Through the analytical lenses offered by Black feminist and queer theories, this course engages works of Black speculative fiction as modes of theorizing questions of race, gender, sexuality, class, environmental justice, interpersonal politics, and more. Through course readings, seminar discussions, and creative writing projects, students will critically analyze works of speculative fiction written by Black authors and broaden their knowledge of Black speculative literature, with a particular focus on science fiction and fantasy.

Prerequisites: This course doesn't have any Pre Requisites

This course examines the terrain of black popular culture and its enduring yet shifting relationship to forms of social and political resistance employed by African-Americans in the US. This course offers a deep dive into two complex, related questions central to the field of Black Cultural Studies: 1) what is "black popular culture" and what can we learn by studying it in a social context? 2) How do black popular cultural forms both reproduce the status quo as well as enable black people to resist the status quo?

Between 1950 and 1980, the United States witnessed a mobilization of radical social movements led by Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Native American communities. In addition to these racial movements, gender and sexuality were themselves having parallel and intersecting calls for equality. This course recounts the histories of these movements.

What makes the South “the South”? This course is designed to introduce you to the literature, culture, and history of the American South as a diverse and complex region. As suggested by the title of the course, we will examine narratives of the South, either of it as a region in decline or changing to fit a changing world, and how these narratives have played out both historically and today.

Food is a commonplace element in everyday life; however, being every day can make it unnoticed, discounted, and viewed as unimportant. Following suit, until recently, “food” was infrequently discussed in college courses. But today, “food studies” has a growing presence in the academic world. Its interdisciplinary footprint has given rise to a deepened understanding of food’s significant role in shaping our social, economic, and cultural environments.

What potential does the law hold to bring about transformative social change in today’s society? Relatedly, what strategies and approaches have social movement activists utilized to engage public interest lawyers and the broader legal system?

More and more athletes are stepping off the court, the field or the pitch to leverage their voices and platforms to push for social change. Whether you are an athlete yourself or have never picked up a ball, this course will provide an opportunity to delve into fascinating case studies of leadership and also foster a better understanding of social causes around the globe. In this course, you will have the opportunity to reflect on the issues that matter to you, develop your sense of purpose, and increase your motivation to create change.

Horror films are a wildly popular form of entertainment, however the representations of fear and terror that they traffic in can also teach us about the relations of power that structure our world. This course is designed to introduce you to critical bodies of thought by analyzing horror film as genre and medium. You will be exposed to feminist theory, psychoanalysis, black studies, semiotics, and film theory. The goal of this course is for you to emerge as more critical consumers.

Do you enjoy making meaningful art, being creative, and being part of an engaged and caring community? This course will provide an opportunity for you to cultivate a creative practice, engage in dialogue about the potential for art to be a catalyst for social change, and build a critical toolbox of resources and experiences to strengthen individual and collaborative art-making. Experienced and novice art makers, musicians, dancers, poets, and multimedia creators will find new ways to channel your creative energies into an Action Plan with community impact. Through a contemporary and historical lens, you will explore the relationship between the self and the collective to understand better the collaborative relationship between the “artist” and the “audience.” You will leave this course prepared to continue developing a socially-conscious creative practice in their community.

Anthropologists study humans and why humans do what they do. In this course, you will investigate one specific branch of anthropology, Anthropology of Religion, which analyzes the social institution of religion and why humans engage in this practice. Whether religious, agnostic, or atheist, this course is for you.

Have you ever wondered how forensic anthropologists and scientists establish identification for a Jane/John Doe case? Who is Jane/John Doe? What did they look like? How old are they? Where did they live the majority of their life? What did they experience? How did they die? This course is an exploration into multiple methods and disciplines, including biology and anthropology, that help forensic teams answer these questions. In this course, we will become forensic anthropologists in the field assessing a Jane/John Doe case. If you are up to the task, we will establish a biological profile for the victim and help solve this case by the end of the course!

Is gender a social construct rather than a biological one? Can you explain why some feminists argue that engaging in sex work empowers women? Do you know why many queer folks in East Asian cultures consider “coming out” irresponsible and ineffective in fighting for equal rights? Why do some Muslim women think wearing hijabs is a positive expression of identity, while some westerners believe this practice is oppressive? In this class, you will have the opportunity to study thought-provoking case studies across cultures and historical periods—ones that will provide you with a solid foundation on gender, sexuality, and queer studies.

Global Health: Inequality, Culture, and Human Well-being Around the World examines human health from a global perspective. Using ideas and methods from anthropology, you will explore how inequality and culture intersect to produce the world’s predominant health problems. Further, you will look critically at efforts to address the global burden of disease, using multiple case studies to help you develop more politically and culturally constructive solutions.

Language is a site of struggle. What we say, how we say it, and to whom matters. How we hear matters. It can make the difference between life and death. When you hear the news or a teacher talking, do you feel directly addressed? Do you feel like you are a “they” in your classes and in popular discourse? We feel when we are being talked to, talked with, or talked about, and that makes a difference in how we relate to ourselves and each other.

What does food have to do with politics? In the US, politicians rarely talk about our food system, yet this weighty topic is connected to nearly every pressing and contentious issue in our society. From immigration to climate change, racial justice to corporate power, we will dissect a subject central yet rarely centered in American politics: food, from the field to your plate. Explore ways to combine a passion for food studies, current debates, and socially responsible leadership in this engaging course.

This course is a people-centered investigation of affliction and healing. It asks: How do social processes affect disease and health outcomes in individuals and communities? How do medical professionals influence individual health improvements? How do the political and historical determinants of health disparities manifest in day-to-day life? Together, we will analyze the varied approaches through the lens of anthropology, public health, and medical humanities to understand individual suffering and population health.

