CAS:  Social Science
GSB:Social Science
CALS:  Social Science
CEMS: ENGR: Gen. Ed. Elective or Free Elective; CS/CSIS/DS/MATH/STAT students consult with your academic advisor
RSENR:  Consult with Academic Advisor
CNHS: Consult with Academic Advisor
CESS:  Consult with Academic Advisor

This course will be organized around five important papers in the experimental economics literature, taken from a list of eighteen top papers that is the basis of a forthcoming book. These works span five decades and present fascinating insights into human behavior related to donating to charities, negotiating, cheating, buying, and selling. Collectively, the papers relate to three major topics in economics: markets and the supply-and-demand model; utility theory; and public goods. For each paper, we will cover the basic economic theory that is being tested in the experiment and the statistical methods used for testing the results. In some cases, there are good online systems for the students to participate in a similar experiment. In the second section of the course, students will research other papers that represent further work inspired by the seminal papers that we studied.

CAS:  Literature
GSB:  Social Sciences or Humanities
CALS:  Social Sciences or Humanites & Fine Arts
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

In this class, we study social marginality through the lenses of diverse cultural groups, prostitutes, LGBTQIA, and the religious other. The filmic and literary materials feature works by members of these groups, but not exclusively. Among other issues, the course addresses the consequences deriving from acceptance into mainstream society for individual and group identity. Starting with the depiction of these various contemporary realities, we later compare the representations of life as a prostitute, a non-Christian, and homosexual sex partners in different historical periods, 20th and 21st centuries vs. 13th through the 16th centuries.

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  No CAS credit
GSB:  Social Science
CALS:  Humanities &Fine Arts OR Social Sciences
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

Description coming soon!

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Mathematics
GSB:  Consult academic advisor
CALS:  Mathematics
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

Set Theory is one of the most exotic branches of Mathematics. The concepts are grand and not intuitive which will make you think. There is no specific prerequisite other than a desire to be challenged with a complex Mathematical subject. Students with all majors and minors are welcome to join the class. Topics include: 1) Naive set theory, set operations, and functions 2) Cardinality 3) The problem with naive set theory and solution: the cumulative type hierarchy 4) The ZFC axioms 5) Ordinals 6) Cardinals and cardinal arithmetic 7) Transitive models of ZFC 8) The Constructible universe 9) Forcing 10) Measurable cardinals 11) Infinitary Combinatorics.

Honors College Distribution
CAS: Social Sciences
GSB:  Consult academic advisor
CALS: History or Social Sciences
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

While studies of political corruption used to be limited to developing countries, a wave of scandals struck many of the world’s established democracies in the 1980s and 1990s in such places as Italy, Japan, Spain, Britain, Germany, Belgium, France, Greece, and Australia. As a consequence, it is now clear that the problem of corruption can be particularly severe for established democracies. This seminar will focus on the study of political corruption and scandals by examining broader theoretical debates within the field of comparative politics as well as by looking at specific country examples. Corruption is an activity cloaked in secrecy. Sometimes one of the only ways to study corruption is to focus on whatever happens to be revealed by corruption scandals reported in the mass media. We will examine the causes and consequences of political scandals as one way to study political corruption. The inspiration for this seminar is based upon the professor’s research into political corruption and scandals in postwar Japan and his interests in the ways that political corruption can damage the political process in the world’s established countries. Because it is the first time to be offered, we will experiment with a variety of different topics and also will read and discuss the case of postwar Japan as a springboard for thinking about corruption and scandals more broadly. We will also dig deeper into topics related to the study of comparative politics.

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Non-Lab Natural Science
GSB:  elective credit
CALS:  Physical and Life Sciences
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Literature
GSB:  Consult academic advisor
CALS:  Humanities
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

