Society Culture and Thought

AI tools can now write your essays, generate images from a sentence, and hold conversations that feel disturbingly human. You’ve probably already used them. But do you know how they actually work? Do you know who built them, what data they were trained on, and who benefits when you use them? This course takes AI seriously in three ways: technically, critically, and

How do prisons shape society? What socialities do carceral systems produce? What is revealed about societies through their practices of incarceration? Through key works in Black Studies, Anthropology, and Geography, we will explore these questions and more, considering the light that incarceration sheds on the study of society. In

This seminar explores key questions about people’s laboring lives: Why do people work, and what makes work meaningful? How does work shape well-being and life experiences? We will examine both wage work in the labor market and nonwage work, such as care work within households, and consider how these forms of work intersect.
We will also investigate how ascribed social

What is nature? Who gets to speak for nature? What is the institutional arrangement, political economic system, and form of political community best suited to cultivating a more sustainable relationship with the non-human realm? These questions are most effectively grappled with by putting political theory into conversation with environmental studies. In cultivating this

This class will serve as a space for students to develop independent research projects in the field of anthropology and using ethnographic methods. Shared readings and exercises will center around ethnographic methods, ethics, and writing. Students’ independent projects will anchor their work in this class.<

This course is designed for anyone interested in interdisciplinary artistic practices with a focus on dance creation, and improving the French language. Through the study and practical exploration of works by African choreographers and dancers, students will engage in both the analysis and creation of movement, developing skills in composition, improvisation, and

Have you wondered how economists turn messy, real-world data into clear, compelling research papers? Have you struggled with writing empirical papers or knowing where to start?

This course provides a space to learn and practice writing empirical economic research through a workshop-style format. Using county-level data from across the United States, you will learn

The aim of this course is to interrogate historical perceptions of women and gender in the early modern era, and to develop a critical approach to primary source documents.  We attempt to complicate constructions of ideal feminine behavior by examining the evidence that shows what women were actually up to.  In addition to the ways in which major

The Dickensian Silhouette: Character, Construction, and the Victorian Line

(Intermediate to Advanced design & sewing)

In

The aim of this course is to explore the development of Christianity as a set of interlocking complex systems with an equally complex history.  Christianity has been around for 2,000 years, and there is no denying that we live under its enormously powerful influence.  Millions have fought and died over it.  But even those who identify themselves as

This course provides its students with a deep and expansive exploration of the field of psychology. As a diverse field of study, psychology is broadly defined as the study of human behavior. Psychology has numerous sub-areas of study that take different research approaches to examine biological, social, and cultural factors and how they influence behavior, mental processes,

In this class we will explore the practice of meditation as a physical and mental training exercise and

This course invites students to research and write a paper on a philosophical topic of their own choosing. Students will be required to clearly state the philosophical problem they want to research, construct a detailed bibliography, and write a paper that explains the problem, engages with the philosophical literature, and advances an argument. This class is suitable for

What is the difference between belief and knowledge? What is truth? What is the good? These are some of the questions this first course in philosophy asks. It has two aims: To introduce you to the methods and procedures of philosophical argument and, second, to engage you in a critical dialogue with three

Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the most influential and important of twentieth century philosophers and one of its most enigmatic characters.  In this course you will read two of Wittgenstein's central works, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations.  We will arrive at a detailed understanding of

Since the arrival of Large Language Models like ChatGPT, many have wondered—even panicked—about how this new technology would impact creative writing. But literature has always been shaped by the technology of its time. In this 2-credit class, we will look beyond the common assumption of poems as ideally “timeless” to examine how poetry

Contemporary American conservatism has evolved considerably from its historical roots in the ideologies of classical conservatism and classical liberalism. How did we get from Edmund Burke to Steve Bannon? From the Federalists to the Freedom Caucus? To gain insight into these questions, this course will explore how the aforementioned ideologies have intersected with four

“For those who are concerned with the history of political theories,” Sheldon Wolin wrote in a 1969 essay, “the vocation has become a demanding one at the present time.” If Wolin was alarmed then by the drive to render the study of politics “scientific” – thus relegating political theory to the dust-bin of

Qualitative inquiry seeks to discover and describe in narrative reporting what particular people do in their everyday lives and what the actions mean to them. The course is intended for students at all standpoints of their individual projects who wish to gain experience and expertise in engaging with qualitative research methods. As a 2000-level reading and writing intensive

From Blade Runner to Ex Machina,

Ethnography is one of the key genres of writing in the discipline of anthropology and is employed across the social sciences. Proponents celebrate this genre for the nuance with which it describes social phenomena – while skeptics accuse it of getting too bogged down in detail. This course will consider how anthropologists read ethnography

This course is writing-intensive course intended for seniors across methodologies who are in the final stages of their senior work. With Black studies serving as the overarching body of knowledge, this course provides its students with a deep and expansive exploration of the Black

In this course, we will be uncovering, re-positioning, and affirming historical legacies and traditions that stand the risk of being lost forever, and explore how to use them to fight discrimination, racism and hate today. We will do so using Sankofa, a quest for knowledge through critical examination, patient investigation,

Speculative fiction is storytelling that starts with something real, some phenomenon observable in the present or recent past, and asks “What if?” - extrapolating into the future or alternate realities. Critical fabulation, as coined by Saidiya Hartman in the essay “Venus in Two Acts,” is a method for recovering unwritten histories. By

In this course, students will explore contemporary Taiwanese society, one of Asia’s safest, happiest, and most progressive, through audio, video, and print media. They will examine everyday life, social trends, and Taiwan’s political landscape, including women’s 42% representation in the legislature, the rise of single women keeping pets, and Taiwan as the first Asian