Prerequisites: STAT GR5203 or the equivalent, and two semesters of calculus. 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 GU5204 and STAT GU5205 Open to MA students in Statistics only 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.
Open to MA students in Statistics only 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.
This course introduces the Bayesian paradigm for statistical inference. Topics covered include prior and posterior distributions: conjugate priors, informative and non-informative priors; one- and two-sample problems; models for normal data, models for binary data, Bayesian linear models, Bayesian computation: MCMC algorithms, the Gibbs sampler; hierarchical models; hypothesis testing, Bayes factors, model selection; use of statistical software. Prerequisites: A course in the theory of statistical inference, such as STAT GU4204/GR5204 a course in statistical modeling and data analysis such as STAT GU4205/GR5205.
Prerequisites: STAT GR5206 or the equivalent. Open to MA students in Statistics only 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: STAT GR5204 or the equivalent. STAT GR5205 is recommended. Open to MA students in Statistics only A fast-paced introduction to statistical methods used in quantitative finance. Financial applications and statistical methodologies are intertwined in all lectures. Topics include regression analysis and applications to the Capital Asset Pricing Model and multifactor pricing models, principal components and multivariate analysis, smoothing techniques and estimation of yield curves statistical methods for financial time series, value at risk, term structure models and fixed income research, and estimation and modeling of volatilities. Hands-on experience with financial data.
This is a graduate-level, interdisciplinary survey of the literature of Critical Indigenous Studies.
Indigeneity is a condition that is attached to place and notions of time, but these are not
any
places, they are territories that have been targeted by others for possession, and this is not
any
time, this is time imagined to be in the past. So to belong to those places in the present structures life, politics and effort in particular ways, as land, waters and other forms of liveleness have been pushed to an imagined past, in an ongoing taking of territory and resources. Indigenous scholars, activists and memoirists provide an archive of this history of dispossession but one that is also countered by resistance and refusal to the push to disappear people from land and waters. The intellectual and political work is rooted in questions of sovereignty, jurisdiction over territory and people, and deep textual and representional and political practices of critique. This intensive course is an advanced, interdisciplinary survey of the literature in Native American Studies that roots itself in key works that speak from that critique and history of dispossession. The syllabus is formed from some anthropological classics, Native and Indigenous Studies, memoir, political theory and poetry/critique. This course is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates (thesis writers) with instructor permission only.
Prerequisites: enrollment in the M.A. Program in Climate and Society. During the third and final term of study for the 12-month M.A. Program in Climate and Society, students must complete either a thesis or internship and simultaneously enroll in EESC W4405. The summer internship requires a minimum of 140 hours of professional participation during the Summer Term in a position related to core issues of concern to the Program. The selected position must be approved by the Director of the M.A. Program by a specified date in the Spring Semester preceding the Summer Term. The position must be substantive in nature and must constitute a practical, professional experience. Students will be evaluated on the basis of oral and written updates on the work, a student internship report to be submitted at the end of the Summer Term, and on the basis of a supervisor report form to be submitted by the site supervisor for the internship.
In this course, students will work jointly with a client organization in the climate and society field. Under the guidance of the instructors, they will take a short request from the organization for a specific product (data analysis, program development, curricular and training material, or other related items), develop a work plan, implement the work plan, and present the final product to the client. This course gives students direct experience in the co-production of knowledge in the climate and society field, a valuable skill in the contemporary world. It extends the training in the integration of natural science and social science that is a hallmark of the Climate + Society program. It includes training in the construction of a boundary object--a final product--conducted jointly with the client organization; this training includes instruction in project design, implementation and evaluation, and in communication between organizations.
Prerequisites: all 6 MAFN core courses, at least 6 credits of approved electives, and the instructors permission. See the MAFN website for details. This course provides an opportunity for MAFN students to engage in off-campus internships for academic credit that counts towards the degree. Graded by letter grade. Students need to secure an internship and get it approved by the instructor.