This course will combine action-based projects with theory to understand how activists change the world–whether they are Black women campaigning for peace in Colombia, Indigenous land rights activists on Turtle Island, caste abolitionists in India, or youth advocating for change in Rhode Island. As an introduction to visual anthropology, this course combines creative assignments with readings and screenings from the field of anthropology and social movement studies.

Formalized humanitarian institutions developed in response to mass movements of people following World War II. This course examines the history of global systems of humanitarianism and the growth of the field in response to humanitarian disasters including war, famine, disease epidemics, and climate change. We will interrogate motivations of humanitarian actors, with you conducting your own ethnographic projects, positioned with critiques of humanitarian agendas.

Do you have a story to tell but don’t know how? Do you want to learn how stories build the world around us? Ethnography is the scientific practice of describing human experiences that helps us understand people, societies, and cultures. Ethnographic writing is a method anthropologists use to generate and share knowledge. Together we will meditate on the relationship between research and writing practices to produce stories that speak to the topics that we deeply value.

Ancient DNA makes breathtaking headlines regularly. For decades DNA has added nuance to our world but now we can literally peer back into the genetic past, even to extinct species. In humans, we have way to understand our own genetic history – where did we come from? Which groups mixed? Who is pure bred? (answer: no-one). How did war/changing climate/disease affect people? Humans have been through multiple cultural/technological changes – can we see? (answer: yes). Let’s look!

The burden of proof? Presumed innocent? Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Is it your desire to be a crime scene investigator (CSI), medical examiner, or an expert in any other forensic science-related field? Are you naturally curious? Can you piece together clues to solve a problem? This course will help hone your investigative skills and review a wide range of science concepts simultaneously.

Black and Brown people in the US have shorter life expectancies, live with more physical and mental illness, and have more disabilities than White people. This course will help you explore the connections between inherent health inequities with systematic racism in our society and its institutions.

Addictive substances have been part of the human experience since prehistory. But why do some people develop substance use disorders, while others never become addicted? How can we reduce the harms of substance abuse? In this course, you will understand how drugs affect the brain and behavior, learn the common risk and protective factors for developing addiction, compare and contrast different treatments for addiction, and critically analyze the historical context of drug use.

The answers to problems can be found in life all around us! Nature is imaginative, adaptable, and efficient – qualities that inspire today’s engineers and scientists. Biomimicry is the innovation of learning from nature’s sustainable solutions. It is a growing, exciting field of science and engineering that studies nature as a model and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems. Recognizing that species have specific adaptations and strategies to survive, we are discovering they have already found elegant answers for many human design issues.

This timely and compelling course will introduce you to the major opportunities and challenges associated with the field of global health. The COVID-19 global pandemic tracks the fault lines of inequality—and this is not by accident. The correlation between infections and racial and economic inequalities has played out time and time again throughout history, as TB, HIV, Ebola, and cholera have shown. Far from being an equalizer, COVID-19 has amplified pre-existing structural inequities tied to race, class, and geography which increase the risk for disease and are associated with decreased access to health care in the US and globally.

Medical science has brought enormous advantages to the 21st century: extending human life and reducing suffering. However, there are also major ethical and practical concerns arising with scientific progress. How do we frame, re-frame, and decide these controversial issues as ethicists, doctors, individuals, and as a society?

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” -Dobzhansky
Evolution is the force that illuminates the amazing diversity of life on the planet today. Evolution has been extensively documented and supported by an entire field of research dedicated to uncovering its complexities. However, discourse among politicians, school boards, and the media portrays evolution as controversial and contentious. Even well-meaning media outlets perpetuate misconceptions about evolution. Why is Darwin’s famous theory so misunderstood?

What does the world look like through the eyes of a lion? How about a mouse? a fish? or a fly? All animals perceive the world differently, but share the same goal: to survive and reproduce. The main objectives of this course are to provide an introduction to neuroscience, animal behavior, and the link between them. What do the eyes of an animal tell you about how it interacts with the environment? or where it falls in the food chain? We will explore these questions by comparing the neuroanatomy, chemical signaling, and social behavior of different species.

The human brain is one of the most complicated and mysterious systems on the planet. In recent decades, a huge push has been made to understand the brain through computer modeling and causal manipulation of brain circuits. Scientists developed these models and tools not only to advance our understanding and treatments of neurological and psychiatric illnesses, but also to help us understand what underlies daily human experiences ranging from memory to perception to decision making.

What happens in your brain when you decide to buy a lottery ticket or go on a date with someone? What about when you spend hundreds of dollars on an expensive gadget that you stop using after a few months, or when you decide to say something that you should have known would be embarrassing? Are economic decisions and decisions in general the result of a messy fight between a 'rational' part of your brain and an 'irrational' one, or is decision-making all the result of one underlying and possibly unconscious mechanism?

Our brains are the driving force of our actions, but our environment and past decisions can greatly shape our brains. In this lecture and project-based course we will examine the bidirectional link between brain and behavior. We will take advantage of innate and learned behaviors to analyze and ultimately attempt to understand how our past experiences can change our brains, leading us to different actions in the future.

The brain has an incredible ability to acquire and store information. Memories collected across our lifetime make each one of us unique. But how are these memories made and where are they stored? Why are some memories amazingly vivid and others are not? Are you sure you can trust them? In this course we will explore precisely how we are able to learn and form different memories, what parts of our brain are responsible, how they change to accommodate learning, and why we sometime get it wrong.

