights. Students will learn about public, private, and mixed forms of governance, analyze the ethical and strategic perspectives of the various stakeholders and relate them to existing human rights norms. The course will examine the work of multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the International Financial Institutions, as well as international corporate and non-governmental initiatives.
The history of conflicts within and over slavery during the American Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Wars for Latin American Independence, and the campaigns to abolish slavery in the British Empire. The seminar gives special emphasis to the evolution of antislavery and proslavery arguments, the role of war in destabilizing practices of human bondage, and choices made by enslaved men and women in moments of rapid political change.
Prerequisites: MATH V1101 Calculus I and MATH V1102 Calculus II, or the equivalent, and STAT W1111 or STAT W1211 (Introduction to Statistics). Corequisites: MATH V1201 Calculus III, or the equivalent, or the instructor's permission. This course can be taken as a single course for students requiring knowledge of probability or as a foundation for more advanced courses. It is open to both undergraduate and master students. This course satisfies the prerequisite for STAT W3107 and W4107. Topics covered include combinatorics, conditional probability, random variables and common distributions, expectation, independence, Bayes' rule, joint distributions, conditional expectations, moment generating functions, central limit theorem, laws of large numbers, characteristic functions.
Prerequisites: STAT W3105 Intro. to Probability or STAT W4105 Probability, or the equivalent. Calculus-based introduction to the theory of statistics. Useful distributions, law of large numbers and central limit theorem, point estimation, hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, maximum likelihood, likelihood ratio tests, nonparametric procedures, theory of least squares and analysis of variance.
Prerequisites: STAT GU4204 or the equivalent, and a course in linear algebra. Theory and practice of regression analysis. Simple and multiple regression, testing, estimation, prediction, and confidence procedures, modeling, regression diagnostics and plots, polynomial regression, colinearity and confounding, model selection, geometry of least squares. Extensive use of the computer to analyse data.
Prerequisites: STAT GU4204 and GU4205 or the equivalent. Introduction to programming in the R statistical package: functions, objects, data structures, flow control, input and output, debugging, logical design, and abstraction. Writing code for numerical and graphical statistical analyses. Writing maintainable code and testing, stochastic simulations, paralleizing data analyses, and working with large data sets. Examples from data science will be used for demonstration.
Documentaries are increasingly proliferating across small and large screens around the world. They circulate as market commodities, forms of entertainment, and vehicles for social change. In this seminar we will compare different national and regional contexts of contemporary documentary production, including projects created within the media industries of Mexico, Peru, India, China, Cambodia, and Israel. We will also examine how documentaries resonate locally, but can still transcend geographic borders and engage viewers across the globe. Crucial to our course will be the close analysis of how documentaries actively address civil rights struggles, oppressive government regimes, cultural trends, environmental crises, and progressive social movements to create more inclusive, equitable communities. So, too, will we examine emerging technologies (such as VR/AR), strategies of international co-production, star-studded film festivals, as well as the global reach and impact of mega studios such as Netflix and Wanda. This course fulfills the Global Core requirement.
The human rights movement is one of the most successful social justice movements of our time, establishing universal principles that govern how states should treat citizens and non-citizens. The movement strengthens, and is strengthened by, a complex web of institutions, laws, and norms that constitute a functioning global system that builds on itself progressively, animated by strong NGOs. The course will address the evolution of the international human rights movement and on the NGOs that drive the movement on the international, regional and domestic levels. Sessions will highlight the experiences of major human rights NGOs and will address topics including strategy development, institutional representation, research methodologies, partnerships, networks, venues of engagement, campaigning, fundraising and, perhaps most importantly, the fraught and complex debates about adaptation to changing global circumstances.
This course examines the rich legacy of theater in New York, from Broadway to Off- Broadway, encompassing the writers, directors, actors, institutions, and artists who laid the foundations of American theater and continue to shape the contemporary theatrical landscape. We will commence with an exploration of the roots of theater in NYC and how the city's growth is mirrored in the historic innovations of the art form. Each week will delve into theatrical forms and disciplines, examples of seminal texts, and current productions throughout the city. These investigations offer insights into the ways theater evolves into a quintessential New York event, guided by a producer who has shepherded award-winning shows from initial idea to Broadway for over three decades. Performances will include productions both on and off Broadway. Previous classes have attended shows at Lincoln Center Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, Second Stage Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, the Roundabout Theater, St. Ann’s Warehouse, among others, featuring popular titles such as Sleep No More, Chicago, The Pillowman, What the Constitution Means to Me, etc. Shows for summer 2024 will be selected at the beginning of the course based on enrollment.