An introduction to issues and cases in the study of cinema century technologies. This class takes up the definition of the historiographic problem and the differences between theoretical and empirical solutions. Specific units on the history of film style, genre as opposed to authorship, silent and sound cinemas, the American avant-garde, national cinemas (Russia and China), the political economy of world cinema, and archival poetics. A unit on research methods is taught in conjunction with Butler Library staff. Writing exercises on a weekly basis culminate in a digital historiography research map which becomes the basis of a final paper
Photography II is a project-based class designed to expand upon the conceptual and technical concerns first encountered in Photography I. Over the course of the semester, students will work with manually controlled digital cameras or 35mm or 120mm cameras and learn how to refine image production techniques. An emphasis will be placed on the editing, sequencing, and display of images while cultivating a theoretical and historical context to situate the work. Students will engage with an array of photographic practices through presentations, guest artist lectures, and field trips. Additional readings by artists and writers will be assigned for the class to collectively discuss critical issues in contemporary image-making.
This course gives students the opportunity to design their own curriculum: To attend lectures, conferences and workshops on historical topics related to their individual interests throughout Columbia University. Students may attend events of their choice, and are especially encouraged to attend those sponsored by the History Department. The Center for International History and the Heyman Center for the Humanities have impressive calendars of events and often feature historians. The goal of this mini-course is to encourage students to take advantage of the many intellectual opportunities throughout the University, to gain exposure to a variety of approaches to history, and at the same time assist them in focusing on a particular area for their thesis topic.
This course gives students the opportunity to design their own curriculum: To attend lectures, conferences and workshops on historical topics related to their individual interests throughout Columbia University. Students may attend events of their choice, and are especially encouraged to attend those sponsored by the History Department. The Center for International History and the Heyman Center for the Humanities have impressive calendars of events and often feature historians. The goal of this mini-course is to encourage students to take advantage of the many intellectual opportunities throughout the University, to gain exposure to a variety of approaches to history, and at the same time assist them in focusing on a particular area for their thesis topic.
This course offers students an opportunity to expand their curriculum beyond the established course offerings. Interested parties must consult with the QMSS Program Director before adding the class. This course may be taken for 2-4 points.
This course offers students an opportunity to expand their curriculum beyond the established course offerings. Interested parties must consult with the QMSS Program Director before adding the class. This course may be taken for 2-4 points.
This course examines the origins and evolution of modern terrorism, the challenges posed by terrorist groups to states and to the international system, and strategies employed to confront and combat terrorism. We assess a wide variety of terrorist organizations, and explore the psychological, socioeconomic, political, and religious causes of terrorist violence past and present. We also analyze the strengths and weaknesses of various counterterrorism strategies, from the point of view of efficacy as well as ethics, and look into ways in which the new threat of global terrorism might impact the healthy functioning of democratic states.
What is the UN track record in promoting and protecting human rights? This intense six-week course will examine the UN human rights standards, mechanisms, institutions and procedures established over the past sixty years and question their effectiveness. With a particular focus on the actions (or lack thereof) of the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Council and diverse international judicial institutions like the International Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court, the course will illustrate, through practical case studies, the inherent challenges associated with the protection of human dignity, the enforcement of human rights and the fight against impunity.
Peacebuilding is complex and multi-faceted encompassing security, sustainable development, human rights, reconciliation of past differences, and, ultimately, societal transformation. It is above all else an inherently political process. This course examines the evolution in thinking and approaches to peacebuilding and how it has been put into practice by the United Nations, at both the Headquarters and country levels. We will look at the many stakeholders, the need for partnerships and the challenge of coordination, as well as the tools used by the UN in its support to peacebuilding. We will also extract lessons learned and the conditions for peacebuilding to succeed, with special attention to the UN’s work in supporting peacebuilding at the country level.