Have you ever wondered about the difference between recreational and medicinal usage of psychoactive drugs? How do psychoactive drugs operate in the brain? What makes some drugs legal and others illegal? In this course, you will learn about the societal implications of different legal and illicit drugs. You will also learn the basic biological mechanisms of psychoactive drugs such as cocaine, LSD, nicotine, caffeine, and more.

Ever wonder what drives animals to behave in interesting ways? Curious how we are connected to our furry friends? In this course you will learn the fundamentals of comparative cognition including an introductory look at shared mechanisms across human and non-human animals and the evolution underlying our behavior. You will investigate these questions from a scientific perspective and explore basics in experimental design, understanding literature, and demystifying animal intelligence.

Nurture or Nature? What causes mental illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorder, and neurodegenerative disorders? This course will explore this question and dive into the field of psychopathology to learn more about the brain and human behavior. A practicing mental health therapist and a Ph.D. biologist will be your instructors in this educational journey.

Archaeology is exciting, full of adventure, and dangerous - in the movies. In real life, archaeology is exciting, but not Indiana Jones-style. In order to understand archaeology, you must understand the culture and history you are studying. This course will examine ancient Greek culture and the material remains of it archaeology has provided, and will read a text that uses some of these remains in a novel.

“What of these things goes now without disaster?” -Aeschylus, Agamemnon This online course is an introduction to Ancient Greek mythological traditions. Topics include the Olympian gods; ‘culture heroes’ (e.g. Heracles), Homer and the Trojan Cycle of myths; mythical traditions about the families of Oedipus and Agamemnon; etc. We will conclude with an investigation of ancient mythical scholarship and skeptical views of myth in antiquity.

Gods. Heroes. Beasts. Creation. Annihilation. Why did so many societies create fantastical stories about the world around them? This Mythology course will closely examine these myths to gain a better understanding of both the past and present-day societies. Digging beyond the surface of the stories themselves, we will investigate why these stories were told, how they have influenced history, and the impact they have had -and continue to have- on modern-day social constructions of self and society.

The vast majority of courses taught on ancient history and/or religion focus on the presentation of facts in a lecture style. This course will do the opposite. In focusing on the games of the ancient world, the majority of which deal with the overarching theme of the afterlife, students will learn the history and religion of these cultures in a novel way. At the conclusion of each section, you will participate in the games which have been discussed. The final class period will focus on games and religion in the modern world, showing a clear correlation with the ancient mindset and further demystifying these ancient cultures.

Study with Brown University in Rome, Italy! Practice conversational Italian as you delve into Roman history and culture in this two-week program. From your home base in the quaint Monteverde Vecchio neighborhood in Italy’s capital, you will learn Italian organically as you order cappuccino and gelato, and complete a scavenger hunt. Each day, you’ll visit a variety of historic sites—from the Colosseum to Palatine’s Hill to Saint Peter Basilica—allowing you to analyze their connections to institutions and people, and evaluate their importance in the formation of Rome’s distinctive identity.

This course explores the fields of Game Design, Systems Thinking, and Human Cognition. You will engage in a series of three collaborative design projects through which you create, play and analyze games that function as models of real world phenomena. You will exit this course being able to 1) design playable tabletop games, 2) apply scholarly principles of Game Design and Systems Thinking across domains, and 3) identify, understand, and model complex, real world problems.

Game theory is the field of economics that studies strategic interaction. More concretely, it focuses on understanding how agents make decisions based on what they expect others to do. As such, game theory applies to a wide range of fields, from biology to political science. This course will teach you the fundamentals of game theory from a simple yet formal perspective and how to dissect real-world problems in light of strategic interactions.

This course introduces the tools economists use to study human interaction in the presence of strategic concerns. Traditional economic theory assumes that people always act rationally, carefully balancing costs and benefits in their decision-making process. On the other hand, behavioral economics seeks to explain why humans often act irrationally or contrary to their best interests. This thought-provoking course will provide real-world scenarios to illustrate how human behavior in all of its complexity is understood and predicted through applied economics theory.

Have you ever made a regrettable purchase and then found yourself rationalizing your decision? Have you witnessed family members spending money in ways that don’t seem to be in their best financial interest? Behavioral finance combines behavioral and cognitive psychological theory with traditional economics to explain why people make irrational financial decisions.

Social entrepreneurship/enterprise is a rapidly growing field that utilizes an entrepreneurial approach to address social needs and create positive change. Companies such as Patagonia, 4ocean, and Warby Parker epitomize strong and sustainable organizations which are creating both social and financial value.  This course will provide you with an overview of the evolving field of social entrepreneurship and explore critical aspects of justice-informed leadership

This course is being transitioned from on-campus to online. It may involve attending virtual class meetings via Zoom or some other meeting tool at various points throughout the session. Your instructor will arrange those meeting times once the course has begun; otherwise, the course will be conducted wholly online. The duration, course credit, and fees associated with the course are the same as they would have been for on-campus Summer Session courses, which are the equivalent of full-semester Brown University courses, though offered in a condensed, seven-week format.

Pyramids! Hieroglyphs! Cats! This is a comprehensive introduction to the fascinating world of Egyptology, a complete crash-course in the study of ancient Egypt.

She speaks in spells and incantations, cursing enemies and unlucky strangers alike. You might spot her stirring a cauldron in the shadows or riding a broomstick across the night sky. With pale white - or sometimes green - skin, she typically lives apart from society, either alone in the woods or among a coven of her own. Many know her by the name “witch.” Looking at popular media, this course will analyze how witches prompt a reevaluation of cultural norms through their very violation of them.

