Courses

Quantitative research uses measurable data to formulate facts and uncover patterns in research, and is the standard in most scientific disciplines. Content courses help students generate research ideas, but do not teach them how to convert ideas into actual experiments. This course offers students the unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience on how to design, conduct, and analyze quantitative experiments. Beyond quantitative data… Continue Reading – Quantitative Research: A Hands-On Preparation

Application required

In the Fall of 2017, a wide range of SAS students worked in tandem with design students at Mason Gross to create a multilingual political poetry exhibition for the new Rutgers Academic Building, to frame and accompany an international, interdisciplinary colloquium on the theme of poetry's relations to politics. The purpose of this exhibition was to gather and celebrate powerful political poems from all over the… Continue Reading – Poetries - Politics II: A Multilingual Political Poetry Collection

Several major theories of addiction revolve around the role of the neurotransmitter dopamine (DA). Three distinct theories will be chosen, and the class will continually evaluate them throughout the course, in light of whether they are supported by original research papers. Each theory will “belong” to a group of five or six students, and within each group, each student will be responsible for knowing the details of that particular theory.… Continue Reading – Neurobiology of Addiction

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 2019 Molecular View of Human Anatomy course will be to understand the structures and functions of proteins involved in Antimicrobial action and resistance. Student learning and discussion… Continue Reading – Molecular View of Human Anatomy: Molecular Mechanisms of Antibiotic Action and Resistance

*Study Abroad embedded trip May 20-June 1

Why spend a semester exploring the rise and fall, religious and social achievements, artistic and architectural legacies, and contemporary mystique of the Monastery of Cluny, located in Burgundy, in the heart of France? For those impressed by massive buildings, Cluny is fascinating first and foremost for its magnificent abbey church, which in its time was the largest Romanesque… Continue Reading – Medieval Cluny, Christendom & Islam

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 analysis of films and literary… Continue Reading – Jung for the 21st Century

In 1991, while doing preliminary excavations for the construction of a federal office building in New York City, traces of human remains were found.  Archaeologists concluded that these remains were those of free and enslaved African Americans who lived and died in colonial and antebellum New York.  The burial ground, long forgotten and covered with layers of city construction, forced New Yorkers to come to terms with something that… Continue Reading – Interdisciplinary Honors Seminars

Marriage is the union of two consenting adults in love. Right? Many would argue “yes” and view arranged marriage and polygamy as backward. Yet, the idea of marrying for love is a relatively recent one and the conjugal couple is not so traditional at all. So when did love conquer marriage, and why? Are romantic love and freedom to marry viewed everywhere as normal ways to organize intimate lives and relations? Why are some forms of intimacy… Continue Reading – Intimate Matters: Sex & Marriage in Global Perspective

This class will address the non-human other in global colonization of the Middle East. Does globalization and its justification of subjection disrupt the notion of the human and mark the other as animal to the extent that the notion of  “identity was disengaged in terms of who was and who was not human,” according to Spivak’s speculation? What are the effects of wars in the Middle East on refashioning the “human” category?

Some… Continue Reading – HumAnimals in Middle Eastern and North African Literature

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 the present day.  Colonial era slavery involved the translocation and control of millions of people and its enormity is… Continue Reading – Historical Archaeology of Slavery

In several recent graphic memoirs, the memoirist includes episodes of going to see a psychoanalyst—e.g., David Small’s Stitches, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother. In all cases, the interactions are positive, and enable the memoirist to gain insight and motivation. Bechdel’s becomes intensely connected to the work of D. W. Winnicott, who is not her therapist but an influential English psychoanalyst who specialized… Continue Reading – Graphic Novels & Psychoanalysis: Alison Bechdel & D. W. Winnicott

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 end of the Permian Period)… Continue Reading – Genes and Evolution

This course explores whether and how emerging digital technologies (social/mobile/wearable media, virtual worlds and games, sensor-laden devices and environments, robotics, drones, implantable chips, artificial intelligence, etc.) contribute to disruptive changes in relationships, organizations, societies and selves. Multiple perspectives on communication, information, and media will be applied in analyzing the extent to which the structure,… Continue Reading – Digital Technology and Disruptive Change

Recent developments in molecular and cell biology indicate that Bohr’s principle of complementarity originally derived from quantum physics may apply to living processes in the form of information-energy complementarity.  Complementarity-like concepts also occur in many other fields, including psychology, computer science, philosophy, semiotics (the study of signs), and world religions.  The universality of Bohr’s complementarity… Continue Reading – Complementarism

For the last century most economic systems around the world have called themselves capitalist or socialist, while most political systems have called themselves democratic.  This course explores the philosophical and historical relationship between these systems.  In the first half of the course, we will see how and why capitalism and socialism emerged in the nineteenth century and spread around the world in the twentieth.  In… Continue Reading – Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy

*Study Abroad embedded trip May 20-29

This course will examine the experience of Poles, both Christian and Jewish, and Ukrainians, both Christian and Jewish, under Nazi and Communist rule in the 20th century through primary historical documents, memoir literature, poetry, and film.

In order to understand the experiences of belonging, dislocations, extermination—and their memory—this course will introduce students to the… Continue Reading – Between Nazism and Communism

This course investigates the depiction of animals in relation to the human – by introducing pertinent works in particular of the German literary and visual tradition: What defines an animal? Can the animal speak, can it suffer, can it be understood? What does it mean to be looked at by an animal? What happens when we love a pet? In what way does the animal challenge our thinking of ethics, gender, and identity? How do writers and artists… Continue Reading – Animal Spirits

This seminar will examine social science approaches to addiction. We begin by examining the current opioid addiction in historical context. We will also explore how different social science approaches can be useful in understanding both why the current epidemic developed, how it did, and its consequences for those with addictions and their families. Among the approaches we will examine include theories of stigma, suicide, stress, resilience,… Continue Reading – Addiction: Epidemic, Devastation, Loss

This seminar will consider the importance of connecting oneself to a specific place as well as to the natural world as a whole. Do we really need to be rooted? (Some have argued that we have more to lose than to gain by the connection.) And, if so, how to attach oneself to a particular place (other than by birth)? By buying/building a house or creating a garden—a human space in nature? By working and caring for the land? By creating art or… Continue Reading – A(t) Home in the World?

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