Courses

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

Index# 03722

Will Count Towards SAS – Italian Major

Will Count Towards SAS – Italian Minor

The seminar addresses the representation of walking in different media. Rooted in the everyday, in ordinary gestures, the experience of walking is pivotal to the shaping of our experience of place. Strolling relates to our most… Continue Reading – Walking in the Metropolis

Index# 03732

Will count toward SAS-Germn, Russ & E Euro Lang & Lit Major

Will count toward SAS-Germn, Russ & E Euro Lang & Lit Minor

This course investigates the depiction of animals in… Continue Reading – Animal Spirits

Index# 03721

Will NOT count toward SAS - Physics & Astronomy Major

Will NOT count toward SAS - Physics & Astronomy Minor

The ability to predict the future, from weather patterns to disease propagation, is essential to our modern lives. In fact, humans have always sought to know their own future.… Continue Reading – The Past, Present, and Future of Prediction

Index# 03725

Will Count Towards SAS – History Major

Will Count Towards SAS – History Minor

This course examines the intersection between the cold war, international diplomacy, domestic politics and cultural change in America during the postwar period. Topics will include McCarthyism,… Continue Reading – The Fifties

Index# 03733

Will NOT count toward SAS – French Major

Will count toward SAS – French Minor

Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish Captain in the French army, was convicted of spying in December 1894, then cleared of any guilt in July 1906. Between these two moments lies a period of extraordinary judicial and political drama, a… Continue Reading – At the Crossroad of French and Jewish History: The Dreyfus Affair

Index# 03725

Will Count Towards SAS – History Major

Will Count Towards SAS – History Minor

This course examines the intersection between the cold war, international diplomacy, domestic politics and cultural change in America during the postwar period. Topics will include… Continue Reading – The Fifties

Index# 03736

Will count toward SAS – American Studies Major

Will count toward SAS – American Studies Minor

The SAS Honors Seminar on Law, Society, and Culture would focus not simply on the evolution of the law but instead on how the law has affected American… Continue Reading – Law, Society, and Culture in American History

Index# 03731

Will count toward SAS – English Major

Will count toward SAS – English Minor

For the last several years, following on a number of significant “machine learning” breakthroughs, talk of “artificial intelligence” (AI) has made a… Continue Reading – Fictions of Artificial Intelligence

Index#: 03720

Will Count Towards Journalism and Media Studies Major

Will NOT Count Towards Journalism and Media Studies Minor

The course examines the 2020 election in its historical context. Studying the history of the campaign should… Continue Reading – The 2020 Presidential Election

Index#: 03728

Will Count Towards German, Russian, and East European Languages and Literatures MAJOR

Will Count Towards German, Russian, and East European Languages and Literatures MINOR

The natural sciences and the humanities have always shared an interest in how we experience, use, and change our bodily abilities.  A body… Continue Reading – Talking Hands

Index#: 19421

Will NOT Count Towards African, Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Literatures MAJOR

Will NOT Count Towards African, Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Literatures MINOR

Animals populate the Arabic canonical tradition. The word hayawan, ‘animal’, invokes a number of… Continue Reading – HumAnimals in Middle Eastern Literature

Index#: 03741

Will Count Towards Political Science MAJOR

Will Count Towards Political Science MINOR

Winston Churchill once famously quipped: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have… Continue Reading – Populism, Illiberalism, and the Crisis of Democracy

Index#: 03737

Will Count Towards English MAJOR

Will Count Towards English MINOR

The book review is one of the most popular forms of contemporary writing. Once largely restricted to “serious” magazines like the New York Review of Books and Times Literary Supplement, the genre has proliferated in recent years, now… Continue Reading – The Book Review

Index#: 03726

Will Count Towards Political Science MAJOR

Will Count Towards Political Science MINOR

War is one of the most destructive forms of human behavior and a persistent theme in the relationships between political systems since the beginning of human civilization. Although some… Continue Reading – Why War?

Index#: 03723

Will Count Towards Philosophy MAJOR

Will Count Towards Philosophy MINOR

This course is an introduction to issues in the philosophy of cosmology. Cosmology is the scientific study of the nature and history of the universe as a whole. In the last… Continue Reading – Philosophy of Cosmology

Index# 03729

Will Count Towards SAS – Philosophy MAJOR

Will Count Towards SAS – Philosophy MINOR

From its ancient origins in the Book of Job, or farther back even in the Babylonian Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, through the early decades of the Enlightenment, the problem of evil — the perniciously difficult to satisfy “need… Continue Reading – The Problem of Evil in Philosophy and Popular Culture

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Will Count Towards SAS - English MAJOR

Will Count Towards SAS - English MINOR

In this course, we will read one… Continue Reading – Reading in Slow Motion (CANCELLED)

Index# 03739

Will NOT Count Towards any Major/Minor

This course will introduce you to the current state of each component in the food, energy, and water (FEW) nexus before diving into the complexity of their relationships with each other and with underlying social-ecological systems (SES).… Continue Reading – The Food-Energy-Water Nexus in the Anthropocene