How will we know when the end of the world has arrived? How do we know it hasn't already happened? And how might our racial or gender identities shape our relationship to it? In this course, we will unpack movies, short stories, and current events in order to disrupt popular notions of what an “apocalypse” looks like. We’ll also use our readings to discuss why apocalyptic predictions are so popular across time and space and theorize about what, if anything, we should do about the next one.

In the midst of climate change and environmental destruction, rising totalitarianism and deadly racism, heightened economic precarity and increased wealth inequality, why might we choose to read poetry? Does poetry make any difference? Who is poetry for? This discussion-based course will think about the ways experimental language might invite us to read differently and think anew about ourselves, each other, and the world.

This course considers how law and literature contribute jointly to our sense of justice and our understanding of injustice. Through novels, poetry, film, legal writings, and legal opinions, we examine how law and literature create interrelated narratives that shed light on issues like identity, sexuality, injury, policing, speech, and silence.

America has been described as a melting pot and a nation of immigrants, but what does it mean to be an “American” and to claim an “American” identity? This course will introduce students to the study of personal and group identity in U.S. literature and culture. Crossing multiple genres, historical periods, and cultural forms (fiction, film, TV), we will examine a diverse range of texts by African American, Asian American, Chicano/Latino, Jewish American, and Native American writers. We will ask how these writers have come to understand the United States, and how they have used literary and cultural expression to represent their own experiences and the experiences of their communities in the U.S.

Young leaders are rising up all over the world to express something of great importance - our planet is in turmoil and we must take immediate action to save it. The impacts of global climate change are increasing every minute and, sadly, are unequally impacting the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Climate change is shifting relationships between people, plants, animals and their shared environment causing diseases to spread where they have never been before. This course highlights how changing ecosystems influence infectious disease transmission and treatment, often with a disproportionate effect on the poor. By the final session, you will understand how climate change amplifies inequalities in infectious disease.

Adaptive, resilient, interdependent, fractal are all traits that describe elements and patterns found within nature, but what do these words and patterns have to teach us about shaping change within the environmental movement? Using wisdom from the book “Emergent Strategy” by scholar adrienne maree brown and the work of other visionaries, this course explores phenomena and patterns within our ecosystems to find inspiration and imagine a way forward in the face of intersectional global crises.

Study with Brown University in Rome, Italy!
Why learn Italian only in the classroom when you're in Italy? The city of Rome will be our classroom as this course spills outside for a unique and immersive learning experience. You will learn organically by hearing, reading, and speaking in a fun and low-pressure environment. Ordering cappuccino and gelato, as well as a scavenger hunt in the Monteverde neighborhood of Rome, will be part of the coursework. Authentic communicative activities and dynamic language exercises abound as you are encouraged to make use of elementary Italian.

This course engages students with social justice issues in the Spanish-speaking world (the US, Latin America, and Spain), analyzing recent films addressing topics such as: racial, gender, and sexual identities; socioeconomic inequality; immigration, the border, and displacement; civil conflict, dictatorship, and their aftermath; the environment and climate change; postcolonial legacies and the impact of neoliberalism and globalization.

What is our relationship to the past, and why is it sometimes fraught with longing and with fear? "The past is never dead. It's not even past," William Faulkner wrote, and this class explores how longing for the past has occurred in Western literature and thought. From the classical era to the modern day, this course covers literature, movies, and psychology of how we think about nostalgia, and how the past continues to haunt the present.

What is the role of power in the production of history? In this course, we’ll focus on what is remembered and celebrated in historical narratives—and what is forgotten. We’ll explore these questions by looking at archives, public monuments, and museums in the United States. We’ll discuss how activist histories are recorded, who decides where monuments go, and whether or not museums are neutral. Finally, we will collectively curate our own small scale exhibition as a response to these questions.

War: What is it good for? As for us, the people of the ancient world would answer that question in a variety of ways which shed light upon their views on the role of violence in society. This course will study warfare in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, using both archaeological and textual sources. By the end of our weeklong excursion through ancient battlefields, we will gain a better understanding of how ancient participants and observers calculated the gain and cost of warfare.

The largest and deadliest conflict in human history, World War II dramatically transformed the modern world. This course will look at the war from the bottom up, exploring the experiences of ordinary people from across the world. In particular, centering the opportunities and challenges the war presented to members of marginalized groups in uniform, in occupied territory, and returning home after the war. Students will analyze a variety of primary and secondary sources through class discussion and assignments, drawing conclusions about the agency of these individuals as well as the social, cultural, and political legacies of the war.

Students will analyze a variety of primary and secondary sources through class discussion and short papers, drawing conclusions about the agency of these individuals as well as the social, cultural, and political legacies of the war.

This course will introduce you to the art of Egypt, Greece, and Rome in the collections of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum. We will also discuss the history of museums, their role in society and and how they emerged as Western institutions of knowledge. Students will learn about ancient art, how to apply this knowledge to museum collections, do presentations in the RISD galleries and devise their own fictitious museum exhibit.

Fashion is one unifying element in our world - everyone gets dressed - however, how we choose to get dressed is another story entirely. Modern fashion, and the unique periods that created them, exist within the intersection of modern artists, designers, and aesthetics, impacting culture forever. From the radical and the innovative to the comfortable and the convenient, this course explores the ways fashion has come together to create the modern aesthetic and shape the clothing industry.

We live in the age of data and thanks to the ubiquity of fast and low-cost computing, data on almost any topic are at your fingertips. This course aims to teach you the skills needed to turn data into intelligence. This course will explain how, where, and why statistics is used to solve real world issues in many fields of research. We'll examine methods of collecting, summarizing, and analyzing data, focusing on issues critical to public health, economics, human behavior, and other fields.