The United Nations recently passed its seventieth anniversary and a new Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, was selected by the Security Council to succeed Ban Ki-moon. At this critical juncture, the international system is being challenged to provide adequate responses to the rise of violent extremist groups, waves of refugees arriving in Europe, and to --†fewer but deadlier --armed conflicts. As prevention continues to be elusive and recent - mostly intrastate --armed conflicts have proven to be particularly resistant to peaceful settlement whether through mediation, the deployment of peace operations or peacebuilding projects, the question of the relevance of the UN is posed yet again. Has the Security Council been successful in using the tools at its disposal, from prevention to peace operations and enforcement measures? What has become of the Responsibility to Protect? Is a divided Security Council facing a crisis of relevance? What does it mean for peace operations sent where there is no peace to keep? What are the persisting obstacles to effective prevention? What are the lessons from the evolving partnership with regional organizations? How can peace be sustained over the long term? What will have been Ban Ki Moon's legacy? What are the prospects for UN reform and what could it look like? To address these questions and more, the course will examine the evolving role of the world organization in global security, shaped by its member states with different strategic interests and by the broader geopolitical context in which it operates.
This six week course provides an overview of the contribution the United Nations development system has made in the sphere of development. The course traces the historical evolution of the UN's contribution in the areas of development cooperation, poverty reduction, environment and climate, human rights, gender and humanitarian action. It explores the emerging role of non-state actors, in particular the private sector and civil society. The last sessions will examine in detail the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030 and the recognition that to be relevant in today's rapidly changing world, the UN must commit itself to major reform. The course will draw extensively from the practical experience of the instructor.
This course explores the unique and distinct foreign policy behavior of different states in the international system. Explanations of state behavior will be drawn from many overarching international relations frameworks including but not necessarily limited to realism, liberalism, and constructivism. The effects of power, culture, institutions and history will be examined.
This course examines the foundations, decision-making processes, and substance of American foreign policy, particularly as it has developed over the past fifty years. We explore the role of American political culture, the presidency, Congress, and the foreign policy bureaucracy in helping to determine America's relationship with other states and international organizations. We pay particular attention to the recurring tensions that run through American foreign policy: isolationism v. internationalism, security v. prosperity, diplomacy v. military power, unilateralism v. multilateralism, and realism v. idealism. Each week we will explore a broad theoretical/conceptual theme and then focus on a specific topic that exemplifies a practical application of the theme.
Through a review of major academic literature, lectures, and class discussion, this course examines many of the central concepts, theories, and analytical tools used in contemporary social science to understand international affairs. The theoretical literature is drawn from fields including comparative politics, international relations, political sociology, and economics. The course is designed to enhance students' abilities to think critically and analytically about current problems and challenges in international politics.
This course empowers students to develop a deep understanding of the major issues of East Asian security. We will examine the various challenges to stability in East Asia in the context of power, institutions, and ideas (the three primary factors that impact international relations), including: China’s increasing assertiveness; the North Korean nuclear crisis; historical stigma amongst Japan, South Korea, and China; lingering Cold War confrontations on the Korean Peninsula and across the Taiwan Strait; and an unstable relationship between the US and China. Through a comparison with the West, students will inquire whether a unique approach is required when considering appropriate responses to security issues in East Asia.
This course serves as an introduction to the study of international political and economic relations. We look at the connections between politics and economics as well as markets and governments and relate them to key substantive issue areas such as finance, trade, investment, marketing, income inequality and poverty, and globalization. In examining the issue areas, we shall look both at how scholars think about them and how private and public decision makers analyze and impact them. The teaching is informed by the sharing with students knowledge deriving from multiple disciplines, cultures, and languages to help them gain useful real-world insights.