SHOWS UNDER CONSIDERATION (subject to change, based on availability)--
BROADWAY: The Outsiders, Water for Elephants; OFF BROADWAY: Dark Noon (St Ann’s Warehouse), Odd Man Out (Here Arts Center). During the Summer Session the class typically attends: one show on Broadway; 2-3 shows Off Broadway; and1-2 special NY events. Course fee covers tickets for up to 6 performances during the session.
This course introduces the fundamental concepts and problems of international human rights law. What are the origins of modern human rights law? What is the substance of this law, who is obligated by it, and how is it enforced? The course will cover the major international human rights treaties and mechanisms and consider some of today's most significant human rights issues and controversies. While the topics are necessarily law-related, the course will assume no prior exposure to legal studies.
Prerequisites: STAT GU4205 or the equivalent. Prerequisites: STAT GU4205 or the equivalent. Least squares smoothing and prediction, linear systems, Fourier analysis, and spectral estimation. Impulse response and transfer function. Fourier series, the fast Fourier transform, autocorrelation function, and spectral density. Univariate Box-Jenkins modeling and forecasting. Emphasis on applications. Examples from the physical sciences, social sciences, and business. Computing is an integral part of the course.
Prerequisites: STAT GU4206 The course will provide an introduction to Machine Learning and its core models and algorithms. The aim of the course is to provide students of statistics with detailed knowledge of how Machine Learning methods work and how statistical models can be brought to bear in computer systems - not only to analyze large data sets, but to let computers perform tasks that traditional methods of computer science are unable to address. Examples range from speech recognition and text analysis through bioinformatics and medical diagnosis. This course provides a first introduction to the statistical methods and mathematical concepts which make such technologies possible.
Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 The study of industrial behavior based on game-theoretic oligopoly models. Topics include pricing models, strategic aspects of business practice, vertical integration, and technological innovation.
Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and STAT UN1201 An introduction to the economic principles, theories and basic tools underlying the financial decisions of firms. The topics covered include financial statement analysis, net present value analysis, time value of money, valuation of perpetuities and annuities, opportunity cost of capital, weighted average cost of capital, valuation of bonds and stocks, capital budgeting, dividend policy, market efficiency, capital structure, Modigliani-Miller theorem, option valuation and risk management. Every effort would be made to relate the course material to real-world financial applications.
Prerequisites: (PSYC UN2235) or equivalent course on judgment and decision-making A seminar course exploring strategic decision making (also known as behavioral game theory). This course examines the psychology underlying situations in which outcomes are determined by choices made by multiple decision makers. The prime objective will be to examine the use of experimental games to test psychological theories.
Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213. Economic development is a complex and multifaceted process. Once considered a goal in itself, more recently it has become to be viewed as the fundamental means to world poverty alleviation. Today, about half of the world population still lives on less than $2 /day. Why? What does it mean to be poor? What are the forces that prevent so many people from enjoying a higher standard of living? The course opens on some fundamental macroeconomic models of economic growth and the recent debate on the geographical or institutional nature of the ultimate causes of growth or arrested development. Then we will move into the most recent microeconomic literature that sheds light on the lives of the poor and on the forces - in particular the market distortions and the market failures - that keep billions in poverty. Among others, we will discuss interesting topics like nutrition and health, the cultural origins of corruption, the effect of global warming, and the design of effective anti-poverty programs.
There are many misconceptions as to what makes an appealing story for children and how to get a story published. Many novice writers are simply relating an incident as opposed to creating a story. This course will show beginner and experienced writers how to mine their lives and imaginations for ideas and how to develop those ideas into children's stories-a step by step process from inspiration to finished manuscript for picture books, early readers, emerging readers and chapter books. Students will also learn the importance of reading their writing out loud-a process that helps both reader and listener develop a better ear for the story's pace, cadence and structure. Writing for children has become incredibly popular in the past fifteen years and publishing houses have been inundated with manuscripts. Many houses have ceased accepting unsolicited manuscripts all together. This course will disclose other avenues to getting your manuscript into the hands of agents and editors.