In this reading- and writing-intensive Topics in Native American Literature Sophomore Seminar, we will devour poems, memoirs, songs, select works from an edited collection of First People’s Poetry, a children’s story, and a play—all produced by the prolific 23rd Poet Laureate of the U.S., Joy Harjo. In the abstract for her article, “Making Songs of the Marrow,” scholar Laura Castor writes, “Joy Harjo is a multi-media artist of Mvskoke background whose poetry, song, and instrumentals break with conventional boundaries of form. For Harjo, melding poetry and music allows her to contribute to processes of psychological healing from collective trauma, a reality in Native American experience since European contact…. Harjo’s combined poetry and music encourage larger processes of cultural healing that, at the same time, reinforce the need for continued advocacy.” This semester, we will meet Joy Harjo in multiple forms. We will marvel in the power of her words, studying her works in various genres to deepen our understanding of this Native American artist and others introduced through Harjo’s edited anthologies of Native Nations’ and First People’s poetry. We will read like writers and then practice imitation, using all we read and hear as models for composing scrapbooks filled with our own variations of miniature memoirs, poems, songs, and more. In this course, through close reading, research, and process writing, we will gain fresh perspectives and understanding of how various forms of writing function as expression of memory, purpose, spirit, and community. We will expand our knowledge of diverse cultural identities and—illuminated by the personal experience and wisdom of Joy Harjo—cultivate awareness of the origins and systemic nature of prejudice, injustice, discrimination, and oppression directed toward people of diverse backgrounds . Disclosure: Expect a lack of closure. Course content will generate expansive thinking to last a lifetime. Prepare for this journey of enlightenment and inspiration. Trust the process.

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Social Science
GSB:  Consult academic advisor
CALS:  Social Sciences
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

In the 21st century, Latin America has experienced a commodity boom and an influx of investments from transnational corporations and governments (leftist and conservative) in mega-mining, infrastructure, gas, oil, water, and green energy projects. While these developments have sparked optimism about the region’s future, they also have contributed to social unrest, humanitarian crises, racial, class and gender inequalities, environmental degradation, (trans)national social movements, and ‘resource wars’. Given these circumstances, this course examines the political, economic, environmental, social, and ideological dimensions of transnational extractivism in Latin America. Specifically, it explores its defining elements as a complex descriptive or analytical concept, a mode of capitalist accumulation, its policies and ideologies, its socio-environmental effects, and the forms of resistance and critiques it has enacted, as well as its limits, limitations, and consequences in different countries across the region. This course is conceived as a broad research seminar to diverse issues and approaches related to extractivism. It exposes students to leading academics, activists, thought leaders, journals, research databases, news sources, research centers, and global institutions that have conducted important work about extractivism in Latin America. The course will be particularly useful for students from various disciplines who plan to conduct research on or in Latin America, or to those interested in understanding transnational, cross-cultural, regionally specific, and comparative perspectives about an important contemporary phenomenon related to global capitalism in this region of the world.

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Literature
GSB:  Consult academic advisor
CALS:  History OR Social sciences
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

In the wake of World War II, we see the mass publication of literary works grappling with the devastation of war time trauma from the Holocaust and Socialism. Interestingly, in the late 1970s, and with the publication of Marvel in 1982, graphic novels became a popular aesthetic medium for artists striving to etch their memories and histories into illustration. This shift became particularly true for members of the Holocaust and Socialist post-memory generations in the Eastern Bloc, who struggled to depict their ancestral trauma and political oppression. This course seeks to understand why. In this seminar, we examine graphic novels from the Holocaust and the Eastern Bloc to understand how this art form resonates and resounds with war time trauma, memory, and identity. Through examining the graphic novels Maus, We Are On Our Own, Auschwitz, Yossel, When I Grow Up, The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks, Marzi: A Memoir, Letting It Go, The Wall, The Other Side of the Wall, Soviet Daughter, and The Apartment in the context of social and political history, we will explore concepts such as remembrance, testimony, alienation, intergenerational trauma, gendered violence, totalitarianism, and political dissent.

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Non-lab Natural Science
GSB:  Consult academic advisor
CALS:  Physical and Life Sciences
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

“Three-bean salad La Niña,” wildfires in Australia, mega droughts in California, Hurricane Ian, flooding in Pakistan. Why do these events occur? How do they fit into their geographic climatic locales vis-a-vis our changing climate? This course is designed to expose you to the methods and concepts for exploring climate, climate change and variability. Historical and near real-time data will be manipulated via statistics, weather map interpretation, and remote sensing. The various sub-fields of climatology will be explored as we delve into what drives climates, hydroclimatological extremes and anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change.