B. R. Ambedkar is arguably one of Columbia University’s most illustrious alumni, and a democratic thinker and constitutional lawyer who had enormous impact in shaping India, the world’s largest democracy. As is well known, Ambedkar came to Columbia University in July 1913 to start a doctoral program in Political Science. He graduated in 1915 with a Masters degree, and got his doctorate from Columbia in 1927 after having studied with some of the great figures of interwar American thought including Edwin Seligman, James Shotwell, Harvey Robinson, and John Dewey. This course follows the model of the Columbia University and Slavery course and draws extensively on the relevant holdings and resources of Columbia’s RBML, Rare Books and Manuscript Library Burke Library (Union Theological Seminar), and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture among others to explore a set of relatively understudied links between Ambedkar, Columbia University, and the intellectual history of the interwar period. Themes include: the development of the disciplines at Columbia University and their relationship to new paradigms of social scientific study; the role of historical comparison between caste and race in producing new models of scholarship and political solidarity; links between figures such as Ambedkar, Lala Lajpat Rai, W. E. B. Du Bois and others who were shaped by the distinctive public and political culture of New York City, and more. This is a hybrid course which aims to create a finding aid for B. R. Ambedkar that traverses RBML private papers. Students will engage in a number of activities towards that purpose. They will attend multiple instructional sessions at the RBML to train students in using archives; they will make public presentations on their topics, which will be archived in video form; and students will produce digital essays on a variety of themes and topics related to the course. Students will work collaboratively in small groups and undertake focused archival research.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. (Seminar). This course aims to contribute to your professional development while preparing you to teach University Writing, Columbia’s required first-year writing course. By the end of this course, you should have a basic grasp of the goals and structure of University Writing, the principles that inform its design, and the kinds of materials used in the course. While the course has an immediate goal—to prepare you for your fall teaching assignment—it aims simultaneously to enrich your teaching in the broadest sense. Your fall University Writing syllabus, as well as your lesson plans and homework assignments for the first eight classes, are due for review on August 1, 2016. This course will give you opportunity to prepare these materials throughout this semester with the support of the UWP directors, senior instructors, and advising lecturers. This course is the first of your ongoing professional development obligations as a UW instructor. You must successfully complete G6913 to teach in the UWP. Every subsequent semester, you will be required to attend a staff orientation, attend at least one workshop, and meet with your mentor and advising UWP director. All instructors new to the UWP must take this 1-credit, ungraded course during the fall of their first year of teaching. The course is intended to guide instructors through their first semester and emphasizes the practical application of the knowledge and expertise developed in G6913. Successful completion of the course is required for continuation as a UWP instructor.
“I await the end of cinema with optimism.” –Jean-Luc Godard This course interrogates the effects of new media forms and practices—along with the shifts in spaces, times, and modes of experience rendered by the contemporary global media sphere—on the moving image arts. The main focus is cinema in the expanded field, and its themes and aesthetics are examined in relation to a wide variety of topics— from early computer art to database aesthetics, virtual and augmented realities, interactivity, immersion, and technical failure. Students will read widely in theories ofdigital cinema and related new media (Manovich, Shaviro, Patterson) as well as considering how older theory (Heidegger, Godard) is relevant to the contemporary moment. Assignments will include discussion posts, an in-class presentation, and a final essay.
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The aim of this seminar is to introduce graduate students to questions that guide the work of curators. It is intended not only to allow prospective curators the opportunity to build relevant skills but also to expose those interested in an academic career to a different mode of art history that allows them t. The course will be organized around a specific exhibition entitled The Way We Remember: Fritz Koenig’s Sphere, 9/11, and the Politics of Memory, scheduled to be on view at the Wallach Art Gallery from September 10–November 14, 2021, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
This course is designed to provide both M.A. and Ph.D. students in Korean studies with the necessary skills for reading and understanding Korean mixed script and to provide them with reading materials focusing on period from the late-19th century to the mid-20th century. Readings from this period feature a strong mixture of Chinese and Korean characters, so a wide choice of materials is available which represents all subject areas. This course will be part of the graduate program in Korean studies.
Controversial topics include, the quality of voters’ electoral decision-making, the responsiveness of policy to voter preferences, inequalities in political representation, the engines driving voter polarization, whether efforts to increase voter turnout would result in different election outcomes, plus more.
This class is not about debates and controversies about politics but rather, controversies within political science, largely about causal inference in the study of US politics.
