Courses

Index # 08765

Will NOT Count Towards Italian MAJOR
Will Count Towards Italian MINOR

The third and definitive edition of the New Science (1744) by Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is a learned and ambitious attempt to decipher the history, mythology, and laws of the ancient world; and its powerful analysis influenced thinkers and writers as varied as Herder, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, and James… Continue Reading – Vico's New Science: Society & History

Index # 08775

Will Count Towards History MAJOR
Will Count Towards History MINOR

How we dress and design our homes is deeply revealing of cultural norms and social aspirations. This is true today and it was true in the past. Fashion and design are also deeply embedded in the technology and economic practices of every culture. Studying clothing fashions and home design provides a distinctive… Continue Reading – Fashion and Design in Europe, 1350 to 2000

Index # 10919

Will Count Towards Political Science MAJOR
Will Count Towards Political Science MINOR

This seminar will focus on the life and legal cases of U.S. Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg. The “Notorious RBG,” as she is known, has been critical to the defense of women’s rights from long before her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. We will… Continue Reading – The Notorious RBG

Index # 09945

Will Count Towards Philosophy MAJOR
Will Count Towards Philosophy MINOR

“A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought,” Coral Davenport writes, in the December 7, 2018 edition of The New York Times, according to which “avoiding the damage requires… Continue Reading – Making the Climate Greta Again: Changing Everything, Everywhere, Beginning at Rutgers

Index # 15890

The year 2020 will bring an intensely watched, highly contested presidential election, perhaps one of the most consequential elections in United States history.  Many Rutgers students will be following the election campaign closely, and some of them will likely become heavily engaged on behalf of their chosen candidates.  My interdisciplinary honors seminar will place the 2020 presidential election in… Continue Reading – Presidential Elections in United States History

Index # 08766

This seminar will introduce students to a system of psychology that, after having been overshadowed by Freudian psychology in the 20th century, is finally coming into its own in the 21st. It will present basic principles and paradigms, and will engage students in a number of practical applications in the areas of the psychology of everyday life, the role of mythology in dreams and social life, religion, the… Continue Reading – Jung for the 21st Century

Index # 15900

Will Count Towards Jewish Studies and/or AMESALL MAJOR
Will Count Towards Jewish Studies and/or AMESALL MINOR

How do we know anything about the ancient world? How did the Bible reach us? How did Homer reach us? How are we able to read Babylonian cuneiform? How are we able to read Egyptian hieroglyphics? Or, put simply, how do we know this?!?! This seminar will focus on ancient Israel… Continue Reading – How Do We Know This

Index # 08767

Will Count Towards History MAJOR
Will Count Towards History MINOR

At different moments in the last two centuries many nations around the world – from Britain and Germany to the United States and even New Zealand -- have been gripped by great fears of Russia. The alleged threats from Russia have varied from military aggression to revolutionary subversion, racial contamination, spy penetration,… Continue Reading – Russophobias

Index # 15895

How do bilinguals handle having multiple languages in a single mind? Why do adults have difficulty achieving native-like competence in a foreign language? Why do some people learn foreign languages more easily than others? In this course, students will learn about a myriad of topics related to the bilingual mind. These include neural underpinnings of bilingual processing, biological, linguistic and cognitive… Continue Reading – One Mind. Two Languages.

Index # 08768

Women –especially mothers– have long been associated with the household and held accountable for its stability by maintaining traditions and performing parenthood. Many literary works narrate the necessary departure of a husband, a son or a daughter –a departure that possibly leads to no return. Presumably dead or prevented from ever coming back home (because of poverty, war, etc.), the separation with the beloved… Continue Reading – Home, Bittersweet Home

Index # 08769

Will Count Towards American Studies MAJOR
Will Count Towards American Studies MINOR

What is folklore?  How is folklore important or relevant to our daily lives?  How does folklore help us to understand others?  This seminar begins with a survey of the basic genres of myth, legend, tale, and ballad—their forms as well as the transmission and function.  Next, we turn our… Continue Reading – American Folklore

Index # 08791

Will Count Towards Political Science MAJOR
Will Count Towards Political Science MINOR

Current times call for the question: what does it mean to be human? As a society, we have been witnessed to: the death of young Black boys and girls; the death and mistreatment of Guatemalan and Salvadoran children in the custody of ICE; the disproportionate punishment placed on Black boys and girls in K-… Continue Reading – Being Human in the 21st Century: A Critical Race and Black Feminist Theory Contemplation

Index # 10920

Will Count Towards Asian Language & Cultures MAJOR
Will Count Towards Asian Language & Cultures MINOR

The course will examine capitals in Chinese history and their relationship to the ebb and flow of historical events and cultural changes. We will consider the impact of dynastic change and population movement on the nature of language and culture. Since at least the Táng Dynasty (… Continue Reading – China's Capitals Across Time and Their Linguistic and Cultural Impacts

Index # 15860

Will NOT Count Towards History MAJOR
Will NOT Count Towards History MINOR

The course offers students an extended exploration of how emotions have been understand by philosophers, theologians, doctors and historians.  We will begin with some classic readings to build a shared vocabulary, and then move on to think about how emotions played a role in and… Continue Reading – Emotion across Time and Space