In this course, you will take the positions of tourist and researcher as you travel around the world to understand the social construction of tourist spaces. From Mount Everest to tropical islands, US National Parks, and Disney World, you will analyze how these spaces and others were produced, how they are culturally represented, and the social dynamics that uphold their continued existence.

Television’s modes of content creation, distribution, and consumption are changing rapidly. Some would argue that television has usurped film as the preeminent visual medium of our age, while others would suggest that television and film are converging to the point that these very labels are becoming meaningless. Regardless, alternative modes of production and distribution allow for a plethora of diverse shows that no longer have to “play in Peoria.” Concurrently, issues of race, gender, and class on television are more prominent and pervasive than ever. But is increased representation—of minority, female, and LGBTQ characters—enough? What is “good” or “bad” representation, or should we eliminate this binary altogether? How do we define quality and/or relevant television? The purpose of this course is to collect the tools that we need in order to think critically about what we watch.

From Serial to Hulu's Only Murders in the Building, true crime content is inescapable in our current moment. However, while the media through which we consume these stories may be new, our obsession with them is not. This class will explore how crime and the trial have remained foundational staples of our popular entertainment from colonial America to the present. This course asks how race and gender shape the very concepts of criminality and what it means to be an American in popular media.

From Beyoncé’s sold-out shows headlining festivals like Coachella to Lizzo’s promotion of body positivity, women are taking up greater space in the music industry now than ever before, using their music as a public testimony of their life experiences. In this course, you will trace the music of various artists as it relates to the evolution of women’s rights, gender politics, and empowerment through performances, social media, and video analyses.

From the workplace to government policy to schools and universities to city streets throughout the country, questions surrounding the meaning and value of equality are increasingly taking center stage. In this class, you will learn the history of egalitarianism and its philosophical basis, examine how well it withstands the objections of some of its strongest critics, and discuss how these ideas are influencing urgent debates about equity and justice in our society today.

One might believe in gender equality and participate in different gender equality movements yet still exhibit gender bias in one’s behaviors without being aware of it. Similarly, one might believe in racial equality yet still experience anxiety when walking past African American people. It is very likely that the manifested gender bias and anxious reaction are due to implicit bias. How should we understand implicit bias? What’s the mechanism of it? Are we morally blameworthy for it?

Feminism is one of the leading social justice movements of our day. This course uses the tools of analytic philosophy to investigate a diverse range of feminist issues. Topics include: the metaphysics of sex and gender, sexual orientation, and systems of social oppression such as sexism and misogyny, bodily autonomy, consent, reproductive rights, and the impact of social movements aimed at gender equality and justice.

Physics is arguably the most fundamental of sciences. Understanding the Newtonian concept of Forces provides a foundational overview of Physics. In this Force-centric conceptual framework, we use modeling, progressing systematic from zero force, constant force, linear force and inverse square force to find patterns in kinematics, gravitation, springs, sound, electrostatics and atomic vibrations. The course focus is on conceptual understanding and modeling rather than mathematical calculations.

What is an animal? To begin, you may point to your dog or cat nearby, the bird outside the window, or perhaps a selfie — these are all particular animals. Yet humans take great effort in distinguishing themselves from other animals. And our society and politics are based on these distinctions— otherwise, we couldn’t use animals as food, scientific research, or even pets. In this course, we will explore the place of animals in western political theory: How do foundational texts establish the separation of humans from other animals? How are animals confined, included in, or excluded from our (human) political systems? Lastly, we will look at various historical, literary, philosophical, and ethnographic texts from different parts of the world that present diverse impressions of animals. This course offers a window to the complex ways that theories and practice intersect in the study of animals.

This course is an intensive introduction to contemporary feminist political theory for students of all backgrounds. This class is motivated by concern for inequality in everyday life. You will learn how feminist political theory provides a philosophical framework to address injustice while also interrogating the essential conditions of those who identify as women, trans, or genderqueer.

This course will introduce you to the basic concepts of liberal democratic theory. Through reading about principles of justice, the idea of fairness, and the meaning of equality, students in the course will consider the problem of race in America today. How should we speak of desert, merit, restorative or reparative justice, and democracy in the context of an ongoing problem of race in society? Students will discuss contemporary examples of racism and inequality, and develop an understanding of the importance of political theory to address the complexity of the possible solutions to racial justice.

Global environmental and political migrations are one of the most pressing Human Rights issues of our times. In this course, we will learn to think as human rights lawyers, as well as philosophers, to study specific cases of such migrations all around the world. We will think about the rights of refugees, the international responses to these crises, and develop arguments from the perspective of defendants of Human Rights organizations. We will do this through the study of real-world cases.

Comic books have always reflected the politics of the day. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is currently one of the most popular iterations of comic book stories and includes many well-known movies and television shows. By examining the politics of these popular forms of media, we can better understand our own politics. The course will use a combination of MCU films and political science readings to explore topics including American exceptionalism, regulation, and representation, and will conclude with an independent research project.

This course reviews the U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent term (2021-2022) by analyzing significant decisions. Gun rights, health care, the role of God in the U.S. public sphere, and the constitutionality of abortion are all scheduled to be reconsidered in significant ways by a Court with three Trump-era appointees: how will this conservative majority influence outcomes? Has the newly configured bench held in place precedents or not? What is remarkable about the term as it relates to social justice?