Index#: 19425

Will Count Towards Art History MAJOR

Will Count Towards Art History MINOR

Due to their compelling emotional impact, images have always been tools for propaganda. This interdisciplinary seminar will analyze the power of images and their (mis-)use for political purposes… Continue Reading – Visual Propaganda from the Medici to Barack Obama

Index# 03738

This seminar will examine the strategic ways in which leaders have sought to institutionalize their activism and public dissent. The class will utilize an interactive discussion format. On a macro-level, the focus will include founders of civil and human rights organizations and other social change pressure groups. On a micro-level, we will contrast leadership roles of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.… Continue Reading – Anti-Apartheid and Civil Rights Movements: King and Mandela, Lessons in Leadership

Index#: 03730

Will NOT Count Towards English MAJOR

Will NOT Count Towards English MINOR

Declining interest in religion has long been taken as one of the hallmarks of modernity, the result in particular of its skeptical, scientific spirit.  The past three decades or… Continue Reading – The “God Debate”: Modern Doubt, Past and Present

Index#: 03719

Will Count Towards Anthropology MAJOR

Will Count Towards Anthropology MINOR

The search for other intelligent life in the universe and the question of how humans would manage first contact with such life poses many… Continue Reading – Xenoanthropology

Index#: 03724

Will Count Towards Jewish Studies MAJOR

Will Count Towards Jewish Studies MINOR

New York’s Lower East Side may be the most studied and storied neighborhood in America.  Since its emergence as the city’s most densely populated immigrant neighborhood in… Continue Reading – The Lower East Side, Then and Now

Index# 03735

Transgender people – that is, people whose gender does not align with their sex assigned at birth -- are becoming increasingly visible and accepted. In addition, there is a growing number of people who identify as non-binary and therefore don’t subscribe to an identity of either male or female.  This wider visibility has occurred alongside… Continue Reading – The New Frontier of Gender: Medicine and Transgender Youth

Index#: 19431

Music is far more than entertainment. Since the beginning of time it has been used to express deeply held emotions and beliefs. It is inextricably intertwined with human existence, used globally in dance, religious rites, public celebrations, private moments of contemplation and rejoicing, concerts, films, advertisements, and countless other… Continue Reading – Music and the Brain

Index# 19426

This seminar will explore some of the most profound questions humans have addressed.  Of special concern will be questions about good and evil, justice and equality, freedom and autonomy, and the meaning of human existence.  This seminar will be taught by a moral philosopher, and special emphasis will be laid on approaching these questions philosophically.  But the seminar aims to combine… Continue Reading – Meaning & Morality: Questions about who we are, how people act, and what we should believe about good and evil

Index#: 19427

Will Count Towards Art History MAJOR

Will NOT Count Towards Art History MINOR

In this seminar we will examine the power of medieval art to bridge the earthly and visible world with its heavenly and invisible… Continue Reading – Materializing the Sacred: Medieval Art Between Visible and Invisible

Index# 19430

Will Count Toward SAS - Art History Major

Will Count Toward SAS - Art History Minor

This interdisciplinary honors seminar is an… Continue Reading – Washington: Symbol and City

Index# 20308

What is medicine? What is health care? How does architecture help or hinder the practice of medicine? Whether as a doctor or patient, what kinds of places do you envision as a medical space? For most of human history, medical doctors needed to see their patients up close and in person: does tele-medicine change all that? How does COVID-19 make you think about how humans occupy space? In this… Continue Reading – Architecture and Medicine: A History

Watersheds include more acreage of land than water. The geology, geography, history and uses of land directly influence the streams and rivers in a watershed. We will trace the many factors that give form and character to the Raritan River by exploring its history and the factors that influence its future. At the core of our studies will be the question: “Is it possible to make the Raritan fishable and swimmable?” Each… Continue Reading – Tracing the Raritan

Research is showing increasingly that our built environment shapes our health. One of the ways that we know this is through the sophisticated use of mapping technologies to show previously unseen patterns across our communities. This seminar will combine hands-on computer exercises using geospatial technologies with lessons about planning and design tools for improving community health. Email Landscape Architecture, Prof.… Continue Reading – Mapping and Making Healthier Communities

Index#: 07589

Will Count Towards English MAJOR

Will Count Towards English MINOR

Course description.

Does education have a role to play in creating a more just and equal society? Is the grand project of… Continue Reading – Education and Democracy

Index#: 07586

Will Count Towards English MAJOR

Will Count Towards English MINOR

This course shall explore the twentieth-and twenty-first-century African American essay traditions by a representative number of the best-known African American essayists in the US: W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph… Continue Reading – Speech and Power: The Art and Ethics of the African American Essay

Index#: 07585

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 practice took place during the colonial era, in the Age of Mercantile… Continue Reading – Historical Archeology of Slavery

Index#: 07588

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Will Count Towards English MAJOR

Will Count Towards English MINOR… Continue Reading – Reading in Slow Motion