Index # 09944

Will Count Towards Art History MAJOR
Will Count Towards Art History MINOR

Everyone, regardless of ethnicity, who lives a modernist life shares, however imperfectly, two fundamental values. The first is a materialist philosophy founded on empiricism and causality; the second a civic approach that stresses individual rights and freedom of thought.  These values are essentially Western… Continue Reading – Society and Art in ancient Greece and Rome 800 BCE – 800 CE

Index # 15904

Will Count Towards Classics MAJOR
Will Count Towards Classics MINOR

Few historical figures have had so significant an impact as Alexander, the son of Philip II, king of Macedonia and hēgemōn ‘leader’ of the Hellenic League (or League of Corinth), a military alliance dominating the city-states of homeland Greece. Against expectation, Alexander succeeded to his father’s preeminence after… Continue Reading – ALEXANDER THE GREAT: HISTORY AND LEGEND

Index # 08968

Will Count Towards Asian Languages & Cultures MAJOR
Will Count Towards Asian Languages & Cultures MINOR

[course description]

About Professor Wakabayashi

Haruko Wakabayashi is a cultural historian of 12th-16th century Japan. Her interest lies in the social, cultural, and intellectual development of medieval Japan, and the use of visual… Continue Reading – Rutgers Meets Japan: Revisiting Early U.S.-Japan Encounters

Index # 16608

Will Count Towards Classics MAJOR
Will Count Towards Classics MINOR

This seminar examines Fascist appropriation and misappropriation of Roman history, art, literature, architecture, and archaeology, especially in the city of Rome, but throughout the Italian peninsula and the short-lived Italian empire, with the focus on the years 1922-1943. The focus is especially on Mussolini’s casting… Continue Reading – MUSSOLINI'S ROME: ITALIAN FASCISM AND THE POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE

Index # 11631

Will Count Towards Anthropology MAJOR
Will Count Towards Anthropology MINOR

The practice of slavery has risen and faded a number of times, and even exists in some regions today. Its most extensive practise took place during the colonial era, in the Age of Mercantile Capitalism in  the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds, between 1450 and 1860,  but its legacy is continues down to… Continue Reading – Historical Archaeology of Slavery

Index # 08773

Will Count Towards Sociology MAJOR
Will Count Towards Sociology MINOR

The exuberant confidence we felt 25-30 years ago that democracy would triumph globally in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union is evaporating.  Right-wing authoritarian and stridently nationalist governments and political parties are ascendant all over the world—from China, to India, to Turkey, to… Continue Reading – Liberalism, Populism, and Democracy

Index # 08774

Will NOT Count Towards Pharmacy MAJOR
Will NOT Count Towards Pharmacy  MINOR

Living cells communicate by exchanging molecules such as hormones and neurotransmitters, just as humans communicate by exchanging sounds (i.e., phonons) and visual symbols, e.g., written words (i.e., photons).  Since, no communication is possible without a language… Continue Reading – The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter

Index # 12654

Will Count Towards Comparative Literature or Environmental Studies MAJOR
Will Count Towards Comparative Literature or Environmental Studies MINOR

Since the beginning of the 19th century and up to the present, a vast corpus composed of travel narratives, scientific accounts, literary fictions, feature films and documentaries have all contributed to the most common stereotypes of the Amazon… Continue Reading – An Amazonian Journey

Index # 17420

Life appears to have originated on Earth nearly 4.5 billion years ago when the oceans boiled and the atmosphere had no oxygen.  The changing conditions on our planet have defined the parameters within which life has existed.  An increase in the amount of oxygen in the air from 2.5 billion to 500 million years ago eventually permitted “modern” animals to exist.  Massive extinctions (especially at the… Continue Reading – Genes and Evolution

Index # 08770

Will NOT Count Towards English MAJOR
Will NOT Count Towards English MINOR

The course will examine the social and political development of Northern Ireland in the modern era. It will focus in particular on Plantation, the United Irishmen revolt of 1798, the Partition of Ireland (1920), Sectarianism, the 'Troubles' and the peace process in Northern Ireland.… Continue Reading – The Troubles: Partition, Sectarianism, Peace and Reconciliation in N. Ireland

Index # 08772

What do proteins, DNA, and RNA look like? Where do these molecules fit in your body and how do they work? This seminar will introduce you to the basics of structural biology using human anatomy, physiology, and disease as themes.

The focus of the 2020 Molecular View of Human Anatomy course will be to understand the structures and functions of proteins playing key roles in the Central Nervous System (CNS).… Continue Reading – Molecular View of Human Anatomy: Mechanisms of Drug Action in the Human Central Nervous System

Index # 17605

The goal of this class is to address the question “could a machine ever be a person, and what would the consequences be if the answer is yes?”. We will begin by examining competing accounts of personhood and how they have evolved with emerging technologies. We will then explore the rapidly advancing world of artificial intelligence, and try to determine if an artificial person is possible or likely, and whether we… Continue Reading – Ghost in the Machine: AI, Ethics, and Personhood