Conflict is universal. We encounter it in our daily lives, in our communities, and at the global level. We have the ability to transform conflicts into constructive opportunities for growth that strengthen rather than destroy relationships and communities. This course will explore the dimensions of conflict and nonviolent strategies for managing, resolving, and transforming it. You will develop key conflict management skills, including creative problem-solving, negotiation, and mediation.

Are you interested in learning about how mental health affects teens? Why is adolescence called the time of "storm and stress"? What does it really mean for an adolescent to have depression, anxiety, or a personality disorder? In this course, you will learn how psychiatric disorders manifest among adolescents, how conditions are treated, and current controversies in adolescent psychiatric diagnoses. This class will use lectures, discussions, and multimedia to present these topics in an engaging and interactive way.

Abnormal psychology involves understanding the nature, causes, and treatment of different mental disorders. We are exposed to issues related to the field of abnormal psychology every day, whether it’s hearing about a celebrity experiencing challenges with substance use or learning that your best friend is experiencing depression. Clinicians and researchers in this area seek to understand more about what causes these problems and how to treat them effectively so people can lead fulfilling lives.

This course integrates the study of management principles and practices with the study of human behavior within organizations. The focus will be upon translation of management and organizational behavior theory to practices that result in organizational effectiveness. The primary goal of this course is to prepare you for advanced leadership roles in organizations. Through experiential exercises, case studies, class debates, doing personnel application assignments, and interviewing local managers, you will learn how to become a successful and effective leader of an organization. The course will also teach you how to learn so that it helps you become a continuous learner, capable of responding to changing demands, and able to acquire new skills throughout your career.

What made you who you are? How do you see yourself changing in the future? Human development is brought to life in this course. You will raise a "virtual child" from birth to age 18 to see the effects of your parenting decisions over time. You will also create a lifespan portfolio project that ties the course material directly to your own experiences. For the final stages of life, we will read and discuss a short philosophical memoir. From infancy through elderhood, we will explore the many influences that shape who we become.

Cannabis is a widely used psychoactive substance, yet scientists are only beginning to understand its impact on human health and behavior. This course will expose you to cutting-edge biological and psychological research related to cannabis (i.e., marijuana). By completing this course, students will develop critical thinking skills and learn how cannabis use intersects with neuroscience, physical and mental health, and social policy.

This course will introduce students to methods used by psychological science to help answer common questions about the “unknown.” We will examine common ways in which human thinking leads people to believe strange things and to maintain these beliefs even in the face of contradictory information. Students will develop critical thinking skills for evaluating claims about human behavior, especially claims made in the popular media concerning “paranormal” or otherwise unusual phenomena.

How does culture influence the way we interact with each other? Does Western psychology differ from Eastern psychology? What are implicit and explicit biases, and how do we recognize them? What does it mean to be in an inter-racial relationship? There are many interesting guiding questions when you think about the cultural influences on the human psyche. This course will provide a comprehensive introduction to general theories and methods related to multicultural psychology.

Can bipolar disorder be reliably diagnosed in children? Do certain psychiatric medications increase risk of suicide? Can alternative remedies such as fish oil stabilize mood swings? These questions address only a few of the recent controversies surrounding the study of mood disorders, such as major depression and bipolar illness. Using these disorders to illustrate key concepts, this course is intended to provide you with an introduction to the study of abnormal psychology.

What is deja-vu, and how do psychologists explain it? How can understanding memory, attention, and perception help us make sense of deja-vu?

This course provides an overview of memory, how it works, and how it—along with attention and perception—plays “tricks.” What follows is an explanation of how the mind can confuse us through forgetting, misremembering, and experiences such as deja-vu. In doing so, techniques for enhancing memory, attention, and awareness are introduced.

What does it mean to know yourself? Why can love be so painful? What is the source of someone's belief in God? How does history repeat itself? Why do our dreams haunt us? What is an Oedipus complex, and do you have one? Sigmund Freud devoted his life to answering these questions. In this course, we will dive deep into the theories of psychoanalysis to explore how Freud’s work shapes our modern understanding in theory and practice.

The completion of the Human Genome Project may be the most important scientific achievement of our lifetime, but how much can genes tell us about complex human behavior? How much does the environment impact human behavior and might there be a biological signature of that influence? What research techniques can be used to identify specific genes and specific environments that influence behavior? This course addresses all these questions and more in a dynamic and interactive learning environment.

Have you ever wondered how mental illness affects children and their families? Can kids "catch" autism? Can children really suffer from schizophrenia? From autism and anxiety to pediatric bipolar and schizophrenia disorders, students will learn how psychiatric disorders manifest in children, how disorders are treated, and controversies in childhood psychiatric diagnoses. This class will use pre-recorded lectures, online discussions, and multimedia to present these topics in a fun and interactive way.

Do you want to be a psychotherapist? Have you ever wondered how we define “mental illness?” Or, perhaps you just want to know more about what it means to be a Clinical Psychologist. In this course, students will have an opportunity to learn more about the science and practice of Clinical Psychology as a career, the symptoms and clinical characteristics of many types of psychiatric disorders, as well as the scientifically validated treatments available for these conditions.

Media is a part of our daily lives. It is hard to imagine spending 24 hours away from our phone for many of us. In "Media and Mental Health," we will explore and evaluate how media intersect with mental health and well-being. You will learn about the positive and negative effects of social media. You will also develop skills for critically evaluating media and understanding how digital media can promote public health.

This course will delve into personality disorders - what they are, how they differ from normal personality traits, how they impact sufferers' quality of life and possible functional impairment, how we study them, and current treatment approaches. We will also explore current controversies regarding personality disorders. Should they be diagnosed in children and adolescents? Should they be treated at all, or should we strive for greater acceptance?