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Literature
GSB:  Consult academic advisor
CALS:  Consult academic advisor
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

     In this seminar we will be reading works of fiction—four novels and some short stories—by and about Native Americans or American Indians, two autobiographical sequences, some stories derived from oral tradition, and a few essays. The fiction and autobiography range in publication from 1829 to 2018, and were written in English; the stories derived from oral sources (adapted or translated) originated in Native languages, with roots in pre-Columbian tradition. We will also view three films. Two, “After the Mayflower” and “Wounded Knee,” are segments of the fairly recent five part PBS documentary We Shall Remain. The third, Smoke Signals, is adapted by Chris Eyre and Sherman Alexie from the latter’s short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

     An important note: "American Indian" (or "Native American") literature is itself multi-ethnic/multi-cultural. There is really no such thing as "the" American Indian (or Native American) culture, in the singular. When Chris- topher Columbus touched down in the Caribbean half a millennium ago, there were over 500 different languages spoken in what is now the United States and Canada. Some of these (Abenaki, Chippewa/Ojibwa, Micmac, and Pequot, for example, are part of what has been dubbed the Algonquin language group) are closely akin to each other, as, say, the romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese) are closely akin. Others are drastically different: I have been told that the differences between Abenaki and the Iroquois languages of what is now upstate New York are greater than those between English and Chinese. Over two hundred of these languages still have speakers. Language=Culture.

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  No CAS credit
GSB: Social Science OR Humanities
CALS:  Humanities, Social Science
CEMS: ENGR: Gen. Ed. Elective or Free Elective; CS/CSIS/DS/MATH/STAT students consult with your academic advisor
RSENR:  Consult with Academic Advisor
CNHS: Consult with Academic Advisor
CESS:  Consult with Academic Advisor

Students will gain a general understanding of the experience of disability through critical analysis of a broad range of socio-cultural artifacts and expression. Though not an exhaustive list, these artifacts will include literature, visual art, performance art, dance, film, television, and resources from the web. By interpreting differing points of view, concepts such as ableism, implicit bias, cultural appropriation, and intersectionality will be discussed through course assignments and in-class discussions. The essential questions that we will discuss include: How has the social construction of disability been influenced by the many different forms of media representation? What are the range of media responses to the disability experience? What are the cultural benefits and social justice opportunities of examining disability through a variety of representative forms?

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Social Sciences
GSB:  Consult academic advisor
CALS:  Humanities;Social Sciences; Oral Communications
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

This course is designed for those planning to work or live in increasingly multicultural, multilingual contexts, and for those interested in the interdisciplinary study of language and culture. While our primary focus will be on the fields of intercultural and cross-cultural communication, we will touch upon related areas of study such as language and thought, linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, language and identity, language and gender, language policy, and educational linguistics. We will explore various theories of culture, foundational and recent research on intercultural and cross-cultural communication, and several related topics such as linguistic relativity, linguistic diversity (including culturally-influenced language practices), language contact, dialect/register variation, and critical, equity-minded cultural competence. We will also perform a self-study of linguistic and cultural exchanges that we engage in throughout the semester.

Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Literature
GSB:  Consult academic advisor
CALS:  Humanities, written communications
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is famous as a gothic monster story about the disastrous relationship between Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his Creature. But the novel is equally disastrous and important as a narrative of global environment: it begins and ends in a world of ice that is witnessed by humans only because they think they can prosper in a time of ice melting. This is a course about that famous novel, an until recently little known geological event (the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption), and the impacts of their networks of interconnection on how we think about both the creativity and the blind spots of the humanities. The indirect impacts of human productive activity, forms of non-human agency, and matters of concern too large or small in scale to see are the big absences in humanist cultural history. Frankenstein, too, dynamically records these blind spots without directly seeing them. Half the world away from Britain, the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia led to the "year without a summer" that set the scene for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. To a startling extent for a Romantic text published 200 years ago, Frankenstein helps us to ask questions about agency and responsibility in the age of global climate change — the Anthropocene —when people are both understood as the cause of global warming and dwarfed by the scale of its danger. In addition to Frankenstein and a select group of related Romantic literary texts (by Mary and Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and others), we will also read a global history of Tambora (by Gillen D’arcy Wood) and a focused selection of ecological theory (by Ursula LeGuin, Andreas Malm, Amitav Ghosh and others) in this course. We will end the semester with some short works of contemporary "cli fi," or climate fiction.