Why are some nations able to grow and prosper while others mired in conflicts and poverty? What are the political factors that shape countries’ success in growing their economies How does economic progress affect a regime’s ability to stay in power and the prospects and direc-tions of political changes? This course addresses these questions by introducing students to major ideas and findings from both classical and cutting-edge scholarship on political economy of de-velopment. The first part of the course will review major episodes of growth (or the lack thereof) in human history and how they influenced the theoretical paradigms for studying development. The second half of the course will be devoted to more specialized topics, examining how differ-ent institutions, strategies, and contingencies affect countries’ economic fortunes. The goal of the course is to help you acquire the necessary conceptual and empirical toolkit for digesting and producing scholarly knowledge about the origins and consequences of economic development.
The idea that culture influences politics has been a core theme of the modern social sciences. But scholars have debated what culture is, what it influences, and how. The course looks at some of the foundational works in this literature. It then focuses on the stream of research that uses survey research methods and in so doing, focuses on the understanding of political culture as a distribution within a society of values, norms, and attitudes toward political objects. Within this literature, we look at how social scientists using survey research have assessed the impact of political culture on one type of behavior, political participation, and one type of attitude, regime legitimacy. This in turn involves a discussion of the distinction in the literature between democratic and authoritarian regime types, and how they differ with respect to drivers of participation and causes of legitimacy. The course deals with culture, regime type, participation, and legitimacy at both the conceptual and methodological levels. By critiquing prominent works in the field, we will learn more about problems of measurement, question formulation, response category design, and questionnaire design, and about practical problems of gaining access and conducting interviews in various social and political environments. We will develop an appreciation of how sampling techniques affect the reliability of findings, and discuss the possibilities and limits of using non-random and flawed samples. Students who can use statistical software will have an opportunity to work with the Asian Barometer Survey Wave 4 dataset.
This course explores the causes, dynamics and outcomes of civil wars and insurgencies. It addresses when and why violence is employed in place of peaceful solutions to conflict and what accounts for individual and mass recruitment into armed organizations. It aims to understand variation in warring groups’ cohesion, repertoires of violence, and relations with civilians, state counterinsurgency methods, and the political economy of conflict. The course concludes by examining war duration and termination. Students will be pushed to grapple with research written in many traditions including philosophical, statistical, game theoretic, and qualitative materials.
This course provides an introduction to the methods, issues and debates that shape our understanding of economic change and development in the period from the late eighteenth century to eve of the Great Depression of the 1930s as they affected both early and late developing economies. This course is designed both for students specializing in economic history and students in all disciplines interested in historical approaches to political/economic development. You do not need a background in economics to fully participate in the discussions and written work that will form the basis of this course. We will arrange a special session on empirical analysis pertinent to this area of study, to be conducted by the Barnard Empirical Reasoning Center. We have organized the material for this course into four broad sections. Most will include two or three reading sets focusing on specific topics for discussion over two
(and in some instances one) class meetings. Although the course extends over only six weeks, we have incorporated all of the themes we cover during a normal term and have provided lists of supplemental readings that we hope will allow you to dive even more deeply into those areas of inquiry that contribute to your own research and teaching agendas. This course deals with a large literature and one that draws from many regional histories. Course participants, including the faculty, come from different disciplinary backgrounds and specialize in different regional histories as well. Our goal is to provide a foundation from which you can develop your own approaches to economic development in the period beginning in the eighteenth century. At the same time, we hope to take advantage of your diverse interests to develop a collaborative reading list that goes beyond our own expertise. This is reflected in the course requirements, which allow you to dig more deeply into those areas that most interest you while benefiting from the overall discussion of the broader field of industrial development.
Inner Asian empires, from the Huns to and Mongols and Manchus, were the political creation of pastoral nomads and other peoples who shared in their cultural sphere. Employing an interdisciplinary research approach that includes climate science, history, archaeology, anthropology and other disciplines this course will focus on case studies from different periods and regions to explore the potential impct of climate variability on their rise and fall.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Individual research and tutorial in social and cultural anthropology for advanced graduate students.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Individual research and tutorial in archaeology for advanced graduate students.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Individual research in all divisions of anthropology and in allied fields for advanced graduate students