How does culture influence the way we interact with each other? Does Western psychology differ from Eastern psychology? What are implicit and explicit biases, and how do we recognize them? What does it mean to be in an inter-racial relationship? There are so many mundane questions that arise when we think about culture in psychology. This course combines concepts in different areas to better understand the effects of culture on the way people act, think, and feel.

Have you ever wondered where the terms “cold feet” or “butterflies in your stomach” originate? Have you ever wondered why zebras and other animals don’t get ulcers? This course will answer these and other questions related to the role of psychology in the development, progression, and treatment of physical health conditions. This course will provide an overview of the principles and applications of health psychology: the study of how biology, psychology, and social processes work together to impact a person’s health and illness. You will learn how a person’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors influence their physical health and appreciate the connection between our mental and physical well-being.

The field of psychology has long focused on the harmful impact of stress, adversity, and trauma, with these effects felt more than ever in recent years. Yet many show resilience in the midst of difficult, even horrible, situations. How are some resilient in the face of abuse, war, natural disaster, terrorism? What about resilience to routine life stresses like exams or moving? What have we learned about resilience from the pandemic? Is resilience a trait or is it something that can be learned?

How do we cope with war, natural disasters, global pandemics, or terrorism? What about surviving experiences with abuse? How are these experiences different or similar to routine life stresses like exams, moving, or getting divorced? How can you prevent or treat psychological problems that might arise after trauma? These are some of the overarching issues we will address in this course.

Are you a procrastinator? Do you struggle with temptation or staying motivated? If so, you’re not alone! Most people find it tough to make the “right” choice or follow through with their goals even when they know they should. When this happens, it is easy to think, “I HAVE NO WILLPOWER!” In this course, you will gain an understanding of why willpower fails and learn strategies to help stick to goals like exercising, eating healthy, or spending less time watching TikTok.

How do social attitudes develop and change? Why do good people participate in evil acts? How does prejudice develop, and how can we change it? How do our self-perceptions impact our social interactions? What is the role of social influence on behavior? This course will address those questions and more. You will gain an understanding of how social interactions, perceptions, and attitudes shape individual and group behavior.

A survey of statistical methods used in the behavioral sciences. Topics include graphical data description, probability theory, confidence intervals, principles of hypothesis testing, analysis of variance, correlation, and regression, and techniques for categorical data. Emphasizes application of statistical methods to empirical data.

By the end of the summer semester, students who successfully complete this course should: know how to collect useful and meaningful data, know methods for analyzing data using a calculator, an Excel spreadsheet, and specialized computer programs such as R and SPSS, know how to interpret statistical results reported in scientific literature, know how to present statistical results in scientific literature.

“We only use 10% of our brains.” “Virtually all people who confess to a crime are guilty.” “Always stick with your first instinct when answering multiple-choice questions.” Are these common beliefs actually true? This course will expose you to the hottest debates in psychology and shatter the biggest misconceptions in the field.

Psychology – the study of the mind, the brain, and behavior – is relevant to every aspect of your life! How does personality form? How are memories constructed and stored? How do society and culture impact an individual’s behavior? How are mental illnesses diagnosed and treated? These are just some of the questions we will attempt to answer in this course. This course will introduce a broad range of topics in psychology, including biological psychology, social psychology, personality, developmental psychology, health psychology, and psychological disorders.

Conspiracy beliefs are not new, yet in the last several years, they have turned from beliefs endorsed by the fringes of society to now widely accepted. What can we learn from psychology in order to understand conspiracy beliefs, science denial, and skepticism? You will examine the psychological dynamics behind conspiracy beliefs related to the pandemic, vaccines, climate change, Qanon, and more--dynamics that emphasize people's thoughts, emotions and behavior.

The aim of this course is to explore why individuals engage in behaviors such as alcohol and substance use. We will cover a range of topics relevant to psychology and public health including the determinants of health-related behaviors and contemporary theories of addiction that can be applied to education, research and practice. An emphasis will be placed on how individual, interpersonal, and community factors can be used to design and implement prevention and intervention strategies.

Racism can play a critical role in health outcomes for marginalized groups. Racism can not only be associated with physiological processes in the body, but can also impact health at the societal level. During this course, we will look at how racism has affected health in the past and how it continues to affect health from a multi-perspective approach.

Living now amid the Covid-19 pandemic, thoughts of whether humanity can defeat the virus and, if so, what will become of the world post-pandemic greatly trouble the mind. While our anxieties at present are very real and valid, concern over humanity’s end and the end of the world is not new. The theme of the apocalypse features prominently in some of the most lucrative Hollywood movies that dramatize global catastrophes—extreme global warming, astrological forces, pandemics—that threaten humanity’s end. That concern over the world ending is at the forefront of the present-day human mind is indicated by the sheer popularity and success of these films. Such anxieties have also been revealed by recent crazed responses over the uncertainty of what would happen after Dec 21, 2012, the last day of the Mayan calendar, and when the clock struck midnight to usher in the year 2000 (Y2K). However, this kind of apocalyptic thinking is not born out of modernity. It originated over 2,000 years ago in the religions of Judaism and Christianity and has shaped human thinking and catalyzed human action ever since. What can we learn from the history of the apocalyptic mindset, and how might it better help us understand ourselves and the world we live in today? How has belief in the apocalypse shaped human behavior for better or worse? If this topic and these questions are of interest, then this is the course for you.

In this highly interactive course, you will explore how historical, social, and cultural factors impact the development of children at home and within their learning environment. Through engaging discussions, debates, interactive readings, and illustrative case studies, you will explore how structural inequalities related to race/ethnicity, gender, social class, disability, learning styles, and sexual orientation influence individual growth and learning. You will also explore some of the best practices in supporting child development and be able to apply this knowledge to current or future work with children.

Microcredit burst onto the global stage in the 1980s and has ballooned into a $34 billion industry, becoming an important player in international development and poverty policy. However, many aspects of microcredit remain contested and controversial, in part because of the challenges of producing convincing evidence about its effects. In this course, students will gain substantive knowledge about microcredit and an understanding of the complexity of studying and solving social problems.

The course examines the complicated history of race in America through science. The course starts with an understanding of the establishment of racial groupings as a medical approach and later a social concept to classify people into social strata that facilitate differential outcomes and experiences. The basis of this educational journal is to understand how historical trespasses have helped to facilitate the current distrust of the medical industry by Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC).

The effect of globalization is uneven - while some countries benefit, others are marginalized. This course aims to understand the global political economy by using China's development over the past four decades as a case study for analysis. You will explore China's changing role in the global division of labor and how this shift is currently affecting the world, both economically and culturally.

From the development of vaccines to the first test of the atomic bomb, the social landscape of the 20th and 21st centuries has been shaped by technological, medical, and scientific advancements. In this course, you will analyze the ever-shifting relationship between science and society through readings drawn from Science, Technology, Studies (STS), Environmental Studies, Bioethics, the History of Science, and the Philosophy of Science.

Search for “Trump’s visit to the Royal family.” Hundreds of articles will appear, and very few of them will be about USA and UK relations. From punctuality to personal space and physical contact, expectations about appropriate behavior vary wildly across different cultures and can severely hinder your credibility as a leader in a globalized environment. So, how can we be culturally competent leaders with an ever-increasing range and depth of cultural differences amongst our stakeholders, communities, and teams? This course will explore what culture is, how it affects our leadership styles, and how we can facilitate the exchange of ideas between individuals from various cultural contexts.

In this course, you will reflect on your high school educational experience and use it as a lens to analyze inequities in the education system. Course topics include high school and college student activism, debates around standardized testing, college admission standards, and the relationships between race, class, and educational access. Over the two weeks of this course, you will define an education issue that is important to you and formulate a feasible project to address it.

What is a disaster, and how do the two broadest categories—natural and human-made disasters—differ from one another? This interdisciplinary course focuses on natural and human-initiated disasters and their impact on human life. We will explore how social dynamics such as culture, inequality, and social structure influence vulnerability and shape how people face, respond, recover, or fail to recover from disasters.

Emerging effects of the climate crisis make clear the need for the critical engagement of social scientists to understand and develop solutions for the myriad social, political, and economic impacts of the climate crisis. In this course, we will consider climate change from a sociological perspective. We will focus on the social and economic factors that have contributed to climate change and critically assess the wide range of responses that have been proposed to confront this global emergency.

Despite the best efforts of Instagram and TikTok’s finest body-positive influencers, the word “fat” has garnered almost as much power and weight (no pun intended) as the other F-word, but why? How do we interpret fatness? In this course, we will investigate the controversies and discourses surrounding larger bodies through a critical, sociocultural lens, focusing on the implications of fatness for people with varying ethnic, racial, and gender identities.

There is arguably no resource more important for social life than good health. The state of a person's health determines whether they can work, go to school, and participate in family and social life. However, the risk of developing and dying from particular diseases is not equally distributed within countries, or across countries, around the globe. This course introduces concepts, theories, and methods for understanding how social factors influence the distribution of health and illness. We will examine trends in global health inequality and investigate how factors such as race, gender, occupation, and migration affect health. We will think critically about social factors as risk factors for poor health and discuss the implications for health policy and practice in both high and low-and-middle-income countries.

Despite the advancement of women in society over the past century, in recent years, local, national and global movements and activists have courageously stepped forward to expose the pervasive challenges and unique barriers women continue to face in educational, career, social and political arenas.

Acting is about doing! Explore your unique potential. You will develop valuable acting, collaboration, and communication skills. This is a useful, challenging, and fun exploration of the art of acting. In class, students work on scenes, applying new techniques. There will be multiple presentations of scene work, the final one open to the public. Develop physical, vocal, emotional, and intellectual skills. CREATE a supportive collaborative space. Have fun exploring!

Successful communication asks us to actively listen and honestly share. But speaking in front of others - whether addressing a large audience or talking with one person across the table - can make us feel vulnerable. Fear of judgement, misconceptions, projections can close us off. Through a progression of exercises and presentations, you'll practice skills to overcome these barriers, to verbally communicate with openness and genuineness.

In the design world, women make up over half of the designers today, yet gender bias continues to alter the historical canon of female contribution within art and design. Just as Beyonce sang that a woman’s “persuasion can build a nation”, historically women have conceived and built more than they got credit for. This course expands the narrative of design history unearthing the widely influential histories of female designers pioneers not typically included in foundational art and design teachings.

This class is a wide ranging technical and conceptual introduction to photography. Through weekly projects, students will be exposed to 19th-21st century photo processes.Topics covered include cameras, lenses, software, darkroom overview, scanning, natural and artificial lighting, alternative processes as well as concepts such as selective focus, color temperature, composition. Short readings and in-class slide presentations on a diverse range of photographers will introduce students to the history of photography.

Q: What did the fool say to the trickster? A: Have you seen the shapeshifter? Foolery, trickery, and shapeshifting are embedded in queer interactions with the world. In this class, we explore the subtle, intentional, and effective ways that queer & trans people use these as active strategies, both to resist dominant hegemonies, and to find and form community in the margins.